We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jesse Chavez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jesse, 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

Firstly I’d like to say that I never pictured myself having a business or let alone a business that would grow to be this size it is today. My story really starts like most, I was being undervalued by my employer at the time.

I have always had a huge mind with tons of out of the box ideas. But I had never chosen to act on those dreams because of my financial background growing up and lack of support from my family. Growing up in, not so nice areas and not knowing what your day to day is going to look like really clouds your judgement growing up. I just simply did not have the means at my age (19) to begin or even think about a business.

That was until the day I got together with my friend Kay at a local Cheesecake Factory to vent my frustrations and to just socialize and have a good night. Kay was the gym director for a local gymnastics gym. I will never forget what she asked me “then why don’t you do your own thing?” I remember looking at her bewildered. “I can’t just do that..”

I replied and she just kept offering solutions to my short train of thought “I can talk to my gym owner and we can figure something out.” That same night I sent a text message to my former employer and quit my job right then and there. I sat down and just starred at my laptop. I felt like how people feel when they’re put on the spot for something. Just blank. I turned on my TV and started my Netflix to watch a cheerleading series that was popular in that time named “CheerSquad” it was about an underdog Canadian Cheerleading club that I had followed for so many years. They had recently made some incredible wins and achievements that caught everyones eye across the world. This I’m sure is what launched their series. I didn’t know then but the owner of this company would be a good friend of mine in a few years (Alli Moffat). I was so inspired by their resilience, grace and overall work ethic.

That companies theme is the sharks (team names/branding). The gymnastics gym my company would be renting space from was right by the ocean (located in Pacific Beach). I didn’t want to be a direct duplicate, so I went with an ocean theme for team names and branding. The Pacific Beach Allstars home of the Waves.

Aside from the inspiration phase and the pretty sounding story. I did have to knock into my savings for branding. Who knew a logo could cost anywhere from $400-$600?! I also had to quickly learn about LLC’s and banking etc. All of this was done in ONE WEEK. I would be in $14k of debt by the end of my first season. There is definitely never a boring moment as a business owner.

I stayed up for hours even though I was still working my regular job during the day. When one thing was done I would feel like another would suddenly pop up. After launching, my brand was of course met with negativity and confusion. If I had to name one industry as the most toxic it would absolutely be mine. Your hard work does not matter to the court of public opinion and neither does your background or how you pushed to achieve it.

Later that year my brand did begin to stick! So much so that we were blessed enough to expand and take a second location under our wing in Northern California. During this expansion I had my first move to a different gymnastics program to sublease from. While I was subleasing from that new gymnastics program I explored dealing with my first broker, tons of rejection and stand alone locations that looked perfect but the prices were just not right.

In the process I was able to meet my now business partners Sarah Malo and Devin McCants. Both who would then teach me the importance behind collaboration and delegation. Without them I do not believe I would have grown as much as I have mentally and I do not think our business would be as big as it is now. Both individuals Im still blessed to have in my life to this day.

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?

I am now 26 years old, I started my business when I was 19. I grew up in Mexico and moved here at a young age. To this day I remember watching my mom quiz herself for her U.S citizenship test when I was little. When I moved here I had some textbook English under my belt but did not know how to speak it fluently. I am very fluent now but still have some times that I “directly” translate something vs how it is supposed to be translated. This can make my tone pretty passive aggressive. But I am absolutely working on it!

At a young age I was taught that if I wanted something I would have to work for it and achieve it myself with no support from anyone. Im sure that’s the case for most second generation Mexican American kids.

Being gay was also extremely difficult growing up. I grew up in a very old school Mexican small town (pueblo) house hold. This did not do me any favors at all. I could always tell my mom tried her best to be supportive and caring but she was always re directed to her Jehovas Witness values. So I simply stopped looking for support or confiding in my parents at a young age.

In elementary school I remember there being an opportunity to join in on a performance for our Black History Month Assembly. We danced to “I want you back” by the Jackson 5. After that I became obsessed with all things dance related. Whenever the schools offered a free opportunity to be a part of, I would take it.

Fast forward to my freshman year of High School, I was presented again with the opportunity to be a part of a dance program. I had not even thought about cheerleading. My school in that time did not have a traditional competitive cheerleading program. It was more of a club. The coach of that program simply didn’t have the background to achieve running a program at that high of a caliber. So I focused on dance. One of my dance friends took me to her “Allstar Cheer” practice when we were hanging out. That’s when I saw how big and capable Cheerleading was as a sport. I joined a team and begun my journey through Allstar Cheerleading (competitive cheerleading).

At our facilities we offer Elite Allstar Travel Cheerleading, Allstar Prep (Rec option), and tumbling classes. For the first time we are launching our first stand alone dance complex and some satellite competitive dance programs within our current cheerleading facilities.

Our clients typically want training for their kids to hopefully make their high school cheerleading teams one day. Those clients do tend to stay and do both their high school as well as our Allstar teams. We make our gym available to all communities from different backgrounds and have scholarships available as well. Given my background, I always want to make sure that deserving hardworking athletes that cannot afford this expensive sport have somewhere they can turn to.

I believe what sets us apart from other competitors is that there is always room for growth in our facilities. Some gyms in our sport are very competitive and athletes can sometimes become nothing but another number. I truly feel like our staff nurtures our athletes and provides a level of personal communication to our parents that other companies simply do not.

I am incredibly proud of our steady growth. We do not push out win after win after win like that but I can say we are moving towards a structure that will allow for our athletes to perform more championship winning routines. We would never sacrifice our athletes mental health for a win. Slow and steady wins the race right?

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Our reputation was definitely built on how open minded we are. As a human I can absolutely say that feedback can sting. I feel like that’s only natural.

But you can do with it what you want. You can either read it, sit back, think who the source is that it is coming from and based off of that award it with a level of credibility. Or not take it at all and remain the same. We are consistently shifting our branding, communication and product to the needs of our clients.

If you are not willing to change, reflect and pivot then you are not willing to stay in business.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A huge lesson I had to unlearn was rooted in my parents old school mentality. People will support you and you DO NOT and CANNOT do it all by yourself, it’s impossible. Everyone is good at something. You need to hire and collaborate with the people that are better at a specific niche than you are. You simply will never be good at EVERYTHING and that’s ok.

Contact Info:

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