Ryan DeLuca – Startup Community – Power List

Since successfully launching Bodybuilding.com in the late ‘90s, Ryan DeLuca has continued to break new ground.

Starting his fitness site and sports nutrition supplements e-tailer business from his garage at the age of 21, DeLuca grew the company, which was consistently named one of the best places to work, to 800 employees across six states and four countries. He ranked #5 in Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30: America’s Coolest Entrepreneurs” list in 2006 and was named Entrepreneur of the Year for the Idaho/Utah region by E&Y in 2009.

DeLuca achieved the unimaginable — he managed to sell controlling interest in his company for more than $100 million in 2008, a business that was worth close to $500 million in yearly revenue before he stepped down as CEO in 2015.

However, DeLuca did not stay idle long. In 2016, he co-founded Black Box VR with Preston Lewis. “I was temporarily retired for only six months before the startup bug bit me again and Black Box VR was born, merging my continued passions for technology and fitness and the way they can intersect to help people transform their lives,” he said.

Black Box VR is a gym with training centers in Boise as well as locations in Arizona and California, where members perform 30-minute workouts in private booths with exercise machines integrated into a virtual reality environment.

In October 2021, the Black Box VR community achieved a milestone, celebrating that its gym members had collectively lifted one billion pounds in their virtual reality workouts.