March 14, 2017

Meet Steve Karp of Endurance House in Alpharetta

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Karp.

Steve, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My wife Lee and I were both working long-term corporate jobs but always had a desire to do our own thing. Lee had climbed the retail ladder at Guess Inc. and ended up as Manager of Retail Recruiting after about an 18-year career there. Steve has been with McCarthy Building Companies Inc. for 24 years now where he started as a college intern in SoCal. McCarthy is the oldest privately held GC in the USA in business since 1864. Steve is An Atlanta native and Lee a NorCal girl – we met in SoCal while Steve was working on his engineering degree at Cal Poly Pomona. Steve was waiting tables and Lee was a hostess at one of the local restaurants near Cal Poly. When McCarthy opened an Atlanta Division in 2005 we packed up and moved down south. A welcome homecoming for Steve and a new adventure for Lee

Steve was always athletic and worked out continuously and liked the variety in keeping in shape. We got pretty heavy into CrossFit around 2010. Lee progressed rapidly and became a certified CrossFit coach. The desire to start our own business was still there so we had looked at several business opportunities that were all gym related. None of them really grabbed us the way we needed it too. We also started getting into different athletic challenges such as Tough Mudder in addition to CrossFit. Sometime in 2012, Lee decided she wanted to take on an Ironman for her 40th birthday. Steve jumped in on that challenge as did our good friends Adam and David. We hired a coach and started the rigorous training process. In 2013 we all completed Ironman 70.3 Augusta and Ironman Florida. Since then, we have really embraced the Triathlon world and have completed a multitude of Tri’s at various distances from Sprints up to more full IM’s.

Sometime during our training in 2013, Steve and Lee were eating dinner and reading thru Triathlon magazine and saw franchise opportunities for Endurance House. That was it! We contacted the founders that night and the ball was rolling…we opened our own Endurance House franchise (#5 store in the US at that time) in May 2014. With her background in retail, glowing personality and love for the community we felt it made the best sense for Lee to run the store while Steve stayed at McCarthy. We have always made a great team so while we both worked on startup of the business Steve also took off on the construction buildout for our new store. It was all very exciting and challenging at the same time…our friends thought we were nuts trying to tackle all of that while also training for a full IM.

Has it been a smooth road?
Business startup definitely has its challenges from finding a space to finances to legal. Finding the spot wasn’t easy and we originally didn’t love where we ended up putting the store but after looking around and coming back to it and talking to the Endurance House founder, we realized that the Alpharetta location was ideal. An old Blockbuster video right next to a Publix in the heart of downtown Alpharetta which has been undergoing huge growth.

Starting the business while working my day job at McCarthy was also very challenging especially during buildout.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are a specialty retailer focusing on triathlon along with running, walking, swimming and biking. Full-service bike shop and bike sales. We pride ourselves on community involvement and gold star customer service catering to athletes of all abilities, beginners to experience. Those looking to do their first Tri or those that have done many ironmans come to Endurance House for everything they need and feel welcomed by knowledgeable and experienced staff while doing so.

If you are looking for shoes, we can put you thru our Personal Movement Profile (pmp) to analyze your foot strike and find the right shoe for you. What sets us apart is our product selection, customer service, and community involvement. We do Tuesday night group runs and Wednesday night group rides as a couple of examples. We are very active sponsoring and participating in different races all over the SE.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Absolutely, Atlanta is very progressive and has started installing double wide and delineated bike lanes downtown. Runs such as the Publix half marathon and Peachtree road race become more popular every year. As a suburb of Atlanta, Alpharetta is even more progressive recently adding new bike routes to add to established routes such as the greenway. Alpharetta is currently undergoing a big boom all around us which is great for our downtown location. They have also recently added rental bikes on the greenway.

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