The business is not in training. The business is in adherence.
Successful fitness startups prioritize community and personalized experience over equipment, with founders highlighting that client retention through emotional connection matters more than initial acquisition. Market opportunity exists targeting 35+ demographic underserved by traditional gyms, with integrated wellness models combining training, recovery, nutrition, and mental health gaining traction.
- NonStop Gym 24h operates three Barcelona locations with 3,300+ members, planning expansion to five gyms by end of 2026
- Traditional fitness market focuses on 18-30 age group; 35+ demographic remains underserved and represents major growth opportunity
- Panda Training Club achieved profitability in its first year and was selected by Lanzadera to develop a scalable model
Six Spanish fitness entrepreneurs share strategies for launching boutique training centers, emphasizing community building, personalized experience, and health-focused positioning over traditional gym models.
Six entrepreneurs who have built thriving fitness centers across Spain offer a collective lesson that runs counter to what many assume about the business: the gym itself is almost beside the point. What matters is what happens inside it, and more precisely, who you become to the people who walk through the door.
George Houtenbos and Rod Hill, who founded Zenergie Body & Soul, saw an opening that most of the industry had overlooked. The fitness market, they observed, has spent decades chasing the same demographic—people aged 18 to 30 concerned primarily with how they look. Meanwhile, adults over 35, a growing and increasingly affluent segment, were being ignored. This group doesn't want to be intimidated by a room full of twenty-somethings. They want solutions for their health, their longevity, their ability to move through the world without pain. Houtenbos and Hill built their model around this insight, layering in artificial intelligence, community, and a genuine commitment to wellbeing rather than aesthetics. As Spain's population ages and life expectancy climbs, they argue, the gyms that will thrive are those that position exercise not as vanity work but as preventive medicine and a foundation for living longer, healthier lives.
Abada Club, founded by Jaime Gross, Pedro Olabarría, and María Luz Campo, takes a different architectural approach but arrives at the same core principle. Their space combines a large fitness floor with boutique studios, recovery zones, and even coworking areas—a deliberate mixing of services under one roof. But the founders are clear about what actually drives success: a sharp, differentiated concept that speaks to a specific audience; a team of trainers and staff who don't just know their craft but genuinely care; and an obsessive focus on how clients feel at every moment. The receptionist matters. The cleanliness matters. The technology matters. But what converts a customer into someone who tells their friends is that sense of belonging. Gross, Olabarría, and Campo also stress the unglamorous work: controlling costs ruthlessly, optimizing square footage, diversifying revenue streams beyond memberships, and building a digital infrastructure so seamless that people can book a class on their phone at midnight.
Elodie Doral, who created Six Harmonies in Madrid as an integrated wellness ecosystem combining training, therapy, recovery, and nutrition, frames the central challenge differently but reaches the same destination. In a market where novelty is constant and people are always tempted to try the next thing, retention is the real battle. She wins it by designing an experience so thoughtful that every interaction—from the moment someone walks in to the moment they leave—signals that they are being cared for. Technology helps, she says, but it is the people, the emotional connection, that transforms customers into community.
NonStop Gym 24h, operated by Carles Blanco Villar and Jose Sesé Valverde, operates three locations in Barcelona with over 3,300 members and plans to expand to five gyms by the end of 2026. Their model is deliberately lean: 24-hour access, group classes, Hyrox training, and automated management systems that keep overhead down. But Blanco Villar's advice cuts through the noise: do not build the gym you want to own. Build the one your market actually needs. Study what works in the United States. Know your competition, your location, your audience. Many gyms fail because they chase too narrow a niche. The business requires flexibility, the willingness to adapt to what clients demand rather than insisting they adapt to you.
Victoria Soler Pérez, founder of SOLO CYCLO, a premium boutique studio for cycling and barre, distills her approach into five rules: specialize ruthlessly; compete on quality, not price; understand that retention, not acquisition, is the real problem; maintain service standards as you grow; and remember that you are selling consistency and habit, not individual workouts. Carlos Cerdá Giménez and José Martínez González, who run Panda Training Club, a CrossFit space in Ontinyent that achieved profitability in its first year, put it most starkly: the business is not in training. The business is in adherence. In a crowded market, the difference between success and failure is whether people feel they belong. Without that sense of community, without the follow-up and the experience that says you matter here, clients leave in the first few months. And without recurring revenue, there is no business at all.
Notable Quotes
The opportunity for future investors in fitness is to invest in health and longevity, targeting the 35+ demographic that is underserved and seeking exercise solutions for wellness rather than appearance.— George Houtenbos and Rod Hill, Zenergie Body & Soul
The greatest mistake in fitness entrepreneurship is thinking the business is in training, when it is actually in adherence. The challenge is not acquiring clients but preventing them from leaving in the first months.— Carlos Cerdá Giménez, Panda Training Club
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why do you think community has become the actual product, rather than the equipment or the classes?
Because equipment is commoditized. Anyone can buy a rowing machine. But the feeling of being part of something, of being known and expected—that cannot be replicated. When someone walks in and the trainer remembers their name and asks about their knee, that is the moment they decide to stay.
But doesn't that require a lot of staff? Doesn't that kill margins?
It does require investment in people. But the alternative is constant churn. You spend money acquiring new members to replace the ones who leave. The math of retention is better than the math of replacement.
What about the 35-plus market that Zenergie identified? Why was that overlooked for so long?
Because the fitness industry was built on a certain image—young, aesthetic, aspirational. But that market is saturated and fickle. The older demographic is less interested in looking a certain way and more interested in feeling capable. They have money. They are loyal. And they have been invisible.
Is there a risk that boutique fitness becomes too niche, too expensive, and excludes people?
Yes, and that is why some of these founders are explicit about not chasing everyone. They choose their audience and serve them deeply. The 24-hour gym model, for instance, serves a different person—someone who wants access and simplicity, not community theater.
What happens when a boutique gym tries to scale without losing what made it special?
That is the hardest part. You have to hire and train people who embody the culture. You cannot automate the feeling. Some of these founders are still small because they refuse to compromise. Others are learning to scale by being very intentional about who they hire and how they onboard them.