In this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, hosts Gabe Torres has a chat with Danny Lehr—an entrepreneur and co-founder of CrossFit Excel and Caffeine and Kilos. Danny shares how he accidentally built a thriving gym business and an e-commerce fitness lifestyle brand, all while emphasizing “progress over perfection” as his guiding principle. With roots in a family-owned HVAC company, Danny learned early that entrepreneurship could be a natural career path. He explains how simple morning routines and inves...
In this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, hosts Gabe Torres has a chat with Danny Lehr—an entrepreneur and co-founder of CrossFit Excel and Caffeine and Kilos. Danny shares how he accidentally built a thriving gym business and an e-commerce fitness lifestyle brand, all while emphasizing “progress over perfection” as his guiding principle. With roots in a family-owned HVAC company, Danny learned early that entrepreneurship could be a natural career path. He explains how simple morning routines and investing in coaching or courses propelled his ventures forward, from running Facebook ads to launching his new book. Whether you’re starting a side hustle or scaling to seven figures, Danny’s story offers actionable insights on business growth, personal development, and leveraging relationships for success.
KEY TOPICS
- Entrepreneurial Roots: Growing up in a family business and learning early on that small business ownership was normal
- Progress Over Perfection: Don’t wait for conditions to be perfect—take action and adapt along the way
- Starting CrossFit Excel: Transitioning from teaching to entrepreneurship and growing a gym from scratch
- Launching Caffeine and Kilos: The accidental start of a successful fitness brand combining coffee and apparel
- Coaching & Courses: Investing in external help and targeted learning to tackle new challenges (from business to even dog training!)
- Morning Routines: Using early hours for focused work, strategic projects, and self-improvement
- Relationship-Driven Success: Genuine connections and helping others become the backbone of expanding opportunities
- Future Goals: Plans to expand Danny’s public speaking reach and share his knowledge with a broader audience
ACTIONABLE TAKEAWAYS
- Start Now: Embrace imperfections; progress is more important than waiting for “the right time.”
- Invest in Learning: Sign up for courses or coaching whenever you face a gap in knowledge—learn first, then hire if needed.
- Protect Your Prime Hours: Dedicate early mornings (or whenever you’re most focused) to big-picture tasks or proactive projects.
- Leverage Relationships: Build meaningful connections and seek ways to help others—opportunities often arise through reciprocity.
- Diversify Income Streams: Explore additional avenues within your expertise to grow your brand or business.
RESOURCES & MENTIONS
- CrossFit Excel – Danny’s gym based in California
- Caffeine and Kilos – Fitness lifestyle brand (coffee & apparel)
- Craig Ballantyne – Business coach specializing in productivity and time management
- Danny’s New Book – Details in the episode; launched around the time of this recording
CONNECT WITH DANNY LEHR
- Instagram
- Caffeine and Kilos
Resources:
- The Huge Convention 2025 – August 20–22 in Nashville, TN
- Huge Insider Newsletter – Weekly insights for home service business growth
- Huge Foundations Education Platform – 120+ hours of training for just $1 trial
- Huge Mastermind Group – For business owners at $750K+ aiming for $1M+
- Downloadable Action Guide
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the Huge Transformations Podcast. Share it with fellow entrepreneurs aiming to build profitable and sustainable ventures!
Transcript
Sid (Host):
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations Podcast. I'm Sid Graf out here in Montana.
Gabe (Host):
And I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. We are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders and owners in the industry. Folks that have already built seven and eight figure home service businesses, and they want to help you succeed. Yep, no fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100 percent experience, 0 percent theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the Wild Journey of Entrepreneurship. Let's dive in.
Gabe (Host):
All right, there we go. Let's do it. Nice. Danny Lehr. Dude, so this is Gabe Torres with the Huge Transformations Podcast, and we got our guest today is Danny Lehr of probably a couple different—not probably, but definitely a couple different things that he could probably do a better job telling you about than I could. But yeah, I think let's start with kind of a quick intro on Danny Lehr.
Danny (Guest):
Great. Well, coming to you live from the garage here, Gabe. You know, it's part of the deal with the entrepreneur, when you have kids also, you know, so the kids are eating breakfast, getting ready for school in there, and so I get kicked out of the house sometimes. You gotta do this type of thing.
Gabe (Host):
Yeah, make it work.
Danny (Guest):
You gotta make it work, that's it. Well, I guess that's lesson number one is progress over perfection, right? You just gotta do it. I don't want to postpone on you, so I figured we'll just do it like this. I grew up here in California. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. Actually my dad owned a business when I was a kid as well, and so to me, owning a business wasn't a weird thing, it was normal, right? My parents had an HVAC company, and that's why I kind of grew up where sometimes after dinner, Dad would need to go down to the shop to get something done, and me and my brother would go with him, sometimes playing with sheet metal and trying not to cut our fingers off, that type of thing.
Gabe (Host):
Yeah, I'm excited to chat with you too, 'cause you and I are friends and been friends for a while, but I didn't even know that either. I didn't know that you were from an HVAC company or—because when I first invited you to the Huge or to the Mastermind, I was like, "Ah, it's a service business. He owns a gym." But you already—you're born and raised in the service industry.
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, dude. So my grandfather started a company, and then passed it on to his kids when he retired. And so yeah, my dad and aunt and uncle owned that thing for a while. Actually, when I graduated high school, they shut down the business, sold it out, and my dad went back to school. So when I was in college, my dad was in college, which is also another thing I learned early on without really knowing it, that people start over and do different things. Doesn't matter if he's in his 40s—his kids are out of high school, but he wanted to do something different, so he went back to school, got his degree. Also on weekends when I was 10, 12, I'd work with Grandpa, day labor, building a wall, splitting a unit in one of his buildings. I'd get five bucks an hour. So again, there are other ways to make money that aren't necessarily just get a job.
Gabe (Host):
Totally.
Danny (Guest):
Anyway, so yeah, that was normal to me. So I always knew that I wanted to do something with business, I just didn't know exactly what it would be. I went to school to be a teacher, 'cause I was coaching wrestling at the time and wanted to be involved in fitness, coaching athletics, that type of thing. While I was teaching, I met another teacher in the same district, different school, who owned a gym. They had just started, and his partner wasn't really pulling his weight, and so he needed help. So I partnered up with him, bought out his partner, started CrossFit Excel.
Gabe (Host):
Right on, so that was your first personal entrepreneurial…
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, that was my first. This was in 2008. So we run the gym, that was 2008, and yeah, me and him running that. Then in 2013, me and a couple other guys kind of accidentally started an e-commerce business, selling coffee and apparel in that same fitness space: weightlifting, powerlifting, CrossFit. That company's Caffeine and Kilos. Then fast forward, it's now 2024, so the gym has been going 16 years, Caffeine and Kilos 11 years. And just recently, I wrote a book. That actually—like, hold on, oh yeah, man, right here we go, new release. So that’s been a project for sure. It releases on Friday, so I'm excited about that.
Gabe (Host):
I feel like writing a book would be the hardest thing ever in life.
Danny (Guest):
Turns out it's a lot of work. (Laughs)
Gabe (Host):
Man, that's cool. I love hearing that because I feel like you and I, I learned some of your story, that you got out of coaching, and yeah, like six years ago. But to know the trajectory. So CrossFit was not like normal in 2008, right? It’s not that everybody did CrossFit…
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, it was pretty new on the scene. We were the only CrossFit gym within miles. So it was interesting for sure.
Gabe (Host):
So that was brand new. So you basically started that gym from scratch, from a garage to a public-facing gym, to where it's at now. Or yeah, sorry to hijack the story, but that was…
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, yeah, basically. So it was brand new, I hopped in. We only had classes three or four days a week, a small 900-square-foot building. Now we're in a 10,000-square-foot location, have 10 classes a day. Probably as many classes a day as we used to have in a week. We have a yoga program there, basically like its own self-contained yoga studio. So I'd say we're in the maturity stage, but we are looking to grow. Our lease is going up, so we want to push, especially in Q1 next year, and that'll be a good thing—stop resting on our laurels. Right?
Gabe (Host):
Nice, so through that time, you started the gym in 2008, then launched Caffeine and Kilos in 2013. Right away, that means in 2013, you were juggling the gym, you were still teaching? Or you left teaching?
Danny (Guest):
I left teaching. There's no more time. That brand really took off. So I had to figure out how to run a business, which leads to the real lesson: I hired a coach, joined a mastermind. Initially it was a workshop with five of us, plus a coach—Craig Ballantyne. It's time management, marketing, that kind of stuff. So I just realized, "Hey, I better figure out what I'm doing." And that's something I kept repeating. Every time I need to learn something new, I'd sign up for a course. For example, I needed to learn Facebook ads. I'd sign up for a course rather than just hire a firm. That way, I at least know enough to check their work. Or I'd do it myself. Or dog training—got a puppy, I'd do an online dog training course. It's the same formula. I do it in the morning. I'd wake up at five, I'd do 5:30 to seven before the kids get up—super productive. That's the big project time. Then the rest of the day, you can handle the day-to-day fires.
Gabe (Host):
Yes, that's so good. I've had that problem, or I used to. I'd get in at 5:30 a.m. and I'd just do email. But you realize it's better to push big projects or do learning at that time. And like you said, the day can get derailed, but at least you did your most important task. So that's a great insight.
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, absolutely. And I found that I hire coaches for big leaps or take courses. So that can help you solve new problems faster and avoid banging your head, you know. So that's how I wrote the book, too. I asked someone at the Mastermind who’d written a book about their process. They said it was a hybrid publisher plus a course. I said "Great," I paid for the course, did it in the mornings, and wrote the book. So that’s it. That's the formula.
Gabe (Host):
I love it. Another piece you mentioned is you learned young that there's a lot of ways to make money, so you don't just follow the normal route. Then in your early 20s or mid-20s, you realized the power of building relationships and genuine connection, like how we met in Nashville. That’s probably the most rewarding part for me, the relationships. So I'd love to hear what's been most rewarding for you—maybe that's it.
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, definitely. Another angle: having kids see that there are multiple options—like my parents had a 401k, but my grandparents used commercial property as retirement. So you realize there's no one set path. And second, I'd say it’s the people. I've met so many incredible people. At the gym, I've seen members lose 100 pounds, or they meet each other and get married. I've traveled with Caffeine and Kilos, got to meet folks all around the country, and obviously in the BBB Mastermind, I'd never have met them if not for these businesses. So those are the two biggest wins: the people, and letting my kids see that it's normal to do your own thing.
Gabe (Host):
So good, man. We'll wrap up with this question: where will Danny Lehr be in five years? It's December, the reflective time. Is that basically the speaking?
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, more public speaking, absolutely. It's a 10-year plan, but yeah, five years from now, I see myself traveling around the country, speaking at big events, building these businesses, hopefully signing books and holding babies, man. (Laughs)
Gabe (Host):
Let's go! Well, thanks for taking time. I know you got a lot going on with the new book launch—like 200 more copies to ship?
Danny (Guest):
Yeah, about 200 more, but I'm getting there.
Gabe (Host):
All right, Danny. Thanks so much for being on, man.
Danny (Guest):
Thanks for having me, Gabe.
Gabe (Host):
All right.
Sid (Host):
Hello, my friend. This is Sid. Thank you again so much for taking your time to listen to today's episode. I hope you got some value from it. And listen—anything that was covered, any of the resources, any of the books, any of the tools, anything like that is in the show notes, so it’s easy for you to find and check it out. And also want to let you know the mission for The Huge Convention and for this podcast is to help our blue-collar business owners—like you and me—gain financial and time freedom through running a better business. And we do that in four ways:
Number one is our free weekly newsletter—it’s called a Huge Insider. I hope you subscribe. It is the most valuable newsletter for the home service industry, period, paid or otherwise—and this one’s free. Next is the Huge Foundations education platform—that is, we’ve got over 120 hours of industry-specific education and resources for you. And every month, we do a topical webinar, and we do question and answer with seven- and eight-figure business owners, and it’s available to you for a $1 trial for seven days.
Next, of course, is The Huge Convention. If you haven't been, you got to check it out. It's every August. This year, it's in Nashville, Tennessee—that’s August 20th through 22nd in 2025—and it is the largest and number one rated trade show and convention for home service business builders. We've got the biggest trade show so you can check out all the coolest tools and meet the vendors and check out the software to run your business. And it's got education—world-class education and educators and speakers that will teach you how to run a better business. And it's the best networking opportunity that you can have within the home service business.
And then lastly, if you want to pour jet fuel in your business, check out The Huge Mastermind. Now it's not for everyone—you got to be at over $750K of revenue, building toward $1M, $5M, or $10M in the next five years, and it’s a network, mentorship, and a mastermind of your peers, and we help you understand and implement the Freedom Operating System. We go into more detail, but you can get all the information on all four of these programs and how we'll help you advance your business quickly just by going to thehugeconvention.com and scrolling down and clicking on the Freedom Path. Or, of course, you can find the links here in the show notes.
Sorry, I feel like I'm getting a little bit wordy, but I just want to let you know of the resources that are available to you to help you accelerate and advance your beautiful small business. So keep on growing, keep on learning, keep advancing. And if you like the show, go ahead—if you would, take 90 seconds and give us a review on iTunes, then subscribe and share it. Man, it would really mean the world to us. It would help other people, and as we continue our mission to help people just like you and me. So thanks again for listening. We'll see you on the next episode.
