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Before he ran SweatHouz (SWTHZ), Nico Varano was in private equity, sizing up businesses on spreadsheets. One of them was an eight-studio contrast therapy studio offering sixty minutes of an infrared sauna, a cold plunge and a vitamin C shower, all inside a private suite.
He saw what made the model work before he ever set foot in one: recurring revenue, a small footprint, no instructor payroll to manage, no dead hours at 11 a.m. Then he started training for a charity boxing match and using SWTHZ to survive it. The room stopped being a data point and became something he needed.
He signed on as the brand’s first franchisee, putting his own name on eight Boston leases before there was much of a system to join. Those studios still rank near the top of the system on revenue per member and retention.
From there, Varano moved to the board. That’s the step he says most people skip past, and the one he found most useful.
“As a franchisee, you see your own stores with total clarity and the other ninety-five not at all. In the boardroom, you see the whole system,” Varano said.
He became CEO without campaigning for the job, carrying the same risk every franchisee carries while running the business from both sides. He still owns and operates his original Boston studios today.
Varano says the real edge isn’t the infrared sauna or the cold plunge sitting inside every private room. Competitors can replicate that easily. What they can’t touch is the hospitality, or who a franchise chooses to hire and hold to a high standard.
“They can copy our floor plan in ninety days. They can’t copy the people,” he said.
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