Why Memberships Don’t Tell the Whole Story
When people talk about success in the health industry, the first numbers that usually come up are membership count, revenue, square footage, and growth rate. “How many members did you sign this month? What is your monthly recurring revenue. How fast are you growing and how large is the space.”
Those metrics matter. They tell you whether the business is functioning and whether the model is financially viable but I’ve started to believe they tell you very little about whether the business is actually healthy. Because a gym can look successful on paper and still fail the people it’s supposed to serve and empty gyms… are surprisingly profitable.
The HVLP Model and the Illusion of Success
High volume low price gyms are built on a very specific assumption. Most people will sign up and most people will not show up. The economics depend on it. The model only works if utilization stays low and capacity is never actually tested. From a business perspective, it’s an elegant model. It maximizes margin through scale, keeps operating costs predictable, and creates stable recurring revenue with relatively low servicing demand. There is absolutely a market for this approach, and there are operators who execute it extremely well.
It’s also not inherently wrong.
This model is built to optimize for financial efficiency and not behavior change. If someone signs up, goes three times in January, and then disappears until their contract ends, that shows up as revenue. It does not show up as impact, a healthier customer, or a long term engagement and yet, most businesses would still call that success.
Redefining What Winning Actually Looks Like
As I’ve thought more about HUMN, I’ve started to ask a different question. What does success actually mean in a health business? Is it how many members you sign? Is it how much revenue you generate? Is it how fast you grow or is it something else entirely?
Right now, the metric I care most about is not membership count. It’s show up rate. How often people come. How consistently they train. Whether they build habits that last beyond motivation. In my mind, real success looks like someone coming three times per week, every week, for years, not just signing a contract and disappearing after the first few months. That definition changes everything.
It shifts the business from acquisition to retention. From volume to depth. From transactions to transformation. There’s one company that does this extremely well and that’s Fitness Formula Clubs (FFC) in Chicago, Illinois and it really came down to the culture which stems from their leadership. Big company that still feels like a community.
Why Behavior Change Is the Only Defensible Advantage
Think about this for a second… Equipment can be copied. Programming can be licensed. Technology can be replicated. Pricing can always be undercut. Those advantages are temporary and usually disappear faster than founders expect.
But Behavior change… now that’s different.
If HUMN becomes a place where people actually change how they live, how they train, and how they structure their time, that creates something very hard to replace. Habits create lock in. Habits create identity. Habits create lifetime value that does not show up clearly in a monthly churn report. This is also where community starts to matter economically and not just emotionally.
If people build relationships inside HUMN, they are less likely to leave. If they associate progress with the environment, they are less likely to switch. That is how retention is actually built. Not through contracts but through behavior.
Designing a Different Kind of Health Business
This is where HUMN intentionally diverges from the HVLP model. Not because that model is wrong but because it is designed to solve a different problem. HVLP is built to maximize access and efficiency. HUMN is being built to maximize engagement and outcomes. One model optimizes for scale and the other optimizes for depth. Both valid strategies but they lead to very different businesses.
A model built on low utilization can tolerate churn. A model built on high engagement cannot. A model built on contracts can survive indifference. A model built on behavior has to earn loyalty every week. That forces different decisions:
Different staffing models
Different programming philosophy
Different space design
Different community strategy
Different success metrics.
…and ultimately, a very different kind of company.
What This Changes About How I’m Building HUMN
Before HUMN ever opens, I’m already thinking about how we define internal success. What we celebrate, what we track, what we correct and what we design systems around.
More importantly, the business will be aligned with its purpose. There will always be a market for high volume low price gyms. They solve an important access problem and serve a large population well. HUMN is simply trying to solve a different problem for a different kind of customer.
One who is not looking for the cheapest option. One who is looking for a place that helps them become someone different over time. That’s the definition of success I’m building toward.
