A little more than 2 years I uprooted my family to move to a city that I’d never been within 120 miles of to start a business from scratch. The past 2 years have been a bit of validation as I love the area (we live in Cary, NC part of the Raleigh-Cary metroplex) and our business is thriving. Yesterday I received a very informative newsletter from my great commercial real estate agent, Blair Graham, with info from Forbes magazine stating that Raleigh was rated the top metro area in the U.S. to start a business. This was great to hear because I had spent the 10 months following my resignation from my previous job researching the best place to move and start the business. I had some very strict criteria both for the business as well as for quality of life. The Raleigh-Cary metroplex was in my top 5 (probably last choice to be honest) but I chose it, almost impulsively on a site visit (which was the first of what was planned to be one visit to each of the top 5 possible cities), based on a string of events and ‘opportunities’ that fortunately never panned out. Glad things turned out how they did.

Here’s what Forbes has to say about the area:

Topping our 13^th annual list of the Best Places for Business and Careers isRaleigh, N.C. It is one of those locales with a strong university presence helping fuel growth in the area (albeit in an East Coast state, a rarity in the upper part of the list). Raleigh and nearby Durham (ranked No. 31) get a strong boost from three elite schools in the surrounding area in University of North Carolina, Duke University and North Carolina State.

Raleigh ranks No. 1 after dipping to third last year. Low business costs (18% below the national average) and a smart labor force (42% have a college degree) make North Carolina’s capital an attractive spot for employers like First Citizens Bank and Progress Energy. Job seekers get it: The net migration rate to Raleigh was the second highest in the U.S. over the past five years.

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My last blog post was about how things seem to go in cycles. Well today, I had another experience of this happening. 4 months ago I moved to Cary, NC from NY (by way of a short stop in OH) with the idea that I’d be moving in to what is at the time a mega fitness facility to manage their rebranding from a failing fitness center to a high-level sport performance center. After an unexpected change of operational control of the facility that put me in a holding pattern for a long time and then seemingly nixed the entire collaboration went through I started to look to go out on my own. It had always been my original plan to open up my own stand-alone location but when the proposal for collaboration came from the mega facility four months ago it seemed like a great opportunity and I jumped at it. So when the collaboration seemingly fell through it didn’t bother me so much as knowing it had wasted my time. Well this morning, I actually had a meeting with the new management team and a potential collaboration might still be in the works. Same meetings, same location, different people. Funny how that works.

I’m not sure how this will play out and I’m moving much more cautiously this time so I don’t end up holding out for promises that will never come to fruition. The one thing I do know for certain is that I’ll be in a place come hell or high water by the middle of June. My equipment has started coming in so the only thing holding me back now is an actual physical address. I work well when dealing with deadlines and this self-imposed mid June deadline should be no different.

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As I’ve mentioned in the past couple days, I’ve moved to Cary, NC to pursue my business full time. One of the things I need to take the next step however is a facility. Up til this point HPC has been largely run without a facility. We’ve had an office in Cali, and some agreements with several universities to allow us to use their athletic facilities but we’ve never had a centralized training facility to call our own. Having no facility was largely a by-product of none of the partners in HPC working on the company full-time, and thus not being able to generate the revenue to justify it. Also, a very large chunk of our revenue comes from services that do not require a facility at all. For instance, our sport science consultation with National Governing Bodies doesn’t require us to have a facility at all. In fact, it’s completely unnecessary for this service. Not having a facility has brought limitations though. One, it makes it hard to train athletes with optimal efficiency and effectiveness.  Second, it has the potential to cost us clients who are fooled by the fancy equipment smoke screens that other businesses in the athletic performance field use to cover up their incompetencies. With the move to NC I’m hoping to put an end to these issues. I’m pretty close to finalizing a great opportunity at a HUGE facility that is very nice. With that said, I was by no means expecting this and I really don’t NEED anything fancy. In fact, before this recent opportunity presented itself only a week ago today, I had kind of thought that it would be nice to start with a plain warehouse, forgo any semblance of style and flash and make up for it with substance and the best, most comprehensive approach to training possible. This may still be the route we go but even if it is there are still some minimum facility standards though. I NEED at least 1000 sqft of training space, some minimal office space, high ceilings, an open floor plan, a bathroom, and a building structure and / or neighbors that permit me to have athletes dropping heavy weights on a regular basis.

I’d like to have more space (~3,000 to 5,000 sqft), enough area to set up a short straightaway for running, 3-5 office spaces, room for a movement analysis lab (probably about 1,000 sqft), locker and shower rooms for both genders, medical areas where therapy could be performed, and enough room outside that we could do training on a grass field when we wanted. Right now I’ve got several plans in place that encompass both ends of this spectrum. Obviously I’d prefer the bigger and better place, especially if the terms are right; but I’m not above moving in to a warehouse and just getting things done. I’m ready to roll.

• MSNBC says North Carolina is the best place to start a business in 2008
• Money Magazine says Cary, NC is the 16th best small city in the U.S.
• Relocate America says Cary is in the top 100 places to live in America
• Kiplinger’s says Raleigh, NC is the 2nd best place in the U.S. to Live, Work & Play
• Forbes says Raleigh was ranked as the top place in the U.S. for jobs in 2006 & 2007 (9th in 2008)
• Forbes says Raleigh is the best place for businesses and careers in 2007 & 2008
• CNN Money says Raleigh is the 20th best place to live and launch a business in 2008

2 days ago I took another trip to Raleigh. The goal was to check out some plan B options in the event that my original partnership didn’t work out and find a place to live so I could fully relocate. Yesterday morning I had a meeting with the general manager of Impact Athletic & Fitness Center in Cary, NC. The meeting went great. The company is mainly a health club right now but wants to really get in to sports performance. They have the facility to do it: 70,000 sqft in total, a full gymnastics arena (where they also pole vault), a basketball court, small soccer field, 2 weight rooms, a spinning room, pool, and much more. I contacted the company 3 days ago thinking that they may have some space to lease. The general manager contacted me back pretty quickly and we set up a meeting. It seems that HPC may be able to fill there needs of running a high level athletic development center. We’re in the process of brainstorming possible ways to make this work…possibly leasing a small portion of the facility, possibly a lease with some profit sharing, or maybe a complete collaboration. They are open to anything and are ready to act fast. I’d like to get rocking and rolling pretty quick and we may be able to get something knocked out in 1-2 weeks. I also had the chance to look at 4 apartments. 3 of them were pretty nice. I’m checking out 4 more tomorrow. These ones will be a little closer to the Impact facility and actually still equally close should I end up working out of the facility in Apex.