The story of EVO on our fifth birthday (13 January 2023)
A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM TNE ON EVO'S FIFTH BIRTHDAY
EVO is five today (Friday 13 January 2023) and on this really special occasion, I wanted to share with you the story of EVO and how it came about. Some of you will have heard/ read some of this before but it’s important to remember where EVO came from and what it stands for. So, whether you’ve been part of it for a while, or have just joined us recently, I urge you to read on.
THIS DAY FIVE YEARS AGO
On this day five years ago, Saturday 13 January 2018, we opened Evolution on Mortlake High Street with a 9am Ride45. I taught it and 16 people showed up - eight of whom still come regularly. We then did a 10am Ride that was full (30 bikes) and of those who came, 16 are still regulars!
EVO was an incredibly different business and studio then to what we have now. Then, we had a converted office as our spin studio and a tiny gym area for HIIT classes. We had no staff, other than some contractors, a raft of friends and ex-girlfriends helping me. It was just madness. I set it up from nothing, with no experience, no track record in fitness, just a vision and a passion for shouting at people in lycra on a stationary bike, whilst playing fucking good music loudly (music I used to get off my tits to in my 20's). Sounds like a winning recipe for a business, right?!
I have thought long and hard about what to write for this fifth birthday message: should it be funny, should it be motivational, should it be about you, the members? Those who know me know that I’m a chronic over-sharer; I ramble on for too long and wear my heart on my sleeve. I come from a long line of Welsh over-sharing women and charismatic Welsh male lunatics. I’ll try and be succinct but then again, the story of Evolution is not simple and short. It is long and complicated but important.
GROWING UP
Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to do. I never really had a purpose or direction. I come from a family with history of addiction and alcoholism. I never felt good enough, but always projected an outside image that I was okay. I drank and took drugs, primarily because I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. I had no power over alcohol and my twenties were a wash out. I got a good job as a commercial sales manager in Premier League football (as a twist of fate my old boss who I was a nightmare to is now a member of EVO, and I get to shout at her regularly!). In short, I never really got my shit together. I blacked out, was arrested, used to shout and lose my temper drunk (I wasn't a very nice drunk). I was overweight and unhappy, whilst never openly projecting that.
MY MOMENT OF CLARITY
I had my moment of clarity on Easter Sunday 2001. I’d blackout on my girlfriend’s sofa, in her flat in Balham, and when I woke up, she just looked at me with pity. I realised my drinking wasn’t a laugh anymore, and that I was worse than my alcoholic father was when he was my age (28 years old). I rang AA and went to my first meeting that day. It took me another six months of drinking on and off before I finally admitted to my innermost self, that “my name is Nick and I am an alcoholic”.
I had my last drink on 6 August 2001. Three days later I went to AA desperate and asked for help, and they delivered. I have committed to AA ever since, as I know I can't do it alone, but with the help of others, I can. (Sound familiar to the EVO ethos?)
MY SOBER YEARS
For the past 21 years I have attended AA four to five times a week: I’m in recovery and follow a 12 step programme. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a saint. As addiction and alcoholism is largely centred in the mind, my thinking, personality and thoughts are a bit mental. Without a 12 step programme, I would be a raving lunatic!
I smoked 30 a day for years, behaved badly, acted madly and have done everything wrong in sobriety other than drink. But over time my behaviour improved. I grew up, grew into my own skin and became comfortable with being me, The Nick Evans (TNE). (TNE is a piss take of my own ego, by the way. People who are full of self-importance usually refer themselves in the third person or put ‘The’ in front of their names - hence TNE!)
I always worked in sales or commercial sport. Raising millions for Fulham FC, London Scottish Rugby and the Commonwealth Games England team. I was a decent commercial director. Selling large sponsorships or liaising between sport and business. Using sport as a means of developing business teams and motivational speaking. Creating healthy staff engagement programmes through sport, and so on.
However, I was also overweight and struggling with my eating and love of shit. Guzzling endless diet coke, smoking and binging on ice cream. I even suffered from bulimia and body dysmorphia throughout my sobriety.
GETTING INTO SPORT AND FITNESS
I started running to lose weight, then got into triathlons, did loads of marathons and Ironman's in my thirties - probably to run away from my feelings and try to look good to feed my newfound women and sex addiction!
I never trained properly or scientifically. I just ran loads, biked loads, went to the gym and threw weights around, without admitting that I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just exercised compulsively and stupidly but eight marathons and three Ironman's later, I looked great in lycra one piece. Result!
But I still never felt that I was in the right place. I never felt good enough deep down, never knew what my purpose was.
THE REAL TURNING POINT
I joined a spin studio on Mortlake High Street to train for an Ironman in 2015. I trained there once a week. Still smoking and working as a marketing consultant, before being made redundant three times. I was a bit on my knees: skint, 42 years old and wheezing from smoking. Miserable.
Then, desperate to stop smoking and desperate to feel better, I asked for help again. I saw a guy called Max Kirsten who hypnotised me into giving up smoking. He told me that I was using it to put off life when I should be out there helping people. I remember him saying to me: “you're going to be the best you've ever been in 2017". I raced out of his door like Usain Bolt and immediately set up ‘Nick Evans Fitness’. Thinking 'fuck it, I don’t have anything else to do'. (I qualified as a PT/gym instructor in 2001 when I got sober but had done nothing with it since.)
I asked the woman who owned the spin studio if she had any work, and by a stroke of luck or divine intervention, her main instructor had left and she said offered me 10 spin classes a week! BOOM!
I grabbed the opportunity. £20 a class, 10 a week. Playing all the music I loved and shouting at people whilst sweating! Beats the fuck out of sitting on the Northern Line going to a job I hated. And, although I earnt next to nothing from it, I thought ‘I’ll do this for a couple of years, get experience, redo my qualifications and build a career’. It was March 2017.
My classes filled up, I got a couple of PT clients, started a little bootcamp on Mortlake Green and managed to get by. Then on 30 May 2017, the owner came in and said: “we are liquidating the business tomorrow, we owe £250k and we have to close".
A HIGHER POWER
I couldn’t believe it: three redundancies and then that. But, here’s where the higher power came in, after years of recovery and things happening outside my control, the real story of Evolution began. I just followed my instinct.
I met with my regulars, asked if they would back me, and managed to get 10 local investors to put in £90k. I got the lease at Mortlake High Street (five years with a six month break clause), took on the licence, changed everything to Evolution, taking on the liquidated business, building a new one. That is how Evolution started.
I had no idea about booking systems, branding, staff or payroll. I totally winged it. However, I knew one thing, that the product was shit hot. Build it and people will come, they said.
NOT ENTIRELY PLAIN SAILING!
So, we opened on Mortlake High Street five years ago today, but one year later we were given eviction notification, as they sold the building to build offices and I had to find new digs! After a stressful year, I raised another £400k from 30 local investors and moved EVO to Sheen Lane, converting a restaurant into the place you see now.
Then, right in the middle of the build, Covid struck and I thought we were doomed. But we kept trading throughout, renting out our bikes and doing everything online.
EVO 2.0
We opened Evolution 2.0 on Sheen Lane on 6 August 2020. Obviously, we closed again in the second lockdown but then properly re-opened May 2021, with a fully functioning Cave, Yard and three rigs in the Studio. Since then, we have been building the team, the products and our offering and it’s now the best it’s ever been
So, five years is a real landmark moment for me. Half a decade. I have learnt so much and been through so much, but the exciting thing is that I truly believe the best is yet to come. It almost feels like the first year of the new EVO. A mature EVO that is about Rachel, Stef, Tina, Katty, Emma, Dan, Jack, Clare, Emilia, Cath, Martina and Vicky - the team. They embody the ethos, standards and the whole vibe of EVO.
EVO is pure AA, without me knowing it. The ‘Cheers of Fitness’, where everybody knows your name. I am determined to build a unique, quality business like no other. A place with social conscience.
THEN THERE'S YOU, OUR EVO LEGENDS
The team are great. We have a product that’s the best it's ever been and the next five years will be amazing…..and then there’s you. The legends who come day in day out. Some of you have been with me since before day one, some since the Mortlake High Street days and some only recently.
Without you all, EVO is nothing. We survive for you: to make your day, your life and your physical and mental health better. Your fitness version of AA. A place of sanity from a crazy world.
THE SPIRIT OF EVO
I take no credit for what we’ve created here at EVO. This email may sound all about me, TNE, but really it is about a higher power, a purpose, and me doing what felt right. It is about recovery and redemption.
I am you. I know how hard things can be. I am not a former pro athlete, or sportsman or 20-year elite fitness professional, but I have seen and experienced everything you have. I understand you. I have a huge heart from my mother and that is what is at the very core of EVO. Heart and soul. In Wales they call it Hywl. Spirit.
All I needed to do was add the quality, science and professionalism that the amazing team brings. And this is what makes them special. They have heart, soul and spirit and they care deeply about you.
So, when you step through the door of EVO. Without knowing it, you're having a spiritual experience, even if you don’t believe in all that shit, you are. AND I FUCKING LOVE IT!
Thank you to all who have helped me along the way. Thank you to all you guys, thank you to my team, and thank you to AA and the higher power. Without that I am nothing.
God bless you and God bless EVO. Here’s to the next five years!
Love, TNE