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Alright, before anything - yes, I know it's a highly saturated market (even on this side of the globe). Being said that, heres my story:
I came to Japan in 2013 to do my Ph.D course. Things were going good and I was planning to get in one of research facilities here in Japan upon completion. The more I lived here, the more I was learning about this country's society, law, corporate culture etc etc, the more I started to realize that if my end goal was to get a high-payment 9 to 5 then after completing my course it would had made more sense to go back to Russia (I'm from Russia) and use my "unique for Russia" experience of Japan (university, degree, tuition sponsored by Japan's government, language) and land myself a high-payment job there + such bonuses as: no stress of living in a foreign environment, having my own house that is paid for, car, friends, family, connections, you name it. But, the curious and adventurous part of me was telling me "You've managed to make it over the damn sea! You can always go back home - let's see how much further you can go here instead."
That, and realization that one day I'll have to go back to my home country to look after my parents was pretty much dictating the only solution: business, that is not not attached to my time.
Having no experience or knowledge about anything thats crucial to business, I failed with my first try, then with the second, then a few more attempts failed to even pass the step of "market research" (my previous attempts passed it simply because I had no idea that you shouldn't give a go to any idea that suddenly appear in your head, and should test it out before execution).
Now, let me do the cinematography's *Few years later* thing and spare you from reading to much of my story.
I've been spinning in the fitness community pretty much since the first year of living here. And I witnessed a boom in "personal gyms", "diet gyms", "private gyms" (they have many different ways to call them here, but basically they are all like boutique gyms). Was a bit too late to catch the initial wave, but decided to try it out and opened a "private gym" in my home (used an empty room for it). But even before opening it, I already could see that that concept had nothing to do with ultimate goal - even opposite - it was centered around me as a trainer and it was making me stuck in one location - my gym. Well, had a few customers - enough to pay rent and electricity bill, so I was happy that at least I was working at home - saved me some time.
After some time I was approached by a friend who's family owned a chain of fancy beauty/hair-salons in town. They wanted to set up a fancy "medium size" gym in one of their salon buildings, but they had no idea about what is required, training system etc. So, we signed a contract, with me providing consultation, creating a specific training system, providing training services and equipment maintenance. I'm getting a percentage from sales, which now I think wasn't a best solution, but well.. we will see. I thought it was a good start, because now I'm not attached to a specific location since I don't own the gym, I don't pay rent for it, they cover all the bills. My only expense is salaries because I hired two trainers part time.
At the current point I still have to be at the gym half of the time because what I'm getting from it is not allowing me to completely replace myself with my staff. We've been open since October 2021, so at the time of writing this it's just 4 month of operation. Good thing is after paying salaries I still have a little bit of money for myself to pay my bills. Recently I started getting more and more involved in organizational side of this business: strategy, marketing etc etc. But that's good because the more this business depend on me, the better my chances are to get a better deal/bigger cut in the future.
If all go well I'm planning to take the system and bring it to people who want to open a gym, or have one, but it's not working out for them. Also I have some ideas on how to expand to other spheres.
Currently I'm struggling with finding a proper way to market this gym to proper client. The gym is positioned in low cost, micro-group training, monthly membership type, so the goal to generate sales by having a big number of customers.
On the other side, the gym is like one of those awesome atmosphere cafes that if you know it's there - then you know, otherwise you'll have no idea that it's there (even though its in a big fancy building right on the side of a high traffic road).
I thought about my "ideal customer" and it looks like this to me now:
- a person with a free time (moms whose children are in high school or older, business people, people with a flexible working schedule);
- a person who comes to a gym just to keep a good health and not exactly pursuing a goal to be a bodybuilder or a model;
- a person who likes a personal touch to service they receive;
- a person that likes to be in a fancy environment (it's like a fancy Starbucks but it's a gym, there's a terrace with grass and chill area).
So, to me, looking at that "ideal customer" profile I feel like I should be positioning this gym in high-class superior service high-price category, and generate revenue by the level of service with a smaller number of customers. But I'd prefer to avoid that because I'd love to keep it being an "affordable superior service".
Now, talking about competition. There are TONS of personal gyms in this town, but most of them just a 3x3m room with one machine in rental apartment with one trainer who's a "I like working out so I'll open a gym and make it cheap". Those gyms tend to disappear after a year. Bigger places are owned by big companies and usually are all-Japan chains. With such gyms, the priority is not customers satisfaction, but shareholders happy pockets, so it's possible to appear "better/different" for me.
I'll pause here for now. If you have any input or advice on this one, I'll be very happy to hear from you.
Sorry for the length of this one.
I came to Japan in 2013 to do my Ph.D course. Things were going good and I was planning to get in one of research facilities here in Japan upon completion. The more I lived here, the more I was learning about this country's society, law, corporate culture etc etc, the more I started to realize that if my end goal was to get a high-payment 9 to 5 then after completing my course it would had made more sense to go back to Russia (I'm from Russia) and use my "unique for Russia" experience of Japan (university, degree, tuition sponsored by Japan's government, language) and land myself a high-payment job there + such bonuses as: no stress of living in a foreign environment, having my own house that is paid for, car, friends, family, connections, you name it. But, the curious and adventurous part of me was telling me "You've managed to make it over the damn sea! You can always go back home - let's see how much further you can go here instead."
That, and realization that one day I'll have to go back to my home country to look after my parents was pretty much dictating the only solution: business, that is not not attached to my time.
Having no experience or knowledge about anything thats crucial to business, I failed with my first try, then with the second, then a few more attempts failed to even pass the step of "market research" (my previous attempts passed it simply because I had no idea that you shouldn't give a go to any idea that suddenly appear in your head, and should test it out before execution).
Now, let me do the cinematography's *Few years later* thing and spare you from reading to much of my story.
I've been spinning in the fitness community pretty much since the first year of living here. And I witnessed a boom in "personal gyms", "diet gyms", "private gyms" (they have many different ways to call them here, but basically they are all like boutique gyms). Was a bit too late to catch the initial wave, but decided to try it out and opened a "private gym" in my home (used an empty room for it). But even before opening it, I already could see that that concept had nothing to do with ultimate goal - even opposite - it was centered around me as a trainer and it was making me stuck in one location - my gym. Well, had a few customers - enough to pay rent and electricity bill, so I was happy that at least I was working at home - saved me some time.
After some time I was approached by a friend who's family owned a chain of fancy beauty/hair-salons in town. They wanted to set up a fancy "medium size" gym in one of their salon buildings, but they had no idea about what is required, training system etc. So, we signed a contract, with me providing consultation, creating a specific training system, providing training services and equipment maintenance. I'm getting a percentage from sales, which now I think wasn't a best solution, but well.. we will see. I thought it was a good start, because now I'm not attached to a specific location since I don't own the gym, I don't pay rent for it, they cover all the bills. My only expense is salaries because I hired two trainers part time.
At the current point I still have to be at the gym half of the time because what I'm getting from it is not allowing me to completely replace myself with my staff. We've been open since October 2021, so at the time of writing this it's just 4 month of operation. Good thing is after paying salaries I still have a little bit of money for myself to pay my bills. Recently I started getting more and more involved in organizational side of this business: strategy, marketing etc etc. But that's good because the more this business depend on me, the better my chances are to get a better deal/bigger cut in the future.
If all go well I'm planning to take the system and bring it to people who want to open a gym, or have one, but it's not working out for them. Also I have some ideas on how to expand to other spheres.
Currently I'm struggling with finding a proper way to market this gym to proper client. The gym is positioned in low cost, micro-group training, monthly membership type, so the goal to generate sales by having a big number of customers.
On the other side, the gym is like one of those awesome atmosphere cafes that if you know it's there - then you know, otherwise you'll have no idea that it's there (even though its in a big fancy building right on the side of a high traffic road).
I thought about my "ideal customer" and it looks like this to me now:
- a person with a free time (moms whose children are in high school or older, business people, people with a flexible working schedule);
- a person who comes to a gym just to keep a good health and not exactly pursuing a goal to be a bodybuilder or a model;
- a person who likes a personal touch to service they receive;
- a person that likes to be in a fancy environment (it's like a fancy Starbucks but it's a gym, there's a terrace with grass and chill area).
So, to me, looking at that "ideal customer" profile I feel like I should be positioning this gym in high-class superior service high-price category, and generate revenue by the level of service with a smaller number of customers. But I'd prefer to avoid that because I'd love to keep it being an "affordable superior service".
Now, talking about competition. There are TONS of personal gyms in this town, but most of them just a 3x3m room with one machine in rental apartment with one trainer who's a "I like working out so I'll open a gym and make it cheap". Those gyms tend to disappear after a year. Bigger places are owned by big companies and usually are all-Japan chains. With such gyms, the priority is not customers satisfaction, but shareholders happy pockets, so it's possible to appear "better/different" for me.
I'll pause here for now. If you have any input or advice on this one, I'll be very happy to hear from you.
Sorry for the length of this one.
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