FEATURE
Brian O’Sullivan, Founder, Max Life Fitness
“Rolling lockdowns over a year made it really difficult to establish ourselves. But during the closures, I decided I would put my energy into an idea I had been toying with and used this time to bring MaxLife Apparel to life.”
Having opened his first gym outlet at the start of the pandemic, Cork-based entrepreneur Brian O’Sullivan has recently launched a luxury athleisure-wear range – MaxLife Apparel – and plans to open a second gym in the next six months.
Since July 2021, once restrictions were lifted, Max Life’s gym membership grew at an increasing pace. The Wilton location currently has around 1,100 members and is on target to sign up 2,000 members this year. We plan to open a second location in the Little Island area and are looking to expand into a 20,000 sq ft warehouse.
“The plan is to expand into a franchise model. Low-cost, highperformance gym models are my inspiration – high volumes are key, and Max Life is enjoying rapid growth in this area.”
Max Life is an official Hammer Strength Training Centre, one of the first in Cork to be certified in this way. We give members access to bespoke and premium training equipment with affordable pricing, which sets us apart from other gyms. We are committed to continuously investing in state-of-the-art, best-inclass equipment.
For MaxLife Apparel, we sampled from China, Turkey and other countries looking for the right fabrics, quality and materials. After a year of research, the product development and testing phases were complete. We have faced hurdles as a result of the InBUSINESS | SPRING 2022
037 InBusiness Spring2022_Snap Chat_FINAL.indd 37
global logistics crisis, but managed to launch our first line in time for Christmas 2021. We are currently recruiting and expect to increase the workforce from seven to 20 people in the next 12 months. The plan for the fitness side is to begin with expansion throughout Munster and then broaden our scope across the country in the next two to three years. We want to expand globally with MaxLife Apparel.
37
08/04/2022 13:55
