Matthew Januszek closes out the Escape Your Limits Podcast's Connected Health and Fitness Summit series with a conversation that every fitness founder and operator should hear: a candid discussion with Jon Canarick, a Managing Partner at North Castle Partners who has been deploying private equity capital into the Healthy, Active, and Sustainable Living space for more than 20 years.
Jon's vantage point is rare — he has sat on the boards of companies ranging from Therabody and Barry's to Five Iron Golf and Echelon Fit, giving him a ground-level view of what separates businesses that scale from businesses that stall. In this episode, he talks honestly about the economic environment, what happened to Peloton and why it matters, and what today's fitness and fitness-tech companies need to understand to survive and grow.
About Jon Canarick
Jon Canarick joined North Castle Partners in 2001 as an Associate and has since built a career at the firm that spans every function and deal stage. North Castle focuses exclusively on businesses in Healthy, Active, and Sustainable Living — a thesis that has allowed the firm to develop deep pattern recognition in fitness, wellness, and related consumer categories.
Over more than two decades, Jon has actively managed North Castle's investments across a wide range of sectors within that mandate, from premium fitness operators to technology-enabled wellness platforms. His current board seats include Therabody, Five Iron Golf, Echelon Fit, CR Fitness, Encore Vet Group, The Escape Game, Barry's, and SLT — a portfolio that spans equipment, studios, technology, and experiential hospitality.
Jon's perspective is shaped by having watched multiple market cycles play out in real time, including the pandemic-era surge in consumer fitness spending and the correction that followed. That experience makes him particularly well-positioned to speak to what durable fitness businesses actually look like from an investor's perspective.
What Jon Canarick and Matthew Januszek Talked About
- Jon shares his read on whether the American economy is heading into recession and what that means for consumer spending on health and fitness.
- A meaningful portion of the pandemic-era shift toward home workouts has persisted, and Jon explains why he believes some consumers will continue working out at home even as gym attendance has recovered.
- The dramatic decline in Peloton's valuation carries lessons for every fitness-technology company about the difference between pandemic-accelerated demand and sustainable business fundamentals — and Jon lays those lessons out plainly.
- The commercial equipment market and the home fitness market have each evolved in distinct ways since the pandemic, and Jon describes what has changed on both sides and what it means for operators and manufacturers.
- Investors evaluate new fitness businesses on a specific set of qualities — and Jon explains exactly what he and his team look for when deciding whether a company is worth backing.
- Pitching a fitness business to investors requires more than a compelling story; Jon outlines what founders need to demonstrate about their addressable market and their path to capturing it.
- The lessons businesses should have taken from COVID — about supply chains, consumer behavior, and financial resilience — are not fully learned, and Jon identifies where he still sees gaps.
- Jon shares his view of where the health and fitness industry is headed, pointing to the trends he is most closely watching from his position on multiple boards.
Why This Conversation Matters
Matthew Januszek has lived the founder experience from the inside — building Escape Fitness from a startup into a global equipment brand required navigating capital, partnerships, and market cycles that most operators never have to face. A conversation with someone who has evaluated hundreds of businesses in this space and sat on the boards of category leaders offers a kind of calibration that is genuinely hard to find.
As Matthew continues building Escape Fitness USA and brings his perspective to the LIFTS Podcast, the questions Jon raises — about what sustainable fitness businesses actually look like, and what mistakes are most likely to sink promising companies — are exactly the questions that matter most right now.
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube
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About Matthew Januszek
Matthew Januszek is the co-founder of Escape Fitness, the functional-training equipment brand he built from a UK startup into a global name supplying many of the world’s leading gyms, studios, and hotel fitness spaces. Following the separation of the UK and US businesses, Matthew’s focus today is Escape Fitness USA and the next chapter of the brand in North America. He hosted more than 300 episodes of the Escape Your Limits podcast and now co-hosts the LIFTS Podcast with SweatWorks founder Mohammed Iqbal, covering the business, science, and technology shaping the fitness industry. Explore more interviews and episodes on MatthewJanuszek.com.
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