Hasty generalization unless you visited all of them. I assume you haven't because I know of a couple where some low bar squat to depth. Believe it or not some even allow chalk!
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I was lifting in my apartment gym. A gentleman with a belt walked in and politely waited for the rack. Out of courtesy, I finished my remaining set with the dumbbells. He began to warm up a Press 2.0. “Hm”, I thought, “he must have read SS.”
Turns out he is an SSC. I learned this a few weeks later, when I saw him in a USSF YouTube stream.
"I think" is a sort of colloquial phrase for 'my opinion'. My second sentence was an admission to not being up to speed on this.
I'd like to here Ray's thoughts.
And for example, "Starting Strength Austin" has 16 Google reviews and 4.5 stars, but it hasn't even opened the doors yet.
I'm sure its a fine gym and all ...but you see my point about the internet thing.
It's doors are open. You really don't mind being wrong, do you?
Decisions need to be made regardless of what data you have at your disposal. Otherwise risks aren't taken and progress isn't made. Higher quantity and/or quality of information = lower risk due to the potential for a higher accuracy decision.
If we know that Starting Strength is unique and better than what the gym market has to offer in terms of its efficacy (impact on health, fitness, performance and is accessible to anyone), we could make a market decision on that alone. People bring new products and ideas to market all the time. If they're significantly better than what's already out there, and marketed well, they're often successful.
We have that. And we have 3/4M book sales. And we had 6.1M hits to the website last year. And we know what cities have the highest proportion of those people. And we know that visitors look at around three pages per visit and spend around three minutes on site (which is really damn unusual in 2019). And we know there are active communities of people all over the web discussing how to do Starting Strength. And there are affiliates and unaffiliated gyms across the country offering Starting Strength successfully. And we know that SS Austin hasn't had their grand opening yet (soft launch only) and their group training time-slots are selling out.
Should internet hits be used as a primary way to make "big-time business market decisions?" It depends. In our situation is it a relevant data point that can help us quantify demand in a specific city to determine what level of priority to give it? I certainly think so.
But but but, I got my data from the internet.
SSAustin home page say it opens on April 15.
https://i.postimg.cc/DfJrtgS0/ssaustintaxday.png
I'm sure they are valid (good) reviews of Starting Strength in general, or Joyce's and Luke's other gym, or what have you.
But you see my point about internet data?
Starting Strength Austin
Note the date. You're not an impressive intellect, Fulcrum.