00:04 As we've grown we'll go to random places and people will say 'Oh, that's Scott with ADAPT or hey, that's Jorge with ADAPT, they're the owners there. They're to co-founders'. You know, I think we have to hold ourselves to a standard, the last thing we want to do is, for one, let each other down, let our business down. But further than that whole North Miami area. The last thing we want to do is let that community down.
00:47 So you guys have built ADAPT into quite an incredible business, especially from its original start. So why don't you just share with us a little bit about ADAPT.
00:55 So we're a full-service wellness center. Um, we've grown to be about 40,000sqft at this point. When we say full-service we really offer everything. We have all sorts of fitness training from personal, group, private fit training, combine prep training for athletes, uh, to therapy services. And on top of that, of course we have basketball courts, volleyball courts that we've created.
01:17 It's an acronym for athletic development and performance training. We wanted to be all facets of training, not just cross-fit. It was supposed to be to develop you into either an athlete or fitness. Coming in we were going to develop and create this new you. And that's how the acronym ADAPT came to be.
01:36 Well tell us why you originally wanted to start this kind of a business.
01:40 It kind of landed in our hands. Uh, we met each other and we started training together and, you know, we're like 'Why don't we do this as a business, you know'? We started creating boot camps all over our district and we just decided to, like, 'You know what? Let's settle down and see if this works'. It pretty much started as a hobby and then somewhere along the line it just hit us in the face - it's a business, it's no longer a hobby. So workouts were not happening every day, workouts, if you can get it even once a week that's even good, that's even better. But that's pretty much how it started out.
02:09 What you're describing is so exciting but it sounds so daunting as well. So, can you imagine having come this far, and doing what you do, without each other as partners?
02:22 Yeah. Definitely not possible. I mean, honestly we're very similar but we're also very different and I think that puts each other in check, within reason. So when I go on my tangent he kind of brings me back. Or if he does the other, we give each other energy.
02:35 I think we bounce of each other as far as, you know, ah, the back end and then the spokesperson's part. And I think we mesh really, really well, we learn from each other. And I know I've learned a lot from him.
02:46 What is it that makes North Miami unique and how does that inform the way you've built your business?
02:55 Miami is, for one the whole city is very multi-ethnic and multi-cultural anyway, right? So North Miami is not really that far different, it's got a wide base so you really have a good melting pot of people. So one side tends to be very affluent, then the other side is a different mix of backgrounds that don't have the financial means as well. So we hit that.
03:16 We see some very talented kids around out neighborhood, you know, under resourced we're like 'Man, wouldn't it be fun to create the ADAPT Foundation and now be able to help these under resourced kids within our community'?
03:28 I mean, some businesses try to like, lower their prices to make it more accessible, but it was very smart that you created the ADAPT Foundation as a separate entity so you could keep the health of the business and then have this other piece.
03:40 That's really how it started, was that we were training but we obviously needed to make money for the business so we kept finding out that a lot of the kids that need the training, or even that are the higher level athletes sometimes, that maybe can't afford it, uh, we weren't able to provide anything for them. And here we are offering like cutting edge training, the best quality, the best everything, but we couldn't get the kids in the door because of a price point issue. Um, so then we found out that, hey, this is much easier so let's work on, let's create this Foundation and we can take these donations and really make them work in a way that we know. And 100% goes directly to each kid.
04:12 Do you have an example of, like, a child that you have seen go through that program, and seen that seismic change?
04:19 Yes. Yes, we have Amia Bautista. This young athlete couldn't do a push up, even with assistance. Later on, fast forward, she became the captain of her soccer team, she graduated top of her class, uh, and she was able to excel and take what she learned in training in ADAPT and it kind of just migrated into her studies and schooling, and she was able to excel.
04:44 And is there something that you're ultimately trying to achieve? So if you were to define your ultimate goal, what would that be?
04:54 It's changed a lot throughout the years, and now we have this one big goal. Uh, it might take ten years, but, you know, we're going to get there. We're already part of the community but we definitely want to spread that, those tentacles a little further out and see, not only be in our district but maybe a different town, maybe even a different state. If we can make that type of connection here, why can we not make that connection elsewhere?
05:22 I mean, that is what's so special about small businesses, is you're not just providing a product or a service but you're a member of the community in a way that has a responsibility beyond the business itself.
05:34 We really enjoy it. I think that's what keeps us motivated, um, over the dollar at the end of the day. Because I say we still pretty much know everybody by name. At least between the two of us. I think our staff also does a great job with them. I think keeping that community is really what we want. It's worth more than anything we can make, I think.
05:51 That's part of the challenge. Continuing to level up and keep that core value, keep that community. And that's going to be a challenge for us as we continue to expand. You know, that's one of the major ones. Obviously we're in the business part of it but the community is what got us here. Being a pillar of the community, how do we keep that glue, keep that bond as we scale up. That's going to be a challenge we're looking forward to as we move on.