Maverick Community Update

Click here to watch/listen to an overview of this update

👍 Highlights

We have signed our agreement with the ex-YogaWorks location in Playa Vista (Runway mall), and we are planning to open our first location by the beginning of August. If interested, we'd love to take you on a tour of the space.

Click here to watch a short 2-min video tour of the space.
The location is 7,500 square feet and includes four separate studios for (1) personal training, (2) spin, (3) yoga and cross-training, and (4) massage + physical therapy.
We are excited for this to be our first location because there were previously two successful boutique fitness businesses operating out of this center: Flywheel (spinning) and YogaWorks (yoga). We have been in touch with the former instructors from both companies, and they are very excited about Maverick taking over the space. Additionally, we have great co-tenants in WholeFoods, Brella, Healthy Spot, Sender One, Cedars-Sinai, Rvivl, Varnish Lab, Heyday

Jordyn Albritton has joined as a part-time member of the Maverick Community team. We are so excited to have her on board. Jordyn recently moved to LA from NYC and has 10+ years of experience in the fitness and wellness space as an instructor and a marketing professional.

📚 Learnings

Until, a similar concept to Maverick Community, just raised $3M in the UK with hopes to open their first location by end of year. Also, we found Pirate (thank you, Ilana Ettinger), who has a similar studio business concept focusing on providing creative space to musicians, DJs, and podcasters. Studio suite models focused on empowering creative individuals (from fitness to music to beauty) are enjoying immense success and raising significant amounts of money.

See our recent post here expanding on Forerunner Ventures idea that "The next revolution in commerce will be driven by the seller."

We believe our timing to launch Maverick Community right now is perfect for the following reasons:

Gym visits have rebounded and are approaching pre-pandemic levels (read more here and via the links below):

ClassPass said in-person experiences represent nine out of 10 most popular bookings on its app. And, Mindbody expects in-person visits in October to outpace attendance from October 2019 by 2.6%.
Spending on home fitness equipment has slowed.

Boutique fitness studios and larger gyms are having trouble attracting their instructors back to work. The best instructors are making more income and enjoying more freedom growing their brands on their own.
The fitness business is seasonal, with summer being the slowest season, and we are opening right after the slowest two months come to an end. January and Spring are said to be the busiest months.

We've learned a lot about the real estate leasing process during our Playa Vista negotiations. We greatly underestimated the amount of time it takes to come to an agreement, even when both sides are mostly on the same page. From the LOI agreement to the final signed agreement took ~4 months. We will take these learnings to be more efficient and, most importantly, more realistic in the future.

🏃 Next Moves

Prospecting for wellness professionals on the westside, focusing on the Playa Vista, Venice, and Santa Monica areas (ex: ex/current wellness professionals from YogaWorks, Flywheel, Barrys Bootcamp, Soul Cycle, F45, Equinox, etc.).
Retrofitting the Playa Vista location with new paint (all white), plant life, new furniture, Maverick Community signage, graffiti artwork, refreshed lighting, personal training space divisions, fitness equipment, production equipment (cameras), etc. The space already features subdivided studios equipped with robust, separate air conditioning units and speakers.

We plan to create a spin room, a multi-purpose room (yoga, barre, boxing, dance cardio, cross-training, etc.), a wellness room (physical therapy, massage), and a personal training area that will fit up to 8 personal trainers.

Working on our launch plan and PR plan. We are focused on doing whatever it takes to get the best instructors in our space and incentivize them to spread the word on social.
Creating an instructor onboarding plan which will include a license agreement, mandatory proof of insurance, instructions on how to book our space, and other guidelines and expectations for using the studios. We are curious to see which type of fitness instructors find the most value in our studios and what times are most popular (eventually, we hope to be open 24/7).
Planning out an employee training guide for our studio managers and front-of-house employees, which will focus heavily on building a culture of service. Hugely influenced by Zappos and John DiJulius.
Building the capabilities for our two group studio rooms (spin + yoga) to double as production studios. Our goal is to make it seamless for instructors to livestream their in-person classes, allowing for additional monetization as the size and location of the studio will no longer cap instructors earning capacity. We will purchase and utilize a diverse range of equipment and software to help bridge the gap between Peloton and Tonal production quality and at-home iPhone filming.

Read our Peloton as a Service post for our thoughts on the importance of digital content.

Connecting with community centers and meditation non-profits (InsightLA) to see if we can offer our studio space in Playa Vista. It is crucial to us that we focus on giving back from the very beginning.
Refining the website and opening up our schedule so instructors can start booking space!

🙌 Asks

Follow us on Instagram
HIRING studio managers and front-of-house employees. We're looking for full-time and part-time employees with a mid/end July start date. Please send intros or have people email us at hiring@bemav.co
Introductions to personal trainers, group fitness instructors, physical therapists, massage therapists, and other wellness professionals on the west side of Los Angeles (Playa Vista, Marina del Rey, Santa Monica, Venice, Culver City, etc.).
Introductions to digital fitness companies that could utilize Maverick studio space to see their clients in person and/or film content. Ex: Future Fit, The Class, Obe Fitness, Beachbody, etc.
Introductions to community centers in SPA 5 or 8 that might like to take advantage of our Playa Vista space. While we plan to open one Maverick Forward location for every four Maverick Community locations, we do not want to wait to begin serving communities with needs.
Introductions to non-profit leaders doing impactful work in South LA related to entrepreneurship and/or fitness.
Christian and Michael are backpacking up Mt. Whitney this month, so please let us know if you have any advice :)

🙏 Gratitude

Nir Livni, Rachel Lea @ Sutra, Dana + Lauren @ Forte for educating us on all things production and content creation.
Kupah (and Jeni Lin) for coming on board as a wellness professional advisor and providing excellent advice and enthusiasm.
Jordyn Albritton for joining the team with such excitement. We are thrilled to welcome Jordyn to the team!
Brett Greenstein for heading up the construction and design for our new Playa Vista location.
The team at DJM for believing in the concept and allowing us to test our concept at Runway. Special shout out to Valerie Tran, who has been so helpful!
Myles Rogg for touring us around the east side of Los Angeles and for teaching us about his real estate process.
Afshin Hakim at Hakim Law Group for his quick and thorough work on our Playa Vista agreement.
Simone Khanna at Gallagher insurance for helping finalize our policy so quickly.
Mike Rabin for helping review our Playa Vista agreement.
Zoe Kasiske for introducing us to her friends in the fitness and wellness space.
Caleb Parker, Ben Siedl, Lukas Ault, Joe Merullo, Ilana Ettinger, and Britt Zaffir for all educating us on management agreement ideas and concepts.
Steve Koch for his information share on his successful experiences with sports facility businesses.
Gavin McKay for his information share on his last 10+ years building brick and mortar fitness studios in Philadelphia.
Lisa Polanski for detailing her unique experiences in the fitness world and being willing to introduce us to potential trainers and staff members.
The following instructors for taking the time to provide us with excellent advice: Rachel McClusky, Sara Mancuso, Jackson Lynch, Albina Katsman, JT Barnett, Andrea Marcum, Jason Wimberly, and Pixie (we foresee Pixie being on every Gratitude section until the end of time).