CEO Corner: Burn Boot Camp’s Morgan Kline on Owning a Niche in Boutique Fitness

Kline, who founded Burn Boot Camp with her husband, Devan, in 2012, now oversees a brand with 400-plus locations and one of the most loyal followings in boutique fitness

Fourteen years ago, Morgan Kline was working a corporate job in the CPG industry, running workout classes with her husband, Devan, out of a parking lot in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Today, Kline is the CEO of one of the biggest brands in boutique fitness, Burn Boot Camp, which has over 400 locations across the country and recently signed equity partnerships with Kevin Hart and Marshmello.  

Burn, which offers 45-minute strength and conditioning workouts, has thrived thanks to a relentless focus on its core customer base: women, specifically time-strapped mothers, in suburban markets. 

As Burn chases more expansion in the years ahead, Kline says the brand will double down on that focus, believing there’s a lot of white space to open new studios in the U.S. and abroad.  

Kline sat down with Athletech News to discuss how she and Devan got the idea to create a group fitness franchise designed for busy moms, how Burn’s target demographic has evolved over the years to include all women (and some men), and what’s coming next for the brand as it looks to triple its footprint. 

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Athletech News: Can you tell us a bit about your background before starting Burn Boot Camp, and why you and your husband, Devan, decided to create the concept?

Morgan Kline: Devan and I met in sixth grade. We grew up together in a very small town called Battle Creek, Michigan, and we went to rival colleges — he played baseball at Central Michigan and I went to Western Michigan to pursue a food marketing degree. I got a job right out of college at the Kellogg Company and Devan pursued his baseball career and played in the minor leagues for a couple of seasons. After he was released, we got the idea to start our own business. We both have sports backgrounds and we’re both very into fitness and health, and so we pursued this dream of starting Burn Boot Camp and serving a member group that we didn’t believe was being served. 

We started in a parking lot in the Charlotte market because we were 24 years old and didn’t have the money or the background to get our own lease. Shortly after that, I quit my corporate job to join Devan full-time. We took one location to five before we decided to franchise. 

ATN: How did you and Devan decide on Burn’s 45-minute strength-and-conditioning workout concept?

MK: It had a lot to do with who we were serving. When we first started, we were very niche in Charlotte’s fit community of moms. We saw that while boutique fitness was up-and-coming, the market wasn’t really serving mothers. We created 45-minute workouts, with Childwatch (Burn Boot Camp’s daycare offering) as part of our program from day one because we knew those two things — time and children — were barriers for women looking to prioritize themselves.

ATN: Burn now has over 400 open studios and 600 franchises awarded. Looking back, what’s been the biggest key to scaling the brand over the last 14 years?

MK: When Devan and I started, we weren’t building for a franchise; we were building to solve a problem in the marketplace. So we’ve always focused on the people and the community that we’re serving, and that’s no different when we think about how we became a franchise and how we’ve grown. We’re scaling locations, but if you don’t scale people first, then you’re going to have a really hard time scaling locations.

For us, what that means is choosing the right franchise partners based on values, mission and core alignment, and then focusing on teaching them to serve the membership and run the business. I’d say around 80 to 85 percent of our franchise partners are women-only, and they all come from within our system. That deep connection allows us to scale and protect the community and culture we’ve built.

ATN: Has Burn’s target member evolved over the years or is it still primarily mothers? 

MK: I’d say it’s evolved from just the mother to women. We’ve changed some of our marketing to not just talk about (mothers) because we don’t want to make it feel like it’s a place that women without children can’t come to. So we’re focused on the female first. However, about 8% of our membership is male — they typically come in through a woman in their lives inviting them to Burn. 

ATN: What’s it like being a female CEO in fitness and wellness, especially at a women-first brand like Burn? 

MK: We are our demographic. When we’re making decisions at the executive table, I always say there are two empty seats in the room, one for members and one for our franchise partners. I actually get to sit in both those seats because I’m a mom, I’m a woman who has felt intimidated at gyms before, or has been self-conscious of how I look in the mirror. So, I take a lot of my own experiences as a female in the past in the fitness industry and I infuse them into the decisions we make.

I think that’s to our advantage because sometimes you do have a bunch of men sitting around a room making decisions that they’re out of touch with, and they just don’t quite understand the mental and physical load that women go through. My VP of marketing is a female, for example  — she was a member first, and she has three kids as well. That’s not the only requirement to work at Burn, but it’s definitely something you feel when you experience our product.

ATN: What are your goals for continued expansion in the years ahead? 

MK: We want to grow, but we’re very disciplined. We don’t want to be in markets that don’t fit our model. So, for example, we may not ever be in a super urban market that doesn’t need to utilize our Childwatch, or that doesn’t have the square footage to allow for the size that we need. I never want to say never, but we want to make sure we’re going to the right markets at the right time that serves the demographic, which is women and their families. 

We believe, based on the research we’ve done through mapping, that we have the ability to get to about 1,200 units in the U.S. We’ve got about 600 awarded right now, and 415 open. But again, that’s going to be driven by the discipline of scaling with the right people. Devan and I are still founder-owned, and we want to make sure we’re doing this the right way.

ATN: Could Burn ever look to expand internationally? 

MK: We’re already looking at some expansion in Canada and the UAE. We’re being very open to what makes sense for the brand, but we did hire a CDO — Jason Losco — in the last six months, and his primary focus is to set us up for international growth without jeopardizing the integrity of our domestic growth.

ATN: Besides just expansion, what are your key goals for Burn over the next few years?

MK: First and foremost, as a franchisor and as the CEO, I will not stop focusing on our unit-level economics. That is what I eat, sleep and breathe to make sure the system is healthy. I have a goal of our AUVs being $1 million in the next three years, and we’re on the way to do that. We’ve grown AUV every single year since the creation of Burn. So I want healthy franchises, and again, that goes back to our disciplined growth. 

Expanding into international markets is another focus over the next three years, as I mentioned, and then just continuing to pour into our membership experience. We’ll do that through technology, but also through training and education for our franchisees that are coming in.

ATN: Looking at the industry more broadly, what trends do you expect to see drive boutique fitness over the next few years? 

MK: I believe community will become more and more of an advantage and something that people are craving. We live in a world where we can do everything at home if we absolutely need to, but we’re going to crave connection and community more and more. I think the brands that leverage both community and technology are going to thrive. 

We’re not going to change our workout. We believe strength and conditioning — two core, fundamental ways of working out and challenging your body — aren’t going anywhere. Burn has never been about a quick fix; it’s a lifestyle brand.