How to build a community people plan their week around

Who is Griffin Wooden

Griffin Wooden runs Good Pain Athletics, one of the largest training groups in Austin. It now has five pace groups and a group in Los Angeles. Connor opened by admitting he borrowed Griffin's line for this room. The first time Connor showed up at 6 in the morning, he said, he expected a wall of ego from runners doing five and six minute miles. Instead people walked up and asked his name.

Unlike Alec, I did not have a 10 page business plan.

How did Good Pain start?

Griffin had just signed up for coaching to run a fast New York City Marathon. His coach gave him track workouts at paces he was scared to try. Flying home from Chicago, he texted five friends: he was doing the workout tomorrow, come hit the track. They came. In about four weeks there were 15 to 20 people. In about four months there were 35 to 40, mostly from people posting stories and an Instagram page.

He was missing the group he ran with in New York, a lot of former college athletes who still wanted to run hard. Austin had plenty of social clubs running easy miles. He wanted the other thing.

What makes a community different from the others?

Griffin was clear that easy social runs have their place. He goes to them. But Good Pain is built for something else, and that is why it has a following.

People plan their entire workout routines around: come hell or high water, I'm at Good Pain Tuesday and I'm getting in that workout. It's probably my hardest run of the week.

His advice was to pick the thing that sets you apart, get good at it, and offer it well. He still has moments where he cannot believe it. The first workout that hit a hundred people. The day there were too many runners for one pace group. A run club in Georgia doing his workout the same day he posted it.

What happens when you lose the place you started?

Good Pain began as a track club. Then it got so big it got kicked off the track, and they wanted about $1,100 a week to keep using a public track. Griffin said he would find somewhere else. For about a month and a half the group bounced around Austin, drawing police complaints for blocking school drop off and for 200 people parking in front of houses. They landed at Zilker Park, where there is room to park.

People are craving a place where they can go and shared effort is celebrated.

The scare made him ask what Good Pain actually is. The answer: the group grew more after it left the track. People come because the runners around them push harder and hold them to it.

How do you grow a community without doing everything yourself?

Connor asked what made Good Pain different beyond the training. Griffin said it comes down to showing up for people every week, so they know he is all in on them. The other half is giving people in the group real roles.

At the first events he did everything himself: photos, video, leading the run and pointing people where to turn. Now pace group leaders help plan events, one runner sells the merch and has the store login, and photographers come out on a regular basis. He can step back, and it has grown past him.

How do you keep brands from using your community?

Connor asked this as a personal question, since people now offer him money to pitch from this stage. Griffin had two stories. The first brand that called was Ghost Hydration. They said they just wanted to hand out electrolytes. They came with a cooler, two photographers and two videographers, and turned the run into a photo shoot. A few weeks later Griffin saw his runners and the Good Pain name all over their main page.

I totally just let them come in and take advantage of my people and use our name and likeness and our image and market with that.

Since then he has been much more careful about who gets in front of the group. Connor said he has asked about five times himself and Griffin politely says no every time. The second story came from the founder of Atlanta Run Club. Griffin was getting paid per can to hand out an energy drink, and the founder told him his pitch was off. Brands have a small budget for samples and a much bigger one for marketing.

Hey, I can make sick content, high quality, that you can use in your marketing, with more runners than you could afford to do a photo shoot with yourself. And I can do it cheaper than you can execute. That's a real pitch to a brand.

What comes next for Good Pain?

Asked where he sees it in ten years, Griffin laughed that he still needs a business plan. The goal is more cities: Austin, Los Angeles, then New York. Merch has sold out every time, and runners in other states are asking to buy it. Some big brands have talked about working together. His worry is choosing the partner who wants to do right by the group, not one whose demands come first.

Connor pushed back on the business plan and asked the room who could help. Hands went up. That is the point of the room, he said: name your biggest struggle and sit down with someone who has solved it.

Quotes are from the recording, trimmed of filler. Nothing is added.