Your interest in equipment, bodybuilding and willingness to travel for business would make you an awesome gym owner. Just saying.
I've been looking at space and talking to distributors. The amount of high end independent bodybuilding gyms opening around the country is pretty cool. There is nothing local in my city (Atlanta) besides corporate slop. None are 24/7. The suburbs are about to get EoS (meh Arsenal) and Absolute Recomp (elite) but they need 40k sqft and you can't get that in the city.
I've got a business plan mapped out right now. Domain has been bought. Got my socials all created. I've gotten price lists from most of the major brands expect Prime (10-11 month back log) and Atlantis (50% tariffs on Canadian goods). Right now looking at about 5-600k to stack it with elite new equipment and then selected legacy Cybex, Body Masters, Icarian, pieces. I've made some contacts with 2nd had resellers that will put me on a list and let me buy their refurbished stock before it hits the market.
Also going to create my own brand and recreate shit I can't get, like Hamtractors, old Flex machines, and some Nautilus stuff. Megamass and a few others are doing this right now and I know what Chinese factories they are using.
I've toured 3 places so far. 1 is an old CVS that would need extensive build out (owners would fund a lot), another was a sick 2nd story place but limited parking and no HVAC, 3rd is one I'm banking on right now. It's was a gym before so flooring is already in and it's basically a gym shell ready to go. Has ample parking. It's about 11k sqft total.
I'd need ~400 members to break even. My goal in Q4 is to secure funding or base approval on SBA loans. Start marketing the gym, try to get people to sign up to a list that will become the line to get memberships. Limited membership so it's never crowded. It'll be capped. LA Fitness have 6200 members on average. I plan to cap it at 1k, which is well under the max 7sqft per member average most boutique gyms shoot for.
If I can get a solid sign up base and engagement that I think I can convert to members, I'll hopefully sign a lease in early Q1 of 2027.
I promise to hold an ASF lifting session. It'll be private and I'll provide PWO Marathon A-Bombs for everyone
You can even do Quad - Ham - Quad - Ham and so forth hitting legs all 3 days alternating anterior/posterior while accumulating less fatigue.
