THE POTENTIALITY INSPIRES AND EDUCATES CHANGE MAKERS WHO ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT BUILDING COMMUNITY.
One of the ways we do this is by featuring organizations (businesses, social enterprises, schools, and non-profits) that are doing cool things to build community.
This month, we are focusing on the Blood, Sweat and Cheers, an New York based company that’s interweaving community through some of the most bizarre activities you’ll ever come across.
The Context | Tell us about Blood Sweat and Cheers. What is your unique value proposition and how do you deliver on it?
Blood, Sweat and Cheers is the free daily email that finds fun, social activities to do with friends in New York and across the continent. The company helps people discover off-the-radar activities, events, workouts and products – the best mud runs to zombie obstacle courses – that are difficult to find elsewhere but that you’d need to know that day in order to enjoy.
Founder Jon Ages says the key elements for a successful Blood, Sweat and Cheers activity is that it is fun, active and social.
“It is really about taking fitness outside of the gym so you can be healthy just by going out and being active,” he says.
The company is currently thriving. It has a growing subscriber base, which has grown considerably since it was founded over 2 years ago. These days, Ages has well over 150,000 daily email subscriptions and another 50,000 casual contacts per day on his site and on social networks. The whole business started after a dodgeball game.
At the time he was new to New York. He’d just lost an epic battle in a sneak attack undertaken by a woman who would later become his wife. After the game, he went for drinks and realized two things. First, a game as ridiculous as dodgeball was a blast to play.
“Throwing a ball as hard as you can at a stranger is the most cathartic thing you can do,” says Ages.
Second, it was exceedingly hard to find out about these random fun activities before they’d happen. While many activities were getting good write-ups in the local newspapers, it was often after the fact. There was really no comprehensive and popular listing of choice outdoor activities. For an entrepreneur like Ages, it was this realization that formed the kernel of his new business idea – an idea which would eventually become Blood, Sweat and Cheers.
Part 2 – The Challenge | Tell us about the community-based challenge you are addressing. What problem are you solving?
In an urban world where a growing number of people are living (particularly a metropolis like New York) it can be difficult for people to connect with one another. Absent the traditional social structures (ie work, school or the bar), making new friends in a big city can be tough. City’s, while diverse, can be lonely and isolating. Unless you got involved in beer sports leagues or played highly competitive sports, there really wasn’t a ton of ways you could meet new people and hang out with friends in a social and active way.
Then in the late 90s, things started to change. The whole idea of fitness as fun and social collided and it was no longer the sole preserve of high level athletes of traditional league sports (which often tended to be unisex). The idea that adults could “play” was no longer so out there. While Ages says there was always beer league softball, it was when kickball and dodgeball got started that the niche idea of recreational/social games/activities started to take off. Now he points to recreational “colour runs”, inter-tube water-polo and pillow fights as new random activities that’s ok for 20, 30 and 40 year olds to participate in. Now all that was needed was a directory or compilation that would arm this rising cohort of odd activity enthusiasts with the details of what/where and when to show up. Enter Blood, Sweat and Cheers.
It was great timing, says Ages. As their subscriber list grew it became clear that the e-newsletter was a new and valuable resource for brands (of all sizes) to communicate with an active and engaged demographic. Ages says they’ve now brought on Red Bull, Crunch Gyms and Helly Hansen as well a variety of other major national and international brands. The advertisers keep the newsletter service free to subscribers much like commuter daily newspapers handed out on the streets of most Canadian cities. They also provide Ages with the financial resources to grow his staff to search out yet more interesting activities for his subscribers.
Part 3 – The Community Potential | Tell us how your idea, service and/or product builds community.
The principal driving business goal of Blood, Sweat and Cheers is to connect a legion of New York (and American) outdoor activity enthusiasts with events that are fun, active and social. The very happy by-product of this work is that it also connects these enthusiasts with each other. Be it as friends or something more (Ages connected withhis wife at a dodgeball game – the same one after which he dreamed up Blood, Sweat and Cheers).
By using a medium as simple and cost effective as an e-newsletter, Ages and his team are leveraging one of the simplest forms of e-communication to forge a new network of outdoor activity enthusiasts who are spending their evenings and weekends playing like never before. If the Mud-Run industry (which has grown to a $500 million per year industry in 5 years) is showing anything, there is a pent up demand for this sort of community like few (with perhaps the exception of Ages) expected.
Photo and logo courtesy of Blood, Sweat and Cheers