A Financial Professional’s Assessment of Franchising a Starting Strength Gym

I’m Jon Fraser, the owner of Starting Strength Chicago. I’ve been working in the financial industry for the last nine years, but I’ve always wanted to start my own business. Over the last three years or so, I’ve been looking at several different options for a business, investment, or other passive income opportunity. I performed a detailed assessment of the options available to me, including purchasing a franchise, and decided to share this assessment with the Starting Strength community, especially those of you that are considering owning a Starting Strength Gym.

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I have a few questions that would help if this is the right next step for me.

1. With the time commitment to open a Starting Strength franchise, is it possible to maintain a professional salaried job? I.e. can I work my day job and still be able to manage opening a SS gym?
2. On average, what is the expected annual net income for a Starting Strength franchise owner? And how long does it take to achieve that level?

I am just now exploring this possibility and trying to gather information before going too far.

Thanks,
Chris

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Originally Posted by Bevilc

1. With the time commitment to open a Starting Strength franchise, is it possible to maintain a professional salaried job? I.e. can I work my day job and still be able to manage opening a SS gym?

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Yep, several franchise owners do this. If your job is flexible and you hire the right team, it is certainly possible. I recommend talking to a few of the others that do this once you connect with Luke (see below).

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Originally Posted by Bevilc

2. On average, what is the expected annual net income for a Starting Strength franchise owner? And how long does it take to achieve that level?

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The FTC is strict about financial performance claims. We can only share what's disclosed in our FDD - which is gross revenue per gym. If you want to get the financial disclosures and punch some numbers into a spreadsheet to build a simulation, we can help with all of that. The first step is to contact Luke (SS Ciny owner) via the form on this site: Starting Strength Gyms - Franchise Ownership

Luke has a day job while running his gym so he'll be a good first conversation for you. You'll have some clarity on the profitability of the gyms too once you go through the process and start tinkering with the numbers. You're also welcome to talk to any of the gym owners once you connect with Luke - you can ask them directly about their profitability.

Talk soon,
Ray

Thank you. I assumed SS can't make financial claims, but just hoped for a ballpark of expectations.

I will submit form and talk to Luke so I can ask more questions and run the numbers.

Hi, Ray!

Are there any existing rules so far on minimum distance from existing gyms? Or is this done on a case by case basis?

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Originally Posted by amilner

Are there any existing rules so far on minimum distance from existing gyms? Or is this done on a case by case basis?

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No rules per se - our goal is to avoid cannibalization/competition between gyms. We haven't yet put multiple franchise owners in one market, but we'd be open to it if the drive-time was long enough between gyms and we felt like the franchise owners could work together without conflict.

We almost did this in Austin and then the franchise prospect attempted to poach coaches from Austin #1 so we pulled the plug.

I can't imagine SS gyms not getting insanely successful in the next decade. I know so many people who go to powerlifting-focused gyms or Crossfit gyms, but what they actually want is a Starting Strength gym, even if they don't know it yet. They just want to get stronger in a simple, effective way. I can't wait for SS Gyms to blow the fuck up.

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Originally Posted by Ryan DCNT

I can't imagine SS gyms not getting insanely successful in the next decade. I know so many people who go to powerlifting-focused gyms or Crossfit gyms, but what they actually want is a Starting Strength gym, even if they don't know it yet. They just want to get stronger in a simple, effective way. I can't wait for SS Gyms to blow the fuck up.

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I think you're spot on about the growth and how much untapped demand there is. The interesting part about the way this will likely play out is: the standard fitness industry people are going to notice this opportunity within the next couple of years and they will do their best to grab as much of the growth as possible. Meanwhile we are going to grow deliberately - speed is not the goal, quality execution is. The end result will likely be us having a small share of the market in terms of revenue and number of units, but I believe our brand will be the biggest and most valuable since we will have the highest standards and the most complete educational products.

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Originally Posted by Ray Gillenwater

the standard fitness industry people are going to notice this opportunity within the next couple of years and they will do their best to grab as much of the growth as possible

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They may notice an opportunity, but they didn’t do the groundwork - they simply don’t have the people to teach a large part of the population how to squat. The starting strength coaches didn’t just rise out of the ground, did they? Instead, you guys have a decade or more worth of experience in certifying coaches. The one thing you can never buy is time and everything that goes with it.

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Originally Posted by Ray Gillenwater

I think you're spot on about the growth and how much untapped demand there is. The interesting part about the way this will likely play out is: the standard fitness industry people are going to notice this opportunity within the next couple of years and they will do their best to grab as much of the growth as possible. Meanwhile we are going to grow deliberately - speed is not the goal, quality execution is. The end result will likely be us having a small share of the market in terms of revenue and number of units, but I believe our brand will be the biggest and most valuable since we will have the highest standards and the most complete educational products.

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I don't think that standard fitness industry people are going to be able to grab this growth. In order to do so, they would have to admit that what they are doing so far has been wrong. And they would have to make personnel changes in order to employ people who can actually coach the barbell lifts.

What they are likely to do is to recognize the success of the SS gyms and use deceptive marketing to wrongly imply that they are offering something equally beneficial. They will do so using arguments that are sound but invalid (true statements, wrong conclusions) using exceptionally attractive people with meaningless letters after their name.

In some ways, less effective products actually have a marketing advantage. Marginal training programs "weed out" all but the people who have the potential to be great athletes but don't know it and are satisfied becoming good athletes (because it exceeds their own expectations for themselves). If they are female and look cute in their yoga pants, they can recruit a lot of clients.

I'm a computer scientist and I work in sales, not marketing so add however many grains of salt you want to my comments. There is more money to be made in today's market selling snake oil than there is in solutions. I hope that this changes. Part of that will come organically due to word-of-mouth and I expect individual SS gyms as well as the SS gyms franchise company to do more than well enough just based on that organic growth.

But at some point there will need to be marketing that takes aim at ineffective programs.

How long have you been doing the same fitness routine without seeing results? Why not try something that works?!

The market seems to be bifurcated into people for whom money is not an issue but they wont' put in the work under the barbell and people who are willing to embrace the program but have financial limitations.

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" was only ever said by somebody who didn't have to try to sell something.

I have no doubt that the SS product will be the best by far and I'm not suggesting lowering standards for marketing.

But I do hope you guys find a viable marketing technique so that the product reaches the people who need it.