"Being young, it can be a struggle to be taken seriously," Grives says. While they may not have a dusting of grey hair to prove their credentials or years of experience, young guns such as Fonebox's Jordan Grives are scaring the hell out of their baby boomer equivalents.Īrmed with tech savvy and enthusiasm, this new generation of corporates are disrupting traditional markets, pulling in millions of dollars of business from around the world.īut while hoodie-wearing, sneaker-clad wunderkinds are becoming the norm in the US, Grives says there's still reluctance to accept these young-gun chief executives at home. It gets me out of bed in the morning whether I've had a good day or bad."įrom Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to Twitter's Jack Dorsey, the business world is being taken over by a new generation of young chief executives. "With the upbringing I had it really gave me a maturity beyond my years. "Sometimes young entrepreneurs who start out with a wealthier background or haven't been exposed to tough times find it easy to give up, they don't have that same hunger. "It really gave me the fortitude and resilience to be able to tough it out when things get hard," he says. "I grew up poor and I wanted to break that cycle for my family and future family," he says. She's still his best sounding board for ideas when he gets tangled up in the business.Ĭoming from a humble background raised by his single mother in Sydney's Mount Druitt, now known as "struggle street" before moving to Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Levenson says a determination to better his family has been his biggest motivation to succeed. "We're really just working harder and harder on connecting with our members."Īlthough Cristy no longer has an active role in the business, Levenson says she has been critical to Jetts' success by helping raise their three young children. "We're going to keep pushing into Europe and we have our eyes on some Asian markets on the back end of next year. Levenson says his goal has always been for there to be a Jetts gym within eight minutes of 80 per cent of Australians and he won't stop until he's achieved it. Their low cost model is now being shipped overseas with global expansion plans now in their sights, planning to grow the franchise to more than 2000 gyms worldwide by 2030. In the lean years that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, Levenson says gym goers were less willing to play it hard and loose with their cash and when purse strings were tightened expensive gym fees were some of the first things to go.īut that budget mind-shift turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Jetts, who came into the game just in time to whip it into shape. "Now you look around and there's a 24-hour gym on every corner." It turned the industry upside down," he says. "It was really exciting because Jetts was a real revolution. It's annual turnover is in excess of $90 million last financial year and has sparked a huge movement of copycats, with thousands of gyms now flinging open their doors 24 hours a day to compete. ![]() "We decided that everything we did has to be for the customer, that's how we came up with 24 hours, no contracts, standard fees and no crowded clubs - all the things that are part of Jetts today."įast forward eight years and Jetts has been named one of the fastest growing franchise systems in Australia and its footprint now extends across 361 clubs in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. sold the bigger gym and started with a blank piece of paper, put the word customer in the middle and started writing a business plan. ![]() "So we said you know what people just want the basics and they want good value, flexibility and no huge fees, just convenience. "We thought that was what everyone wanted but we soon realised after running the bigger club only 13 per cent of our members were using all the extra stuff like classes and sauna. It was a humble but successful set up not to dissimilar to what Jetts is today.īut the pair initially doubted their model after seeing what Fitness First and the big clubs were doing and decided to open a second "bigger and better" complex down the road. Starting with just $150,000 the couple put it all on the line to buy their first gym on the Gold Coast in 2007. ![]() With a simple philosophy of no frills and no long term contracts, Jetts Fitness founders Brendon and Cristy Levenson pioneered a radical new 24 hour gym model which changed the Australian fitness industry forever. More than 30 years after Hollywood actress and fitness pioneer Jane Fonda cheered on baby boomers to start-jump and high-kick their way to good health, the fitness industry has undergone another revolution.
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