Today we’d like to introduce you to Manuel Gonzales.
Manuel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
When I moved to Dallas, I knew no one and running up and down the Katy Trail at 6pm in the afternoon was not only hot, but getting quite boring. I started thinking to myself, what if I started something similar to the fitness group I was a part of in Boston. Would this work in Dallas? How would it do it? Wait, I have no money… So, then started a movement in Dallas and WERUNBIGD was born.
WERUNBIGD was a movement idea that people of Dallas could sweat and not have to pay hundreds of dollars to do it. Dallas is expensive from item one and what a better way to save and workout while doing it. I created a twitter, Facebook, and an Instagram account. I posted online if anyone wanted to meet me at SMU 6:30pm to run stadiums and people started showing up. A couple of weeks went by and we had almost 50 people showing up. And like most success stories comes the bad. 50 people showing up to run stadiums was starting to look like an organized event and immediately it was shut down by SMU facility management. They started talking legal, rental fees, and a whole bunch of stuff I wasn’t ready for. The Dallasites that were showing up weren’t paying any money so I couldn’t rent the stadium and that short-lived dream was exactly that, short.
WERUNBIGD moved from the stadium to SMU track and once soccer started we moved to The Katy Trail. The Katy Trail is amazing for people watching, run clubs and roller bladers, but it wasn’t the right vibe for my fitness tribe and I knew immediately. The tribe started turning to what name a hated the most “social run club.” We stayed on the trail for a couple months and 6:30pm starts to get real busy on Wednesday nights. We had a good 10 people showing up and then it was 9 and then 8 and then 4. I knew that every single one of these people showing up were important but I knew we needed a change. I realized that running in the afternoon/evening there were too many distractions and other “things” that come up that are more important than running with new friends. (thirsty Wednesday’s, birthday dinners, Tinder dates).
As an Active Duty Airman, the Air Force said we need to send you to leadership training and you’re going next week. I realized that that was a great opportunity for me however the tribe would suffer. I let my folk know just like that I was off the hook for weekday evenings. As I was gone, I had to let my Tribe of 10 know that I could no longer do weeknights and that I would be switching to Weekday mornings, 5am weekday mornings. I knew that that was a stretch because I had to wake up by 4:30am to get to the workout on time. I’m an extremely motivated individual and a 4:30am wakeup call was a little insane. I pushed it out and on day one after my training return we hit 13 entire people. It was kind of working, but I felt bad because no one wants to wake up that early. I went back to the drawing table and stretched out 5am to 6:15am which is still currently our starting time.
6:15am started off tough because our 5am people could no longer attend because of work and family priorities. I asked two of my friends to help me Ash and Meg and they gladly stepped up to the plate. (I used to play baseball) Meg was our single mother of three, media photographer, and came up with workouts only made for superheroes. Ash was our hipster, funky, care free leader that used to make the workouts fun and awkward. This lasted trio lasted about a year I think and life begun to call both of them. As I was sad to see the both of them go, I picked up the torch like always and continued to run with it. (I never ran track or carried the torch for the Olympics) At this time, my wife was finishing with clinicals, awarded her license to practice, and landed two jobs to get us back on track after her decade worth of higher education. I was left with a lot of extra time on my hands for my one year old son and the future of the Tribe. I turned to Instagram for grassroots marketing and inviting everyone out to come sweat with this Tribe that no one knew. This new marketing recruited about 30 people on a regular basis but for some reason that wasn’t enough. I wanted to the Tribe to be so big that if “Sally” didn’t set her alarm and forgot to show up, it would be that noticeable to our overall numbers. Obviously, Sally means the world to us but if one person didn’t show up the tribe felt that much smaller. The tribe was doing well, “We” were pushing high twenties, we pushed to two days a week, but We wanted more. Shortly after “I” turned to “We.”
The tribe had consistent numbers and a solid core of folks that were serious about fitness, community and the movement. This was my dream come true, almost… The Tribe I used to attend in Boston was called November Project. November Project is a free fitness movement that promoted community and movement while you sweat. NP is now currently in 36 cities across the world. I realized that the Tribe was starting to get to big for me to handle by myself. The tribe is a full time unpaid job that requires a lot of energy. I reached out to Harrison, Amanda, and Travis. Harrison was a little quite guy straight out of college and fit the type of dude I was looking for. Amanda is an ultra-marathoner and has a few screws loose. (Ultra Marathon is anything longer than a regular marathon of 26.2 miles) Travis is the guy with the coach mindset, he’s our photographer, and man behind the scenes of our blog and twitter account. All 4 of us are needed on workout days because it’s not about us, but the Tribe. The meet and greet or OG (original gangsters), meeting newbies, friends of friends, petting dogs, taking photos, managing the music and Instagram Life videos, etc. is a job that requires a lot of help. Amanda and Travis aren’t the face of the Tribe but we couldn’t do it without them and we call them our “Eagles” who are basically heir to the throne. As a crew, we hit 30+, then 40+, then 56+ and said to each other we need more…
We as a Tribe reached out to November Project headquarters and asked to be a part of their bigger, larger family more than just Dallas. The Co-Leaders of NP replied back with goals in mind for us to become an official November Project Tribe. We shared with our Tribe in Dallas what this meant and gave them the goals we needed to achieve or knock out of the park. Goal one was to have 75 or more people at a single workout. Goal two was to have every one of the 75 people with the same shirt on representing such a big day in the Tribe’s history. Goal three was to have all of this done within four to five weeks. The funny thing was that we were more afraid of getting 75 shirts than reaching the goal of 75 people. We reached out to our community and our community answered with 79 high grade top fitness brand shirts at week two. We now had the shirts, but now needed the people. Week 2 was a disaster with 29 people because of tornados and horrible softball sized hail. Week three we hit 72 officially and created a suspense like never before. Week 4 we hit 105 people and needless to say the shirts were given out and we met our goal.
The founders of November Project reached out to us and one week later we officially became November Project Dallas, Dallas’ Only Free Fitness Tribe.
This was only the beginning 19 April 2017…
Has it been a smooth road?
This was really really hard to get to the public. This idea was new to Dallas and never heard before. There was a lot of skepticism when people heard about us. This was a little hard to overcome and with the help of online social media marketing and our photographer people couldn’t help but come.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Think of it like a franchise but that we don’t charge people to show up and workout.
November Project Dallas is now a part of 36 other cities across the world making our community better one person at a time.
I’m personally an Active Duty Service Member in the US Air Force stationed in Dallas as a Recruiter. This makes talking to people and marketing a lot easier.
It’s been hard to partner with people because everyone is about money and their company.
What set’s apart from other? Who else is strictly free, creating a real community, and love their workouts (especially the sweaty hugs)
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think Dallas has its own ways about things. One of our goals was to get back into a stadium to run stadiums but this has been a real struggle because organizations don’t understand that we’re not making any money off our Tribe members. I feel that someone just starting off in this city would have to get to know their community. I mean really bury yourself in what your passion is. Try and meet everyone in your market, learn who your heavy hitters are in the city, socials, city districts. Attend Networking and social events to help your name spread like fire.
Dallas has a lot events for networking so I think the city is doing well here. I think Dallasites’ have a problem with committing to things. So, getting someone to verbally commit to your event, gym, business, sweat session is extremely hard. I still haven’t figured this one out…What’s been working for me? Telling them that they are important and that they mean a lot to you and what your goals are. Let people know what you’re striving for and Dallasites appreciate a goal oriented individual and might be more eager to help out.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2403 Flora St Dallas TX
- Website: http://november-project.com/dallas-tx/
- Phone: 505-506-1590
- Email: werunbigd@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/novemberprojectdallas/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WERUNBIGD/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nov_Project_DAL/media
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/we-run-big-d-dallas-2
- Other: https://november-project.com
Image Credit:
Alexander-Blythe Photography
Sprouse & Neuhoff Photography
November Project Dallas
WERUNBIGD
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
