Britney's Gym Purchase

A story about how Codie helped her friend Britney acquire distressed gym businesses during the pandemic for $0 through creative deal structuring.

"I have a friend Britney who owns a couple of gyms - they're like women's fitness studios with set classes. During the pandemic, she told me that many of her friends' businesses - pilates studios, barre studios - were going out of business.

She mentioned she was buying some equipment from them to help them out. I told her we needed to think bigger - these businesses were worth zero to the market but still had value in their client lists and goodwill.

We reached out to these gym owners and said 'I know you're going through this terrible time, but what if we could help annuitize you? Instead of closing for zero, we can do a revenue share. We'll transition your clients to my business carefully, and for every client we bring over, I'll pay you out for a year or structure it like 6 months at one amount, 24 months at another amount.'

This way, the closing business owner makes money, their clients get a new home, and we get new clients. What's fascinating is nobody's doing this. With 60% of businesses on Yelp that close temporarily ending up permanent, I would be going after every one of their client lists, offering discounts and coupon codes, giving a rev share to the owner, and taking their client base. That's how I would buy distressed assets without spending a dime."