Welcome to The Active Times 👊

The purpose of The Active Times is to share the business of fitness & wellness.

Sharing stories, news, trends, strategies, & products in the space. While providing my take on it all.

What’s in The Active Times?

1. Stories: The success stories of the companies & founders winning in fitness & wellness.

2. News: Current events & relevant news happening in fitness & wellness

3. Trends: The innovative strategies & tactics being used by companies in fitness & wellness.

4. Products: Product launch announcements & curated lists of fitness & wellness goods.

What to expect?

1. We try to add our take / opinion on topics, not just objective writing.

2. Short, concise, to the point writing.

3. Expect typos. This is not meant to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Who’s behind The Active Times?

My name is Jake Heyen, and I’ve always been passionate about entrepreneurship, business, & all things fitness & wellness.

Business background

I’ve tinkered with a lot in the business realm. Building and learning new things is fun to me. Some are are successful, some are failures. But I always continue building.

• From Kansas City (The Kansas side)

• Studied finance and statistics at The University of Missouri (Tiger sports will affect my mood)

• Worked finance internships in college, but was always tinkering with side hustles. Entrepreneurship was where I had fun.

• Started finance job right out of college, but was also building a fitness creator economy app at the same time (app link for reference)

• Quit finance job 3 months in to go all in on the fitness app

• Ran the app for about a year, got around 500 users and 40 fitness creators had channels I was managing. Struggled getting users to convert to paid though

• Competitor (Playbook) saw what I was building and I ended up shutting down my app to join them

• Worked as Director of Creator Operations at Playbook for 2 years

  • Got to work with hundreds of creator businesses including several that have 1M+ audiences and doing millions in annual revenue

• Now I am focused on 2 main things:

  • Building a media brand & online presence in the fitness & wellness space, focused on the business side of things.

  • Partnered back up with Playbook to run a new venture of the business called “Playbook Studio”, a creative design studio servicing creators & brands in the fitness space.

Fitness background

Health & fitness is a big passion and importance in my life. Not only to remain healthy, but as a way to find what I am capable of and experience new things. I am always looking for ways to challenge myself physically.

1. Malibu Canyon 50K Ultramarathon

2. 70.3 Ironman St. George

3. Austin Marathon

4. 100,000 step day, which was 52 miles

5. Cut 20 pounds, bulk 35 pounds, cut 30 pounds all in a span of 4 months

6. 3x State Champion in football

7. New York Marathon (coming late 2024)

8. Rim to Rim to Rim Grand Canyon hike (coming early 2025)