Episode #508: Joe Cannato Discusses the Growth of Parkour at ROAMFurther

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1:03 Going up to Westchester area. We're gonna talk to Joe at Rome. We are gonna talk about parkourrome further.com. Joe, welcome to the show. Thank you, Pete. Happy to be here. Awesome. So, you partnered up with, 1 of my my, ex cohorts, colleagues at, at SAGEN, Scott Kaplan. So giving a shout out to, being now officially part of the HALO effect. Yeah. Yeah. That he, that he helped me, launch our practice, back at SAGENT back in the day. So talk a little bit about, you know, your background, school for nutrition and dietetics. That's my official background.

1:46 Part school for nutrition and dietetics. That's my official background. Parkour, I've been doing since 2004. I've been coaching professionally since 2011. Parkour wasn't necessarily a career path, or original career path in mind. It's just kinda how it worked out. Since I've been coaching since 2011, recognized that this is the path that I wanted to continue forward with. I used to coach and run a program that I started in Fairfield, Connecticut. And, that started to kinda fall through just because it wasn't a program that had the growth potential that I was thinking of. So I kinda had to start from scratch, and, that's a whole long story. The short story though is that it took over 5 and a half years before we got open. And in that process, I met Scott. And to be honest, it was kinda by accident. So I was speaking to, you know, a few different people who could help with funding. I was writing a business plan on my own, coming up with, you know, the concept as a whole, sharing that with people. I was looking for spaces in the area, and that's actually how I Pete Scott was I was in a spot where kinda skipping ahead, but it was a tough spot. You know, I didn't have anyone involved at all for funding at this point, but I kept going. Was still looking for locations, really just kept my eyes on the goal, and I met him through, the broker. So my broker was, actually, his brother was Scott's broker when

3:19 Scott was interested in trying to open up another form of business that was similar in the entertainment, kind of, you know, industry, so to speak. Right? Like, say entertainment places for kids, like trampoline park style. So, you know, I met him by accident and we got to meet. Scott was open to, you know, meeting me after hearing about my concept, and we really just got together, expedited a relationship, you know, learned about our backgrounds and how we connected and how we were different in a positive way that would allow us to kind of balance out our specialties. Gotcha. So, you know, for the people here that that don't know the intricacies of parkour, you know, you talk about it as a program, as a modality, and then what sports that people know of and have seen that lends itself to, you know, the the basics of the foundation of parkour, whether that's, you know, Ninja Warrior, whether that's, some of these tag events that I see on ESPN late at night, you know, talk about where this is infused. Yeah. For sure. So, you know, some people know, what parkour is. Some people have no idea still even though it's been around for a little bit, and there's people in between where they have a certain perception of what parkour is. I'd like to simplify and, relate it to martial arts, where it is a lifestyle, it is a discipline, there is an artistic element to it as well, where martial arts, you know, you could be learning element to it as well where martial arts, Moore know, you could be learning skills that are useful, but then there's also some things that are kind of, you know,

4:49 practicing the craft, but maybe it's more like just really trying to get good at a movement no matter, like, how useful that's going to be. Maybe it still just looks pretty like when you're moving in martial arts traditionally. So, you know, relating it to martial arts in the sense that we are thoughtful about how we Moore. You know, a lot of people think parkour kind of relates a little bit more to say skateboarding and and it's just taking risks and whatever happens happens. You know, there's more to it than that in skateboarding itself. But, parkour, I say, you know, we have a very mindful approach towards how we move, but the high level, you know, high risk kind of situations that you see promoted is what gathers all the attention and, you know, attention sells as well too. So, that's like a real good gist. So instead of fighting in self defense, it's obstacle based training. And that it's at that that's at its basis. Got it. You know, when you take a look at some of the, the kids and maybe Talks about the age groups that are are your largest, What kind of change do you see in them physically, you know, confidence wise, you know, achieving their own expectations? Talk talk about the development of a of a kid or a teen that goes through your program.

6:04 Sure. Yeah. We start as young as 9 months old. We've had an 8 month old in the program. Yeah. We start very young, and, that's fairly unique to us. I know they, you know, not many programs offer something for that young. You know? And if it is, it's, you know, it's just a space to be. Right? So our space is built for everyone, and the way we utilize it is very specific to the age group and ability. So there's really something for everyone. And some of the fun stories that we hear from parents, you know, a lot of kids have a different background in the older ages. For example, we have a student whose main sport is soccer, and he was with us all throughout the summer doing camp and some classes. And the parents got feedback from the other, teammates in the fall, and they're like, you know, what is he even doing all summer? And it's parkour. And the main thing there is that what they recognize is body awareness. Right? You know, you're exploding and your movements in parkour, that really translates well into things like soccer, even football. You know, there's just, like, you know, full force on whatever you're doing on the field. Basketball as well too. You know, we have some kids that, snowboard and ski, and we had the similar comments where instead of, like, what are they doing? Your kids fall different than our kids. You know? That was an 1 to hear too because there's an awareness of how to land and to roll. Falling is a part of it. You have to learn through failure and what you're doing in parkour, but there's a way to

7:36 fall well. So when you're out on the mountain, you fall, there's a way to turn your body to roll, come back up, and, that was seen too. And going back to the little ones real quick, you know, it's really child development through a parkour eye. We know how people can Moore. And so, you know, I have 3 children of my own. They're all very young. 4a half is the oldest, 2a half and 7 months old. So, you know, I've seen child development, you know, at a personal level, but also with that parkour eye with the students that we've worked with over the past 2 years in our space. And, you know, we have some value behind that movement in parkour that we could share even at a young age.

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9:21 So talk about the strategic decision to put the first location inside of the Grand Prix racing family entertainment center and not look for your own, you know, studio, you know, in a strip mall or, you know, a Sure. An old fitness center and then, you know, redeploying that. What you know, and and tell us what some of the benefits have been to that. For sure. So definitely not a 100% strategy like our strategic decision to be inside of Grand Prix. It was an element that we had to really think about when it was offered. So we found that complex, knowing that they had vacant space within that complex as a whole, but it was about half the width of the space that we're in now. It wasn't suitable.

10:02 But we really, really like the area. We like the demographic. We like the fact that there's ample parking. People are used to flocking to Mount Kisco for a lot of different things in the surrounding area. So it was very ideal in almost every sense except for being inside of a facility. So the benefits of that is Grand Prix is well known. A lot of kids go there often, usually more often on the weekend than they do during the week. It's entertainment facilities, you know, not thriving necessarily in after school hours compared to on the weekend. But there's a lot of consistent exposure up until this day. There's still people who are like, I never heard about you, and they're learning about us through coming into Grand Prix.

10:43 So great exposure. Some of the downsides are the fact that we are sharing an entrance to a space that is well known. So sometimes it could be a little bit difficult to be noticeable or have a presence of a new business when you are sharing an entrance. So we're always thinking about that, and we've made some changes over time to improve that, you know, physical awareness, you know, beyond the digital, you know, awareness that we do as well. Got it. And may and maybe you could give some insight into other entrepreneurs that may be thinking about a host, you know, or a sublease or a a partition area, what are there any things that you put in place up front or that you're trying to put in Square, whether it's, you know, co marketing or, you know, sharing lead lists or, doing emails, you know, that that promote both of the brands, or did you come up with any kind of economic structure where the Grand Prix benefits from, you know, your growth? You know, how how did you structure that without giving us all the details? Yeah. Sure. What are some of the high level things that that you benefited from or that you wish you maybe put in there? Yeah. What naturally came to mind to you is definitely, some good points already. You know, the marketing element that was a part of the plan that, Grand Prix had a a, you know, big email list to kinda shout out that we are there. You know, you also wanna understand what is that business that you're tying into and how much does it relate to your business, not necessarily competitively, but, you

12:15 know, to benefit you guys where it's, like, kind of a good crossover. They don't offer classes in the way that we do. It's more entertainment facilities are more like drop in, open use, kinda do your own thing. But if you wanted to add a little bit more value where there's a a coach led experience, that's what we offer. And so there's a nice tie into that, you know, where we differ. But definitely having good communication with them, recognizing, you know, do they seem like they are interested in helping out? It would be to their benefit because, you know, you are a subtenant, and we have a good relationship in that sense. You know, they wanna talk about us. They're very comfortable being open minded of us adding extra signage and think about how the flow works of people getting to our space. That is very important. So think about it in any way that you can in advance so that you could feel confident in case something comes up that you didn't plan for or anticipate, such as people coming into us that say, you know, is there a back entrance? Sometimes that does happen, but we're very much a Moore, relaxing type of vibe within our space, and sometimes it's very busy on the weekends, You know, lights on, you know, arcade games, and sometimes people are like, you know, I'm not coming for that, and I'm coming for the relaxing vibe, and they wish they didn't have to go through that. But usually, that's just an initial, you know, beginning part of it. But that wasn't necessarily something we completely foresaw being a, you know, consistent thing that we would hear.

13:43 Understood. So give give us the, the DNA behind the name Moore further. What what does that mean to you, and how do you, articulate that to the market? Sure. So parkour in general is the root of our offering, but it's not rooted in the sense where everything is pure parkour. You know, there's other elements of movement that parkour comes from. And but a big piece of it that connects with the business is to the idea to explore. But there's a difference between exploring and roaming, and the fact that you could be open to just kind of exploring without a specific goal. Be open minded. Roam through the world, roam through wherever you are, and be open to what you experience.

14:25 So to roam further means that there is no end. There's always something more to gain through experience. And so that's a, you know, a strong connection with Parkour, but also, like, our mindset and our values. So that's the, root of the name in the most basic form. Good. And and when you're marketing this, you know, obviously, you got some great, testimonials on, you know, kids that are in sports and they're they're they're bettering their their skill set and their confidence level and their strength. What have you done on the programming side, or what do you intend to maybe do on the programming side to make it sports specific or say, here's the benefits of of the core program and then try and kinda touch a lot of different points of what people are doing, you know, that they're aspirational. They're trying to make a JV team or or a a varsity team. How does that how do you market that, and and how difficult is it just given the noise in, you know, in the Westchester Square? There's plenty of places to, you know, do athletics.

15:29 Yeah. Definitely, there there's a time factor to that too. Right? We're trying to develop relationships with schools, and then, of course, teams in general. The more relationships you could build, the the easier it is to kind of market in that sense and also just to have that kind of awareness through others and their experiences. Now we could put it on our website, you know, in certain ways. We even have cross training. There's an element. You spoke of Ninja Warrior before. I didn't go into too much depth there, but, you know, parkour existed before the TV show American Ninja Warrior. But in the early days, a lot of parkour athletes were the thriving athletes on the show, and, they decided to specialize in Ninja Warrior Training. So parkour can be a route to a lot of different sports, and then you could recognize the elements that parkour trains and then maybe specialize in that Moore. Say Ninja Warrior, a lot of upper body and finger strength. Right? You might only need so much finger strength to be a parkour athlete in general, but to succeed in American Ninja Warrior, you really need to be working on that element. And that's a very, you know, simpleized, version of, like, how I could speak to 1 of the specializations in Ninja Warrior. But so we do that in that sense too to get people to understand some of the benefits if we're not teaching you specifically for Ninja Warrior, but we could also fill into the gaps of some of the more specialized parkour skills that will apply there. And then like we talked about before with, soccer, snowboarding, skiing, I mean, basketball as well too, That's more relationships.

16:58 There's definitely room for us to kind of now that we've been getting a lot of that feedback to kinda hyperfocus and add some of that. That's actually on our list too. We've been building up our website over time to add in more information of what we've been experiencing that we talk about in house, but maybe not have online. So that's actually on our list to express deeper. Got it. So Talks about the the the model. Do you have a a membership model, and do you have kids coming a certain amount of days per week to actually get the results that that you desire for them to get. You know, I'm assuming this isn't something you do, you know, 5 or 6 days a week like a a soul cycle class, but you Talks about how many days per week is is kind of ideal for for a teen or for a younger, kid, and how do you price that or how do you sell that to their, to their parents? Yeah. So mostly we are session based, for the youth program. We have an adult program too. It's smaller than our youth program, and we could go into more depth of what we do for adult programs and events as well. But for the youth program, it's 8 week sessions, within the school year.

18:11 So usually, it's helpful for parents to be thinking in that manner and not to necessarily have the pressure of, like, say, long term membership since there's a smaller percentage, say, of people who choose parkour or any sport as their 1 true activity. So there is an element of having seasonality for some customers. There's some people who are staying with us all the time, and the only time that they're, you know, taking a break is maybe they're going on vacation and it's not mixing in. But then we also have drop ins too where people are using some scheduled drop ins in between those, breaks in in the session. So we price it out that way, and we have a nice system that allows us to not necessarily go the auto charge method.

18:52 We stay away from that in the membership based system just because there's a lot of manual activity in this type of industry where we have a high level of service and communication with our customers Square they could facilitate things on their own. But it's often that I've experienced in the past even before opening Roam, how often there's communication about, hey, cancel, or I didn't want to auto enroll. I didn't know I wanted to auto enroll. So we found that, you know, having that business sense of keeping it on all the time would devalue the relationship, and then we'd also have to do more manual work to do either refunds or cancel or decide to take that, you know, traditional approach that maybe some other fitness facilities that are very high volume. Maybe they don't have that same service base.

19:38 We have a small you know, we're close to the families. So we have a lot of interactions every day, and we don't necessarily wanna be like, hey. You know, you didn't let us know that you canceled in 30 days. So it's like you're just gonna have to be charged again and wait it out. So Gotcha. You know, several years ago, we worked on a strategic consulting for AAA ninja, indoor ninja, park. And, the part that intrigued me about their business model is that all the birthday parties that they did, basically, all the kids that came to the birthday party had to have their parents sign a waiver, which gave their email address and their contact info through the the the release, which turned into basically free leads or negative customer acquisition cost or member acquisition cost. What what's the, how how many birthday parties you're doing?

20:30 Is that a big part of the, the business model? And, you know, how how does that kinda turn on the fuse for, getting new kids to, to become members? Yeah. Definitely. Birthday party is a big part of our business. Saturdays Sundays in particular, we do offer it on Friday nights as well. We probably don't do as many birthday parties as some of the entertainment based businesses that could also offer it all throughout the week. We find the balance of, you know, still offering classes and having that relationship with people long term, versus say in some entertainment facilities that don't offer the classes, so they could kind of offer it, multiple things going on at the same time.

21:12 Right now, the parties that we do are are exclusive use to our space, so it is a specialized form of a birthday party. It's all coach led, very little thinking for the parents, and that's what's kind of 1 of our specialties. It's the fact that we're planning it based on the age group, the size, and the time that they choose. And with our specialty coffee bar built into our front desk area as well, we take our that's another element to the business. It becomes an adult social where the parents kinda stay instead of drop off. They hang out, and it feels like they're going to a place for them, not just for their kids. That has an element in our parties and for our classes and camp as well, where sometimes we have camp and parents are stationed up with their laptop and get work done in the same place, look up when they wanna see their kids. So, but, yeah, birthday party is big part of it.

22:04 Great. And and how much do you see, you know, parents actually working out with their kids on the course, versus, you know, waiting for them to to finish like you usually see at ninja, areas where, you know, the parents are kinda chit chatting and looking at their watch or, you know, bringing their laptop. You know, is there a an is it like is it becoming Moore like pickleball where, you know, everyone should be on the the course or everyone should be, participating? How how have you seen that evolve? Yeah. So, that's a really good question. There's a lot of opportunity for kids and parents to do it together. We're planning to do some more events that are more specific to that as kind of a way for a lot of our parents to get a chance to experience that and see how much of an interest it would be to have that a part of, say, the after school hour classes. Because there is an element too where, you know, parents are looking for something for their kids to do, maybe drop off and get some things done. So there's gotta be that that balance as well. So events are kind of like that nice middle ground where it allows an opportunity for that gathering. We see the most interest for the little ones, and, we have our little roamers and me program Square it's 9 months to 3 years old. Sometimes it goes up till 4 where parents and kids are involved in the space together. The activity is still more focused towards the kids, but it does require some involvement from the parents. And we have a lot of thoughts in the background of how we could find the balance

23:36 of parents and kids doing it together because there is a tricky side to where the kids just kinda wanna take control and, like, hey, watch me do this, watch me do that. And it becomes more of, like, a a spectating element for the parents, and we want we have some ideas of how it could be beneficial to everyone. This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose, higher dose dot com. They are the leader in workout recovery products, infrared technology, LED light masks, neck enhancers, and other products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets.

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25:04 Academy last question is or or a comment. When I'm on your website, you know, you call it roam further and you edit the the word athletics, which I think is very Moore. You know, was that did that happen at inception or did that evolve over time to make it more understood that, you know, this is a a sport, and this is not necessarily just a program? Sure. Yeah. No. From the beginning. So I didn't wanna brand the business purely as parkour in the name because even though it's the root, it is not the only element. And there are a lot of people who view parkour in a particular way, and they have their understanding of what it is. So we're hoping that people kinda come in and experience, and we've had a lot of positive experience towards, like, people Pete, you know, I didn't really know what parkour was or this isn't what I thought it was.

25:56 And, you know, we have our own style just like any other facility or martial arts place. You know, not everyone's gonna be doing it in the same way, and we have our method. So the name was, a big, you know, part of the choice of how we wanna make people feel about what we do. Awesome. So, in closing here, any any quotes that you, live by or any, you know, tagline that you like to, lead the kids with, you know, when they're leaving the Sure. Location? Yeah. In general, you know, we have a lot of conversations with the kids and we try to, you know, work with them to them as an individual within a group setting. You know, we don't treat everyone the same. That is 1 of the unique elements of what we do and try to build those relationships for long term. Yesterday, I actually had, you know, 4 of our coaches were all students of mine in the past. So I've known some of them since they were 10, 11 years old. So there's a whole community element to this too. You know, it it never ends.

26:54 And, a quote that I like to say is experience is nothing without change, and it hits people right away sometimes, others not. But what I mean by that is, you know, you could have 30 years of experience, but if you haven't been changing throughout that process and improving what you do and who you are, it it that experience doesn't mean much at all. So yeah. It's great. Well, we say experience is what you get. When you don't get what you want, I think I like yours better. Thank you. Well well, good stuff, man. Congrats on, on the business, and seems like you got all the right pieces in the right place. So, keep crushing that. And then, once you figure out the full unit economics and special sauce, then, you know, go find the next location and keep us posted. Yeah. That's that's next that's next up for this year thinking about that. So thank you very much. Really appreciate being on. You got it, bud.