Behind the 1%: A GTY Story
I think the one thing most people share is the search for what they’re “destined” to do. You hear it all the time: folks with great careers and comfortable lifestyles still feel unfulfilled, like they’re meant for something bigger. They’re wanderers without a destination. I’m only 28 as I write this, but I’ve been told - and can easily imagine - that nothing stings worse than lying on your deathbed, haunted by an unfulfilled life or endless “what ifs.”
When I moved to Navy Yard in Washington, DC, in September 2023, I felt like one of those wanderers. At just 26, I could already see the writing on the wall. I’m good at my job, and I’m paid well for it, but I wasn’t waking up with a smile or going to bed with warmth in my heart. For many, a life well-lived means landing a solid job out of college, climbing the ladder, and riding that industry until retirement. There’s nothing wrong with that - it’s just never been me.
Moving to DC felt like a fresh start. I was like the protagonist in one of those teen college movies, stepping onto campus for move-in day with the world at my fingertips. Every morning, I’d walk out of my apartment and practically smell the potential.
One of the best parts of the move was reconnecting with my buddy Sean. We met in college, hit it off instantly, lived together for a year after graduation, and then life got busy, keeping us apart for a couple of years. In DC, we started hanging out and working out together again, hitting our usual 6 a.m. workout sessions. Both of us have always had that “entrepreneur bug.” One morning, we were stretching before a workout when I tossed out the idea of opening our own gym someday. As meatheads who saw the gym as our sanctuary, it felt like the right step toward something bigger. After countless talks with mentors, business coaches, and people way smarter than us, we laid the foundation for what’s now GTY Performance (Greater Than Yesterday LLC).
Back then, though, it was BTY Performance (Better Than Yesterday LLC). They say entrepreneurship teaches lessons you can’t learn any other way, unteachable lessons, and we found out the hard way - through mistakes. When Sean and I started building the business side of GTY, we thought we had it all figured out. Best state to form our business? Check. Create an LLC? Check. File Articles of Organization? Check. We’d heard about the importance of working with law firms to trademark our brand and products, but we fell into the classic trap of thinking, “We’ve got time.”
That changed when we met with my cousin, our business coach, who opened our eyes to the real work behind trademarking. For GTY, everything we wanted to trademark had to be submitted under three different classes:
Dietary and Nutritional Supplements (Class 5)
Clothing, Footwear, and Headgear (Class 25)
E-commerce (Class 35)
The trademark process in the U.S., run by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), is no joke - it can take 12 to 18 months. Even after the USPTO’s Review and Examination team approves your application (fingers crossed), your mark gets published in the USPTO’s Official Gazette, where third parties can oppose it if they think it conflicts with their own.
Long story short, we completely underestimated the time, effort, and importance of trademarking. It was one of those “unteachable lessons” that hit us hard. During this process, we also realized we needed to tweak our name from BTY Performance to GTY Performance (Greater Than Yesterday LLC) to set ourselves up for the future.
Ever heard the phrase, “Man plans, God laughs”? It captures the irony of mapping out your life or business, only for the universe to throw a curveball. That’s pretty much entrepreneurship in a nutshell. You learn to bob, weave, and call audibles when things don’t go as planned. Master that, and you’re on your way to building something real.
The rest of the journey? That’s where the fun kicked in. We dove into figuring out GTY’s core pillars: our voice and tone as a brand, our unique point of difference, our target audience, and the products we’d create to make an impact.
Telling the full story of GTY would take more words than anyone has patience for in a newsletter. We’re itching to dive into the world of podcasts soon, and that’ll be the perfect place to share the whole journey of how GTY came to be. It’s wild to think about how far we’ve come in just two years - and imagining where we’ll be in another two blows my mind. I can’t wait to see how this story unfolds.
My hope for you is that you’re not feeling like a wanderer, but living a life filled with purpose. If you’re not there yet, take that first step toward change - you’ve got this.
Here’s to a great week!
Michael
GTY Performance
