Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 149. How I Built a $100M Business with Just $3K

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

If you think you need investors or a huge team to build a successful business… you’ve already lost.In this episode of The Bedros Keuilian Show, I walk you through exactly how I built a $100M empire from a $3,000 startup. No fancy tools, no investors, and no excuses...just real strategies, lean execution, and relentless discipline.If you’re tired of overthinking and ready to launch, scale, and dominate... this is your blueprint.MAN UP SCALE BUNDLE: $29 (100% Goes to Charity)Get your Digital Man Up book + Audiobook + 2 Exclusive MASTERCLASSES & Support Shriners Children’s Hospital. https://www.manuptribe.com/limited-offerREGISTER FOR THE LEGACY TRIBEGet the Life, Money, Meaning & Impact You Deservehttps://bedroskeuilian.com/legacytribeJOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE:Transform into a Purpose-Driven Manhttps://bedroskeuilian.com/challengeTHE SQUIRE PROGRAM: A rite of Passage for Your Son as He Becomes a ManA Father and Son Experience That Will Be Remembered FOREVERhttps://squireprogram.com/registerTruLean Supplements | https://www.trulean.com/pages/bedrosGet 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save BundleUse Code: BEDROS Few Will Hunt Apparel | https://fewwillhunt.com/Get 20% Off Your Entire OrderUse Code: BEDROSOPEN A FIT BODY LOCATIONA High-Profit, Scalable Gym Franchise Opportunity Driven By Impacthttps://sales.fbbcfranchise.com/get-started?utm_source=bedrosPODCAST EPISODES:https://bedroskeuilian.com/podcast/STAY CONNECTED:Website | https://bedroskeuilian.com/Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilianTwitter | https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian

Far too often, new entrepreneurs waste so much time and energy and money and effort trying to perfect their product or service. If your product is 80% good enough, then you're good to go. Welcome to the Bedroft's Koolian show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Most people think they need rich investors, a huge team and a perfect product to build a multi-million dollar business. That is complete and utter crap. In fact, I'm going to tell you how I built a $100 million business with Fit Body Boot Camp with under $3,000 in actual capital.

Better yet, I'm going to tell you guys how you can do the same for your business in half the time. Now, it all starts with a need. And so I've got to tell you this story if it's going to make sense to you, right? The need is this. People will have a need. The need is a byproduct of a problem that they're experiencing. If you can be the person to solve the problem and fulfill that need, you will make a lot of money.

That is obviously common sense. Goes without saying. But let me explain to you how I made a $100 million company by finding a need that was not being addressed during a time when people were financially struggling. So the housing market crash happened in 2008. By 2010, I realized one-on-one personal training. was dying. There was not a lot of people who could afford to pay $800 to $1,200 a month to a one-on-one personal trainer. And what I saw outside at the parks was personal trainers running boot camp workouts where it was one coach and 15 to 30 clients at a time.

I realized that what they were doing in those parks could make sense if there was a few tweaks because I realized that one coach charging a couple hundred dollars a month to each of those clients can make more than a one-on-one personal trainer could. And in addition to that, they can actually trade less time for dollars. Think how many one-on-one personal training clients you need every day to be able to make a decent living, right? But if you're charging $200 a month and you have 300 or 400 clients, coming through and you're training them in groups of 25, 35, 45, 45 people at a time.

Now you're leveraging time. It's one on many and not one on one. So I saw that that was a solution to the problem of the housing market crash and people not having money to spend on a one-on-one personal trainer. But I also knew there was a problem with that outdoor boot camp. One, you really couldn't use a lot of equipment because the city would kick you out of the park if you bring dumbbells and, you know, TRX straps and suspension ropes and battle ropes and all these things, right? Number two, you're dealing with weather.

So unless you're in a state like California or Florida where it's mostly ideal weather, you're going to have rain, you're going to have snow, it's going to get dark, it's going to be cold, it's going to be uncomfortable. You're going to have a sprinkler system and in the parks and parks going to be wet and clients are pretty fickle. So I knew that while there was a potential in the group training programs back in 2010, I also realized there was a lot of flaws. And so I was like, all right, what could I do to test the market out? Right. So I didn't want to just sign a lease in a storefront with 3,000 square feet and then commit to a five or 10 year lease and build out a gym only to have this thing potentially fail because I wanted to see if my idea of bringing that outdoor boot camp indoors would work. And if I could bring it indoors and if I could have equipment and if enough people would sign up, then I would be making myself a lot of money.

Then I can scale this thing to a whole new level of financial success. So the first thing I did was is I found a place that I didn't have to sign a lease. I found a place that already had the grounds for me to work in. It was called All Star All Star Gymnastics in Rancho Santa Margarita. And All-Star Gymnastics is exactly that, the Gymnastics Center for kids. And as you know, kids typically will go there on weekends and then after 2 o'clock when they're done with school, which means from 5 a.m. to like one in the afternoon, these gymnastics centers are absolutely empty. In addition to that, they have a large open space to work out in, right?

And on top of that, their flooring is carpet, bonded foam. So it's about an inch thick of foam with anti-microbial carpeting on top, which makes great for furniture sliders to be used, right? And so I was like, all right, I can go by 20 sets of furniture sliders from Home Depot. I can get four battle ropes. I can get some suspension straps as long as they're willing to let me anchor it to the walls. And I can get, you know, this big giant rubber made tub full of five and 10 pound dumbbells, and I can bring that in. And now I've got equipment and I've got a controlled environment that I can train people in a group environment.

What I did is I negotiated with the owner of this gymnastics center and I said, hey, this is what I'd like to do and I'd like to pay you $1,000 a month to use your gymnastics center during the hours that you don't use it anyway. So you'd make an additional $1,000 a month. Is that cool? And I said, these are the equipment that I want to bring. Furniture sliders, battle ropes, some dumbbells, and some suspension straps. Best of all, I can clean them all up and just stuff them in a corner somewhere in a tiny

little corner. No one would see and it wouldn't get in the way. And she said, yeah, cool. Absolutely. Let's do it. Right. So this is called testing the concept because I knew there was a need. People still wanted to work with a personal trainer and get specialized coaching for their fitness

and fat loss results, but they couldn't afford one-on-one training. Can I take that outdoor boot camp and bring it indoors? And so I said, hey, if I could get free rent for the first month so that I could use that first month to start drumming up new business. And if I could pay $500 a month, the second month, by month number three, I'll pay you $1,000 a month. So as you can imagine, the first month, I paid no rent. And she was kind enough.

And I said, all of your staff can work out of my boot camp for free. Why? Because I needed bodies in there anyway, right? And so once I did that, I spent about a lot of time. $1,000 getting the dumbbells, furniture sliders, battle ropes, and the TRX suspension straps that I needed, right? Four battle ropes, four TRX suspension straps. Dumbels were the most expensive things to get, five and ten pound dumbbells. You know, you got to get 20 pair of those. And then, of course, a whole bunch of furniture sliders from Home Depot, easy enough. So now I've

got about $1,000 spent. Next thing I did was I started to go to local businesses around that Gymnastics Center that served women, right? Hair salons, day spas, medical spas, things like that, cosmetic surgeons, nail salons, tanning salons. And I said, hey, I would love it if you guys would come and work out for free this entire month. And in fact, if you're willing to do that, you want to come work out for free. I would love it if you would tell your clients and members and customers about our boot camp right here at this Gymnastic Center. We started 5 a.m. and we started 5 a.m. and We finish at 1 p.m. And we have four sessions that we run throughout the day.

And here's the times. So they started to refer people because they came and worked out for free, meaning they got value for free. In exchange for that, there's reciprocity. And they started to refer their clients and customers to me, right? I offered all of their clients and customers an irresistible offer, which was a two-week free trial. And then, if you like it, sign up for a month-to-month program.

at $1.99 a month. Simple as that. Open-ended. 12-month program, right? Or a one-month program, 30-day program that reoccurs on a monthly basis, right? And so I had them sign up and I said, look, after your first 30 days, if you decide it's not right for you, I'll give you a refund and we can part ways. And so now I made an irresistible offer to them. I gave them a two-week trial ahead of time. After that two-week trial, they had 30 days to still try it out after paying. and if they didn't like it, they can get a refund. But if they did like it, I would just ding their credit card after that. Within about two months, I had 100 clients paying $199 a month.

And I realized this is a business model that works. And it cost me under $3,000. Now, in some of these places, I also put postcards out, right? Some of these businesses that were the owners and their employees were working out at my boot camp. I also put flyers out. So for under $3,000, I got equipment and I got marketing. Now, keep in mind, this is 2010, which means I've got no social media. This is why you're going to be using these strategies and you're going to be able to get

faster results even sooner because you've got social media in your favor. So first things you've got to do is you've got to figure out what the need is right now. And if you already have a product or a service, then you've already got that piece done, right? I'm guessing your product or service is something that people need. It solves a problem. It's a great solution and people are willing to pay. There's enough people willing to pay for that solution so that you can make enough money to have the lifestyle that you want. Cool.

We got that. But also understand this. You don't need a perfect product. Far too often, new entrepreneurs waste so much time and energy and money and effort trying to perfect their product or service. If your product is 80% good enough, then you're good to go. Think about when I got into that gymnastics center in 2010, right? In 2010, we got into that gymnastics center. All I had is furniture sliders, battle ropes, dumbbells, and suspension straps.

Today, you walk into a fit-body boot camp and there's sleds and there's rowers, there's the aerodyne bikes. Like, we got a slew of equipment, sandbags, right? We've got pulley systems. but all of those were a byproduct of our evolution. Because how would I know what people need and what they want and what's going to work best based on the floor footprint that we have? I wouldn't.

So if you're trying to spend too much time perfecting your product or service, trying to guess the needs and wants of every single customer and client that you're going to have in the future, you're going to spend all this time wasted, all this effort, energy, money, wasted. because you simply cannot guess and predict what the client and customer wants. What you can do is start with the product or service that can get them the results, even if the product or service is 80% done, right? If the product is 80% done, the market, as they start using it,

they'll tell you what more you need. As our client started to work out at our first prototype FitBody Boot Camp in that Gymnastic Center, we saw that, hey, you know what? these particular carpet bonded foam flooring are perfect for sleds. We could actually push sleds on them. Now I realized I can't bring in five sleds inside of a gymnastics center, right? That's kind of a bulky piece of equipment. But I did make a note for myself that when I open my own standalone facility,

then I can have sleds in there as well. I realized, all right, if we had sandbags, we can do a lot with sandbags, from presses to curls to doing, you know, trisive presses on there, using it to elevate yourself off the ground. You can put on your shoulders and you're walking lunges. There's so much functional training you can do when fat loss training you can do with sandbacks. But again, took too much space.

So while I kept track of what I need to make Fit Body Boot Camp 2.0 even better, I was making money already and profiting from the smaller footprint and smaller amount, the lower cost equipment that I had. Now, what I didn't do is I didn't take the profits and buy myself, cool shit, a newer car, nice clothes, a fancy watch. I continued to reinvest into my business. So within about eight months, I started to build out my own standalone location because now I had

proven the concept. I knew there was a need, but I also knew there was a flaw with these outdoor boot camps. and I knew that if I can bring the outdoor boot camps indoors where I can have temperature control, environment control, and equipment control, I can deliver better results to my clients and I can guarantee success, right? And so this gave me the confidence then to take the profits that I was making, save them, and then reinvest it by opening up my own 2,900 square foot facility right out here in Orange County, right? That was the first Fit Body Boot Camp standalone facility. And now we could run workout sessions all day long.

Now we've got more equipment. Now we've got a check-in system. Now we can track results. Now we can do everything that a one-on-one personal trainer can, but at a fraction of the cost. And all of a sudden we realized one of the core benefits to our Fit Body Boot Camp gyms is that people have convenience and affordability. Because think about a one-on-one personal trainer. If you're going to hire a one-on-one personal trainer and you want to work with him or her at, let's say, 6 a.m. in the morning before you go to work. If that time slot is taken by another client,

sorry, you can't train with that trainer at 6 a.m. That means you have to come at 7 a.m. Or 5 a.m. Right? Because it's one client, one trainer. But in a group environment where it's one trainer, many clients, we now have the opportunity to serve 30, 40, 50 people at a time during the same time slot. Right. So we've got. got convenience and because all these people are paying for that one time, it's affordable. We drive the cost of actually working with the coach and trainer down to $199. So I was like, man, I'm on to something here. I can make it more affordable and more convenient for people by running many session times

throughout today. Check. Got it. So what did we do next? We continue to perfect the product, right? Not only with how we engage with our clients, but when we do the check-ins, the measurements, the body fat testing, the nutrition coaching, because now we've got our own facility. So the product was launched when it was 80% good. It became 100% great within the next

couple of years through different iterations and evolutions as the product kept changing based on the clients, needs, and desires, right? And so it's important for you to understand perfect never happens in a vacuum. Perfect only happens once you launch. into business, you're working with clients, they're giving you feedback, you're seeing what's missing in your product or service, and then you're changing, evolving, shifting as you go. Hey guys, quick interruption to the Vedderos Cooling show. Listen, if you're like me and you love fitness, you love helping people and you love being an entrepreneur, you might want to open up a Fit Body Boot Camp gym. Doesn't matter what day of the week, what time the session is. Fit Body

Boot Camp locations are full of clients getting amazing results. With hundreds of locations across the United States and Canada, we are helping people burn fat and build muscle while helping entrepreneurs like you develop business models that are successful and have reoccurring revenues. So if you think FitBody Boot Camp might be a great business model for you, then I want you to go to FitBodyBooCamp.com. I want you to click the franchising link, fill out the application to see if there's a territory available in your town and your area. And who knows, if you're a good fit, we will invite you to the Fit Body Boot Camp family. Now back to the show. So the next thing was, if I want to scale this thing, what do I do next?

Well, I need a clear promise, right? A clear promise. How do I differentiate Fit Body Boot Camp from all the other, you know, CrossFit type or other group training programs or the big megajmns that are out there? I needed a clear promise. And so I was like, right, what's unique about our program? Well, one, it's a 30-minute program, not a 60-minute program. 30-minute program that delivers 60-minute results.

And it was very simple. 30 minutes of fat loss workout results in 60 minutes. Love it. Try it for 30 days or get your money back. That simple. That was our irresistible offer. That was an offer that was so compelling that they couldn't say no. That was an offer that made the purchase a no-brainer, right?

So everybody comes on board with a two-week trial. And then they go into a 30-day membership with a unconditional money back guarantee. And then if you like it, just stay on board and we'll continue to bill your credit card, $199 a month. Now it was just a matter of if we can deliver results to the clients, they're going to stay, pay, and refer. That is a very important part of the business

that you've got to understand. Yes, all for marketing on social media. We spend tens of thousands of dollars now across our brand marketing on social media. not only through organic content, but paid traffic. But if referral generation is not the number two lead generation source in your business, that means your product is not delivering the value is promised. You are not delivering the value as promised if referrals are not the number two source

of new clients and customers in your business. So yes, paid traffic and organic traffic, things that go viral, creating content, doing collaborations in the community, Like all these paid marketing strategies are fucking awesome. However, if your clients are getting results, they're going to pay, stay, and refer. And so those results could be anything. If you have, let's say, a service where you offer, you know, hair or nails or day spa, right? Maybe you do the Botox injections or or any kind of kind of facial treatments.

Are the customers happy with not only the experience, but the actual results? but the actual results, if they are, they're going to tell their friends, co-workers, family members about your place. If they're not, you're soon going to lose them as a client and customer, and they're never going to be evangelical about you. Because I understand this. When a client pays, stays, and refers, you not only are growing your business bigger, but you're also getting leads that already are pre-qualified and predisposed to buy.

Why? Because if they come referred, that means that they already trust the person who's referring them, which means I'm going to have an easier time converting that person on a two-week trial into an ongoing client or customer in my business, right? So if this is making sense to you, then you got to move on to the next thing, which is that clarity of your promise, like how clear can you make your promise? And this is something where too many entrepreneurs begin to complicate their business. Yeah, we do everything for everybody.

right and I remember thinking like no I don't want to do everything for everybody I don't want to be the gym that's like hey we train men and women eight to 80 I remember seeing that many years ago on a on a this banner that was hanging in the gym for the personal training department of a big box gym that said our personal trainers work with men and women eight to 80 well that's great but that's so general and vague people want specificity right? So if you could say I am specifically targeting these people like FitBody Boot Camp, 85% of our clients are women because we market to women but welcome men. We market to women and then if they want to bring their husbands in, their coworkers in who are males, they want to bring in their friends who are males, they want to bring in their dads, awesome, great, fantastic. But 85, 87% of our clientele of Fit Body Boot Camp is women because we market to women but welcome men. They're 30 minute workouts focused on fat loss and muscle toning. They're back with the 30-day unconditional money back guarantee.

And because we know who we are, we know what we offer, our marketing message is very simple. And when your marketing message is simple, people that you're marketing to will understand. When your marketing message and your business model is complex and people are confused because, man, you have squat racks and you have battle. and you are selling like muscle building and strength and bone density and fat loss and bodybuilding and fitness competitor training. Well, shit, I'm not a bodybuilder or fitness competitor, but I like the idea of fat loss, but I don't know if I belong there with bodybuilders and fitness competitors. I don't know if this is the right environment for me, so I don't know if I'm going to sign up. See what happens when you have a complex business model? Complex business model creates confused prospects and confused prospects don't buy.

But when you have a simple business model, and this is why CrossFit, so well as well until it kind of came to its demise. CrossFit worked simply because they were like this is what we do and this is who we're for. Simple as that. They were polarizing. Your business model has to be simple and polarizing. Simple as in very easy to understand what the values and the benefits are and who it's for. Polarizing in that we don't want all these other people. We only want this type of person who wants these product services and values from us, right? Once you've done that, you have nailed it, my friend. You have nailed it. And once you have done that, you are now in a position to start scaling. And so the next thing we did after we had three FitBody

Boot Camp locations of our own out here is by 2012, we turned it into a franchise, right? And even before then, it was already a licensing model. So not only did we have our own locations, our corporate own stores, but we had about 80 licensed Fit Body Boot Camp locations. across the country. So people who wanted my business model and wanted our systems could do it by paying us a fee. And instead of trying to figure out how to run a gym, figure out the marketing, figure out the sales, figure out the retention, figure out how to deliver results, we're like, hey, here's the model. And then by 2012, we franchised it. And then we started to grow nationwide and throughout Canada. And now we're growing worldwide, right? And so when you're like, man,

And how did he grow to hundreds of Fit Body Boot Camp locations? And how are these locations making money today is because of a simple business model that we have. Now, yes, each of our locations today still do 30 minute workouts, focused on fitness and muscle tone, marketing to women only, but we welcome men. Except it's not just a $199 membership. There's also a nutrition add-on as well for an additional fee. There's also supplements that we sell for an additional revenue stream, right? And there's also the Fit Body Forever, which is a training program in the off hours for baby boomers and aging adults within Fit Body Boot Camp.

Because in any business model, if you're just going to survive on one income stream, you're going to struggle. The way we were able to increase our AUV average unit volume is by having our core offer, which is that $199 membership for workouts and then adding supplements, nutrition coaching, Apparel and then the FitBody Forever program, which is for aging adults, right? And now we coach our new franchisees on how to find a location, on how to build it out, which equipment to buy, how to design the whole follower plan, how to roll out the marketing, how to onboard the clients, how to get results, referrals, retention. And the model is paint by number. But here we are 14 years later.

14 years later. And so if you think that it's going to be perfect out the gate, I'm here to tell you it's not. Now, how do you scale your organization, your brand, your product, your company to multiple millions? Well, simple. You take what works and then you hire competent people to be able to multiply those efforts, right? If you think that you're going to build a 10 million, 20 million, 50 million, 100 million dollar

business on your own. or with just you and your spouse or you and your friend, that ain't going to happen. This means you have to have a team at some point, right? When I started this episode, I told you, you don't need investors, you don't need a huge team, and you certainly don't need a perfect product. But at some point, as you're reinvesting the profits that you're making back into the growth of the business and you're maintaining financial and entrepreneurial discipline by not spending the money on wasteful stuff and trying to look like a baller on social media,

then you could take that money in the form of profits and invest it into the growth of the company by bringing on more talented people who could be traffic buyers, who could help you build the brand, who could manage your social media platforms, who can do the PR, who can start creating systems and processes, who can start managing and leading teams. And today we've got a big organization, at our headquarters out here with amazing people who run the entire brand. And as I've grown truly supplements and as we're growing fuel hunt apparel and FitPro

tracker, the software, and as I'm helping and coaching and consulting my coaching clients and they're growing their businesses, truck driving school, a solar company, a real estate development company, every single one of these have started off the same way. an idea that was 80% complete that launched into market and improved it as they went. Took the profits, reinvested in growth in leadership, in systems, marketing, and sales. Brought on team members who can then help scale that process even faster, because any time you can have systems and people, you will time collapse growth. good systems along with good people will time collapse growth and that is how you scale if you think

you're going to be in the weeds running everything you can't as a leader eventually you will have to be looking up and out and not down and in i'm no longer in the weeds like i used to be i'm not going to hair salons and day spas and i'm not talking on the phone to potential franchisees to see where they're looking to open up a new fit body boot camp we have a team that handles that i've now become the of all the brands, right? I'm the one that's building my personal brand and using it to attract new clients and customers across our various products and services that we have. And that will become your role too. But first, it starts off with solving a need, creating a product or service that's 80% complete, launching it into market and then perfecting

it as you go, having a very clear promise of what it is that you offer, what is the value that you bring and who it is that you serve. And then having an offer that is so irresistible that they would be functionally stupid to say no to that offer. And then once you have that, you want to keep that business model simple because this is what new entrepreneurs do. They will take a once simple business model that worked and they will complicate it as they start to grow and gain traction.

And then it begins to collapse on itself because a complex business model does not work. And they're like, fuck, I can't figure out why this thing cracks. and burned. It's because what was simple, elegant, and efficient, later became complex and confusing, and as I said, confused buyers don't buy. So I want you guys to let me know in the comment section what type of business that you have that you're looking to scale. Number one. Number two, I want to invite you to subscribe for absolutely free to the Domination Download newsletter. This is a newsletter, email newsletter that I put out every single Sunday and I share what's working in my businesses and in the businesses of my coaching client.

how we're growing, scaling, increasing profitability through marketing, sales, leadership systems, and a team. Those five pillars, right? This is not fluff or hype. This is practical, tactical stuff that is working across my eight and nine figure companies and for what's working in my coaching clients' businesses as well. And I want you to subscribe to the Domination Download newsletter so that you can get the same strategies and deploy them in your business.

Just go to bedrowscoolion.com. or I'll just pin the link in the first comment, and you guys can go and actually subscribe to the newsletter. It is a valuable, valuable newsletter that will give you an absolute masterclass better than any business or university class or degree you could ever get in entrepreneurship or business. So if you got value from this, I ask one thing that you subscribe, leave a comment and like this episode if you're on YouTube. The rest of you across all the different platforms, Spotify, Soundclass,

Google Play iTunes. Thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode. A comment, a review would go far for us. Sharing it on social media would mean a ton to me. But above all, remember this, that average is the enemy. Success is your responsibility. And change can take place in an instant if you are willing to flip the switch. I'll see you next time.

When Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental.