Not for everyone

The gym for the men the fitness industry forgot.

Brick × Brick builds affordable community fitness centers where men come for the workout and stay for the people — built for how young men actually want to move and connect.

Get Involved See the Model
3 launch cities $45–$95 a month ~9 months to profitability $20M raise

01The scale of the need

Three trends, one solution.

A generation of men is physically inactive, mentally struggling, and profoundly alone. The Surgeon General has declared loneliness a national crisis — and the gym is one of the last places that can fix it.

~$46B U.S. fitness industry revenue in 2025 — Gen Z and Millennials are now 80% of gym members. The money is flowing; the need is not being served.
40% of Gen Z feel stressed or anxious all or most of the time — and 65% call exercise their #1 mental-health tool
15% of men report zero close friends — up from 3% in 1990. Men need structured environments to form friendships.

These are not separate problems. Brick × Brick is a single answer to all three — the physical infrastructure the wellness generation has been trying to buy digitally.

02The problem

Most gyms are built for revenue, not well-being.

At $10–$50 a month, national chains are priced for signup, not service. The average member pays for twelve months and attends for two — every absent member is pure margin. The model performs better when you stay home.

67% of gym members rarely or never use their memberships
$150K household income of the industry's "core user" — not the working-class man BXB builds for
20% more likely to stay — with just one structured group session a week. Chains invest $0 in it.

Ordinary gyms aren't built to fix social isolation. BXB is — and it makes money doing it.

03In their own words

We asked. They answered.

We sat down with roughly 70 working-class men in Flint, Yakima, Shreveport, and Jackson — ninety minutes each. This is what they told us.

I'd rather go to the gym than to a therapy session — I can just talk it out with the weights.”

— Angel · Yakima, WA

“Basketball is like therapy, honestly… being in the gym.”

Jacquavious · Shreveport

“Get your mind off certain stuff… I go to the gym. Clear. Peaceful.”

Johnnie · Yakima

“Doing something that makes me better than I was yesterday — that's attractive.”

Parker · Flint

04The competitive landscape

Nobody is doing this.

Budget chains

Planet Fitness and its peers: $10–$50 a month for equipment without community. Fluorescent, unstaffed, built for solo visits.

Premium brands

Equinox and Lifetime serve affluent cities at $150–$250 a month — and won't touch tier-3 markets.

The YMCA

The closest historical analog — now aging, institutional, and underfunded.

Brick × Brick

$45–$95 a month. Leagues, cohorts, and combat sports. A social worker and trained staff. Converted buildings with character — in the cities everyone else skips.

Community, mental health, design, price, and place. Only BXB does all of it — under one roof.

Come for the workout Stay for the people The anti-performance gym For men with a few screws loose No front. No flex.

05The BXB model

Come for
the workout.
Stay for
the people.

Each location is a 35,000-square-foot community fitness center inside a converted school or community building. Fitness brings men in. Community keeps them coming back. Support keeps them for years — all three under one roof.

06What's inside

Every space does double duty.

Fitness and connection, by design — the reason they walk in. Each space is built to deliver real results, and to make it easy for members to actually know each other.

Tap a card to step inside ↻

Fitness floor & studios

Open floor plans that encourage interaction, with trainers working alongside members — not in a separate section.

Move together

Court & sports field

A full basketball court and outdoor field for pickup games, leagues, and father–child programs.

Run it back

Combat sports studio

Boxing, MMA, and martial arts, where physical trust between partners becomes the foundation for friendship.

Trust your corner

Sauna & recovery suite

Steam room and shared recovery spaces where real conversation happens naturally.

Reset & recover

Cafe & community space

Post-workout gathering, nutrition as a conversation starter, and a venue for events.

Stay a while

Podcast & recording studio

A platform for members to share their stories — and for the community to tell its own.

Tell your story

Free childcare

Barriers removed by design, so that showing up is as easy as possible.

Bring the pack

08Community structure

The full spectrum of how men move.

The reason they keep coming back. Every program is judged on two questions: does it deliver genuine fitness value, and does it create opportunities for members to know each other?

  • Combat sports & MMA

    Boxing, Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and MMA — among the most effective vehicles for male bonding. All levels, beginner to competitor.

  • League play

    Basketball, flag football, volleyball, and softball by skill level — structure, shared goals, and built-in reasons to see each other.

  • Same Time Tomorrow

    Members commit to a daily workout time with the same cohort. Over weeks, these become accountability groups — and friend groups.

  • Personal training

    One-on-one and small-group, on the floor alongside others — reinforcing community instead of isolating the relationship.

  • Father & child programming

    Built for parents to train with their kids — healthy habits across generations, stronger family bonds.

09Personal support

The people who help you get stronger
can help you open up.

The reason they stay for years.

Cross-trained staff

Every trainer and coach is trained in active listening, de-escalation, mental health, and referral pathways. A trainer who sees you five hours a week is often the first to notice when something's off — and equipped to act.

On-site social worker

A licensed social worker embedded in the facility — on the floor, at the café, at events. The referral point for mental-health support, substance-use programs, housing, and job placement.

Personal concierge

Every member, every tier, gets a navigator who helps build a routine, plan nutrition, and connect to programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC they may qualify for but don't know about.

10The whole point

Build your six. Build your pack.

Strength isn't built alone. Every round, every pickup game, every spot on the bench is another reason to show up — and someone to show up for.

11The flywheel

Mission and model aren't in tension.
They're the same thing.

1 2 3 4 5 6 BXB
  1. 1Real support means more visits
  2. 2More visits build more bonds
  3. 3Stronger bonds cut churn
  4. 4Lower churn lifts lifetime value
  5. 5More value funds better programs
  6. 6Better programs draw more members

We're not asking you to choose between impact and sustainability. Designed right, they're inseparable.

12Where we're starting

Flint goes first.

Chosen from a field of 34 cities for their need for third places, working-class populations, strong community identity, and available buildings. One $5M playbook, run three times — Flint first, then Shreveport, then Yakima.

Flint Michigan

~100,000 residents · $5M · Opens spring/summer 2028

A city of ~100,000 in the middle of an urban revitalization, with strong community bonds and an underserved fitness market — the exact conditions BXB is built for. Every system launches here first.

The proof case.

Shreveport Louisiana

~185,000 residents · $5M

Southern civic culture and genuine community pride — a fitness market dominated by budget chains, with no community option.

Yakima Washington

~95,000 residents · $5M

An agricultural working-class community where young men have few third places beyond the bar, the church, and the gym.

Buildings are donated or secured below market — capital goes into the space, the staff, and the programming, not the real estate.

13The numbers

A replicable business model.

Memberships run $45–$95 a month — priced for working men, with revenue diversified across dues, training, youth programs, corporate wellness, leagues, café, and facility rentals.

$20M Total raise for all three locations
$9.2M Annual revenue at capacity across all three
$2.9M Combined net operating income at maturity
~9 mo To profitability per location — break-even at ~1,700 members, 69% of capacity

Our models put all three centers closer to $15M. We raise to $20M so each one opens with real operating runway — contingency we'd rather have and not need.

Build your six Build your pack A reason to come back tomorrow Someone to come back to

14The vision

100+ gyms. 250,000 men.
A national movement.

100+ locations within a decade
250K men served at full network
$300M+ annual revenue at maturity
$950K net income per mature location
<2% of the tier-3 market — 10–18M men
Phase 1 · Years 1–3

Prove it

Flint first, then Shreveport, then Yakima. Break even at 69% of capacity in three different regional contexts.

Phase 2 · Years 4–6

Scale it

Expand to 15–20 locations across the Midwest, South, and Pacific Northwest. Refine the playbook.

Phase 3 · Years 7–10

Own it

10–15 new locations a year. 100+ locations, $300M+ revenue. Explore franchising.

The ceiling is not demand — it's operational capacity. And the measure of success isn't financial: it's whether the men who walk through the door leave with something they didn't have when they arrived.

15The team

Built to do this.

Ross Morales Rocketto

CEO

Founder, Man Made. Founder, White Dudes for Harris — 200K+ participants, $4.5M raised. Co-founder, Run for Something (~1,500 elected). TIME Next 100, 2022.

Ben James

Interim CFO

25 years in private equity and principal investing. Founder or partner of four investment firms — 50+ companies, ~$2.5B committed. Structured the PE deals behind Equinox and LA Fitness.

Bali Kumar

Advisor · Real Estate

COO, PACE Loan Group — national commercial real estate lender. Former CEO, Lean & Green Michigan. Former Executive Director, Wayne County Land Bank.

Sabrina Hersi Issa

Advisor · Strategy & Tech

Founding MD, Democracy Well. Stanford Digital Civil Society Fellow. CEO, Be Bold Media. Ebony Power 100.

Rachel Lehrer

Design Lead

Founder, Puddle Studio. Former design lead, IRC Airbel Impact Lab. Work scaled across four continents. Columbia + Parsons MFA.

We're raising
$7 million.

To launch the Flint location and begin the process for Shreveport and Yakima — the first tranche of a $15–$20M raise, sized to carry every center past break-even rather than just to open its doors. Invest, partner, or bring BXB to your city — let's talk.

A reason to come back tomorrow,
and someone to come back to.