We recently connected with Dave Moore and have shared our conversation below.

Dave, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I had a “regular job” in corporate leadership for 17 years. I did well for myself and my family, and at times I felt like I was even making an impact and doing something important. A part of the greater good. I also often felt like I didn’t fit in there, and that the effort I was putting forth was only to serve something that didn’t really provide reciprocal appreciation. I felt hollow at times, and given the direction the company was headed, it was clear that any future I had, and anything I had to offer, was largely going to go overlooked while I was being asked for more every day by the company. Work/life balance was almost non-existent.

Am I happy as a business owner now? Absolutely yes. I run an amazing Muay Thai Club filled with incredible coaches and Club members. I have more of an impact with the people I work with and the people I work for. I’m infinitely happier, I work more hours, I work harder, I make far less money, but the results are immediate and tangible. I don’t have to convince anyone that what we’re doing is amazing; there are no budget proposals, senseless three day remote meetings with forced fun business dinners, no calendar full of zoom calls that occupy my day with noise and little to no results or poorly consensed decisions. I am able to create a culture I’ve always wanted in a workplace without having to reason it to others, and it’s working. Curating an environment of trve grit, working people who want to achieve instead of make excuses as to why they can’t achieve is my life now. And I love it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’d like to consider myself a pretty straight forward guy. I run a Muay Thai Club in Austin, Texas. I have high expectations of a lot of the people around me, and that’s a good and challenging thing at times. I was introduced to Muay Thai almost 20 years ago when I was attending school at The University of Florida. One of my roommates had an illegal cable box and we used to watch K1 fights. This Dutch kickboxer Remi Bonjasky just blew my mind – his fighting style was technical and wild at the same time, he was an unstoppable force, and back then (circa 2001) I had no idea what I was watching but I knew it was special, and every fight card that came on, I hoped I’d see him fight.

Fast forward many years, Youtube was becoming this major thing, and I started to watch Remy’s old fights which led me to Muay Thai fight videos from Thailand. The music was entrancing, the fighting was chaotic but beautiful, and it was ultra-violent. As a former skate-punk, violence wasn’t inherently in me, but I wanted to learn. So I found a gym in Austin, and I learned. Some brilliant learnings, some hard learnings, some learnings I would have rather been left out. I got in a couple local fights; I did well. I quit the corporate gig. I traveled the US to see friends’ gyms in other states. I learned about what they were doing and why it worked. I saw their gym cultures and realized what I was exposed to wasn’t the absolute end-all and it wasn’t all puppy dogs and ice cream like I thought. I travelled to Thailand for five weeks and trained twice a day, simultaneously observing and making notes on EVERYTHING. I was exposed to the sport in its home country and I was falling in love with something again that I felt after six years of training in the US I was falling out of love with. The language of Muay Thai in Thailand was universal, the people were amazing, I had so much more to learn and grew so much in such a short time. It really was transcendent. I knew I had to do something more for myself, my family, and my community, so when I got back to Austin I opened a small Club based on my personal values, surrounded myself with like-minded people, and my quality of life is better with every passing day. I’m just so happy that I am playing a small part in growing this sport and developing athletes in a positive, safe, and fun environment. We work extremely hard in the limited amount of time we have with each other every day, so we keep it light hearted and communal and it’s been very well received.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Reputation is a funny thing. Because when you leave a gym (or perhaps any business) to open your own in the same industry, many will support it, some that you thought were friends and some that were friends can’t even bring themselves to do so much as like/comment/share a social media post (the easiest way to support your friends). I’ve been shunned, blocked on social media, had stories about me shared with others that only served to build toxic loyalty via manipulative triangulation. But I learned so much in my travels and exposure outside the gym I started at about toxicity in gym culture, cultish loyalty, women’s issues in our sport, and other topical industry matters that combined with my own experience only served to create and support the positive environment I always wanted in gym culture both in our collective Club space and with friends I’ve met through Muay Thai. I’ve found that building (or rebuilding) my reputation from the ground up, organically, has been of enormous value to The Club. I wish sometimes I had the support of my former gym community when I started, but I acknowledge that others’ feelings are valid, and I guess I’d thank them today for the lack of a vote of confidence because it just made me work harder.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Good or bad, I don’t pay for ads. I couldn’t afford it when we started. I relied on all that supported my vision to like, comment, and share – both international and local friends I’ve met through the sport. I was, and still am, consistent with stories and posts. I highlight members from my community because it’s important. Nobody in our Club is nameless or faceless. I’m a huge far left (INTJ) introvert, but I put that aside to connect with my members as human beings. Not just people that pay Club dues. As much as I’m exhausted at the end of the day, it’s so worth it. I have a genuine love for the folks in our community, and I try to balance that both in our day to day reality and social media. They recharge me and give me purpose when I wake up every morning to do it all again. Engaging with folks isn’t hard, you just have to prioritize your efforts and time and please, for everything that is everything, be a human being and not a social media bot. I still run our social media single handily, with all the other duties I have as a small business owner, but the investment in my people and highlighting their success is worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theogthaiboxingclub.com
• Instagram: @theogthaiboxingclub
• Youtube: @theoldguardthaiboxingclub

Image Credits
All photos courtesy of Jupiter and Wes Oribello