Mahlum's $250M Fitness Empire
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A story about how Anne Mahlum built Solid Core, a fitness empire, starting with her life savings and eventually selling it for $250M.
"Anne started her career at 25 running a nonprofit called Back on My Feet, which helped homeless people through running programs. At 31, she took a Pilates class in LA and was inspired. She had saved $175,000 and decided to quit her nonprofit job to start a fitness studio in Washington DC.
She transferred all her savings into a business account and spent basically all of it except for $10 over two months building the studio. In month one, Solid Core did $90,000 in revenue. By year two, she was able to pay herself $1 million in salary because the costs were so low - just had to build out the studio and buy the reformer machines.
By 2016, she had 11 studios without taking any outside funding. In 2020, COVID hit and they had to pause the business. Before that, she had taken some PE funding where she took money off the table - about $6 million first, then another $10 million. After 10 years, she sold the whole business for around $250 million, and across all rounds had taken about $90 million off the table.
Now there are rumors KKR (who bought it) is trying to sell it for $800 million. In 2024, they're projected to do $150 million in revenue and $50 million in profit."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.