Today, I bring you the WHY(s) behind the recent sale of MFF.
It’s a long one.
Pour yourself a big cup of coffee. Or two fingers of whiskey. Or both. 😉
At a high level, the core reason is,
“It was time.”
More specifically, there are three factors that made this the right time.
NOTE: I’m speaking for Keeler when I’m confident I speak for both of us. But he will share his thoughts when we record a podcast in the near future.
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1) Keeler and I wanted MFF to have a hands-on, in-person owner.
The seeds of this transition were planted in the early days of the pandemic.
We made two fateful decisions about our roles as 2020 came to an end:
1) Keeler and I decided we would remain 50/50 owners, but Keeler would focus on BFU and I would take over day-to-day leadership of MFF.
2) We both moved out of the city. Although I eventually moved back, it became clear I was committed to a location independent worklife. Which meant running MFF mostly remotely.
This worked well enough. Until it didn’t.
And after almost 5 years of remote ownership, we wanted MFF to have an in-person owner with a full time focus on gym ownership.
You may be asking:
“Why didn’t you just retain ownership and keep running MFF with the help of the leadership team?”
And there are a few reasons.
For one, running an independent brick and mortar gym as complex as MFF is hard. And it’s even harder when you’re never in the building.
Mark Fisher Fitness has always been a beautiful and messy love letter to NYC. Keeler and I built a — wonderful — monster.
With respect to all the other great gyms out there,
And acknowledging MFF’s own bright future as it morphs into its new era,
There has never been, and will probably never be again, a run like Mark Fisher Fitness has had.
At our peak we did over $4 million in a single year in less than 5k square feet.
Between the absolute bat-shit and not-for-public-discussion shenanigans of our early years,
The parade of Avengers-level team members who have come and gone,
And grossing nearly $34 million during our tenure as owners, mostly out of a single location…
“We shall never see the likes of her again.”
Having said all that…
You don’t put up those numbers in that small of a space without LOTS of services. And LOTS of staff. And servicing LOTS of humans. And LOTS of sky high expectations.
To be sure, some of the complexity was, to use the technical business jargon, “stupid.”
Because we were new to running a gym, we did some things that now seem silly in retrospect. And we didn’t have an easy path to unravel certain dumb decisions.
Other times, we KNEW what we were doing was not practical. But we didn’t give a shit and did it anyway. Because it reflected our values and the art we wanted to make with our business.
Net net, this worked out for us, for our team, and for the Ninjas in many, many ways. But it created serious brain drain: lots of services, a big team with lots of roles, a complicated marketing machine, confusing back end systems, tons of SOPs, etc. etc. And all of this is to say nothing of the passion and emotions, both positive and challenging, that a place like MFF inspires.
Even with an AMAZING leadership team (and lord knows, we have one), there remains plenty of support required at the owner level.
This was less about the time commitment, which was actually manageable. Particularly in 2024, when I had no more operational role in the business. The challenge, for me, was more the cognitive and emotional bandwidth.
Ultimately, I came to understand this:
So long as I was the owner, MFF would take up a disproportionate amount of psychic space.
This led me to conclude I needed a deeper cut than merely exiting the org chart while remaining owner.
2) We wanted to focus on other professional interests.
I hope it’s clear… Keeler and I are kinda on fire about this whole BFU thing.
We LOVE this kind of work. We LOVE working with gym and fitness studio owners. And we believe we can be an industry leader in operationalizing word-class gyms.
And with our trademark bravado, we eventually see ourselves expanding beyond gyms into the larger arena of brick and mortar small business consulting.
But we came to realize this would be hard to pull off with my attention so split.
Further, my interests have changed.
I still love fitness. I still love talking shop about training and nutrition. Hell, I’m going to some fitness conferences this year as an attendee, just to stay up to date. I will always be a student of the iron game. And of course, I still want MFF to achieve its mission and serve our community.
But I want to spend my days laser-focused on my obsession, the business of fitness.
Now I can fully focus on:
- Writing emails
- Filming videos
- Speaking at events
- Guesting on podcasts
- Running online trainings
- Building frameworks and models
These are all things that get me out of bed in the morning at 5am.
Or 4am, when I’m literally so excited about the day ahead, that I can’t sleep. Which actually happens to me many days.
In short, I wanted to embrace my core identity:
A learner obsessed with teaching. A teacher obsessed with learning.
I still love MFF. I care deeply about all the humans in its orbit. But I’m now more interested in solving the problems of gym ownership at scale.
I don’t want to solve problems for one gym, no matter how magical it may be.
I want to solve problems for hundreds of gyms.
Also of note… I still own a gym.
With my Alloy Personal Training Franchise in NJ, I still have a hand in gym ownership. But it’s not based on my personal brand. And it’s a much simpler model to run. And I started my relationship with that business and team with a very different set of expectations. This means it fits into my current vision.
3) My family situation has changed.
I’ve spoken pretty openly about the passing of my parents and the sale of my childhood home. This has impacted me in a lot of ways.
The biggest was clarity.
I needed to be honest about what I want (now), and what I don’t want (anymore).
I needed to give myself permission to update my dreams.
It’s also no secret your priorities change when you have a toddler.
I’m still willing to put in long hours. And I still feel happiest at a furious speed of output that terrifies and annoys my co-workers.
But while my Terminator tendencies are intact, I craved more mental space.
Less “manager” time, and more “maker” time.
More freedom to play and dream and wonder and wander.
Both to be creative and expressed in my professional pursuits,
And to be present and engaged in my personal relationships.
Notably, while my daughter is at the core here, my wife and my friends were also factors.
In this season of life, CeCe is a beautiful eclipse of the sun. She’s magnificent. And she can, if I am not careful, block out everything else. So my time with my wife is even more precious.
And with all love for our baby, Shina is my person. It’s her and me for the road. There were too many workdays that crept into early evening. There were too many to dos bouncing around my noggin for me to be present. There were too many stressors making my short fuse even shorter.
Could we have made it work? I’m sure. But when added into the mix above, the best path forward was clear.
Finally, a brief word, if I may, on friends.
One of the biggest issues in our society is loneliness.
This is a cause of all sorts of social ills, from political polarization to a general crisis of meaning.
I blame cellphones and personal tech for a lot of this. To paraphrase Jonathan Haidt, we all seem to have less time, less presence, and less focus. We have less of everything.
And I’m fucking rebelling.
I’m throwing a total. fucking. temper tantrum.
Too few adults have a rich and nourishing social community. And as someone who is not close to my family, this is vital to me.
I don’t want my family unit to float through life in a vacuum.
And nurturing relationships takes time.
Time I have now re-claimed
So this too was in my heart as I felt a stirring for “less.”
BONUS 4) We had the right people in place to make all these moves.
While not a reason, per se, we also had the necessary conditions to allow for a sale.
By which I mean we had the right people.
First off, the MFF leadership team is amazing.
Our GM “Sheriff” Alex, our Director of Possibilities Emily, and our Fitness Director Chris are all bad-asses, each gifted in their own way.
I knew they deserved more support than I could give. Parts of this last year sucked.
But this takes nothing away from their capability and competence. Or their infinite hearts. They not only nail the SOPs, but they are true stewards of MFF.
Our foursome has been defined by relentless candor. More than any other work community I’ve been a part of. We have said what we REALLY thought and named what we REALLY felt. It’s been an honor. And a model for how much easier it is when people say the quiet part out loud, even when it’s hard or scary.
Second, in Steve, “Coach Fury” Holiner, we had the ideal buyer.
Coach Fury had been a popular MFF coach from 2014 to the beginning of 2018. Fury is a legit fitness expert, having taught for the RKC, Strong First, Original Strength, and Josh Henkin’s DVRT sandbag system.
He’s also been a Unicorn Society member for years, running an awesome gym in Brooklyn, Speakeasy of Strength. And, as he would concede, his Brooklyn spot has more than a little of MFF’s DNA.
Keeler and I have had the honor of watching him grow Speakeasy and develop as a leader and a gym owner. When he started musing on a second location, it just so happened Keeler and I were considering what an off-ramp would look like for us.
The only logical reason for our good luck:
Our dark and lustful unicorn overlords once again intervened on our behalf! It is karma for our service to them in this realm! This is a SCIENCE fact!
(And because I know you’ll ask: Fury will likely rebrand MFF as Speakeasy of Strength at some point, as it’s weird for all parties to have a gym named after someone who no longer works there.)
It’s obviously been very difficult in moments over the last several months. Sometimes we felt like we were swimming in fudge. But overall, the humans involved are why it’s been so relatively smooth.
Yes, when you sell a business, you need SOPs. And we sure got us some real good SOPs. We also have a list of nearly 4000 former clients and hundreds of current clients. And we have a strong brand reputation, a built-out space with a favorable lease, and dare I say it, two savvy-ass former owners staying on as consultants
But this kind of transition is hard to pull off without people like Alex, Emily, and Chris managing the inevitable challenges.
Nor does it happen if we didn’t have someone like Fury, who we trust in our bones. In many ways, I think Fury will be a better leader to MFF. Partly because he can stand on our shoulders. But partly because he has a better constitution for the job than I ever did.
So this opportunity doesn’t exist without all these pieces.
Anyhoo…
That was a LOT.
(MF’s Vulnerability Hangover Mode… ENGAGED!)
Congrats. You read it all!
At least my part. I’m sure Keeler has his own perspective. Some of which probably differs from mine. Perhaps he’ll share with you if you ask nicely enough.
On behalf of Keeler and me both,
Thanks for your interest.
And for all the kind words and well wishes on the sale.
It really means more than we can say.
Upward and onward.
Love love LOVE,
PS If you want to get the podcast where we share even more detail and answer reader/listener questions…
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