How Big Blue Swim School's Semi-Absentee Business Model Appeals to Retirees to Earn Steady Income as Franchise Partners

Since its founding in 2009, Big Blue Swim School has made a name for itself by providing swim lessons to families seeking water safety for their children aged six months to 12 years old, and now, the brand’s semi-absentee franchising model is appealing to retirees looking to build equity. Big Blue Swim School offers an unparalleled swim school model made effective by full-time swim associates, a proprietary enterprise technology system and curriculum, and family-centric facilities. Big Blue offers a business model that supports education franchise partners with proprietary cloud-based technology, top-tier franchisor support and strong unit economics. The brand is positioned to become the market leader in the underserved and fragmented learn-to-swim industry, valued at $3 billion annually.

“Our model is highly efficient and semi-absentee-focused in structure, so investors can maximize their time and capital with us,” said Big Blue Swim School’s Chief Development Officer, Scott Thompson. “We are finding that retirees are seeing the value of joining our growing brand to have steady income during their retirement.”

Rohit Patel, a newly-signed franchise partner in Austin, Texas, is opening the state’s first Big Blue pool with the help of his son, Neel, after retiring from a 31-year-long career with Ford Automotive.

“Big Blue features a strong investment and lasting power in the market, but most importantly, it helps to prevent drowning and teaches a necessary life skill,” Rohit said. “As a working retiree, the Big Blue semi-absentee franchise opportunity is the perfect addition to my portfolio as it creates an easy and meaningful way to build equity. With Big Blue’s proven model and incredible support infrastructure, fitness franchise partners are able to operate on day one like it is year five.”

Big Blue creates the kind of high-performing returns and market longevity that retired investors look for in a new business opportunity. With strong financials required to open a Big Blue pool—the total investment necessary to begin operation is $1,825,500 to $3,687,000—the brand attracts semi-absentee investors with sizable equity capital who are looking to add a recession-resistant business to their portfolios. Plus, Big Blue provides an entry point into the fragmented swim school industry that still has massive amounts of white-space opportunity.

“Participation in swimming is growing, with a 52% growth in year-round swim memberships from 2000 to 2017, according to USA Swimming,” said Thompson. “Swim lessons fill a vital need for safety and cannot be outsourced or automated. People looking for great returns on their investment want to park their capital for a long period of time and see high returns. Since parents will always invest in their kids, Big Blue is the perfect opportunity.”

In addition to the proven business model, Big Blue’s cloud-based enterprise system, LessonBuddy™, is designed so franchise partners can operate successful pools without needing a daily presence on location.

“LessonBuddy allows our best fitness franchise partners to remotely manage their business through dashboards and KPIs all the way down to the shift level—they can track their costs and efficiencies so that they have total transparency in terms of ROI and health of the business,” explained Thompson. "LessonBuddy also allows families to reschedule lessons at the touch of a button, solving availability problems and maximizing reach.”

While many retirees may not be coming from a background in the swim school segment, Big Blue’s private-equity-backed leadership team will fully support franchise partners. The brand is analytically focused on ensuring each pool is set up for the best possible avenue to success through critical services such as site selection, construction, technology, and marketing, allowing children's franchise partners to focus entirely on creating a positive and memorable customer experience.

“We are data-driven and we are nimble,” said Thompson. “We have the experience to scale quickly and we optimize a data-driven real estate assessment that identifies the prime real estate in trade areas. Next, we deploy operational team members for both pre- and post-opening support as part of our proven marketing strategy.”

With a proven business model, fragmented industry, strong corporate support team and cloud-enabled proprietary enterprise system, Big Blue is designed for franchise partners who want to operate a successful business from any distance.

As Big Blue continues to appeal to qualified franchise partners like the Patels, the brand is well on the way to achieving its goal of 150 pools signed by the end of 2021. Since launching franchise opportunities less than a year and a half ago, the brand has sold 66 units in 14 states.

The total investment necessary to begin operation of a new Big Blue Swim School is $1,825,500 to $3,687,000, (refer to item 7 in FDD).

To learn more or inquire about Big Blue Swim School, visit https://diveinwithbigblue.com/.