Meet Sheera Goren of SwimTeam

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sheera Goren.

Sheera, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up in LA, I ran around, was outside as much as I could be, and played literally every sport, except swimming. I surfed and always wanted to be by the ocean, but the pool never called my name. Swimming was not in my rolodex of activities.

I attended Harvard-Westlake High School with my co-founder, Charlie Melvoin, and I played soccer year-round, which led me to the Division I team at the University of Michigan. Eventually migrating back to the best coast for law school at University of California, Los Angeles, after graduation, it was clear that my dream job would not keep me behind a desk.

After working in the legal and business development departments for an international hospitality and restaurant group and starting my own 501C3 non-profit, DINATING that raised money to help families in need, I reconnected with Charlie at a mutual friend’s wedding.

After 10 years apart and a brief conversation about our mutual love of all things boutique fitness, two things were clear: there were no great workout options for non-swimmers in the pool and we were going to try to make a splash in this market.

SwimTeam has now run over 200+ classes with 600+ swimmers since launching in May 2017 and we have set up a sister company for development of our own patent-pending bone conducting waterproof headsets for uses far beyond just swimming.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There were definitely waves and currents along the way (and still are). As many people can attest to, when you’re trying to do something different in any area you meet resistance. Many times, it feels like people come from a place of ‘no’ and you have to convince them of why they want to say yes. The pool space was no different.

We had to email, text, call, and finally just show up to many pool locations to talk to people in charge (many times these people only pointed us to other people who pointed us back to the original people). Setting up pool time for our novel concept was not only hard to secure from a time perspective, but also showing the operators, it would cause little to no extra work for them. Also, Charlie and I are both corporately trained so we live on email, however, most employees on the ground do not email so getting their attention is difficult and you have to get comfortable showing up unannounced. It may be awkward but it’s a necessary part of the hustle.

The struggle continues with pools but gets easier as we’ve run more classes and have more swimmers asking for our program. However, there is still a lot of room in the pool space to shake things up from how they’ve been done for the past 40+ years.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about SwimTeam – what should we know?
An obvious differentiator is that SwimTeam takes place in the pool, and since we’re not building our own pools around town, this means that we’re utilizing existing pool spaces – the best in LA! – offering swimmers a fun variety of locations to experience. What remains similar to other workouts, however, is that high-energy, music-filled studio environment, which we create underwater through our custom bone conduction headsets.

Each swimmer wears one – similar to how every rider at SoulCycle has on spinning shoes – and can hear live instruction from our coaches, along with our class playlist.

Another distinguishing feature is that anyone can do it, from competitive high school swimmers to elderly folks, from those recovering from injuries to people who haven’t swam since summer camp. The workout is designed for all levels and abilities, and our coaches are trained to offer modifications/challenges to make it challenging for the individual swimmer. Truly, you do not have to consider yourself a swimmer for a SwimTeam workout! And everyone’s technique improves, thanks to our expert coaches.

I am most proud of the return swimmer rate – about 80%. In other words, if someone comes, 8 out of 10 will come back again. I truly believe people will try a workout to burn some calories once but they’ll come back for the hospitable experience. We hope we’ve fostered that.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My co-founder Charlie is a huge reason for the success of what we’ve built thus far and continue to grow currently. He is the perfect balance to me and while we are similar in many ways, his attention to detail, is knack for branding and extremely proficient memory are some of the many invaluable qualities that have helped to create our company.

I will also attribute a major part of our success to our incredible coaches – Johnny, Dan and Gage. We are nothing without are swimbassadors – the touch points of our brand to the customer. With our coaches, who are all experts in swimming, we’ve developed a tried and tested format to our classes and they keep up the swimspiration every time they coach a class. It’s been amazing to watch them become even more comfortable and gain a following of loyal swimmers.

Pricing:

• First Class Free
• $30 per single class
• $25 per class for package of 10

Contact Info:

• Website: www.swim.team
• Phone: 8184452293
• Email: sheera@swim.team
• Instagram: @goswimteam

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