Starting Strength

The vendor opportunity at Starting Strength

Starting Strength operates 25 franchised gyms, all run by single-unit operators, with no company-owned locations disclosed in the 2025 FDD. The brand added units at a 13.6% clip year-over-year, signaling modest but real expansion. For software vendors, the immediate addressable market is those 25 locations—small by chain standards, but concentrated enough to make a direct HQ sale efficient. The top states are Texas with 7 units, Florida with 3, and Oklahoma with 3, followed by Ohio and Colorado with 2 each. No multi-unit operators appear in the operator footprint, meaning every location decision runs through the same central buyer.

Who controls software purchasing

Purchasing authority sits at headquarters. The 2025 FDD lists five executives: Founder and Managing Member Lawrence “Ray” Gillenwater, CEO and President Nicholas “Nick” Delgadillo, Chief Strength Officer Charles “Mark” Rippetoe, CTO Benjamin “Ben” Gillenwater, and Director of Membership Sales and Retention John Haun. For a software pitch, the most direct path is through CTO Benjamin Gillenwater, who owns the technology stack, and CEO Nicholas Delgadillo, who signs off on operational tools. John Haun’s membership-sales role may also make him a stakeholder for CRM or marketing platforms. There is no parent company on file; the brand appears independently owned, so no external corporate IT layer complicates the sale.

Mandated and current tech stack

The FDD mandates four categories of software: bookkeeping software, customer relationship management software, marketing software, and payroll software. Specific vendors are not named in the disclosure, which means the current stack could be a mix of off-the-shelf or custom tools. For a vendor, this is both a gap and an opening—if you can identify what they use today, you can position against it or integrate with it. The absence of a named POS or operational platform in the mandates suggests either flexibility at the unit level or a deliberate omission. Either way, any pitch should address how your tool fits into a gym environment running mandated CRM, marketing, and payroll alongside whatever membership management system is in place.

Procurement, renewals, and timing

Item 8 of the FDD provides no extract on procurement, so there is no public signal about designated suppliers, approved-vendor lists, or purchasing co-ops. That leaves the procurement model undefined in the disclosure. Renewal terms, however, are explicit: each franchise agreement runs 10 years, and franchisees must give notice of renewal between 90 and 180 days before expiration. They must also sign the then-current form of agreement, which may contain materially different terms. For a software vendor, this means two things. First, new-unit openings—driven by that 13.6% growth rate—create immediate greenfield opportunities where HQ can mandate or recommend tools from day one. Second, as legacy agreements approach their 10-year mark, franchisees must bring their gyms into compliance with current standards, which can trigger system upgrades or replacements. With 25 units and staggered opening dates, there is likely a rolling window of renewal-driven tech evaluations.

How to read the Starting Strength FDD

The full 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document is embedded below. It contains the legal and operational detail behind every claim on this page—executive names, unit counts, royalty rates, renewal conditions, and mandated technology categories. For software vendors, the most relevant sections are Item 1 (the franchisor and its officers), Item 11 (franchisor’s obligations, where tech mandates live), Item 8 (restrictions on sources of products and services), and Item 17 (renewal, termination, and transfer). Reading these sections will tell you exactly what the franchisor requires, who enforces it, and when contracts turn over. If you need a ranked target list of franchise systems matched to your software category, FranCloud can build one from this same FDD-level data.