Lessons from co-owning CrossFit BC

CrossFit BC is one of the longest-running affiliates in Vancouver. Dai and his wife Christie co-own it, which means the advice on this site comes from a business that still has to make payroll every month.

Lesson one: culture is what you tolerate

Every gym has the culture of the worst behaviour the owner lets slide. The coach who is late, the member who bullies newcomers, the standard that slips on busy days. You do not fix culture with a values poster. You fix it with one uncomfortable conversation at a time.

Lesson two: married co-owners need lanes

Working with your spouse works when everyone knows who owns which decision. Christie and Dai divide the business clearly and defend each other''s lanes. The gyms that struggle with partnerships, married or not, are usually the ones where every decision belongs to everyone.

Lesson three: the boring numbers matter most

Attendance trends, 90-day retention, revenue per member, coach utilisation. None of it is exciting, and all of it tells you the truth months before your bank balance does. Owners who check these weekly rarely get surprised. Owners who check the vibe get surprised constantly.

Lesson four: community is a strategy, not a vibe

CrossFit BC has outlasted trends, competitors and a pandemic. The through-line is community built deliberately: events, introductions, remembering names, celebrating the member who finished last as loudly as the one who finished first. That is not sentiment. It is the retention model.

Watch how Dai thinks

This conversation from Vancouver Real is a few years old now, but it shows how Dai approaches business and life: plainly, and without pretending the hard parts are easy.

The reality

Owning a gym is a hard way to make a living and a good way to make a life. Both things are true at once. If you run a fitness business and want a consultant who is still on the floor of his own, start on the consulting page.