Is It Time to Open Your First Gym? with Mark Fisher

Speaker: [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3, 4. [00:00:05] Welcome to The Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help gym and [00:00:10] studio owners create a business and a life they love. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. [00:00:15] Join me and the business unicorns team each week for actionable advice, expert [00:00:20] insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym.

Get ready to [00:00:25] unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry.[00:00:30] [00:00:35]

Yeah. Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? [00:00:40] Welcome to another episode of the Business Unicorns podcast. I’m here today with Mr. Mark [00:00:45] Fisher. Mr. Mark Fisher, how’s your week going?

Speaker 2: It’s very full, but good.

Speaker: Full but good. We’re both [00:00:50] talking about, we’re recording this on a Tuesday, and I think I said that it feels like it’s already been like three weeks of [00:00:55] this week.

Yes. This is a very full time of year. It’s the time of year where I think. Lot of people are, [00:01:00] including us, are sprinting to get as much done as we can. Mm-hmm. By the end of the year, while also taking as much time off as [00:01:05] possible for the holidays. And it’s gonna, it’s catching up with me already and it’s only [00:01:10] October.

Let’s dive into today’s topic ’cause I’m excited to do this because [00:01:15] we don’t record that many podcasts that are specifically for the [00:01:20] portion of our audience who are not yet gym owners. But we know there’s a lot of you out there listening to this podcast [00:01:25] who are religious listeners listening, maybe even for years.

Who work in the industry, maybe are [00:01:30] trainers, maybe you work for someone who’s in unicorn society, but you yourself [00:01:35] don’t yet have a gym. And so we wanted to do a podcast study that speaks directly to some of [00:01:40] you who dream about. Or thinking about maybe in planning for [00:01:45] opening your own gym in the coming months and years.

And we want to answer the question like, how do you [00:01:50] know when it’s time? How do you know when, like all the stars are aligned and it’s time for you [00:01:55] to open up your gym? And so maybe Fisher, I’ll ask to start with you and maybe I’m, I’ll ask this [00:02:00] very specifically. Going back to Mark Fisher Fitness, what were all the signs and signals that told [00:02:05] you it was time for your kind of side hustle of training to become an [00:02:10] actual gym?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s so funny. It’s, I wish I had [00:02:15] only look back about 13, 14 years ago. Yeah, yeah. Point had it. [00:02:20] Self vlog. If I was keeping time to understand what I was thinking, I don’t, my remembering of it was [00:02:25] being very resistant to the idea when you even actually first had broached it. Uh, when Peter and Ray were getting [00:02:30] snatched and were like, you think about doing a thing?

And I was like, Nope, nope. I want an easy life. I don’t want a hard life. I’m not dumb. [00:02:35] I think a lot of it for me was just getting more and more interested in the thought of creating some sort of [00:02:40] like kind of work community. And I think is when I found books, like I remember delivering happiness was particularly interesting.

I [00:02:45] remember distinctly reading that. I also remember. Walking home when I lived on 29th Street, [00:02:50] Astoria and us like talking the phone call and us being like, yeah, we don’t have the appetite for risk. This guy does. This [00:02:55] guy’s like crazy. We were so like, what? It’s like evolved organic and part of it was like on a [00:03:00] whim.

’cause the original projections we did when we met in the summer of 2011, we’re like, all right, [00:03:05] the summer of 2012, we’ll start looking for a space and. Once [00:03:10] we started talking about it, like, I was like, oh, it looks like there’s, there’s space above Westway Diner. This is the [00:03:15] former Sleepies mattress thing.

Sure. Let’s go look at it, and then. One thing led to another and then we, I think probably [00:03:20] anchored ourself ’cause I had started looking. Mm-hmm. And then Brian Patch Murphy put us in touch with hardcore [00:03:25] broker Chris Halliburton. That’s when we started like looking at other spaces in the area. So yeah, the [00:03:30] one thing led to another, I wish I could say was more of intentional, like, now we’re ready to look.

Because the [00:03:35] original, like my original sense of like our thinking was it felt like this kind of good [00:03:40] idea, but it’s like long term, long way. You don’t live here, you have a job in Philadelphia. [00:03:45] And then it just all sped up once it became like a thing that was a seed in our mind. But I [00:03:50] don’t, can’t remember a moment where I was like, oh, let’s have a in-person brick and mortar gym.

Speaker: Yeah, [00:03:55] 100%. I think you’re right. It was a confluence of a bunch of things. The things that I remember feeling. ’cause I think [00:04:00] we’re both pretty risk averse. I don’t think we’re big risk takers. I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna be like [00:04:05] the founder of Nike. What didn’t he file for bankruptcy like five times throughout the course?

I don’t think I [00:04:10] have that kind of risk tolerance. Just like. File for bankruptcy, start over again. And so the [00:04:15] thing that I remember very vividly was like, wow, I actually didn’t think we could afford it. But then we started looking at [00:04:20] the numbers, like, money’s coming in. I think we actually could afford this.

We actually maybe even already have cash [00:04:25] for a down payment. So that was something that felt like, okay, maybe this is within our financial [00:04:30] reach. The second thing was then we started looking at spaces. For me, it all felt like it sped up because I was like, [00:04:35] oh, this is real. There are spaces available that actually.

Could fit our needs [00:04:40] because we didn’t look for that long. No. We only looked at a handful of spaces before. Handful of spaces. Yeah. Yeah. Before we found one. We’re [00:04:45] like, oh, there are things that actually are in a neighborhood we want, and the size we want, the price we want. I was [00:04:50] like, this is doable. And I think the third thing for me, like all in hindsight of course, [00:04:55] that felt like the stars were aligned, was like, I knew that there was demand for what you were doing.[00:05:00]

Yeah, that’s true. I knew, knew that there was people like really ready to spend more money and keep [00:05:05] coming and coming back. You already, we had had people coming back to do snatch in six weeks again, [00:05:10] we already had. People that you’ve been personal training for a long time that were very loyal. So I was [00:05:15] like, there’s real loyalty here and there’s more interest.

And then once it seems like viable, I was [00:05:20] like, this kind of make sense. Why wait. Yeah. If we can do it now, isn’t, doesn’t it make more sense to [00:05:25] stop paying rent to these other people and jump in? And of course all that is, in hindsight, I have no [00:05:30] idea if that’s exactly what I was thinking at the time, but those are the things I’d know that made me feel [00:05:35] comfortable to move forward.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think that’s true and I think that’s maybe another thing that is not. [00:05:40] Appropriately remarked upon is, which by the way, and again, I always try to be clear like, here’s things you can [00:05:45] model and here’s things you can’t. Yeah. I think things you can model is make sure everybody you possibly know [00:05:50] knows this is a thing that you’re doing.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker 2: The thing that’s hard to model is [00:05:55] one, the sheer volume of people that certainly me and Brian Patrick Murphy personally knew, was just like an absurd number of [00:06:00] hundreds and hundreds of people that we. Knew and would say hello to by name if we [00:06:05] walked into a bar. The other thing that’s harder to count on was just like, I don’t know, and I feel [00:06:10] like this is the risk of sounding like braggy, and I’ve talked this a lot, maybe sound arrogant, but it’s like we were [00:06:15] just really good at what we were doing.

Sure. We knew everybody was losing their mind about this thing we were making. [00:06:20] And by the time we opened up that first facility, to your point, first of all, I had always done a good job [00:06:25] of paying attention to my contact database. Even as a personal trainer, I was unusually meticulous, but. [00:06:30] The last round of snatch, it had a hundred participants.

So over the course of the year of [00:06:35] five rounds of snatch and then still doing a fair number of personal training people, Kyle Langworthy, they starting [00:06:40] to do overflow. Him bringing in some of his old clients. We had maybe 150, [00:06:45] 160 people. That had paid us money at some point in that year for our services and [00:06:50] seemed very happy with it and hunger to do more.

That’s a crazy number. A lot of without having [00:06:55] our own space, right? This is all like, yeah, future gym owners are usually not coming in with [00:07:00] 160 people that had already paid money in that past year. And of course, listen, they didn’t all [00:07:05] move forward and we don’t have a very good rag story as story because from day one, things [00:07:10] did go pretty good, but there definitely was like a scary.

We have a scary week, a scary three days in [00:07:15] January of 2012. We’re like, wait a minute. ’cause not everybody bought right away. And I think we did do probably [00:07:20] some founder rate, time sensitive offer. If I can remember in the midst of time. I, I also remember

Speaker: [00:07:25] in those first year, few years, I feel like we changed up like our pri price point and packaged our services.[00:07:30]

Oh yeah. We, we packaged and packaged, we’ve lowered

Speaker 2: our rates in our second year. We were like, we made it cheaper.

Speaker: [00:07:35] Yeah. And because we just. Throw in. We were just throwing spa against the wall. There was really not a lot of benchmarking you could [00:07:40] do back in 2011. That’s also true. Also true to our offense.

Yeah, we were, neither of us had really ever worked in a [00:07:45] gym before. Yeah. I worked in one as massage therapists, but it was a big box gym. And [00:07:50] so I think, but I do think you’re right. That’s, uh, for. All of our people listening who might wanna open [00:07:55] up a gym. I do think all of the things we’ve mentioned so far are good things to look for.

Do. Are you [00:08:00] developing an audience who’s following you? Have you at least had dozens of people pay you and [00:08:05] be happy to pay you again? Yeah. To have the financial means. Somehow with yourself or with [00:08:10] loans or friendly and friends to, yep. To build out a space from the security deposit to, to [00:08:15] a runway of cash.

Like where’s the money coming from? Are you earning that through your day job or [00:08:20] you earning that through training? I also think, just practically speaking, not every market is going to. [00:08:25] It’s gonna be easy to find a space that’s a startup space for a gym.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s very true. [00:08:30]

Speaker: And I think in New York, I think we, I think, I don’t know what the market was even like in terms of real estate back then, so [00:08:35] I just moved there, but, but did we seem to have a handful of options?

There seemed to be really [00:08:40] accessible options of like 1500 square feet places.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that’s true. [00:08:45] And I think. I think that’s true. I think we were looking, this was in the summer [00:08:50] of 2011, so I think not to be underappreciated, we were still in the shadows of the financial crisis.

Speaker: [00:08:55] That’s true, that’s true.

Speaker 2: So we were still getting some of the benefits. The city was still coming back at that point, even though he had been a [00:09:00] few years by then. And in practice, our landlord we got very lucky with, and I [00:09:05] think we both had a very good profit relationship and he still has a great tenant down the street from where I record and [00:09:10] speakeasy of strength.

Yeah, they just needed somebody. If I remember correctly, this is getting into the weeds and not of [00:09:15] interest for how people decide, but if I remember correctly, they had bought the building in the nineties and it took them like [00:09:20] 12 years to renovate it and then they, it’s a, it’s still a weird not good street, so they couldn’t [00:09:25] find like tenants and anyway, yeah, we were also worked out Cape in that space.

Yeah, because we got it for like a [00:09:30] song. Even at the time it was like reasonably priced and New York is always bouncing around. The real estate market here is [00:09:35] very interesting, I think. Even now, I think things are heating back up. But there [00:09:40] was even a period post pandemic where New York rates were cheaper than most other tier one [00:09:45] markets.

And to this day, hell’s Kitchen. And this unfortunately probably says more about the challenges of the [00:09:50] neighborhood than about what an amazing opportunity is. It’s a lot of empty storefronts. Still in that [00:09:55] particular neighborhood, that’s not the case in every neighborhood. New York is a, like every city, the neighborhoods are quite [00:10:00] different, but as it happens was Hell’s Kitchen was never a very sexy, hot property and [00:10:05] we needed to be there because that’s where we had always been, and that’s where the Broadway community was.

So for us, it worked out [00:10:10] really well and there wasn’t a lot of competition and it was not a very expensive place to have a commercial [00:10:15] real estate. In the grand scheme of things.

Speaker: Yeah, 100%. The other thing I think of when I zoom out and [00:10:20] think of like how do our people listening know when it’s time to open up a gym, when is the right time for you?[00:10:25]

The thing that we never talked about at all, but in hindsight made a huge difference. I think, [00:10:30] and tell me if you think I’m wrong here, is that we were young and [00:10:35] single and ready to work all day every day. Yeah. Yeah. And the single part didn’t last [00:10:40] long. We got hitched soon after. Yep. But, but we didn’t have kids.

We weren’t at that [00:10:45] point even engaged. Yep. Or had boyfriends or girlfriends.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker: And those first few years of any [00:10:50] business, you start, it’s an all in enterprise. Right. There’s a lot of risk. Yeah. You gotta get the, gotta the [00:10:55] flywheel. Fly in and I remember waking up with my laptop on my lap and falling asleep with my laptop on [00:11:00] my lap for at least the first few years, which is, which not everyone can do given [00:11:05] their stage in life.

Yeah, and I’m not saying that anyone listening who like has kids or is married should [00:11:10] not. Open a business. Of course not. Yeah. I’m just saying in our case, the thing I was, that was an advantage. Wow. [00:11:15] That was really helpful. Yeah. To not have any place to be other than that and could stay up [00:11:20] as long as we wanted.

And there’s nothing else pulling us in any other direction. Yeah. I think if you do [00:11:25] have any other obligations, I think just really important for you to be honest about how much time you [00:11:30] really have to dedicate Yeah. To, to building this thing. ’cause it, yeah. It can be an all [00:11:35] encompassing experience.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

I think that’s very true. And it’s interesting in that. One thing I’ve [00:11:40] observed, and we talked about this before on the podcast, but weren’t repeating again, I think an interesting question, which is a [00:11:45] corollary of when do I open up a gym is like, how long is too long to grind? The [00:11:50] answer, of course, depends a little bit, but I’m like, I don’t know, a year.

Yeah. Ideally no more than six months. If [00:11:55] you go all in, certainly no more than two years, and if more than two years. I’m not saying you should close your gym, [00:12:00] which we’ll talk about in a another podcast at some point. Yeah. I am saying what you’re doing is not working. Yeah. And I love [00:12:05] you, but what you’re doing is not working now.

And part of what might not be working is to your point, [00:12:10] it might be like, yep, you need to work 70 hours a week. Problem is you keep trying to do this on 40 hours a week, [00:12:15] and you’re on the floor 30 hours a week, so you keep not. Putting the work on the business [00:12:20] you need to just not sleep for six months.

And that’s like ugly, like no, out loud. Sorry. We’re, this is the [00:12:25] nature of the beast. It’s a competitive world out there and you might just be willing to work. Like just [00:12:30] crushingly brutal hours. Now again, if you’re working crushingly, brutal hours for two years and your [00:12:35] numbers are not moving, what you’re doing is not working, you’re either doing the wrong things or what you’re doing, you’re not doing [00:12:40] well.

Or maybe it feels that you’re working 70 hours, but in fact you’re quite distracted and the actual amount of [00:12:45] the density of your productivity is in fact low. But in the beginning, [00:12:50] yeah, there’s somebody set for having bandwidth. And again, I think even with a [00:12:55] family. There’s a world, particularly if you’re saying ideally we’re not on the two year plan.

Ideally we’re on the six month plan. [00:13:00] You can communicate that with the spouse, right? And the reality is, if you get this right on the other end, there [00:13:05] obviously are upsides of income and freedom that you can’t have as an employee. But you might need [00:13:10] to negotiate this a little bit and get some buy-in and make sure it’s okay with your family that [00:13:15] you are going to be busy for a six to month and call a year to be safe.

At least [00:13:20] I wouldn’t bank on this going fast again, we got. We did a lot of things [00:13:25] right, but we also had a lot of luck. Yeah. I hope you get lucky too. It might only be a few months if you, [00:13:30] if you have a lot of skillset, if you just maybe get lucky in the right market, the right location, but I think you [00:13:35] really need to plan on having a year of.

Just relentless focus of not taking a [00:13:40] ton away of vacations, of being available, of working those long hours. [00:13:45] Because again, I think this is a, an issue I see sometimes is somebody that is working [00:13:50] again, what feels like a lot, but they just have a lot of other life commitments. So in fact. [00:13:55] They’re 45, 56, even 60 hours per week.

It’s just not enough to get them over the hump, [00:14:00] particularly if they’re on the floor 35 hours per week and they have no bandwidth or brain width [00:14:05] to give to the sort of other things to grow their business, like delegating and growing the business. [00:14:10]

Speaker: Yeah, 100%. I think that, I think it’s really, I think it’s really wise to think about that, and I think [00:14:15] when I think about families who make that kind of sacrifice for someone in the family, I think it happens all the time [00:14:20] for someone in their, yeah.

Thirties or forties or decides to go back to school, right? Mm-hmm. It’s a thing you communicate with your family. [00:14:25] It’s a big investment of time and money. It’s some risk involved, right? And that’s a thing you can all [00:14:30] decide. But it’s much harder to go back to your school, back to school, your thirties and forties than it is if you go [00:14:35] when you’re in your twenties.

Yeah. So it’s just more to negotiate. But I think it’s totally possible and it’s a [00:14:40] benefit if you, if you had our experience, which was like you were not tied to anything and could work. That’s as [00:14:45] hard as we wanted to.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I also think we worked the right age in quotes. I think that [00:14:50] was probably, that’s true.

Maybe could have done a couple years earlier. Would’ve been nice to have a. Wealth compound [00:14:55] all longer. Yeah. I was 31. You were 32? Yeah, so we were like young [00:15:00] enough that we had a lot of energy and that we didn’t have [00:15:05] a lot of things tying us down and we were able to take. A little bit of a risk where if we [00:15:10] whiffed and it didn’t work, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world by any means.

It’s certainly not what I had got had going on professionally at that [00:15:15] point. Sure. But on the other hand, we were old enough. Yeah. We were old enough that we were like enough [00:15:20] organized. You’d had actual job experience. We were like [00:15:25] organized in the way that people in the early thirties are that sometimes you’re not gonna be in your early twenties, [00:15:30] particularly in the, yeah.

Continued extension of our social adolescents in [00:15:35] America. So that I think was also its own sort of unique value. Not to say that you like. You need [00:15:40] to be age, but I think that’s another, I think we’re dancing around another weird, probably [00:15:45] un-PC, unhr friendly conversation around like different ages.

You’re gonna be good at different things [00:15:50] and sense. Again, I won’t say it’s too late in your forties by any means, like by no means at all. [00:15:55] Yeah. Again, I’m like, but for me, interested in other things around this point’s a little bit

Speaker: like a, a maturity, right? [00:16:00] There’s like a sense of knowing what you bring to the table, having some experience and skillset to leverage, [00:16:05] right?

Yeah. But not being so set in your ways that it’s, that you know that it’s hard to [00:16:10] be innovative or creative or stretch yourself. Right. There is a sweet spot of malleability.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s [00:16:15] true. Right? That brings to mind. Arthur C. Brooks is excellent from strength to strength. This concept of [00:16:20] fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence.

There’s just different. Skills, you have different points and I would note [00:16:25] we obviously move in very specific subculture of America, but in practice there’s probably even a [00:16:30] case to made to do this like in your mid forties when your kids are in college. But there’s [00:16:35] American subcultures where freedom of that stage.

Yeah. Where suddenly you’re like, wow, I have all this time. My kids are later in high school, they [00:16:40] don’t wanna hang out with me anyway. And I have a lot more capacity now in New York. And we have some,

Speaker: yeah, we have some [00:16:45] unicorn society members who are in that place who a hundred percent, who at this point in their mid to late forties invested in a [00:16:50] franchise or finally opened up that studio they wanted to, or Yep.

Bought the studio they worked at or, so I think that’s, [00:16:55] that you’re right, that there’s another kind of moment that comes later in life where you have that flexibility. Yeah. And [00:17:00] also some wisdom, some to bring to bear. Yeah. And some maybe resources to, to in [00:17:05] invest. And so I think that makes a lot of sense.

Maybe let’s try and recap just if we’re to make a list for [00:17:10] our listeners. Of the kinds of things to be thinking about, right? It’s not a definitive list, but the kinds of things to be [00:17:15] thinking about, to know it’s time. What would you put on that list?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think [00:17:20] certainly an assessment of is this realistic given any capacity constraints [00:17:25] you have with life, right?

Are you managing. Aging parents. Do you have small [00:17:30] children? Do you have another work commitment that you would have to do concurrently? That means this is maybe a [00:17:35] non-starter? Certainly, financial resources is a piece of this, right? Do you either have or have [00:17:40] access to money as far as how much you open a gym, how much it costs to open a gym?

I don’t [00:17:45] know. A hundred grand in most markets. Yeah. It might be more If you wanna do a really good job in some markets, [00:17:50] you might be able to go a little bit lower. We, this was 15 years ago, but I think we opened ours for a skittle. It was like [00:17:55] 40 grand. Yes. Think there was like 20 grand on equipment and 20 grand on some crappy floors, and [00:18:00] we painted the thing with the help of some ninjas.

And you’re pro. Yeah. Again, this was New York [00:18:05] City, but it was 15 years ago. I’d imagine you’re gonna need at least 50 grand, even if you’re doing this on [00:18:10] the absolute cheapest possible, bare minimum plan. And I probably encourage you to do it on the [00:18:15] cheapest possible, bare minimum plan for the most part.

So you need life capacity, you need [00:18:20] capital, you need ideally, the right kind of real estate in your market. Another thing we advocate [00:18:25] for is don’t go. Too big. I’d rather see you hit some constraints on the size [00:18:30] of the gym. ’cause you have so much demand than have a space that whiffs and you don’t have [00:18:35] enough people to fill the opera enough services to make it make sense of it.

And I think one other thing that we haven’t really [00:18:40] talked about, it’s probably worth saying out loud, is just getting some business knowhow, right? So plug, we have a [00:18:45] course. If you go to biz unicorns.com/open-strong. Maybe [00:18:50] Rosemary can throw that in the show notes. You can check it. We do have a course on this that I think will save you a lot of time and a lot of [00:18:55] grief because something that.

It’s become a constant topic of conversations, [00:19:00] getting the model right, avoiding issues later by having the right price point and the right service [00:19:05] suites and not paying too much and getting too much space, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah. Anything else I’m [00:19:10] missing that you would add to that list?

Speaker: No, I think that’s it.

I think the only thing that we talked about that I’ll throw on there is just [00:19:15] having some proof of concept that you have clients that want more of you.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. [00:19:20] Having

Speaker: some, having been tr being a personal trainer or worked in a gym long enough to know [00:19:25] that you’re good at this work, you like doing the training, you wanna do more of it, and [00:19:30] you have evidence that there’s demand.

Yeah. There’s demand for the, for what you’re offering. That really [00:19:35] helps you open strongly courses called, mm-hmm. By having some momentum behind your back, some [00:19:40] wind at your back would be nice. I think let’s leave it there. I think that’s a good plug [00:19:45] for the course. The course does walk you through almost everything we talked about here today.

Mm-hmm. And much more. And so if you [00:19:50] are at that place where you’re thinking about opening up the gym, go check it out. I think it’s priced right. It’s [00:19:55] really pretty inexpensive for someone who might be on a tight budget, not yet ready to open up their gym. [00:20:00] We price it like that on purpose so you can afford it and then use it.

To open up your gym. So [00:20:05] go check it out. We’ll put it below in the show notes, and thanks as always for a great conversation. Fisher. Enjoy the rest of your day. [00:20:10] And your listeners, ask listeners, I’ll see you on the next one. Have a kick ass day. Bye.[00:20:15] [00:20:20] [00:20:25] [00:20:30]

Get up, get [00:20:35] up.