Corner Boxing Switches to Zipper After 15 Years on Mindbody
How a nonprofit Boulder boxing gym — home to national champions, neighborhood kids, and an 87-year-old regular — traded years of Mindbody friction for Zipper.
The clearest sign that something had to change at The Corner Boxing Club wasn’t a spreadsheet or a support ticket. It was an 87-year-old member at the front desk, unable to book the class he never missed.
He wasn’t the only one. At a gym whose entire reason for existing is to be open to everyone, the booking software had quietly become the one thing that wasn’t. Members who could hold their own on the heavy bag couldn’t get through a reservation on their phones. For years, the front desk in Boulder absorbed the difference, walking member after member through a system that felt built for software engineers rather than the people actually throwing the punches.
A gym built for everyone
The Corner isn’t a typical fight gym. It was founded by Carrie Barry — a ten-time national champion, former captain of Team USA, and Army veteran — and grew into something bigger than competition: a nonprofit, community-centered club in Boulder, Colorado where, as the club puts it, all walks of life are welcome. It later merged with the nonprofit Off The Ropes to become a fully 501(c)(3) organization, pointing its resources at the people most gyms overlook.
That mission runs on two signature programs. Rusty Gloves brings in seniors; Youth Development brings in kids. General memberships help fund both, and the mix is the point — teenagers and octogenarians sharing the same ring, a deliberate antidote to isolation. Accessibility here isn’t a marketing word. It’s the business model.
Which is exactly why the software mattered as much as it did. When the tool you use to let people in becomes a barrier to entry, it isn’t a minor annoyance — it works against the whole idea of the place.
Years of friction
For the better part of fifteen years, booking a class at The Corner meant Mindbody. It worked, technically. But it asked a lot of everyone who touched it.
Less tech-savvy members found the navigation baffling. Older members needed a staff member for practically every reservation. The mobile experience made self-service nearly impossible, so the “self” rarely happened. Behind the desk, workflows were cumbersome enough that new hires needed repeated training just to keep pace, and when something broke, support answers could take days to arrive. Manager Karly Lamberson and Barry watched their team spend time on troubleshooting that should have gone to members.
For a gym that measures itself by how welcome people feel, every confusing booking was a small crack in the promise.
The switch that took days, not weeks
The Corner found Zipper and moved fast. The full migration off Mindbody was done in under a week — not the six-to-eight weeks a switch like that often drags into. Zipper handled the data transfer for free, so members never felt the seam. And instead of a generic setup wizard, the team got onboarding built around their actual workflows, including custom how-to videos made for their specific setup.
What stood out as much as the speed was how the platform felt once it was live. The interface made sense to people of every age and comfort level. Booking a class became something members could do on their own, from their phones, without a trip to the desk. Reporting finally gave the team a clear read on memberships, attendance, and revenue. And payments flexed to how a community gym really runs, down to manual tracking for the members who still pay by cash or check.
When questions did come up, answers came back the same day — often within minutes — from a US-based team that treated The Corner less like a ticket number and more like a gym they were personally invested in.
The verdict, delivered by an 87-year-old
The proof showed up exactly where the problem had been most visible. The same 87-year-old member who’d struggled with the old system tried the new one and pronounced it easier to use — a review no feature list could buy.
“After years using Mindbody, this has been such a breath of fresh air. The team’s been super quick to respond, fix any little issues, and even send us how-to videos when we need help. Our members love it too — even our 87-year-old said it’s easier to use than our old system!”
— Karly Lamberson, Manager, The Corner Boxing Club
The change rippled out from there. Self-service booking cleared the bottleneck at the front desk, freeing staff to do what they’re actually there for: coaching, welcoming, keeping the community humming. New hires got up to speed faster. The friction that used to sit between a member and a class — and between the gym and its own mission — was simply gone.
For a club built on the belief that a boxing gym can be for everyone, the software finally agrees.
The Corner Boxing Club is a nonprofit, community-centered boxing gym in Boulder, Colorado, serving members of every age and background through programs like Rusty Gloves and Youth Development. It runs booking, payments, reporting, and member management on Zipper.
Been on Mindbody for years and feeling every bit of it? See how Zipper compares to Mindbody — or book a demo, and we’ll handle the migration, often in under a week.