We Opened Our First Indoor Location During The Great Recession

In 2008, while the economy was cratering and businesses were shutting down left and right, I signed a lease and started construction on our first purpose-built, year-round indoor swim facility.

People thought I was out of my mind.

For 14 years, we'd been operating out of hotel pools and outdoor locations. Seasonal, weather-dependent and limited. I knew that if we wanted to grow, if we wanted to actually fulfill our mission of making families safer around the water, we needed our own space.

So I did it. Right in the middle of the Great Recession.

Was I scared? Absolutely. But here's what I'd learned by that point: there's never a perfect time. If you wait for conditions to be ideal, you'll wait forever.

The irony is that the timing actually worked in our favor in some ways. Construction costs were lower, landlords were more flexible and families were looking for affordable, high-value activities for their kids. Swimming lessons checked every box.

We opened that Kendall location in July 2009 and it went great! By 2013, we opened a second facility. And that's when things really took off. Having our own buildings, purpose-built for what we do, changed everything. The experience got better. The team got more invested. The families noticed. We opened 3 more locations in the next 6 years!

It also put us on the radar of private equity firms. Which, years later, led to the whole conversation about how I wanted to exit and ultimately to employee ownership. But that's a story for another post.

The point is this: some of the best decisions you'll ever make will look crazy to everyone around you. If you believe in what you're building and you've done the work to prepare, trust yourself.

The recession didn't stop us. It launched us.