Inside the Athletech Summit: What Boutique Studios Need to Know

After recharging from a whirlwind week in New York and Boston—and the The ATN Innovation Summit—I wanted to share what was discussed and what’s happening in our industry. Here’s the quick(ish) download on the event.

To start, it wasn’t exactly a room full of people who run studios. It was suits, investors, franchise owners, and recovery technology galore. Some of it was wild. Dry ice plunge chairs. red light Ammortal Chambers. Robots folding towels. It’s kind of like stepping into the future … some of which made me cringe and made me wonder who exactly is buying all of this and whether they've ever actually taught a 6 am class. 

But the highlight was the content. I rarely say that after conferences, since so many are pay-to-play for speaking slots, and it’s often the same voices. ATN was different this year. Speakers ranged from Industry managers at Meta to ex-pro athletes and franchise owners. They had some compelling and different insights from years past. Check out some of the most interesting below.

Your moat might be smaller than you think.

After the Zumba dancers kicked us off (I even saw some of the execs nodding to the beat), Eddy, the CEO of ATN, stepped on stage—and the energy was clear. Wellness is having a moment. Wellness is the new black. The uncomfortable part? Competition is everywhere, and it’s harder than ever to stand out and keep your current clients. Access alone isn't the edge it used to be. If the thing that makes your studio special is a popular format or one teacher your members are obsessed with, you're more exposed than you realize. Both of those things are easy to copy. The studios building something durable are the ones leading with culture, a commitment to excellence, and a hard work ethic to earn trust. He talked about how our industry needs a lesson in hospitality, and although many claim to do it, he still sees most fitness businesses fall way short. The opportunity is there for us, and those who focus on exceptional service paired with effective transformational experiences will win. 

America's fitness goals just changed.

This one had me smiling from ear to ear! For the first time ever, America's number one fitness priority is getting stronger rather than losing weight. If you're still building your marketing around weight loss, summer bodies, or fitting into your old clothes, you are talking to a shrinking audience. This shift should touch everything from how you name your classes to what you say in your emails. We have the data, and the science is clear. Our consumers are finally embracing it! 

The Hyrox effect.

People are hungry for togetherness. Hyrox stepped in to fill the gaping void CrossFit left behind and figured this out. They built an entire movement around one simple idea: everyone's in it together, no matter what level you're at. You can compete if you plan to walk, toss a 10lb medicine ball, or are in it to win the whole darn thing. No intimidation. Just hard work and people cheering each other on.

That's not easy to accomplish, but they’ve done it by partnering with your local gyms and studios. They embedded themselves in existing communities and strengthened them. In a fitness landscape that's drifted pretty far toward perfection and performance, the places people choose are the ones where they actually feel they belong. Worth asking yourself (honestly) whether your studio is that place. I would argue most still get it wrong, especially in the Pilates world. More to come on that later.

Life stage beats age every time.

Kevin Tadmori from Meta actually blew me away. He left me with one of the sharpest insights of the day. He made the case that life stage is a far more powerful buying signal than age or generation. He implored the crowd to stop building your ads for “25-35 females” or "40-60 men.” People don't decide to join a studio because you spoke millennial to a 40-year-old the right way. They decide because they just moved, had a baby, got a new job, or hit a health scare that finally made them take things seriously. The purchase trigger is a life event that made them feel like they needed something new. I guess it sounds obvious when I read it back to myself, but I know for a fact, this isn't how most people are marketing today.

So what does that mean for you? Your brand has a core truth. Figure out what that truth sounds like to someone in five different chapters of life and build content that speaks to all of them. Find your creators and client community. Give them creative freedom to represent your brand in a way that feels natural to them. Kevin reminded us that marketing is no longer a funnel. It's a web. AI can help you personalize at scale once you've built the system. But you have to build the system first.

The Pilates panel got a little spicy.

The corporate vs. franchise conversation heated up fast, and nobody wanted to admit they had any real problems. [solidcore] vs. Jetset got heated. Everyone claimed that quality is great! Standards are high! Everything is fine! I call BS. There is no way every franchised Pilates studio is profitable. 

I have been to 18 different Pilates studios in the past year. I can count three where I actually felt warmth, culture, and welcome. The rest? Get in, get out, no conversation, no instructor care, just choreography, clients with their phones so they can snag a selfie, and ultimately a good workout with no soul. Pilates still needs a lot of work. 

Back to the panel…[solidcore], Jetset, and Club Pilates all said their biggest operational headache is waitlist management. Not acquisition. Not churn. They still claim to have more people who want in than they can serve. For any of you out there saying it’s too competitive, there is still more demand than reformers available. But you must have the irresistible brand to grab market share. 

What investors are actually thinking right now

The investor panel was refreshingly candid. Everyone knows wellness is hot, which means people want to invest in our industry. The problem is that very few businesses actually have the unit economics to back it up. There is currently more demand from investors than supply of investable businesses. Want to read that again? People want to give you money, but your model has to make enough sense for them to make a big return. 

Investors are doing more digging than they used to, and the question they keep asking is: who's the buyer after the next buyer? Is there enough left in the business to make a second round acquisition make sense?

A couple of things that stuck with me:
1. You must be able to grow profitable locations by a minimum of 10% per year to be attractive. If you have 50 locations, you need to be opening at least 5 a year just to stay in the conversation. The “A” companies have 20% growth on current install base.

2. They love the mature consumer. The over 45 crowd is becoming the most valuable demographic. They are the most loyal, financially stable, and actually have time to show up. They are the most undermarketed to, and arguably provide the highest return.

The moment that had me in tears

I walked into the Longevity panel (with the CEO of Ammortal, a former astronaut, a military trainer, and Ray Lewis) expecting to talk about wearables, ice baths, and sleep protocols. I wasn't looking forward to it; it felt overdone, and I’m not a big fan of wearable tech and tracking everything. It was actually one of the most unexpectedly moving conversations I've heard in a long time. Ray had all of us locked in. He shared vulnerable and honest stories about his family in a way you rarely see on a conference stage. The room went quiet, and I know I wasn't the only one tearing up.

The through line: you can have every recovery device on the market and still be completely broken if you haven't done the mental and emotional work. A cryo chamber won't save you. Neither will your Whoop, your red light panel, or your cold plunge with the app. None of it matters if you can't find purpose, if you don't believe in something bigger than yourself, and if you haven't figured out how to actually disconnect from the noise.

The whole panel kept coming back to the same thing: meditation and mindfulness as the foundation on which everything else rests. Hey yogis… we were right! They encouraged us to remember that the people walking through your doors are carrying a lot. Studios that view recovery as more than physical will build the biggest following and have the most impact.

TLDR. 

Wellness has center stage. Pilates claims to see insane continued growth. Fitness competitions are great for small studios. And we can all circle back to what yoga said all along. Mindfulness is the key to a healthy, long life. 

For all the impressive technology, data shared, and big money flaunted, the content that stayed with me was about humanity. About belonging. About purpose. About what it actually means to help someone feel better in their body and their life. So much of this conference is flashy, and really doesn't feel like a room for operators, but everyone comes back to our consumer. The challenges they face, and the identity they strive for. We get to play a part in helping them every day. 

The best studios have always known this. The rest of the industry is starting to catch up.