Powerlife owner Daniel Choi helped create a booming gym at Moffat Beach

A champion martial artist has managed to build a gym empire from a simple set of Kmart mats. Read his inspiring story of how he created his company here.

Daniel Choi – a national champion of taekwondo in South Korea – started teaching martial arts on the Sunshine Coast after buying nine yoga mats from Kmart and creating a makeshift training floor.

“It was to create a little space to do it safely,” he says.

Mr Choi, 31, started with the modest floor and one student in early-2020, but today owns and teaches at a booming gym with 140 members.

The South Korean-born Mr Choi owns Powerlife on George St, Moffat Beach, and offers classes in taekwondo, other martial arts, and fitness.

Yoga classes are also available and run by three yoga instructors.

Mr Choi, whose classes were often full, said his annual revenue rose 25 per cent to 30 per cent each year from 2020 to this year, and he was making about $15,000 a month on membership fees alone.

“The numbers keep growing,” he said.

Powerlife owner Daniel Choi. Picture: Asa Andersen.

Mr Choi worked as a head instructor at a gym in Melbourne before driving to the Sunshine Coast in 2019 with no job and a wife who was then heavily pregnant.

In early-2020, Mr Choi started running taekwondo classes in Buderim and at Powerlife twice a week before outright purchasing the gym.

Starting out with just one student, Mr Choi said he was “actually paying to teach” given his fees didn’t offset his overheads.

But he was confident people would begin to pour in once they tried his class.

“I just needed to wait,” he said.

Mr Choi – who first learned taekwondo at age four – said his experience in combat art gave him confidence in the success of his classes.

“I know what I’m doing and I know people will really like it and see the benefit,” he said.

Benefits include building confidence, leadership skills, physique, and mental strength – traits he wished to impart to young students.

“I want all the kids, including my kids, to have resilience,” he said.

Looking ahead, Mr Choi wanted to open another gym, but was waiting to find a like-minded gym partner to run and lead it – “someone I can trust”.

Originally published as Powerlife owner Daniel Choi helped create a booming gym at Moffat Beach