I was building this studio to sell

Here's what happened instead

The prevailing advice for an entrepreneur is to “open with the end in mind.”

As a business owner, this means eventually removing yourself from the day-to-day as much as possible. Documenting everything and hiring adequate support so the business can run without you.

In a studio environment, this also means reducing teaching hours significantly. Like nil to none.

The litmus being: if you took a month off and were unreachable, would your studio sink? If a buyer inquires, can you prove that your studio will run smoothly with detailed documentation and long-tenured employees, therefore justifying its sales price?

I’ve witnessed as colleagues and friends sell or buy other studios, and those steps are real indicators of a business’s value. So the advice shakes out. And besides, a business that doesn’t own you is a better business, right? Whether or not you’re planning to sell.

So I did my version of all that. Minus the client instruction piece. I just couldn’t step away from that.

Faced with a new lease decision in late 2021, I opted for the bigger, more sellable space. I then set to work, documenting every process in the studio down to the last detail, even hiring the holy grail of owner-support roles: a salaried front desk that professionalized client-facing operations.

Over a period of two years, I removed myself from most elements of the business because I was told this would “maximize my multiple,” broker-speak for garnering the highest possible price for your business.

But I never had both feet in the deal. I complicated it at every turn by continuing to teach and angling to sell only the Pilates portion of the studio. My frustrated brokers supported me as I went through the lengthy process of pulling my business apart on a spreadsheet, recasting my P&Ls to exclude clients I planned to “keep,” along with all of the Gyrotonic equipment and revenue. I ended up whittling the business down by half. It looked okay to me, but it would take a rare buyer and an even rarer bank to fund the deal.

It eventually became clear I wasn’t ready to sell. Still, we forged on fielding prospects who were looking for a business, any business, to buy. One was looking to acquire a business for his daughter who was still finishing her undergrad in marketing. She had recently “found” hot Pilates and loved it!

But, yeah, no.

Fact is, being half-in on selling a studio is not a recipe for success. Despite my disillusionment with the Pilates world, I was also protective of the integrity I had built around being a Classical studio, a niche I nurtured and protected to near exhaustion as the hot-Pilates-barre-boxing concepts popped up all over Austin.

Because behind the prospect interviews and phone calls were buyers with no local ties and not the slightest grasp of what my studio stood for. They just had money and the urge to buy something.

I was woefully underprepared for the emotional bond I had for a business grown out of a $5,000 investment. Did I really want to let it go, or was I just disenchanted with a fickle industry?

In my heart, the soul of the studio was alive and well. All the parts were thriving. But seeing it on paper, pared down to EBITDA and SDE, it was lifeless. A commodity made up of numbers I had to justify and defend. That part gave me the ick.

Getting to the truth behind wanting to sell was the real matter at hand. And through some soul searching I realized, I was just tired. Tired of hustling, always being “on,” managing people who care until they don’t, team and clients included. Having always worked two or three jobs at a time, I was too proud to call it burnout (textbook Type-A Gen-X here), but that’s what it was.

That, and perimenopause was kicking my ass.

In any case, it brought up real questions about our next chapter as a studio. So I’ve been sitting with them. And in the 18 months since I pulled the listing, I’ve figured a few things out.

Where I’ve landed today is this: the business I built to sell is not the business I actually want to run.

Yup. It was that simple.

I want it to run efficiently, yes. And of course I’m always looking at numbers because I want to pay my bills and provide jobs for others. But I also want to teach a full day and handle client accounts. I want to open the studio, organize the props and keep the toilet paper stocked.

But none of that requires a storefront studio, a salaried manager or an org chart designed to be handed off. It requires something that is infinitely harder to build and harder still to value on a spreadsheet: an environment where the work stays serious and the people doing it are cared for.

It also requires a bit more estrogen, it turns out.

So after a building in the other direction, then sitting in limbo for nearly two years, I’m trying to understand:

• How do you walk back scale without it looking like failure?

• How do you pivot a business without giving up your credibility?

• How do you make peace with letting enough be enough, when entrepreneurial culture insists that enough is a low-end goal?

It’s all a work in progress for me, and I don’t have answers yet. But the direction is clear. And for the first time in a while, it feels like mine.

-Amanda