Math Academy is the Digital, Cognitive Equivalent of a Physical Gym

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One of the things our data keeps leading me back to:

Math Academy is the digital, cognitive equivalent of a physical gym.

The acquisition/retention characteristics are so similar. In fact YouTube thought I was a gym owner for a while bc I read so many gym management articles. I got so many ads for gym management software.

Jason has a wild analogy that really drives the point home.

“Math Academy right now… it’s like Yuri’s Gym where Yuri is some strength & conditioning coach who used to coach Olympic athletes, and he has this basement gym where a lot of very serious people go to work out.

You’re walking down the street, you see a buddy you haven’t seen in 8 or 9 months.

“Dude, you look amazing. Looks like you lost 30 pounds, you’re jacked… what happened?”

“Man, I started working at Yuri’s.”

“What’s Yuri’s?”

“Well, he’s this strength conditioning coach. He’s got this… he’s this Russian guy, used to work with the Olympic weightlifting team.”

“Man, I should…”

“Well, if you want to join, I mean, it’s just down the street. Just go, it’s underground, #7.”

So you go there. You’re want those results. And you walk in and it’s just a door and like a hallway and then opens up and it’s a bunch of benches and weights and people who look like they’re about to audition for a superhero role in a movie.

There’s no front desk. No Pilates, no yoga room. No juice bar. No little place where you can buy clothes. In fact there’s not even any air conditioning. Just a bunch of weights.

Someone walks up to you: “Ok, come here. Let me take a look at you. Try this, try that. All right, there’s a workout on the board based on your strength, do this.” So you go do it.

A few months go by, and you’re getting really fit. You’re looking for a “good job” or “keep up the good work” from Yuri. Then you go up a whole another level, and finally Yuri comes up to you and says “add more weight.” Someone else goes, “that’s about as good as it gets from Yuri.”

It’s a little harsh, but it works. Yuri doesn’t say much, there’s no air conditioning, but they have this custom fit workout protocol that gets you absolutely jacked if you follow it.

We’re kind of Yuri’s right now. We’re the basement gym. We’re harsh, harsher than we need to be. I’m fully aware of how many niceties we might be lacking and that we could and should and will add. But it works.

The important thing is getting a result, which at Yuri’s, you’re going to get a result. No question about it. You’re going to get a huge result. And people are going to come up to you and go, “man, what the hell? You look like you’re going out for the Olympic team.”

Shit works. You just got to show up and put in a full effort on the workout and it’ll happen. It’s all you got to do.”

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