The clean white walls and quiet halls of Collective Studios, a new boutique gym in Londonderry, belies the year of frustration and uncertainty that owner Ashley Iwanicki took to open her doors.
Now that the gym is open, there are tough, long days, Iwanicki said. But she said the studio’s longest day didn’t compare to fighting over the opening.
“We survived that,” she said. “We can get through this.”
The pandemic has put the lives of people around the world on hold. Companies had to close and then faced capacity limits to keep people safe. It was getting difficult to get a loan. While established businesses got help from the three federal stimulus laws, there was little help for entrepreneurs venturing out into a new venture.
But Iwanicki couldn’t foresee that when she decided to move across the country and open her gym.
In 2019, she lived in San Diego, ran a marketing firm that worked with high-end fitness companies, and considered the next step in her professional life. Iwanicki, a native of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and her husband, who grew up in Litchfield, wanted to return to New England to be closer to the family.
The idea of a high-end gym where she could help people exercise and create community came to her in a dream, she said. When she researched the market, she found that New England had few of the small studios she loved in California, and only focused on a few types of training courses offered in a luxurious setting – quite another Kind of experience as a large gym with tiered spartan weight lifting gym.
Iwanicki said she missed that type of experience when visiting her Massachusetts home and her in-laws in New Hampshire. She assumed there was a market with other people who thought the same way.
“I couldn’t be the only one living in New England or returning to New England, especially in the suburbs, who wanted an experience like this,” she said.
Iwanicki created a business plan. She and her husband packed up their California lives and moved to New Hampshire in February 2020. Iwanicki soon found a place for the studio in a mall on busy Route 102. She signed a lease the second week of March 2020.
Days later, the coronavirus state of emergency was declared.
Optimism meets pandemic
Iwanicki hoped that COVID-19 would only mean a few weeks delay and that it could open in summer 2020.
“Well, I am very optimistic. I’m a Sagittarius, ”she said. But the pandemic suspended her young business along with the rest of the world for a year.
Iwanicki spent most of the year getting credit for the business. She met with about 40 lenders, she said, taking one denial after another. She and her husband lived with his parents to save money, Iwanicki said. She continued to pay rent for the vacant Londonderry space. And there was no pandemic aid for Collective Studios or for companies that hadn’t opened by early 2020.
The pandemic relief targeted businesses that opened in early 2020, said Amy K. Bassett, New Hampshire District director for the U.S. Small Business Administration.
“Most programs haven’t helped anyone who didn’t exist before the pandemic,” Bassett said. Starting a new business is hard enough, she said, but entrepreneurs rose particularly steeply last year.
“Everyone who started had an additional disadvantage,” said Bassett. “We admire everyone who has tried.”
Iwanicki needed all his optimism to get through the year. She said her yoga training also helped her feel stable amid uncertainty.
“There have been many moments when we didn’t know if we were making the right choice by pursuing,” she said. “Will we ever be able to open? Will we ever get funding?
But one day a lender said yes.
It didn’t take any more, said Iwanicki – yes. The year of holding one’s breath was over.
That spring, renovations finally began, and Iwanicki and her husband hauled in six 300-pound megaformer machines that were declared like Pilates machines with added resistance.
Iwanicki hired a team of eight part-time workers – she said she still had no problem recruiting because she had like-minded acquaintances and friends of friends. Iwanicki built relationships with food and wellness product providers, with an emphasis on working with women-owned or colored companies or small local businesses, including the smoothie shop next door.
The Collective Studios opened earlier this month.
The studio is in a piece of a busy mall off busy Route 102. But inside, the area around the mall disappears from view. The lobby areas are peaceful, but during class, Iwanicki and the other teachers turn up the music and turn on lights that pulsate to the beat of the music. It feels a bit like working out in a nightclub, Iwanicki said as the teachers go through different types of yoga and the megaformer classes.
An average weekday schedule attracted between 70 and 80 people, Iwanicki said, which exceeded her expectations for the first week in business.
She said people are excited to get back into group fitness and experience a new way of exercising together in a new place.
“I think people are thirsty for interaction and fellowship,” she said. “If 2020 has taught us anything, it is the importance of community.”
