Hilary Rowland is co-founder of United Fitness brands, a new “supergroup” of boutique fitness brands including Boom Cycle, KOBOX and Barrecore, which looks to help brands to pool resources and use their collective strength to grow their individual businesses and operate in a more efficient way.
What’s keeping you busy?
In the last few months, my partner (in life and in business) Robert and I started United Fitness Brands with the Founder of KOBOX, Joe Cohen. We rolled the equity of our businesses (Boom Cycle and KOBOX) into UFB and then, with the help of our investors, acquired Barrecore. Therefore, expanding our separate 5- location business (Boom Cycle) and 3- location business (KOBOX) to a 20-location, national business. There has been and is a lot to learn and a lot to do to streamline systems across the brands as well as running the businesses as we’ve re-opened and restrictions have ended.
In the past two months, we’ve moved and re-launched Barrecore Chelsea and opened a brand new 4th KOBOX location in Waterloo.
What new ideas or opportunities are set to become part of your future business fabric?
We are growing the reach of our present offerings through expansion and looking for new, complimentary verticals to complete the UFB package.
What are the biggest challenges you are facing right now?
The biggest challenges we are facing right now is generally public isolating before travel and offices not being full around the more office-based locations.
Is there anything you know now that you’d wish you’d known at the start of your career?
I guess one thing I know now is that all the big milestones take so long to accomplish that by the time the deal is done you’re already on to the next part of it and you’re so over-exposed to the thing you’ve been working on, there is no great big “We did it!” moment. Usually, when you get a big deal closed, that’s when the real work starts.
What keeps you motivated?
I have never been able to sit still and like most people in business, I imagine, I need challenges or I get bored. We’ve been running this business for ten years now and it’s an incredibly exciting time! There are countless reasons to get up and push hard every day.
What inspires you?
One thing that truly inspires me is seeing change in people. I love watching individuals in the team grow and come into their own. There are quite a few people who started as Front of house and then grew into instructors, management and other positions in our HQ. Also, watching clients change their confidence and state of wellness is particularly rewarding.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
I don’t feel guilty about pleasures. I work hard and I like what I like. Anyone who can’t get down with that should not hang around me.
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