When someone starts crunching numbers to open a club, the first conversation is usually about equipment.
That makes sense. It is one of the most visible investments, it can be compared, and it is relatively easy to budget.
But over the years I have learned that the problems that most shape a project often show up somewhere else: in the premises, in a build-out that keeps growing, in a floor that was not planned for, or in decisions made separately from one another. Also in reaching opening day having spent too much before you start generating revenue.
That is why, when we talk about how much it costs to open a gym, the final number matters to me as much as understanding where the money is going and why.
There is a question I try to ask very early when someone presents a project to me: what kind of club do you want to open, and for whom?
It seems obvious, but it shapes a lot of decisions.
A club competing on volume does not need the same investment as one that wants to build a more carefully crafted experience. Nor are the square metres, the product or the services distributed in the same way.
And that is something I see more clearly today than a few years ago. The market has professionalised. There are very good operators working with different models, and customers also know much more than they used to.
That is why I think trying to be everywhere at once is becoming increasingly difficult.
Before talking about brands or machines, you need to know what proposition you want to build, how much you can charge for it, and what has to happen inside the club for that model to make sense.
One of them is the premises.
An attractive rent can stop being attractive quite quickly if you later discover that you have to redo the installations, that the structure limits certain areas, that there are acoustic problems, or that the layout you had in mind simply does not fit.
For me, the architect should come in before signing the lease. Not when the decision has already been made and it is time to start drawing, but while you can still assess whether that space makes sense for the project you want to build.
Something similar happens with the floor. It is not usually the first thing that catches your eye when you run the numbers, but it has a big impact on how the club works. You do not need the same thing under a strength room as in a functional area, a group class studio or a circulation space.
And then there is something that is even harder to put in a spreadsheet: time.
When the build-out, the equipment, the flooring and the other suppliers each move at their own pace, any small slippage ends up affecting the next one. Every week of delay can have consequences for the budget and for the launch.
That is one of the important parts of a well-coordinated project. Rather than buying more, it is about making the decisions fit together.
Rather than buying more, it is about making the decisions fit together.
If I look at how clubs have evolved in recent years, there are two areas I find especially interesting.
One is strength.
It has gained a lot of prominence, and that changes how you size a room. It is no longer enough to place a few good machines. You have to think about how many people will be there at the same time, how many stations you need, how the member moves around, and what combination of solutions makes sense for that type of customer.
The other is everything happening around recovery, wellness and longevity.
We are still seeing how this category will evolve, but I believe it will have a bigger presence inside clubs. A new project should consider what space it wants to set aside for it and how it can integrate it into the member experience.
Not because you have to fill a club with technology from day one, but because it is easier to plan for an evolution than to try to fit it in later, when there is no space left.
This is probably the part that worries me most when I review numbers.
A project can arrive at opening day in great shape and still have consumed too much money along the way.
The club's real work begins afterwards. You have to attract members, stabilise operations, adjust opening hours, train the team, fix things that looked perfect on the plan, and start to understand how people actually use the space.
That is why I prefer a project that reaches opening with room to breathe over one that tried to have everything from day one and is left without the capacity to react.
When I review an investment, I try to look at the whole picture: premises, build-out, flooring, equipment, and the resources needed to get the club going and support the first months.
Not just how much we can buy, but how much we can invest without putting at risk what comes next.
If I were sitting in front of someone weighing up opening a club today, I would not start by showing them a catalogue.
I would start by talking about the project: who is going to train there, how much space there is, what experience they want to build, the available budget, and the money it makes sense to keep in reserve.
I would also talk about the premises, strength, what may come later, and what is worth leaving for a second phase.
From there, deciding brands, product and solutions is much easier.
This is one of the reasons we created DYNARK. We wanted to be able to work on each project with a more complete view: product, flooring, Pilates, cycling, wellness, longevity and space, coordinated under a single criterion and with a single point of contact.
For me, the value is not in having many brands. It is in knowing what makes sense to put in, where, when and for what purpose.
If you are preparing an opening, a refurbishment or a transformation of a club, tell us about your project.
Álex Ibáñez · Founding partner and CEO of DYNARK. Growth and strategic alliances.
