We were lucky to catch up with Dominque Vela recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dominque, 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.
Dominque: I grew up in South Texas where nothing much happened and not a lot was around for people to stress about. I moved to Austin in 2017 after graduating with a degree in Exercise and Sports Science from Texas State and started coaching and personal training. Two years later my passion for coaching dwindled and I wanted to look for something different. I started an entry level builder job for PW23 Fitness early 2020, soon after the pandemic shut the world down and no one could go to gyms. At the time, it was just me and the owner of PW23 fitness building boxes for people who still wanted to workout at home, so we stayed working. Fast forward to two years later and I had the opportunity to jump in to a partnership with Preston (owner of PW23 Fitness) and Michelle Do. I have never owned a business before, but due to the pandemic we started building home gyms from scratch and soon after dove into commercial gym outfitting. This seemed like a huge risk, but I felt comfortable going into the gym building business with the best of the best. Since then, we’ve launched at the beginning of October and we are just getting started.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Lonestar Gym Builders is a gym building, fitness equipment supplier, and gym design company. We primarily build home gyms, garage gyms, outdoor gyms, CrossFit and commercial gyms, There’s no limit to what our team can do to upgrade your space. We can add shiplap to walls, install split AC units to a garage, install gym mirrors, and much more. We work with Texas fitness equipment vendors to get customers the best of the best equipment in their gym. If you have a limited amount of space we are experts in space saving with equipment and storage. We are a team of home gym owners, who take their fitness seriously. Any one of us can go out to your house and install a home gym from start to finish. Our company is mainly women and minority owned, we plan to provide many Austinites and surrounding cities with their dream home gym.
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
Michelle: I met my business partners, Preston and Dominique (Niki), at the previous gym building company we worked at. Preston was the primary founder and one of the business partners of that company. He was the one that hired and trained both me and Niki to fabricate gym equipment and accessories. Later down the road, Niki taught herself how to create 3D gym designs and I took on the role of Operations Management. After working together in a short period of time, we understood the potential and value each of us brought to the table. We wanted to be able to operate our own company as a shared effort with a hands-on approach. That common goal is what led to the founding of Lonestar Gym Builders.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Michelle: A couple years after graduating high school, I started working for a corporation where I was hired in manufacturing then moved up to an administrative role. While working for that company I was instructed on what to do and how to do it, so my brain was conditioned to that manner. There wasn’t any room to deviate from procedure, just “thinking inside the box” so to speak. I was laid off from that company a few years ago but to this day I continue to remind myself that there’s not always set way to operate. Especially when it comes to problem solving or even a basic task.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lonestargymbuilders.com
- Instagram: @lonestargymbuilders
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lonestargymbuilders/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lonestar-gym-builders-austin