Massenomics Podcast - Ep.113: How to Start Your Own Gym

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

This week, the guys walk you through the process of leaving your shitty gym and getting a crew together to start your own gym. Your gym, your equipment, your rules. Sounds like quite the life!

M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Massanomics Welcome to Massanomics, the world's strongest podcast. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Massanomics. Make sure you go visit massanomics.com. There you'll find the rest of our powerful content. While you're there, check out our store and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics gear. Honky. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of the Massanomics Podcast.

I am Tyler. Joining me, as always, is Tommy. What's up? And way, way over on the other side of the table is Tanner. Hey, everybody. Looking into the camera. Don't do that very often. Because everyone's always like to make eye contact with the audience.

Awkward eye contact. This week we've got, we're going to dive in. It's a topic we have probably talked about maybe not to full depth before. Well, actually,

we do have a breaking announcement though. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's back up. Is this about the new Kanye album? No. It's more breaking than that.

I saw on Instagram from Rogue that they're throwing bags over bars that we saw at the Strongman are finally available for retail. So when Mark Henry said... No, hang on though. I looked on their website though

and they weren't actually available to be bought yet. There was everything there except for buying them. But they're a product that exists okay so we're coming in the first stage yeah i just thought everyone would want to know because mark henry did tell us two years two years ago yeah he was just a little that you need to go buy these right now on road just take just just be patient and now you finally had the chance to look at them for possibly pre-order maybe then now what what are your thoughts let's just say for the purpose of throwing a bag over like for height like in that way i think they're like 150

bucks i would assume and that's only for one weight yeah so you're gonna need well you would probably need four of them well plus you need to do the whole row out front view of all the decorative ones too i think that's a necessity i would assume at at the least you're gonna buy you're gonna need four yeah and you need a really tall uh ceiling or outside or outdoors but like you can't do shit with one because you're just gonna be throwing one way but you gotta spend like five six hundred bucks my question with that stuff too is do people just like free throw them without like going over a bar because you never really know if you're getting better or not than you. That doesn't seem very much fun to me.

That kind of, to me, takes the game out of it. Yeah, plus you can't prove that you're better than the people around you. It's sort of just like only practicing your follow-through with basketball and never actually shooting it in a hoop. Yeah, it is. It's just like shooting without a hoop. Like, that one went in. Not that I'm not into getting things that have a limited use but that just is a really limited little fringe yeah well and the way i

look at it too like i own you know my crossfit gym probably like fuck 50 sandbags 60 strong fit sandbags but those you can do a lot if i didn't have my fucking elbow tendonitis thing that's been going on forever like those would be just fine for that too kind of like you couldn't maximize like having a handle at the top is like yeah you could be the best way but like you can kind of grab the knot on one side just grab a corner on the other and you kind of make that work for like a bag that has multiple purposes that's my thing is with that one bag like you'd have to find a way to use it for other shit for that amount of money yeah i or not i guess i don't know you do tie up money in gyms on some specialty items i mean it's not like you're right that's

what i mean like i i would you know i would we act like 150 bucks for this thing you can only do one thing with it it's like well you can kind of only squat one way with a safety squat right right and the uh safety squat bar from elite too after getting it it's it's certainly a beefy bar i use it today yeah how much is just the bar weight 65 pounds and it does make telling people on instagram it's 200 yeah so it's just wrong yeah it does uh it i like our old one but it does make that one seem like a toy now like after having just is everything bigger on it yeah yeah on that bar i was playing playing with it today big jake and i came to a consensus um there is one way that it's meant to

face right i think so which way did you guys decide my way was with the if it's if you're holding it yeah here it's resting on you floating, that the camber is somewhat down and forward. The other option, if you turn it around, you know, because if you flip it around the other way, then the camber is forward and somewhat up. Well, how are the handles, though? The handles will still always be here. Oh, they're perfectly centered. I'm not saying flip it forward and back. I'm saying here and then.

Yeah, but a lot of times the handles on some of them have a little tip down. These are totally straight. Yeah. I guess I'm not sure which way it was, but do you know the lettering where it's on the lettering on the pad? I wanted it on. Yeah, on top. And readable from behind. Yeah, that's what I thought.

But then in my head, I was like, did Tanner put this pad on? No, it was like that. So that's what I think we should probably put. You could do it both ways, but it would be different. It would definitely be different. And so I did it once the other way, and I was like, just because it's also I don't safety squat very often, so I was like, this seems hard.

There must be something wrong with it that's not me. And of course with like 275 on the bar with my shoes untied i'm like walking outside of the rack getting it turned around and backing it in like an asshole just to change it but but i did feel much better it seems like it sits on you better yeah so we need like a this end up sticker on it uh people can do what they want. We'll do whatever. Well, there kind of is this. The writing, I think, is this app. But I also do kind of think, though, that there is a purpose to that. Maybe not, but there's probably a use to it. Because I know on Duffin's Transformer bar, there is a position with which it is up.

It starts up. So it's constantly. It's not just kind of trying to fold you up i mean the weight is there and it is really aggressive then because it's not at a you know 45 down to you it's it's really radical but um all in all i liked it i'm just i don't use it very often so it's just like ripped my fucking core up trying to stay tight yeah yeah i like it which i'll use it as long as I feel like a wuss. I'm just going to do something different when I squat for a while. It is easier to just hang on like that.

Yeah, especially like how my elbows hurt. Yeah, it's like, ah, that's nice. Yeah. Speaking of bars and stuff, do you ever have a word that you've read a bunch of times and say it a certain way in your head but have no idea idea if you you know now that i've gotten older it happens less than when i was in elementary school but it still happens occasionally uh are we talking about a c word yeah all right earmuffs uh but that word of that coding that rogue is doing i believe bars? I believe it is a soft C.

I think it's called a Cerakote. Okay. And I've said Cerakote in my head, and I literally have never heard it said. Can I see the word again? I've never heard it said, so I never knew if that was right. To spell it out,

if no one has any idea what we're talking about, the word is C-E-R-A- cirico i i i would buy that i don't know if that's right or not have you ever heard anyone say it no yeah that's like nobody knows so nobody wants i'm gonna go to i'm gonna go to how to pronounce oh yeah oh roge has to have a video where they say is there two r's or one r's one r okay we'll go to how to pronounce. Oh, Rogue has to have a video on YouTube where they say it. Is there two R's or one R's? One R. We'll go to howtopronounce.com. It's not Sarah Cote.

And also about what it actually is. Like, is it good? It looks like a harder coding. I had never heard of it until they had it on some bar for Thor or something. Sarah Cote. Cerakote. Cerakote?

Cerakote. Oh, that was clear. Cerakote. That's how there's sex robot talking right now. Listen. He or she. All right, back in the closet, robot. No, that's like a, i don't even understand it's

is it like a powder coating kind of it must be different from something about it it still fucking wears off and so and like there are plenty of people that have had those that they still this still wears off so like as long as you're not i guess paying for it with the assumption that you're always going to have an american flag on your bar because it ain't going to stick. So is that – but what is – do we actually know what it actually is? Is it – Expensive paint? Yeah, I don't know.

Is that what it is? I don't know. It must be some sort of different process. We've got one. I do think it's some sort of process. Well, let's inform people. Well, maybe we should just speculate what we think it is for another half hour that's usually what we do like uh what i have seen people talk about they you

know there's two things you know you could either have the shaft be that or now some have the sleeves that are like that too uh-huh and they say on the sleeves it pretty much wears off like waste yeah what is even the point of coating your sleeves I guess if it's painted maybe but also what's kind of the point of coating the fucking shaft so it looks like cerakoting is a thing similar with guns also it's a spray on liquid ceramic

and then it's baked and cured to a thin ceramic tough coating and so when they say spray on here like is that the actual paint the finish that's going on no idea and like this is i'm finding applications from guns to vehicles to i really don't know it sounds like powder coating is fine till it gets a nick, and then it'll rust out. Then it'll be great at hiding rust, and then it'll all flake off, and there'll be really bad damage. I don't know.

Someone out there listening probably knows pretty well. You can let us know. Yeah. This word was completely new to me until, like, three weeks ago when Rogue had a post about it, and it just seemed like everyone knew what it was. It to be a rogue's new hotness though have you know i mean there's i'm waiting for the i have a feeling they're going to start seeing now they're going to have their custom rigs that can be set up like that too so you'll have like uh you can you know instead of just being like a powder coated rig you can have like your logo and branding all over it

you can have american like any number of things yeah we've got one of their green rogue cerakota bars that i mean it looks badass yeah but it's already like wearing a little bit you know where it sits in the j cups it's are the sleeves on that they're black yeah and there's i believe so they're getting you know yeah tore up just i mean there i can't imagine a finish on that that's i think it would look awesome just leave them fucking bare anyways yeah i don't know i never like be like i sure wish the sleeves on this bar were red right you know right but i guess like we can you can like create problems when everything's fine like it's like if you're at a place where all you have is shitty like 40 bars to squat on yeah you'd kill for a rogue cerakoted bar too or here we've got everything everything you could want at mass

and it's like this all seems really stupid right you were talking as long as we're talking about equipment you were talking about the dumbbells the other day to me oh yeah that might be worth mentioning too so people might get some we'll go into some depth a little bit in the future we'll do a video at some point on all the titan equipment that i've now had for some time however and i have not contacted them on this and given them the opportunity to make this right but the titan circus dumbbell is a total piece of shit like it's looks good feels good you could tell though the metal on the bell is not very you know i was like it might get done i think i was banging that out who gives

a shit but like i've only used it six or seven times like in six or seven training sessions and the thing is fucking totally bent like did you see it? Were you at the gym? No, I didn't. No, I just told you about it. Like, if you sit one bell end, the even one, down, and it stands upright, the handle comes up straight, and then now the other end is just bent on the shaft. And no joke, like in a 12-inch, is it 12 or 14-inch, 12-inch wide bell, it's like an inch and a half out of whack. It's just bent. So it's like an inch and a half out of whack it's just bent so it's just cheap steel and i've never ever dropped the thing on the ground i've always used i use full-on crash pads that are i have six huge foam sofa cushions yeah and that's all that thing's ever been dropped into

it has never been hit hard on anything. And that fucking thing bent. If you did hit it hard on something, it would probably be. I can't even imagine what would happen to it. Or how fucked up it would be by now. I don't know how it wouldn't just totally break. Yeah. Because this is like softer than dropping it onto your mattress at home, for sure. So that's a bit of a shame.

I'm going to contact them and give them a chance to like at least fucking replace it with one that's not bent yeah does rogue make a circus dumbbell they do but it's just the bells yeah it's just like the ones that are you load with like lead shot oh like they're rough you don't like the old timey yeah yeah yeah which are awesome yeah but my thing they're really expensive my complaint with those is... I don't have a complaint with those. I'm sure they're great, but... Are you gonna...

That's not real handy. No, like, are you gonna... Like, oh, let's dump this lead shot out. You almost need one at every weight step. Yeah, yeah. And at the price... Because there's no fucking way you're gonna, like... Okay, so I'm gonna warm up with 180 pounds...

Let me get my Allen wrench with 180 pounds and 200 pounds. And then nobody's getting out a funnel and a bunch of lead shot. So what's going to happen is that thing's going to sit at 215 forever. Totally fucking, everyone's just going to grab it cold and be like, oh, I couldn't do it. And it just becomes a thing. It's not even a training tool. It's just an item that sits there. No, not really.

It'll be a fixed weight once you fill it up once. But speaking of all these toys, though, Tanner, we talked about maybe diving into a little bit of depth about actually starting your own gym. And this probably is not business advice. No. Because if you want to know how to run a financially... Profitable. If you want to not make very much money off of a gym,

you could do what I do and just own a CrossFit gym. And you can make a living. But that's also, you wouldn't want... I wouldn't be the one to give you great advice on how to get rich at that either. Because I haven't figured that out yet either. Yeah, definitely not business advice. But but definitely this isn't like business advice we hear from people all the time who like don't have anywhere good to train they're going to a global

gym they're trying to train on some just shit equipment with assholes around yeah and they have five or ten friends that also this sucks but it's like well already you're halfway there or maybe even all the way there and so and I know we've talked about this before. We just want to make sure we go maybe into the specifics as far as like what you, the listener, actually can do. Because you didn't have any means that were really exceptional when you started. No. It's not like you were like independently wealthy like you are now. Well, you did have that uh ticket and that car accident

settlement so you didn't have all this mass economics money back unfortunately not i had to do without but turns out making memes on the internet is pretty good you should see the likes we're getting on those we're rich and i mean money can't buy that no actually i think it can and it's not worth money so but it's worth all the time we put into it but anyway so um again we've gone into it before but let's talk a little bit about the start so tanner you and the fellows were lifting at the ymca uh hating that about as much as a person can hate anything it's not very you know there's probably tons of people that experience that where you're just an environment where it's not very conducive for doing the sort of things that you

want to do yeah like simple things like being able to have music on use chalk deadlift decent quality equipment yeah yeah just passable equipment yeah uh and we are and how many times have you heard someone say like oh i'd really like to start a gym like that when when you're in that environment like anyone that lifts at a place like that you've probably have 10 people that say that same thing and with that right away like just saying like someone saying i want to start a gym, that's totally possible. It's easier than you would think. But I think the big thing right away is managing your expectations and your intentions with this. Because I think a lot of people say, I'm going to start a gym.

And I want A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. And on top of that, I'm going to make a lot of money doing it. So it's like you have to realize. Do you want a gym or do you want a job? Because you're probably not both going to be at the same place, at least not right away. And also like if it's like we said, you know, you and five of your buddies, you and 10 of your buddies, you probably got to realize like it's just if it breaks even, that's doing great because it's purely a hobby. Like there's not a lot of hobbies that. That's doing great because it's purely a hobby.

Like there's not a lot of hobbies that. And I think the way Tanner went about it with massonomics gym is probably a little more. I think it's more possible and useful than doing a simply a garage gym. And here's why. When you buy a garage gym, you are not going to receive any revenue off of that equipment at all. And you got to buy all of it yourself. It all comes out of your pocket. And you're the only one fucking using it.

So that equipment is not even really, you're just not getting the bang for your buck. You're kind of spending a lot of money for just one person to use it. If literally in any different location, some of that equipment can start paying for itself a little bit. I think a garage gym even just to set it up. When you say garage gym, you're talking garage gym at your residence. At your garage. Because some people say, well, this gym is in a garage.

But I think you could do it for cheaper and you can always do it for cheaper, of course. But even with good quality used equipment, I think to have what i would want as a garage gym it's probably going to cost someone still like three thousand dollars i think as a as a fair estimate to like yeah so it's going to cost you some money to get that going yeah you could i mean someone would say they could do it for 500 and you could but like but like all those things have to be available at a place that you know and like like what okay so yeah you could get a passable squat rack for a couple hundred bucks but like what if someone else buys that one yeah wait six months you know so you do you are kind of beholden to what is available at the time yeah and and with so with this though i kind of think

the first step is just kind of like doing what you can to get some type of commitment from people because you don't want to go into this whole thing and then be like, Oh, I'm all alone on this Island because then you kind of shot yourself in the foot. So you're in a lease and yeah. And so like with that, it's everyone's different. You kind of got to know who you're dealing with, like your, whether it's your friends, your lease, whatever it is. You got to kind of have a feel for the situation. And if you really do feel like you have some people that are ready to commit and make this jump, then you can start to kind of see what your numbers are and you can kind of almost

start to set up a budget. Yeah. And also, if you don't have any friends or social skills at all, this probably isn't going to be it. No. You know what I mean? It wouldn't work. at all this probably isn't going to be it no it's like you know no it really isn't like you do you do have to be like as it goes along you like this needs to happen happen right away we can get into the specific we'll get into the specifics that you run into but like tanner has to be assertive a lot in situations that are really inconvenient for him that don't fucking have much benefit to him either yeah so there's just like not it's like oh i gotta fucking go do this

for this thing that makes nothing yeah and like that's a pain in the ass and also you do have to get soft commitments from people so if you're the if you are the weird person at your gym going around asking people if they want to join your gym. Yeah. Like, you do need to know these people. Yeah. Everyone that we started with was, like, at least, at the very least, my gym friend. You know, like, people I chatted with at the gym on a regular basis over the course of many months. And you didn't go into it with the mentality of, well, if I just build it, they will come. Like, that's a scary spot to go. And you didn't go into it with the mentality of, well, if I just build it, they will come.

That's a scary spot to go. In all honesty, you'll do it and even people that said that they'll do it won't. That's the truth. I'm not firing shots at anyone or anything like that. However many people you talk to and they say that they're going to do definitely if like you can't just go by like oh yeah man that'd be cool you know because people will just say that yeah people don't like to be rude yeah right right exactly so you'll know you know some people you know really what like if i talked to you about it and at the time like we did and you said you're gonna do it i'm like like in my mind or on paper i knew like yes that that person and i literally did that like wrote everyone down and like okay these

eight people i i feel like i'll give it like 90 plus percent they they're in the hard commit category and then maybe there's these seven that i'm like they said that but i'm not taking that to the bank you know two be two, could be six. So yeah, that is a really big part of it because that also influences what type of space you're looking for. And that probably, not very glamorous part of it, but that's probably maybe the most important piece of it is one, finding a spot that can accommodate what you want to do

and then also accommodate your your income because that can be really really really difficult depending on what part of the country you live in that is the hardest part i think of starting it is finding a space like you said it it has to be a space so should i just run my credit card on rogue and max it out before I get a space, though? That would be a good point. I'm trying to think if I don't. I wonder if I had any equipment before a space. It's actually hard for me to remember that at this point, but I don't think I really had any equipment. I had my eye on stuff, but I hadn't spent a dollar on any equipment until I had a lease signed.

Tanner is cheap. That's very true too. But gyms are loud and hard on floors and walls. And that's also, I think something that a lot of people don't realize is because they're probably in a commercial gym setting where, you know, you're not supposed to be dropping weights. The music that's playing is just whatever serious XM, like quiet rock station is on. And everyone there is pretty chill. But you're trying to leave that environment. So that's not what you're looking for. You're not going to go in the strip mall with an office on each side of you

and say, you need a dungeon. You need somewhere on its own. It's got to probably be kind of shitty. Yes, that's what I was going to say. It's probably got kind of shitty yes that's what i was gonna say it's probably gotta be shitty you need lights an outlet or two and a fucking bathroom yep yep yeah because a bathroom is a huge deal a bathroom is a necessity yeah like that's you know you take that for granted yeah normally but going through the process you have to be factoring in a bathroom like that's power lifters shit yeah like you can't go to the gym and you have to be factoring in a bathroom. Like that's. Power lifters, shit.

Yeah. Like shit a lot. You can't go to the gym and not have a bathroom. Like it just doesn't. We can't go to our gym and not smell poop. Yeah. So like, you know, that thing's getting used. Yes. And so, yeah, with the location, a bathroom is huge.

Your neighbors are majorly huge too, because that can be a pain. I mean, just like anywhere you live, anywhere you work, who you're around has a huge influence on how easy or hard your life can be. So like being aware of your neighbors, like what their hours are, that's a really big part of it. Yeah.

And even like your access, you know, like with real estate, you know, location, location, location, like that's a big spot too. Or if your gym is, you find a cheap spot, but it's 30 miles from where most people live, they're probably not going to go to it because it's a pain in the ass to get there. So actually finding the right spot is a really big part of the puzzle. Yeah.

Another thing tied into all that too in that process is the landlords that you deal with. There's a lot of people that are landlords that are like at the least, I would say interesting to deal with. Yeah. Yes. From my experiences in life, a lot of landlords just, they're not necessarily,

they don't necessarily have their property because they're business savvy. They have it because they've had it forever. And a lot of them have it forever because it's been in their family forever yeah that is exactly what i have somebody who's not socially good at things or maybe not even business savvy so you're just like how in the world do you end up in this situation and you just can't take for granted that this person is assertive intelligent or anything it's like yeah you're just dealing with the person who owns the fucking spot. And they completely fell into that.

Anything is possible. Yeah. But with the budget, with what we said the space has to be, shitty is okay because that's what works. Because you're just going to yell and smash things. Our original place was very shitty.

It was very dirty. It couldn't have been a dirtier. No, it couldn't have. And that's part of the scope of these places out is. It was almost outside. It was such a basement that it was almost not inside. You couldn't clean it. It had been swept.

It was about a 100-year-old building, wasn't it? Yeah, probably even more than that. Yeah, probably even more than that. Yeah, 120. And the concrete in it was not like your nice, smooth, finished concrete. It was like the oldest, most porous. It was like the concrete was turning into dirt. Yes.

Yeah, like all the concrete had like salt growing on it. Yeah. Yeah. And the walls were like a weird coated thing. I don't know what material. It was kind of like concrete except it would crumble very, very easily. I think it was concrete that had many, many layers of like enamel paint. Yeah. And asbestos, right?

Potentially. And also size-wise, you don't need that much space for 10, 15 guys to be able to train. This really is like a powerlifting gym. You know, a CrossFit gym, there's a little more requirements there. But powerlifters, let's be honest, no one's trying to run or move around. It's maybe your advantage to have stuff as close as possible so you don't have to walk anywhere. It has to be with people that are going to, because of those tight quarters, you can't have 10 people that all

walk into the gym and put their headphones on and like don't talk to each other because drop duffel bags and set up camp and at that point you've taken over the gym if you do that no because there's a lot of sharing of equipment that has to go on because you're probably gonna have one or two squat racks you know one or two benches and you the people do need you have to be selective about the people you can't just anybody. Because if you do have a fucking couple dicks, like everybody's so close together and you need people to be respectful of other people's space and time and equipment. And if you have a couple of people who are assholes, it will fuck up an entire, it'll fuck up the whole vibe.

Yeah. And we've been pretty, you've been pretty good about that, about be like, no, not just anybody's going to come here. And it usually, you know, I'd say over the two, three years, we've gotten a few people that maybe haven't fit in quite as well with everyone. But it kind of sorts itself out in time. the whole vibe of it and the sharing of equipment and like the way that everyone is, you're probably not going to stay there very long because like, you're just, it's not going to be comfortable for you and not going to feel normal.

So there has been a few cases like that, but it works itself out, you know, in time too. So let's, let's jump into the financials. One other thing though, quick with the,

with the lease, I think another really important part to pay attention to is how long of a lease term you're signing. Definitely. If this is your first run at it. 15 years, man. You probably don't want to be signing that multi-year lease. A year lease might even be a little scary, too. There's some liability in that for, you know, I was signing my name on the lease. So, like, if three months down the road, it was like, well, this didn't work.

I still, you know, I have to either pay that or, you know, work out. More than likely, I'm not going to end up having to pay nine months of a shithole space that was worthless for anything else anyways. You know, there's probably some compromise there with the landlord if you're able to communicate that with them but yeah there's liability you know that and that part of it is also limiting what you're getting into so like you had 10 guys you got basically you didn't reach too hard too far you're not like well we can only afford it if we get five more guys like you pretty much got what you could afford right away yeah and figure you'd grow out of it not grow into it right right definitely definitely that's a good that's a good phrase too i think you want something you're i don't think having something you're going to

grow into especially in the beginning is ever a good idea financially yeah at least yeah if you got a little more space than you need that That's fine. But you needed something. Yeah. Yes. You needed something that you could probably afford to swing for a few months if the shit hit the fan or at the very least, if a few people drop off, you can float the difference without it like breaking you personally. Yes. And you probably when you get into something like this, guys, you have to be willing to put some of your own money in to get things moving along. Months come, months go.

Like if you've got to throw a couple hundred bucks to keep the fucking lights on, it is kind of on you to do it. Because the guys that are left, you know what I mean? They did come with an expectation that they'd have fucking heat. Right. You know? Right. Some basic, you know.

The toilet would work. Right. So we got the members and the idea. We got a location picked out is now when we just max out the credit card on rogue. That's what, that's how I, I mean, that's how I handle all my personal finances basically. So the opposite of me.

I am that guy. Yeah. One other thing about the members though, too, that I was just thinking is you've, if they want to that's good that's you need that but also like with everyone that i had i got a lot of like physical help from people because i'm not you know i can only invest so much of my time or so much of my money into it that it literally required like people helping me move stuff people helping me paint walls you know do shitty work but it wasn't super hard to get people to do that because there's people that really wanted the end yeah that is kind of yeah yeah there's like feedback into itself that if you get people that really do want to be a part of it

people will be happy to make their environment better. Yeah. Yeah. That is a big component. And that's, what's worked well for us, I think is, I think the, not ever some members,

some at this point, you know, we have some people that are just there because it's a, they like the gym and you know, it's a cheap membership and whatever, but a majority of the members are pretty bought in, you know, bought into the whole thing.

Like they'd be, if I, if I had to call someone to help me do something shitty usually i can find someone to help me do that because it's it's not my you know i i don't like it to it's not my full-time job you know it's like not even barely my part-time job so i don't you know i don't like i said i don't always have the time to like throw myself into some of that stuff but yeah with the help of everyone, it's worked out really well because the people are willing to help when they have to. Yep.

I want to dive into one thing before we go further. So day one, you sign the lease. We're not there anymore. Who cares? So what did you charge per person? we're not there anymore who cares so what did you charge for per person 30 well it was going to be 30 35 was the number that uh i wanted to charge people just because i seemed like a good number it's basically you couldn't go to any other gym for less for the most part like maybe there's a special where it's going to be less but for the most part that's going to be just about the lowest and i wanted it to be not saying i wanted it to be the cheapest but i just wanted it to be relatively speaking a low number because that was part of what i didn't

like about where we were at previously as like it was always just just going up and going up and i'm like well okay it's going up but you're not getting anything more there's yeah yeah it's like there better be like i'd like to see something changing if like i'm paying more so that was part of the the thought process on that but then i realized uh need to pay um sales tax so i just added that into the yeah just added that in so made it 38 that's why it's 38 into your tax laws and your there actually are some states in which and cities but you don't have to pay city sales tax on on membership products our state we do yep that's that is a whole thing i mean sales tax you don't want to eat that yeah eat that. But just getting your sales tax license,

what type of entity you're going to be. You're probably going to want something that protects you from a liability standpoint. Even though in the grand scheme of things at that smaller level, even though you're an LLC, every fucking thing you do requires a personal guarantee anyways.

Right, exactly. But just doing that stuff. time yeah it's just like i don't know how to have an l like if you're just like tomorrow if you've never done it before and someone's like oh go start an llc and you're like okay oh all right how you know i guess you google it and that that's your starting point but and you got to get then you got to get federal tax id number and insurance all these weird steps that are yeah need to happen before another yeah and so we would all three of us have actually done it now yeah with you with this yeah business and the gym me with my uh gym tommy with your business now we're like if you get what we find when you go through these things

that like you think that someone would just know you think that there's a person out there who's like, oh, this is how you start a business. You just boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And I started looking on the internet. I was like, oh. And even if you ask around, there's nobody in your life who's like, oh, yeah, just do these things. Because the thing is everyone's like, well, I know somebody that owns a business. Well, a lot of times, especially when you think of successful business owners, they have people to do that for them. They don't even know how that part works.

I said I wanted to start my business. I put my people on it, and they got it going. Or they already have a business, and they have eight other businesses, and it's the same thing. It's like, well, I was going to start this thing, so my lawyers just ran with it. It's all created, and now here I am just doing things. That is a huge learning experience like us doing it ourselves you're

just like yeah really you just have to start doing it i went to the bank literally had a meeting set up with a banker set bank accounts that that's a good yeah like because i'm like yeah i need a bank account and you sit down and they say okay do you have this number i'm like i've never heard of that number and they're well, if you want to open a bank account, you need this number. It's like, okay, I'll take my stuff and go home and try again. And then like four days later, I have this magical number and I go back and just hope like, I think I have everything.

I should have asked more questions. But yeah, you're going to look dumb at some point, Nick, because that's how it goes. The nice thing about anything you do where technically you are owning your own business, even though this may not be your job, you're going to look dumb most of the time. So get over that real quick. Very true. So you got set up. Membership was – go ahead.

Yeah, tied into the membership and the bank account, a key, key element for this to work for us and you know i'd say specifically to work for me we had i had this set up from the get-go this is the only way it would have worked for me otherwise it would never any other way it would this is this may be the most important thing of everything we i'm telling you today that if you do not do this it will will not work. I guarantee, and you will lose friends over the thing. Oh, and tons of time. Yes. You have to have the payment set up automatic, ACH payments. Because collecting money from your friends every month.

It turns into that scene from the movie. Hey, Joe, you're six months late on your payments. Like you don't want to do that thing. And like it's tight to begin with at the beginning so you like you need that and there just is no it's the same thing with my like if it's not automated it doesn't happen because i here's the deal i'll have every once in a while i'll have people who like a credit card will expire or something like that and my ours will run cards or ACH, but like,

and it'll expire and their payment will try to run the first and it won't. The average time it takes and correspondence for me. And I'm not joking. This has happened six times in the year that I've been open. There's been six people who have anything, a card goes fraud or whatever. That card just gets declined. Right. And, six people who have anything, a card goes fraud or whatever. That card just gets declined, right?

And all they need to do is update their payment information on the account. They could give it to me or literally just on the, this is a fucking app on their fucking phone that'll do it for me. And the average time is three and a half weeks, which means it is only at best just before the next month is due and one person took three months yeah and it's like dude what the fuck yeah you know like and so there's literally no way you could do it and especially when you're doing it small and tight like that money's just got to come in and because you're not making a living doing this

you need to find a way to automate as much of it as possible. Yes, like the time management of the, just literally like collecting the money, depositing it. Signing the thing. Yeah, like that just doesn't, I would shudder at the thought of it. It wouldn't work because, I mean, human beings just, like not everyone is going to be there with no their check for you on the first of the month or you know on that day like it would never work

and it would caught and you you would get upset and like to that person it wouldn't be that big of a deal they'd be like oh i'll get you next month and then the record keeping of all that too you're like yeah well shit tommy paid me two months ago tyler paid me four months ago well so and so paid me three months in cash yeah ahead of time but said he's good for and so yeah there's no way so that's got to be locked in yes and that you know some there's sometimes a little bit of a cost associated with that but you have there's there's no cost to do that cost because you need that next along. Now, what was your first, what was your expenses right away in that first setup?

So aside from like setting up legally establishing the business, you're really looking at a few hundred bucks. Yeah. It's not that expensive. It's not really a month. Like all that stuff. It's not really monetary obligations. Like your operating costs.

Rent is, in our case, is always the biggest thing. What was that? We've actually been really fortunate that none of our rents have been crazy high. No, it was actually $300 a month, I think. And for perspective here, what was it, 20 by 20 room? Yeah, would that be right? Yeah, probably. Yeah, I suppose 20 by 20. This is, 20 by 20 room? Yeah, would that be right? Yeah, probably. Yeah, I suppose 20 by 20.

This is a 20 by 20 room in a basement of a 120-year-old building in South Dakota. So, like, I mean, that is a really cheap spot. And not like Sioux Falls, South Dakota. What could make finding a space easier is not living somewhere where it gets to be negative 40 degrees in the winter if you live in california you can literally use a goddamn parking lot right right you'll be all right that would really open your options but here that does not work you need somewhere you could get by with a shed yeah like yeah that is a huge consideration because we need somewhere that control that yeah that can save you when it's negative 40 outside and also where you're not going to die of heat stroke when it's 105 and 90% humidity.

Yeah. So the cost, though, the main monthly cost is that rent is going to be at least 50% of your monthly costs. Some sort of liability insurance. I won't really get into the details of that, of what you should or shouldn't have. And you know, some of that you are going, someone is going to have to take on some personal liability in some way or another. Just like you said, the liability LLC doesn't shield you from anything and everything possible happening. You know, the whatever insurance you get doesn't shield you from anything and everything but you should get some you got a type of liability insurance i mean i don't need to you don't

necessarily need to insure every piece of equipment you've got in there and all that crap but you do need some liability insurance so that do they allow you to insure the toilet like is there a special policy for that that premium would be way too high for us it would we would not be able to afford the premium on the toilet insurance because it gets blown up very regularly um what else monthly expense wise there's not the sales tax you know i have to pay i pay that on a monthly some buildings the heating and cooling you might be on the hook depending on how you're yeah depending on how your thing to factor in and if if you are paying that separately yourself that would be this

that would be the number two expense that i would say is your utility uh utility bill other than that not too much as far as a monthly expense um the other initial expense of course is equipment you do have to and what are some what are some tips because i would imagine almost no one doing this is gonna just shell out the big bucks for all new stuff like right that's the key new used versus new yeah and especially with weights 45 pound plates are pretty much 45 pound plates right it's there's not a whole lot of difference there really we we got good you know we had good for we had fort york 45 pound plates so there's some cost associated with that still not a lot because they're used you could get even cheaper used ones but for doing what we are doing you almost have to start with used equipment because the the the upfront cost you know it

would triple it if you went with new it's like what you know looking on craigslist that that's a big one and even even some people might say well i live in the middle of nowhere there's no good deals we could tanner you could also say that yeah that's you live you live within five hours or somewhere it requires i mean you have to want to do this in order for it because there is going to be some things you could maybe call annoying or there's going to be some time and work involved in doing it. So one, you do have to do a lot of Craigslisting, like searching. Most of the stuff you got off of Craigslist, what was the average travel time?

Five hours. Five hours each way. the average travel time five hours yeah because each way yeah yeah i mean the biggest large city we live close to is uh minneapolis st paul and that's you know what a five hour drive or even like at my gym my arcade my cable machines fucking steal of a deal yeah that's five and a half hours away yeah yeah but i still got it you know i just like i'll take it i'll figure it out yeah and fortunately i had you know like my wife and sister were there they got it loaded up in pieces and just it worked i still would have done that deal 10 days out of 10 you know like one of the times i hired uh you shipping i think is that what it's called yeah to ship a whole bunch of the plates and stuff uh

from i can't remember if that came from that must have been a little bit farther away i worked out the this was a craigslist you know over the first emailing and then i got the guy to call me and like with enough conversation he realized i'm not like fucking around yeah like i'm like i have the money and i want this but i you know live eight hour drive from you yeah what are our'd like to know how to do that. What are our options here? So U Shipping is, I think that's what it's called, but there's a reality show. Shipping Wars is a reality show,

and that's the company that they do, and you can bid. You put your job out there. So I said, this is what I have, where it's at, and I need it in Aberdeen, South Dakota, on such and such date. Basically, any time. Yeah, and they send you a bid and you know i might i might have spent like 300 on that but in that case it was worth it for me to not miss two days of work right and travel

right because alternatively what i did a couple times two different times is get my pickup and my enclosed trailer load them up and go to or or not load them up, take them empty to Minneapolis, load them up at a point that is completely dangerous. I'm going to tell you something about trailer tires. Whatever it is that they think trailers are used for, their tires are not fucking meant for that. Trailer tires are good for about three trips of actual work. Yes.

Ever. So anytime you got some shit on a trailer, you're like, this motherfucker's gonna go. And our full, almost the full dumbbell set that we have now, which is like, you know, 30s through. Because that's the thing. This stuff's designed to be heavy. Yes. It is all weight.

I had those all in my trailer, along with a lot of other stuff. And your trailer is not a car moving trailer. No, no, no. It's a motorcycle trailer or a lawnmower trailer or something like that. And I was going through rush hour traffic in, I don't know if you don't, those aren't interstates or whatever. They're like whatever they are, like the big seven lane wide. And I literally was just sitting there and I kept picturing Final Destination. They're like whatever they are, like the big, like seven lane wide. Yeah.

And I literally was just sitting there and I kept picturing Final Destination. Like my trailer like rolls and explodes and there's just like 60 pound dumbbells flying through windshields. And like what I would do, you know. Tanner's like, well, it's a good thing I went. I really maxed out my liability. Because it's going to be high. good thing i went i really maxed out my liability because it's going to be high but no that but that's it does require some travel probably and a lot of research to to find equipment that's going to work we got to get the deals like i mean yeah i mean if they're but they're all you can't

be an idiot either like there's some there's some time and cost involved in going and doing that if you could have spent three hundred dollars and not more and not had to go on that trip you would have but yeah it really is just a matter of what you can get and when you can get it would you say a good guideline for like price per pound people should be looking for for weights oh i think like that if you're just buying steel plates you should be spending less than a dollar a pound and if you could get them for the the good thing is or in our case the good thing the more you're buying usually the less the you know the cheaper price you can get. So I bought a lot of plates at under 50 cents a pound, which is a good deal.

And the thing is, once you have enough, you have a bit of leverage because you're not in need. Right. And then that exposes you to a lot of really good deals. Meaning, anytime on some Facebook marketplace, some Tom, Dick, or Harry that had a decent, it won't be nice, but like an Olympic bench set where he's got a shitty barbell, but at least like a pair of 45s, a pair of 25s. They'll sell that shit for dirt cheap.

You can get yourself some plates that way for really dirt cheap because they just want it out of their fucking basement. But you can't probably build your gym around those. You've got to get the big batches of shit or you're going to be fucking around forever. You end up having to spend some time educating yourself on equipment. time you end up having to spend your some time educating yourself on equipment like the amount of knowledge i have now on you know brands and styles and makes of durability things like squat racks and stuff like that and you know of course barbells at this point but

three years ago i really didn't know that like i wasn't you know i knew what a texas power bar was and stuff but bars is the easy thing done you know your head around. But there are a lot of resources. A lot of people have these questions, so you do some Googling. Put the time into the research. And I ended up making a few connections with people that buy and sell equipment that I'd be like, hey, this is what I'm looking for. Let me know if you come across this. If you know anyone that's got it, I'd want to buy that.

And after you've given them several $100 bills prior, then they're like, oh, you actually have money to give me because a lot of people are like. Yeah, a lot of people just speculate. Right, right. So you build some relationships. But one funny story about going to get equipment is this was a set of, we have a set of, I i think 140s and 150s they're hampton uh pro style dumbbells they're really really nice really nice uh dumbbells are are two heavy sets those uh

i bought just just those from a guy off of craigslist in somewhere over by minneapolis and he lived like um not in the nicest neighborhood as i'm pulling up i'm like okay all right and uh getting ready to pull out and i or pull up into his driveway area and i found it and it was uh i don't know the adjectives of words but it was used but it was very sketchy i was kind of i was nervous getting out you know by myself yeah yes a pocket full of money and this person knows that you know so i go knock on the door nobody comes i hear like 70 dogs barking is what it sounds like it sounds like i'm at just knocked on uh humane yes yes and i turned to leave and go away i'm like all right screw it i just want to be alive at the

end of today and i'm gonna go and then the guy finally comes to the door and answers it and it's like pure chaos in this house behind him and i was like oh i I was here about the dumbbells. You know, I was going to buy those. And he was like, oh, sure, yeah. Come in. No thanks. Yeah. Can you roll them out? And I was kind of like, okay, I guess.

Like, here we go. And I walk into the guy's house, and there is, no joke, a kennel, like a fence kennel that you would put out in your backyard. In his living room, all the carpet is relatively recently ripped up and gone. And there is like five Rottweilers in a cage in the guy's living room. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be eating a lot. Like, he's going to feed me to these dogs. It's like a movie.

That's seriously what I thought. And he's like, oh, they're in the basement. And then so we have to walk by. Yeah dogs it's like a movie that's seriously what i thought and he's like and he's like oh they're in the basement too and then so we have to walk by yeah it's like great i had no idea you were coming to buy something from me i couldn't prepare for it to be this dude's camp so we go in the basement and turns out the guy the reason they're in the basement and that he hasn't brought him up is because they're 140 150 pound dumbbells and the guy's like oh i used to throw these around pretty good he's got stories i used to throw these around but bench five but he goes like this he's like oh my back doesn't like it anymore so so i had to carry them you know so i grabbed 150 pound dumbbells i was like oh i don't want to make four trips i'd rather make two you know so I grab him and go I gotta go up his stairs around through the inside of his house and

down his stairs on the porch and with with the second trip I was literally like wondering if I was gonna drop these through the guy yeah yeah but I got him out and didn't get shot or eaten by dogs but just a funny story wow I did have a gun with me i was wondering if it was gonna like come in handy or not it's one nice thing about where we live gun laws you can pretty much you can carry a gun you can shoot a person for the most part you'll be fine but to be fair the guy turned out to be really nice and he told me that the dumbbells came from the minnesota timberwolves so i'm not sure which of sure if Kevin Garnett was bench pressing the 150 dumbbells. I'm certain Kevin Garnett had them.

It was definitely him. With his reach. What was it like, Kevin Durant? He couldn't bench 135 or 185 or something like that. He probably still can't bench very much more than that. Yeah, and I'm like, you are one of the best, quote, athletes in the world. I think you're just tall with a good shot.

But, um, I remember when I had to pick up a bunch of equipment for the gym, you sent me with, it was a fair amount of money. It was about like 1600 bucks. Yeah. Something like that.

And cash. Yeah. Like, you know, a hundred dollar bills and, uh, like this is where I never said that. Yeah.

Yeah. It took off. Yeah. I'm like, Tanner don't know me very well. Some shit's about to fall off the truck. And so we, and I have to meet in this like shady,

like McDonald's. And I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting. And I was picking up like that fucking ER, the squat rack. Yep. A bunch of, we're probably talking about combo rack a dead oaky deadlift bar some the hundred the 50 kilo 50 kilo plates which is are the worst thing only have them because they're heavy yeah um and i think some some little shit yeah like but so i'm not expecting a 1996 grand prix to pull up

and so this pulls up next to me i'm like oh jesus christ and i'm fucking locked the doors and then yeah the guy gets out i was like he's pretty big and uh he texted me and i'm like god damn it this is it and so yeah we're there like pulling all this shit out of a fucking car. And it, like, somehow fits in this car, yet all of it barely fits in my truck. Yeah. With the tonneau cover down. But, I mean, that's what you're going to, you just have to be resourceful. Yes. Yes, that's a good tip.

And we only have so much time. We only have so much money. So you've got to kind of balance it all. But you're not, if you, I guess if you have like money to burn to start, like if you just had like, if let's just say a dollar amount didn't matter. Let's just say like three, four or $5,000, $6,000 outright didn't matter to you. Would you have just been like, all right, let's put that money in something new. I don't have to spend a bunch of time.

You are cheap. Yeah. Not really. It doesn't work for you. But even like it probably took $5,000. Of cutting deals. Yeah. Yeah.

To really get to, you could do it for less, definitely. Yeah. But one thing that's expensive that I wanted is a full dumbbell set. Yeah. And once you have it, you have it. Yeah. And like that's, I mean, you're not going to it yeah and like that's i mean you're not going to get that for like less than a thousand dollars if it's a legit yeah nice one and you're

not going to get the amount of it it depends on what you're going for but if when you have if you're going to start with 10 to 15 people you need equipment for you know to support that many people so you can't have a one barbell and eight set right so i had two squat you know we had two squat racks a bench bench, built those platforms. You spend a couple hundred dollars just in materials for every platform that you build. And just the weights themselves, you're probably going to spend $1,000 on weights. So if you just look at the dumbbells and the weights, you'll probably spend a couple thousand dollars on used stuff. And then once you throw in maybe three or four bars,

if you buy any decent used ones, they're probably going to be at least $100 a piece still used even. And then good squat racks used, you could assume that they might cost you $500 a piece. And then a good decent used bench is probably going to cost a couple hundred bucks. So you get to $5, pretty quickly but you could do it for less if you wanted less a little bit lesser equipment too yeah but i wanted to avoid as much as possible avoid buying things then in x number of months down the road having those be useless and have to buy something all over again like i wanted there

is a little bit of a buy nice or buy twice thing. Definitely. There are certain things that does apply to it, and you have to be smart enough to figure that out. And it doesn't necessarily mean buy new. No, no. It just means buy quality, whether it's even used. I think the message with that stuff really is you do need to maximize

to a certain degree, and your overall financial picture is going to dictate this, but you do need to maximize the value with which you buy each thing that you buy. Like you've got to get a good deal. You can't overpay for anything, but you do got to get some stuff that has some value. And one other tip for kind of finding this stuff, you know, you guys mentioned Craigslist is a huge one, Facebook. A lot of people are selling stuff on there.

If you live in a town with a high school, multiple high schools, or even a university, especially universities, there's money pumping into those things a lot. And it's trendy to buy new stuff with your logo on it, and so places will just unload, wait. So all you got to do is put a bug in the ear of the trainer or some equipment manager and they know you're the guy that oh we were basically gonna have to throw this away but we've got like before i even started with before we moved to the new spot it's we don't use it now but we'd like we got like free equipment out of my house which is they were just giving away i was like oh fuck it i don't know we'll take it yeah it's like those people literally

then you can take something and get rid of it when you use it it's free and those people like literally like looking most of the time, looking for someone to just take it away from them so they don't have to deal with it. Like, oh, you'll lift this and I don't have to. So that can be a goal. And in a lot of those cases, that's because there's a process attached to anything that has to be done like that. Meaning if they've got to have a fucking sale, there's a whole bunch of shit

and someone's got to get paid to do it. Whereas if you come to them, you can do really well well and i think if we're getting a relationship with the college and the high schools in your area yeah just say hey i'm looking for these things that's really really good advice and there's probably a good chance that even right now your local college or high school has old stuff sitting around that they can't get rid of yeah like because they like you said it's a deal it's a it's a big ordeal to try and sell it, and they don't know who the hell would want this old stuff. And it could be really good equipment, actually, too.

It just may not have the look that they want. Old weights probably are better most times than new weights. That's what I was going to say. What they're trying to get rid of is, in my mind, a lot of times better than the shit that they have. The truth is you're not going to find a Division I or Division II college weight room that has – you think you're going to find a 30-year-old bench press? No.

Or a 20-year-old leg press? No. Or fucking a squat rack that's more than 20 years old? Or that has any fucking – you know what I mean? The whole point of those places are there's a lot of public money being spent there and it's got to be flashy it's got to be spent somewhere it's got to be flashy for recruiting like yeah it doesn't come into a gym that looks like it has equipment like and even though we have some really good quality stuff it wouldn't look cannot look like

our gym if you're going definitely not you know even like the shit i got out of our old high school i got we had a fucking military press. We got some plates. I got a fucking bench. I got a leg press. I got the world's most bulletproof fucking bench press. I mean, half that stuff is made by someone who's literally sitting around welding shit. Like, it's heavy duty.

That's another good tip is when you're looking for those first group of members, if you can find anyone that perhaps welds, it can be pretty valuable. Because we have stuff in our gym that's been made that still works well. Or we got it a certain way and had someone modify it to be better for us, too. All around, it's nice if you can, your group of people. You need an electrician, you need a heating guy, you need a plumber, you need a welder. If they do a lot of different things it's nice the fact is if you're smart about how you build your life

you should have those people nearby you need a boat mechanic but so where are we at in the discussion right now we've basically gone through establishment getting things moving you have all your initial stuff going

let's talk now about how you get from here you are you have a gym it's operating your guys they like it but like anything else you have to you have to you have to plan to put money back into this you have to invest if you're planning to take money out of this oh that's a good point yeah there's i've never taken any money out you know in three And I still have no intentions to. But that's part of why it works. Because if I had intentions to take money out, I think it would be dead. We'd have the same shit we had two years ago. It wouldn't work.

Everything that's ever come in just gets reinvested back into it. The reason we have even the amount of members now who aren't dicks is because now there is a lot of the new stuff yeah yeah now we now it's pretty fun we get to get brand new things that are really nice part of it is like you gotta make an environment if you're gonna be starting this gym making it an environment that you gotta remember why you got into it you got into it because you wanted to go to a place where it's like oh i feel like someone's taking care of me like they're treating me i'm like the whole time you were hating the place you were at yeah you were like it's not that fucking hard to give a little back and so your job now is when you're in this position now

is to kind of prove that point yeah that all right we're here yeah i'm not making revenue but like i can't just be stingy here right you can't fuck yourself over but frankly you – You have to be smart enough to hold a cushion, a little bit of a cushion, because things will happen. But a little bit goes a long way. Yeah. And we don't have – let's talk where we're at right now. We're at a second location, bigger location, higher rent. Rent is what a month?

$625. $625. And we're still doing pretty good. I'll be honest. Wherever you're at, you're probably – that's about as good as you're probably going to get it for the amount of space we've got. Truthfully. But still. But also, if you're in a bigger market, gym memberships probably cost double anyway.

That's true. You're in the middle there. Right. And how many members do you have? 30, give or take. It fluctuates. 35. We won't get into the details of all the expenses.

But just roughly every month, remove operating costs. How much kind of carries over from one month to another? You know, a few hundred bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's it.

Yeah, maybe 300 bucks. A few hundred bucks. And there might be some surprises. Yeah. It might break a toilet seat. Maybe some months, nothing. Maybe the next month, 400 bucks. But if this is something you really do see long term,

a few hundred bucks over the course of a year, you can buy a lot of shit with that. Especially if you're using those tips we just talked about of buying new stuff. And so what we found now is, and Tanner's really good about being transparent with this, we actually all get as members the full, it's just a Tanner thing. We get the full Tanner spreadsheet with all the things

and all the money and all the things that we're like i didn't even know those were things that covered all those bases and so everything is itemized list of like what money was spent on how much money came in so it's good for the members to know and and i that's i almost do that selfishly just so that like no one at the end of the day can be like, hey, what the hell are you doing? Like, well, look at the thing I send you every month. Because the truth is everybody will do soft math. Yeah. Okay.

I own my CrossFit gym. And you've got a hundred of us. I will openly tell people how many members I have. And people will do very, very soft math. And then when I tell them what I actually get paid they're like no you got to be making way more than that and I'm like no and also there's nothing left at the end of the month like nothing not carrying anything over yes and people just don't understand that when you get in the thick of it everything you do costs money like just paying yourself

costs money like everything fucking is you know has a cost associated with it so in you i exactly know exactly what you mean by that like if you didn't do that people be like guys listen i know that fucker he's getting fucking rich off he doesn't appreciate this i'm gonna get a new spot yeah ten of you guys want to come with us we're going back to the dungeon exactly fuck this guy he's got a new motorcycle and you see it it's that fucking massonomics motorcycle and the circle of life continues and and with this i can you know it takes it out of it i mean don't get me wrong tanner makes up all the numbers none of us would know but but so the nice thing that we get to see, though, is then,

I mean, every two months, three months, we get, like, a couple really awesome. And the fact is, if your gym that you go to now, if they spent $60 to $100 every month on little things that are cool and new. I don't know, say a new hip circle and, like, a fucking. A new set of pro lock collar yeah a set of collars maybe just like some complimentary like nice straps yeah yeah or like you know you know i mean just something you're like oh oh shit that's pretty sweet that costs a gym or a business or a lifting club or whatever you want to call your place that's nothing like that's even nothing

when you're making that yeah if you did that once a month, you're fine. Yeah. Or every other month. And then every three months, four months, five months, you buy a really new, really nice barbell that people have been reading about on the internet forever. You're like, you know, then like everybody's like, fuck, we're swimming. Yeah, we got this. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

And like that happens three, four times a year. And over the course of a few years, you've just got everything that everybody wants. Yeah. a year and over the course of a few years you've just got everything that everybody wants yeah we uh prop we have like thirty thousand dollars of equipment now at this point you know i mean it's like would you say not necessarily worth that like if you really had to sell it and everything yeah it's good to sell it here right right but take a truck somewhere else but to put it in perspective of like i'm not trying to sell someone on the fact that just throw down a, you know, it's going to be super easy and you'd have $30,000 worth of nice equipment. It's taken a lot of time and everything, but like to show how well it's worked, like we're to that point now and without, you know, I didn't have to put down a ton of cash.

And these are assets that you do technically own. Yeah. And that's the, so I put in a lot of work and time and all of it and everything. I don't take anything out of it. But at the end of the day, most importantly, we have the gym that I like and it's my favorite hobby. And like I, we get the place of like everything. Like I don't have to be like, damn it. When is this gym going to buy a safety squat bar?

I'll just be like, hey, you guys want a safety squat bar yeah i'll just be like hey you guys want a safety squat bar everyone's like yeah tanner has to walk in and go damn it when am i gonna be able to buy a safety squat yes but so being able to do that and then at the end of the day you know i guess i do own that equipment you know which is it sometimes i'm like oh something happened damn it i own all that equipment what What am I going to do with that? I have to get that somewhere. But it does have some value. So that is, I guess, the payoff.

Gym equipment might not be, depending on when and where and all that, the most liquid investment in the world, but it does sell that. But, you know, if this whole thing goes tits up, you're not going to another gym you're going to take your favorite squat rack your favorite bench you're going to take the plates you like all your the all the good you're just going to keep all the good bars yeah and you'll gradually get rid of the other shit but you're going to get to use the best of it forever because the the thing about that what you said there for as good as this is, and I'm probably not alone in this,

there's no going back from this. No, there's not. There's no me going to another gym again. And it's also, though, there are things that are out of control. So when you talk about long-term, you never know. There could be something weird

where a lot of people leave. Yeah. There could also be like the landlord could come in one day and just be like, you're done. And it could take six months to find a spot that's financially feasible and everything so you can't ever take it for granted either because it is a living thing that continually has to be watched and monitored yes and there's always something like there's i mean you would know that just with your place there's just

literally is always something oh yeah yeah like you whatever and the problem is is i have a fair amount of clients so then there's always some sort of complaint yeah and they're all the worst complaints they're all wonderful people but the complaints are always it's like it's hot in here and i'm like well let me back up hot is not a fucking objective thing when it's 74 in here yeah like it's 74 that's not hot okay that's not hot i'm sorry that's just not hot yeah and then in the winter when it's 71 that's cold it is so cold in here you know and you hear all the muttering and you're like listen it cost me fucking and in my gym it took me two thousand dollars this month to keep it 71 and then in july it's gonna cost me two thousand dollars to keep it 74 so you can go fuck yourself but also you're at a gym working out like you know you

wouldn't believe it like if it is cold like that's what sweats are for like that's literally what they're made for and then if it's hot like then you don't have to worry about sweats like you're gonna get there they're to sweat like yeah i know guys trust me i know and i've not and i can't even articulate my opinion on such things in a compassionate way yeah because all i'd go is immediately to like oh yeah you're right it seems pretty unreasonable for me to keep it 74 you know what the fuck am i thinking how selfish can i be like i'm in here longer than you are and i promise 74 is hotter to me than it is to you you know like i'm 330 pounds like i make my wife and children go through that on an annual basis. Tanner, I bet Tanner hears more heat and cooling-related complaints from two people than I do from 120.

To be fair, they're pretty good. Tanner has broken them. They know when the seasons are changing and how to plan their lives according to... As soon as summer ends and Mary has to turn the air conditioning off, she's like, all right, Jack. Things are going to get cold.

We need to do our best to enjoy it while we can. I need you to be tough for mommy. They whisper behind closed doors that I'm not around. Mom, when is daddy going to turn the heat on? It's 45 degrees in here. Dad doesn't turn the heat on until the water in our cup starts to freeze, little Jack. It's only slight.

Listen, if you want to be able to buy the equipment and be able to float that type of an investment. You've got to freeze your family. You've got to freeze your family. You can't be paying to heat your own home. All that being said, this advice could be being said, if you're in a – this advice could be good for someone if you're in a similar situation where there's no other good options for you. It's a good fucking option. Yep, yep.

But if you live in a place, you know, if you live where Diamond Cay lifting is in Alabama, just go there. Yeah, just go there. You're not going to get a place. If someone's shelling out all that cash for an awesome place like that. And the other thing is if you're in a spot where the difference is you spending an extra 10 or 15 minutes driving, fucking drive. Yeah.

Just drive. Like, you know what? Drive. Listen to the entire backlog of Massanomics podcasts. Yeah. We got you. Multiple times, and that'll get you there. But if you're at a place where the other options really aren't there,

it could work out well for you. It could be something to think about. Yeah, that's the key, though. So if where you're at blows, find a better place. If you cannot find a better place, if it means anything to you, you better make a better place. And that's it. You don't have to go all in on it,

but I hear it from a lot of people all the time they just don't have anywhere good to train and the fact is like the globo gym type place your 24-hour fitnesses your planet fitness your anytime fitness a lot like a lot of those places are fucking dog shit places to get strong they're not they're just they're fluffy places 80 of its cardio machines and the whole vibe does not work for getting actually strong. It just doesn't. And if it does for 1% of the people, it will probably not work for you. So you just have to fucking find your thing.

If you need to do it on a smaller scale, say you only have three or four people, if one of those people is willing to pony up their garage space, you can make it work that way easier. Like big Jacob Daigle, he's got a garage strongman set up. He has an apartment. It's not even a garage in his house, right? I don't know what they exactly are. No, no, no.

That's Tim. Okay, yeah, yeah. And Tim will go travel to train at Jacob's. So Jacob's got his huge spot. It's about an hour away, I think, an hour and a half away from Tim. And they travel there regularly. They travel there, I think, like once a week to do their strongman work there they train they lift during the week wherever they can but to do their you know implement work i think strongman stuff there's

a lot of real specific equipment yeah and so you got to just get that stuff as you can if you were to just open a strongman gym like you really got a nickel and dime because that's a lot of specialty stuff and you still need every other tool you need to get strong too yeah like you still need the barbells the squat racks the bench that all those things so yeah we didn't really even touch on any of the strongman stuff that's just all that the truth is like anything else that was just some stuff we you just started acquiring again but it is the same process yeah like what we described it yeah yeah so i think though when um you know like you said like with tim like tim's tim and sioux falls he doesn't have a place to put all his strongman stuff yolks you know i think it's

storage garage and he has he has an apartment you know a lot of apartments you can pay extra to rent a little garage unit he doesn't park his car in there that's where his shit goes and that's where he shuts the door and trains in the winter and opens the door and goes out and trains in the summer yeah and it just at least you can get his implement work in there yeah and that's wanting it you know that's what wanting it is so um but that's the deal if it does if what you have sucks fucking make something that doesn't suck or otherwise you just get to complain forever yeah you know some of you probably want to do that anyways. At some point too though, you know, like Tanner said,

like at some point you can only complain so long before then, like if you're still bitching about it and not offering a solution, like you're part of the problem. Yeah,

that's true. So, yeah, so get out there and be somebody. And that's our motivational episode. That is our

motivational episode. If you believe it you can achieve it yeah why and how you should start your own gym in a nutshell yeah uh we we're just gonna let's do a real quick breakdown of everything that we discussed so you can give it in a five step step-by-step internet meme one get jobs two get khakis three get the girl for girl has money five buy all the gym equipment you're six profit yeah that is the most important one what was that what was the south park thing yeah uh startup bro down you sell out so well i think that's everything we needed to cover right i think so that's it that'll get you going that'll get you going uh if you have any questions

about uh all the real legal specifics in your own area uh take them all uh write them down and um i want you i want you to i want you to look up the massonomics instagram page get ready to write a dm don't talk to somebody in your area that knows the answer to those questions um but for real though uh you know this is a process that was actually a lot it's not easy but it is definitely feasible very doable and it's not impossible no tanner is not wildly more intelligent than we are he is however not even at all he is however much more organized than we are so that's probably the one thing that you it you have to be detailed weird tip is just get a get a binder like yeah like because you're

gonna end up i have a i have a binder that's like now this thick of just shit things like that i'm even like i don't know do i need to keep this anymore but it's like probably because something's gonna come up and like well do you have that and i'm like well no i where would i have that my thing is like i don't know what that is yeah but yeah so be organized you know and have balls so uh well that'll do it for us today uh make sure you go to massonomics.com there you're going to find the store you can buy all the hats the shirts all the things that none of us are wearing right now you can buy this shirt there you can buy that shirt the uh uh so just look at the person you're sitting next to right now i'm sure they're wearing

a massonomics shirt yeah yeah if they not, you need to find a new person to sit next to. Find new people to hang out with. But there you're also going to find all the articles and videos and such. If you want to contact us for sponsorship information, email us at getbigatmastanomics.com. Make sure you follow us on Facebook.

Subscribe to the YouTube's channel. That's YouTube forward slash Mastanomics. Give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. I heard six-star reviews are going to become a thing. So if you've left us a five-star review in the past, go on and try to leave us a six-star with a new account. You guys really need to bump up the reviews out there. Yeah, listen, we haven't been too pushy about them,

but the ones that we've got were so good that they almost bought you guys a little bit of leniency from us. But it's time to step up your game again. And we don't have a single one of the six-star reviews ever since they rolled them out. Anyway, subscribe to our YouTube channel for sure, and follow us on Facebook. I think that's it.

I'm Tyler. You can find me on Instagram at Tyler F. and Stone. That's Tyler E-F-F-I-N Stone. Tommy? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. The Masonomics page at Masonomics. Wait, I didn't lead into that. No, we blew it.

Guys, that was Tanner. That was the skull man. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you next week, and stay strong. Masonomics. You just heard the Masanamics Podcast With your ears

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