Business Simulator

The Studio

You just took over Foundry Fitness.

A 200-member strength studio: three coaches, 260 spots, a lease that arrives monthly, and $14,000 in the bank.

Twelve months, one decision each. The machine underneath is subscription math: revenue is members times price, next month’s members are this month’s minus churn plus joins. And churn, the villain of this particular year, responds to experience quality and crowding on a two-month lag. Two points of monthly churn is the difference between compounding and bleeding, and neither one announces itself.

Every year plays out differently, with different situations and different numbers. But there’s no luck in the outcomes: once a situation is in front of you, every consequence follows from your choice and the state you built. January will hand you a wave of resolution joiners either way; whether March keeps any of them is decided by you, in advance. If the studio ends the year with a waitlist, that was you. If the lease outlasts the member base, that was also you, five quiet months earlier.