Evgenia Koroleva built ONE LDN around a gym she wanted to use herself: good equipment, classes and people, with the freedom to pay monthly. In this conversation she reports three years of consistent growth, at roughly 30% year on year. She does not specify the growth metric or provide accounts, so that figure is her description of the business, not a verified revenue claim or evidence that flexible memberships caused the growth.
This playbook is for founders of health, fitness and wellbeing businesses with £0–£3m in annual revenue. Each lesson separates Evgenia's experience from a suggested experiment you can adapt. The experiments, thresholds and worked numbers are editorial suggestions, not ONE LDN's operating procedures or results. Start with the lesson that addresses your current constraint.
01Measure whether people come back
From the conversation. Evgenia describes community through how frequently members train, how long they stay and whether they refer friends. She reports attendance and retention at three times the industry average, without defining that benchmark. The useful operating principle is to measure behaviour alongside the atmosphere in the room. 04:22–05:25
Suggested experiment. For one month, track visits per active member, the proportion of a joining cohort still paying after 30 and 90 days, and new paying members who came through a referral. Write down each denominator and use the same definition each week. A subscription business can substitute meaningful product use for gym visits.
Choose one change, such as introducing each new member to a coach and a regular attendee. Record who experienced it and compare return visits with your earlier joining cohorts. Treat a small improvement as a reason to investigate further: seasonality and different customers can change the numbers too.
Decision to make. Which activity produces repeat use or referrals worth its staff time? Keep a clear record of that connection before adding more events.
02Choose a customer your team can recognise
From the conversation. ONE LDN's high-performance mindset includes beginners who want to improve. Evgenia says the values have to run from leadership through staff into the membership; Will points out that the appeal includes people who aspire to that identity. 06:09–08:50
Suggested experiment. Interview five retained customers and five recent leavers or people who chose another provider. Ask what progress they wanted, what made them feel at home and what stopped them returning. Turn the recurring answers into one audience statement: who they are, what they want to achieve and what you help them do.
Check that statement against your landing page, first visit and team briefing. Test one change in the promise or onboarding, then measure qualified enquiries and second visits. The aim is a promise the business can deliver consistently, with room for beginners who share the ambition.
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