Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Smith.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Patrick. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Mo Davidson (my best friend and business partner) and I have been boys since middle school, and the plan was always to move to Boston with a bunch of friends post-college. Fast forward to the age of 23, we were living with 10 kids from our hometown in a 7-bedroom house in Mission Hill. Mo and I were both working as personal trainers at this point, going out a lot, and more focused on having fun than our future careers (i.e., neither of us had any idea what we wanted to do with our lives). The owner of my gym thought we had a knack for training, and he eventually suggested that we open our own studio.
Owning a business had never even crossed our minds, but the more we talked about it, and the more my boss convinced us that working for yourself was the way to go, the more the pieces slowly began to fall into place. For a while it was all talk – we bounced ideas around but never took any real steps to get the ball rolling. The turning point occurred when our buddy Tim, who was in the process of getting his MBA from BU, was assigned a project where he had to write a business plan.
Instead of using a fake business for the project like the rest of his classmates, Tim hooked it up and crafted a plan for the future training studio. He gave us homework over the course of the assignment, and by the end of the semester, we had a name for the business, logo, marketing plan, budget, and a neighborhood in mind. We sold our cars and shared a bedroom so that we could aggressively save money in preparation for the sizable chunk of change it would cost to open our own spot.
After months of searching for a large enough space where we could actually afford the rent (no easy task in Southie), we finally found the perfect building. It was an open second-floor industrial space with huge windows, tons of natural light and a high ceiling – couldn’t have drawn it up any better. Negotiations on lease terms were agreed upon after a few weeks, but long story short, the landlords backed out citing handicap accessibility concerns…. on the day we were scheduled to meet them and sign the lease. You cannot make this stuff up. It was crushing, and all of a sudden we were back to square one.
At this point, having been on the verge of working for ourselves, Mo and I had no desire to stay at our current jobs. We knew it’d be much easier to find a smaller space where we could run personal training sessions instead of group classes, so we modified our real estate search criteria. It didn’t take long to find a spot in the North End that could fit a squat rack, treadmill, and dumbbells, and Lifted Fitness was open for business within weeks. We remained in the North End for three years until we found another perfect space in Southie to accommodate the group strength and conditioning classes.
Looking back, the landlords pulling the lease on the original space was the absolute best thing that could have happened to us. No chance were we ready to run an operation of that size right off the bat. We wouldn’t have had enough money in the bank to outfit an entire gym and then swing rent, and more importantly, the three years of running a personal training studio provided us with invaluable experience. By the time Mo and I finally opened up our dream gym, we felt prepared. And we are forever grateful to the friends and family who helped us along the way.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It hasn’t been the smoothest road and sometimes it felt like we’d never make it to this point, but that’s what makes us appreciate everything so much. As previously mentioned, finding space in a good location that we could actually afford was brutal. We thought we had a few spots locked up that ended up falling through. That search definitely became frustrating at times, but at the same time, we knew we couldn’t rush into anything and settle for a less than ideal space. We knew that location and cost of rent could make or break a new business.
Another struggle was saving enough money to get the gym up and running. Between equipment, lawyer fees, build-out, etc., the cost to open shop added up quickly.
Nowadays it’s damn near impossible for a new business to get a substantial loan from the bank, and we really didn’t want to give up equity by bringing in an investor. It was such a blessing in disguise that we were forced to start with a small personal training studio – it gave us an additional three years to save for the larger, and much more expensive, strength and conditioning facility.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Lifted Fitness story. Tell us more about the business.
First and foremost, people see results when they join our gym – we know what we’re doing when it comes to designing safe and effective exercise programs. Mo and I both come from a sports performance strength and conditioning background, and we really try to take our knowledge in that field and apply it to the general population. Between all the boot camps, barre, and spin studios, there aren’t many gyms that provide true strength training in a group setting. We designed our facility like those built to train athletes.
The atmosphere is another thing that sets us apart from most gyms. It’s high-energy and welcoming. People are excited to see each other in class. The intimidation factor isn’t there because the classes include, and accommodate, individuals of all fitness levels. We’re lucky that so many wonderful people work out with us, and it gives the gym a really positive vibe.
Pricing:
- New Member Intro Offer – $89 for One Month of Unlimited Classes
- Unlimited Classes – $199/Month (No Contract)
- Drop-In Class – $25
Contact Info:
- Address: 803 Summer Street South Boston, MA
- Website: liftedboston.com
- Phone: (857) 496 1022
- Email: pat@liftedboston.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liftedfitnessboston/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lifted-fitness-south-boston-2
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
