The bits nobody tells you about starting a small fitness business
Starting a dance fitness business sounds like living the dream. Mostly it is. But nobody warns you about the people who love your class and then quietly disappear.
STARTING A SMALL FITNESS BUSINESS
Richard Ventham
5/27/20264 min read
I closed my Wednesday afternoon class earlier this year. It had been running for a few months, a small group of regulars kept turning up, and on paper it was still alive. But I knew. The numbers weren't growing, nobody new was walking through the door, and the people who came were keeping it on life support rather than making it thrive.
Pulling the plug was the right call. I still didn't enjoy doing it.
That's the thing about running a small business you actually care about: the difficult bits aren't the ones you'd expect. It's not the paperwork or the venue bookings or the insurance admin. Those are just tasks. The difficult bits are the human ones, and nobody really warns you about those in advance.
The proefles ghost
Here's one. Someone comes for a trial class. They have a brilliant time. You can see it on their face. They're laughing, they're moving, they're chatting to the person next to them. Afterwards they come up and say something like, "That was so much fun, I'll definitely be back."
And then… nothing. No booking, no message, no follow-up. They just vanish.
The first time it happened I assumed I'd misread the situation. Maybe they were just being polite? But then it happened again. And again. People who genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves, who said all the right things, and then simply never returned.
Was it the music? Was it me? Was it the venue? Did I say something weird?
I'll never know. That's the part that gets you. There's no feedback, no exit survey, no awkward "it's not you, it's me" conversation. Just a gap where a person used to be, and your brain trying to fill it with reasons.
Most of the time there's probably a perfectly boring explanation. Their schedule changed, they forgot, they found something closer to home. But the not-knowing is surprisingly hard to sit with.
The slow fade
Then there's the other kind, and I find this one harder.
Someone signs up, buys a beurtenkaart, comes regularly for weeks. They laugh in the right places. They chat after class. They seem genuinely happy to be there. You start to think of them as a regular, part of the furniture in the best possible way.
Then the credits run out, and they just don't renew. No goodbye, no "thanks but I'm moving on." They simply stop coming. The credit system tells you their last visit was three weeks ago, and you realise you've been half-expecting them to walk in every week since.
I sometimes send a gentle message, a quick "just checking in, no pressure," because I'd genuinely rather hear "it wasn't for me" than spend another fortnight guessing. Occasionally I get a reply. Usually it's "life got busy" or "I keep meaning to come back." Sometimes it's silence.
And I'm left wondering: did they enjoy it less than I thought? Was coming every week more of a "well, I've paid for it" thing than a "can't wait for next week" thing? I'll probably never know that either.
The bit about my brain
I have ADHD, and one of its less charming features is something called rejection sensitivity. In practical terms it means that when someone stops coming to my class, the rational part of my brain says "people move on, it happens, it's not about you" while the ADHD part says "they hated it and you should probably give up."
I know that second voice is wrong. I know people have complicated lives and a dance fitness class is not the centre of anyone's universe except mine. But knowing something and feeling something are different skills, and some days the feeling wins.
The Wednesday closure was a masterclass in this. Every week I'd walk into that room not knowing whether I'd have eight people or one, and the uncertainty was worse than any outcome. With ADHD, that sort of anticipation doesn't just sting in the moment. It eats into the rest of the week. And I need spare energy for the classes that are growing, where people do keep coming back.
Why I'm telling you all of this
Not for sympathy. Groove Fitness is doing well. Sunday is strong and still growing. Monday has its own quieter momentum. I teach three classes a week in Leuven, I get to dance to some of the best disco and soul music ever written, and people leave my classes looking slightly pink and a lot more relaxed. That is genuinely the best job I've ever had, and I spent 28 years in pharmaceuticals, so I've got some basis for comparison.
But the shiny version of "I quit my corporate job to follow my passion" (the one you see on LinkedIn and Instagram) leaves out the Wednesday afternoons. It leaves out the Thursday evening spent wondering whether anyone will actually show up tomorrow. It leaves out the small, private sting when someone decides that your thing isn't their thing anymore.
Starting a small fitness business, or any business you genuinely care about, means putting a piece of yourself out there and accepting that not everyone will stay. Nobody tells you about that bit in advance, so I'm telling you now.
But here's the thing. None of that changes the moment when I look up mid-routine and see a room full of people smiling, slightly out of breath, moving to a song that's been making people happy since the 70s and still hasn't lost it. That feeling is worth every empty Wednesday, every unanswered message, every person who loved it and vanished. I'd take this over another decade of pharma spreadsheets without hesitating, and it's not even close.
If you've been thinking about trying Groove Fitness, come along. First class is free, the routines are forgiving, and the bar for entry is very low: if you can sway roughly in time to music, you'll be fine. And if you come once and decide it's not for you, that's OK too. I'll only spiral about it for a day or two. Three, tops. 😄
Richard
Chief Groove Officer 🪩