Leave it on the Barre

The last class I sampled in my research was a Pure Barre class in Newton Ctr. Pure Barre is a form of exercise based on concepts from ballet training and Pilates. Pure Barre boasts creating the fastest most effective method for changing your body. The workout focuses on toning your "seat" (grownup word for Bum) hips, thighs, abs an arms. The Pure Barre franchise has 200 locations in the US and is the fastest growing ballet inspired workout franchise. Locations in the Boston area include affluent suburbs such as Newton, Wellesley, Hingham and Lynnfield. Locations are owned via a franchise agreement with some franchisee's owning multiple locations. Like Soul cycle there is a portion of the studio that is dedicated to retail; primarily apparel. Pure Barre, like Zumba, also has a robust online retail presence that sells apparel, DVD's and equipment. Pure Barre sets itself apart in the retail section by offering podcasts enabling seasoned puree bar students to practice this method anywhere in the world only needing the assistance of their pure barre workout towel. 

Classes can be scheduled online through the official pure barre website or via phone at your local studio. I called to schedule my first appointment and felt welcomed in starting my new experience. The introduction to the class was swift and painless. An instructor demonstrated to me that it would be important that I learn the "tuck" movement for class and showed me to an open carpeted area with mirrors and a barre lining the wall, much like a ballet studio of my childhood. Equipment needed for the class was minimal and included a small rubber ball, three point weights and a rubber band for stretching. Once class began the instructor was featured at the center of the room calling out positions and demonstrating movements. Each routine was broken drown by area worked and included a stretch after each section. Upbeat songs played throughout the session in the background. Inspirational messages were displayed throughout the retail areas of the studio however the instructors did not provide the affirmations that are peppered throughout the soul cycle routine. The workouts are hard! Not in an intense cardio way but in an intense isometric exercise kind of way. I really enjoyed the class and the instructor was very helpful in confirming that I was positioning myself correctly. This is definitely a class where you can not let your mind wander; I had to focus on remaining present and listening to the instructor in order to ensure my form was correct and that I was following along on the positions. 

At the end of the class I learned I was eligible to purchase one month of unlimited classes for $100 and that my class fee of $23 would be credited to the amount. The only additional item I needed to purchase were special grip socks that cost about $12. I enjoyed the class and bought into their body changing concept  ("30 classes to a transformed Body"). My goal is to attend 30 classes in the 30 day timeframe and document the transformation. Many exercise programs today guarantee that you will experience a significant level of change within a short time frame and I want to understand how this process works. A constant theme throughout all three of the programs I have evaluated (spinning, Zumba and Pure Barre) is that they are all selling change. All promise a change in you physically and some talk about the mental aspects of change; Soul Cycle seems to do the best job with talking about and executing on a change in mentality. I will update this particular blog after my 30 day challenge; stay tuned for further findings! 

Joining the Crew.....

For my next adventure in research on crafting my innovative idea I decided to take a lesson at Community Rowing in Brighton. Rowing was a sport I aspired to learn as a child. Living in an area surrounded by Head of the Charles, a neighborhood teeming with former Ivy league rowers, and a view of the training team for a local university gave me the opportunity to appreciate the sport at a very young age. It seemed only natural that part of my collegiate experience would involve being part of a "crew".

I first became introduced to a rowing machine in high school after I was sidelined from running due to an achilles tendon injury. I really enjoyed the solidarity of rowing on the machine in the gym and getting lost in my thoughts.

Community Rowing requires that it is located in Brighton on the Charles River, requires a decent amount of real-estate to house sweep and sculling shells, oars, and additional equipment. Community Rowing is a not for profit offering rowing outreach programs to at risk youth and disabled veterans.  the barriers to entry for rowing and made it accessible to all income levels in the Greater Boston area. I registered for a 90 minute introductory course that reviewed the basics of rowing where we had the opportunity to get out on the water. The first 45 minutes of the course covered the basic form of rowing and was taught on land with the assistance of a rowing machine. The instructor broke down the act of rowing into three steps for us to follow when out on the water; body, legs, arms. Rowing on the water as part of a crew proved to be far more challenging than I had anticipated. When crew members rowed out of sync it placed you in danger of having your oar roll over you which would give you the appearance of looking like a crab flipped on its back. Rowing with 9 other strangers proved challenging when trying to hold one another accountable for rowing out of sync. 

Like Zumba, Community Rowing seemed to be more inclusive than some of the boutique exercise classes I attended. This can be partly attributed to their not for profit status and attributed to their clearly defined mission of "Rowing for All". Inclusion is also a major factor in a team sport and for this lesson I did experience rowing as part of a crew. Community Rowing also offers classes rowing in singles, a conditioning gym, and indoor training during inclement weather. The instructor's level of training and experience was greater than the typical training. My instructor had rowed crew at Southern Methodist of four years and had moved to Boston to work on a new master of coaching in rowing at CRI. The typical level of training for a boutique exercise class such as Zumba, Soul cycle or Pure Barre is typically a personal training certification and individual training in the particular concentration. An interesting fact based on our teachers length of time and experience is that Rowing is a sport where in order to be good at it it does not require that a minimum amount of time for you to achieve mastery. If you learn the techniques and are physically strong you can row as well or better than a counterpart who has been rowing longer. This broadens the scope of individuals who can learn rowing, you don't need to be 20 to join the crew. 

I enjoyed my time at CRI and was really impressed with the quality of the facility as well as the instructors. I look forward to exploring additional classes. 

Exercise of Inclusion

As part of my continued exploration I took a Zumba class for the first time. As someone who enjoys exercise, enjoys music, dancing and was a former cardio kickboxing junkie  people were surprised to hear that I had never attended a class before. Zumba, founded in 2001, has become one of the largest exercise classes in the world. Zumba's boasts over 15 million users in 180 countries. As part of my continued research project in the evolution of the concept I am creating, I thought it would be important to learn what all buzz was about.

I was able to locate a class using the official Zumba websites class locator. Studio offerings ranged from health clubs such as the Equinox and Sports Club LA to dance companies located in VFW halls. I selected a class 3 miles from my office located at an American Legion in Newton.  While it was simple to find the building it was challenging to find the class location as a Bingo game was playing in the large hall and it was difficult to determine who was a Zumba attendee and who was there for Bingo. Really, I chased down some 20 something girls in sweatpants hoping to follow them to Zumba class only to find out that they were attending Bingo.  I was able to finally find the room once the music started for class. I was able to enter the class late and only required to pay my $5 cash fee, no pesky waivers or health forms to contend with. Out on the dance floor I tried my best to follow along with the instructor to the beat of the songs. My group ranged in ages from 8 years old (the teachers daughter) to about 60. Size and athleticism range was also on as large a scale. The one common denominator was that everyone was there to have fun. The class lasted an hour for a total of about 12 different songs and routines. I was wearing a fitbit during the class and tracked walking 3 miles over the duration of the class. At the end there was a cool down period where slowed down salsa and meringue moves were used to stretch us out. I found the class to be a great experience and I plan to incorporate into my routine.

Zumba exploded on the scene in 2001 and was created by a Columbian celebrity fitness instructor who had forgot his aerobics soundtracks and used a music from his car and incorporated dance moves from  hip-hop, soca, samba, salsa, merengue, mambo and martial arts to teach an aerobics class.  (wikipedia) Zumba sells DVD's, video game programs, clothing and accessories. It also offer certified training to become an instructor. Zumba does not charge a licensing fee to gyms and individual looking to teach Zumba classes. Zumba derives its revenues from the products for sale through its website. http://www.zumba.com/en-US  This is pretty important for a few reasons. First off, Zumba makes it very easy and accessible for consumers to consumer their core product of exercise. By doing this they have broadened the scope of consumers introduced to the Zumba JTBD which is "ditch the workout and join the party". Zumba has also done an excellent job of building a loyal fan base where each participant feels like they belong. Lastly, Zumba makes it very simple to consume their product on a number of different levels. Attending a Zumba class and studying their revenue streams was very helpful for me in working on my concept.

You've Been Served

Monthly box subscriptions seem to be the next big thing when it comes to combining e-commerce and and a membership fee model. While this has been around for a few years with products and samples a new and interesting format has been the evolution signing up to receive curated food and recipes. I decided to try "Plated", simply because I seem to see their advertisements more often than their competitors Blue Apron or Hello Fresh.

I ordered my plated meal on a Monday with the scheduled delivery date of that Friday. On Thursday I received a friendly email from Plated confirming that my meal was en route and confirming the ingredients I would need to have on hand to prepare my meal. For the recipe I chose which was Meatballs with Zucchini, Blackened Tomatoes, and Mint.  this include having an egg, olive oil and salt and pepper on hand.

Experience
My package arrived Friday afternoon in a cool refrigerated container via Fed Ex. Portions were packed in groups of two and according to food group. All ingredients were pre measured and clearly labeled.  A bright and colorful card detailed instructions with pictures demonstrating each of the eight steps. When I order this meal it did not occur to me that I would be spending a significant amount of time slicing and dicing. The instructions estimated the recipe would take between 30-45 minutes to repair; I estimate I spent about 25 minutes of my time peeling the zucchini to make pasta ribbons. I had always wanted to learn how to slice veggies for pasta alternatives so this was a fortunate side effect. Instructions for mixing the meatballs were quite simples and the roasting of the tomatoes took no time. The tools that Plated provided me made me feel confident during the preparation that I could produce a quality product.

Feedback
I served this meal to my husband, sister and mother. I received very positive feedback on the presentation, food combination and process. My husband, a busy Finance/IT professional and father to our two small children felt it was a do again and is hoping to select and cook our next Plated order. I look forward to this too as Fred has not had a lot of training when it comes to cooking and I believe that Plated can help him to fine-tune his cooking techniques.
My sister (who weighs 105 lbs) was concerned that she would not feel full since the pasta was not pasta but zucchini. My husband explained her feeling of fullness would come from the meatballs; Courtney remarked the whole experience felt rather "yuppy".
My mother, a recent retiree, volunteered next time to go food shopping for me at Wilson Farms in Lexington, she thought I was crazy for paying $15 per serving for the meal. After I walked her through their  target consumer (someone who makes too much money to be wondering around a supermarket) the wheels began to turn on her offering her own version of a Plated service. We anxiously await hr shopping her proposal to local VC firms.

Complements
I think that Plated is missing out on an opportunity to sell cooking accessories to their customers. Plated assumes you own sharp knives or a pan. It would be helpful if they could list the tools needed at the time of the order and link you to a page where you can purchase the needed equipment. If Plated decides that is too far outside its business model it should consider partnering with a Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table and receiving a % of revenue for each product sold. They could expand this to include table settings as well. I would also recommend that Plated add technique video's to their website; for a moment I was unsure of how to slice the zucchini, referencing their website for a tutorial on how to prepare this meal would seem like a natural fit and another way to connect with your customer.


Strategy
After this activity was done I thought a lot about what Plated's strategy was. If I was an investor I would be incorporating my suggestions above so that I would catch the attention of Amazon and use Plated as a launching pad for the first online grocery store. The disruption factor would be that it would change the way people purchased food; have them buy according to recipes and not in mass quantities.

I became a big soul cycle patron when they opened close to my house this past winter. I have a number of friends in NY who are devoted followers to their classes. I noticed that once soul cycle entered the market several cycling studios opened in Boston, and with the exception of Flywheel all were homegrown creations. I decided that I would try out all of these spinning course offerings in the Boston area to determine if Soul cycle is an experience that can be easily replicated.

I found a number of gyms with stylish and clean studios sprinkled through out heavily trafficked areas of greater Boston.  Each studio was equipped with trendy playlists pumping out the motivational popular music that kept the class participant engaged for 45 minutes to an hour. But thats pretty much where the similarities ended. What was missing from the other studios that soul cycle provided was an uplifting motivational experience that enabled me to center my mind and body in a similar manner that yoga allowed me to. What I also found was that the quality of the instruction was far superior too. All of the cycling studios had the same type of moves that they called out during the routines. The difference was how the soul instructor was able to make the routines and moves simple to understand and easier to execute during the session.

Soul Cycle's competitive advantage is that they are able to deliver the cycling experience better than any of the competing studios enabling Soul to demand as much as $10 per class more than there counterparts and limit the need to spend on marketing as they have an evangelical customer base who recruits new devotees for them.

Take away: create an easily adaptable, spiritually uplifting, results oriented fitness experience that can be deployed in multiple major metropolitan markets.

An association that I belong to recently ran a course at the Improv Asylum on techniques that can help one to be a more effective listener. The course was comprised of about 14 other colleagues from this association with about 12 attendees who were male and three females including me.

The first exercise was a skill builder on listening. The exercise was that one person started by saying something and the next person would say the first word that popped into their head out loud with the outcome being that the game would end when someone was able to say the first word that was used to start off the game. The challenge that groups (ours included) typically ran into is that people were so focused on trying to remember what was the first word that was used was that the word that they uttered as first coming to mind did not associate with the word that was said prior and made it impossible to achieve the end result of getting back to someone saying the first word that was used at the beginning of the exercise.

The instructor walked us through how through active listening and remaining focused on what the person to our left was saying we would be able to eventually come to a place in the game where someone would reference the original work that was used to kick it off. It reminded me of how we tend to miss out on what is actually going on around us because we become over focused on executing on a particular task and how this can lead to a creative breakdown in our innovation practice. I was able to apply the tools we learned in this exercise later on that day in another game we were playing and won because I was able to apply the frameworks.

Crumbs Cupcakes

I found myself in the baking aisle of target the weekend prior to my nephews birthday. At perfect eye level was a beautifully packaged box of Crumbs "Happy Birthday" cupcake mix staring me down. With its premium price tag of $9.99 per box that yielded 1 dozen buttercream frosted cupcakes I realized that this mix was not for the faint of heart. I had never baked cupcakes for any of my kids events. This was partly due to a shortage of time balancing my schedule and a fear of serving fallen, sloppily made, poorly constructed cupcakes for my children's birthdays. That fear of failure rearing its ugly head. I decided that since it was my nephews birthday and not a venue where too many people could see my fail that I would take the plunge and bake.

Had I known what I was getting myself into I would not have purchased the mix. 4 sticks of butter, 10 ounces of cream cheese and about $40.00 later found myself in my kitchen at 7am ready to bake. The instructions were fairly simple to follow and broke the process down into about 4 steps over a 3 hour time period. The recipe required three different types of frosting, one was for the rosettes that were to be used to decorate the cupcakes. I had a lot of fun baking the cupcakes and the the end result was quite positive; not the epic failure I had imagined.

Part of what motivated me to try this cupcake mix was to evaluate how a high end bakery could enter the baked good mix market. The average cupcake mix yielding 24 cupcakes cost about $2 at target and frosting seemed to add an additional $3 to the cost with a total baking time of about an hour. I'd be interested to see how Crumbs fares in this category as I would imagine that people with this level of discretionary income's time per hour would be high enough that they would be better served to spend the $80 on 24 customer cupcakes from a specialty bakery not taking into account the "experience" factor baking a crumbs cupcake.