We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Fishman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Michael, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Maverick differs from the industry standard by giving the power to the independent physical therapist and trainer. We allow these independent professionals run their own businesses by providing them top quality space and equipment and offering services that help them grow (ex: securing them partnerships and helping them hire employees).
We’re pioneering a new industry in the PT space by providing space for independent cash-taking performance physical therapists. This business model successfully exists for businesses across many different industries: hair stylists (Sola Salon with 600+ locations), warehousing services (Saltbox), real estate brokerage (Radius, Compass), office space (Industrious), etc.
We believe in this model as the top professionals want to work for themselves and make more money without taking on the additional risks involved with starting their own business (~$200-500K risk to open their own physical therapy practice + the headache of hiring and managing employees).
Our Maverick model not only attracts top professionals but also retains them, which has traditionally been the toughest part of physical therapy clinics and gyms.
A traditional clinic hiring physical therapists as employees would never be able to afford the top talent that works out of a Maverick, which will always give our facilities a supreme advantage.
Additionally, we’re curating the community of top independent physical therapists that we invite to train at Maverick by meeting with each professional and getting to know them on a personal level to make sure they’re a good fit. The most powerful part of our business is the community of like-minded individuals that we’re uniting.
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 was born and raised in Los Angeles. I went to school in Madison-Wisconsin where I founded my first business, Pure Cycles, and met my wife.
I ran Pure Cycles, a bicycle manufacturer, retailer, and wholesaler, for 10 years before selling it at the beginning of the pandemic.
I knew I wanted to start another company the second I sold Pure Cycles. I stumbled across the idea for Maverick with my business partner, Christian Straka, after getting my haircut at Salon Republic (a business that rents space to hair stylists). I fell in love with the idea of helping passionate people become successful entrepreneurs and I decided to take this business model to a space that Christian and I were passionate about… fitness!
We’re most proud that we’ve created a business model that is in full alignment with our customers. Maverick grows when our customers renting space from us grow, and vice versa. We made a strategic decision to not take money from the end customer and instead focus on the highest level of professional coaches in the fitness and wellness space (the DPTs, ATCs, performance specialists, etc.).
Christian and I have put a lot of energy into getting to know our best customers so that we can be as helpful as possible. Our mindset is find all of the things that get our customers “stuck” and “unstuck” them. Recent examples of this include:
*Setting up the bookkeeping for a customer
*Helping a customer create events and raise money for a charity
*Helping a fully booked customer hire employees (assisted with marketing the positions, creating employee plans and contracts, etc.)
We’ve also made the decision to only focus on in-person training as opposed to all of the digital content that is prevalent in the fitness world today. Instead of thinking about what is going to change in the future, we’re focused on what’s not going to change in the next 10 years. We believe the answer to that is in-person training that is highly personalized.
As the world moves toward more tech and being more “connected” (via AI, VR, AR, etc.), there will be a strong urge to be less connected. Humans are social creatures and crave connection in person, and Maverick will be there to offer the most premium experience to people… in-person.
Maverick stands for quality in all aspects of our business from our equipment to our community (excellent humans and excellent professionals). We’re extremely bullish on the future of the service industry being powered by independents, as opposed to big brands. Professionals crave working for themselves and end clients crave working with someone who is going to give them the utmost care and respect.
An independent inside Maverick can offer better service than a big brand because they can make a great living and scale without diluting their service quality. On the flip side, a corporate brand that is hiring employees will have no choice but to dilute their training quality as they grow because they’ll never be able to pay their employees what a trainer or DPT at Maverick can make on their own.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Maverick went through a pivot last year after we realized that our first location wasn’t hitting the goals that we set out to achieve (both our revenue goals and our personal happiness goals).
After one year at our initial location, we decided to move out of the Playa Vista “test kitchen” space to focus exclusively on personal trainers and physical therapists, removing the group training and digital fitness elements.
This was not an easy decision as a lot went well at our first location:
*We built a trusted brand that is known for providing excellent service to the 150+ trainers, coaches, and group instructors that have used our space (77 Net Promoter Score → the Los Angeles fitness community loves Maverick).
*We hosted over 3,000 sessions and classes with only two full-time employees on payroll. We’ve found a way to make this business easy and cost-efficient to manage while providing excellent service.
*We created camera, lighting, and computer infrastructure for individual coaches to produce Peloton and Apple Fitness quality production.
But, we decided to pivot because we weren’t serving and helping the top-level professionals that we set out to help when we started Maverick. Here are three bullets that sum up what wasn’t going well:
*We couldn’t negotiate a long-term deal with the Playa Vista landlord, and our rent was increased by 30% in the short term, with the likelihood that it would be increased by 40-50% if we wanted to stay long-term.
*Our revenue capped out and stayed flat for the last 6 months at the location (“why” explained below).
*The group fitness instructors, while they loved Maverick, weren’t who we thought they were in terms of their earning potential, commitment to full-time work, and consistency. We’ve averaged ~1 canceled class per day and have found even the top group instructors to be less than ideal Maverick partners, most earning well under six figures.
In summary, we were doing a lot of the right things for mostly the wrong people, and we decided to put all our focus and financial resources into using these learnings to build a business around helping the most successful personal trainers and physical therapists (the people we want to partner with).
I think that this Warren Buffet quote perfectly describes the reason to make a pivot…
“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”
So, why the change to focusing on one-on-one professionals, like physical therapists and personal trainers?
*Successful personal trainers and physical therapists have made the entrepreneurial leap, so they’re already working for themselves.
*Successful personal trainers and physical therapists are working 30+ hours per week and are making six figures. They are committed and working full-time.
*Facilities for personal trainers have successfully existed for the past 20+ years. We know this model works, and we see opportunities to improve the existing model and build a worldwide brand that’s known for helping the most successful trainers while also doing good for the world.
*Christian, our Co-Founder, has 20+ years of one-on-one training experience and knows what the most successful trainers need.
*There are 340,000 personal trainers in the US. This number has increased by 21.5% since 2012 and is forecasted to grow by 19% by 2031.
Even with these exciting trends above, this was also a risky decision because there are a lot of other gyms in Los Angeles doing similar things – renting space to independents. We mitigated this risk by building a unique brand and offering. Here is what makes our model different from other space rental offerings:
*Democratizing gym ownership – Maverick is partly trainer-owned –> our customers (DPTs and trainers) earn equity in Maverick by renting space.
*System to grow that allows trainers to scale based on their knowledge + brand and go beyond trading time for money –> we help our customers hire employees and grow their businesses within Maverick with little risk.
*Securing partnership deals –> we have partnership deals with adidas, Momentous, FOUNT, Sollis Health, etc.
*Top-of-the-line equipment –> www.bemav.com/equipment (top equipment from Kesier, Proteus, NeuFit, Reaxing, OHM Run, Gym80, Woodway, etc.) – no other facility allows independents the access to this type of equipment.
*Curating the community of like-minded physical therapists and trainers we allow to train in our spaces –> we get to know each person who applies to use our space, and all candidates must be approved by a committee led by existing members of each location. Maverick is not for the ordinary therapist or trainer, and the biggest mistake we can make is letting the wrong people train clients at Maverick.
*Hosting free educational workshops to help our customers improve their skill sets and network with our community.
In short, we’re making successful trainers’ dreams come true by creating a business that they need if they want to grow.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Here is a brief story about my first Misogi last year which I think best illustrates my resilience.
“Do something so hard 1 time a year that has an impact on the other 364 days of the year.”
The concept of a Misogi (see loose definition above) was brought to me by my very good but crazy friend Jeff Cayley via the book The Comfort Crisis. We had an overnight hike scheduled on the calendar months in advance, and a couple of days before we were set to launch, I got a text from Jeff asking me to choose between two options.
(1) “a fun little challenge that involved taking time to enjoy the scenery and setting up a cool camp where we could relax,”
OR
(2) “a more ridiculous physical and mental challenge and a canyoneering route where we’ll be wet, cold, miserable, and likely have to turn back and make several very risky climbs?”
My immediate response was I’m in for option 2, but the “risky climbs” make me a bit nervous, considering I have a wife and two kids. I’ve known Jeff for ~10+ years, so I know how calculated he is with his planning and research, and after giving me some critical safety ground rules, I felt comfortable confirming option 2.
Rule 1: map and track accurately so we don’t botch the time frame, and
Rule 2: do not climb anything whatsoever if we aren’t totally confident that we can go back down later if needed.
Jeff also assured me that he would be carrying his Garmin inReach to make safety calls if needed, and worst-case scenario, “we just won’t really sleep.”
I’m not a hard sell when it comes to adventures —> “Deal. I’m in”
I had no idea what I was getting into, especially since I didn’t even know what canyoneering was, but I was excited about the challenge he brought to the table.
A day before launch, I got another text from Jeff with the detailed itinerary. Two things stuck out to me right away:
(1) The map showed us going straight up a river tracking up the San Gabriel mountains with no known trails in sight. I didn’t understand how we would climb up a river, but I trusted Jeff (it turns out, Cayoneeering means climbing straight up a canyon, typically through a river). And,
(2) it said our “conservative moving time” was 21 hours for a 23-mile hike with 6K ft of climbing. I thought, there is no possible way we will move this slowly…. “we’re both in shape, so we’ll smoke this time.”
Then, reality kicked in —> the adventure started the following day at 9 am and seemed like it would never end as we didn’t arrive back to the car until 7 am the next morning. Stats below:
*24 total miles of climbing/walking/crawling/swimming/rolling/scooting/bear crawling
*22 hours of straight movement (7 hours totally in the dark with just a headlamp)
*6K ft climbed
*0 hours of sleep
*Wet socks for the majority of the 24 miles
*View Garmin stats –> https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/8742561836
*View photos and funny/embarrassing videos –> https://photos.app.goo.gl/jiPT5Qbi2mmfd4SAA
This journey was the most physically and mentally demanding activity I’ve ever done but was also one of the most rewarding and fun days of my life. Here are some of my key takeaways:
*Have friends that push you out of your comfort zone.
*Really pushing yourself means accepting a challenge/taking on something new where you have a 50% chance of failing. This type of challenge builds mental toughness, and there is a natural spillover effect to everyday life as you develop the idea that doing something hard/different is good for me.
*Challenging your body, whether by moving for 22 straight hours or taking a 1-hour intense workout class, is so important so you can appreciate and be aware of how strong the human body is.
*Being in nature is so important. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t check my phone for a full 24 hours, and it was incredible.
*You can never eliminate risk but you can/should put in place strategies and “rules” to reduce it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bemav.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bemav.co/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fishman-michael/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thereelfish