How Big Tex Gym Grew From a $5K Buyout to $785K and Turned Down an $80K Deal

Alright. We are here in North Austin at Big Tex Gym, and this is the story of an entrepreneur that served our country, moved to Austin, ultimately bought the bankrupt gym that he was working out at and has since grown it significantly. So you go from basically 55 kind of paying members but no cash flow to 300 in year one. Where do you guys at today? Are we talking thousands of members at this point?

We're sitting around 1,200. Last year, we finished roughly about seven eighty five.

The question now is how does it continue to grow it into 2026 and 2027?

There isn't a week that goes by that I'm not spending a couple thousand dollars on maintenance, I'll be honest. We're looking for about 80 k in ads and equipment.

If he's got ideas that I see I can put my money behind to help him grow faster, I'll offer to invest on the spot.

Hey, how are you?

Good. How's it going? Rob?

Nathan, good to meet you, man.

Yes, sir. Good to meet hop you as in. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys for coming.

Was this your idea? When did you launch the business?

So we took over here about fourteen years ago. This was Big Tex Gym, I believe it. The guy actually started the business around 2012. About the time we were coming in to sign up for a membership, he let us know he was going bankrupt and liquidating. As we were training here, we were like, you know what? I like it. Let's just do it.

So who's Let's? Who's We?

So me and my wife.

Oh, okay. You just got the money together, bought them out, you owned it since?

Correct. We were working in other gyms as personal trainers and managing them and that kind of stuff. I've always been in fitness. I've always been fitness minded. We're ex military actually. So we got out of the military, kind of didn't know what to do.

Thanks for your service. Thank you. It was amazing. Did you move here with the intent of getting into sort of the gym and weightlifting health space? We did. You did? Okay. So were you hunting for a gym to buy?

We were kind of at a point where we were tired of making money for other people and decided that let's do it for ourselves.

Everyone here feels sort of more bodybuilder ish. I mean, you're the brand, right? You're not like the guy that's going to be hanging out at Equinox all day long. No. You're not at Equinox.

No, exactly. The owners and how they act and their personality dictate atmosphere of the gym. When you're interacting with the members on a daily basis, you attract those kind of people.

Going from working out at a gym to owning a gym is a big, big, big deal. So the guy, the previous owner tells you he's going bankrupt. Did you guys, I mean, you already super wealthy? How'd you come up with the money to buy the gym?

No, actually very much so the opposite. We just moved here from, like I said, from overseas. We talked the landlord into not liquidating the equipment and we paid them off. We took out a small credit card for about 5 ks, if I'm being honest.

That's pretty small.

Yeah, was really small. And we paid them that And then we worked off the rest of the debt with the landlord.

So you paid for all the equipment in here for 5 ks?

When we started, it was just this side of the gym.

I see.

So this was actually a daycare where the wood is, and this was a hair salon. They would go out of business or move out, we would take over a spot and we kept growing and taking over. So we actually, at one point, had almost gone all the way down to the end of this building.

How many square feet total do you guys have today?

15,000 square foot. On this side over here to the right, we call it the hot side because it used to not have AC. So our leg heavy side, we have everything there that you could, you know, for the regular dumbbells, squat racks, all that kind of stuff. Then over here, on this side right here, put our stretching area, abdominal infrared saunas, posing room, that kind of stuff because we do posing classes. I kind of have an addiction for shopping for equipment.

I have no idea. I mean, does a bench press cost?

Some of them have cost us anywhere as little as $50 because I'll go to high schools that are getting rid of stuff and I'll re sandblast paint it and bring it in and fix it up. I love fixing old school stuff. And then some of our bench presses have cost $10,000

Holy mackerel. That's a huge difference. It is. You guys make money, I assume, off memberships?

Correct.

What do you guys charge?

We charge $59 then tax on top of that. That's our month to month prices. Okay. With that, we have an annual fee that comes out seventy five days after the sign up.

If I walk in today, I'm going to pay $60 a month. And then what's the annual fee on top of that?

$45

And that's just one time per year?

That's correct.

Why not just increase the monthly price by $1 for everybody? Why split it into two separate things?

We were getting people that would come in and they would stay two or three months and then leave. And it was the way to keep this business going. If you did it to where you just added a dollar to a month, you would have to have them stay for the full year. And that almost never happens because it's such a revolving city.

So when people are transitioning a ton, it's a little extra juice for you to make some extra money.

I'm trying to balance it out between what's affordable for them and what keeps us going.

So that first year you guys took over, what was your target in terms of total members at the end of the year? And did you end up hitting your target or

Started out thinking he had 75 members, but he'd actually sold the contracts up front for the year, paid in fulls. So we had zero members that were paying monthly when we actually took had no it cash flow, basically. Exactly. Within about three to six months, we had grown another 100 members. And by the end of the year, we were sitting at about 300 members.

Oh, that's amazing.

We were one of the few gyms that posted a lot on social media at the time. Okay. Ten something years ago for some

What was the platform, Brad? What are you posting on? MySpace? No, this was 2010, right? Yeah. Well, I guess Facebook was 2007, right? Yeah.

It was it was there. It was fresh, but a lot of people weren't using it for businesses for some reason. And then events. Yeah. We were doing every little event we could, like strongman competitions. We would have powerlifting competitions. Just kept thinking of anything we could do to involve the community and to get them to have a goal set.

Fast forward all the way to today. What is this? Sixteen years later?

That's correct.

Holy mackerel. That's a long time to be in business. It is. Where are you guys at today? Are we talking thousands of members at this point?

I wish. We're sitting around 1,200.

Are you only selling memberships or are there other product lines?

So we sell everything from creatine, pre workouts, protein, you name it, even like chips, candy. You know, just because sometimes when you're training, you're like, crap, I forgot. And you need to grab your protein on the way out.

So if you look at your monthly revenue today, let's call it a 100%, what percent is membership?

At least 75 to 78% is going to be membership. And the rest is this. Basically my goal at the end of the day is for every month, what I sell in products is to cover all costs for front desk fees, cleaning services, maintenance, all that kind of stuff.

I imagine a huge part of your cost structure is making sure stuff doesn't break down or break like these three machines are all out of order. Yes. I mean, is that a big pain in the butt?

On a weekly basis, I am fixing machines. Yeah. That is the downside to having old school equipment. I spend probably $10.15 ks a month repairing cardio equipment.

Holy mackerel. Is that your biggest expense outside It of

is. I started working with these guys as well. I became the Texas distributor for Panada. They cut my costs by 50% or more buying cardio equipment. I distribute all over Texas. I'm the only guy that can do so. And in exchange, I get half price of all the equipment. The wall right there with the Big Tex gym symbol on it and all the signatures on it is actually our favorite wall. That's where we have a lot of our members that were training here and turned into celebrities.

Any of

these So stand Cece Ingram was one of the strongest females in the powerlifting world. All our streamers that we partnered with at the other gym, that's all their month there. They came here and they never stepped foot in a gym before. And they went through a transformation as a gamer who streamed on YouTube, Twitch, those kind of things, and then got into the fitness world, lost 50 or more pounds and got into shape and started actually training and stuff.

That sounds like a smart marketing strategy, right? They've got distribution. You can teach them how to get in shape. Whose idea was that?

That was actually Ms. Kiff's idea. He's one of the Twitch streamers. He come here he had gone to all the gyms in the area. He basically said, Hey, nobody's letting me stream, and I want to stream these guys getting into shape. And I said, Well, come do it. That's free marketing for me. And then that's actually how we started Iron Forge.

What's Iron Forge?

Iron Forge is a gym that we started where it's basically created by streamers and gamers for fitness communities. There they can go in, they can stream their fitness journeys and stuff like that.

Does that compete with this space?

A lot of the lifters here are old school, Okay. And so it's a completely different mindset, and they didn't really like it that much.

How big is that business?

That one over there has about 800 members right now.

It's a lot.

It is. It's only been open two years. We actually had more than that when we first started. Because of the streamers, we went from zero to nine forty five members in the first year. Some of them had several million followers, and it just blew it up. And so we became very noticeable very fast. Where we're standing right now is the favorite area of the Powerlifters. This is where all of the Powerlifters every afternoon pretty much gather.

This gets used the most. The most. Because we do have more PowerLifters than anything. And then second would be, I feel like bodybuilding and general health and wellness.

You use some of these terms, but I actually don't know the difference. What's the difference between a PowerLifter versus a bodybuilder versus health and wellness person?

A power lifter is somebody who's like using calibrated plates and they're competing pound for pound. Their body weight against other people, their exact same body weight for who is the strongest and able to lift the most all the way down to the gram. Okay. And then a bodybuilder is somebody who's competing for size, you know, structure, symmetry, those kinds of things. And then general health and wellness, in my opinion, is just people who have regular jobs. They're not really considered, in my opinion, an athlete, so to speak, but they want longevity.

On YouTube right now, peptides are obviously like a big trending thing right now. What's your take on peptides?

It's kind of funny how they're all of a sudden trending right now because I've known and studied peptides since 2000s.

So you're a proponent of them. Advise your clients use peptides.

100%.

And for the non scientific viewer, what does it mean? What do peptides do to your body?

They're not gonna make you this mass monster, right? I don't think they're intended for that. I don't think they could even really accomplish that. Some can help you burn fat. Some can help you remain healthy, bring up your immunity system, hair, nails, healing, wound healing, stuff like that. I actually first started using peptides when I was in the war. I got blown up a couple of times, had a bunch of scrap metal, had them had to

dig out scrap metal in my eye and things like that. When I did that, I was using BP one hundred fifty seven, which is one of the popular ones now. And I was using that, putting in Visine Drops and using it to heal my eye.

Cool. And you said the war, which war?

The Iraq war. I was in for eight years in Iraq.

Holy mackerel. I mean, again, thank you for your service. This must have been, I mean, is extremely, I don't even know, I can't even empathize. I've never been in a situation like that.

So this is our posing room and ab room. Basically, a lot of people like to come in here and practice their posing. So we have the mirrors here you'll see, and then over here you can like kind of bend the mirror so you can see the back as you would need and kind of angle it to where, you know, you're able to see how you're holding your pose.

So is this a big reason people pay you monthly? Is this like a unique thing that allows you to command the membership price?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think people love coming in here and being able to do this. They got the lighting and everything that you can really practice on. It helps out a lot. And then of course, you know, we've got our infrared saunas if you need to drop a little bit more water before you hit the stage as well.

This is clearly targeting a very niche group of people. How do you target that group of people?

If you want bodybuilders, we're going go to bodybuilding shows and get them. We want strong men, we're going go to the strong men and get them. You know,

so hustling at events, is there a big online play here as well or no, it's all in person events?

It is. It's definitely all because we're not always able to reach everybody. A lot of times people come and go, they're so busy and caught up in their, as they should be, their competitions, they don't have time to really think about what I'm saying in person. So we try to record everything we can here and post it. And then I'll say something like, Hey, we're offering everybody who was at Phil Heath a special. Come here and train for free for the next month because you competed with him.

And then get him addicted and then it's a recurring membership.

Yes, sir.

Are you doing any paid marketing, any social media, anything like that?

We do very little paid marketing as of right now and have done very little. We invest everything mostly in the athletes themselves, as in sponsorships and things like that. We found that to be really well. We are considering in the next couple of months doing some paid marketing in the future. I do feel like that is the way we're going to have to go, 100%. We just found in the beginning it really helped us out. If

instead of paying Instagram, I went and saw an athlete competing, right? And I was like, Hey, you did really good. You competed top three. How about I give you $1,200 for your next show? And then when they announced the winning and stuff like that, I trained out of Big Tex gym.

I see. So give me a sense of how big that is. Are you spending $10 a month on influencers or $100 a month on influencers?

$10 a year.

$10 a year on influencers. Okay. Where does growth look like from here? How do you take this business and double it?

Marketing, that's one of the first things I'm going to do. I've been doing a lot of research into that. I planned on doing some Instagram ads. I planned on taking some of the leads from the influencers that I work with and some of the fitness side of the people in the industry, blend those two together and find a way to basically do some really strong ads to get us pushed out there. The next thing I wanted to do is I'm going to remodel a couple of things here. I want to update things because I feel like it needs to be done, but at the same time maintain true to what we are and how we are.

Have you experimented with ads in the past? Do you know that you could spend a dollar and get a dollar back?

I put $150 in some really good ads and I got back about 10 members.

Okay. That feels super in the money because the 10 members It all pay $50 a

was. I've done it several times and almost every time I've gotten about the same numbers for the same amount. I take several videos and I try to shoot a certain style without any paid marketing and I see how well they do. And then from there, I'm like, okay, well that's what I need to stick with. And then I start putting money on those same type of ads. That way I'm not just experimenting with the money part of it first.

So you're putting up natural organic content. You're watching what organically does well. Then you're pouring fuel on the fire and putting ads behind the organic that did well. Correct. I see. This makes sense. Interesting. Why haven't you spent more on that channel?

I'm a little overly cautious when it comes to that, if I'm being honest. I'm going to take roughly about 5 k a month, and that's what I'm going to start moving my paid ads to.

Talk to me more about the cost to run a business like this. What are you spending money on every month?

Largest expense is rent. Right now we're paying about 25,000 a month in rent.

Oh wow, that is a ton.

A lot. Is a lot.

It's 15,000 square feet.

That is correct. And it's in North Austin. Yeah. The next biggest expense is employees, obviously. We try our best to make sure that we're competitive in that. And we want our employees to always be happy showing up for work. We try to do, I know healthcare costs and things like that cost a lot, so we try to help out in that avenue, being able to provide that and cover some of those costs for them. And then next would be our electricity bill. So we're spending about 3,500 a In the summertime, it goes up to 5 to $6 K a month How

many folks are full time on the team today?

So we have about six people on shift, mostly front desk girls, and then two maintenance guys.

Okay. No personal trainers? Personal trainers are actually contractors and they actually pay to train here. Employees, electricity, landlord. What am I missing?

Maintenance. There isn't a week that goes by that I'm not spending a couple thousand dollars on maintenance, I'll be honest. And that's just every gym, I think, in the world, right? This is a different style of gym, like you said.

Yeah, people are pushing. I mean, you're talking 800 pound bench press. People are Exactly. Pushing the equipment

They're not treating it gently. You know what mean? They're coming in, they're very focused, they're not babying anything. So it does take a big beating here.

So Rob, when you add up all these costs, I mean, there anything left for you at the end or is it pretty much all getting reinvested?

In the first couple of years, it was all reinvested.

Do you remember the first year you broke $100,000 of total revenue?

Yes.

What year was that?

About two and a half years in, actually.

Okay, so 2013.

Correct. Right before COVID, actually, we were doing some of our best we'd ever done. Things were going really well. And we had come to, I think it was like 585,000. And then after COVID, we dropped. We lost 75% of our memberships.

How did you survive that?

Very difficult. I'll be honest. We're actually one of the few gyms that didn't agree to shut down at all. We locked it and told everybody that they're cleaning. The city didn't like it much. Yeah. I'll be honest. But it is what it is. We had to stay alive. Our landlord was like, you're going to pay your rent or you're out.

So you were doing $500 a year. How low did it get?

It went down to almost nothing. Yeah. Then we just skyrocketed as soon as the doors opened back up.

Yeah. Okay. So what did you skyrocket to? Like, I guess 2022 revenue. Do you remember?

Yeah. We were doing roughly about 65 ks a month.

Okay. That's zero. That's okay. So you go from basically nothing back up to that's annualizes to about $700,000 per year. Correct. Pretty cool. Yeah. Okay. And then where'd you guys finish last year? 2025?

So last year we finished roughly about seven eighty five. We reinvested in this business, but it's definitely not where I want to be. At the end of it, I'll be honest, it doesn't clear much. But, you know, never really thought of a gym business as being something where I was trying to get rich off of it. That was never the goal. It was the goal to build it as a platform. And then from that platform, I could build other businesses and that's where I would make my income.

So will you finish this year? What's a good goal? We're only halfway through the year, but what do you you'll finish with this year?

I think I'll finish hopefully around eight this year and I'm trying next year to go for 1.2.

Okay. And what kind of investments do to you make to go to 1,200,000 over the next twelve months?

I think about $43,000 is what I'm looking at to replace all the cardio equipment here with brand new equipment so I don't have to keep reinvesting in those maintenance fees and the repairs. And then I want to put about 5 ks a month in the social media ads like we had talked about.

These things you believe will help drive revenue?

I do. A 100 Has

anyone given you a loan where the collateral is, the equipment in this gym?

No. Everything I've got in this gym is paid for.

It's free and clear. Correct. Do you and your wife own everything?

We own everything.

That's pretty cool. So Rob, what are you looking for money for?

We're looking for about 80 ks in ads and equipment.

Okay, interesting. And that will help you grow the business faster, you believe? Correct. Okay, so if I made you an offer that was $80,000 and then I need to come up with a period of how long it's going take you to pay me back. I want to align that with how fast you can grow the business with my capital. So is that a quick turnaround thing? Know, can you pay that back in twelve months with interest or do you need a longer period of time you think?

As a businessman, always going ask for the longest period of time I can without it not making sense for you, right? And the reason I say that is because if I can pay it back in a faster time, then I obviously want to get rid of it as fast as I can. Because the six months of marketing is going to get me somewhere, I don't think it's going to get me there without another six month period of actually having that feed into the business and grow and cultivate into something.

That's why I asked the question. Makes complete sense to me. So if I offered you something like $80,000 and then incentivized you to pay back fast by saying if you pay back in under twelve months, pay back 1.3x the 80 ks. If it takes you longer than that, if you pay back between months twelve and twenty four, maybe it's a 1.6x multiplier. So the question to you is, if you took 80 ks today, how quick could you invest it to make sure you could make those monthly payments on time?

The twelve months would start the minute you gave me the 80 ks or would it start?

Generally, yes. But if you wanted to ask for a payment holiday, I would just increase it maybe from 1.4 to 1.5 because my money's at risk for a longer period of time.

No, that makes complete sense. Yeah. This is not something I've done in the last ten years as far as taking out a loan and then having to repay it. I've always felt very confident in moving slow. This is a big thing because my wife doesn't like to be on camera so she didn't come. I'm making a decision without her and I'm like, ugh.

Do you want to call her?

Mean if that's an option, option, then you're Yeah. Okay with

out from outside of the cameras or if

want to say it's up to If you don't mind, I'm going step out.

Give her a call. Why not?

Basically, it's

not bad and I appreciate it, but it's definitely not something that would make sense for us because it would actually be more than an actual interest rate, I feel like, on a loan if we were to just go a loan route.

What kind of interest rate do you think you could get from somewhere else?

If we were to do like SBA or something like that for, let's just say like a 100 K, I think it's like a 7% interest or something like that.

Yeah. The difference between me and a bank is I'm much faster. I'm ready to write you a check today where the SBA is going to be minimum six month process and paperwork out your ears. Yeah. But I totally understand you want to optimize the price. So it sounds like today there's not a deal to be had here because you just, you have your own money basically. There's no urgent pressing need and even if you did have a pressing need, you'd prefer to go the longer but cheaper bank route.

Correct. Yeah.

Okay. Dude, it makes good sense to me. I hope you guys crush it. I hope you grow. I hope both gyms take off. Thanks for letting us pop in today.

Thank you so much for being appreciated. Yeah. You If so

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