A Quick Update

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Josh

First up: we genuinely appreciate the feedback to date. That said, we also get it. Now give us a chance to improve based on what you’ve told us.

Tonight, we’re making a few immediate changes:

1. The classes on the hour (the :00 classes) will be back on the 3rd Floor of 26th St. We’ll be starting those five minutes or so behind, in case anyone misses the memo and needs to walk over.

2. We’ve also substantially rearranged 28th St, so that it’s being used as intended. In part, that means you’ll now be checking in / waiting on the other side of the floor; we’ll have clear instructions posted in front of the elevator.

In the next 48 hours, we’ll then be posting a longer update on our plan to increase peak capacity by 50% in the next two weeks. With more classes, more coaches, more equipment, and better utilization of all of our spaces, we should be able to cap classes at 16 or 18 without overbooking, and have more than enough equipment and space for everyone.

In that post, we’ll also walk through the construction schedule, as building kicks off in earnest on Monday.

We understand the last few days have been particularly frustrating, and we thank you for bearing with us. We’ve had these kinds of growing pains at least once a year since our early days as a workout club in Central Park, and each time we’ve found a way to push through them to become a better box. We’re sure we can make that happen here, too.

Josh, Court & Hari.

  • Keka Schermerhorn

    | Thank you for being so responsive.

  • Adam H

    awesome, thanks

  • tlevy

    Great & looking forward. Thank you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10907883 Mike Visaggio

    Thank you for the update and for hearing us out

  • Sean M

    Thanks

  • Concerned Member

    A late response to Josh from yesterday:

    Thanks for you response Josh.

    Based on all your responses over the past day and throughout the numerous bumps of the past year’s rapid membership growth, I’ve concluded a few things:

    1) You’re excellent at making people feel like their concerns will be addressed. Your written and verbal damage control skills are top notch, especially when you’re smoothing things over after Hari goes on his inappropriate rampages at members.

    2) You’re so convincing that you actually believe the disingenuous crap you’re saying.

    After all these comments, it’s shocking that you *still* think the number of members is not a problem. Do you actually think these problems can be solved by adding more equipment or setting up the space more efficiently while not slowing down the membership growth?

    The icing on your full-of-shit cake:

    “we actually make less money on an Elements attendee than on a regular member.”

    An Elements member pays $300 x 6 people = $1800 for 6 total hours of coaching (3 sessions/week x 2 weeks). This means each participant is paying $50/class — meaning every hour, an Elements coach is bringing in $300 and using much less space and equipment. Let’s compare this to group classes. A member who comes 5x/week each month attends about 20 classes for $10/class. That means for a class of 20 people, every coach is bringing in about $200/hour using far more equipment and space. Yes, you give a few extra free classes for Elements grads, but this doesn’t come close to “making less money on Elements” especially since the free classes are not all utilized. Are you sure you don’t want a take-back on that one?

    “That’s the real reason we’re growing: we want to share CrossFit with more people.”

    I think the most useful thing for the owners to admit at this point is: you need to continue growing the membership at this rapid rate in order to pay for the costs of the enormous space expansion. This is why you’re repeatedly unwilling to slow down membership growth temporarily to ensure a smoother space transition and to think through a more deliberate growth strategy. Please stop making other excuses for why you think it’s totally acceptable to run sardine WODs. It’s not our business to know the financial position of the box. However, when your business decisions and poor management skills make the environment we’re paying for intolerable and unsafe, I think we’re owed more honest explanations.

    Sure, people stay because of the small handful coaches that actually know what they’re talking about (I don’t mean the ones that recently got a Level 1, which magically made them biomechanics and olympic lifting experts because they played with some PVC for 2 days). But, really, most people stick around because of the location. I imagine that’ll be changing when Reebok Crossfit 5th Ave. opens a few blocks away this month.

    I don’t think anyone thinks the owners are bad people who are trying to get rich from Crossfit. I do think you have made some poor business decisions that we are paying for.

    ——–
    From Josh:

    Sure.

    First, as I said before, I don’t believe the issue here is number of members; we have more equipment, space, and coach hours per member than we have at any point over the past two years. Therefore, we think we can quickly remedy things by getting the logistics right; that’s how we’ve solved similar growth-related issues when they’ve cropped up, about once a year for the past few years. If that weren’t the case, I’d agree throttling would make sense.

    Second, I appreciate your belief that Elements is a ‘cash cow’. However, because we cap Elements at six people, and then include free membership time after, we actually make less money on an Elements attendee than on a regular member. Maximizing Elements revenue at the cost of retaining members doesn’t pay off even if dollars are our only motivation.

    Third, each time we run into problems with growth, we get this same request: no new members. Parallel, I suppose, to what countries see in immigration – it’s usually the latest wave of arrivals that work most fervently to shut the door behind them, keeping out the next.

    If you’ve joined in the last two years, it’s due to our having found a way to make room for more members, despite calls to the contrary. I assume that you and the other people posting today are doing it because you care about CrossFit, otherwise you wouldn’t be taking the time. We care, too. That’s the real reason we’re growing: we want to share CrossFit with more people.

    As Hari points out, we could actually make much more money by upping rates to $299 a month; instead, we’ve kept our rates the lowest in NYC. We hope that means that more people will get to CrossFit, as you have. We know we need to make sure that the experience of our current members isn’t jeopardized as we try to include new ones, which is what we’ve been trying to accomplish, if not always getting it right.

    However, I don’t believe that Elements is the problem, nor do I think throttling it way back is the solution.

    • Sean M.

      Thanks anonymous concerned member. We can always count on you to be constructive. I’m sure you feel better now that you got that off your chest.

      Your math skills are top notch. Your organizational writing style is pleasing to the eye. Your points are new and refreshing.

      P.S. I love full-of-shit cake!

      • JP

        I second the love of full-of-shit cake, especially when washed down with a big glass of full-of-shit milk!

        Josh, are you in need of a sous shit chef?

    • Kameron

      Put your name on your post or stop crying. Or better yet, leave. Tired of the whining. You didn’t address one issue that wasn’t hashed out, repeatedly, yesterday.
      Kisses,
      Kam

      • Dave B

        Well said. No need to take nameless complaints seriously.

      • Andy Graves

        Well said Carmen

    • http://www.joshuanewman.com Joshua Newman

      Wow! I’m a little bit shocked by the vehemence of this personal attack. While I don’t think I really need to respond to what you’re saying about me as an individual, I do think it’s important that I stand by the two points about the gym:

      1. First, Elements really doesn’t make us more money than regular membership. While I’m happy to walk through the financials in detail, your napkin math misses two big things: first, many of our Elements classes don’t sell out, yet we pay our coaches the same regardless; and, second, we don’t give Elements grads ‘a few free extra classes’, we give them 18 days of general (ie, unlimited) membership, during which time those new graduates actually attend more frequently than our overall member-base. I promise you, I’m intimately familiar with our numbers. And though it appears you believe I’m lying through my teeth in saying as much, I’ll nonetheless say it again: we really don’t make more on Elements than we do on regular WODS. That’s why, contrary to your belief, we have no problem reducing the number of Elements classes we offer while we work through growing pains; in fact, we already did so this morning.

      2. Second, and even more importantly, we really don’t need to grow membership to cover our space costs. Instead, we could become far more profitable just by raising our rates 35% across the board, to match what Reebok CrossFit 5th Ave is going to charge when they open. We’re $200 month-to-month; they’re $275. We sell six months for $1000; they’re $1350. Choosing to keep our prices low enough that our community remains inclusive is a proactive choice, and one that, I’m also fairly certain, hinders rather than helps the bottom line.

      As I said yesterday, we now have more space, more equipment, and more coaches per member than we’ve had at any prior point in our history. But because we’re now offering many levels of classes, in multiple locations, it’s also far harder to allocate our resources in an efficient way. Things got ugly this week because an attempt at improving allocation that worked well on paper turned out to be a big step backwards in real life. We think we can pretty quickly get a better handle on that allocation, as, in the past, we’ve quickly recovered from our similar, perhaps inevitable missteps as we’ve grown.

      So, in short, stick around a few weeks and see how things change. Or, better yet, don’t.

      Josh
      Executive Shit Chef

      • http://www.facebook.com/leienming Andrew Louie

        Josh, You don’t have to justify your business to anyone. Your business is your business, you provide the service, and we-customers can make the decision whether it is worth it or not.

        If “Concerned Member” is so smart why doesn’t he start his own Gym instead of complaining about it on here.

      • Ryan

        class.

      • Dee C

        Josh..

        Please don’t increase the price of our membership or limit the number of classes that we can attend a week. (I predict more backlash if it did happen) At $200 a month for unlimited classes it is the cheapest Crossfit within the 5 boroughs.

        Just food for thought for the future. I know you got to juggle operating cost, space, and all the other shit.

        • http://www.joshuanewman.com Joshua Newman

          Don’t worry; we won’t be raising prices, or capping members’ allowed attendance, at any point in the foreseeable future.

          • Emily L

            This was a concern of mine. I really appreciate the membership cost and the unlimited classes.

            On a side note: CrossFit has changed my life and I couldn’t imagine going to another box. The coaches and members at BlackBox have become friends and I love the community.

            Thank you!

    • Andy Graves

      I’m on the fence about the cake because it comes with the icing. Is that one of those white glazed guys or is it more a chocolate flavored one. I’m all in for the chocolate version, so I’m voting for that.
      As far as all the other crap there, well, it’s crap.

  • Dave B

    Thanks for the quick response, and appreaciate the challenges you are dealing with. Look forward to the future updates.

  • Zephan

    Growing pains, all good companies have them. I look forward to the improvements over the coming weeks.

  • Rick G

    Just a few things, or dough balls, or whatever

    1-thank you all for contributing to some very entertaining
    threads over the last few days. It’s
    been a while since the comments have devolved into a true category-five shit-show
    and i’ve missed it a little.

    2-elements is a big, fat, unnatural, steroid-injected
    cash-beast. Anyone who can add can prove
    that in a few minutes. I cant, so I’m
    going to stay out of it.

    3-as i’ve said before, I think it would be nice if we could
    follow a higher standard of internet-based shit talking and not hide behind
    aliases. If you have conviction, sign your comments,
    doing otherwise is cowardly and weak.

    • Not Sean M

      Fuck you Rick

      • Rick G

        i dont get it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kayam-Rajaram/312920 Kayam Rajaram

    Dear Josh, Hari and Court

    Wow. I’ve been away from the gym for a couple of weeks thanks to a back injury and things have clearly gone to heck and a hand basket. Clearly you guys can’t do without me.

    Having never run a gym before, and having no idea what the actual math behind your business is I feel compelled to offer you my unsolicited advice.

    i) Please don’t hire trainers like Avery. Seriously what’s up with the niceness, encouragement and technical proficiency. I want surly treatment and indifference. Dammit, this is New York City. I demand to be ignored.

    ii) Can you tell Kevin to dial back the quality instruction? If I want to do snatches like this idiot…erm…elite athlete (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ3HOY27_10) then that’s my damn prerogative.

    iii) Sully needs to shave.

    iv) Coach Sara needs to work harder.

    v) Why the heck did you open up 28th street? The whole point of Crossfit is to show up at the gym, show off my awesome six pack that I got from my ab routine. How are the hot girls at the other end of the gym supposed to admire my awesomeness when you open up a big space like that?

    vi) We need mirrors. How do I know if I’m dong my bicep curls properly? Sure, I feel the burn and all, but come on…I wanna check out my guns.

    vii) Speaking of bicep curls, can we have more squat racks for me to do my curls in?

    viii) Two words – pink dumbbells.

    ix) Can you please ask Allison to stop posting all those links on the blog? This is America. I have the right to remain ignorant if I want to. Educamacashun my ass.

    You’re welcome. You can thank me in person when I deign to come in or buy me a drink. I don’t care either way. Actually, that’s a lie, I’ll take that drink.

    Signed,

    Someone whose name may or may not be Kayam Rajaram

    • Andy Graves

      Hilarious, thanks, laughed out loud. Definitely trying that paper towel thing, looks a lot more sanitary too.

    • Zephan

      Much needed. Thank you Kayam

    • Emily L

      HAHA, perfect.

  • d_simon

    Whether it was the hail, the heat, or the recent controversy, tonight, 28th Street ran like a perpetual motion machine fueled by cold fusion. Please keep that shit up.

  • Matt D

    If you’re not willing to post you’re name your comment doesn’t carry much weight.

    Can’t the moderator see what the email address used was and address and/or ban that person privately? This is a public blog and it looks ridiculous when all of the gym’s laundry is aired out here.

    • mike n.

      People’s post should start being removed if they too cowardly to attach a real name. And while I’m flattered someone yesterday took the time to pretend to be me, if only they could do the job full time, impersonating people on a gym message board is really pathetic. Letting people post with no names lets people write crap like they did to Josh. That’s not constructive and the rant was inaccurate anyway. Hari hasn’t gone on a rampage in quite some time.

  • Andy Graves

    Everything is fine by me. Sometimes it’s crowded. Sometimes there’s not enough plates (which personally is what I like because I have an excuse to pile on 10# plates which looks a lot more beastly) and things are changed up every week.

    However, every coach is constantly talking about this stuff and accommodating us members-in my experience. The owners are having growing pains and are obviously running across new situations every week that they simply don’t have any experience with (not a bad thing, you are trying to create a massive cross fit gym and are trail blazers-in my opinion). So you get my patience and understanding. Let me know if I can lend a hand. Only too happy to try and create a great community with you.

  • Unconcerned Member

    Wait…what?

  • Jim S

    Josh, Court, Hari and all the trainers at the black box…

    Wow. Musta been a rough week in the hot hot city. Fortunately for me I’m in Portland, OR where the weather is nice, the boxes aren’t crowded, and all the hipsters are happy drinking the plentiful beer. But, I miss the black box.

    I’m not even technically a member. I travel too much to make the numbers work, but I drop in about 50 or 60 times a year and consider the black box my home gym. And I just want to say that March 12, 2011 when I started element classes with Sara was the start of something amazing, even if she did make me feel like a particularly weak moron. :)

    I had been doing “crossfit” for a year or so in my home gym but the decision to take elements at the box was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made (and it made me realize that I didn’t know shit. And whatever I thought I was doing up to that point sure wasn’t crossfit). It is no exaggeration to say that it started me on a path that has been absolutely life changing.

    In March of 2011 I was like most people my age, working too much, eating poorly, gaining a nice metabolic syndrome girdle around my middle, and basically feeling like shit that I just couldn’t stop adding weight every year. Oh, plus I had constant neck and back pain, a recent torn meniscus and various other middle age aches.

    Sara, Dev, Kevin and more recently with changing schedules and growth Michael and Avery (with a sprinkling of Sully, Will, and Ryan) have given me amazing coaching over the last year. I’ve gained strength, technique, movement, mobility, and in general, fitness – to a level I’ve never had. I’m eating better (paleo since December), have fantastic insulin response, have dropped my body fat from 21 to 13%, and basically have never felt better. Hell, I did Barbara Rx’d in 29:fucking:39 today and am absolutely basking in the achievement.

    If it’s not too weird to say it, I look better naked now than I did at 20 (that’s a bit sad right?) and occasionally the opposite sex seems drawn to me, which is super cool. Hell, sometimes same sex too. Not my thing, but what the hell, I’ll take the attention. And all of this makes me, well, pretty fucking happy.

    So, in all seriousness, keep doing what you are doing. There have definitely been growth pangs at the box (hell, I do sometimes miss those classes where five people would show up at 26th street for the 12pm on Sunday). But this shit changes lives and I really appreciate what you and your fantastic, interested and passionate coaches have done for me. Thanks,

    Jim S

    p.s. Oh, paint a yellow stripe on the raised floor by the elevators. If I trip on that shit one more time I’m going to break something. :)

  • http://propriavirtuteaudax.wordpress.com/ The_Lisa

    IMHO, I get to CFNYC 3-4 days per week if I am lucky, I work out as hard as I personally can. I am happy. Sometimes at 28th St, sometimes at 26th St. Sometimes it is crowded, sometimes there are 3 of us (I shudder when there are only 3 because I get yelled at more). Every time I go to CFNYC is wayyy more better than not going there at all, and having to do pushups in the office bathroom. I wear my “500″ t-shirt with pride. Disappointment comes when expectations are not met. CFNYC has never failed to provide what they have stated they will deliver, even if it is a class of 18 doing a 50-rep chipper with 12 stations.

  • Dickie

    “This used to be my playground…”

  • Thor

    I have to say, as CFNYC meltdowns go, this one is pretty tame… Of course nothing beats the OG 2007 ANYC melt down. And to think we had an even shittier space then!!!

    • http://www.joshuanewman.com Joshua Newman

      Actually, credit for best comment yesterday goes to Brett Tom, who emailed to point out that this blowup also pales in comparison to when we grew from 25 to 35 total members.

      Feels a bit like we’re watching reruns here.

      • Thor

        Yeah doing walking lunges out into the stairwell was the worst… I still hate you for making us do that!!! Never forget!!

      • Brett_nyc

        Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

        • kev p

          You deserve a pig roast!

      • Joe R

        I wanted to write something about how 38th street ruled, but didn’t want to fan the flames.

    • Hari Singh

      Actually, we’re all but certain that “Concerned Member” is in fact not a member, at least not a member of CFNYC. (Let’s just say that Josh’s computer skills are even better than his diplomacy skills.)

      Of course it should have been obvious that someone with that level of “concerns” would be suffering from some pretty bad cognitive dissonance if he actually were a member.

    • Jessica

      Was that when ANYC said I was going to cripple myself doing deadlifts?
      Jessica A.
      (still uncrippled, knock on wood)

      • Avery W

        I’ve become senile. I honestly can’t even remember what that was even about!

        • Jessica A.

          I can’t remember either. Pretty sure that we’re none the worse for it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=736885600 Michael Song

    I didn’t even realize that this raging war was going on in the “Intermediate/Advanced” blog this whole week, since I’m still loitering on the Beginner’s side. We aren’t working at a “#-tag level” of convo yet.

    I’ve started at and have been going to my Beginner’s classes at the 28th street location since February. Things have had their ups and down with the logistics, but I never felt the need to raise my hand since everything was clearly still a work in progress and seemed to be improving every day (furthermore, I was also just having a great time working out and learning a ton of new stuff).

    That being said, after going back and reading the comments over the last week and seeing the fruits of the initial response last night at 28th – I think the owners have to be commended. The set-up last night was probably the best I have seen so far. Based on their own comments, there is much more work to be done, but I don’t think ANYONE can accuse them of not caring about improving everyone’s experience. I also think its worth thanking the members who threw out some of their (constructive) comments, in order to help guide towards a better solution.

    …now, back to the grind…

  • Jenny K

    Thanks for listening to our feedback. Appreciate all the effort you guys are making as the box goes through growing pains.

    If you’re going to whine about full-of-shit cake,, grow a pair and stop posting anonymously

  • Mark Lohmann

    Hi Guys,
    Having trained 2 years in Crossfit Copenhagen that has a member base of more than 2000 but also more boxes to accomondate the users im seeing some of the problems from back then appearing here.
    1: When I do CrossFit I want to be able to show up and then have a full hour workout where everything from warm-up to the WOD it self is covered. Without mentioning any names – not all coaches are as good at this as it could be. I do not think it is because they do not want to do various creative warm ups – but there is simply no room to it in. The only mean against this is either creating warm ups for the user that does not require 20 sets of rings, 50 yard free space to do jumps etc.. Right now many coaches does not have that. They have a piece of paper saying Russian warm up – and shortly explains and then says – go ahead – that DOES NOT WORK. The Coach needs to guide the user through the warm up to ensure propper warm up and max effeciency of the space used.
    2: The amount of people 28th str. is able to take is quite big – that does not mean that every % of needs to be used!! Of course the owners have interest in as many user as possible – but remember that you actually make the experience worse for the users that are already there by adding to much. My biggest wish would be that instead of having 5 classes going on at the same time you cut it down to 4 and then make the experience that much better.
    3: No reason to comment on the noice – as it seems you guys are aware of that. But it becomes an issue when you can not hear what the coach is saying – hence again – cut down the number of people at the box.
    4: There are a lot of good coaches with various focus points. Thumbs up for them – however, I do see a tendency for coaches not to correct OBVIOUS wrong doings in basic skills during work outs – which logically is mainly with newcomers. It is Fxxxxx important for many reasons to make sure people do the work out properly – and that is the responisbility of the coach. – Again I think it is simply do to the fact that the coaches are having a hard time to keep the overview of 15-120 crossfitters doing the workout with 4 other classes going on at the same time, screaming and shouting in between the classes and some music playing.
    Nonetheless the result is that I can at each beginner class i’ve seen see at least 2 that are either doing the Squats completely wrong or killing themselves with to much weight on a lift. Having back problems myself – coming from me being stupid in Crossfit it pains me to see that the mistakes are not being corrected and I feel like an asshole and “smart ass” when I try and point it out to these people who are not even in my class. And I am by no means a “expert” but when someone is doing OVERHEAD SQUAT with arms extended differently, knees going inwards when squatting, on their toes and hunched over with the back not being straght I can not keep quiet. It should however be the coaches seeing this…..
    That being said – I like it still – and no doubts these things are easy to fix and many just require a small change of fokcus from either owners, coaches or even the users.
    BRGDS/Mark

  • http://www.ryanshell.com/blog Ryan Shell

    Owner peeps, thanks for listening.