We caught up with the brilliant and insightful J.T. Moye’ a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
J.T. , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
We are a mom & pop business but our 4 kids had a big role in helping us succeed. We were both around the mature age of 50 when we took a brainstorming walk on the beach to see what we could do that we would enjoy as well as be able to spend our golden years together. Still working separate day jobs we decided we could do a dynamic gymnastic camp/classes but we needed something that would help us stand out-it was Ninja warrior obstacle training. It was popular and it fell right into my acrobatic/stunt experience. My wife Debbie had tons of experience leading girl scout troupes that we highly active in her community. Together we knew we could create something no one else had ever attempted, Ninja obstacles blended with creative arts and craft downtime was the perfect balance that kids needed.
We mad a plan to leave our 9-5 jobs at a certain date or when we saved up enough start up money. That date came and I put in my notice after more that 25 years affiliated with managing a large gym and directing their camp program. I learned all I needed to jump into the business head first. Debbie was the organizer. The person who planned every day and minute throughout each day but she never worked in this industry. She asked me “how do we start?” I said, “We just start.” So we started with a summer camp with 4 kids and it grew from there.
The next 5 years we steadily grew our clientele enough to make a living and pay our bills without doing another job. We rented space from a local gym that serviced special needs kids and we learned more and more about being an inclusive program to service families with kids of all abilities. Then came our first big obstacle – COVID.
The first 3 months of remote classes and even online daily activities with our kids. We even threw epic online birthday parties. We did 30 days straight of Facebook Live “Tools and Tips to have your Best Day Ever!” It was fun at first then, as most people did, we got cabin fever. About that time we got a call from a parent saying that they wanted to do a camp. Not only did they want a camp, but the were donating a mansion in the Bel Air hills so we can do it every day, all summer. So we did it. It was a success. No on got sick so we became members of the Culver City Recovery Task Force, which brainstormed ways to get businesses workspace outdoors. So we started working side by side other businesses at the local parks. Parents were all looking for outdoor, safe activities and we did classes, camps, birthday parties for the next 4 years until we found our 4 walls and a roof to call our own. That’s what allowed us to scale and serve so many families in our neighborhood. We love our new location in Buckingham Heights Business District.
The thing that helped us most was that we joined the Culver City Chamber of Commerce in 2018. We connected with a realtor, lawyers an architect and other business owners sharing their stories. We had mentors who had made mistakes and they we willing to share those stories with us about how to carefully move forward. Debbie and I are movers and shakers anyway, we just needed a few guiding lights along the way.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Debbie and I always worked with Kids. The girl scouts and her large family events on Christmas, Easters and other holidays were full productions. Adults who attended her events still talk about those memories she created to this day.
I stated performing with my gymnastics team back in the 70s. Ujima Institute of Artistic gymnastics performed all around Connecticut and New York. That’s where I learned the value of a great team and teamwork. I then wen on to attend UConn and received a BFA in acting. After 7 years of touring the country I finally landed my dream job of performing on Broadway in the hit show Miss Saigon. I never stopped moving. Health and fitness became more important to both Debbie and I as we got older. We studied the effects of food, water and sleep had on the body and EC Fitness and Nutrition was born. We have since rebranded into “Ninja with EC Kids” The EC stands for Everything Counts for Kids.
We are proud that we found a balance of fitness, creative visual art outlets and entertainment. We always knew we needed an “It Factor” to have a successful business in Los Angeles. There are tons of things for Kids to do here and the weather outdoors is always good, so how could we provide a service that was educational and entertaining? We taught good fitness and nutrition habits using ninja warrior obstacles, sport fitness drills, gymnastics and original songs. We started doing seminars for schools but since I had 3 years experience playing Grover on Sesame Street we thought kids would be more interested in learning through music and choreographed dances. It was a hit. We did both original songs and parodies of songs kids already knew. The music is still a mainstay of camp warmups and the beginning of birthday parties and parents and kids get into the beat and the words that teach healthy habits they can use for life.
Every year Debbie had more ideas of what kids can do whenever they needed a physical break from the Ninja course. Our Art department is so popular we now call our camps Ninja/Art camps. Painting, Jewelry making, sewing, slim, pearler beads and our most recent Cardboard Chomp Creations.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Like any business that started before COVID and is still operating today, we have stories of resilience. In 2020 we had to operate outdoors. If anyone knows us, they know that we do not travel light. We had two 10x 10 public storage bins, a 20 foot U-Haul and 6 to 9 people on our design team to help set up our giant obstacle course and art department every day did camp, classes or Birthday Parties. It took 3 hours to set up and another 2 to take it down.
Working in the park presented so many obstacles. A tree fell on our equipment, another tree fell on my truck and our U-Haul was broken into and stolen multiple times with a loss of over $8,000 worth of equipment. We we insured but it took years to replace some of the state of the art equipment like a professional stunt air bag that was park of the lost items.
It rained on us multiple time when the forecast was a little off. Darkness cut classes short half of the year and keeping the equipment clean was an costly but necessary expense we couldn’t do without.
We had many people say they would help us get funding but when it can down to it, no one came through. We had one family who sat down with us and really helped us by telling us options of how to structure our business and brainstormed about funding possibilities. They were 100% on our side and believed in us but we had to get our number together and search for an idea space made just for kids. We needed convenient parking, a quiet place for parents (we called it a Zen Space), safe neighborhood and 5-10 thousand square feet with at least 20 foot ceilings. We had marketing/branding sessions, sent out pitch decks and hoped it would happed. We were lucky to have a clos family member who was highly experienced in starting, developing and managing start ups so we picked his brain almost daily, especially sense we hunkered down with him during COVID.
Through the chamber of commerce, a former Culver City Mayor and businessman and multiple realtors, it all came together in the fall of 2024. We finally found a home that we bootstrapped ourselves. It was our savings, a few loans, a few lines of credit and another family who graciously walked us through the deal on the lease. Everything Counted when it came to all the people who helped us move forward with getting our own space. We knew we would do well once we had a space to operate. Our building had everything we asked for and more we didn’t know we needed. Making out that first, gigantic security deposit check was a daunting task. We had never written a check that large but it was all worth it and we can never say we did it alone. We are so grateful to all the people who guided us through the fog.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
We always felt if we could get people to see what we were offering, they would jump at the chance to put their kids in our programs. So we took video every day and created a video every day of our summer camps. We actually started it because parents would ask kids “what did you do today at camp?” Granted, what we did in one day was hard for anyone to articulate, let alone kids aged 5-9. So videos not only showed parents, but grandparents and neighbors all through social media. Before the business I was not into posting anything so I had to learn how to do it myself. The COVID year I invested and worked on the editing and creating content that would stand out. Special effects facial recognition devices elevated our videos. It was another extension of our creative side. The more we did, the more interaction we received. We still do not consider us masters of social media. We learned hard lessons of paying people to represent our brand but no one did it like we did. They could not tell our story like we could. We rarely pay for ads, especially from Yelp. Everyone has a different path. That was ours.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ecfkids.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everything_counts_for_kids/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EC4allKids/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-t-moyé-57b54a41
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@eckidsfitnessandnutritionw901
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ninja-with-ec-kids-culver-city
Image Credits
N/a These are all of our photos