Kilkenny Fitstop gym owners desperate bid for 50 new members to save their business – and their home

A staggering rent bill and punishing electricity costs have left this western suburbs couple in a race against the clock.

The owners of a western suburbs gym say they will be forced to shut down if they are unable to recruit 50 new members in less than three weeks – and if they fail it could mean losing their home.

Life partners and business owners Jon and El Trovas said they risked everything to open Fitstop Kilkenny in November last year, with just over 30 members supporting their gym.

The Trovas hoped their business would be able to grow exponentially, but said their membership numbers only reached 70 people, despite pouring money into marketing.

And that is not enough for the business to stay afloat.

Mrs Trovas said the couple put their home on the line to finance the venture.

Kilkenny Fitstop owners Jon and El Trovas say they desperately need 50 new members to save their business.

“Being a business owner means people typically assume we had money to invest into doing this – but that simply wasn’t the case,” Mrs Trovas told The Advertiser.

“We’ve put our house into this, so if we close, we lose our house.

Mrs Trovas said they had already sacrificed as much as possible to cut personal expenses too.

“We’re not a family that drives really nice cars, we have one car between my husband and I and we’ve missed services to cut money back and put it into the business,” she said.

“My husband has even tried looking for a second job. He’s applied for a job in a prison and overnight shifts stocking stuff on shelves.

Mrs Trovas said the family has also considered taking their two children, boys aged 4 and 2, out of daycare to alleviate the pressure of their personal finances.

According to Mrs Trovas, their main budgeting concern is now rent which amounts to a whopping $100,000 annually with a 4 per cent increase each year.

“The rent is essentially what’s pushing us to go,” she said.

“Our rent has kicked in, we’ve fallen a month behind and that’s what gone wrong.

“We can’t even break even at this point unless we get 50 more people into our gym.”

Mrs Trovas said crippling electricity bills were also driving them to the brink.

Jon and El Trovas inside their Kilkenny gym.

She aid they turned the gym lights off and left the premises shut down for “a good bulk of the day” to try to cut that bill.

“We have a split system where the gym works from 4.30am to 10.30am, then we close our doors and I work from home, and then we reopen after 4.30pm,” she said.

“We only use the bare minimum – in terms of electricity – that we need for the gym to operate.

“But somehow our electricity is like $900 a month.”

And she said only the building owner could change their provider.

Mrs Trovas said they were willing to “fight tooth and nail” to keep their business afloat, but had to do everything in their power to gain 50 new members by July 27.