Opening a $100K Fitness Studio in 6 Months - The Forte Vita Story with Marcella Giuffrida

Alan Li (00:01)
Hey Marcella, thanks so much for joining the Opening Soon podcast.

Marcella Giuffrida (00:04)
Hi Alan, thank you for having me.

Alan Li (00:07)
Awesome, well, I'm really excited to dive into ⁓ Forte Vita. But before we do, I know that you have a really interesting background in PR. So we'd love to hear a little bit more about that before we do.

Marcella Giuffrida (00:20)
Yeah, definitely. So ⁓ I do have a background in PR. I started my career in New York working in luxury fashion PR. That was kind of always a goal of mine. ⁓ And I did that for a few years before moving back to LA, which is where I'm originally from. ⁓ And there is not a huge luxury fashion market out here in terms of like the corporate world.

⁓ So I pivoted and started working with a lot of lifestyle and wellness brands Be that like e-commerce brands brick and mortar ⁓ Kind of anything that fell under remotely under the like lifestyle and wellness category ⁓ from doing that freelance I am

built out an agency. So now I have MGPR is my first company that I own and it is a PR and social media agency focusing in emerging lifestyle and wellness brands. ⁓ And then that kind of led me to opening Forte Vita sort of in a sense.

Alan Li (01:27)
Okay, interesting. ⁓ And how did you even get into PR?

Marcella Giuffrida (01:34)
So I moved to New York for school and I wasn't 100 % sure what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted to work in fashion and my first week at college a ⁓ new friend that I had met told me that the place she was interning at was hiring another intern and that it was a pretty cool job and that I would get a lot of free clothes out of it so I said sure why not.

Alan Li (01:58)
Nice.

Marcella Giuffrida (02:00)
⁓ Yeah, and I never really, I didn't really know what PR was at the time. ⁓ So I had no idea what I was getting myself into, ⁓ but I was just excited to work at a fashion company and get clothes as payment. ⁓ And so from there, I just kind of fell in love with the job and continued.

Alan Li (02:23)
got it. And then so you move to LA, you realize there's not as much

PR company focused on these wellness brands and that's ⁓ sparked the idea for FortiVita. Is that how it happened?

Marcella Giuffrida (02:42)
Yes, sort of. So with one of my clients, we would do a puppy yoga. ⁓ So we would partner with a rescue. It was kind of part of their like give back initiative. We would partner with an animal rescue, have their dogs that were up for adoption come in and then do a puppy yoga class so people could hang out with them, meet them, potentially adopt them. And that was a huge hit. We did that once a month and it was amazing. And it was kind of my

Alan Li (03:07)
Hmm.

Marcella Giuffrida (03:11)
event that you know I created I ran I worked with all the rescues so ⁓ back last March or I guess this March ⁓

We had a puppy yoga and then my client was, you know, they weren't really keen on doing it anymore and it was all the way in North Hollywood so it was a little bit of a drive for a lot of people that would come. So after the puppy yoga, my friend Gianna and I went to lunch and I was telling her that, you know, it would be so great if we could continue puppy yoga somewhere else but finding a space to do yoga is not so easy. ⁓ You can't just like pop up anywhere and

and

have puppies running free and people doing yoga. So ⁓ the two of us kind of through our lunch talked about how it would be great to open a workout studio that we wanted to go to because at the same time we were having trouble finding a studio that we really liked. ⁓ So we were like, what if we made our own workout studio and incorporated puppy yoga so we would have that built in.

audience and these customers that we knew wanted to come to something before we even opened like the actual workout studio part.

Alan Li (04:31)
Hmm, that's smart because you've already tested it out. You know this works. There isn't a dedicated space and you're like, maybe we should start this. And what is the timeline for, ⁓ you know, like what year was this? So just so the audience knows.

Marcella Giuffrida (04:45)
So this was March 2025 and we opened officially October 1st, 2025.

Alan Li (04:54)
okay. So you had the, you were doing the events in March and then you're like, we should open up and then October happened. Okay. Well, great. ⁓ well that makes a lot of sense. ⁓ talk to me what happens from March to October. So you have this idea, you think it's interesting. what are the next steps to actually getting it set up and open?

Marcella Giuffrida (05:02)
Yes.

Yeah, so we really like first spent a lot of time just running numbers, projections, making sure that doing this was actually going to work, doing it where we wanted to do it was going to work because we're in Brentwood, ⁓ which is in West LA. And it is like a very expensive area for rent. So we needed to make sure ⁓

Alan Li (05:41)
Mm-hmm.

Marcella Giuffrida (05:45)
that it was gonna work because I feel like in a lot of areas in LA there already are these workout studios, these boutique ⁓ really nice luxury studios, but over here in Brentwood we have a lot of the chains, like we have a SoulCycle, a Barry's, we have two core powers, so we have all the chains, but there's really, we're the first boutique studio. So we needed to make sure that,

it was gonna work, that we could afford it, that the numbers were gonna make sense. And then from there, we just kind of started putting together little checklists. My friend Gianna, who runs the company with me, she works in finance. So she was kind of heading all of that, the numbers, employees, those logistics, and I was kind of focused on the branding, the vibes of the studio, the social media, how we were gonna market it, what programming we were gonna do. ⁓

Alan Li (06:24)
Hmm.

Marcella Giuffrida (06:40)
and what was really gonna get people in. first official step was finding a space and we got really lucky with that. We found an amazing space.

owned by these great guys who own this building and they run a coffee shop out of the bottom. Their mom has a shop next door. ⁓ So it's just a really good vibe. They had an empty space upstairs and it wasn't even on the market or anything. They weren't sure what to do with it. And Gianna and I came in and we were like, this is perfect for our workout studio. Please can we rent it? ⁓ So.

Alan Li (07:22)
How did you even get in? How did you even know there was this space available or how did you even get in touch with them?

Marcella Giuffrida (07:22)
we run today.

So I would work at the coffee shop all the time, my PR team and I. We don't have an office because there's only a few of us, so we always meet at this coffee shop that's right below us. And one day the owner came over and he was like, you guys are here every single day. What do you guys do? ⁓ So we just started a conversation and from then he was just always so nice, always checking in. And one day I was like, I'm also trying to open up a workout studio, but I can't seem to find a space.

He was like, you know, there's a whole upstairs here that you can check out. So I went upstairs. His mom actually showed me around and ⁓ then his brother happens to be a general contractor. So he got came in. He did all of our construction for us. He helped us with all of the permits and everything we needed. ⁓ And it really just felt like.

getting the space felt like such a moment of luck because there were other spaces that we were looking at that had like 10 year leases and they rent increased every month and they were huge and they needed a ton of work and you know, we would just go and view them and talk to the landlords and every time we would leave, so discouraged. We would be like, there's no way we're gonna be able to open this and if we do a class, it's gonna have to be like $100. ⁓

So once we connected with the people here, and we were able to kind of get this amazing space, we were just so excited to keep moving forward.

Alan Li (09:04)
Yeah, and could you share some details about the terms of the lease and how much you're paying in rent or abatement and all that?

Marcella Giuffrida (09:14)
Yeah, so they were really nice. They gave us a one year lease, which is amazing. ⁓ I feel like that's like unheard of. ⁓ So they gave us a one year lease. Yeah, they with the option to like renew, but they were really nice and understanding that, you know, this was a startup. We had no idea what was going to happen. So we didn't really feel like getting into a five or 10 year lease. ⁓ And then our rent is really great for the area.

Alan Li (09:23)
Really nice.

Marcella Giuffrida (09:44)
it's 5,500 a month which some of the other spaces we were looking at were closer to like 13,000 15,000 Yeah, so when we kind of

Alan Li (09:55)
And how large is

your studio space?

Marcella Giuffrida (09:59)
Our studio is about, I wanna say like 12 to 1500 square feet. So we can fit 20, yeah, it's not bad. We can fit 21 students. And then we have a little front desk area. We have a little locker room and then a bathroom.

Alan Li (10:07)
Got it. Pretty sizable.

Got it. ⁓ And then did they also require like a security deposit? Did they give any months of like abatement or anything like that?

Marcella Giuffrida (10:31)
Yeah, so the security deposit was two months of rent and then they didn't give us any free months or anything for construction but because it was all in the family, they knocked out construction in four weeks. So they started construction like on August 5th or 6th and they were done with construction by...

beginning of September. We had our first event in here like September 17th.

Alan Li (11:04)
it. That's really exciting and pretty fast for a build. And how much did it cost to open up the entire space and did you have to raise funds to do so or did you and your partner put in personal savings?

Marcella Giuffrida (11:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, so in total with everything done, construction, brand, paying employees, all the things, the equipment, we put in around 100,000 total. ⁓ And the two of us split that. So through our personal savings. We both have been saving up money for a long time. Both of us have always, I mean, I have my PR company, but that's like zero overhead. ⁓ But we both always known that

We wanted to own a business. We've been friends since we were little girls, like since we were two or three. So ⁓ we've always kind of known that this was something we wanted to do. So once we ran the numbers and they made sense, we were able to do it. And the nice thing is too, is the two of us.

are keeping our jobs. I'm still doing PR, I still have clients, she still works in finance. ⁓ So we, it's not like, you know, when you first start a business, you have no money coming in for a few months. It's not like we have no money coming in, we have money coming in from our other jobs. Of course, it's going right back into Forte Vida for now, but ⁓ we're not like...

needing loans or like really struggling because we do still have our other jobs.

Alan Li (12:42)
Got it. And how many other people are helping with Forte Vita? Is there like instructors that you're hiring? Is there a front staff? How are you splitting the time? It seems like with PR, you might have a little bit more flexibility in your hours versus her. Maybe she has a traditional nine to five or nine to nine, depending on her job in finance.

Marcella Giuffrida (13:03)
you

Yes, ⁓ so there's a team of 20 of us basically. ⁓ After we got the space and kind of did all of those logistics, we were both like, okay, we don't teach fitness. We don't really know anything about it except for what we like to do as our workouts. So we brought in a fitness consultant lead instructor position. Her name is Ellen. She's amazing. She's a registered dietician. She's a fitness instructor for

like the last five years. So we brought her in and she developed our classes for us. She helped find all of our instructors. She trained them in our specific format and she kind of oversees all of the fitness like they're looking at their sequences, getting feedback, helping them out with you know creating different moves with our equipment because our equipment is like kind of

niche as well. We use these like U bars things so it's like two dumbbells connected in like a U shape which I don't have any right here but I can get one but there they you can do like different weirdish moves with them so she kind of makes sure that the instructors know what they're doing there and then we have like 12 instructors ⁓

We teach about, we have like five to six classes every day. And then we don't have front desk staff yet. Right now, Gianna and I switch off days because she does have a typical nine to five, but she works here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So we switch off right now and then we have some college girls that like kind of intern for us and help us with things around the studio while learning. Some of them are, you know, training right now to become an instructor. Some of them just are really interested in the fitness and wellness world. ⁓ So we have them come in and help us as like an internship. They get to take as many classes as they want and they get to really like learn what it's like to kind of open a studio like

from the start.

Alan Li (15:25)
Yeah, that's really cool. ⁓ And I know you mentioned that, you know, in Brentwood, there's a lot of big box ⁓ fitness studios, but less so boutique homegrown ones. ⁓ For the audience, can you describe the vibe and like how Forte Vita works and is different from the traditional Pilates studios or other fitness studios?

Marcella Giuffrida (15:48)
you

Yeah, so we wanted Forte Vita to really feel like a luxury moment. And I guess we can compare it in a way to Core Power, where at Core Power, it's a yoga studio, it's heated. Some of their workouts are a similar format to ours. I would say it's kind of the most comparable out of the ones I named earlier. But at Core Power, you come in, your instructor is sitting at the front desk, checking people in.

of frazzled, you know, because they're about to teach. They just had to clean up the studio from the class before. They're also running the entire front desk situation. You come in like 20, 25 minutes early to secure your spot. You bring your mat. You bring your towels. You get in. You're kind of waiting.

on your spot, like with all of your things, then you leave, you have to fold up your mat, clean all of the equipment yourself, put it all back and then leave. And that's, it's like kind of a chaotic experience. Like you're rushing, you feel, you know, like you have so much stuff with you. So we really wanted to do the opposite of that. So when you come into Forte Vita, there's somebody at the front desk. It is not going to be your instructor. It is someone that is solely there to help you.

Alan Li (16:51)
Okay.

Marcella Giuffrida (17:07)
Find the bathroom, get an electrolyte pack, have an energy drink, get a towel, whatever you need. ⁓ You book your spot on our app before you come into the studio. So you have a mat and your weights already waiting for you. So even if you come in at 11.59 and your class is at noon, you're totally fine. It takes 30 minutes to get ready for class. ⁓

So the entire check-in process and getting situated process, we want it to be really streamlined. We want it to be really luxurious, really calming. You're coming in to work out. You're coming to unwind. You don't need a really stressful start to that. ⁓

And then in terms of the class, it is a heated weighted workout. So it is hot in there. So you will sweat, but we wanted to make sure that it wasn't too hot so that the workout was actually hard. There are some places that, you know, they turn up the heat to like 110, you leave feeling like you're going to die, but it's only because like it was so hot, you're melting. Yeah. So our studio stays about 90 degrees and

Alan Li (18:17)
here in Asana.

Marcella Giuffrida (18:23)
you still leave like drenched but you feel like you got a good workout and what we focus on is intentional sequencing so we want to make sure that all of the sequences make sense they're all doing something different to benefit your body and your workout and to get you to the next place so we start on the mat

Gradually warming up and raising our heart rates to a point where we're standing up And then we get into a small cardio section a cool down where we're just using our arms and Like our breathing to kind of keep your chest opened up You can breathe you can do the workout and then go to one more mat Standing series and then when our heart rate has slowed enough that it's you know Safe to like sit back down because sometimes when you sit down too fast

or stand up too fast, you can get a little dizzy, ⁓ then we take it back down to the mat. And we really focus a lot on stretching, we focus on small muscle movements, so...

You're never gonna really feel super, super out of breath or you may faint or you're getting really shaky because our workout is really small, repetitive movements that are burning out your targeted muscles. ⁓ you're like, it's hard, but it's not like you're doing squats with 35 pounds and your legs are shaking and you can't really see.

You're more like burning in your muscles. Yes.

Alan Li (19:57)
Got it. ⁓ That's really cool.

Yeah, thanks for walking through that. I wanna dive a little bit into ⁓ even before pre-opening how you were doing some of the marketing and the PR because obviously that is your expertise. So I'm curious, ⁓ you know, what steps you took. Cause I imagine most people maybe create an Instagram page, maybe tell some friends. ⁓

I have heard some could hire PR, some don't, but I would love to hear what you did.

Marcella Giuffrida (20:31)
Yeah, so.

First, I really focused on the branding. So before putting it out there at all, I focused on the branding. I focused on the colors, the logo, the mood boards, the vibe, everything. So that when it was time to like dive into the PR and the social media, we had like a really clear vision of what we were doing. I feel like a lot of the time when you're starting a business, you just kind of start putting things out there, seeing where it goes and where it takes you. And I think that can sometimes give the vibe of being unorganized and

not people not really understanding exactly what you are and what you're selling. So I didn't want that to be an issue for us at all. I wanted everything to be consistent through our Instagram, our TikTok, our email marketing, even the flyers we put out in different, you know, local businesses. Like I wanted everyone to be able to just see one small thing and know that that was Forte Vita. So I focused a lot on the branding. Then

After that...

When we were in construction, I was like, okay, it's really important that people know who we are. We're on the second level. So that foot traffic, like while it's still sort of there, we don't, you know, have like, we can't put up a big banner like on the front door because we don't have one. So we had to really like showcase through social media. So I started with TikTok because that is more casual. and I didn't feel like our TikTok needed to be as dialed in as our Instagram.

Instagram strategy. ⁓ So I just started posting on TikTok like

random videos, I would post all on the Forte Vita account. So I would post like day in my life opening a workout studio, come check out the construction with me, different trends that were relevant to the studio, and just trying different things to see what clicked, what people liked, you know, when I first made a voiceover video of my morning visiting the studio and then going to work at the coffee shop, like it did really well. So I started to make more of

Alan Li (22:17)
Hmm.

Marcella Giuffrida (22:39)
of types of videos when we posted one kind of showcasing ourselves next to the coffee shop in proximity and kind of saying like, okay, we can get a coffee then we can go work out or what's above this amazing coffee shop in Brentwood, it's called Maloo and it's kind of new. So everyone in the area like loves it. ⁓

Alan Li (22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Marcella Giuffrida (23:03)
So people were like commenting, my God, that's my favorite coffee shop. I'm so excited to try your workout. So then we started doing a lot more of those videos, even like collaborating with Malou on content and making a specialty drink and stuff to get people like excited. ⁓ And really what we focused on in the beginning was the social media. So before we...

were able to have anyone in this space or do anything. It was all social media and mainly TikTok. And even now, a month in, I still have people coming in for their first time and I ask them, how did you hear about us? Almost everyone says TikTok.

Alan Li (23:46)
Really? Wow.

Marcella Giuffrida (23:47)
So

yeah, that's crazy to me because I feel like a lot of our clients make sales or promote their brand like through Instagram. That's where we've seen most of that actual like action taking customer come from. So it was really crazy to like see everyone coming here from TikTok. So yeah.

Alan Li (24:08)
That's really nice. ⁓ Yeah,

it's cool to follow the journey of the factor and it makes you feel closer to the brand instead of this brand out of place or I'm not sure what they represent or who's even behind this. So I think that's really smart that you're connecting all the dots, showcasing the area.

I know you mentioned you're also on the second floor. Is that why you also needed a nice sidewalk sign that you got from us ⁓ to make sure people can see it?

Marcella Giuffrida (24:41)
Yes.

Yes, especially because in the beginning we couldn't even put anything on the front door downstairs ⁓ because we were waiting for like a change of use order and whatever. I don't really know. But ⁓ we got the sign and then people started being like, okay, we know where you are now because we put it like right outside on the street and everyone's like, ⁓ they're right up there.

Alan Li (24:56)
Got it.

Nice.

Yeah, gotcha.

Marcella Giuffrida (25:08)
So yeah, your

sign has definitely helped. ⁓

all the like signage is such an important piece of a business that I honestly didn't ever think about because I was always thinking about PR and marketing but like never really liked the signs until we opened and now I'm like, ⁓ signs like make a huge difference like the amount of people that find us from our sidewalk sign now is crazy like I would have before been like, we don't need that like that's like a dumb expense but my god, it's so necessary.

Thanks

Alan Li (25:44)
Yeah, especially if there's high foot traffic or like the coffee shop seems to be right there. So there's a lot of people passing by. It's just like, you know, we are like, think of marketing mostly as digital marketing and like online, but then, you know, the sign is just the physical marketing piece. So yeah, I'm glad it's, doing well for you guys too. ⁓

Marcella Giuffrida (26:01)
that.

Yeah.

Alan Li (26:05)
And then ⁓ did you also do any reaching out to blog writers or ⁓ news articles to try to get ForteVida featured or leverage any of your existing contacts to do that as well?

Marcella Giuffrida (26:22)
Yes. So I would say less on like the journalist front because I feel like we don't have a really strong local news out here in Brentwood. ⁓ Like there are some neighborhoods in LA that have like really great like small local publications. ⁓ We don't really have that. So I'm kind of waiting until we're a little bit further along to do really more piece about like the business and how we're growing.

how well we're doing, because the opening of another Pilates studio in LA is like not gonna be news. ⁓ So what I did leverage a lot of our contacts for, which I think helped so much, was one, influencers. And we did like a whole influencer class.

Alan Li (26:59)
Mm.

Marcella Giuffrida (27:10)
We got a bunch of people in here to take the class and to post about it right before we opened. We did this like, I think two or three days before we had our first class. So that was great. We got so many followers. We sold so many intro packs. ⁓ So we used all of those contacts. And then another one was brand partnerships. So we reached out to people for the soap in the bathroom, the candles that we use.

Alan Li (27:34)
Hmm.

Marcella Giuffrida (27:40)
in the front area, the skincare in the bathroom, the electrolyte packs that we hand out to everyone, some of our weights even.

so many brands that we work with because we work with lifestyle and wellness brands wanted to be a part of the studio. It was such a natural fit for them. ⁓ And so they sent us a lot of samples for free that we were able to give out to clients on their first day or during our grand opening party. even now, a lot of studios will charge $3 for an electrolyte packet.

at the end of class, but we're lucky enough to partner with these brands so that they gift it to us and we are able to give it to our clients for free. Like you don't have to buy water here. You don't have to buy an energy drink because our brand partners, they just want that exposure and they want to provide. Yeah, that like extra step. I feel like it matters so much.

Alan Li (28:36)
That's really cool.

Yeah,

that's really awesome. And I think what you said about ⁓ doing PR with ⁓ local writers at the right time is also really important. ⁓ And it seems like based on your experience, you want to time it right where there's a specific event or milestone or something that people would really want to write about and not just try to...

Marcella Giuffrida (28:56)
you

Alan Li (29:08)
do PR just for an opening or something that is a little bit more common? Is that your experience?

Marcella Giuffrida (29:14)
Yeah.

Definitely. I think it's so hard as a founder to not think that your product is the best product in the entire world. you know, why wouldn't people care about this? But as the publicist, my experience has been like, I need to manage everyone's expectations all the time. So my client who, you know, thinks their product is amazing, it is amazing, but there's 10 products like it. And these journalists are already

writing about them. we have to make sure like I do this with my clients like you have to make sure that you have a really special angle or really special moment ⁓ to kind of position your product because someone is always going to think it's amazing but someone else is always going to think like whatever that's tired been there done that no matter like how good it is. So I think I have that like special

Alan Li (30:08)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Marcella Giuffrida (30:13)
kind of outlook as well, like I obviously own Forte Vita. think it's amazing, but I'm also realistic. when, you know, Silver Springs exists in West Hollywood and I know that's an amazing studio. It's incredible space. It's huge. You know, we are also amazing and great, but like...

You know, people have already written about Silver Springs, it's already been done or whatever. So I'm just, you I wanna be realistic and make sure that I'm not wasting my time doing the outreach and wasting the journalist's time having to read my pitch and then maybe thinking I'm annoying at first and then they don't wanna write about me later. Like I'm also trying to savor those favors to call in.

Alan Li (31:03)
Yeah, that's really helpful. ⁓ And for founders and people who are starting brick and mortar, who may be interested in PR or hiring a PR, do you have any advice for them? I know you just gave a lot of great nuggets, but just in general, ⁓ specifically for brick and mortar business owners, ⁓ what advice do you have for them?

Marcella Giuffrida (31:24)
Yes, I think a lot of PR people and agencies, ⁓ will like kind of sell you because that's what they're good at. ⁓ They'll sell you like these big dreams or like these big promises. And at MGPR, we're like extremely conscious not to do that because if we're talking about real PR, ⁓

I can never guarantee that an article is going to come out of my outreach. I can never promise that a video that we make is going to go viral. And so the people that can promise those things ⁓ are either lying or they're using bots or various softwares to get...

these articles or social media posts to go viral, but it's only on paper. Like it's there. You're not attracting the real customers. Like a sponsored article in the LA times is not going to move the needle as much as

a real feature that wasn't paid for. Because nowadays, like, they have a lot of media literacy and we're always being fed ads disguised as non-ads. And so I think like the younger generations are starting to really learn, like, what's authentic and what's fake.

So you just want to make sure you're working with someone authentic, with someone that you can trust. PR is never guaranteed. And I would say that's the biggest red flag. Whenever I hear anyone say that they can guarantee this or they can promise that, I'm like, no. I don't know what you're doing. But it is not PR. ⁓

So and then I would say like manage your expectations PR is like a long game like it takes a long time to really like make waves and you have to invest a lot of money and a lot of time to get there so I would only do it if you're ready for that investment and if you're you have some time because it's amazing when it pays off like I've seen my clients businesses grow so much ⁓ I mean we've already we're in

one and like through all of my PR and social media efforts we have like 30 % capacity like we we were able to break even this month on expenses so not we didn't even have to like put money more money back in which was crazy um so

You know, it works. It just takes a lot of time and it's like some days like there will be weeks where there's nothing like I was posting on tik tok at first and I was posting multiple times a day and you know, we were getting 200 views But I was like gotta keep going gotta keep going and even still some of my videos are like zero views and then I'm I just like delete them and move on and pretend like the zero views didn't happen, but

It ebbs and flows. Some days, like yesterday, we sold so many intro packs, so many memberships, event tickets, and we were like, what's happening? Why today? The day before, we maybe sold $100 worth of things. So we were like, it's just crazy how things happen. So don't get discouraged and find someone you can trust, but I think it's an amazing investment.

Like, obviously I'm biased, but I think PR and social media, if you can't do it yourself, like, then it's the best investment because it's so necessary.

Alan Li (35:09)
Yeah,

no, I appreciate that. And I'm sure the audience will find those nuggets really valuable, especially. ⁓

Awesome. Well, yeah, I'd love to dive a little bit more into how the first month has gone for Forte Vita and sort of any numbers you're able to share. I know you said something about 30 % capacity. It seems like you generally sell intro packs or maybe class bundles or individual packs. Help the audience understand a little bit better the numbers and how everything works.

Marcella Giuffrida (35:21)
Yep.

Yeah, so we have various class packs and memberships. The first month has gone like really well, I think. We projected obviously very conservatively, so zero dollars in the first three months, ⁓ which we kind of assumed like was not going to happen, but we didn't know exactly what was. ⁓ So we wanted to be safe. So we're doing an intro special right now, which I would say anyone opening up a fitness studio one,

Like a week of free classes in the beginning We didn't do this and I wish we did because we were really scared like if anyone was gonna show up on the first day So doing a week of free classes and then I would say to do that and then we did an intro pack of three classes for $40 so a regular drop-in class is $34 But we did an intro that made it like, you know around $11 a class

Alan Li (36:22)
Hmm.

You

Marcella Giuffrida (36:45)
and people got to come three times to test it out. That's worked like so well for us. We've seen a lot of people come back and like buy additional class packs, memberships. feel like three times is like a good amount of time where you're not giving them like a lot of time at the studio. Like you're kind of pressuring them a little bit to make a decision, but also giving them chances to try out instructors and times of day and whatever. ⁓

Alan Li (36:51)
It's a great deal.

Marcella Giuffrida (37:15)
So the intro pack is obviously our most sold item, like by far. Now we're starting to see people purchase more memberships and larger class packs. Like our five class pack has been really popular the last couple of weeks. People really enjoy that. So, and then we have our membership, which is $240 a month, but we are doing $99 for your first month as like an intro, another intro thing.

Alan Li (37:44)
And is that like, how many classes do you get with that monthly pack? Oh, Oh, wow. Great.

Marcella Giuffrida (37:44)
⁓

limited as many as you want.

So you can come in twice a day if you want to. I don't think anyone will, but they can. And so our goal now is to really sell that membership. But in the first month, we did really well. We stayed pretty much at 30 % capacity in terms of reservations. Obviously, some days we had more weekends. We did really well. But about 30 % up.

per class, like throughout the day. And the trickiest thing is like figuring out the class times that work because they're so random. Like some days like the 10 a.m. will be full and then some days like it will be empty. And at the first couple of weeks, like our 6 a.m. class was doing really well every day. We were like, ⁓ no brainer, we have to keep this. And then now like,

We canceled two 6 a.m.'s this week because like no one booked them. And it's just...

Alan Li (38:58)
quite early.

Marcella Giuffrida (38:59)
crazy to figure out the class times and like people coming in and then obviously like it's super awkward when someone books a fitness class a group fitness class and then they end up being the only person there and There's a room of like 20 empty mats and just like them and the instructor so just kind of we've had to like

deal with all of those things and like figure out like, okay, do we cancel a class if it has zero people? How long do we wait before we cancel it? Like, you know, what do we do if there's only one person in the class? Do we tell them beforehand? We don't want it to feel like we're canceling on them. Because, you know, if they wanna come, it's fine. But, ⁓ you know, we wanna make sure like we're still.

providing amazing customer service, but also like operating in a way that works well for us. So it's just been like a learning curve kind of. I've never had a business like this. Gianna's never done anything like this. So we're just kind of every day like learning and adapting and changing, but we're about to go on class pass. ⁓

at the end of this week. we'll see. That's supposed to be really good for bringing people into the studio and driving brand awareness. We wanted to start off on our own and just gauge numbers and everything with just us for the first month. But now we definitely want more people in the studio. So we're gonna work with them on getting people in. ⁓

But hopefully we won't be on there forever because they take a huge chunk of...

Alan Li (40:50)
Like, is it like 20 % or 30 % or something?

Marcella Giuffrida (40:53)
like 60%.

Alan Li (40:55)
60 %? Wow. I didn't realize it was so high.

Marcella Giuffrida (40:59)
Yeah,

I know depending on I mean it fluctuates like depending on the ⁓ Popularity of the class so like let's say that I have a class and only two people have booked it Then it goes on class pass anyone that they book into that class they get 60 percent because that class is dead so they're helping us out a lot but

Alan Li (41:27)
I see.

Marcella Giuffrida (41:29)
Yeah, but then like if there's a class at 5 30 p.m. That you know has 15 people in it And they fill a spot then they get less of a percent

Alan Li (41:39)
Makes sense.

That makes sense. And yeah, thank you for sharing like your thought process around all those operational challenges, especially at the earlier stages, because I'm glad we're doing this episode within like, you know, the first month or so of ⁓ opening, whereas, you know, lot of other guests I've talked to have already been operating for multiple years. They kind of forget ⁓ like all the decision points they had in the beginning of like, no, what if one person does show up and it's like a one-on-one session with someone like, are we okay with that? How do we figure out the class schedule?

Marcella Giuffrida (41:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alan Li (42:10)
like we're still dialing in so many like levers and figuring out what's working especially for Forte Vita, for Brentwood, for our location and all that. So, you I appreciate you sharing that. And I think you mentioned that there were around five to six classes a day and then around 20 or so people per class is the capacity. So it seems like 100 to 120-ish per day and then doing 30 percent, it's probably like 30 or 40 people per day coming in.

Marcella Giuffrida (42:40)
Yeah, yeah, so it's still great. Like I think today we had.

Alan Li (42:41)
That's great.

Marcella Giuffrida (42:46)
you know, five people in the first class, 10 in the second. We had to cancel the third class. Our instructor got sick, but then we have 10 people in tonight's class, but then it's like so random because at 7 p.m., you know, we have zero people in class. So right now I'm kind of just like monitoring and I'm like, I don't know. I guess we'll see what happens.

Alan Li (43:11)
Yeah. Well,

what do you do when an instructor calls in sick or can't make it? Do you just have to cancel the class and reschedule everyone in the class? Or do you usually find a backup? Or how do you deal with those things?

Marcella Giuffrida (43:27)
So usually we have enough time we can find a substitute. ⁓ And we have a big text group chat with the girls. We also have a subbing network platform that we pay for to make it more streamlined. ⁓ So usually we can find somebody. This has actually been the first instance where someone told us an hour before class that they woke up, they weren't feeling good. So I asked.

like everyone who's local because we do have a few girls that live like within walking distance. ⁓ So I reached out to them, but they all were busy. And our instructor that was here for the class before also had to leave to get to work. So for this one, we had to cancel it. But we always try to find a substitute, especially if there's people in the class. ⁓ You never want to cancel but

For that reason, I'm thinking about potentially getting my fitness, group fitness certification ⁓ because Gianna and I were saying worst comes to worst if we can't find a sub or again, someone calls out, we both live within walking distance of the studio. So that wouldn't be an issue if I had to jump in and teach a class. ⁓

But obviously running two businesses, like I don't really have time for that right now.

Alan Li (44:59)
Yeah,

yeah, definitely. yeah. And I know that you're currently at 30 % just within the first month, which is awesome. And it seems like Gianna is in finance, so has you guys obviously worked together on probably a projection model of where the business can be in the next few months to a year. Where do you see this going, hopefully, within the next couple of years or the next year, since it's only one year, please?

Marcella Giuffrida (45:04)
Thank

Yeah, I mean, yes. So we did, she actually used to walk me through her like updated projections, because I literally am so far like removed from math and finance and all of that. But we, based on like our pre-opening sales, we did a projection where we would be at, I think 14.1 for the first month.

and we ended up closing October at 14-4. So yeah, so yes. So

Alan Li (45:59)
Nice. $14,400 for the month. Great.

Marcella Giuffrida (46:06)
we're like on track trending a little bit better. ⁓ So I think like for the next year in terms of like where I see this going, I definitely would love to have this studio like kind of fully booked out with only 21 people like able to attend each class. I feel like that's pretty doable. ⁓ I feel like we may even get there in the next six months ⁓ as long as we keep kind of going where the way we're going. And then we would love

to like expand. I would love to open more. ⁓ I would love to have like a space now that I know because we didn't really know at first like now that I know more things like I would love to have a space that has two studios because with class times and like cleaning and like resetting everything like we need to have at least 30 minutes in between every class but that 30 minutes can like make or break

a class's attendance. Like we have a 630 class and also a 7 p.m. class like on two different days and the 630 p.m. class does immensely better than the 7 p.m. ⁓ So but then the issue there is that the 530 class does way better than the 5 p.m. So we can't like if that makes sense. Yeah.

Alan Li (47:16)
Interesting.

I see, so there's like a weird gap.

I see. Got it.

Marcella Giuffrida (47:32)
Yeah,

so it would be amazing to expand to have multiple studios in one building. ⁓ It would also be great to develop the brand more. I would love to do more wellness events and focus on health and wellness and fitness and maybe even create our own equipment or create our own like...

wellness drink or supplement or something like that. Now, like since I've been in the wellness space for a few years now and doing PR and everything, I'm just kind of building it. I, you know, would love to be like a mini chain. One day I would love to be like a soul cycle. ⁓ But obviously that's far, far away from now, but that is like my...

Alan Li (48:19)
Mm-hmm.

It's ambitious, you gotta dream big.

Marcella Giuffrida (48:27)
Yes, definitely. But we're just kind of going day by day. feel like I do this in both of my businesses. I'm always ready to adapt, to change.

We started the PR agency in 2022. So people were like just kind of coming back from COVID. And then, you know, there were the fires in LA last year that like totally derailed everything where, and we had to adapt and change. And a lot of our clients closed their doors. So, you know, we had to find other.

Businesses to work with and other things to do so I feel like being able to adapt and like kind of go day by day based on like what's going on and what people are wanting what the needs are is Good as well as having like a little roadmap, but kind of being able to balance the two

Alan Li (49:17)
Yeah,

definitely. That makes a lot of sense. ⁓ then Marcel, I know you've only been open just a month or so, but a question I usually like to ask is, looking back on your journey and not just this one month, but since over the last year of getting it set up and working with contractors, figuring out branding, marketing, knowing what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently?

Marcella Giuffrida (49:45)
No, I don't think so. I feel like this business was really like a meant to be situation. And I feel like everything really worked out exactly how it was supposed to work out. I learned a lot of things. I was able to like put my creative like ideas into practice, which even though I have a PR company, I don't always get to do. ⁓ So.

I feel like I wouldn't have done anything different. I guess maybe the one thing I would have done is have classes for free for a week before. That's literally the only thing, but even that, like, we're still doing okay. Like, we're still doing really good. So I'm like, whatever about that. But if I had to pick.

Alan Li (50:21)
Mmm, yep. Got it.

Awesome. Great. Well, this has been really helpful and I'm sure a lot of people are really excited to hear about your experience and learn from your journey. If people want to get in touch and stay and follow along, what's the best way for them to do so?

Marcella Giuffrida (50:50)
Yeah, they can find us on social media. are at Fortevita.co on everything. Instagram, TikTok, that's our website as well. So you can find us there and you can come visit us in the studio. ⁓ If anyone lives in LA and listens and wants to come to the studio, like, let me know. ⁓

And if you are interested in finding my PR company, we're MGPR, MG public relations on Instagram. And the website is just Marcelajufrida.com because MGPR is like a guinea pig rescue and they won't like give me the website. So yeah. Yes.

Alan Li (51:36)
Interesting. That's good fact. Awesome. All right, Marcelo.

Well, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. ⁓ It was really great meeting you and learning more about your journey and really excited for the next year and beyond.

Marcella Giuffrida (51:53)
Yeah, thank you so much and I love your signs and I'm so glad that we have one. It's bringing us a lot of business, so thank you so much.

Alan Li (52:03)
Awesome.