We were lucky to catch up with Celia Lopez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Celia , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
Eight years ago, I decided to begin my journey as an entrepreneur with my first business as an independent personal trainer. During this process, I saw a missing gap within the industry for people like me who wanted to create their own fitness businesses. There was no place for us independent fitness professionals to operate freely, and so the concept of wanting to be the change and create PlaceMade was born.
Many people doubted me in the beginning. How could this be done? Where will you get the money to make this happen? Will people actually pay for this? I, too, wasn’t sure how to make this happen but was determined.
I enrolled in business development programs, from accelerators to incubators to talking with my mentors. I dove deeper into creating business plans and started pitching my concept to people. People started believing in what I was creating, and one pitch competition to banks and investors. This is where everything started to come together. WE WON!
The vision I shared about PlaceMade was receiving traction, and we were awarded recognition and funding. One year later, after winning, we found the perfect place for our 1st Toronto location. A global pandemic started after signing our first lease 3 weeks later, and I was forced to take another risk STOP or keep going.
We kept pushing through by adapting and survived COVID.
We wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t taken the risk to create the concept and start PlaceMade as its first fitness coworking space. Now, we have two locations, and since opening, we have supported more than 60+ health and fitness professionals in operating their businesses freely and empowering people to lead healthier and more vital lives.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a former elite-level athlete turned personal trainer and now founder of PlaceMade. My experience as an athlete led me to start my career as a personal trainer. Eventually, it led me into entrepreneurship, starting my first fitness business as an independent personal trainer.
Through this process, I fell in love with entrepreneurship and bringing my ideas to life on my own terms. I was fortunate enough to participate in business development programs like business accelerators and incubators and dove deeper into what I could create from my experience in the fitness industry. Through this process of exposure to this thinking, I thought about the concept of PlaceMade. PlaceMade is the first fitness coworking space for health and fitness professionals to work independently with their clients.
Problem: Health and fitness professionals are underpaid, undervalued, and overworked, and as a result, many will become self-employed during their careers. The fitness industry has failed these professionals in their attempts to earn a good living as independents. These professionals need access to professional spaces, opportunities for continued business development and growth, and a community of self-employed people like them. According to an article by Go Simple Tax, about 80% of personal trainers are freelancers registered as sole traders (another term for being self-employed).
Solution: Placemade proposes a newer model for the health and fitness industry. We provide a business-to-business market for self-employed professionals to access our turn-key studios to work with clients via our configurable training pods and tech-enabled space, providing professionals with the tools and resources to run their businesses professionally.
More on Celia Lopez:
– Bootstrapped and operated her first fitness business (CLF) for over six years, focusing on 1-On-1 and group and rehabilitation training, and successfully coached over 100+ clients.
– Graduate of Founder Gyms Cohort 18 and awarded “Best in Cohort.” Founder Gym is the leading online program training underrepresented founders on how to raise money and scale their tech startups.
– Coveted Google for Startups Scholarship recipient
-Alumni of Toronto’s Business Incubators & Accelerators programs, including Business in the Streets, BizStart Entrepreneurship Program, and Enterprise Toronto.
– Recipient of 2022 The Founder Fund Pitch Event Grant. The Founders Fund is a community hub powered by Tease for diverse women founders seeking barrier-free funding, education and mentorship.
– Recipient of 2018 Ignite Capital’s Startup Category Winner with Placemade.co. Ignite Capital was a not-for-profit venture capital and accelerator firm in Toronto, Canada.
– Pre-seed for Placemade funded by Futurprenuer Canada & Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). Futurprenuer provides early-stage financing, mentorship and other resources to help young entrepreneurs launch successful businesses.
– Celia has utilized her business acumen to mentor 20+ up-and-coming fitness professionals in the industry. Her support has been invaluable for them to build and expand their business from the ground up. Her mentorship also goes beyond just making the company and focuses on creating brand development.
– Avid panellist and guest speaker sharing her knowledge and experience as featured in City of Toronto’s Toronto Youth Equity Strategy, York University ELLA Express Program, Startup Talk Toronto’s Startup & Entrepreneur Podcast, Hustle Over Everything Podcast, IDEA Health & Fitness Association.
– Co-host of The Better Women Project Podcast, empowering young women about business, relationships, money and love
I am most proud of continuing to share my journey of building PlaceMade into the company I know it can be and empowering people to follow their dreams and create the life they have always dreamed of building.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
PlaceMade’s funding came from being scrappy. We entered pitch competitions, which helped give us recognition and exposure. This, in turn, gave us the momentum we needed to get financing from non-traditional banks like the Business Development Bank and Futureprenur Canada. This provided us with the initial funding we needed to open our first location, and along the way, we applied for all available grant funding from $500 to $10,000. Always accept what you can because every little bit can go a long way.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Before we launched our 1st Toronto location, Placemade’s strategy was to build our community first, and we felt the easiest and most cost-effective way to do this was to build it on our social media channels, mainly on IG and FB.
We did this by working with a digital marketing expert, honing in on our messaging and strategy. Posting to post will only get you so far. You need to be intentional about why you are posting and sharing your company with the world because it is through this that people will either join your cause/community or not. So, from the very beginning, we took our brand presence very seriously and were able to build our community first before we even launched and opened our first location.
This made it an easier sell once we opened up because we were already starting to build trust in our community. People generally work with companies or people who already have rapport, so think about doing this before you start pushing for sales.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://placemade.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/placemade.co / https://www.instagram.com/celialopezfit
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/placemade.co
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/placemadeco/
Image Credits
IG @rich3dee – richie dos santos