We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Torres a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David , appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Omega Strong Gym, how the name came alive? It all happened 5 years ago, when my business partner and I were trying to find a name for the gym. We wanted to make sure the name was majestic and stood out from the competition, Originally the name OMEGA came from a musical piano piece I composed back in 2012, which was named The Omega. The name stood out and was majestic, my business partner and I loved it, but something was missing… The point of joining a gym is to get stronger, eventually we were trying to figure out another name and both of us came up with Omega Strong, as soon as we said it BAM! We thought to ourselves, this is it! Omega Strong and then we added the Gym! Because we are a Gym, nowadays, most gyms are name “Fitness, or Health Club”. We decided to keep it simple and old school Omega Strong Gym. And that is how our name came alive!

David , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Omega Strong Gym was founded to provide a corporate free strength training environment and provide a family intimate and private environment as well. I have always been into fitness since I was 14 years old, strength training became a life style for me and my partner. We used to train at LA fitness and other big corporate gyms, during those times we noticed every one was very judgmental and they did not have the equipment or environment we needed for us to train. I told my partner at the time, we need to create a gym where we can all train and have our own spot. My breaking point in the industry was when I almost got kicked out of an LA Fitness for deadlifting, that is when I decided to work hard, go to school and save enough funds to open a gym. Eventually in 2016 as a broke college student I decided to invest the little bit of money and take the leap of faith to initiate the business Unfortunately due to my young age I was rejected several times to get a commercial place or warehouse, eventually my partner and I kept trying and finally one land lord who had recently bought a property gave us a chance to do our start up. We were so excited to get the gym going and get it started, and that is how our business and entrepreneurship adventures began.

We are most proud of the progress we made when we open up, through discipline, consistency, hard work and passion we made the gym happen. Our resilience to make this dream come true slowly drove Omega to grow into the gym we are today. We started from a small 900 sqft warehouse to now a 3200 sqft. Our next goal is to build from the ground up a 1000sqft warehouse gym.

We want also people to know Omega is a gym for the people by the people! A place where “Strength Unites All”

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

During the first months when we opened our gym it was very rough, definitely dark moments that no one wants to live. Unfortunately, it is part of the process, when we first opened the demographics where we opened the gym were against us, powerlifting was not very popular in the part of town where we opened. We only had 3 customers at the start for the first 5 months, slowly thank you to the first 3 members they brought some friends over who eventually joined and our count grew to 8 members. We were not making any money and could barely afford to pay rent, during those times I kept my job in janitorial to pay the bills and fund the gym. I almost gave up after the 5th month and was waiting for the lease to be up to shut down the gym and sell everything. Eventually, during the 9th month and 10th month, things started picking up, we got more customers and by the 11th month we had around 25 members which helped tremendously. But looking back, it is crazy to think Omega could have been done, the first year was definitely a tough one.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

When I was in college I was working part time as a janitor and slowly saved up some money. I also worked some side jobs on the side such as landscaping and construction. I put all that money on the side and started to slowly buy gym equipment. Eventually, I was offered a Janitorial Quality Control job with my company Olympus and I decided to take it. I stopped going to college, started to work full time, save some money and eventually I put all of it into the gym. I kept my job in the janitorial industry and used it as my investor. That is how I put the initial capital to start it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.omegastronggym.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omegastronggym/
• Facebook: Omega Strong Gym LLC
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/omega-strong-gym-llc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNrExwpbSzKHV_unktz_kWg
• Yelp: Omega Strong Gym

Image Credits
David Torres Maria Gonzalez