Inside The Black Box

I am the principal owner and general manager of CrossFit NYC, aka The Black Box. When I bought out one of the original partners in 2007, my hope was simply to stay in business. I expected CrossFit NYC would be a hobby in my early retirement. At the time, I was president of a mid-sized company (about $100 million in sales and 500 employees). Back then, CrossFit NYC had about 50 members.

Today, CrossFit NYC is one of the largest affiliates in the world (about 1600 members and two locations in Manhattan). My retirement hobby has become a full-time job.

I am not an exceptional athlete or coach, but I do have an extensive background in managing businesses. My undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering from Polytechnic University (now part of New York University) and I have an MBA from Columbia Business School.

At CrossFit NYC, I have probably seen nearly every problem of every affiliate and seen it on a larger scale. I periodically get questions from box owners about how we do things at CrossFit NYC.  Here, I hope to address those questions in an organized way.

I will try to explain not only what I do as an affiliate owner, but why I do it. I think an explanation of why as opposed to what is critical. Most of our operation was not arrived at arbitrarily, but is the result of trial and error; the rest reflects my perspective and that of my closest staff.

I am acutely aware that every affiliate is unique, and I do not intend to argue that I know better. If you ask a bunch of Games athletes about their diet, you will get a range of answers, but the range will probably not be that great. Similarly, while many of the top affiliate owners do things differently than CrossFit NYC, the difference are probably also not that great. And where there are significant differences, they probably reflect the specific resources available to the owners and the demands of the local marketplace.

Welcome inside the Black Box.