A Brisbane gym owner who started out in his parents’ garage has managed to turned the tables on Covid-19 thanks to a stroke of good fortune and now his company is raking in over a million dollars every month.

When Australia entered its nationwide lockdown in March 2020, like most small business owners, Peter Hull was terrified.

The 34-year-old had opened FitStop, his own gym franchise, several years prior.

“Thinking of that time gives me chills,” Mr Hull told news.com.au.

But a winning combination saw his profits skyrocket over the last two years while many others were staring down the barrel of bankruptcy.

At the height of the pandemic his company hit $1 million in revenue in a single month and their turnover has remained that way ever since.

By the end of this month, FitStop will have made $30 million in revenue to date.

Mr Hull founded FitStop in his mid-20s, signing his first lease for a “very small tin shed” in Brisbane back in 2013.

He had always dreamt of being a motocross athlete and was on the brink of becoming pro when he got into two serious accidents.

“Between the age of 19 and 21, I had two knee reconstructions,” Mr Hull recalled. “You hit the ground pretty hard.”

He was forced to give up “chasing the dream” but found himself still working with athletes, giving them fitness training tips, often doing so in his parents’ garage. This sparked his idea to open his own gym.

His then-partner, now-wife, Bec, sold her Toyota Corolla for $18,000, which bankrolled them starting their own fitness business.

In the first year, they made $70,000 in revenue.

However, after four years scraping by, during which time they opened one other gym, they decided to turn the brand into a franchise.

They had expanded to 22 different franchises by the time the pandemic arrived in 2020.

While other gyms around the country have languished during the pandemic, a lucky move meant Mr Hull managed to avoid the worst of it.

By pure coincidence, Mr Hull was in the process of testing out a FitStop app when borders slammed shut and Australians went into lockdown.

Within three days they had rolled out an at-home workout regime through the app.

Although one-fifth of customers opted out, the remaining 80 per cent continued paying reduced membership fees in lockdown which kept the business alive.

Believing that the demand was there, “We opened six new ones [gyms] the day lockdown ended [in March 2020], we had confidence.”

In the two years since, their franchises have spread across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and WA.

In another move that Mr Hull never could have predicted, all his gyms were located in cities that managed to avoid extended lockdowns, unlike Sydney and Melbourne.

The number of FitStop members now stands at 14,000 – a substantial jump since the original 30 members who started out in 2013.

In the past six months, the gym went from 48 franchises to 71.

Their first New Zealand franchise is set to launch later this month.

“The next stage and step is to become a household name in Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Hull said.

Have a similar story? Continue the conversation | alex.turner-cohen@news.com.au

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ7xaKlmqaTmny0ucClo2aapai2r7HSrGabqpmor6K6xGaesqVdm7%2BiusKhoKydXZu2tb%2FTqKdmpZGgtq%2BzjKamq51dqbWiuoxqZKahnKG2sLqMmmSmp56ptXC6xLCqZqukpL%2B6e5abnW9paW6weIPAm2xtbpNtfXmykXJunmhka7N2rcKa