Business idea

[Soldier]

Very cool Fazc.

One thing that's been running through my mind the last couple days is that in starting a gym there are an almost endless number of directions you can go. The gym where I work out is succesful by offering relatively low rates with a wide variety of options, but not really having the nicest equipment or buildings. Suffice to say it's working very well for them.

On the other hand you have you really nice, feature filled gyms that appeal to people who are willing to spend more money. There are plenty of those out there. Then you have the planet fitnesses of the world, where people go even if it doesn't have everything they want just because it's cheap. In the end, something has to be compromised if you want to keep rates lower. Either you have less equipment, crappy equipment, so many people that no one ever gets to use the equipment they want, or some combination there of.

Then again, if you have a highly specialized gym then people may be willing to pay more (like a powerlifting/strongman gym that has all the specialized equipment), but not only do there have to be enough people who are interested, the gap in fees must be small enough to justify to the consumer the extra expense.

And of course, this is all based upon what else may be available in the area. My ideas may work in an area where there are only expensive, feature packed gyms that cost $100/month, but it probably wouldn't work in my home town because the gym where I go is so damn cheap, and they have 3 locations.

[jslep]

Just a suggestion but if and when it comes time find a local metal fab/welding shop and bring in pics of equipment like mono lifts, benches and such and find out if they can fab them for less than a big name like EliteFTS. Also atlas stones can be made cheap and you can pick up giant tires usually for free at a heavy equipment facility.

With all that has been suggested i still think to be successful nowadays as a new start facility you need to find your "nich". You gotta offer what somewhere else is not. Don't be a carbon copy but rather a new blueprint on an old design.

[Soldier]

Well it just so happens that I know how to weld. Hopefully by then I'll know how to do it well enough that I'll be able to make quite a bit of my equipment myself. I know that things like dip bars and plyo boxes will most definitely be made by myself unless I decide that I want things to be really nice, but even then I can just get everything powdercoated.

[Goat]

I have a small landscaping company, I know the trade inside and out. However I am a terrible businessman (getting better). I make far more money by hiring skilled labor than I do by being in the trenches my self.

Bootstrapping, a start up is difficult to say the least, But you will have many opportunities available to you upon a honorable discharge. The SBA has vet preferences.

Having five years to get your ducks in a row will be a powerful advantage for you.

I would suggest that while your in the Army that you take advantage of the education opportunities they offer( ARMYU). Business courses will give you skills that will be an advantage for you no matter what you eventually do.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by Goat

I have a small landscaping company, I know the trade inside and out. However I am a terrible businessman (getting better). I make far more money by hiring skilled labor than I do by being in the trenches my self.

Bootstrapping, a start up is difficult to say the least, But you will have many opportunities available to you upon a honorable discharge. The SBA has vet preferences.

Having five years to get your ducks in a row will be a powerful advantage for you.

I would suggest that while your in the Army that you take advantage of the education opportunities they offer( ARMYU). Business courses will give you skills that will be an advantage for you no matter what you eventually do.

Very good suggestions indeed. Thanks!

[markievicz]

my 2 cents ,


i think its great that you are planning for 5/10 yrs down the road , too many people get wrapped up in the next year and lose the run of themselves....

i think your idea for the direction of the gym is a good one - id love to have a gym like that near me, but i would also add i am a member of 2 gyms and that as far as i can see, i am the only person to train the way i do . thats with 500+ members ... most fellas either walk straight in and do the "mirror muscles" or stand around talking about PR's rather than going and beating them. then you also have the cardio bunnies that come in and spend 2hrs on every cardio machine. finally you have the members that come in for periods , as in , oh 4 weeks to <enter event> i need to shape up for it.... they come in for those weeks then disappear for months on end

the point i am getting at is that , for me , if you want to make money from your business you need different revenue streams... and you surely dont want to alienate any genre - for e.g i cant see cardio bunnies joing a hardcore gym

for me , what I would like as an ideal business might not actually work as a business

i wish you luck and sucess on this and will follow along to see how this goes

Originally Posted by Fazc

I can't speak as much for America but I know the economic situation in the UK is quite grim. I think in the future any business venture would have to take into account the sure bets. I know several privately owned gyms in the area who have closed down in the last decade as more and more large company gyms open up and inevitably the young fickle clientelle who will bring in the majority of your custom gravitate towards them rather than privately owned ones.

I have thought about opening a gym and like you I have thought about it for the clientelle that you mentioned, but you have to remember that 'we' as in people who post on sensible forums and use sensible routines are in the minority. We are pretty much a fringe group, the market there seems too unstable for a business.
I think in the future, especially thinking long-term as the economic situation in the west worsens the sure bets will ultimately be the only ones worth looking at... land and metal.

excellent points here Faz

Originally Posted by Goat

I would suggest that while your in the Army that you take advantage of the education opportunities they offer( ARMYU). Business courses will give you skills that will be an advantage for you no matter what you eventually do.

def do this!

[Soldier]

It's actually not a hard-core gym that I want to start. When I think of hard-core gyms I think of the videos of guys training at metroflex, with lots of old run down equipment squeezed into a warehouse and weights thrown around with metal playing. That's not what I want to do at all. I just want a simple gym with the things in it that I know actually help people.

The biggest market I'd say I could profit from is the weight loss market. People spend billions a year on losing weight. I know most of it is quick fixes that don't work, but Crossfit has shown us that there ARE people out there who are willing to work hard. If I can find people who are ready to actually work at changing their bodies, then I can provide them with the right atmosphere and coaching to train and the right plan to eat.

There won't be treadmills or ellipticals, because those things don't work. There will be prowlers and sleds, because those DO work. It may sound hard core, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to help people change.

I've also noticed that there are lots of kids who WANT to train hard, but don't know how. They do shrugs and curls because they don't know any better.