By Jessica Yun
The concept of float therapy, also known as sensory deprivation therapy, isn’t ubiquitously known, but the idea is simple: you jump into a tank of heated water filled with hundreds of kilos of Epsom salts designed to make the water dense to counteract your weight, and you float.
The first time Queensland tradies Tim Butters and Jeremy Hassell tried it, they were pretty sceptical. But once they got into the water, they were sold. “My mind just switched off and I just had this weightless feeling,” said Butters. “It was the most incredible moment of clarity.”
City Cave, a chain of 70 flotation therapy centres founded by two tradies from Queensland, has set up shop in the US.
But their experience was marred after they emerged from their respective float pools to a waiting room furnished with harsh bright lights and uncomfortable chairs. “When you come out, you should have your senses reintroduced to the external environments in a really nice, soft, calm way,” he said.
“It could be done so much better,” said Butters, so he and Hassell did. “We opened one, and we built it from the ground up because we both come from a trade background, so we literally built it.”
The first centre, in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley and launched in 2016, took off faster than Butters or Hassell could have expected. The single centre has since grown to a full-blown franchising business of 70 locations around the country. It turned over $70 million in 2022. The pair of tradies have now taken the business to the US, where they set up in Florida last month. They hope to open 2999 more US centres over the next five years.
City Cave founders Tim Butters (left) and Jeremy Hassell (right) started the business in 2016.
The chain’s rapid growth may be mystifying to many who have never heard of flotation therapy, but the water-based therapy is known for helping with anxiety and stress, pain relief and muscle relaxation.
Four hundred kilograms of hospital-grade Epsom salt helps you float on the surface effortlessly.
“It helps relieve all pressure from all of your joints. It helps elongate your spine, gives you a break from gravity,” said Butters, who compared it to floating in space. “It releases a part of your brain that’s always churning. Even when you’re in bed, there’s always something happening naturally in your body that’s processing external stimuli. It’s like a type of forced meditation.”
A growing body of clinical research is also attesting to the health benefits of flotation therapy. Research has found floating reduces subjective stress and tension headaches, increases relaxation, and lowers blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels. There are clinical trials under way in Germany, Sweden and the US to assess the long-term impacts of float therapy among patients with chronic pain, anorexia, insomnia and more.
The founders of City Cave – so-called to suggest a stimulation-free sanctuary in metropolitan cities or suburbia – initially thought the therapy would be appealing only to those living in more affluent areas. But it’s attracted people from all walks of life, including pregnant women, keen to “come in for a float” and take a load off (literally).
“We’ve got tradies coming in after work. We’ve got high-flying CEOs, we’ve got students coming from school ... mums [who] drop the kids off to school and pop in for a float afterwards,” said Butters. The gender split of clientele is typically 70 per cent female and 30 per cent male, but that’s starting to shift as more men become more open about improving their mental health.
Conveying the experience of float therapy to those who haven’t tried it could be difficult, said Butters. For this reason, the age-old marketing technique of word-of-mouth is essential to getting customers through the door.
With no playbook at hand, Butters and Hassell are putting plenty of effort into offering a top-notch experience.
Rather than having customers step into a pod, as some competitors do, City Cave float rooms are all pools. ‘Float attendants’ are on hand to offer cups of hot herbal tea. Rooms are cleaned between each customer, who will see their name on the door when they walk in.
“It’s not just about the therapy itself. It’s about coming into a centre that is really nicely put together. It’s very luxurious. It’s very affordable.” The average transaction is about $100.
The hands-on duo has also built some technology from scratch. They sourced parts, such as infrared panels and pool pump equipment, from around the world. They custom-made a filter in hopes that their commitment to hygiene would set them aside from competitors. “We’ve kind of overengineered it a little bit. Our filtration system is designed for 10,000 litres of water and there’s only 1000 litres of water in a float pool.”
With 70 locations in Australia, there is further room for domestic expansion, but Butters and Hassell have chosen to turn their sights to the US market. It helps that they have made friends in high places: in 2019, City Cave won first place (and $US10,000) in a global franchising competition held in Las Vegas, where they pitched their business model to 4000 franchising executives and a Shark Tank-style panel of judges.
City Cave also offers massages and infrared saunas.
One of the panel judges was former Subway global CEO Suzanne Greco, also the sister of the sandwich chain’s late founder Fred DeLuca. “[She] became a bit of a mentor for us,” said Butters. Greco, who offered to help the pair bring the franchise to America, now owns 10 per cent of the American business. The first US centre is in her home town of Fort Lauderdale.
Since her involvement, Butters said he and Hassell are trying to keep up with growth and the flood of interest they had received from hopeful franchisees. They are selective about choosing franchisee partners and cautious about growing sustainably rather than hastily.
“This is a long game for us. We owe it to our franchisees to make sure that we work out the kinks before we start selling our idea to somebody else,” said Butters. “It’s a big responsibility, being a franchisor and encouraging somebody to leverage their mortgage or whatever it is to buy a business and grow it.
“We just want to make sure that it is just as successful in the American market as it has been in Australia before we pull the trigger.”
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