Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health & fitness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Brendan Pereira (a.k.a. Coach Koe), founder of Coach KOE's Bootcamp, a virtual bootcamp system based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Let me start by saying; I got laid off. It was the start of the pandemic when I found myself lacking direction. I quickly realized that I missed having a sense of community.

In addition, I realized that others too were missing having that sense of community. So what did I do? I created a community. I spent days and nights finding ways to bring in all of my knowledge from the past eight years of my training into one combined advanced system.

So let me introduce: Coach KOE's Bootcamp.

Coach KOE's Bootcamp is a virtual bootcamp system that people can look forward to coming to AND having fun. A place that is safe, convenient, and most of all, where people can get results with the support they need.

Tell us about yourself

As I previously mentioned, I was laid off at the beginning of 2020. The only career I ever knew was in-person Personal Training. As a result, I pivoted my business to unfamiliar territory. With zero prior knowledge of marketing, social media, and online training in general, I put everything I had into mastering these areas in order to pay my bills and finally have autonomy over my business.

I'm motivated every day by the opportunity to connect friends, connect families, change people's days and people's lives through fitness, and with a community that knows no borders.

COVID-19 has shown us how essential having individuals to lean on is. I firmly believe a lot of my community came out of the continuous lockdowns in a better position than when we went into them because of that support system. The bigger this community gets, the more support we can provide each other, and my goal here is to reach as many people as possible who need someone to lean on until they're ready to run.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I would say my biggest accomplishment as a business owner has been that I have community members from 7 different countries after 18 months of being operational.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

As a business owner, you need to wear many hats. I wake up nearly every day at 3 AM and go to bed around 8/8:30 PM. There isn't much time for luxuries during the building stages when capital is tight, and the goal is consistently to deliver quality and quantity in terms of results.

Spending every second of your free time researching successful business models, sharpening sales skills, creating marketing materials, learning social media algorithms; can all be a lot sometimes.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Anyone looking to start, run and grow a business should do remember these three things:

  1. Patience is key. In order to make it, you need patience. Sometimes growth can be exponential, but this only happens if you do tip number 2.
  2. Consistency. Consistency is the only way you'll make it as a business owner. Be consistent in the quality of your product, be consistent in your marketing, be consistent in your attitude and be consistent in your belief that you will be successful no matter what.
  3. Thick Skin. There will be times where you can't buy a sale, can't buy a view on a video, can't buy a comment on a post - here is where that thick skin comes in. Keep your chin up and keep grinding. Remember, Patience and Consistency, and eventually, things turn around. Sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's a week, and sometimes it's a month. Take the criticism, evaluate your analytics, make adjustments and keep plugging away.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Despite how hard things have been as a business owner, I wouldn't change it for the world. You start to learn that the only opinion that matters is your opinion about yourself.

Once that clicks in, you know you can do anything you put your mind to. I truly believe that any time you're about to level up in life, you need to take on more than you think you can handle. Much like working out, eventually, the weight you could barely lift over your head for 2 repetitions becomes the weight you're doing 3 sets of 15 reps within a few months. Don't be afraid to try, fail, learn and repeat. You'll thank yourself for who you become in the process.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.coachkoebootcamp.com/

Instagram: @coachkoe

TikTok: @coachkoecollectibles

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.