Kids slipped in at 5:59 pm to beat peak pricing. Felipe Apablaza, CEO of Grupo Wellness, turned that into a gym with no membership.

Felipe Apablaza runs DMOOV, a membership club chain in Chile, and Neo, a gym with no membership at all: you pay per visit and the price moves with demand. His co-founder came from airline revenue management. He says 40% of Neo's users were not going to any gym before, which raises the question of who the monthly contract leaves out.

In this conversation:

• Why kids walking in at 5:59 pushed DMOOV towards peak-hour pric
• How a 90-person cap and a twelve-visit ceiling shape what members pay
• Who comes to a gym that has no membership, and what it costs to bring them in
• Why a free app, not the gym, is Neo's acquisition channel
• How he plans to take pay-per-visit into other operators' clubs

Season 2 of Tomorrow Health is sponsored by Zing Coach - every gym member, personally coached.

Chapters:

00:00 Why the monthly contract is wearing out

00:10 Grupo Wellness, Neo and three things to listen for

01:12 Six companies and a sports city

02:25 DMOOV: one price, every training space

03:43 Ten million in revenue, seven from DMOOV

03:57 Why build a second gym brand

04:42 Kids at 5:59 and an airline revenue manager

05:58 What Gen Z does on a gym floor

06:19 Three things Gen Z wants

06:38 Strength, mirrors and DJ nights

07:36 Pay per visit, 90 people at a time

08:41 From 12 to 55 dollars a month

09:03 A 3.50 average check-in, benchmarked on Smart Fit

09:28 13,000 visitors and 40% new to gyms

10:36 Who the 40% are, and what they cost to acquire

11:25 The free app as acquisition channel

12:28 Nine gyms in Chile, then Peru, Colombia and Argentina

12:59 Why the gym itself is a commodity

13:40 How dynamic pricing flattened the peaks

14:53 What changes in Europe and the US

16:05 Building a technology company out of a gym

17:28 Plugging into the CRMs gyms already use

18:17 Why Latin America is a year behind

19:06 Price points decide Latin America

19:57 What the industry gets wrong about technology

20:26 One decision: four visits a month, not twelve

Links:

* Felipe Apablaza on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felipeapablaza/

* Neo Plex: https://www.neoplex.cl

* Zing Coach, season sponsor: https://zing.coach/

* Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karbasova/

* Tomorrow Health: https://tomorrow-health.com

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* Apply to join FitTech Club: https://fittechclub.com/