Skip to main content

Entrepreneur Story

I’m not sure how many people are familiar with this brand, but there is a company called Orangetheory Fitness that offers a class-based workout that’s growing like crazy both nationally and internationally. It started in 2010 and today there are nearly 800 studios open in the US and thirteen other countries. 
One of the founders is Ellen Latham, a woman who had always loved teaching group fitness. She sought to create a workout that had a greater metabolic response than pilates, but structured differently than the traditional spin and bootcamp classes. The result was the science-backed “Ellen’s Ultimate Workout.”
Ellen Latham teaching at one
of the Orangetheory Fitness studios.
Founders Dave Long and Jerome Kern heard from Kern’s wife of this great group fitness workout that a woman started in Ft. Lauderdale and they went to check it out. They were amazed by the following this small studio had and, by 2010, they opened an Orangetheory Fitness pilot studio. To date, they expect to have 900 studios opened globally by the end of 2017.
This story is close to me because I hear about it almost every day; My father is the president of Orangetheory Fitness. I remember sitting at dinner with him once, talking about the structure of franchises and what lead to such great growth of this company. We were in Tennessee at the time, and he surprised me by renting a Maserati for a four hour drive we had to make the next day. As I was firing question after question, he stopped me and said, "Megan, if you want to keep driving cars like that, you have to own. That’s where the money is.” And I was sold.
I’ll always remember that statement. I would never say money is my primary goal (though it is a nice side effect), but I’m more infatuated with the idea that someday I can be wildly successful, respected and independent if I want to be. There’s something powerful about being in a place in your life—whether financially, physically, mentally or otherwise—where you can fully and single-handedly support yourself if something unexpected were to happen, especially as a woman.

I think I have a lot to offer as a creative-minded person, but I also think I have a unique perspective on life that allows me to look at normal things with a different approach than that of the default that most people revert to. I’m excited to take this class and I’m already enjoying the way it’s making me think.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 3, 2017 at 10:20 AM

    I have been to Orange Theory many times, but never really knew the whole story behind it. I think that is so awesome how one person's workout routine could turn into a huge international business. I didn't even know that there was Orange Theory Fitness in other countries. Working out is near and dear to me, so this story really interested me. I am also a creative person like you, so I think this class will benefit both of us.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

30 Final

I think my favorite experience with this class is the interactive nature of it. If we weren’t in the small groups, we wouldn’t have had the chance to see each other’s ideas evolve and grow. It was nice to have a few specific ideas that we could follow along with our own. I don’t think of myself as an Entrepreneur quite yet, but I do think I have a different perspective on things. To those who come into the course, I would say be creative in your posts. The more you invest in your posts, the less it will seem like an assignment and the more it will seem like something you’ve created.
Post a Comment
Read more

14A- Tenacity

1)     This course has assignments that require more of you than just waiting until 8 PM the night of the due date and throwing out any answer. Going into this course, I didn’t realize how open-ended these assignments were, meaning I thought my answers were one of a million, but after reading the posts from others in my group, I realized we all have such different perspectives on how we approached problems. After I picked up on that, I began seeing the value in these posts and looked at them as much more than a simple assignment. I think one of the best ways to keep up with this course is to take a second to realize the value behind each assignment, and take them seriously. 2)     I think one of my most memorable “giving up” moments would have to be in freshman year of high school. I got sick and would get incredibly tired to the point where I couldn’t lift my arms, but I went to doctors for almost a year without getting diagnosed. That was one of the h...
1 comment
Read more

25A What's Next?

Existing Market: 1.      What’s Next: There will be no service workers that actually work in the field. The only workers would work in an office or in a remote location where people could purchase details or go for customer service. I would also need to heavily market the product and work on pricing. 2.      After the interviews, I learned from my interviewees that they would prefer a better pricing option than that of UF or Gainesville parking decals. They agreed that, with a product like this that would significantly improve their everyday life, they would be willing to pay a decent amount of money similar to that of UF’s, but would like an option for monthly or quarterly pricing. 3.      For the future, I think the plan would need to focus on improving the current, most similar service, parking. Decals are very present on this campus and I wouldn’t want to introduce something too drastically different than what peop...
Post a Comment
Read more