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“You got it, boss.” We stop at her desk, located just outside my office. “Any other extravagant purchases you want me to make on your behalf today?”
“Nah, thank you, Mila, that’d be all.”
She sits at her post, and I walk into my office, taking in the city below from the expansive wall of windows.
Gosh, this view of New York City never ceases to amaze me. Manhattan stretches out before me, a vast glass-and-steel tapestry where everything is possible. Like always, I feel a surge of excitement at being here, in the center of it all.
I take off my suit jacket and drop it onto my chair. Just as I’m about to sit at my desk, my phone pings with a new Google alert. The email links to an article in The Wall Street Journal.
I frown. I don’t remember giving them an interview and can’t fathom why they should do a piece on me now when they didn’t bother to give me the cover when Mercer Enterprises made it to decacorn.
I settle in my chair and forward the link to my computer to read it on the big screen.
The article is about a new gym opening in NOHO.
Ah, the supposed competition.
It amazes me how most people—even experts—still consider my company a fitness empire when the core of the business is, and has always been, the real-estate deals that gravitate around the fitness centers.
You don’t build an empire off a one-time $42,500 franchise payment and a 5 per cent royalty on $39.99 monthly membership fees.
You build it by owning the land upon which the gyms are placed.
My entire business model has been to amass plots of land to then lease to my franchisees, who, as part of their agreement, are only allowed to rent from me.
This guarantees me a steady, upfront revenue stream. Before a single shovelful of dirt is moved, the cash starts to roll in. Also granting me greater capital for expansion, giving me the firepower to acquire more land, which in turn fuels more growth.
Real estate… That’s where the money is.
I went into fitness only because that happened to be the commercial activity that made the most sense for my first big plot acquisition.
Still, if an article about a new gym cites me, I want to know what they have to say. I read the opening.
Blake Avery, Instagram fitness sensation, seals the dream with the opening of a new, state-of-the-art fitness center in up-and-trendy NOHO, Manhattan. Now fans—at least the ones who live in New York—will be able to attend in-person sessions with the most popular personal trainer the internet has ever seen. And if you don’t live in The Big Apple, despair not, each training session with Blake will be streamed live on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Times will vary to accommodate different time zones.
I’m dealing with a circus monkey, then. Don’t even get me started on what I think about social media, influencers, and internet celebrities. I conduct my business under the radar. Professional to a T, as it should be done by anyone with their sanity still intact. Shaking my head, I read the next passage of the article.
“Blake, after over a decade of inspiring people all over the world to be more healthy and fit, you’ll finally be able to do that vis-à-vis. Are you excited?”
A decade? How old is the dude? I don’t read his reply and skip to the next question.
“Your company is what in the start-up circles is known as a unicorn. What does that mean?”
“It means our latest valuation went over the billion-dollar mark. For a start-up, something as rare as finding a unicorn.”
I scoff at that. Try making it to decacorn before you boast. Loser.
“You don’t come from a wealthy family, do you? How does reaching the status of unicorn make you feel?”
The article is a mile long and, frankly, I don’t have time for a rags-to-riches sob story. I save a PDF version of the editorial and search the new document for my name. The question that brings me into the picture makes little sense on its own, so I back up a few passages and read the entire exchange.
“The world of fitness seems to be full of self-made entrepreneurs. Do you think it’s because the fitness community is so inclusive?”
“Yeah, I’ve never found a more supportive group of…”
Blah, blah, blah… I don’t read the full apple-polishing response.
“And you’re the second one of these remarkable self-made entrepreneurs to become a billionaire—”
