Alison was able to open her dream cycling studio with a Honeycomb crowdfunding campaign!
When you’re looking to start a gym business, unless you have a spare $65,000 to $100,000 laying around, you’re going to need some external financing.
To start your gym, you’re going to need, at least to start with, a safe, attractive commercial space to operate out of and equipment to put in it. You’ll also need a strong core of customers you know that will be lined up out the door to work out once you open. Well, there are ways in which you can solve all of these problems in one - read on to find out!
Hit up family and friends
One of the most common ways that fitness entrepreneurs find investors for their gyms is to ask people they personally know to invest in them. This is what’s known as a “friends and family round.”
When you’re asking friends and family to invest in your gym, you want to make sure that they’re in a financial position where they could stand to lose their investment - just in case. You also want to make sure you have safeguards in place so that having a financial component to your relationship doesn’t become weird. No money for your business is worth ruining an important relationship for!
Find a partner
Another way that people choose to find funding for their gym is by finding a partner to go in on it with you and to help with the startup costs. You could find a working partner, maybe someone you’ve trained with in the past, or a former colleague, who will be part of the day-to-day operations of the gym. Or, they could be a silent partner, where they just invest the money into the gym but let you handle the management aspect.
Finding a partner for your gym is really a matter of asking. If there’s someone you know who is passionate about fitness and has an entrepreneurial mind, they might be an excellent person to pitch your idea to.
Run a crowdfunding campaign
One of the easiest ways to find a lot of investors for your gym and to get the startup costs in order is to run a crowdfunding campaign!
When you run a crowdfunding campaign through a loan crowdfunder like Honeycomb, your clients, friends, family, and neighbors get to become investors and loan you the money you need to start your gym.
You might be thinking, “Well, my friends sure as heck aren’t Warren Buffet, how are they supposed to invest in my gym?”. Well, thanks to the JOBS Act of 2017, regular people can invest up to $2,200 or more, depending on their net worth, in a small business. This is what allows for crowdfunding to occur, where people can make investments for as little as $100.
Running a crowdfunding campaign can also be really great at marketing your brand new gym startup! You can get the word out about the gym by offering people a really neat way of getting involved - investing in it. This will be sure to build buzz about your gym before you’ve even opened your doors.
Also, giving your current clients an opportunity to invest in your gym is a way of strengthening your relationship with them. When someone invests in your campaign, they become invested in your success - because if your gym thrives, so does their investment! Hey, maybe it’s also a good way of getting them to keep coming to the gym, right?
Turn your clients into investors and start working on those (financial) gains!
Running a crowdfunding campaign can be a fantastic way to find investors for your gym, build buzz around its opening, and develop stronger bonds with your current customers. Find out more about the other benefits of crowdfunding a small business loan with Honeycomb by filling out the form below!