Too much time has passed since my last email to you, so I apologize in advance for my length. There is so much I want to share with you.

Together, we’ve accomplished much in two short years

Two years ago, Wodify entered this market with a new approach to performance tracking. Since then, our software has evolved into much more than a performance tracking application. Today we can proudly say that we offer the best all-in-one software solution for box owners and their athletes on the market — and we have you to thank for it.

Thank you for betting on the long shot when others would not. Thank you for being patient with us as we made mistakes. Thank you for affording us the opportunity to fix and learn from those mistakes. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you.

Because of your faith in Wodify, we stand strong at nearly 1,500 gyms worldwide. An average of seven boxes choose Wodify each day to run their box. This success has afforded us the opportunity to make investments in some amazing skill sets: user experience, user interface design, native mobile development, copywriting, testing, and enterprise-class infrastructure.

It’s often said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It appears that we have (quite a few) reasons to feel flattered. Two industry standards in box management software have made attempts to add performance tracking to their offering. One has done so via a partner. I cannot speak to the quality of their partner, but I can tell you that integrating with a partnered solution will always bring limitations and gaps – it is inevitable.

Another competitor bragged about their blatant efforts to copy our performance tracking solution, down to the design and color choices. To them, I say “Congratulations! You copied a solution that is two years old. Our next iteration will make your solution look like yesterday’s news.”

Finally, I want to apologize for not attending the CrossFit Games this year. I have a wife, two children (ages 6 and 4) and two dogs (yes, I’m THAT guy who gets mushy over his dogs). My kids say things like “…you’re always working Daddy.” I’ve made a conscious decision to spend as much time as I can with them beyond the long hours that I put in at the office. I hope that you won’t view my absence at Games as a sign of not being committed to Wodify. I am more committed than ever to the Wodify family and to your success with our software.

I am also committed to my own family — a balancing act I’m sure many of you are familiar with. After all, long hours spent running a box aren’t that much different from those spent in the office building box software. But at the end of the day, both are extremely important and I know what I need to do to help them both flourish.

We’re far from perfect

We set out to create a product that box owners and athletes couldn’t live without. The good news is that we’ve been fairly successful in achieving our goal. The bad news is that we’ve been fairly successful in achieving our goal. That is to say, you, your coaches, and your athletes expect that Wodify will never go down.

Your expectation is not unreasonable. Our team also becomes frustrated when the apps that we depend on go down. Thanks to companies like Google and Facebook, we’ve been accustomed to software just working. Recently, Facebook went down for 16 minutes and people thought we were under nuclear attack.

The reality is that we are not Google, nor are we Facebook (but they are certainly the targets that we’re shooting for ;-)). Our system does and will go down from time to time for many reasons: hardware failures, a new feature being deployed that causes too much server load, database indexes becoming fragmented due to the volume of transactions we manage and every now and then, good old Murphy’s Law. I want you to know uptime is important to us. Here are three things we have done to minimize downtime.

1. Internal performance audit – We deploy new features every Tuesday night. We’re going to do a better job of communicating that to you, and I’ll get to that later. Every Wednesday morning we perform a performance audit against the prior week’s benchmark. We look for page load times, slow SQL queries, and slow API calls. When we find issues, we create tasks for our engineers to fix them immediately. These issues take the absolute highest priority. We’ve had this process in place for 12 weeks, resulting in decreased database and application load, even though we are onboarding five to seven gyms each and every day. If we could turn back time, we would have implemented this process from day 1.
2. Sharing our status – Inevitably, we will go down from time to time. Last week we implemented a new status page: http://status.wodify.com. When we go down, this page is updated and we will tweet the issue. As we identify, fix, and resolve the issue, you will again be updated as to the status via our page and Twitter. You can subscribe to updates via email, SMS, or Twitter by visiting the page and clicking on the red button. We realize the burden we put upon you when we are down – the least we can do is create a line of communication that alerts you to the issue and resolution.
3. Adding new talent – We’re looking for a DBA and Network Engineer to join our team. We’re at the point now that we need an experienced heavyweight to come in and make recommendations, build processes, and ultimately drive downtime to near zero. If you know of someone who knows how to manage big data, please have them apply here.

We have a laboratory

On July 1st, 2014 we added “box owners” to our growing resumes. We opened Wodify Strength & Conditioning directly below our offices in Cherry Hill, N.J. We are not a CrossFit gym; had to give up on CrossFit Wodify when HQ denied our request on two separate attempts. In one short month we have learned so much about our software. Not a day goes by that we don’t see holes that we can fill to make life easier for the box admin, coach, and manager.

Frankly, opening a gym today in Cherry Hill, N.J. — not the smartest move. There are CrossFit gyms on every corner. It is going to force us to learn how to market to and retain athletes — just like you do. And you’ll continue to benefit from what we learn. Examples include:

1. SMS texting to leads – This is a hugely successful feature for us. A prospective athlete is considering checking out your box and texts your box-specific keyword to 27677. They then get an automated message with more information about your box and are imported as a lead into your Wodify system. Through running our gym, we realized that we needed two-way SMS (not just inbound) to really nurture the SMS lead. You can expect this in the next few weeks.
2. Online free trial portal – We implemented a tight solution that allows a prospect to sign up for their first free trial class online. Once they pick their class time, they fill out their information and sign their waiver before they even come to class — eliminating a big chunk of time a coach may take when trying to sign up a new athlete and start class. We’ve received many kudos for this feature. So what’s wrong? We realized that we don’t have a good way for coaches to know that this is the athlete’s first day. Moreover, there isn’t an easy way to know how the trial athlete answered health- and experience-related questions on their waiver. We’re working on fixing these things.
3. Retail sales – Like most of you, we don’t have the time or space for a front desk person at our gym. And our coaches are often swamped trying to finish one class, start the next, give mobility recommendations to one person, and welcome free trial athletes to the box. So while our retail sales portal is pretty slick, we realized that our coaches don’t always have time to sell apparel in between everything else. It isn’t officially on the roadmap, but we want to set up a portal where athletes can purchase items themselves. They’ll walk up to the iPad, provide authentication, and purchase their t-shirt, protein, etc.

In addition to the features we want to update, we’ve created a new initiative at Wodify. Much like our high priority performance fixes, we’re creating tasks for engineers to enhance existing functionality so it’s the absolute best it can be. Our belief is that if it is good for Wodify Strength & Conditioning, it will more than likely be good for others.

Pood – He’s a cow

We like to send emails when we’ve announced new features that talk about what we’ve created and how you can use it. But we know you’re busy — sometimes reading an email is the last thing on your mind.

So look for us to introduce Pood the cow. Pood will make his home inside the Wodify app, right next to your box’s logo. He’ll pop his head up to let owners, coaches, managers and athletes know about new features that matter to them. This way you can get information that matters in whatever format works best for you. Look for Pood in the coming weeks. I’m certain you will love him as much as we do.

To recap, we’ve created amazing software, we’re working on even more features, and we see no signs of slowing down. We want to continue to be the best for you. We want to help you succeed, grow your business, and follow your passion. We love creating great software for box owners and their coaches and athletes. And the best is yet to come.

Here to serve,

Ameet