Maverick Community Update - October + November 2021

Table of Contents

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👍 Highlights

• We ended our fourth month averaging eight group classes and five private sessions per day. We've hosted 500+ classes over our first four months, and we're up to 49 fitness & wellness professionals using our studios.
• Check out our group class schedule HERE (45+ classes per week)
• Click HERE to watch new digital production footage of a class. We're adding equipment to allow for live editing and camera switching to turn our studios into full tech-enabled production studios. Instructors are incredibly impressed with our setup and how easy it is to use our equipment. This digital offering allows instructors to make money outside the studio's four walls and provides content for social posts. Think content houses built especially for fitness & wellness creators.
• We hosted five successful events which brought together collaborations with brands, charities, other instructors, and clients from all over the city.
• Rachel McClusky: 20+ fitness & wellness brands supported the event
• Now Here Fest: 60+ attendees, 5 wellness brands
• Team 3XT: raised $1K for charity, 7 wellness professional collaborations
• Carbon38: 40+ fitness & wellness ambassadors attended maverick for the event
• Pixie Acia & Chris Pipkin Food Drive for Thanksgiving: donated over 20 bags of clothes and food for the homeless
• Mentions & Press:
• Eric Roseman, Power To The Four Walled Creator
• Manduka Yoga
• Shoutout LA
• We've attracted wellness entrepreneurs, such as Calming Spot (group meditation), that are using our studios to scale their business. They've hired 7+ instructors to teach ten classes per week, and they're getting ~25 clients per class.
• We've hired a new employee, Yoshi, previously at SoulCycle, and he has been a game changer for us.

📚 Learnings

• Customers are feeling much more comfortable returning to in-person fitness.
• Peloton or the gym? More people are choosing both. What that means for the fitness industry
• Jordan Pascasio's (Next Ventures) 70 / 30 in-person vs. at-home hybrid fitness prediction
• Peloton reports drop in sales & margins
• We've spent $0 on ads over the past four months and, instead, focused on organic marketing (a nod to Adidas Runners for showing us the way). This technique takes longer but builds a more loyal and sustainable following (that slow build - nod to Charles Shen @888_process)
• Our Instagram has over 1k followers, most wellness & fitness professionals, and reels bring in most new followers.
• Hyper-local events have been the best way to spread the word (ex: community goat yoga). The events have attracted the local community, businesses, and brands.
• We're providing so much value to wellness professionals that word of mouth is our #1 driver of growth. See social post examples in the following hyperlinks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
• The creator economy is a massive opportunity. These are great posts describing the $104B market that maverick is going after (HERE and HERE).
• A lot of fundraising interest in the fitness + wellness space:
• Talent Hack (software + agency for fitness & wellness professionals) raised $17M
• Open (mindfulness app) raised $9M
• Vagaro (scheduling software) valued at $1B

🏃 Next Moves

• Launching 'Coaches of maverick' on YouTube and Instagram. Coaches of maverick is our take on Humans of NY, highlighting the coaches at maverick and focusing on their journey.
• Partnering with adidas to host monthly mindfulness sessions, focusing on using mindfulness to improve athletic performance (shout out to Christian Straka, our co-founder, for making this happen!)
• Setting up networking and mastermind events for the instructors to get to know one another and cross-promote.
• Improving our video and audio production quality (adding cameras, speakers) and automating the experience as much as possible. See example video HERE (also shown above in Highlights).
• Introducing dynamic and flexible pricing - shout out to Nick Kokonas for this inspiration. This will help us make more money in the busy times and in the slow times (ex: the 7pm popular time slot will cost more than the 2pm slot, and the 2pm time slot will be affordable enough to encourage someone to pay for it).
• Selling services to wellness professionals focused on driving more revenue for them. Instructors need help with their marketing and sales. We believe our model is the new-age franchise model.
• Ex: social media management, content creation (filming, editing, photography), brand agency for sponsorships/collaborations, adspend management, sponsored content & product placement, digital content sales (live stream + on-demand), teacher training creation, custom merchandise/fitness equipment procurement, graphic design, fitness + wellness certifications, bookkeeping, legal assistance, insurance reselling, retreat planning, event planning, blockchain management, etc.
• We have already sold on-demand content packages where we handle all aspects of the production (film, sound, lighting, editing).
• Changing the direction of our nonprofit, maverick forward, after our instructor brain trust met last month. The group helped us to decide that we could make a more immediate impact by switching focus from building facilities in underserved communities to mentoring and certifying aspiring instructors.

🙌 Asks

• Review our deck and let us know if you are interested in learning more.
• We'd love introductions to investors active in the creator economy, PropTech/real estate, or fitness + wellness space. We are in the process of kicking off fundraising and already have funds committed.
• Follow us on Instagram and TikTok.
• Would love to speak with anyone brainstorming Web3 in the fitness & wellness space. Especially around NFTs and tokens for services and products that people consume daily, such as fitness (trying to see how I can encourage the fitness & wellness creators at maverick to get into it). Great Tim Ferriss podcast with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikan and Apex Optimizers got me looking even deeper into this. Utility NFTs should be really interesting for fitness & wellness creators.
• Introductions to anyone at TikTok on the partnership or creator management side. We'd love to discuss a partnership with TikTok where creators can utilize our flexible and tech-enabled studios to create content and monetize their fans in person via pop-up classes/events.
• Also, introductions to any TikTok or Insta creators with a focus on dance (shuffle) for the same reasons as above. We believe dance fitness is the next big group class for Gen Z.
• Introductions to personal trainers, group fitness instructors, physical therapists, massage therapists, and other wellness professionals in Los Angeles.
• Introductions to digital fitness companies that could utilize our studio space to see their clients in person and/or film content. Ex: FitOn, Future, Moxie, Obe Fitness, Beachbody, etc.
• Review us on Yelp + Google.
• Introductions to non-profit leaders doing impactful work in Inglewood or South LA related to entrepreneurship and/or fitness.

🙏 Gratitude

• Marquita, Gabrielle, Ale, Christian, Steve, and Yoshi for being ALL IN. We have a great team, and it has been so fun building this with everyone.
• The following instructors for believing in maverick and using our space to inspire and help their clients: TR Gayle & the entire Calming Spot team, Cassidy Rhodes, Milchu Perez, Christina Scavuzzo & Now Here Fest, Kearstin Nuckles, Chris Pipkin, Gaia Mariani, Manu Fernandez Barrio, Brett Hoebel, Jada Kelly, Alexis Fischer, Rachel McClusky, Tarik Woodbine, Tenaya Figueira, Katie Mullen, Albina Katsman, Pixie Acia, English Alexander, Steph Palomino, Brittany Thompson, Ryan Kelley, Kellie Fell Fit4Mom, Marquita Davis, Nicolea Pettis, Marley Ralph, Derek Garlington, Shay Scott, Ashley Shaw, Ferly Prado, Alexandria Kaye, Jill Robinson, Rebecca Watson, Lorenzo Lawrence, Adonus Beal, Jaclyn Betham, Ruby Mejia, Etienne Coco Marley & WalkGood LA, Leah Van Vleet, Laurel Galanter, Alisa Ibragmiova, Carson Crawford, Jackson Lynch, Shannon Elise, Victor Nicosia, Karly Treacy, Aubrey Duncan, Alice Hu, Patty Rivas, Hana Terrell, Ani Lalazarian, Nick Abramovic, and Amber Allen
• Kevin Campos for being excited about maverick and giving advice on the propech world. And, thank you to John Asalone for the intro!
• Raad Mobrem for your expert advice and mentorship. You are the deck master.
• Josh Payne for being a good friend, taking a class, and sharing your excitement for maverick.
• Jordan Pascasio for the fitness space brainstorm and for digging into our build-in-public site. Keep up the excellent work with your content. I'm a loyal reader and agree with you on the 70/30 in-person / at-home future hybrid fitness model.
• Eric Roseman for delving right into our business model and writing a piece on maverick (Power To The Four Walled Creator). I enjoy your Substack and appreciate the encouragement!
• Travis Putnam for taking the time to learn about maverick and your advice on the proptech space. And, thank you to Josh Payne for the intro!
• Jane Sorkin and Ben Vernon from The.com for building our website and being extremely helpful and nice people.
• Steve Gomez and Jacob Braunstein @ Live Control for your friendship and advice on our production equipment.
• Jeff Cayley for the epic gravel ride to help clear my head and talk about future software solutions for maverick.
• Brett Goldstein @ Launch House for putting together the creator economy cohort.
• Luke Calder for taking the time to visit maverick in Playa Vista. Hope to work together.
• Lee Sager for being open to talk proptech and learn more about maverick.
• Lance Amato @ Canoa for being a friend in the proptech space. Congrats on fundraising!
• Jim Crowell for talking software ideas and challenges. I appreciate you!
• Rey for the intro to our newest team member Yoshi Silva!
• Naomi @ Manduka for writing about maverick on their dealer newsletter (see here). So grateful to you for spreading the word!
• Mike @ ShoutoutLA for writing a press piece on maverick (see here). Thank you!
• The team at Guitar Center for helping our sound system be so much more reliable (special shout out to Aaron). Guitar Center has some of the best customer service with actual experts in the music world.
• Derek Garlington for your creative ideas and professional videographer work while creating Coaches of maverick.
• Cheryl Kemp and Brandon Jahner @ IndiFIT, and Erin Shirack (Chi-Society) for being friends in the fitness space.
• Marcus Cargill for our friendship and guidance in the fitness world. Looking forward to lunch next month.
• Kunal Lunawat @ Agya Ventures for taking the time to learn about maverick. Your advice was helpful in crafting our deck. Kunal is looking for deals in the proptech space, so please let me know if you'd like an intro.
• Hunter Gray for your wisdom and guidance!
• Philippe Rieser for your insight!
• Silke Hensel for your encouragement and kindness!
• Julia Eckhardt for your friendship and motivation.
• Rick Bhardwaj for being a friend in the fitness industry and putting together the fitness mastermind group friend. Congrats on raising for Guru (applying ML/CV to fitness). Also, thank you to OnDeck for all of the great connections that I've been able to make over the past year.
• The maverick forward brainstorming group for taking the time to discuss the future of our nonprofit - Milchu Perez, Terence Williams, Shay Scott, Giselle, Marley Ralph, Derek Garlington, Marquita Rene Davis

✍️ Thoughts

• Choose kind. Here is an important distinction that I hope to burn into the brain of everyone at maverick.

You can't please everyone, but you can be kind to everyone.

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