- Gym World
- Posts
- Josh Maranian got laid off, then built a 40-member gym out of his garage.
Josh Maranian got laid off, then built a 40-member gym out of his garage.
Inside Regen Fitness Club's first 12 months
John Franklin
July 03, 2026
What's up, Gym World?
Most gym owners spend their first year just trying to keep the lights on. Josh Maranian spent his time figuring out how to navigate a health scare, layoff, and turning a garage gym into a sustainable business.
Josh runs Regen Fitness Club, a semi-private training gym in Fort Collins, Colorado. One year in, he's got 40+ members, a sauna, a cold plunge, and even a beer-and-seltzer license. Not bad for a guy who started with a personal training cert and a spare bedroom's worth of equipment.
Mateo sat down with Josh to learn how he built it.
From corporate burnout to a hospital bed
Before any of this, Josh had what most people would call a good job.
Six-figure salary, unlimited PTO, fully remote.
He hated it.
The real turning point came in 2019, when Josh ended up in the hospital after what turned out to be blood clots that had traveled into his lungs. A doctor rated the severity a 9.4 out of 10.
💬 Josh spent two days in the hospital with catheters in his legs, pumping clot-busting medication through his body. He used the time to write a journal entry about turning the scare into the best thing that ever happened to him.
That moment planted the seed to move into the fitness world, but it took him four more years, a pandemic, and a layoff from HP before he finally acted on it.
Getting his personal training certification in February 2023, Josh figured he'd found his way out. Two months later, he got the call that his team at work was downsizing.
💬 After an hour or two of dread, Josh said it turned into excitement. He had unlimited choices in front of him for the first time in years.
So he made his wife a deal: let him try personal training for a bit while she covered the bills. Then he took a handful of clients and started training them out of his garage.
Built on templates, not guesswork
Josh's whole approach to fitness was shaped by his own recovery.
It took him four to five years to feel like he had real autonomy over his health.
He landed on a mix of functional strength work with kettlebells, barbells, and dumbbells. From the garage days on, every client got a custom program, but Josh built it from a template first, then adjusted it to the person.
That structure is what let him scale past one-on-one sessions. As his garage filled up and time slots got tight, he started pairing clients together instead of charging for separate hourly sessions.
He charged each client 75% of his normal rate instead of splitting it in half. Two clients at 75% added up to 150% of what he used to make in that slot.
That math is what sparked Regen's now-signature 4:1 semi-private model. One coach, four members, each one on their own program.
The model today
Regen runs out of a 1,500 sq ft facility with a 750 sq ft training floor.
Members train in small groups of four on a templated program that gets customized to their goals and any limitations.
A few numbers behind the business:
Membership pricing: $450 every four weeks for 2x/week (about $56/session), with a $100 upgrade for 3x/week
Packed sessions: A full group of four runs north of $200 per session
Coach pay: $35 per session, with no selling required
Member growth: From 10 founding members in the garage to 40+ in year one
💬 Josh splits his programming into themed "tracks" based on member goals: a build track for bodybuilding-style clients, event-specific programs like a Spartan race prep block, and a strength-focused block leading into an annual one-rep-max competition called the Strong Summer Sendoff.
Spend big here, cut hard there.
When Josh built out the new space, he thought $2,000 would cover everything; a six-figure intra-family loan told a different story.
He was right about some things and very wrong about others.
Equipment got the biggest investment because Josh wanted the space to feel intentional, not like a garage gym with a sign on the door.
Where he didn't spend: design.
The space is still mostly a metal box. No murals, no major buildout, no showers.
💬 Josh's logic on the recovery amenities doubles as a retention play. Sauna and cold plunge access is unlimited for members only, which means the perk itself becomes a reason to stay a member rather than train somewhere else.
Hiring coaches before he felt ready
Plenty of gym owners wait too long to bring on staff. Josh did the opposite, hiring coaches in year one, even though it meant a smaller paycheck for himself early on.
💬 The deciding factor was listening to other gym owners talk about how much time they lost staying in the weeds for too long.
His current coaches are paid per session with no sales responsibility, and Josh is already building out growth tracks for them. One coach who loves programming is being trained to take over template design. Another with strong sales instincts is being groomed to move into that role.
Where the leads are coming from
For a brand-new gym, Regen's growth has relied heavily on organic traffic and referrals, with almost no spend on paid marketing.
💬 Josh credits a chunk of early traffic to the gym's website, which Kilo built for him. He says he couldn't believe people were finding the gym online, looking up the location, and showing up to sign up without ever meeting him first.
What's next
Year two for Josh is about systems.
He's stepping off the gym floor and into operations: lead nurture, scheduling, making sure the fridge is stocked, and folding the towels.
💬 Josh wants Regen to feel the way Cheers feels. Members walk in, and the room can say their name. He's hiring an operations manager so coaches can stay focused on coaching rather than split their attention between programming and relationship-building.
TL;DR
Josh went from a six-figure corporate job he hated to a health scare that changed his outlook, and then to a layoff that forced him to take a risk.
He built programs around templates so quality didn't depend solely on his time.
He invested heavily in equipment and amenities, and cut costs everywhere else.
He hired coaches early, rather than waiting until he was overwhelmed.
He let organic traffic and a strong website do a lot of the heavy lifting.
If you're in your first year and feeling like you're improvising as you go, Josh's story is proof that you can build something real out of almost nothing.
cheers,
j
P.S. If this resonated with you, send it to a gym owner in their first year who needs the reminder that it gets easier.