Work / Product UX/UI / Iron District · UX audit and research
Project 05 of 28 in the archive 05 of 09 in Product design UX/UI See the whole discipline ↗
(00) — The thesis
Sanchinarro and its northern arc hold some 123,000 residents with the highest household income in Madrid, without a single public sports centre with a weights room, and with a private offer that residents themselves describe, almost unanimously, with the same word: overcrowded.
Residents across Sanchinarro, Valdebebas, Las Tablas and Montecarmelo
Direct marketAverage household income in Valdefuentes: 47 % above the Madrid average
INE · income atlasMunicipal sports centres with a fitness floor anywhere in the northern arc
5 failed tendersOf those who don't lift say they feel out of place in the weights area
Les Mills · n>10,000The “interviews” in this report are not face-to-face interviews: they are a corpus of real public reviews treated with qualitative technique (review mining). The quoted verbatims are literal and attributed to their source; the archetypes are constructs derived from patterns, not real people.
The card sorting is designed and run on that corpus: its groupings are grounded hypotheses, pending validation with 15-20 real participants before the navigation is frozen. A good share of the reviews is between one and four years old. Everything I could not verify is flagged as such throughout the document.
| # | Conclusion | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | The dominant pain in the area is time-of-day, not product. Overcrowding between 17:00 and 21:30 shows up in every high-volume club analysed. Iron District competes on managed capacity, not on machine count. | 7 of the 14 clubs in the corpus |
| 02 | Your customer is not the powerlifter. It is the 50 % who feel out of place in the free-weight area and the 37 % who don't know how to progress. Above all women aged 35 to 55 and adults over 50. | Les Mills 2026 · n>10,000 |
| 03 | Transparency is the cheapest differentiator there is. The direct competitor demonstrably loses customers by refusing to give prices by phone or web: there are reviews from people who ruled themselves out without ever setting foot inside. | 5+ reviews · Infinit Sanchinarro |
| 04 | Nobody in the Spanish sector shows live capacity on their website. Nor a real facility tour. Two clean, cheap gaps that answer exactly the anxiety holding back one in three people. | Audit of 11 websites |
| 05 | Satisfaction in the area is anchored in people, not brands. “Claudia”, “David”, “Mónica and Raúl” are named in dozens of reviews. The only club that systematically replies to reviews is also the best rated. | Tubau GYM · 4.9/5 across 196 reviews |
| 06 | The whole economics of the business rests on one metric: visit frequency. Two weekly visits equal seven months of average tenure; three or more, twenty-eight. | IHRSA · Paul Bedford research |
“The strength club where there is always a free rack and you always know what today's session is.” A strength boutique with coaching included, capacity managed by zone and zero commercial friction.
Fee range €79-139/month, no lock-in, no joining fee and cancellation in one click: above the area's low cost (€25-36), below the Madrid boutique average (€122) and below premium (>€130).
Define the product —physical and digital— of a gym about to open in Sanchinarro, with a name and an identity already started in Figma, and get to an actionable information architecture for the website.
With no members yet to ask, the research leans on a corpus of public reviews of the competition: it is the closest you can get to the voice of the user before opening the doors.
Demographics and income for Valdefuentes and neighbouring districts (INE, Madrid City Council, idealista/maps), the state of municipal sports facilities, and sector reports: España Activa/Deloitte 2026, EuropeActive, 2Playbook Intelligence, ACSM and the Les Mills Global Fitness Report 2026.
Thematic analysis of public reviews across 14 clubs in the northern arc: Google Maps via aggregators, neighbourhood forums for Sanchinarro, Las Tablas, Valdebebas and Montecarmelo, and published complaints from OCU and FACUA. Open coding of complaints and praise, grouped by frequency and by club.
Low cost and mid-market clubs in the area, strength and CrossFit boutiques in Madrid, premium chains (Metropolitan, We/On, GO fit), recovery studios and international references (Third Space, Equinox, Life Time).
Literal extraction of every main menu, plus an audit of nine capabilities: price without sign-up, joining online, public timetables, booking, tour, live capacity, blog, shop and cancellation. App Store and Google Play reviews reviewed to identify the recurring product failures.
A survey of local residents would have measured stated intent about a club that doesn't exist yet. Reviews measure consummated behaviour: people who already paid, who already left, and who explain why. The bias is known —extremes get reviewed more— and it is offset by cross-checking the corpus against sector data and by declaring it on every claim.
Sanchinarro is not an administrative district: it is part of Valdefuentes (Hortaleza), together with Valdebebas, Las Cárcavas and El Encinar de los Reyes. All official statistics “for Sanchinarro” are in fact for Valdefuentes.
Residents in Valdefuentes
+13 % in 4 yearsAverage age, against roughly 45 for the city of Madrid
The young district of the cityPopulation between 30 and 64
Core of the fitness marketOver 65, against roughly 21 % for the city of Madrid
An exceptionally young profile| Area | Population | 10-year growth | Sale €/m² | Predominant age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sanchinarro | 34,495 | +16 % | 5,917 | <19 years |
| Las Tablas | 33,316 | +25 % | 5,311 | <19 years |
| Valdebebas | 25,004 | +251 % | 6,080 | 36-49 years |
| Montecarmelo | 23,506 | +29 % | 6,553 | <19 years |
| Virgen del Cortijo-Manoteras | 6,956 | +15 % | 5,869 | >65 years |
On top of that comes Solana de Valdebebas, with 1,393 approved homes and ground broken in January 2025 (≈ +3,500 residents), plus a very significant daily working population: Ciudad BBVA (6,000 professionals in Las Tablas), Distrito Telefónica (~12,000 as of 2018, not updated after the redundancy rounds) and Hospital HM Sanchinarro. One important caveat: Ciudad BBVA has its own staff gym, so that group is not a captive market.
Of the 14 municipal sports centres in the Madrid Capital 21 plan, only two have gone ahead. The competitor a private gym usually fears —the municipal pool at €30 a year— doesn't exist here and isn't planned.
| Project | Planned investment | Status |
|---|---|---|
| CDM Sanchinarro · 2 pools, 5 studios, multi-purpose floor | €11.9M · €87.9M over 25 years | Failed tender Jul 2023 → the Council drops the concession in Nov 2025 |
| Sanchinarro sports hall · sports court + 2 multi-purpose rooms | €9.3M · >4,200 m² | Under construction since Jul 2026. No pool, no weights room, no cardio |
| CDM Valdebebas | €12.5M · €77.4M over 25 years | Failed tender Nov 2022 · no known plan in force |
| CDM Las Tablas and CDM Montecarmelo | — | Failed tenders Jul 2023 · left to private initiative |
Average monthly fee in Spain in 2025
+2.9 % year on yearAverage fee in Madrid, the highest in Spain
Boutique: €122Spanish sector revenue in 2025, with 8.35M users
Above the European averageClubs of estimated white space, concentrated in Madrid and Catalonia
Penetration: 16.5 %Two maps: who competes for the Sanchinarro member today, and which references set the ceiling of what can be charged and offered.
The first explains where the gap is. The second, why that gap can be charged at €79-99 without it being a rip-off.
| Club | Segment | Price | Rating | Strength | Documented weakness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinit Fitness Sanchinarro · C/ Príncipe Carlos 40 | Mid-market 24/7 | from €47.50 | 4.1 / 5 (69) | The only one in the district · open 24 h · location | Won't give prices unless you turn up in person · sagging floor · dated machines · night-time overcrowding |
| Basic-Fit María Tubau · Las Tablas | Low cost | €24.99-34.99 / 4 wks | 4.4 / 5 (179) | Price and full price transparency | 52-week lock-in and a debt collection agency · no free water fountain · queues at 20:00 |
| VivaGym Las Tablas Sur · Av. de Burgos 89 | Low cost | €29-36 | 4.3 / 5 (242) | Group classes · parking · no lock-in | Extreme overcrowding · unannounced fee rises · a refit that pushed the machines together |
| VivaGym Las Tablas Norte | Low cost | €25.90-32.90 | 2.8 / 5 (10) | Price | “It's like a zoo” from 16:00 · classes cut back in December |
| Tubau GYM · Las Tablas | Independent | not published | 4.9 / 5 (196) | The real strength and hypertrophy reference in the area. Replies to every single review, one by one | Hot in summer · direct debit compulsory · trainee coaches |
| Infinit Fitness Valdebebas | Mid-market 24/7 | ~€60 | 4.8 / 5 (46) | 24/7 · personal service, staff named in reviews | “Cancelling here is like sitting a public exam” · six-week breakdowns · no classes |
| TRIB3 Valdebebas | HIIT boutique | €90 / 110 / 130 | — | Session model with no lock-in · price 100 % public | A single product, no open floor |
| Boxes and studios · Espartanos, Las Tablas CrossFit, Morales Box, Brooklyn Fitboxing, Gloves | Boutique | €25-90 | 5.0 / 5 | Community and coaching. Zero indexed complaints | Small groups and self-selection · no open floor · no morning slots |
| We/On Montecarmelo (ex Holmes Place) and GO fit Montecarmelo | Premium / large-format | not published | — | Pool, spa, complete facility | Neither publishes a price. Historic complaints of saturation: “you couldn't even walk” |
Between the €25-36 of overcrowded low cost and the >€100 of premium with no public price there is a market gap in which today there is only one real strength competitor —Tubau, in Las Tablas— and none in Sanchinarro. Infinit occupies that price space without offering the product.
| Reference | Price | What to learn |
|---|---|---|
| Club Metropolitan · Madrid | €110/mo · €92 mornings · €400 joining fee | Segmentation by time slot. Charging less to train off-peak is the most under-used pricing lever in the sector |
| .RESET · Retiro | €96 / 115 / 145 by class volume | A fee that scales with usage, not a flat one. And it monetises the changing room: €35/month for locker and shower alone, aimed at runners |
| CrossFit db · Madrid | €47-125 by slot and class count | A slot × frequency matrix, no lock-in, with the full price table published as a selling argument |
| Revive · Justicia / Salamanca | €199/month | The single most actionable figure in the report: in Madrid people are paying €199 a month for sauna, ice bath, infrared and compression therapy without training at all |
| Third Space · London | £245-325/month | The price is justified by service density per m², not by floor area. Recovery integrated into the membership |
| Soy Powerlifter · Madrid | not published | The reference strength club opens at 10:00 and closes on Sundays. It is a niche club, not a membership business: there is an unserved market there |
Every menu was extracted literally from each website in August 2026. Metropolitan and Holmes Place were unreachable on their historic domains; their actual operating domains were audited instead —clubmetropolitan.com and weonclub.com— because Holmes Place Spain no longer exists: it is now We/On.
Nobody has a real facility tour. Nobody shows live capacity on the web. Only two of eleven publish the full price without friction.
And according to the Mystery Shopper Fitness 2026, although 83 % of chains already allow joining 100 % online, only 26 % of those that capture a lead ever call back. The competitive advantage isn't having more technology: it is using the technology that already exists.
What follows are the literal words of residents of Sanchinarro, Las Tablas, Valdebebas and Montecarmelo talking about the gyms they are in, or the ones they left. They are grouped by the theme they code, not by club.
Following, at lower frequency: perceived price against the actual offer, group classes cut back, basic services turned into paid extras (the water fountain removed), unilateral fee rises, poor digital support, layouts with machines packed together, commercial PA announcements and filming with phones on the floor.
On overcrowding
“The main problem is the sheer number of people who come to this gym. It doesn't matter what time it is, it's always packed and it's impossible to do the exercises you had planned without queueing.”
“If you go in the morning it's fine, but from 16:00 to 21:30 there are 3 people per machine, plenty of them won't take turns, it's like a zoo.”
“I used to go at night, after 23:00, because before that it's always full — but lately you have to wait for some machines even in the small hours.”
On commercial opacity
“I tried to ask about the gym's prices and they force you to come in person (?) to get them. That lack of transparency from the very start can't mean anything good.”
“They wouldn't give me any information by phone, email or WhatsApp — I simply had to go… Spoiler: it took them under 15 seconds to explain it once I got there.”
On cancelling
“Cancelling at this gym is like sitting a public exam. I've been calling since mid-December, I get no answer and they keep charging me every month.”
“Careful with the lock-in. Signing up is all made easy, but if you cancel they send a debt collection agency after you.”
On the strength product, and on what people do value
“The price is very steep for how packed it is and how few machines they have — for instance they don't have a single seated cable row with free weight. I think they're counting on the lack of options in the area to charge those prices.”
“I'd rather pay a bit more and train properly than pay 20 euros at a low cost place and not be able to do anything because it's so full.”
“At Tubau there's room for everyone… other gyms in the area are low cost and you really notice the service and the attention from the coaches: lack of care, they don't guide you through the exercises, and they're more crowded.”
“A place where you quickly become part of the group, where they take you in as one of their own even if you're completely new.”
Built from the patterns in the corpus and cross-checked against sector segment data. They are working constructs, not real people.
“I felt watched in the weights area, so I stayed on the treadmills.”
“They don't have a single seated cable row with free weight… the floor sags, I've nearly sprained an ankle already.”
“After 8:30 there's nowhere to park… and you don't make it to the classes.”
“I've been training in gyms for 20 years… what I need now isn't the same as at 30.”
“They let you freeze your membership for maternity leave… overall it's a good place.”
“Every single day I go to the gym, without exception, I see her cleaning something… After a lifetime of gyms, I've never seen anything like it.”
Around 55 of the ~90 positive reviews of that club name a single member of staff. The same happens with “David” at VivaGym Sur and “Mónica and Raúl” at Infinit Valdebebas.
Every solution answers something the user looks for and doesn't find in the competition. None of them depends on outspending the neighbour: they depend on deciding differently.
People don't leave over price: they leave because they don't come. 46 % of cancellations are down to “I don't visit enough” and only 22 % to money. And frequency predicts tenure with brutal linearity.
Evidence: IHRSA · Paul Bedford research via PAVIGYM.
The club's only north-star metric is visits per member per week, targeting ≥ 3. Automatic alert at 10 days without a visit —the documented critical threshold is 14— and a human phone call, not an email.
The market isn't asking for more iron: it's asking for permission and a method. More than half of those who train already include strength work, but 58 % are confused by contradictory advice, 37 % don't know how to progress and 50 % of non-lifters feel out of place in the weights area.
Evidence: Les Mills 2026 Global Fitness Report, n>10,000 consumers.
Base Programme: six weeks of onboarding with a written programme, three guided sessions and one review. Included in the membership, not sold separately. It is the product, not an extra.
Overcrowding is the enemy, and it is measurable. It appears in 7 of the clubs analysed and is the number one trigger of social anxiety in gyms according to the academic literature. No competitor in the area manages capacity, and no Spanish website shows it live.
Evidence: review corpus · Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2026 · audit of 11 websites.
Live capacity by zone —racks, machines, functional, recovery— on the home page without login and in the app. Not a single global number: the real question is “will there be a free rack?”. Plus a published cap on members per slot, as a commitment.
Hiding the price no longer protects you: it rules customers out. 73 % of Spanish chains already show fees without sign-up. The direct competitor in Sanchinarro doesn't, and there are at least five reviews from people who ruled themselves out without setting foot inside.
Evidence: Mystery Shopper Fitness 2026 · Nielsen Norman Group · Infinit Sanchinarro verbatims.
The full price table on the website, with joining fee (zero), lock-in (none) and billing cycle —truly monthly, 12 charges a year, not 13— written right next to the price.
Asymmetric cancellation is now a legal risk, not just a reputational one. Two minutes to join online, but cancelling requires turning up or emailing 15 days ahead. Spanish Law 10/2025 requires cancellation to be “simple and without any impediment”.
Evidence: Law 10/2025 · Infinit Fitness FAQ · OCU and FACUA complaints.
Cancel in one click from the member area, and turn it into the campaign line: “You can leave whenever you want. That's why we try harder.” Legal compliance used as positioning.
Advanced users buy inventory, not square metres. No Spanish chain publishes brands, rack counts or plate weights. Strength media do use that vocabulary —“competition racks, 29 mm bars, calibrated plates”— which is exactly the target audience's language.
Grounded hypothesis, not validated by study: audit of 11 websites plus vocabulary analysis of the niche.
A public technical spec of the floor: number of racks and platforms, brands, bars, dumbbell range, plate weights. Zero cost, nobody occupies it. Treat as a measurable test in the first campaign.
Recovery already pays for itself in Madrid. People are paying €199/month in the city centre for sauna, ice bath, infrared and compression therapy with no gym included. Third Space integrates it into the membership as a price justification.
Evidence: public Revive pricing · Third Space City.
A Recovery module —sauna, contrast shower and compression therapy— included in the mid tier. It is the biggest jump in perceived value per euro of available CAPEX, and no competitor in the northern arc has it.
Guided equipment is losing; free weights are winning. Dumbbell and free-weight usage: 32.1 %. Resistance machines: 26.6 %, down from 31.4 %. Ellipticals: 18.8 %, down from 23.2 %.
Evidence: Health & Fitness Association, data on 77 million members.
Under-weight cardio and guided machines; over-weight racks, platforms and open floor. It is the opposite of the large chains' layout in the area, and it is what the market is asking for.
The only one who replies to reviews is the best rated. Tubau answers practically every review one by one, including the negative ones and with concrete actions: 4.9/5 across 196 reviews. Meanwhile 97 % of consumers read reviews, 47 % rule out businesses with fewer than 20 and 68 % require 4 stars or more.
Evidence: review listings across the northern arc · BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey.
A 48-hour review response protocol, signed with a name and carrying a concrete action. Plus an explicit target of 40 verified reviews in the first three months, requested at the end of the Base Programme.
74 % of the sector never calls back anyone who leaves their details. 43 % of chains ask for details at reception; only 26 % of those follow up. And the proactive guided tour, which does work, has dropped from 73 % to 60 % of the sector.
Evidence: Mystery Shopper Fitness 2026, 30 chains and 29 indicators.
A follow-up sequence defined before opening: a guided tour always offered, contact at 24 hours and at 7 days, and a full-week trial instead of a single day. A competitive advantage at almost zero cost.
To decide the navigation you need to know how the user groups things mentally, not how the org chart does. This is the exercise, its result and —crucially— its real state of validation.
Six seed categories derived from the corpus plus freedom to create and rename. It lets you test hypotheses without boxing the participant in.
5 current members of gyms in the area, 5 former members who cancelled, 4 non-lifters and 4 advanced users. 50/50 gender split and ages 28-58.
One per candidate piece of content or functionality, written in the user's vocabulary rather than the business's: “Will there be space right now?”, not “Occupancy module”.
The groupings that follow are derived from the review corpus and the heuristic analysis, and they work as architecture hypotheses. They must be validated with the 18 real participants before the navigation is frozen. The exercise costs a week and saves rebuilding the entire site.
Highlighted: the cards with the strongest grouping agreement. Struck through: orphaned cards that find no natural home and get deferred.
Everything that answers “what is this place like and will I be able to train comfortably?”.
“What can I do here, and what will they have me doing?”
The cluster with the strongest agreement in the exercise. People sharply separate “what it costs” from “what it includes”.
It emerged as a category of its own, with its own name, across every advanced profile. In low cost chains it doesn't exist.
Consistently separated from “Programmes”: it isn't what I do, it's what I achieve. It lives behind login.
Identity, trust and recovery. The sauna groups here, not under “Train”: it is perceived as a club service.
Beyond booking classes. The website isn't a leaflet with timetables: it is where the three doubts that block sign-up get resolved —what it costs, whether there'll be space, and whether I can leave—.
| Element | User question | Why | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full pricing without sign-up | “What does it cost and what am I tied to?” | 73 % of the sector already does it; the direct competitor loses leads by not doing it | Must |
| Live capacity by zone | “Will there be a free rack if I go now?” | The area's number one pain · nobody in Spain has it on the web | Must |
| Join and cancel online | “Can I leave whenever I want?” | Required by Law 10/2025 · the competitor breaches it in practice | Must |
| Public, filterable class timetable | “Does it fit my life?” | GO fit hides it behind login: a clear antipattern. We/On does it well | Must |
| Real tour: video plus photos by zone | “What is this actually like?” | It reduces the anxiety that holds back one in three · zero competitors have it | Must |
| Technical spec of the floor | “Do they have the kit I need?” | The strength audience's vocabulary · nobody publishes it | Should |
| Coach profiles | “Who is going to teach me?” | A level 1 section in every boutique; non-existent in the chains | Should |
| Embedded verified reviews | “Can I trust them?” | 97 % read reviews · 47 % rule out businesses with fewer than 20 | Should |
| A one-week trial, not a one-day one | “Is it worth it for me?” | A day isn't enough to form a judgement; a week builds a habit | Should |
| Waiting list with reliable alerts | “What if it fills up?” | Documented complaint in WodBuster and VivaGym | Should |
| A “what do I pay per year” calculator | “What is the real cost?” | The “every 4 weeks” cycle at Basic-Fit and Fitness Park is 13 charges, not 12 | Could |
| Blog and content | — | Only with a publishing commitment: a dead blog costs credibility | Won't v1 |
| Shop | — | Without member volume the upkeep doesn't pay for itself | Won't v1 |
The complaint pattern across the Basic-Fit, VivaGym, Trainingym, WodBuster and BoxMagic apps is identical and avoidable:
Price on request · price only inside the sign-up funnel · a menu item that demands login · a hook price chained to 52 weeks of lock-in · a joining fee revealed late · “every 4 weeks” billing presented as monthly · asymmetric cancellation · advertising in the member's app.
All of them are documented in direct competitors. Refusing to use them is, in itself, the campaign.
From the director's chair. A research report that doesn't reach this far leaves the job half done: the floor split, the price table and the opening hours are product decisions, and they follow directly from the evidence in the previous chapters.
| Zone | % of floor | Content | Commitment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength floor | 40 % | Racks and platforms, competition bars, calibrated plates, dumbbells up to 50 kg, leg press, seated cable rows, lat pulldown | Capacity published by station. No member waits more than 5 minutes for a rack at peak time |
| Functional and conditioning | 20 % | Open floor, sleds, rower, ski erg, wall balls — compatible with the Hyrox format | Bookable in blocks for small groups |
| Machines and cardio | 15 % | A short, good selection, not a catalogue. Cardio for warm-up and recovery | Deliberately under-weighted: the market is migrating to free weights |
| Class studio | 10 % | Small groups, mobility, breathing and core work | Maximum 12 people per session |
| Recovery | 8 % | Sauna, contrast shower, compression therapy, treatment room for the physio | The differentiator no competitor in the northern arc offers |
| Changing rooms and access | 7 % | Lockable lockers, individual showers, free water and plenty of it | The water fountain is never charged for. It is symbolic and it shows up in reviews |
Monday to Friday 6:00-23:00; Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays 8:00-21:00. It is a direct competitive decision: Madrid's reference strength club opens at 10:00 and closes on Sundays, and the area's boxes have no morning slots —an explicit, repeated request in the Brooklyn Fitboxing Sanchinarro reviews—.
Joining fee €0. Lock-in 0 months. Truly monthly billing —12 charges a year, not 13—. Cancel from the member area in one click. Free freezing for up to 2 months a year. Day pass €15, a 10-visit bundle €110, and a full free week's trial.
The Madrid average sits at >€75, the Madrid boutique average at €122 and premium above €130. The €79-99 band places Iron District above the area's saturated low cost and below boutique, with a product —coaching included, recovery and guaranteed capacity— that neither extreme offers. It is “accessible premium”, not luxury, and it is defensible with data in front of the client.
| Service | Market reference | Recommended model |
|---|---|---|
| Semi-private, 2-4 people | €20-25/person/session | The growth product. At 4 people that is €80-100 per coach hour: staffing margin at class pricing |
| 1:1 personal training | €40-80/session in Madrid | Keep it, but it isn't the engine: annual sessions per client have fallen from 28 to 21 |
| Physiotherapy | €55/session | Don't put it on payroll. Rent the space to a self-employed professional on a fixed rent plus commission |
| Nutrition | €20-70/month | Same model. Tied to the quarterly report, not sold loose |
| Locker and shower as a product | €35/month | Pure revenue with no marginal cost. Interesting for runners in Valdebebas park |
| Recovery as a module | €199/month at Revive, recovery only | Included in District. An add-on of +€25/month over Iron for anyone who doesn't want to move up a tier |
| Internal competition · Hyrox | Hyrox entry: €120-130 | A twice-yearly “Iron District Open”: revenue, community and an external goal — the best antidote to drop-off |
| Kids club by time slot | — | Evaluate seriously. 23.6 % of the district is under 15 and the number one barrier women declare is schedule flexibility. No strength gym offers it |
Satisfaction in the area is anchored in specific people. Which means hiring is not an HR matter: it is the most important product decision in the project. A small, very good team, with names and faces on the website and the ability to reply personally to every review, is worth more than any machine in the catalogue.
If you have to pick one number to put on the wall, it is visits per member per week. Everything else —sign-ups, revenue, reviews— is a consequence of it.
| Metric | Target | Why this one and not another |
|---|---|---|
| Visits per member per week | ≥ 3.0 | The north-star metric. 2 visits = 7 months of tenure; 3+ = 28 months. It quadruples the value of a member |
| 90-day retention | ≥ 80 % | Most cancellations happen in the first 90 days |
| Members completing the Base Programme | ≥ 85 % | Onboarding with follow-up: +75 % retention, the best-evidenced factor in the sector |
| Peak-slot occupancy (18:00-21:00) | ≤ 75 % of capacity | Above that threshold the queues start, and queues are the number one cause of cancellation in the area |
| Verified reviews ≥ 4★ | 40 in 3 months | 47 % of consumers rule out businesses with fewer than 20 reviews |
| Review response time | < 48 h · 100 % | It is what sets apart the best-rated club in the northern arc |
| Equipment repair time | < 7 days | The competition takes six weeks, and it shows up in every negative review |
| CAC / LTV | CAC ≤ €340 · ratio ≥ 3:1 | At €85/month and 12 months of tenure, LTV is around €1,020. Everything depends on sustaining those 12 months |
Card sorting with the 18 real participants. Five face-to-face interviews with former Infinit and VivaGym members. Call We/On and GO fit Montecarmelo to obtain their prices, which neither publishes. Confirm the cost of a Hyrox licence in Spain with Victum Sports. Close positioning and pricing with the client.
Why here: it is the only phase that can invalidate expensive decisions, and it costs a week of work.
Full pricing, video tour, technical spec of the floor, team profiles, timetable, and an opening waiting list with a founder price. Follow-up sequence defined and tested. Register the domain and the Google Business listing before construction starts.
Why here: acquisition starts before the building work, and a Google listing needs age.
Joining and cancelling online, an app with the QR tested under network failure, class booking with a waiting list, and live capacity by zone. The Base Programme running from the very first member.
Why here: the Base Programme isn't a feature you add later: it is what holds retention up from day one.
Automated quarterly strength report. Strength 50+ and women's health verticals, with an accredited health professional behind them. The first Iron District Open. Evaluation of the kids club with real slot data.
Why here: the verticals only make sense once there is a member base to fill them.
A report that only brings good news is useless for deciding. These are the four risks most likely to materialise and the four decisions that block the rest of the project until they are taken.
It has announced two openings in the northern area. Its segment is mid-low with large facilities: it doesn't compete on product, but it does compete on service and on perceived price.
If satisfaction is anchored in two coaches and one of them leaves, the rating falls. It is the exact flip side of the study's strongest finding.
Sauna, contrast shower and compression therapy carry construction and installation costs. If the site doesn't allow the module, the pricing argument loses a leg.
Promising “there's always a free rack” and failing to deliver would be worse than not promising it: it turns the differentiator into the first complaint.
Official pricing for We/On and GO fit Montecarmelo —neither publishes a price: you have to call—. The real cost of a Hyrox licence in Spain. The hourly distribution of gym usage in Spain, which isn't reliably published and which we would ideally buy from a management-software vendor before sizing the time slots. And the sector's churn rate for 2024-2025, whose public series stops in 2021.
There is a market of 123,000 people with the highest income in Madrid, with no public offer and none on the way, and with a private offer that always fails at the same things: too many people fit in at once, nobody teaches you how to progress, and the price isn't given until you turn up.
Iron District doesn't need to invent a category. It needs to execute three things nobody in the northern arc does today —publish the price, publish the capacity and teach people how to train— and sustain them with a small, very good team. Everything else in this report is the detail of how.
Sector, territory, regulation, competition and the review corpus. Forty-eight public, verifiable sources: anyone can retrace the path.
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