City Cave founders Jeremy Hassell and Tim Butters have ramped up their global expansion plans

Two former Brisbane tradies who established popular float therapy brand City Cave seven years ago have gone global and are aiming to have more than 2000 locations within five years.

City Cave co-founders Tim Butters and Jeremy Hassell.

It was a chance meeting on building site almost a decade ago that led two tradies to pivot their lives and careers and establish the world’s fastest growing float therapy brand which has now been launched globally.

Jeremy Hassell and Tim Butters co-founded of City Cave in 2016 and their franchise model has 70 locations around Australia and New Zealand and have just launched their first in the US at Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

The Brisbane-based bootstrap business turned over about $70m in 2022-23 and is aiming for 85 sites this financial year and between 200 to 300 locations across Australia and New Zealand over the next five years.

While Mr Butters and Mr Hassell own City Cave Global without the need for capital raising, for their US expansion they work with their friend and mentor, former Subway Global chief executive Suzanne Greco, who has invested in their North American operations.

City Cave has its own design of float pools rather than traditional pods.

Mr Butters, who is currently in the US, said that over the next five years they were aiming for about 2000 locations globally through their franchise model.

He said their US operations was going from “from strength-to-strength”.

“Our first location is building with more and more guests being introduced to our unique experience every day,” he said.

“We have lots of interest from prospective franchise owners and will shortly be in a position to announce our next locations, once due diligence has been fully completed.”

For the two friends and business partners the road to become successful new age entrepreneurs was not necessarily written in the stars.

Mr Butters, who was born in New Zealand went to high school in Queenstown and from there jumped into a tiling and stone mason apprenticeship. After completing his apprenticeship he moved to Australia where he started his first construction business aged 21.

It was on a construction site in 2014 he met Mr Hassell, who was a carpenter, but it wasn’t until a Christmas function later that year when they realised they wanted to enter business together.

The pair began working in the home textiles industry, setting up a retail business in Brisbane before selling due to limited growth opportunities.

As a result, they were unemployed, and in an increasingly stressful period found themselves continuously brainstorming new business ideas which didn’t float.

Co-founders of City Cave Jeremy Hassell and Tim Butters.

Not necessarily a business idea at the time, Mr Butters said he and Mr Hassell had heard much about the benefits of flotation therapy but found it difficult to find a place where they could try it.

“We ended up finding a small operator in Brisbane CBD and made a booking. We had no intention of considering to start a business around this modality but quickly found ourselves in a position where we loved the experience,” he said.

“We could see so much opportunity in pre and post float experiences and we came out of our first ever float therapy session and looked at each other and said the words ‘New business idea?’. It was like a light switch went off, so we began designing a beautiful centre with a total guest experience from when you walk in the door to when you walk out.”

They came up with the City Cave name after workshopping it with their web page designers. The City part represented the fast paced industrial environment and Cave was the naturally formed place where you would probably escape to and get respite.

They had the name and within eight weeks after their initial float session the pair found a location and built Australia’s first open-air flotation therapy centre, on the bustling James St in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

“Before we officially opened the doors we did a week of free floating. We had a 180 people signed up through our marketing campaign and when we started we didn’t know how to operate a float centre,” Mr Hassell said.

“It was very daunting and it was kind of one of those school of hard knocks and we learnt on the job and got plenty of feedback.”

City Cave’s manufactures much of their own equipment for their franchisees at a factory in Hemmant. They have about 20 staff in their head office at West End and through their franchise network there about 1000 employees.

City Cave currently has 70 locations across Australia and New Zealand and was recently launched in the US.

City Cave offers guests an end-to-end experience designed to improve overall wellbeing through open pool float therapy, infra-red saunas, and massages.

Grounded in evidence-based insights and cutting-edge medical research, City Cave delivers the most advanced flotation experience in the world.

Its flagship patented sensory deprivation treatment, flotation therapy, is unique compared to the traditional flotation pods. The large, private open-air pool is heated and matched to an individual’s body temperature and provides a sense of weightlessness to achieve deep relaxation.

Mr Hassell said they were in the business for the long haul.

“We’re growing exceptionally well. For us it’s about sustainable growth by being in the right locations with the right partners. That’s the key to the success of the business,” he said.

Mr Hassell said City Cave is more than a business to them.

“I suppose you could say the vision of our business is about giving life back to humanity,” he said.

“That’s giving people back their time and peace of mind. The world can be very loud and very busy and being able to push the pause button on yourself is a good thing.”