At 21, Todd Kuhn signed a $120,000-a-year lease. Everyone thought he was mad. Twenty years and two exits later, he's never taken a dollar from a bank or an investor. Todd Kuhn is an Australian founder who built and sold two fitness businesses — the first a multi-location gym group, the second a 20-studio boutique Pilates chain acquired by an ASX-listed company. Now he's building Core Lab, bringing premium Pilates equipment to the US market, and doing it the same way he's always done it: bootstrap first, scale smart, exit with a plan. What he covers: → Signing a $120,000/year lease at age 21 — and everyone telling him he was mad → Running Pilates mat classes in 40 scout halls and town halls across the city (400 students per term) → Amassing $150,000 cash in six months before ever opening a physical studio → A 5-day mastermind in Hawaii that got him off 95% of his own classes and changed the whole trajectory → Going from 1 studio to 10 in three years, then 20 just before Covid hit → Selling to an ASX-listed company — and watching every one of his locations convert to Club Pilates → His grandfather building the original Pilates equipment by hand in a garage under his house → Flying to China 4-5 times a year, walking into factories with no translator, using sign language to get the product right → Why he's never taken a bank loan or outside investment across two full business cycles → The "minimize startup costs, maximize profitability" principle he applies to every studio he opens → Why delegation is the one thing he'd tell his younger self to do faster → Launching a new Dallas studio with Australian franchisees who followed him to the US 🔗 CONNECT WITH STU Instagram: @stu Website: https://startupswithstu.com 📌 CHAPTERS #entrepreneur #startups #founderstory #fitness #pilates #bootstrapped #businessexit #australianfounder #corelabusa #smallbusiness