Burn Boot Camp CEO Devan Kline Tells All

Burn Boot Camp, a fitness franchise that aims to empower women and provide them with a sense of community as they achieve their fitness goals, has quite the history. The brand started off in a Charlotte, North Carolina parking lot. Today, it has expanded significantly and is poised for major growth in 2019.

In an interview with 1851 Franchise, Burn Boot Camp CEO and co-founder Devan Kline provided a deep look into the company’s origins and how he and his wife, Morgan, started it, insight as to where the brand is today and insight into where it is headed.

1851: What inspired you to start Burn Boot Camp?                  

Kline: The time I spent practicing and playing sports led me to fall in love with fitness and nutrition. I traveled for six years while playing baseball for Central Michigan University and the San Francisco Giants, and I stayed with various host families in different cities. I’d assumed that many families experienced the “Kline dynamics,” but I couldn’t have been more wrong—I got a taste of “normal” family issues. My host families were encouraging, caring, and loving but still struggled with unhappiness, similarly to my parents. They didn’t turn to drugs and alcohol but rather to food, physical laziness, and an abundance of excuses to combat life’s problems. This created a lack of vitality and energy that only seemed to contribute to those feelings of unhappiness.                    

When I was released from the Giants, I remember sitting in a hotel room in Scottsdale, Arizona, and bawling my eyes out. My dream was suddenly over, and I had no idea what to do with myself. The one person I could call for advice was Morgan, and she reminded me how proud I should be of my accomplishments. She said, “Devan, look how far you’ve come. Just keep moving forward.” I remember mentally repeating the phrase “keep moving” as I boarded a plane to reunite with her in Naples, Florida.                    

During my flight home, I had my breakthrough moment. You know those “ah-ha” moments when you feel like a light bulb turns on? Yes, it was one of those. I recalled the satisfaction I experienced when teaching my host families the principles I used to maintain control of my life while growing up. My presence in their homes created an apparent contagious energy as I felt my positivity, as well as nutrition and fitness knowledge, rub off on them.                   

My greater purpose was clear. I made it my mission to positively impact as many people as I could, and a few months later, I created a fitness program that was inspired by my host families. Thus, my first program was born, “Lightning 900.” I trained women in Southwest Florida to “Burn 900 Calories Lightning Fast,” while teaching them to put themselves first for a change. I found my energy and presence to be more contagious than ever. My program caught fire, and within ninety days, I was one of the most recognized trainers in Southwest Florida.                    

My training career was just taking off when Morgan was offered an advancement opportunity with her company. If she accepted, she would have to relocate to Charlotte, North Carolina. She deserved this promotion, and I would support her, because she had supported me my entire life. I knew that I would be at home wherever I was, as long as she was with me.                  

Morgan moved, and I stayed behind in Naples for a few months to finish out my personal training contracts. I worked for twelve hours at the gym and spent the following five waking hours creating what is now known as Burn Boot Camp. I used those months to put one of my favorite Tony Robbins quotes into practice: “Success is not about your resources. It’s about how resourceful you are with what you have.”                   

When I wasn’t training clients, I studied marketing, gym operations, HTML coding, video editing, legal issues, finance, and business operations. Within three months, I had created a brand and a website, and I’d pieced together the legal, financial, and operational elements of a business using the only resource I had: Google. I learned all I needed to know to run a business, and I was ready for the move. Now, my only problem was figuring out how to start a business with no money.                    

When I arrived in Charlotte, I spent thirty days researching cheap options for a boot camp location. I had no financial history, and after being turned down for several commercial leases, I felt stuck. Again, being resourceful, I subleased a gymnastics center and its parking lot, and I ran the first Burn Boot Camp session on April 19, 2012.                       

After the big move, I only had $600 left of my Lightning 900 earnings, and I used the last dollar I had to buy dumbbells and exercise mats. I had zero dollars in my advertising budget, so I got my first clients by visiting a local supermarket. I gave T-shirts to women who looked like they were into fitness, and I offered them a free 30-day trial. I still have no idea how such a “compelling offer” to work out in a dark parking lot at 5 a.m. with a complete stranger actually worked.                   

Twenty-one women signed up for the first Burn Boot Camp sessions, and ten showed for the first three. I got “no-showed” the last two days of the first week, so I had a decision to make. I recalled my car-flipping days and decided being broke wasn’t an option. I discovered the root cause of my problem was that I was the best-kept secret in town! At that moment, I dedicated my business to being a marketing company. The product was Burn Boot Camp, and I began my deep dive into social media, public relations, and content creation. I even reached out to a reporter, and she wrote a story about my journey in the local paper. My parking lot was flooded with clients the next week!                    

Positive momentum soon followed, and more people began to show up. The boot camp grew from zero paying clients to 250 paying clients within six months. I felt like I had made it! With $18,000 in my bank account, I had room to breathe and could finally support the woman who had supported me my entire life. It was the most satisfying feeling, and I will never forget the moment when Morgan decided to quit her corporate job and pursue her dream alongside me. We got engaged and began our lives as the founders of Burn Boot Camp.                    

Supporting Morgan was only part of the reward for my hard work. From the beginning, I wanted to help women, especially mothers, break free from their limiting beliefs. I wanted everyone to realize that fitness transcends simply working out. I grew increasingly curious regarding why people like me who grew up with nothing could live happily, while those with far more to be proud of were often dissatisfied. I began keenly studying human behavior and recording my findings in a daily journal. I had a desire to expand the positive impact, so we started three more    “parking lot” boot camps and hired other trainers to lead them.                

I thought I was at the peak of success when two trainers contacted me and asked how they could bring Burn Boot Camp to their cities—Morgan and I had never considered this type of expansion as a possibility. I went to an attorney for a licensing agreement, and soon after, Burn Boot Camp had seven locations. By the end of the year, each location had its own brick-and-mortar facility—we had experienced rapid growth and could no longer split space and schedules with other businesses.                    

After our facilities were up and running in 2014, a man named Jeff Dudan became my landlord. We grew to be friends, and one day he said in these exact words, “Dude, your business model is sexy. Have you ever thought about franchising?” He had a playful smile on his face. Jeff is a seasoned franchisor and was the first person to see potential in a nationwide push for Burn Boot Camp. His instincts were right. If I wanted to expand my reach, I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help from people who shared my philosophy: make an impact that could change people’s lives forever.                    

Usually, it takes eight to twelve months to get a franchise going, but I approached the endeavor with a laser focus, and we were ready to go in three months. I was told success would be three locations the first year. I established ten locations in the first week, and we continued to experience explosive growth from that point forward. Since our debut on February 19, 2015, Burn Boot Camp has been one of the fastest-growing franchises in the world, with plans for 15,000 locations worldwide. We turned our dreams into goals, and our goals into reality.

1851: What about Burn Boot Camp makes it unique within its industry?

Kline: We are so much more than a gym. We envision a world where our lifestyle empowers women to love themselves today and be inspired with who they’ll be tomorrow. You’d be shocked at how many are overwhelmingly hopeless, depressed, anxious, frustrated, and unhappy with their lives. The culture of fitness as it stands today is completely broken. Nearly 70% of us are overweight or obese, and nearly 20% of children. Yet, gyms and trainers are literally everywhere. You have to literally intentionally avoid marketing messages. But clearly the message we are sending as an industry isn’t resonating deep into our society. Only 16% of people belong to a gym or gym equivalent and my theory is because our industry is overlooking the underdogs. Fitness is focused on lose weight fast and the next flat belly diet by showing unrealistic body types that discourage the other 84% of people who actually need our help further into an emotional recession.

Think about it, if I asked you to start the Boston Marathon on mile 1 but you knew everyone else was on mile 20, how much confidence, belief, and self-doubt would you have in your abilities? I believe that most gyms, trainers, and fitness professionals have pure intentions and really do want to help, but the current trends of the culture are forcing them into marketing messages that further hopelessness. So why are we different? Because we don’t follow trends, we set them. We stand as a beacon of empowerment, inspiration, and transformation that transcends exercise and seeks to mental clarity, emotional security, and boundless energy for the many, not the few.

Our lives are largely in our control, our past does not define our future, and together, we can rewrite your history. At Burn Boot Camp this is the mission we believe in and we are obsessed with advancing this cause. We need to lock arms and move forward as a unified front to help those with limiting beliefs understand how limitless they really are. The entire industry, the 16 percent of you who already believe in yourselves MUST reach back and inspire someone to join our mission. Every day that goes by our society continues to fall deeper into an emotional recession and it’s our obligation as motivated individuals and companies to not compete, but to conspire to change the world.

Attracting and creating a culture who embody our obsession to generate happiness through this philosophy isn’t something we should do, it’s something we must do.  I cannot do this alone, Burn cannot do this alone, we need you, and the world needs us. This is much bigger than money, selling franchises, and running profitable businesses. I believe we have the power to change the world and to radically shift the broken culture of fitness. This is the future of fitness, this will be our legacy.

1851: What have been some of the brand’s most important milestones over the past five years?

• February 19, 2015 - We become a franchise.

• June 2015 - We are awarded in 10 states.

• May 2016 - Opened 25th location

• January 2017 - Opened 50th location

• February 2017 - Opened a 5,000 square-foot broadcast and production studio

• September 2017 - 30th state awarded

• December 2017 - Opened 100th location

• January 2018 - Purchased a $3.4 million, 22,000 square-foot headquarter building

• April 2018 - 28,000 clients

• January 2019  - International expansion to Canada

• January 2019 - 65,000 clients

• January 2019 - Earned a spot on Entrepreneur Franchise 500 list

1851: What plans does the brand have in the coming years (to highlight momentum)?

• 300 open locations at the end of 2019

• Expansion into the European Union and Australia in 2019 and 2020

• 1,000 awarded United States and Canada units by 2021 with 700 open

• 10,000 global locations over the next 10-12 years

1851: What does an ideal franchisee look like?

Kline: An ideal franchisee is a client who is passionate about the brand and wants to make it his/her entire life. They have a background in franchising or business with $150,000 or more in liquid capital. They are on the ground and full time at their location with big dreams of expanding their footprint with the Burn Boot Camp business. They possess energy, positivity, strong character, kindness, and are willing to be a part of a mission bigger than themselves. They are interested in the financial freedom money brings but prioritize the legacy and impact they will have far more than the money (although, they like that too!).