The Solidcore Story: How She Started A $88M Pilates Business

Have you heard of this company called Solidcore?

No, I've been described as that person, but never at a company level, because this was like mind-boggling to me.

So Anne started her career at the age of 25. She started a nonprofit because she was out on a run and she ran by a homeless shelter, and she was like, you know, I would love to figure out a way to help these people. Running has helped me get over a lot of issues in my life. I should start a running club for these guys, and if I make them get up, or if I encourage them to get up early at 7:00 AM to come to this run, maybe that's gonna encourage them to make the rest of their day better and hopefully they'll get jobs, whatever. So she starts this thing called Back to My Feet and it's a nonprofit that does something like $6 million a year in revenue. So, which is like, uh, in like corporate sponsors, she does that over the course of 5 years. So at the age of 31, she goes to LA and she takes a Pilates class. So have you ever seen like a reformer Pilates? It's like this weird like machine where it's kind of like yoga on a machine, sort of.

It's kind of, I've never done one, but I've heard it's like incredibly challenging.

It's awesome. They're, they're, they're really awesome. It's mostly what women do. And, but after talking to Anne, I'm actually gonna start doing it because it sounds pretty great. And she goes to this class and she was like a pretty intense runner. And I think she did weightlifting and she kind of got, was like, I get hurt every 6 months. I just, I just expect that that's part of the process of being an athlete. She starts doing these classes and she's like, this is awesome. And the class was really cute and darling, whatever. And she was like, I wanna do this. And so up until that point, she had saved $175,000. And so she moves back, goes back to her hometown of Washington, DC. And she goes, I want to start a studio and I'm going to retire from my nonprofit, which a lot of people called her crazy because they're like, why do you want to start like a gym? Like gyms suck. They're horrible businesses. She's like, no, no, no, we're going to do a studio business. So she quits her job, I believe in August. And by November, she started her studio. She started with $175,000. She said she transferred her $175,000 in savings. Put all of it into the business account and spent basically all of it except for $10 grand over 2 months building out the studio. And so she launches it and Solid Core, that's the name of the business. It's like that Pilates thing, but it's kind of has like a Barry's kind of edge to it, you know, like Barry's Bootcamp where it's kind of like cool, like all black letters.

The music is just like 40% too loud.

Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like, it's like intense. It looks like a nightclub.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like cool. And she starts this thing. And in month 1 does $90,000 in revenue. And the reason she started it was she was just doing the math. She's like, look, like the way that this business can work is I have my Pilates instructor. I don't even need like a front desk person. The front desk person doesn't need to be there because we have classes going throughout the day. And if I have like 15 of these reformers and I do 8 classes a day, that adds up to $3,000 a day. I think I could fill this up 7 days a week and get to $90 grand. And she does that in year 1.

Did she tell you how she did that kind of $90 grand month 1? Was there like, how did she get the customers to come to this new, new place?

Yeah, just like flyers and stuff. Just like telling all of her friends, like it was like super grassroots. And if you do the math, it, it's, it wasn't that crazy. I think her math was something like, I need 15 people in every class or something like that. And it wasn't that crazy. And she also was really good at branding. So these women would go to these classes and they're like, this is awesome. I'll see you guys next Tuesday. You know what I mean? Like they wanted to do it over and over and over again. So in month 1, it does $90,000 in revenue. She says that she kept growing it and by year 2, she goes, I was able to pay myself $1 million in salary. She goes, this thing took off because my costs were so low. I basically just had to build out the studio, which wasn't terribly expensive, expensive. And I had to build, buy these reformers, which are like the machines. And she's like, our cost basis was awesome. We, we had a very efficient operation. And so by year— so we're in 2013, she launches— launched it. By year 2016, she has 11 studios. Still to this point has not taken any outside funding, keeps growing it. By in 2020, shit happens where like everything hits the fan. COVID happens. They have to pause the whole business for a couple of years. However, leading up to that, she had taken a little bit of funding and along the way she had taken PE where she took a little bit of money off the table. So I think it was something like She was paying herself like $2 million a year, but then took off. I think she raised $18 million, of which $6 went to her, and then she raised another like $20 million, and then another $10 went to her. And then finally, after 10 years, she eventually has sold the whole business for something like $250 million. And across all of the rounds, she had taken off the table something like $90 million. And so this woman's like crazy successful. However, The big takeaway that I had from this lady, and I have never met someone with such a great growth mindset. And let me give you an example. After I sold my business, I was interested in real estate. I learned everything about real estate, or at least enough to kind of feel confident investing in it. I start investing into it and I get scared. I get real nervous. I'm like, man, I just put down a lot of capital. Like this isn't exactly working. Like I thought it would be working. Like it's not always up to the right. And I got bail and I got afraid and I bailed. And I've done this many times. Have you ever done this where like you learn about something, like you'll learn about like, let's say fitness and you're like, well, if I do this for 6 months, but then you're like in month 1 and you're like, this is never going to work. She did not have that. I've never met someone like her that trusted the process so much. And she would tell people like in year 2 or 3, she was like, I'm building this business to sell. And so we're going to do this. And then by year 5, we're going to be here. Year 8, we're going to be here. Year 10, I think we're going to get like $200 million. And here's an example of what she said. When she originally took out, she had saved $10 million. She bought a piece of land and developed a home in the Dominican Republic for like $4 million in total. Sold that property after like 2 years to Albert Pujols for like $9 million. And I was like, that's crazy. You did half your net worth on this. She's like, yeah, well I just like studied a bunch of experts. I read a ton of books. And I just like felt like I knew how to do it. And I've never met someone who has such faith in the process. And I was so inspired by that. And now she's got over $100 million or around $100 million and she's investing in all these interesting deals. And she's like, yeah, well, you want to allocate 10% of your portfolio to this, this, and this, because I need a little bit of a high-risk stuff in order to off-balance my conservative stuff. And that sounds very logical. Academically, that makes a ton of sense. But when 10% is $10 million and you're doing $2 million bets or whatever, that's a very nerve-wracking thing. But she was so good at dividing her emotion from like her logic side of her brain and trusting the process. I was incredibly inspired by this woman. You have to follow some of the stuff that this lady has to say. She's so interesting.

Also, she looks very cool. Got a cool haircut. She's like a walking brand.

She will kick your ass is the vibe that I get from her. She's a very strong looking woman.

Yeah, very cool. So crazy story. I didn't realize how big this was. I mean, it's crazy that there's a fitness chain this big, this successful that I just never heard of.

Dude, it's even bigger now, by the way. I believe, was it KKR? I think KKR bought it. And now there's rumors that they're going to try to sell it now for $800 million. So her business, I guess it's not hers anymore. She sold it. In 2024, they're projected to do $150 million in revenue and $50 million in profit. And Anne on the pod, she was like, I have the most profitable fitness studio because we do, uh, we just kept it lean. Like we just don't have too much excess stuff.

Well, it just seems like they must have figured something out on the marketing side. That's, uh, they're just not spending a lot on marketing, right? We should, we should be like, and of course the annoying answer everyone, oh yeah, it's just got a lot of word of mouth.

And it's like.

God damn it. Word of mouth is like the worst answer to hear because you're like, great. Nothing I could do about that. All right. Like I have to go back to the drawing board and create a more viral concept. I have to create a more remarkable concept. I have to make my product so much better. It's like the last thing you want to hear as a marketer is, yeah, it's just really organic. It's like saying I was genetically blessed. Unfortunately, that's how it feels. To me at least on the other side whenever I hear that.

Well, we don't— on with the MoneyWise podcast, we don't talk too much about like getting customers, all that stuff, but we should have her on here because I would— I did like off air, I was like, how did you do that? And she goes, I am world-class at branding and community. That's what I do. I know how to do that. I was built to do that. And so she didn't tell me all the tactics, but I believe that's how it grew. That stupid answer of word of mouth. But we should actually have her on and ask her all about this. She's super fascinating. And if you Google her name, she, um, she's very transparent about finances because she's like, young women aren't taught this. And so I'm just going to like be transparent about this. So like she's under talked about, she's not talked about a lot.

I never heard, I never heard of her. Never heard of Solidcore. So super good. I'm glad you put her on my radar. This is really cool.

All right.

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