Design Challenge: How might we help climbing gyms communicate, engage, and build stronger communities with their members to reduce churn?
Background
In Designlab’s UX Academy, the last capstone project is to design a mobile app from scratch. While it was just for a class, I didn’t want to spend evenings and weekends working on a project that helped with a “aspirin level” problem. I wanted to find a “morphine level” problem that could lead to a real business opportunity.
Like most people that move to Colorado, I eventually joined a climbing gym. I had never climbed before and was terrified of heights, but it seemed like a good way to tackle my fear directly. I didn’t know much about climbing, but I noticed some inefficiencies at my gym. I started researching to learn more about the industry and discovered retention was a huge issue for climbing gyms. The goal for the project then became to answer the following question:
How might we help climbing gyms communicate, engage, and build stronger communities with their members to reduce churn?
Results
Given the overwhelmingly positive response from gym owners and climbers with the final project, In April 2019 I decided to turn the project into a company and the following fall I brought on a technical cofounder.
In January 2020 Capitan was selected as a finalist for the UBS Venture Catalyst Awards.
Two gyms are currently testing an alpha version of the iOS and web app with the plan to roll out the platform to all of their members in the summer of 2020.
Process
Market research
Surveys
User interviews
Wireframing
Visual design
Market Analysis - Climbing gyms aren’t just for rock climbers anymore
Climbing gyms started as a place for outdoor climbers to train in the off season; the intention was always to return to real rock. But climbing has grown in popularity and become more mainstream which we have seen with movies like Free Solo and climbing’s debut in the next summer olympics.
It’s grown so much that by 2023 indoor climbing will be a $1.6B market and the climbing gear market will also grow to $1.6B by 2024. There are already over 500 climbing gyms in the US alone, 29 opened in 2019 and 50 have announced plans to open.
But the types of people that are joining climbing gyms are changing. Today, many people join climbing gyms with no intention of transferring their skills to actual rock - which is why we see gyms popping up in places like Kansas and Florida. With this shift in climbers we are seeing a shift in the facilities as well. Now, as one owner described it, “we are gyms with a climbing focus”. Next to the climbing walls gyms offer yoga classes, coffee shops and even coworking spaces.
As the industry grows, it’s also shifted from independent gyms to large multi location corporations. El Cap partnered with a PE firm to acquire two chains and now has 16 locations under management. Brooklyn Boulders raised $48 million to expand in New York City and beyond.
The Problem That Needed to be Solved - Retention
With all the upward momentum within climbing, gym’s face one glaring problem: retention. The Climbing Wall Association reports the average 1-year retention rate at a climbing gym is 39.6% - well below the fitness industry’s 67.2% benchmark and less than most fitness clubs’ rate at 2 years. With every member a gym loses, on average they lose $1000 in membership fees alone.
I had found my “morphine level” problem.
User Interviews: Climbing Gym Owners/Managers
During the initial discovery phase, I reached out to climbing gyms across the US and Canada. I interviewed owners and managers from 30+ gyms across a range of climbing gym types to understand their approach to managing their members.
“I wish there was a more modern way to communicate with customers, the customer interaction is lacking. With RockGym Pro the only thing you can do is sign up for a class, you can’t even cancel. We have a ton of data, but we can’t leverage it in a social way, I’m not even sure what our retention rate is…A mobile app for members would be great so we could send them messages like ‘we just reset the arch come on in!’ to get more people back climbing. We are evaluating about 6 or 7 companies now, some are very heavy on the route setting side, some are just great communication tools, it’s hard to find the right balance.”
- Paul, Director of climbing gym in the Pennsylvania
“We don’t have any good means of customer interaction - no online surveys, feedback, announcements etc, that’s an interesting thing - people miss out on a lot of the events we organize…. When people are looking for belay partners, I help them based off of who I know if they ask. Putting your name and number on a clipboard is not something many of our female climbers feel comfortable doing, it would be great if they could communicate with each other in a safe way.”
- Tyler, Community Relations Manager of climbing gym in Ohio
“Now all of our interaction with members is 1x1, but there will come a point when we won’t know everyone, not sure what communication will look like then…I would love to be able to see more metrics around members that is mobile friendly…people are looking for an alternative”
-Marco, Owner of bouldering gym in Ontario
Insights
Communication is not centralized
Today, gyms use flyers, newsletters, and FB to communicate with members. There are some platforms out there designed for climbing gym communication but as another owner described it they are either too route setting focused or not gym focused enough.
Community engagement needs to be scalable
With some gyms having over 1300 members check ins during a single day, it's impossible to have the type of meaningful relationship managers want to have with their members.
User Interviews: Climbers
Next I talked to climbers of varying abilities to get a sense for what inspired some to keep climbing and others to stop.
“I like the instant level of satisfaction from completing a problem bouldering and the thought that maybe next time you will reach the top of the one you failed on. As soon as it becomes technical though, game over. I’m strong enough to get up some problems, but I hope to improve by one or two levels. There is a lot technically to work on - I watch my wife and brother in law climb a lot, they are great climbers. If I can’t do a route, I ask her to do it first so I can watch.”
-Chris, 30s, casual climber in Minneapolis
“I used to climb 4x a week, I liked that my gym was more than just climbing, there were yoga classes, socials, events. It’s fun in the beginning when you are improving rapidly, but then you plateau and all the classes are geared towards beginners, there wasn’t anything to help intermediate climbers work on technique… I would be devastated if I went back and a route was gone before I figured it out… I would also see a lot of people that aren’t fit getting into climbing, but a lot of climbing too quickly is not great for your body…people get injured and then are out for months”
-Anton, 20s, former avid climber in Boston
“After my first time trying it I thought it was really cool and enjoyed it a lot, and wanted to do it again, but it seemed like something you have to do in a group. While it was fun, it was really hard, there were some techniques that we couldn’t cover and it was information overload on day one.”
-Katie, 20s, new climber in Chicago
Insights
Coaching is key
Unlike joining a yoga studio or CrossFit gym, climbing does not consistently have an instructor at the front of the room to help you with your goals - whether that’s a new climber trying to learn the ropes or a seasoned climber wanting to hone in on their techniques. This leads to newer climbers feeling overwhelmed and more seasoned climbers suffer from perceived plateaus and higher injury risk from poor form.
Personas
Now that I understood the problems I was going to address, I needed to define for who I was designing the solution for. Retention was a business problem for gyms, so I knew I had to design a solution for the owners and managers. To increase retention I had to design a solution to keep their members from churning, so I needed to design a solution to satisfy members as well.
While climbing has been around for decades, I focused on personas part of the new wave of climbing that has emerged in the last 5 years. The new gyms offer more than just climbing—yoga, fitness centers, saunas, coworking spaces, daycare, etc—and most new gyms have already or are planning on opening multiple locations. While in the past opening a gym was a passion project, today it’s a business and these are the types of gyms more deeply concerned with increasing retention. For climbers, I opted to focus on newer climbers as well as they presented the biggest churn risk for gyms.
Jeff: The Gym Owner (Cleveland, OH)
Personal Bio
Jeff grew up climbing and it has always been a major part of his life. He’s traveled all around the world to climb—his instagram account is about 75% rock walls he travels to near and far and 25% his dog.
After college, Jeff took a consulting job, but as he saw climbing grow in popularity—and was annoyed for years that there wasn’t a climbing gym nearby—Jeff saw a business opportunity to open a climbing gym. Along with some buddies that are also as passionate about climbing, they look the plunge and opened a gym in late 2018.
Jeff didn’t just want to build a gym; he wanted to build a community. He is constantly thinking of what’s next and working on ways to improve the gym’s offerings and facilities, all while planning the second location. He’s on the floor interacting with members as much as he can, but there is a lot of work behind the scenes he needs to do. Some days over 1300 members checkin on a single day which is great for business, but he misses the feel of some smaller gyms where you know everyone by name.
Jeff uses words like “rad” and “stoked” not ironically on a consistent basis.
Goals & Needs
Jeff wants to introduce as many people to the sport as possible. Watching new climbers fall in love with climbing is what motivates Jeff to keep going.
In the consulting world, Jeff used data to make big decisions, but with the tools he has now for the gym he feels like he has little visibility into the key metrics he needs.
Frustrations & Fears
Dealing with members can sometimes be…difficult. Most members are great, but some cause issues—not signing waivers, arguing about billing discrepancies, not followings gym rules—a lot of headaches are caused from members who like to say “how was I supposed to know?”
While climbing is a passion, the gym is a business—managing marketing, hiring and training staff, stocking the right products in the retail space and more are all part of the job—and with that comes all the stresses of being an entrepreneur.
With climbing growing in popularity, more gyms are opening up in the area. Before they were the only climbing gym in town, now there is competition and Jeff is worried some members may switch.
Alex: The Casual Climber (Boston, MA)
Personal Bio
Alex works at a tech startup downtown and had never tried climbing, but a bunch of friends were going so he decided to tagalong since it seemed fun. Day one Alex had a blast; friends showed him the ropes (literally) and he was hooked. Next week Alex became a member at the climbing gym, took a class to get belay certified and now he goes to the gym about once a week.
He doesn’t know his forearms are pumped after each session because of poor form, he just knows he’s never been so sore. He likes that it’s a workout, but that’s not why he goes. Alex goes because it’s a fun way to hangout with friends. There are some days where Alex goes to the gym with the intention of climbing hard but he ends up spending more time talking between climbs than actually climbing. It’s fun to try and figure out the climbs and while Alex is seeing some improvement week over week, he has no intention of training specifically to become a better climber.
Alex watched Free Solo and got queasy and owns one pair of climbing shoes that unbeknownst to him should have been resoled four months ago.
Goals & Needs
Alex wants to stay fit, but he doesn’t like thinking about working out. Playing on a “adult jungle gym” is way more fun than “picking up heavy things and putting them back down”.
Right now Alex is happy climbing only indoors—outdoor climbing is intimidating—but something he thinks about occasionally. He’d like to try it eventually, he just isn’t sure how.
Frustrations & Fears
Alex is only going climbing if his friends are going too. It’s disappointing if his friend bails at the last minute, but climbing isn’t fun for Alex without buddies to talk with between climbs.
Alex gets stuck on climbs a lot that are supposed to be easy and watches other people fly up the routes. In the beginning he was climbing harder and harder rated climbs, but for the past few months he has been stuck at the same level.
Time to start sketching
With a clear understanding of the problems I was trying to solve and who I was trying to solve the problems for, it was time to start sketching. I began by focusing on the mobile app members at a particular gym would use. While I knew for this product to work, I would need a platform for gyms to manage the app, validation from gyms and members would be easier to gauge by showing them how the app could work in a gym. By sketching out some initial screens, I was able to start teasing out more ideas I wanted to test with users.
Wireframing
To start getting feedback, I wireframed out a flow for logging a climb in a mobile app. I then showed it to both gym owners and climbers to get their feedback shown in the annotated wireframes.
Gym Owner Feedback
Change “Weekly Progress” to “Monthly Progress”
Since most members only come once a week, monthly progress would give a member a better view of their progress only time. A week was too short.
Add a map to orient members
Gyms had internal ways of talking about different sections of the gym, but it wasn’t something that was publicly displayed. Some names were common sense and they could add some signage, but a way to see a map in the app to orient the member could be helpful.
Different gyms label climbs with different information
Many gyms use the Yosemite Decimal System, but some used different scales to rate their climbs. Some gyms name climbs and some don’t. Some gyms display which routesetter created a climb and some don’t. Gyms need flexibility to decide what information is shared with members.
Ditch the stars
What does a 4 start climb vs a 3 star climb mean?
Keep the descriptions positive and keep them subjective
Gyms loved the ability to get feedback for their routesetters. However, they wanted the words to be more subjective. They can easily tell is a routesetter’s climb in “Pinchy”—there will be a lot of pinch holds which you can see just looking at it—but more subjective words about the style were interesting. They wanted a way to display more objective tags on their end.
Climber Feedback
Icon for attempted climbs
Sometimes climbers can’t complete a climb in one session, so it would be great if there was an icon to mark incomplete climbs so next time they can quickly find it in the app.
Don’t spray beta!
Solving the puzzle of the right combination of moves to get to the top is half the fun. Climbers didn’t want to see what other people had said before trying it on their own. They still liked public reviews since sometimes with tricky puzzles you need a hint.
How many attempts is important
All the climbers (and gym owners) asked for a way to track number of attempts.
Private notes would be useful
There were a few use cases where a private note would be useful for climbers. For example, one climbers mentioned if they had not completed a climb but had gotten one sequence of it, they wanted to jot in down so they didn’t forget it next time they tried.
Visual Design
When coming up with a name for the app, I settled on “Capitan” taken from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. El Capitan is often considered to be the epicenter of climbing and the app would serve as a climber’s guide or “Capitan” through the climbing gym.
For the visual design, I took inspiration from El Capitan and the modern, colorful, cool aesthetic of most new climbing gyms. The persona Alex is looking to have fun while climbing, so the app needed to be bright and playful to match that.
Final Solution: Capitan
Capitan helps climbing gyms communicate, engage, and build stronger communities with their members at scale.
Looking back at the initial research, Capitan starts to address all of the areas highlighted as the key insights:
Communication
The MVP focused predominantly on this aspect. Gyms now have one central location for all gym communications. Since most problems owners and climbers boiled down to a lack of communication, this seemed like the best place to start.
Community Engagement
Thinking about the user journey for using Capitan, I wanted to make sure the app was useful to the first climber that logged in even if they were the only climber on the app so far. To start, public reviews can start to foster some interaction between members. When more climbers from a gym are using the app there is a lot more room to grow the community engagement within the app itself, but even with the MVP gyms now have a better way of announcing all of the community engagement events they are hosting on the home dashboard.
Coaching
Climbers can now track their activity overtime to start and see their progression. Public reviews also help facilitate some peer-to-peer knowledge transfer. This is the area going forward I believe has more opportunity.
Next Steps
Given the overwhelmingly positive response to the prototype, turned the idea into a business. In the fall of 2019 I brought on a technical cofounder and continued working on designs for the platform including a web app for the gym to manage Capitan across their facilities and more functionality within the app to address the need for more “Coaching” which enables gyms to create curated lists of climbs for their members to guide them in their sessions.
The two gyms are currently testing an alpha version of the iOS and web app with the plan to roll out the platform to all of their members in the summer of 2020.