October’s Biggest Fitness Industry Stories — The Five-Star News Roundup

First up, we have the next stage of the FitLab saga.

Now, of course, in our last episode, we went deep into what happened at FitLab, how it failed, how that's had a big negative impact on the boutique fitness industry and the brands associated with FitLab such as Y7 Studios and Mile High Run Club that we've visited through the FitGuide.

Those brands have now closed down and there's really been ripples felt throughout the fitness industry and a lot of discussion on what it means to take in investors and PE, private equity investment as well.

well.

So finally, out of this saga, we have some good news.

So Y7 Studios closed down as part of the wider FitLab collapse.

And unfortunately, there were some instructors that were unpaid for work that they'd done.

They had delivered yoga classes, but they weren't paid for them.

It was around $123,000.

Now, Anne Malum, who founded Solidcore, who've always scored incredibly well through our process at The Fit Guide, undoubtedly the leading brand in boutique Pilates reached out to the founder of Y7 studios.

That's Sarah Larson Levy, who we featured in the last episode.

And she offered to pay those back wages, even though she had nothing to do with the brand Y7.

So she had all the instructors set up a GoFundMe page and she went in and personally paid the wages.

Now she's spoken on this publicly.

She's such a big believer in the fitness industry.

She thinks that instructors often get a raw deal.

Does a step in and put in her own money really is incredible.

Now at Solidcore, when she sold that brand, she personally gained over $100 million.

She's quite public about that and about her journey.

I do really recommend following her.

She gives great business tips and advice, especially for anyone looking to succeed in the fitness industry or looking to get an exit.

She paid $5 million reportedly back to her Solidcore team, her staff, who of course had helped her get that exit so by treating your team well they will also put a lot into the brand they really buy into solid core you can really see that and feel that and even though ann has left for a few years that love for the brand amongst the team is still there and it's still strong so fit lap has been a little bit of a stain on the boutique fitness industry so to have something like this come out of it and to have someone step up and kind of rescue those y7 workers is a real good news story well done to ann and just great to see things like this happening good to see that we've got each other's back when we really, really need it.