Not long ago, Planet Fitness was a mosaic of local owners — passionate, gritty, community-driven entrepreneurs who believed in democratizing fitness.
They each built their own clusters of gyms, learned their local markets, and fought hard to win members.
But then something powerful happened.
A few visionary operators began asking a new question:
“What if, instead of competing, we combined?”
From that idea came United PF Partners, a coalition of several large Planet Fitness franchise groups backed by financial partners who understood scale. Together, they consolidated dozens of gyms under one unified leadership structure.
This was more than efficiency. It was evolution.
United PF Partners went on to grow, acquire neighboring markets, and eventually attract private equity — culminating in one of the most successful franchisee roll-ups in modern history.
It proved what many in franchising suspected but few had demonstrated so clearly:
Scale is the strategy.
When franchisees collaborate, standardize, and professionalize, they don’t just build local businesses — they build wealth platforms.
⚙️ From Franchisee to Platform Operator
In the early days, the typical owner was on-site — shaking hands, fixing machines, living inside the business.
But as these groups scaled, a new model emerged: the professional franchise operator.
These were no longer small business owners — they were CEOs of regional enterprises. They built real infrastructure:
- Shared service centers
- Data analytics teams
- Dedicated recruiting and HR systems
- Growth capital partnerships
In doing so, they unlocked something most franchisees never experience — institutional value.
They created businesses that could be sold, merged, or recapitalized at levels previously unimaginable in the franchise world.
That’s the moment when a franchise owner stops asking “How do I work less?” and starts asking “How do I grow smarter?”
💡 The Orca Way: Building Together, Scaling Forever
At Orca Franchising, we call this next-level collaboration The Orca Way — because in the ocean, orcas don’t hunt alone. They move in pods — strategic, intelligent, coordinated.
Each member of the pod strengthens the group, and in return, the group amplifies every individual’s success.
That’s exactly what Planet Fitness owners did.
They realized that the true wealth of franchising isn’t found in a single location or a single paycheck. It’s built through collective intelligence, shared systems, and strategic scale.
That’s what allows ordinary operators to become empire builders.
That’s what allows a single franchise investment to evolve into a private equity platform.
This is what franchising was built for! Single unit owners can scale and own empires.
And that’s what the Orca Way is designed to help the next generation of owners achieve.
🌊 The 4 Stages of the Orca Evolution
- Owner — You buy your first unit. You’re all in. You learn, grind, and grow.
- Operator — You build systems, people, and process. You step out of the daily grind.
- Empire Builder — You scale across markets, leverage team and capital, and acquire other operators.
- Orca Level — You collaborate, lead networks, and position for strategic partnership or private equity exit.
Planet Fitness franchisees have already lived this playbook. So have owners in other brands.
They showed the world what happens when ambition meets alignment.
They turned sweat equity into scalable equity.
🔥 A Message to Franchise Owners Everywhere
Whether you own a single store, a home-service brand, a med-spa, or a fitness club — the Orca Way is the framework that gets you from working in the business to building beyond it.
Because success in franchising isn’t about owning a job — it’s about owning a system that runs without you.
It’s about turning your franchise into an asset that grows in value every year.
And when the time comes — when scale, systems, and synergy align — you’ll have the opportunity to graduate into the same kind of success that Planet Fitness owners did: financial independence, generational security, and the freedom to choose your next play.
🐋 Final Thought: The Next Wave of Franchise Wealth
The Planet Fitness story is not a one-time event. It’s a glimpse of what’s coming across the entire franchise landscape.
As franchising continues to mature, we’re going to see more of these roll-ups — owners joining forces, building multi-brand portfolios, and partnering with professional capital.
Only Orca Franchising brings the ecosystem together day one for new owners to start building these PE exits. Historically messy businesses are built, and have to be fixed, before that big exit. Now you can build a business that fits the criteria of the private equity buyer from unit number one, and you do it with businesses the buyers already desire.
Those who follow the Orca Way — who think bigger, move smarter, and collaborate boldly — won’t just build businesses.
They’ll build legacies.
Because in the ocean of opportunity that is franchising, the lone sharks fight for survival.
But the orcas?
They hunt together,
they scale together,
and they win together.
George Knauf is a trusted franchise advisor with over 20 years of experience helping individuals and companies—from startups to public brands—build success through franchising. He founded OrcaZee.com (Orca Franchising ), a program for elite franchise owners seeking to build portfolios and exit to private equity. MyPerfectFranchise.com, a free service, to guide aspiring owners toward the right opportunities and provided the deep knowledgebase behind AskFranchiseGPT.com, the #1 AI tool for franchise discovery and growth.