S02E36 The Origin of CrossFit Bison Part 1
How did two guys sitting on an energy futures trading desk decide to open up an CrossFit gym in North Jersey which has grown into one of the largest affiliates participating in the CrossFit Open in the world (#1 in the US and #4 in 2020)? CrossFit Bison now celebrates its 8th anniversary with a look back at how it came to be.
We talk to a special guest, David's business partner and fellow coach @christafaro, about how CrossFit Bison grew from a dream into reality, including all the ups and downs along the way and the perseverance that it took to finally will CrossFit Bison into existence. Whether you want to learn more about CrossFit Bison, how to start an affiliate, or how to make your own affiliate better, we dig into the details.
(and remember, sign up for the CrossFit Open! 22.1 starts this Thursday February 24!)
You can find more information at our website, HerdFitUSA.com. Like and subscribe wherever you watch or listen to our podcast!
@crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #fitness #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates
TRANSCRIPT S02E36 ORIGIN CROSSFIT BISON
[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the HerdFit podcast. I am coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with Dr. Sam Rhee we have another big time, big deal guests here. It's actually my business partner of pretty much a decade now, but we'll talk about that a little bit. This is Chris. Tafaro welcome.
[00:00:14] Chris Tafaro: Hey guys, how are you doing?
Thanks for having
[00:00:16] David Syvertsen: me. I'm normally the biggest guy on the podcast, but I am now feel like Brock right there sitting next to Chris. Sam's
[00:00:24] Chris Tafaro: he's just out of the
[00:00:26] David Syvertsen: C half of saying, but anyway, this we're going to start a series. We don't even know how many episodes is going to be. We're just going to let this flow and we'll see how it goes.
But this is really gonna be a fun time for us. We're going to talk about the backstory of cross bison and the long history. I actually started talking to Chris about this in the fall. And here we are the week after our eighth year anniversary. So we're actually in. You're number nine of actual operation and just feel like it's good timing.
We're just days away from the cross open, which is a huge deal here at bison. There's a lot of fun talk that we can get into. We'll probably have some fun, funny stories to share for you. We do have a lot of people that listen to the podcasts that were not around when we opened up.
And I think it's really cool to, for them to be able to hear where this place came from, because I think a lot of them don't truly understand. How bottom of the barrel, this place started off as with Chris and I just like how, what we were doing when we started. But we also know that there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast outside of bison, and we want to make sure we keep this interesting for them in that it's not only going to be a biography of cross it bison.
There's been a lot of changes both in the world, but within the CrossFit space as well. That directly relate to how we operate here and for anyone out there that wants to just get a different perspective and prove their gym, maybe even someday open up their own. I think there's a lot of things you can learn from us.
And that is that we probably have more mistakes than success stories that you could learn from this. Isn't just a, Hey, do. But Sam, any more on that?
[00:01:55] Sam Rhee: Yeah. I wanted to thank all our listeners and subscribers and viewers. It means a lot when we get comments and feedback. I want to shout out to everyone who let us know that we were part of their commute or part of their day, including our fellow CrossFit, bison members who listened to us faithfully, Joanie was mentioning it the other day, our friend, Keith at Andrews who works for tops and also people like Davin, CAUTI, and Georgia and Andrew.
And Selmo in this. They reached out to us. We've finished 36 episodes over 5,000 listens and views. If there's something that you want discuss, let us know. We discuss topics all the time about what people bring up and hopefully we can make it part of the podcast in the future. For me, the reason why I'm excited about this is not only as your friend or a member or coach employee.
Is that origin stories are important. The reason why we do origin stories is not just to reminisce or praise ourselves, but it's to explain why you guys do what you do every day. It guides you how it continues to change what you do, how it influences you in the future. And that's really good information for me and everyone else.
I listened to Chris, Spieler talk about park city CrossFit and his origin. And I learned so much and mainly because it was a no holds. Podcast.
[00:03:06] David Syvertsen: He talked
[00:03:06] Sam Rhee: about all the warts, all the problems he had. And
[00:03:09] David Syvertsen: despite all of
[00:03:11] Sam Rhee: your roadblocks or differences between you two, you guys have made this into an incredibly successful place.
And Nelson Mandela once said, I never lose. I either win or learn and you guys have wins, but you guys have a lot of learns as well over the time. And I think that anyone listening to this is going to
[00:03:28] David Syvertsen: get a lot out of it. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Cool. So let's start off with just, because Sam and I are on all these episodes.
I think we just get a little bit of background info on Chris. Chris is here for those that come early in the morning or late at night. You may never see Chris, but Chris is here every day and he's been here pretty much every day since the start. At the very least very much involved he's really, if you want to call it, if you want to label us on like the the DME meetings.
Coach, and he's the smart financier, but Chris, give us a little bit of background info on you and then we'll get into the CrossFit stuff. All right.
[00:04:00] Chris Tafaro: I like to think of it more as you're like the manager of the restaurant, the floor manager, and I take care of the backend stuff the less sexy stuff.
But that's my personality, I think so that's why the personalities work well. Yep. I'm about non I'm nine years old. Yeah. Okay. I met David are in a financial job. It was the end of my career as in the finance world. And it was David's first job. I was 13 years in a.
Energy futures, trading desk. And Dave had recently joined the group, I think w about
[00:04:28] David Syvertsen: a year. Yeah. About a year before you were in there. Yeah.
[00:04:31] Chris Tafaro: I had just gotten into CrossFit and I wasn't coaching yet. And me and Dave talked about working out in sports a lot.
I said you, when you can, when you moved to Hoboken, whatever it lets, you gotta go to this crossword Hoboken, you're gonna love it. We worked out a couple of times in like the regular global. Yeah. And plus,
[00:04:47] David Syvertsen: like we were two guys on a desk full of guys that did not work out. So you know, like you just look at each other for seven seconds.
You're like, all right, this guy actually works out. Maybe we can actually have a cool conversation about lifting weights and stuff because not one other person on that desperately.
[00:05:01] Chris Tafaro: Yeah, is that exactly? Yeah. And we used to drive them crazy talking about CrossFit all the time. I finally got Dave over there and I think I started in 2010.
Dave started about, I'd say a year later I was always looking for something I read about it in men's journal and the idea of cross it was so new. They just opened this one in Hoboken. The only other one I knew of, and I used to check out their website all the time was black box in New York. There was really no information about it.
It was just like, there was a website and it said this is how much it costs and you have to. Take these foundations classes before you can start and it could be dangerous in it looks scary. And I was like, I want to do this. But and when they finally opened one in in Hoboken and our work schedule, my work schedule changed around then too, because I was out of work a lot earlier.
I went over and, sign up for a free trial class and, I was in right after that. So that's how I know. I also read an article in men's journal. I want to, it's trying to find that article. It was a, they had it, it was like about, it was a beach workouts. And I don't know if it was like Annie Sakamoto and like those original people, but doing pull-ups on a beach in California.
And it was like very military base and I was into it and then I saw this black box place and it really sparked my
[00:06:14] David Syvertsen: interest. Yeah. So this is also, this is hard to, even for us to relate to this is pre. Big time. Social media Facebook was out there, but you couldn't like right now, if you ever want to go size up a gym to see if you got on to see what it's like, just go to Instagram and just look at some of their posts and their stories.
You had none of that back then, you know, if they had a website, like you said, was pretty low key and they didn't, you could have pictures like YouTube videos, nothing and across it was still. Somewhat near the inception stage where you just were trying to figure out what it
[00:06:45] Sam Rhee: was. Back in 2010, there may not have been more than maybe a thousand affiliates.
There's 13,000 now. Yeah. Back then. Not
[00:06:52] David Syvertsen: many. We can touch on just like some of that cross those CrossFit Hoboken days, because the coaching at that gym, in my opinion, even to this day, I would say was pretty high call. But one thing, Chris noted when we were talking about this was none of them had a lot of experience because it was just so close to the starting point of cross at Hoboken.
So TAF worked out there. We were constantly talking about it. I did free trial class. At some point, Chris had enough presence there and that Craig parcels, we should probably talk about a little bit. He offered Chris and internship. Just talk about that. Yeah.
[00:07:24] Chris Tafaro: Craig parcels, he was the co-owner of CrossFit Hoboken, and he really did a lot for a lot of people and, Bennett to but also to Bennett was my first coach and the free trial class I did, but yes, they asked me if I wanted to.
To start interning. And I never was in a position of being in charge of a class or anything like that. And I of course said yes, but I was very skeptical of like, I don't think they made the right decision asking me that, it's but, I mean, they trained us as a as coaches.
There was actually a lot of training as coaches and I was terrified of it. And actually, Sam, I remember when you said, when you started coaching. You said surgery is easy. This is hard. And I was thinking, you know what? I like, I had to speak in some boardrooms about energy and stuff like that. But this, when you're standing in front of your peers and sometimes they're better at, still at some movements than you.
And they've been doing CrossFit longer. Why are they going to believe me type of feel, but anyway, Craig used to throw us into these crazy things. I remember one time we had to know all the movies we had to be prepared as interns. And on a Saturday they got all the members to go and they broke off into small groups and we had to teach the members a front squat or an overhead squat or something like that.
I was assigned a group and I walked over. And Aaron law and the group she looks around and goes, so who's the coach here? And I was like, oh my God. I'm like, this is gonna be, this is awful. And it was so bad. My first, the first like description of a front squat I have ever went to PVC.
Stuttering. It was horrible, and but those things really make you better. Yeah,
[00:08:58] David Syvertsen: no, Craig was ahead of the times in several ways. I actually just talked to Craig a few months ago and he really, he has this sense about him that he can kind of, you know, you ever meet someone that they're just ahead of the time and what we had to do as interns and what Chris is talking about right now.
Is, if you own a gym you're trying to improve the coaching. This is something that maybe you try and want to put into practice. This is what they do at the level two. Now at the level two CrossFit certification, Craig was doing this way before is, you have to end this at a level two. You, they break you into groups with other coaches also get their level two.
So you know, that. Are talking to people that know what they're doing, but that's a huge part of the level. Two is you have to teach someone, a push, press a deadlift. And honestly, when you coach for 3, 4, 5, 6 years, you do you forget some of like the basic things and you get ripped apart too. You have someone watching you, which in that his situation was Craig.
And after you'd done stuttering your way through the whole thing you get told 10 things that you did. Yeah it's tough, but it really is the best way to learn.
[00:09:57] Chris Tafaro: They had a camera, like on a tripod, they were filming all of us. And like I figured this is my last day.
It's my first and last day as a coach. Yeah. Craig was young. He was only 20. He was like 26 2. And he was running this, it became a very big gym and he had a lot of, then there was a whole intern class of coaches that came on, that you were in that also. And he would bring in people all I, I wrote down remember that guy, Dell is like a big time trainer kind of guy in the city, and he, they all had the look, like the big Mo like the Mohawk. Yeah, sure. I felt so out of place, they had a day job and everything, and these guys just were really good coaches. And it was really cool to , be around. These kinds
[00:10:36] David Syvertsen: of people, it started exposing you to a different kind of culture, and I think that's one thing that we learned early on that we tried to bring to bison is the culture makes everything, and the culture starts with the coaches. Yes. There are the owners. Yes, but it does have a way of trickling its way down to longtime members, or if you want to call the main members, the ones that are very involved in the gym and socially, and it all starts.
If there was not a good culture with Craig and then the coaches and then the interns, I don't think that place would have worked out long-term and they just they got it before a lot of others. And I'll tell you what a lot of gyms. Came from CrossFit Hoboken.
He got a lot of peoples starts.
Yeah. Like 9 0 8, 9 a week. Which, if anyone from nine, oh, it's listening to this, we have as much respect for nine and eight. Is that any CrossFit in the area? Carol is great. Yup. Tim and Erin. I think Tim definitely started at Hoboken. Did Aaron? I don't know. Yeah, I don't need, but we know that Jim started at Hoboken cross at Bayonne was there for while cross of Joan yet we crossed the Jersey.
Bison,
[00:11:34] Chris Tafaro: Bentonville, CrossFit, Bentonville, Arkansas went up. Yeah. They moved down for Walmart. His wife worked for a Walmart in
[00:11:41] David Syvertsen: Fayetteville, Arkansas called Caldwell and Martha Caldwell. Yeah. I mean, if we did this, we could probably come up with a dozen gyms that really came from Hoboken.
And that's the case with a lot of gyms that were around in 2009, 2010, 2011, that were doing it right. And it all started off with that cold. Of, Hey, make sure your coaches are doing it correctly, which, I guess we can probably get into this at some point. We can even talk about that now, in terms of what does correctly even mean?
Even though the coaches at Hoboken didn't have a ton of experience just because it was a young gym, they always held us to a tight standard, right? They were. And that's key. I think that's part of the reason why we're a little tight with adhere during the open judges is. That's how we started off. And you want to be as objective as possible with so many different things with CrossFit.
And the only way to be objective is to have a standard. And then you have to hold the standard who holds the standard. It's all about the coaching. I remember Maris and Stephan w they were the first people that tell me I wasn't squatting low enough. I wasn't locking out my elbows. I wasn't doing things correctly.
And it made me a better athlete. But now, even to this day, I still here. I am talking about them on a podcast, 10 years later. About how important it was and how important it is. If you're starting a gym, if you're running a gym to hold standards for movement, not just for performance, but for the culture overall.
Yes.
[00:12:57] Sam Rhee: The culture back then just for CrossFit itself it was radical. It was a counter-culture. It was basically a big F-you to organized fitness at the time. There was just a thought that you guys were bucking the trends, right? Yeah. And doing something that no one had done or at least synthesizing something that no one had really put together before.
I see videos of people working out back then and they just looked very deliberately. Not corporate not
[00:13:25] David Syvertsen: vanilla. Yeah. I remember one of the first things Chris told me about when he was trying to talk me into this. When we were sitting at our training desk. He had said yeah, these guys it's like a warehouse, that stuff, I'm trying to picture this in my head.
He's like the lights don't work sometimes. And these guys coming in business suits. And at the time, I think you were talking about Bennett or Stephan at the coach comes in like a business. And then he goes from white collar to all the sudden this industrial warehouse, dirty CrossFitter and there was something really intriguing about that.
[00:13:54] Sam Rhee: That's what attracted you guys was at one
[00:13:56] Chris Tafaro: aspect of it. Yeah. The other thing that I don't know if you do you realize that the workout attire was different? It was board shorts, really? Baggy shirts, not like the cut sleeve under Armour, like the wick away that I was wearing. Doing kickboxing and stuff.
And it was like, wow, like this is Raleigh. These guys don't care. There they look like they're all going circular surfing, or like going to the beach, no mirrors in the gym,
[00:14:18] David Syvertsen: not a single one.
[00:14:19] Chris Tafaro: No mirrors.
[00:14:20] David Syvertsen: Yeah. And even, how back then were you able to correct yourself?
Like right now, if you're a CrossFitter that starts in 2022 and you want to , all right, I need, I want to see how, find some videos for cleans or snatches or muscle gloves, or how do I improve my butterfly? Pull-ups that there's so much content out there now. You can't even get, 10% of the way through it before you have it down.
What was it like? What would you do if you like on a day where you're like, all right, I have thrusters and pull ups and tonight's workout.
[00:14:47] Chris Tafaro: Yeah. you had to go to open gym and just practice and practice. I mean, video yourself because every coach is a style was different. Everybody has a little bit of a different KIPP.
Everybody has a different form in the deadlift and I had to fill myself and I couldn't get the clean, like cleans to me. Like mine didn't look like everyone else. And really what I finally figured out myself was, know, I wasn't releasing the bar all the way to my shoulders and letting it land.
I was kinda like, catching it with my hands. Just something simple like that, that took me like a year to finally like, to figure out why. Why can ju like why can't a S like a little guy cause cleaning a lot more than me. And I'm like, I must be doing something wrong and my cleans didn't look good.
And I, I had to watch tons of video of myself keeping clean snatches, even dead lifts, everything. I had to do it like I had to figure it
[00:15:35] David Syvertsen: out myself. So that's what a lot of we were. I don't want to say self maybes. We had so much coaches, but we didn't get a ton of. If I wanted help on my Snapchat, I have to pay a hundred dollars for a personal training session.
And even that it didn't help that much. Not because it was coach, it was one session, so you're not going to learn that much in one session, but this is why sometimes I probably to a fault as a coach, I always call this like a 50, 50 relationship. I will meet you halfway, but if you don't come halfway, I'm not going to come get you.
That kind of. You really are capable of teaching yourself a lot with the proper guidance in front of you. If you have the right person watching the right person, send me little tidbits in here. And we're good examples of that because Chris and I were neither, one of us are really naturally good athletes.
I wouldn't say, like we played sports
[00:16:20] Chris Tafaro: Like above average, right?
[00:16:22] David Syvertsen: If we did like a. Speed agility, power strength, like an NFL combine that we would be average to below average. And we learned this things because we had a little bit of an addiction to it, but we really, we were both relentless and trying to teach ourselves little things or just watching, I tell beginners all the time when I do that and come early, if you can and watch the class before you 15 to, I used to do that every single day, unless I worked out at the first class of the day, I'd always get there about a half hour.
And time it so that I could watch the class through the workout before me. And you just watch. That's how I learned butterfly pull-ups toes to bar double unders. And I think that's a huge thing. A takeaway that I think we get away from, like our society is so built on, we always are asking for help when we should, but do we lose our independence a little bit with this stuff
if you didn't have that independence, when you were trying to learn cleans, I don't think you would have ever really, it would have ever clicked.
[00:17:14] Chris Tafaro: No, definitely not. I wanted to know how to do it. I really wanted to know I want it to do this. Like it was important to me.
Yeah. Yeah. Have you
[00:17:21] Sam Rhee: guys seen old, I've seen a couple old videos of you guys back then. Yeah. Doing grace for time. The two of you,
[00:17:27] David Syvertsen: we should resurface that
[00:17:29] Sam Rhee: when you guys watch those videos of you, what do you think about? I know what I think about when I see you guys do that, basically
[00:17:36] David Syvertsen: how far you guys have come in
[00:17:37] Sam Rhee: terms of.
Technique ability. What was heavy back then and what was considered good is now an average day on the whiteboard for most people. For sure.
[00:17:48] David Syvertsen: Yeah,
[00:17:49] Chris Tafaro: I know. I know. Yeah, I mean, I think th the benchmarks I think those times are similar, but a regular wad here back then. Crushed up.
[00:17:59] David Syvertsen: Yeah. All for sure. Yeah. Yeah. The programming has been elevated so much. And one thing I like to see when I see us, our old videos of grace from, I think the one you're referencing is from 2011 and we're both like, I don't know, two 30, so proud of it. But the funny thing about I, I want people to other people to say, see, I'm big on, if someone else has done it, I can do it too.
I'm big on. And there are so many new people in our gym that they get so frustrated so quickly because they're not as far along as they think they should be because they've been doing CrossFit for eight whole months. I wish I had some other videos of me trying to learn, pull up the KIPP, the toes, the bar.
That. And you learn the
[00:18:37] Chris Tafaro: butterfly kit before the kit. Yeah. You had a hard time getting the
[00:18:40] David Syvertsen: regular. Yeah. The kipping was hard for me on the pull-ups and even double unders to this day, I still struggle with them, but I couldn't figure out how to do five in a row, like w I have a lot of people right now for whatever reason, I think it's just because we did a lot of a long double under workouts at the gym.
Hey, maybe we should have a seminar one Saturday. I'm like, I get it. Maybe we'll try to arrange something, but I said, just keep chipping away at it. And I tell them about the open workout from 2012. The workout was 12 minutes long. You had to do 150 wall balls, 90 double unders 30 ring muscle ups.
It's funny at 90 was all you had to do, but back then it was a hard skill. And I did the 150 wall balls and six 30. And then for the rest of the five minutes, I did 35 double unders 35 double unders and seven minutes. I'm like, I want people to know that th that's where we started, but I didn't give up.
I'm not the kind of person. And I think a lot of people know. They put some don't understand perspective of time. It just takes time. And if you keep chipping away at it, like fitness, in my opinion is one of the things that you really put a lot of effort into, you will reap rewards. You can't say that about everything in life, where did you
[00:19:45] Sam Rhee: guys go from then?
You guys were there. You're at Hoboken. And then what gave you guys the idea? Let's start our own gym at this point.
[00:19:56] Chris Tafaro: Yeah. That actually, I mean, we didn't talk much about it before the day that we applied. I had, I was looking for some small spaces to open a place in Hoboken to do maybe some personal training, like a small, just, I was always looking for something my exit strategy from business.
All right. So I always, I was over the years, I had tried a couple of different things. I had once gotten my national academy of sports medicine personal training certificate just to get it just because it took my mind off of work. I knew I wanted to do something in that field. I didn't know what, but I studied, started studying for that and different things.
I remember I was in Jackson hall with my wife and I started CrossFit with Devin and we went to we went to Jack CrossFit, Jackson hole and we worked out there and And there's bison all over there, by the way. And one night she was sick. She got sick, we got a pregnancy test.
She's pregnant. Okay. So we're at the bar that night, I'm drinking. She's sitting there like,, I can't believe it. And I said, we should call our kid bison, bison. Like they're like squirrel out there. Like they're all over the place. What if it's a girl I'm like, oh, we'll be bison with a Y. Y was like that.
That would be, why don't you name your gym that you said, like the one, I was gonna open a hook, the little one. That just was, that was in my head, but it had been another, I think six months before, one slow day at work, me and Dave talking about CrossFit and knowing everyone on our trading desk and.
I think it was Ray. She just says, why don't you two idiots, just open one, and
[00:21:22] David Syvertsen: we kinda made the eye contact between the monitor
[00:21:25] Chris Tafaro: and and I'm like I'm like, I have a kid on the way, and Dave's I'll quit tomorrow. And our boss is sitting right there.
We sit right next to our boss and he was like, kinda he helped us out, like Webby. He's a great guy. Webby really helped us out with a lot of different things. He also probably wanted to steal our
[00:21:42] David Syvertsen: customers. Yeah. No, w we, and also at the same time, like I had been in the job, I think for three years and I, by no means was unhappy, but I also similar to Chris.
I didn't see myself doing it forever and it never gave me like a lot of fulfillment. Someone that's really into signs says because I'm a Capricorn that I want to get a lot of fulfillment from work. And now here I am, 10 years later, it is a big part of what makes me happy is, and I just wasn't, I never really felt like I was doing that much.
I was just going there trying to make money, go home and Nope, no shame in doing that. That's just didn't wasn't what made me happy. Once this actually became, you guys should just open up a gym to Hey would you ever want to do it? There's I was into coaching at that point. And I was really like, I dove head first and I was all about it.
And I actually think it made me worse at my broker job because I just. Caring and that's a fault of mine when I don't really care about the work I'm doing. I'm not that good of a worker. I could see myself just slipping away. We also had a really dry run at work. I remember it was like, during it, we were just like, everyone stopped making money.
And I was like, what am I, what are we doing here? And then Chris was like, would you do it? And I was like, I quit tomorrow. And Webby and Ray, they helped us out a lot with a lot of stuff. In terms of how to do this. There's a lot of things you have to do initially, just getting, your federal ID number, all that kind of stuff.
[00:23:02] Chris Tafaro: That's very helpful
[00:23:03] David Syvertsen: with that. Yeah. And then you know, that, that's how it really started it. There wasn't a dramatic story. I got that question all the time. When we first opened, where does bison conference? I wish I had a cool story. My business partner was in Wyoming and he saw some bison on the field.
That's where he came from. Why
[00:23:18] Sam Rhee: were you not worried more about the finances and your life and security and all those things? Cause for most people, that, that is a scary very scary thing.
[00:23:27] Chris Tafaro: Yeah, I know. And I was, I actually I asked to refresh my memory. Last night I was talking to Deb about it and I said what did we say it like, we give it two years or something like that to see if she's yeah, I think it was two years ago.
If you could turn a profit. And I was like Devin was working at the time. Demond was working at the time. I mean, I did have 13 years of experience, but we did have a kid on the way too. We are always very good with saving and stuff like that. But. Yeah. And Debbie's job share her career was like, taking off too.
Like it was gonna be two years and then if not run the gym, but also go back to work or something like that. So that's how so when you left and then D you got a ton of experience coaching because when you left pretty much, I was still there. Know you were coaching all day
[00:24:06] David Syvertsen: and night.
Yeah. The timeline of this was. October to I left Prebon October, 2012. All right. So just keep that date in your mind, October, 2012 was when I left and part of the agreement and me feeling okay about it was living in Hoboken, living my own place at the time, rent was very high. I knew I was going to be going through the grinder a little bit, but I had money saved up to Craig parcels again, another way he helped us out.
He gave me as many classes as I could handle morning, night, midday. I turned into that guy just Hey, we need three classes tomorrow morning, four classes mid day two at night took all these personal training. Clients was not making close to enough money to, I think I was making just over what I had to pay in rent.
So I was losing money every month, but it was enough that. I could still make, do without getting crushed. And this is where our inexperience, one of our first mistakes was we thought it would take a few months to open up our gym. So this is October, 2012. So really, if you want to be, we're actually in year number 10 of business, but now, that that's more because we apply for the affiliate that fall.
Yeah. But here we are October, 2012 and we immediately go into trying to find space. And we're on LoopNet 24 7 looking for spaces. And we eventually found one and we did want to open up in this area because Chris's from Glen rock. I'm from Woodland park. And we had some local connections.
We knew there wasn't much competition in the area. We're looking at. 2, 0, 1 was out here on soar and we were okay with being in this because it's far enough removed from those places that we're like, Hey, it's not like we're going to be taking their members or not be able to grow because of them.
We found a space right by Hawthorne Chevy. Technically it's white cough that the town is white cough and there's a little industrial complex back there. There's actually a couple gyms back there. Now. One is I think J and a fitness to Franco had a he used to train his pro athletes back there, but we found this space.
Not knowing what really, even what we needed other than the fact that we needed to warehouse. And we found it, it was actually a really cool space. Has some office areas. There was even a little eight by eight room, or Chris was like, yo, you could probably sleep here,
[00:26:15] Chris Tafaro: probably why we didn't get them,
[00:26:18] David Syvertsen: but, so we got it and we verbally agreed to take it. And it was, I think, like four grand of. And we were like, all right, man, like this has gotten real. We started and this I remember looking at the gym and just picture. People be in there. What we're going to paint the walls, where the equipment would be, what our office would look like.
How big was
[00:26:37] Sam Rhee: it compared to the original place in
[00:26:38] David Syvertsen: Greenwood F similar size? It wasn't
[00:26:40] Chris Tafaro: a bad space, Haitian. Might've not,
[00:26:42] David Syvertsen: but one thing we didn't notice back then is there was six parking spots. You just don't want. And Hoboken. This is where our inexperience came in. And if anyone, I had a conversation with someone last summer that wanted to open up a, an indoor baseball training center, he's coming up from the south and he was looking in Ridgewood.
I was like, good luck, but I was like the number one thing, you're going to get a hard time within this area is parking. If you don't have enough parking for everyone in your gym, and then twice that amount, because they want the people that are coming in to be able to park. We deal with that issue today, sometimes right.
You're not, they're not gonna let you open, especially in this area. We didn't even look at that. There was probably six parking spaces there , but we just overlooked it and this is a blessing in disguise, but Chris got a call. We were at work. I already come in, I already put my two weeks and all that stuff.
She was like, Hey, we're out. We can't do the deal. Remember that?
[00:27:34] Chris Tafaro: Yeah. Why we never got an answer really? Yeah.
[00:27:38] David Syvertsen: And it was just, yeah, we actually never, and this is where Chris and I being brokers. There's a lot of lying in that business and some of it's necessary. Some of it's not, but there's this a lot of like dirty play in that business.
And we immediately. Joe de Franco didn't want it didn't want to cross. I was like F that guy.
[00:27:57] Chris Tafaro: Yeah. We we were very skeptical of everybody. We trusted nobody. And now it's funny. Think about it. We had, we definitely had our guard up and that, in that sense, I feel like we were not very green.
We were we knew and like people were trying to sneak us. And things like that.
[00:28:11] David Syvertsen: We had. Once we got into this, we literally thought we'd find a space, talk to the landlord, agree on a price, open up the gym. The next day
[00:28:18] Chris Tafaro: You pay rent, you move
[00:28:20] David Syvertsen: in. And just like you would living.
But the first realtor that we really talked to was like, no, you gotta go get a lawyer for we're like for while, what do we need a lawyer for? And it's you're gonna need to change the usage of a building. What does usage
[00:28:31] Chris Tafaro: mean? That's a whole thing in New Jersey that.
[00:28:34] David Syvertsen: If most warehouse spaces, not all, but most have an eye to use industrial use.
And we need our, just an I use, we needed a B2 use of business to use for that's what Jim's fall under and you can't just go do it. You have to apply for it. You have to get a lawyer to represent you. In that process, there's all these bullet points that lawyer needs to use. And it's usually we made this joke back then.
It's true. It's basically a thousand dollar minimum for everyone that needs to get involved. Yeah. So we got shut down at that white cost space. All right. Waldwick space was next. We found a space. It was next to, I still drive by to this day on Franklin turnpike, which was Franklin turnpike.
Nice. Like a lot of drive by right next to the Madison dog hotel. And we almost took that place. And this place, you had to walk through six different hallways to get to it. And there was no direct or outset. And they're like, you were getting
[00:29:23] Chris Tafaro: desperate. This place was not, it was not good. I was terrible ceilings.
[00:29:26] David Syvertsen: There was ceilings. There was people under us. There would have been people under us with the drop weights, but we verbally agreed you know what? We should just do it. We'll make it work. We'll make it work that got shut down. I think that was more by the time. Of Waldwick I think that was an issue with the town, because that's when we remember that lawyer's name, the first one would occur.
Oh yeah. Yeah. So I think he was the one that shut that. And then we were driving to, was it little ferry? Oh yeah. Maywood. We were all over there and we started we,
[00:29:55] Chris Tafaro: it was, this is now a year. So we were freaking out, we were trying to, and then we talked about we really wanted to open somewhere and we were getting desperate.
So yeah, we looked at, there was a place that was flooded and like little farriers. Yeah. No
[00:30:06] David Syvertsen: bathrooms. Yeah. It would have been horrible. But imagine these are the kinds of things I want to tie all that to the. That everything happens for a reason, whether you believe that or not.
If we did open at that Waldock space, it would not have worse. We probably would have to shut down. And then we don't know any of you guys. If we opened in little ferry, who would, I don't even know where little ferry is right now. I think it's the only time I've been there. Yeah. Where would I live?
Who would we know who would have joined our gym? We wouldn't know. That's one of the biggest things that. It always humbles me a little bit. I wouldn't know any of you guys, any of the bison members if we opened up far away, just because we felt desperate. Personally, my financial situation was getting worse and worse.
I had moved out to a Hawthorne. With Ash. So I dragged this girl, this pretty innocent girl out of Hoboken because I told her I was going to open up a gym. How long were you guys dating at that point, man? If I get this date wrong, I'm get in trouble, but I know I'm probably looking at eight or nine months.
Wow. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I mean, I was a good catch. I want you to come up and oh my God. No, but but she we'll talk about her a little bit later too, but she. Now we moved out here and I think, how do we get a hold of them in the park space? Was it just a realtor? He brought it to us, right?
[00:31:17] Chris Tafaro: Yeah. I think this guy's rash. Oh yeah.
[00:31:21] David Syvertsen: He found the spot and he was like, yo Midland park and my eyes perse up feels like that's exactly where we want to be. The central location to Glen rock. Weiskopf Ridgewood. I'm from Midland park. I grew up here. I go and see the space. I still remember to this day going there.
And Chris sending me a text right after he's still at pre-bond, by the way, I used to wait for these 10. I'm like, you're going to
[00:31:44] Chris Tafaro: see the place and I
[00:31:45] David Syvertsen: wanted the info and I'm watching my bank account go down. Like I think at this point I have $700 to my name and I'm like, hoping. And this is just a godsend, this place, this space.
The guy shows me the warehouse. He goes, Hey, we're going to put up walls. And I don't even think he finished the sentence and I said, we're done. We'll take it. And then I texted, Chris, can you just set? Did you, do you see it? That's what he asked me. And I was like, yes. Yeah,
[00:32:08] Chris Tafaro: that's all I need. Can you see this one?
[00:32:11] David Syvertsen: Do you see it? I still remember like looking at my texts and seeing it and seeing that the narrowness. Yeah. We coming from across it Hoboken very square box. This was a very long rectangle, but again, I think maybe even part of our desperation factor was we're taking it. Yeah. It's in the town.
We want, it's got parking and this was late summer. Late summer is when we found it. And we were told by them , Hey, it's going to take a month or two. I'm like, Don, let's go putting up. They're going to
[00:32:38] Chris Tafaro: put up a wall to separate these storage spaces, two units.
[00:32:43] David Syvertsen: At this point we ordered it. We thought we really needed.
And we ordered what about $30,000 worth of equipment? Rigs bars, rowers, wall balls, all that stuff. 30 grand,
[00:32:53] Sam Rhee: you charged it or you paid for it?
[00:32:55] Chris Tafaro: Yeah, no, we will. So we, we actually put a lot of it on we, American express will give new businesses or at least if you, if your credit is good, I think like $13,000.
So some of it went on that and then we paid for it, the rest of it.
[00:33:06] David Syvertsen: Wow. Yeah. And we, it was foolish to buy it because, we didn't. That was going to take another five months to open up the gym.
[00:33:13] Chris Tafaro: This was the start. This is just the start of a whole new slew. I mean, okay. So the emotions
[00:33:21] David Syvertsen: that we went through were so up and down, like we were so like, we found it.
Yeah. Like we like with this is the moment, like we would tell our families at this point, I'm looking
[00:33:31] Chris Tafaro: at what's up with bison, what's going on. It was like, oh, we've already failed. Like it sucked. Like you just, it was embarrassing.
[00:33:37] David Syvertsen: It was. And so that at that point we're like, okay, move in.
Okay. What do we need to do? But, and then it took another five months for
[00:33:46] Chris Tafaro: you guys, though.
