Who are the partners in TRIB3 Finland?

There are three of us: Jari Karlsson, Wemppa Koivumäki and me. Jari and I were introduced when I first became interested in TRIB3, with Wemppa joining us a year later. As the former managing director of Sony Music Finland, he brings valuable experience from the entertainment field.

“When your offering is so completely different, you can create your own pricing structure”

Meanwhile, Jari is also CEO of a plant-based food company and I’ve been in fitness since 1999. I previously owned my own gym and had no intention of owning another – then came across TRIB3. Initial chats were followed by a visit to the UK; this was in 2017, when TRIB3 was only operational in Sheffield. I liked the leadership team, liked how similar we were in our thinking and thought the TRIB3 concept was great. And so I partnered with Jari to take on the franchise for Finland.

How many studios do you have?

We have two, with our first having opened in the Adlon area of Helsinki in 2019. Similar to other TRIB3 locations around the world, this is a HIIT studio with three zones: treads, power and intensity. It’s a really big studio with 45 spaces in every class.

I was always keen to bring cycling into the mix, though, as I’ve been an indoor cycling coach since 2001. So our second location – which opened in Sture, Helsinki, in April of this year – offers an indoor cycling studio alongside a reformer pilates studio; franchise company Tribute Brands, which owns TRIB3, also owns the PILAT3S brand.

Our pilates studio has 15 reformers, while our large cycle studio has 51 BODY BIKE Phantoms on the studio floor. A further 10 Phantoms are located on a VIP balcony that overlooks the main floor. This area will open this summer, complete with sofas and post-workout drinks.

Is there a boutique scene in Helsinki?

There are other reformer pilates studios in Helsinki, although ours is the largest, but as we speak now, outside of our studio, indoor cycling still only takes place in big box clubs. Meanwhile, six years on, we’re still the only HIIT boutique in Helsinki – and in Finland, for that matter!

“When we do something, we do it so well that if we see anyone doing it better, we’ll salute them”

Our mentality has always been that when we do something, we do it so well that if we see anyone else doing it better, we’ll salute them. In the meantime, we have no direct competition.

We’ve had to educate consumers a bit on boutique, but it hasn’t been as hard as you might think. When you’re offering something so completely different, nobody tries to compare you with anyone else and you can create your own pricing structure.

Of course, when you’re charging €29 for a one-off HIIT or cycle class and €55 for reformer pilates, you have to deliver something really special. Not that most people pay that: most of our members are on class packs or memberships, so the average price paid for HIIT, for example, is €14.50.

But still, you have to be better than good, all the time, every day. I’ve written a book on this and it’s what we pride ourselves on. We don’t see ourselves as being in the fitness business. We’re in the entertainment business, with a high level of customer service.

“One of my favourite things is to watch first-timers’ faces as they come in and the wow factor hits them”

There are so many rules, exceptions and penalties in gym memberships. At TRIB3, we have none. We make everything easy and fun and we say ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’. We put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and do things as we’d want them to be done if we were members. We don’t tie you into a contract. If you want to leave or freeze your membership at any time, that’s fine – we’ll see you whenever you want to come back and have some fun with us.

What’s the vibe at your studios?

Adlon is an old movie theatre, with high ceilings and a big screen at the front where everyone’s heart rate is projected. You go down the stairs and at first you can’t work out where you are… is it a bar, a coffee shop, a clothing retailer? Then you go into the studio, black like a nightclub with blue lighting.

One of my favourite things to do is watch first-timers’ faces as they come in and the wow factor hits them. We even have members who tell us they used to go clubbing, but now come to TRIB3 instead.

We set out to create something equally powerful for cycling. All three founders love going to concerts, so this was our brief to the sound and lighting company: we wanted it to feel like you were listening to Avicii, with the stage set of Rammstein and the show of Coldplay. We’ve created a space with a 9m x 3m LED screen at the front and a stage where the instructor feels like a star.

Then in our reformer pilates studio, tucked away in a wing of the building, we’ve used burnt wood on the walls and we’ve opened up the ceiling. It feels like a separate zen world, far apart from the vibe of the other two studios.

“In cycling, you’re on stage with everyone watching. You have to want to be a star. We know how to make you into one.”

Tell us about your cycle programming.

As with most things in TRIB3, we have three CYCL3 programmes: Power, Speed and Endurance. Power works on resistance, Speed features sprints and Endurance is more steady state. In fact, each class has a bit of everything, but with an emphasis in one direction depending on which class you’re in.

The structure is similar to our HIIT programmes, with one to four rounds of six or seven minutes’ work separated by 40 seconds’ rest. Playlists are designed to support this class structure, but beyond that our instructors have freedom in their choreography.

Our workouts are all about having fun, but we do use data as well; most of our members download the BODY BIKE app to see all their data as they cycle. With our BODY BIKE Phantoms, we can coach using gears as well as RPM; our classes are set to music, but not everyone is good at feeling the beat, so referring to RPM can help. We also have a heart rate system, meaning we can coach using heart rate zones too.

“We’ve removed unlimited packages. We have enough demand that these don’t work for us.”

How do you find great instructors?

I like to train my own rather than recruiting them from elsewhere. What we do is so different that I don’t want anyone bringing old habits into our studios.

It’s important to find people who will do your thing, not their thing, while at the same time being a star. That’s particularly the case in cycling, where the instructor is on stage with everyone watching. You have to want to be a star. You have to want the attention of the class. You have to embody Robbie Williams as you tell the crowd: “For the next 45 minutes, your ass is mine!”

And if you do want to be a star, we know how to make you into one. At the moment, we have a few cycle instructors who aren’t quite there yet, but they soon will be.

What has been your biggest learning?

When you’ve sold gym memberships for 20+ years and worked hard to encourage regular visits, it’s a big shift in mindset to move to a boutique world where your ideal customer comes once a week or less. I’ve learned to rethink everything.

In a boutique, you’re only as strong as today’s performance. You have a finite number of spots to fill, but you can only sell them today: you can’t balance out a bad day today by selling extra spots tomorrow. So, you must fill all your spots for the highest price possible.

For us, this has meant removing unlimited packages; we have enough demand that these don’t work for us. Half of our members are on weekly memberships and half on class credit packs – and among those on memberships, around 90 per cent are on a ‘one class a week’ deal. Only a very few have opted for two or three classes a week.

This might change as Sture really gets going and both studios feed each other. They’re close by, so we’re already offering Adlon members the chance to experience a free cycle and/or pilates class, while new members at Sture are crossing into HIIT too.

Our timetables are also getting busier as we’ve realised people will do group exercise in the middle of the day. At Adlon, we now run a HIIT class every hour from 7.00am to 8.00pm on Tuesdays and Fridays and will soon do that on Thursdays too. Even on the other days, we have multiple classes throughout the day.

“The people who like us, love us – once a week or less!”

But generally, we know our members will do other activities – gym, golf and so on – and we actively encourage this. In fact, that’s the whole point of our approach. If you go clubbing every night, it takes the fun out of it. The same goes for TRIB3.

We continue to fill our HIIT classes with once-a-week members and are confident we can do the same with cycling and reformer – and still have to keep an eye on supply and demand.

We want to ensure people can get in whenever they want; that’s the whole point of huge studios with hourly classes. To achieve the perfect balance of supply vs demand, we know we need a roughly 50/50 split of weekly members vs those on class packs. To this end, we sometimes heavily promote a class credit pack when we need people to choose this option over a once-a-week membership.

Who is your target market?

We exist for the people who want to have fun working out, but we have our own way of doing things that isn’t for everyone. And that’s OK. Not everyone needs to like us and not everyone will. We enjoy doing things differently. If someone says something can’t be done, I’ll say: “OK, watch me!”

We don’t worry about negative online reviews, but if someone is negative or problematic in the club itself, we act quickly. We’re creating a space of entertainment where people choose to spend their free time and we won’t have anyone undermining that. I have no problem removing such individuals and barring them from our studios.

All that said, we have 27,000 people on our database just from Adlon and an email open rate of 60 per cent. The people who like us, love us – once a week or less!

What comes next for TRIB3 Finland?

We probably won’t open another cycle studio in Helsinki – it’s why we wanted to make the Sture studio so big – but we are looking to open a HIIT + reformer location next year. We’re looking at a few other options in Helsinki, too, all in unique places with the potential to do something amazing.

We’re also interested in incorporating our own take on the 432 social wellness club concept. Saunas are deeply rooted in the Finnish culture and I think we can do something pretty cool here.

Above all, we want to create studios we can feel proud of: cool spaces that light up first-timers’ faces with a wow factor. And whatever happens, we don’t want it to start feeling like work. We never want to lose the fun in what we do.