With Hapana, expansion doesn’t have to come at the expense of control or culture
In any industry, growth isn’t just a common goal, but an expectation. Launching without expansion plans is like hitting the gym without an intent to get stronger, faster or leaner. It’s almost unheard of, and in some cases, counterproductive.
However so, it’s not without drawbacks. As you scale, maintaining your core principles, keeping leaders aligned and maintaining a smooth flow of data becomes a challenge across the network. With stretching, brand identity can thin.
“When you’re growing fast, especially with franchises, branding starts to dilute,” said Hapana founder and CEO Jarron Aizen. “Each location develops its own little quirks and ways of doing things. Members start feeling like they’re walking into completely different gyms depending on which location they visit. What should feel like one brand starts to feel like a bunch of separate businesses that happen to share a name.”
Acknowledging this issue, Aizen launched Hapana, a leading end-to-end fitness studio management software solution, to fortify that identity, no matter how spread out it becomes. Between data consolidation, app setup, visuals and more, the provider safeguards what makes brands unique to empower their entire operation.
Insightful & Readable Data
With different figures coming in from different locations, franchising brands are often unable to compare locations and blind to actionable insights. It’s one of the most common pain points among franchisors and only increases as networks grow.
“You get this reporting nightmare where every site is tracking things slightly differently, so when HQ tries to get a read on how the brand is actually performing, they’re comparing apples to oranges — which can make it very difficult to figure out where to invest next or to identify problems and solutions,” Aizen explained.
Hapana, however, brings them into view. By consolidating the scattered data, the brand delivers an easy-to-digest, complete view of your operation.
“You can actually see what’s happening across your whole network at a glance,” Aizen said. “There’s no reason that a sophisticated fitness franchise should be logging into five different systems or trying to make sense of spreadsheets with data that doesn’t all match.”
Whether it’s identifying locations straying from the brand ethos that may need support or noticing successful adaptations to replicate across the board, Hapana puts it all within short reach.
A White Label App
Hapana also helps brands strengthen their extensions of themselves with its white-label app, which makes their carefully curated experiences accessible to members anywhere. The app links with gym or studio websites, social media channels and the physical gyms or studios themselves. This presents members with the same colors, experiences and overall environment regardless of when or where they log on.
“Whether they’re booking a class on their phone or checking in at a new location across town, it feels like the same company they know and love,” Aizen said.
Real World Examples
KX Pilates, a rapidly expanding brand that blends Pilates with strength and cardio training, represents one of the many brands benefitting from Hapana’s aforementioned identity-empowering features. It recently surpassed triple-digit locations but remains tied to its founding vision.
“They re-platformed with us and kept the KX voice front and center as they scaled past a hundred studios,” said Aizen. “The rollout included a branded app and standard KPI views across the network, so the experience stayed consistent and the leadership team could actually compare sites.”
Doing so equated remarkable engagement and retention metrics, positioning the brand for even further growth.
“Now, they’re processing millions of class check-ins annually, have hundreds of thousands of app downloads, a solid daily booking volume and they’re keeping about 90% of their members,” Aizen reported. “That’s what happens when you protect the member experience and make data comparable across locations.”
Aizen also mentioned Body Fit Training as a notable beneficiary. The group fitness brand blending strength and cardio is now up over 100 locations.
Franchisee and HQ Balance
Though Hapana helps brands keep a tight grip on their identity, it’s not one that suffocates franchisees either. The platform cements what’s important, but leaves enough wiggle room to adjust and meet local demands.
“We lock down the stuff that absolutely can’t change at the brand level, such as your visual identity, core class offerings, pricing structure and system permissions — basically anything that keeps you safe and recognizable,” Aizen said. “But then we give local managers real control over the things where community context actually matters — their class schedules, local events, partnerships with nearby businesses and how they communicate with their specific member base day-to-day.”
As franchisees make different moves between the margins, Hapana makes them all visible at the HQ level through standardized dashboards. This promotes creativity at the base, control from the top and potential innovation at every level.
“They can see what’s working and what isn’t,” said Aizen. “You’ve got your guardrails, you’ve got clear data and you’ve got freedom where it actually serves the local community. And because everyone’s measuring the same things the same way, the whole network learns faster from each other’s successes…That’s how you can run hundreds of locations without feeling like a soulless chain.”
