Category: Abs

How 305 Fitness Founder Sadie Kurzban Is Pivoting Her Business Model Amid Covid-19 Closures

While hundreds of New York’s boutique fitness studios are still fighting to reopen, one company is resolute to remain shut through the rest of 2020.

“There’s no break even in sight,” says Sadie Kurzban, founder and CEO of 305 Fitness. “At this time, the team and I do not expect to reopen our studio locations before 2021.”

Since August 24, New York State has begun lifting restrictions to allow some gyms to operate at one-third capacity and under specific guidelines, including but not limited to requiring masks during class, upgrading HVAC systems, and allowing for 6-10 feet of social distance in class. Kurzban explains that in an average 305 studio, 10 feet of distance means reducing classes to less than 25% of a normal class size.

“As a business, we cannot cover our usual expenses, plus increased cleaning costs, when we are operating with 25% of a normal class size,” she continues: “We’re not even looking at the 50% break even mark for awhile and we want to preemptively and strategically get ahead of that.” 

Since winning a Stanford business pitch competition in 2011, Kurzban, a Miami native, has signed on investors like Nets star Kevin Durant and celebrity DJ Mark Tiesto. While the fitness brand’s moniker pays homage to the electric nightclub vibes of South Beach, Miami, 305 Fitness is very much a New York-based business with a total of 7 flagship studios across Manhattan. This includes a 5,700 square-foot, two-level studio in Union Square that celebrated a grand opening on February 24, only to shutter on March 12 due to Covid-19.

By April, Kurzban laid off 90% off staff. She continued to offer furloughed workers healthcare and a portion of pay up until August, when officials expressed uncertainty about the future of group fitness classes. “I made the tough call to really brace ourselves,” she says. “We grew this company aggressively into an eight-figure business but now we will take awhile to recover.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio last month announced that while regular city gyms could open on September 2, group fitness studios could not. This mobilized more than 20 companies to form the Boutique Fitness Alliance.

Anne Mahlum, CEO of Solidcore, a workout that focuses on high-intensity strength training, joined the brigade of fitness brands. “We have had 50-plus of our locations open across the country for months and we have had zero instances of Covid spreading in our spaces. This data is powerful,” she says.

With 305 opting to remain shut for the year for financial as well as safety reasons, Kurzban has not joined the alliance. “So many gyms and boutiques are eager to open doors and I understand the feeling of being a small business owner and wanting to reopen… But now is the time to test how strong your community really is.” 

But not all workout concepts are as nimble as 305’s cardio dance workouts. “There are not a lot of options for outside space in New York,” says Solidcore’s Mahlum, “especially since our machines weigh hundreds of pounds and need to be covered if it rains. The humidity is also not good for our machines as it promotes rust.”

And although 305 fans, or self-proclaimed #Fivers, can easily take the equipment-free dance classes At-Home or outdoors, Kurzban agrees exercising al fresco is not enough to sustain its original brick-and-mortar business model. “With overhead, negotiating with landlords and supporting front desk and a cleaning crew for indoors, reopening at a quarter capacity is not a recipe for us to and we can’t continue to lose money on top of enormous loses we’ve already lost.” 

This is why Kurzban is betting on a revenue stream she’s been toying with since early 2020: “Our real big business is certification, so we’re focusing on certifying and empowering individuals in hopes that they can monetize their fitness credentials during this time.”

During the first quarter of 2020, the company was hosting certification programs. Its last training sessions held at its Union Square location in February attracted 75 women from across the country, including one that braved a winter road trip all the way from Los Angeles. The weekend-long program consisted of 8-hour days of rigorous dance as well as business workshops that focused on public speaking, marketing and social-media skills. The live program cost roughly $500, but the digital program launched amid the pandemic costs $190. The company offers scholarships for those who qualify.

So far, the company has certified close to 1000 instructors this year. While this has brought in roughly less than half-a-million dollars in revenue, Kurzban believes she can scale this model and make it a major revenue stream for 305.

“I didn’t know how the energy would translate online,” says Kurzban, “but there are a lot of people out of work, so the ability to do this without equipment or rental space, and lead this fitness movement in a park or in a rooftop at a time when everyone is starving for connection means something.”

The cash-strapped entrepreneur is also training its #Fivers to grow robust followings, and hopefully double-up as free brand evangelists for 305. “Our customer-base of female Millennials can now take this brand and make additional income, which is so empowering and so needed at this time,” says Kurzban.

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Tanya Klich

Tanya Klich

I am the Lifestyle & E-Commerce Reporter for Forbes. I’m a former television reporter for NY1 News, where I covered all things Queens, NY and got my start in business news as a greenroom greeter and PA at Fox Business. I am a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and an adjunct professor at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Twitter @TanyaKlich

Source: Forbes

Facing $370 Million In Debt, This Team Is Asking Fans To Chip In

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When Turkish Super Lig side Fenerbahçe asks fans like Tolga Babuz for money there is no doubt about him reaching for his wallet.

Facing debts of $370 million, hit by the coronavirus suspension of play and struggling with an already high wage bill, the club called for direct donations via text message.

Sending ‘1907’-the year of the club was established-to a special number gives Fenerbahçe 20 Turkish Lira, around $3.

“If the club is campaigning for something, it is our duty to join it”, Babuz says.

He did not hesitate in sending multiple texts, not only on his behalf, but in honour of his infant children and deceased father.

It’s not the first time the club has asked fans directly for money.

Despite being listed on the Turkish Stock Market and having been granted many lines of generous credit from the banks, Fenerbahçe is well-versed in fan-based fundraising.

Back in 2016, Babuz, who considers himself a ‘fanatic’ or ultra, saw every item in a downtown merchandise store bought by diehard fans, after calls for financial support.

Even the air-conditioning unit was unscrewed from the wall and carried off by a paying supporter.

Crowdfunding appeals may have raised sums in the short-term, but one figure which is harder to alter is the money owed to the banks.

Big signing addiction

The Istanbul giant is the 6th most indebted in Europe and has consistently lost money. Yet it cannot shake the habit of making flagship signings of players in the twilights of their careers.

From Nani to Martin Skrtel, Robin Van Persie to Mathieu Valbuena, players have queued up for a final pay-day by the Bosphorus.

But paying the giant wages these stars expect has pushed the club further and further into the red.

Not that the Istanbul giants are alone, bitter inter-city rivals Galatasaray and Besiktas have similarly large debt piles, having taken the same approach to player recruitment.

Trabzonspor from the Black Sea, which is considered the country’s fourth superpower, is also drowning in debt.

“These four clubs dominate Turkish football”, says leading soccer economist in Turkey Tugrul Aksar.

“[But they] do not seem to be able to solve their own financial problems because there are big gaps between total revenue and expenses.

“It is not possible to solve problems without generating new sources of income. Cash flows are insufficient, shareholders’ equity is negative, their debts are more than their income and their accumulated losses are about TL 4.5 billion, around $750 million.”

Aksar’s assessment of what would happen to the clubs if they played in a different country is blunt: “They would probably go bankrupt and be relegated.”

Helping ‘the family’

The idea that clubs might ask fans to donate to their soccer club at a time of national crisis is not universally embraced.

In countries like the U.K., the backlash against teams seen to be cashing in on fan’s goodwill has been extreme, even at teams where financial resources are tight.

English third division side Sunderland caused uproar by refusing to refund supporters season tickets for the remainder of the season. A decision which was subsequently reversed.

There was also a huge public outcry when Liverpool and Tottenham attempted to make use of the British government’s coronavirus support scheme-where the government paid a proportion of employees salaries to safeguard jobs. This also prompted U-turns by both organizations.

Players, the argument goes, should take a pay cut before others step in to support the club.

In Turkey, the mentality of supporters is different.

“I felt as if I was helping my family”, says Fenerbahçe fan and club member Ergün Bülbül.

“I supported with SMS [text message], I also sent money by bank transfer.”

“It is necessary to think as a whole, both the football player, the fan and the club should make a sacrifice.”

But as Fenerbahçe asked fans to donate, faced with what looks like a perilous financial scenario, rumours of a big-money move for the world’s most famous player of Turkish descent kicked into overdrive.

‘No explanation for this’ 

World Cup winner and Arsenal playmaker Mesut Ozil has long been rumoured to fancy a move to Fenerbahçe.

So it didn’t take long for speculation to begin that the crowdfunding SMS initiative could be used to fund a move for Ozil.

Hardcore supporters know such claims are hopeful at best, the target of the text campaign is to reach one million messages, which would be about $3m.

That wouldn’t even cover a month’s wages for Ozil whose current deal with Arsenal is an estimated $800,000 per week.

But the relentless need to spend big on a star player, regardless of the consequences or financial position, is a constant issue for Turkish soccer’s big four.

In January 2019, the banks whom Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Besiktas and Trabzonspor owe a combined TL 10 billion ($1.4bn), restructured their debts.

The aim was to get the vast sums owed under control.

Rather than helping to shift the approach, it prompted another summer of spending.

The four teams signed a total of 51 players for TL 716m ($104m) in the 2019 transfer window.

“Unfortunately, there is no logical explanation for this”, finance expert Aksar continues.

“These expenses were spent by the clubs so as not to be left behind in the competition. But it was a completely wrong policy.”

Aksar believes that stronger leadership and longer-term solutions from the Turkish Football Federation would help.

Whether that comes at this moment is another matter.

Ultimately for the sporting authorities and even the Turkish government, its four soccer superpowers are simply too big to fail.

Fenerbahçe fanatic Tolga Babuz certainly thinks so.

“Big clubs will survive. I think the state will help where the fan is not enough.”

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Zak Garner-Purkis

Zak Garner-Purkis

Currently I am head of content at Construction News, specialising in investigations. I have led numerous collaborations with major media outlets. These include an undercover slave labour expose with the BBC, a Financial Times report which uncovered a sexual assault scandal and an international investigation into worker deaths on the world’s biggest airport with Architects’ Journal. My work has been longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2020 and I was a finalist at the 2019 British Journalism Awards. I was named International Building Press’ Journalist of the Year 2019 and awarded the IBP Scoop of the Year and Construction/Infrastructure Writer of the Year prizes.

Follow me on Twitter @JournoZak and email me at zakgarnerpurkis@gmail.com

Source: https://www.forbes.com

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Austerity has shaken the Turkish Süper Lig. Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe, & Galatasaray face pressure from UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, while a currency crisis and economic downturn has added to a wider sense of malaise. The Turkish game is now probably in its worst ever financial state.
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Peloton Fitness Tech Company Doesn’t Understand The People Who Love It Most

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The internet has some feedback on Peloton’s holiday ad campaign. The fitness-tech company, famous for its $2,400, Wi-Fi-enabled stationary bikes that let riders stream spin classes, debuted a new television commercial in mid-November, but it didn’t become infamous until earlier this week, when Twitter got ahold of it.

In the ad, a young mom gains confidence in the year after her husband buys her a Peloton for Christmas—or, at least, that’s what the ad seems to be aiming for. The commercial documents the woman (who is also documenting herself, via her phone’s front-facing camera) while she gets up early day after day to exercise or jumps on the bike after work. At the end, she presents the video of her exercise journey to her husband. “A year ago, I didn’t realize how much this would change me,” she tells him. “Thank you.”

Unfortunately, rather than grateful, the newly minted indoor cyclist appears terrified during the entire video. Her facial expression suggests to some viewers a desperate effort to please her spouse, and maybe, if you really want to take things to their logical extreme, that she was compelled to mount her fancy new bike against her will. The commercial has inspired days of both earnest Twitter outrage and mocking parody videos, mostly because the actor in it has what the journalist Helen Rosner aptly described as “perpetually sad eyebrows,” which make her look scared even when her lines are joyful. The company’s stock lost nearly a billion dollars of value in a day.

Casting and directorial decisions aside, it’s not difficult to imagine that a genuinely doting husband might buy his wife an expensive exercise bike for Christmas, or that an affluent mom might ask for one, or that someone trying to get out of a personal rut might feel nervous that they’ll fail. Before-and-after photos of newly thin bodies have long been an element of fitness marketing, and now Peloton wants to make the case for a before-and-after of the soul. As it turns out, that is a little tougher to telegraph.

Earlier this year, I spent six months pedaling after a question that a lot of people have about Peloton: Why would anyone become emotionally devoted to an expensive exercise bike? The answers turned out to be fairly simple: The bike was convenient. Yes, they all admitted, it was expensive (in addition to the bike, a monthly subscription to classes is $40), but fancy gym memberships easily top $100 a month, and boutique fitness classes are usually $25 to $45 each. Peloton devotees told me they felt good about being active. Online communities of Peloton riders support one another and often provide real opportunities for people to make friends. And the company’s instructors generally don’t use weight as a tool of shame-motivation, unlike many fitness brands.

a person posing for the camera© Reuters

[Read: I joined a stationary-biker gang]

The emotional journey clumsily depicted in the new ad isn’t unlike the stories actual users told me, about how they were afraid to exercise but found themselves spurred forward by documenting and sharing their efforts. In a sedentary, lonely country where wide swaths of the population lack accessible or safe outdoor areas to exercise or much free time to devote to fitness, products that address those problems are going to find customers—even if they’re expensive.

I wasn’t the only person surprised by the simple reasons for Peloton’s popularity. The brand, too, seems to have initially misjudged what its own appeal might be, and the controversial ad appears to be part of a larger effort to walk back some of its early messaging. The company’s first ads, which have been widely mocked in their own right, featured young, confident, clearly affluent people working out their already toned bodies while gazing out the windows of their multimillion-dollar homes. After a few years, however, it became clear to the company that many of its bikes were going into the basements and guest bedrooms of middle-class American homes, used by regular people who lead regular lives.

As a result, Peloton has tried to pivot to something more wholesome than the pursuit of peak fitness. The company introduced financing plans, dropped the price of its digital-only subscription, and added bigger sizes to its line of branded merchandise. It started running ads that showed the bikes in more types of homes. Now it’s trying to figure out the same thing as a million other wellness brands: how to talk about exercise and well-being without emphasizing ideals of physical perfection that feel outdated to a lot of potential customers.

In response to the ad’s controversy, a spokesperson for the brand said that the ad was an attempt to give viewers a broader sense of the product’s advantages. “We constantly hear from our members how their lives have been meaningfully and positively impacted after purchasing or being gifted a Peloton Bike or Tread, often in ways that surprise them,” the statement read. “Our holiday spot was created to celebrate that fitness and wellness journey.”

[Read: The fitness craze that changed the way women exercise]

A holistic mind-body wellness journey might just be a little too conceptual to make for a good ad. For the commercial to make sense to many people, they have to already have a fairly detailed sense of why Peloton’s devotees find the device worthwhile, which makes it a risky strategy for a medium that reaches millions of people. Those people all live in a culture where exercise has long been regarded as punishment for the joy of indulgence, and where women are supposed to maintain an impossible level of physical perfection well into middle age, lest they face the denigration of both the culture at large and their own romantic partners.

Viewers who have spent their lives enduring those anxieties see them lurking just out of frame in Peloton’s new commercial, which reveals a larger problem with America’s relatioship to exercise: It can’t be fixed with a good product and some slick ads.

By: Amanda Mull

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/analysis-peloton

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It’s the commercial that launched 1,000 memes. Exercise bike maker Peleton released a holiday commercial showing a husband gifting his thin wife with the bicycle. The internet has reacted swiftly and they are not happy with the mesaage they say the ad implies. “Message received: Ladies, exercise harder/be thinner for your man and then thank him for it,” one user wrote. Perhaps the most popular parody is from a comedian who decides a divorce is the perfect response to the present.

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News & Politics

The Olympics Deserves Gold Medal In Economic Gloom

Rugby mania is coursing through Japan. It’s not just the sudden of burst of generously sized foreigners wandering around Tokyo, Sapporo and Kumamoto. Japan’s national team is beating virtually all expectations, even besting top-ranked Ireland.

Yet the Rugby World Cup is really a dry run for the main event of Shinzo Abe’s premiership: the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Hosting the Summer Games is a career topper for Abe, whose grandfather, the former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, brought the 1964 Olympics to Tokyo. Fifty-five years on, that event still enjoys a bull market in nostalgia. It marked Japan’s return to the world stage from the ashes of war and humiliating defeat.

And wow, did it ever. Japan’s futuristic bullet trains, avant-garde stadiums and neon-lit skylines captured the global imagination. The nation hadn’t just risen, phoenix-like, it was suddenly setting the technological tone, serving as a preview for Japan’s economic boom of the 1970s and 1980s.

Today In: Asia

Can Japan do it again? Doubtful. In fact, there are valid reasons to worry next year’s Olympics might do more to limit Japan’s potential than unleash it.

For Abe, scoring the Olympics was partly about unfinished family business. Though his beloved grandfather secured the 1964 Games, history has been less kind on account of Kishi’s wartime exploits. He was part of the cabinet of Hideki Tojo that ordered the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. In the mid to late 1930s, Kishi played various senior roles in Japanese-occupied Manchuria. It was a ghastly and brutal an episode as historians found amid World War II. Kishi beat the odds–and war-crime charges. He became prime minister in 1957.

Much of what’s driven Abe in politics can be described as Kishi legacy rehabilitation. In Abe’s first stint as leader from 2006 to 2007–and in the current one since 2012–he’s worked to whitewash Japan’s wartime aggression. Securing the 2020 Games was in part a historical bookmark to open yet another period of rebirth–this time from a two-decade deflationary malaise.

Might Japan be courting a post-2020 funk instead? I don’t just mean the debt-laden hangover from giant and costly facilities that will go underused. It’s more the 1964-like magical thinking behind the dialogue surrounding Tokyo 2020.

Indonesia’s bid for the 2032 Olympics has a certain logic. Surely, its infrastructure needs could benefit from becoming the fourth Asian nation to host the Games after Japan, South Korea and China. But Japan’s construction boom amounts to redundant upgrades to already highly developed megacities.

Japan has long since been discovered. A weaker yen, relaxed visa restrictions and aggressive marketing already morphed Japan into a tourism mecca. In 2018, Japan welcomed more than 31 million tourist arrivals, equal to one-quarter of the population. Already, cities like Kyoto are studying ways to limit tourism, or ease the side effects from overcrowding to pollution.

Asia’s No. 2 economy doesn’t need stadiums, but a societal transformation. It needs to rekindle its innovative spirits, increase gender diversity, reduce rigidities across industries, improve productivity and welcome more foreign talent to offset an aging and shrinking population–talent that stays on long after the five-ring circus of sporting events leaves town.

Abe views Tokyo 2020 as the key to the “revitalization of Japan.” The city’s governor, Yuriko Koike, says the Olympics can “usher in a new Tokyo.” But where are the underlying politics to bring about this epochal change? A few weeks of events will come and go. Japan, though, will be stuck with the same dismal demographics, the same crushing debt load, the same overbearing bureaucracy and the same risk aversion that starves it of a vibrant tech startup scene.

In the magical thinking of Abe’s inner circle, 2020 is a, well, game-changer. Just as 1964 was a chance for his grandfather’s generation to showcase technological advancements, 2020 is Abe’s moment to display Japan’s “Society 5.0” street cred. Trouble is, China, Korea and Indonesia also are moving upmarket and innovating. Indonesia, for example, has already produced twice as many “unicorns” as Japan.

Japanese society often does a poor job keeping up with technological change. A few weeks of medal ceremonies, it’s worth noting, will do little to restore Japan to its 1980s innovative greatness. It won’t increase productivity, internationalize corporate practices or end senior-based promotion practices that reward mediocrity. It won’t morph Tokyo into a global financial center or endear Japan Inc. stocks to overseas investors.

The Olympics won’t usher in a pro-growth energy policy that moves Japan away from coal and nuclear reactors. It won’t prod millennials or General Z members to take greater risks. It won’t narrow the gender pay gap or challenge Japan’s patriarchy. And it won’t incentivize companies to boost wages, kicking off the virtuous cycle Abe hoped to generate.

Only bold, forward-looking reforms can generate the upgrades needed to restore Japan to vitality. The economics of nostalgia in which Abe’s government is indulging only treats the symptoms of why Japan’s economy has underperformed for 20 years.

Sure, Japan is politically and societally stable. Nor have deflation and stagnant wages led to the kind fissures–crime remains low and homelessness rare–they might emerge elsewhere. But in the Chinese era, Japan has two choices. One, accept lower living standards as regional upstarts boom. Two, ramp up innovation that creates new jobs and wealth.

Clearly, option No. 2 is the wiser route. But if Tokyo thinks the Olympics is the answer, it’s setting itself up for failure. How did the 2016 Games work out for Brazil? Or 2012 for a United Kingdom torching its future with the brawl over Brexit?

Did the 2008 Games revolutionize China, which has become even more of a black box since then? In 2004, Greece won a gold medal for overspending and hastened the onset of a financial crisis from which it’s still extricating itself.

Japan isn’t courting a crisis. But history is almost sure to show that the seven years between winning the Games in 2013 and the actual event were a lost period for major policy moves to ensure forward motion. Japan needs to level the playing fields, not just provide a few for visiting athletes.

William Pesek

I am a Tokyo-based journalist, former columnist for Barron’s and Bloomberg and author of “Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan’s Lost Decades.” My journalism awards include the 2010 Society of American Business Editors and Writers prize for commentary.

Source: The Olympics Deserves Gold Medal In Economic Gloom

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Next stop: Tokyo! The Winter Olympics in PyeongChang just had their closing ceremony and that means the world turns it’s attention to Japan. The Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games are 2 years away, and here is what we know right now. ▶︎ WHEN ARE THE TOKYO 2020 OLYMPIC GAMES? July 24, 2020 to August 9, 2020 ▶︎ The New National Stadium It’s built on the same site as the 1964 Olympic Stadium. Designed by Kengo Kuma, it’s a very natural design surrounded by a lot of trees and parks. ▶︎ The Venues: There are 34 Venues separated into 2 zones. ▶︎ Heritage and Tokyo Bay: The Heritage zone is where the 1964 Olympics took place. Tokyo Bay is where the aquatics center, BMX and Skateboard course will be as well as other event. There are 12 events outside of these zones including foot / soccer, baseball, basketball. ▶︎ Ticket Prices for Tokyo 2020 Olympics: The average ticket price will be 7,700 yen ($72) and the opening and closing ceremonies will be between 25,000 yen ($235) and 150,000 yen ($1,400). Tickets will be sold online and at designated ticket centers in Tokyo. There are 33 sports for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics including 5 new ones: Aquatics, Archery, Athetics, Badminton, Baseball / Softball, Basketball, Boxing, Canoeing, Cycling, Equestrian, Fencing, Field Hockey, Football / Soccer, Golf, Gymnastics, Handball, Judo, Karate Modern pentathlon, Rowing, Rugby sevens, Sailing, Shooting, Skateboarding, Sport climbing, Surfing, Table tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling Within these sports, there are 324 events. Football / soccer actually starts 2 days before the opening ceremonies. URL: https://tokyo2020.org/en/ ★ ONLY in JAPAN on instagram: http://instagram.com/onlyinjapantv Music credits: “Running Fanfare” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b… Enter the Party by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-… Artist: http://incompetech.com/

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Entertainment
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