Run a gym · System 7 of 7 · The First 90 Days
The First 90 Days
The failure mode this prevents
Opening month runs on adrenaline. Everyone you have ever met comes through the door, pre-sale members flood in at the founder rate, and it feels like the hard part is over. Then week six arrives: the opening crowd settles, nobody has been tracking anything because everyone was busy, the founder rate is still on the website because taking it down felt like killing momentum, and the first full quarter's bills land against revenue that is smaller per member than the business plan assumed. The owner starts making pricing and marketing decisions reactively, in a panic, with no data, because none was collected. The first 90 days do not need heroics; they need a measurement ritual, a focus plan, and one pricing decision made in advance.
The operating system
Parameters you set
KPI_SET and PRESALE_STOP are set in the planner below. Saved in this browser only — nothing you type here is sent anywhere.
The procedure
- Pick five KPIs from the menu, before opening. The menu: enquiries; tours booked; tours shown; joins; cancellations; total members; visits per member; total weekly visits; weekly debit revenue; arrears dollars; cash at bank; referrals; class fill rate; trial-to-member conversions. Pick the five that match your model (a coaching studio and a 24/7 gym will pick differently) and write down, for each, where the number comes from and who fetches it. A KPI without a named fetcher will not be fetched. Operator experience The menu above is drawn from what we actually track in our own gym, not from a template.
- Run the weekly ritual without exception. Same
REVIEW_SLOTall 13 weeks. Agenda: the five numbers against the targets you set yourself; one decision made; one thing shipped for next week. Twenty minutes is enough. The discipline being built is the habit of steering by numbers, which is worth more in year three than anything decided in week two. - Work the focus blocks in order. Weeks 1 and 2, operations shakedown: billing runs correctly end to end, access and induction working, equipment snag list to suppliers while warranty attention is fresh, opening/closing checklists real. Weeks 3 and 4, lead engine live: the Lead Engine built and running while opening buzz is still generating enquiries. Weeks 5 to 8, retention foundations: induction quality, early attendance habits, first contact with members whose visits stop, because the members you keep from month one are the cheapest members you will ever acquire. Weeks 9 to 13, normalisation: pre-sale sunset executed per step 4, the Cashflow Engine ladder live, staffing cadence and the first honest look at the Pricing Engine worksheet.
- Decide the end of pre-sale pricing before you open. Pre-sale rates are a launch tool that becomes a yield disease if left running. Set
PRESALE_STOPin advance as one of: a hard calendar date; a member-count cap (“first N members”); or a utilisation signal you define (for example, when peak-hour load or class fill reaches a level you nominate). Which trigger and which values are your call; the system's demand is only that the trigger is chosen before opening, printed into the pre-sale offer (“founder rate closes when X”), and honoured. Announcing the closure is itself your first scarcity campaign; extending it quietly teaches your market that your deadlines are decorative. - Watch the runway number. Cash at bank belongs in almost every
KPI_SETin the first 90 days. CrossRUNWAY_FLOORand the response is pre-agreed: discretionary spend stops and the plan gets revisited calmly, in the weekly ritual, not at midnight.
Tool: the 90-day cadence planner
Three steps: pick exactly five KPIs, lock the PRESALE_STOP as a commitment device, then fill the 13-week grid every week. Cells are your actuals against your own targets — the page suggests nothing. Saved in this browser; printable so it can live in the office.
Step one — pick exactly 5 KPIs
0 of 5 picked. Five, not fifteen; a dashboard nobody reads is a screensaver.
Step two — lock PRESALE_STOP
Step three — the 13-week grid
Rows are weeks, labelled with the focus blocks (labels are editable). Each week: your five actuals, one decision made, one thing shipped.
| Week | Focus | KPI 1 | KPI 2 | KPI 3 | KPI 4 | KPI 5 | Decision made | Shipped |
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What we could not verify, and what varies by gym
There is no honest published ramp curve for new Australian gyms: how fast memberships build varies with format, suburb, pre-sale length and marketing spend, and the pre-sale conversion figures that circulate in fitness marketing groups are unsourced, so we neither print nor imply any. That is why every target in the planner is typed in by you and judged only against you. Note also that our own operating experience is in an established gym; the 90-day structure here is a designed system informed by that operating rhythm, not a diary of our own launch.
Boundary: the professionals come before the doors open
Anything about entity structure, GST, employment contracts for opening staff, insurances and council conditions belongs to your accountant, lawyer and insurer before doors open, and the cost side of it is treated in our cost-to-open work rather than here.
Do this now
RUNWAY_FLOOR from numbers instead of hope.Email me this system
The First 90 Days as a working document, with the cadence planner and the KPI menu included, ready to fill in before opening day. So it does not die in a browser tab.