About 8% of women in the United States own a business. Most of those are small, non-employer firms. Sole proprietorships like private practices, online storefronts, or service providers.
In a late-night search for other women doing what I’m doing, I discovered that fewer than 1% of women own businesses that employ others. And somehow, I’ve found myself in that tiny sliver of a statistic.
Entrepreneurship was never something I envisioned for myself. It always felt like something other people did. People with bigger networks, deeper pockets, higher risk tolerance, and different ambitions.
Starting Eastside Athletics was a decision I mulled over for months. I braced for the obvious hurdles: financial risk, long hours, and uncertainty. What I didn’t expect was how often I’d have to make the decision again. How often circumstances, people, and my own self-doubt would ask me to choose, every single day, to defend what I was building.
To minimize the financial risk, I launched inside an existing gym with a verbal agreement that I would take over ownership the following year. This gave me time to build cash flow and validate the market before signing a long-term lease. I started working alongside two men with fifteen years more experience in the industry than me. There was no warm welcome. The pressure to prove myself was immediate and unmistakable.
Eastside Athletics’ first year was hard in ways I never predicted. Client acquisition came surprisingly quickly. I learned payroll, hiring, and B&O taxes on the fly. But the real challenge was quieter: building my business in the same space as two established male trainers watching my every move, and accepting that some of the support I’d counted on wouldn’t show up.
But very early on, I knew Eastside Athletics had to be more than a gym. It had to rewrite a narrative about women and their place in both the worlds of S&C and in business.This was not the time to play small. I became laser focused on execution: client accquisition, building systems, and professional standards that spoke louder than words.
On the hard days, I come back to a collection of screenshotted motivational quotes in an album on my phone.
- “When they say you can’t, do it twice and take pics” and,
- “If you’re going to swing, swing for the f***ing fences”.”
Idk what that says about me, but I am sure it’s something.
What has really kept me going though, even when the environment felt unwelcoming, and even when this pursuit has felt painfully lonely, is the people who walk through our doors. We have been gifted with some absolutely incredible clients. Even on the toughest days, I love the people I get to train, and those relationships keep me going.
Today, Eastside Athletics is the leaseholder. We employ five trainers (three of them women) and serve a community incredible clients who trust us with their bodies and their goals.
There is no doubt that I am the “get it done” type, but Eastside Athletics’ success is less about me and more the reflection of a larger truth: there is real demand for women leading in strength and conditioning. Our client base is 70% female and women come to us because they want female strength coaches. Not barre instructors. Strength coaches. There’s a need. I simply stepped in to meet it.
As more women embrace strength training, we need more women coaching in the strength and conditioning space. Leaders who reflect the clients walking through the door and help them see what’s possible.
A year and a half in, I’m still swinging. And while I’m proud of the business, I’m even more proud of the woman I’ve become while building it. If you’re a woman considering a path in strength coaching (or any path that feels too bold), I can only echo the advice that keeps me moving: when they say you can’t do it, do it twice. And definitley take pics.