When walking into Maverick Community you're not quite sure what to do first. Maverick Community is a fitness and wellness community committed to supporting entrepreneurs in their fields, helping all individuals live more free, healthy, and happy lives. We asked co-founder Michael Fishman to give us a tour and tell us what makes Maverick Community so unique.
Naomi Tsuji : Tell us a little bit about your story. How was Maverick Community founded and what inspired you?
Michael Fishman: Maverick Community was started by friends and successful entrepreneurs Michael Fishman, Christian Straka, and Steve LePore. We saw an opportunity in the space to empower fitness & wellness coaches, instructors, and trainers as we noticed that while this group provides most of the value to the end client, they are not paid commensurate to their value.
We modeled our business after studio salon concepts and it is our goal to create more successful fitness and wellness entrepreneurs. COVID has accelerated wellness professionals personal brands and the awareness that they can be more successful on their own versus going back to being an employee at a studio or gym.
In addition to being the first gym or wellness center to focus on fitness and wellness professionals, we’re also the first wellness brand to stand for increasing access, equity, and inclusivity by creating a 501(c)(3) non-profit that will run in parallel with our for-profit to build at least 20% of our wellness centers in underserved, lower-income communities.
We do not take our success and privilege for granted. Obesity rates have risen to 42% despite the $4.2T wellness economy boom, and poor and underserved communities are the most impacted.
Maverick Community and Maverick Forward are social enterprises that will combine the heart of a nonprofit with the scalability and innovation of a for profit.
Naomi Tsuji: Can you walk us through how Maverick Community works for both fitness professionals as well as the clientele who wish to attend class?
Michael Fishman: All fitness professionals desire more freedom, independence, and income, and Maverick Community allows for a risk-free way for fitness professionals to achieve these goals.
Maverick Community provides studio space, world-class equipment, team member help for check-ins and cleaning, and production equipment for filming and editing. We strive to provide everything a fitness professional needs so they can focus on doing what they do best, teach! The fitness professional gets to pick when they teach, who they teach, how much they charge, their music, etc… - they are running their business inside our infrastructure. They are teaching AT Maverick Community, not FOR Maverick Community and while they are running their own business, they are not alone.
In addition to the above, Maverick Community provides marketing services to fitness professionals to help them bring on more clients. These services include graphic design and digital marketing assistance.
We have an aggregate calendar on our website (www.bemav.co/book) that lists all of the fitness professionals classes and all proceeds for those bookings still go to the fitness professional.
We hope to build a recognized brand that is the go to place to see the best wellness + fitness professionals - from personal training to spin to yoga to HIIT to boxing to massage therapy to physical therapy, etc.
Naomi Tsuji: Tell us about your space and the energy it brings to the community. What is your goal or mission for Maverick Community?
Michael Fishman: Maverick Community’s 7,500 sq. ft. location in Playa Vista features a 1,500 sq. ft. space for personal training, a 1,200 sq. ft. spin studio with 30 spin bikes, a 1,500 sq. ft. studio for yoga, dance, HIIT, events, etc., and a wellness studio for massage therapy, mindfulness coaching, physical therapy, and acupuncture.
In addition to the studio space we will offer co-working space and fast internet to our instructor and coach entrepreneurs so that they can network with each other and form a strong community. We strive to be more than a gym with all of our fitness and wellness offerings and we believe this will be a big driver for both instructors and clients to come to Maverick Community.
Take a 50-second tour of our space by watching the link below:
We hope to have a huge impact on the Playa Vista community and every other community where we open locations. We will achieve this goal by creating a beautiful space for end-users to workout and obtain health and wellness, and for local fitness and wellness entrepreneurs who desire more freedom and need to make more money.
We also plan to partner with the surrounding Silicon Beach community and we’ve already scheduled for non-profits, like Free Arts, to be able to use our space for free. Additionally, we plan to have free meditation sessions in the early mornings and late evenings.
This is our first space but our goal is to build studios all across Los Angeles, and then across the country, and, eventually, around the world. Our business has a real network effect as the more locations we have, the more opportunities and success that our fitness and wellness entrepreneurs can gain.
Additional Information:
Visit www.bemav.co
Follow us @bemav.co
Book a class at www.bemav.co/book
