Blog / Founder field notes

Ten Clients Was the Dream

Lessons from Kirk Myers and Jenny Liu on starting small, building belonging and giving people a reason to return.

Kirk Myers wanted ten clients. He also wanted to train a celebrity. He was from Kansas City, he explained, and thought it would be cool. It would give him credibility, too.

I heard the story at Dear Body, a conversation hosted by FLŌRA and 113 Spring in New York on September 30, 2026. Kirk, the founder of DOGPOUND, was joined by Jenny Liu, the gym’s former CEO and now a general partner at Crush It Ventures. Ruben A. Austin, founder of FLŌRA, moderated.

I left with quite a few thoughts about wellness. But the one I’m still turning over is about people: the person who believes in you early, the people who return, and the work that keeps them connected.

The first ambition can be very specific

Ten clients. A celebrity client. That was the starting point Kirk described.

Jenny remembered him asking whom he should train. Her answer was Hugh Jackman. A few months later, she recalled, Kirk called her with news: he was training him.

What stayed with me came next. Kirk described ten clients becoming twenty, then forty, and other trainers helping him. Eventually, he needed a place of his own. He hadn’t started with a picture of the first gym, let alone the second.

As a founder, I found that motivating. We get very practiced at explaining the complete vision. There is something reassuring about hearing the smaller, slightly improbable ambition that existed before the whole thing had a shape.

You can take the next step before you can describe every step after it.

Kirk also credited Jenny with believing in him when he moved to New York. She saw his vision early and supported it. That belongs in the story of how the business grew, too.

Community needs continuity

On a call with my partners, we’d been talking about the future of community. Then I found myself in a room where the conversation kept returning to the same subject.

I wanted to listen closely to what community actually meant here. The word gets used for so many things that it can become difficult to tell what anyone is promising.

Jenny talked about relationships continuing beyond a single workout or event. People want connection that has some continuity: shared experiences, conversations, friendships that have somewhere to go after everyone leaves.

That was the useful part for me. A gathering creates an opportunity. What happens afterward tells you whether the connection has a place in someone’s life.

Someone has to do the work

When the conversation turned to what a community needs, Jenny emphasized the person who brings people together. The attention is ongoing. There are introductions to make, gatherings to think through, and relationships to care about between dates on a calendar.

It made me think about how we assign responsibility in a business. We can name the person managing a campaign. Can we name the person responsible for making sure someone feels included after arriving?

And have we given that person enough time to do it?

Those are questions I’m taking back to our own conversations at Holy Marketing. If we believe this work matters, it needs an owner and room in the plan.

Culture becomes visible in small decisions

Kirk described the culture book he and Jenny built for DOGPOUND. He talked about shared values informing decisions about the people around the business, including hiring and investors.

One detail I liked was his description of trainers supporting one another around the client’s result. You can imagine how that changes the experience for someone walking into the gym. Help can come from the team. The relationship has more than one point of contact.

My interpretation: those everyday interactions are where a promise of belonging becomes believable.

This is also why I’m careful about treating community as something a marketing team can simply announce. The experience has to hold up when someone walks through the door, asks a question, comes back, or needs help.

The question for wellness brands

There was plenty more in the discussion: what people want from wellness, the role of technology, and where new businesses might find opportunities. I kept coming back to the same practical question.

What gives someone a reason to return?

For a wellness business, that question can shape the class, the space, the team and the moments around the service. For the creator work we do at Holy, it’s a useful question to ask before planning the first introduction. Where does the relationship go after someone discovers you?

I don’t think every campaign needs to become a community. But when a brand says that community is the ambition, I want to see the ongoing work in the plan.

Here are the questions I’ve written down for our next discussion:

1. Who welcomes someone when they arrive for the first time?
2. What makes a second visit feel worthwhile?
3. What can people do together between scheduled gatherings?
4. Who keeps those connections alive?

They are quite simple questions. Answering them well takes attention.

I came home feeling motivated by Kirk’s story, and more convinced about the direction my partners and I had been discussing. Ten clients is a very human place to begin. So is one person believing in you.

What’s a community you keep returning to — and what has it done to earn that place in your life?

The people behind the evening

Thank you to Kirk Myers and Jenny Liu for sharing their stories, and to Ruben A. Austin for guiding the conversation. Thank you to FLŌRA Studios, Shirley Yuan and 113 Spring for bringing everyone together.

Speakers: Kirk Myers, founder of DOGPOUND; Jenny Liu, former DOGPOUND CEO and GP at Crush It Ventures.

Moderator: Ruben A. Austin, founder of FLŌRA.

Hosts: FLŌRA Studios, Shirley Yuan and 113 Spring.

Dear Body, event details · September 30, 2026 · New York

These are my personal reflections on the conversation. Speaker stories are paraphrased from my event coverage. Photos and video by Kseniia Petrina.

Plan what happens after discovery

A creator introduction is the beginning of a relationship. In my Smartly ADVANCE field notes, I explore how to give the next touchpoint a useful job. For brands planning sustained creator content, learn about Holy Marketing’s Creator Factory approach.