Paola Horvath’s path to owning 19 Orangetheory Fitness studios began far from the fitness floor. She and her husband, Jim, first built a garbage collection business in upstate New York, operating trucks and residential pickup routes before merging the company with a larger local waste business. After the eventual sale of that operation, Horvath spent several years exploring other ventures, including angel investing, business consulting and real estate. A visit to an Orangetheory Fitness studio in Florida eventually introduced her to a business model that would reshape her career. She signed on with the franchise in 2014 and opened her first studio in March 2015.
Horvath has since built a portfolio that now spans 19 Orangetheory locations, including 18 in New York and one in Massachusetts. Much of that growth has come through acquisitions, with the business expanding into Buffalo in 2019, adding three studios after the pandemic and purchasing five more locations two years later. In February, Horvath acquired her first studio outside New York in Massachusetts. The progression reflects a deliberate approach to multi-unit franchising in which each acquisition brings additional responsibility, employees and financial commitments.
Managing 19 studios requires more than simply adding locations. Horvath visits her studios as often as possible and holds weekly Zoom calls with leaders across the organization, using that structure to stay connected to operations and maintain a common culture. She credits her team with making the company's expansion possible and emphasizes the importance of having experienced people in place before taking on additional growth. Her leadership philosophy also extends to developing employees who can assume greater responsibility as the organization becomes more complex.
That people-first approach has been particularly important when taking over underperforming locations and working to turn them into stronger fitness communities. Growth, however, brings its own pressures, including higher operating costs, greater financial exposure and the challenge of maintaining standards across locations that are not always close together. Horvath's experience underscores a central issue for multi-unit franchisees: expansion creates value only when the organization has the leadership structure and talent needed to support additional units.
As franchise networks grow, access to consistent information can also help teams stay aligned across locations. Gorilla Dash offers a Resource Library that provides a centralized place for franchisors to organize and share materials with their franchise networks. For a multi-unit operator managing numerous teams, having important resources organized in one place can complement the broader systems used to maintain consistency as the organization expands.
For Horvath, the business remains closely tied to the original experience that convinced her to make the jump into fitness. What began as a single Orangetheory studio has developed into a 19-location operation, but she continues to describe the business as a passion rather than simply an investment. Her journey from waste management to fitness franchising illustrates how entrepreneurial experience can transfer across industries, while sustainable multi-unit growth ultimately depends on strong teams, deliberate infrastructure and the willingness to keep learning as the business evolves.
