STUDIO NOIR

Private · Master Plan · v1.0
STUDIO NOIRMASTER PLAN

STUDIO NOIR · Master Plan

The whole business in one document. Written in plain English so Taj can read it out loud and understand every line.

If a section here makes a claim, another section in this dossier has the depth on it.

1. What STUDIO NOIR is

A luxury pole and movement studio in the Raleigh-Durham (RDU) area of North Carolina, run at Aman-hotel hospitality standard. Prosecco at the door. Someone greets you by name. The space smells like our signature scent. You walk in and it feels like a private club, not a gym.

Longer term it becomes a full luxury wellness club with recovery amenities, café, and a broadcast-grade competition floor. Longer term after that it becomes a national and international franchise.

We build it in three phases, not all at once. Each phase has to earn its way into the next one.

2. Why we build in phases

Taj is starting with $84,000. That is real money for one person to put in. It is not enough to build the full luxury club we described in the first draft of this plan (that version needed $6 to $8 million).

So we do this in order:

  • Phase 1 (2026 to 2028): The Boutique. A small STUDIO NOIR studio in the Raleigh-Durham area, pole and movement classes only, run at 5-star hospitality standard. $84K funds it. Goal: prove the model, build a member list, generate real revenue and retention numbers.
  • Phase 2 (2028 to 2030): The Flagship. Once Phase 1 works, we raise or borrow real money against real Phase 1 numbers to build the full luxury club. Sauna, cold plunge, café, retail, broadcast floor, the whole thing.
  • Phase 3 (2030+): The Franchise. Once the flagship works and stabilizes, we open it up to franchise operators nationally and later internationally.

Phase 1 has to be a real business, not a stepping stone. If Phase 1 makes Taj $8,000 to $15,000 a month clean and stays there for two years, that alone is a life-changing outcome even if we never build Phase 2.

3. Who’s involved

  • Taj Hines: founder, face, creative director. She is the brand. She never opens the doors, never covers a class, never sets up gear. Someone else always does that.
  • Trill Walker: Chief Strategy Officer. Strategy, brand, capital raising, and (in Phase 2) production of THE NOIR INVITATIONAL through The Walker Group. Not a salaried employee.
  • Tia Dunn: Marketing Director. Cross-brand across Taj and Trill’s ventures. Owns pre-launch, launch, and ongoing content.

Phase 1 has no other employees. Two contract instructors paid per class. Booking software runs the schedule.

Phase 2 adds a General Manager (called “GM” from here on — the person who runs day-to-day operations), a Head of Programming, a Director of Member Experience, and an F&B (food and beverage) lead.

Phase 3 adds a VP of Franchise Development and a Director of Brand Standards inside the STUDIO NOIR IP LLC (the entity that owns the trademarks and licenses them to franchisees).

4. Phase 1: The Boutique

Location: Raleigh-Durham metro, target neighborhoods North Hills (Raleigh) or Fenton (Cary) as top choices, with Waverly Place (Cary), Village District (Raleigh), or Brightleaf (Durham) as alternates. Roughly 1,500 to 2,500 square feet. Ceilings 10 feet minimum for pole (14 feet preferred but not required Phase 1). Ground floor, near foot traffic and daytime retail.

What’s inside: - One main floor with 6 to 8 pole rigs and open dance space - Sprung floor for safe landings and dance - Mirrors on one wall - A small reception area with a concierge desk and a champagne cooler - 1 or 2 changing areas - 1 or 2 bathrooms - Signature scent diffused through HVAC (air conditioning/heating system) - Music playback tuned by Trill

What’s NOT inside Phase 1: - Sauna - Cold plunge - Steam room - Café - Retail boutique - Broadcast production floor - Recovery wing

Those all arrive in Phase 2 at the flagship.

Members and pricing: - Two tiers: Access ($199/month, unlimited classes) and Studio ($349/month, unlimited classes plus locker plus one guest pass per month) - Target: 60 members by end of Year 1 (blended $250 per member per month = $15,000 monthly revenue) - Stretch: 80 members ($20,000 monthly revenue)

What it costs to open: - Lease deposit + first and last month rent: about $15,000 (RDU high-street rents at North Hills / Fenton run $45-$65/sqft NNN) - Cash buildout (portion beyond landlord TI and equipment lease): about $15,000 - Legal, insurance, trademarks, software setup: about $5,000 - Signage and soft-launch marketing: about $5,000 - Cash reserve for the first 5 months of rent, insurance, utilities: about $44,000 - Total: about $84,000. Zero room for surprises. See 05_FINANCE/00_STARTUP_BUDGET for line-by-line.

What Phase 1 makes: - Year 1 (opening through fall 2027): ramp from 0 to 60 members. Roughly break-even by month 6, roughly $6K to $9K per month of clean cash by month 12. - Year 2 (2028): steady at 60 to 80 members. $8K to $15K per month clean. Save aggressively for Phase 2 raise.

5. Phase 2: The Flagship

Assumes Phase 1 works. If Phase 1 does not clear 50+ members within 12 months, we do not activate Phase 2. We instead run Phase 1 as a permanent boutique and revisit later.

If Phase 1 works, Phase 2 starts in 2028:

  • Larger space: 8,000 to 15,000 square feet
  • Ceilings 16 feet or higher (for broadcast pole)
  • Full amenity stack: sauna, cold plunge, steam, café, small retail
  • Third membership tier: Black Card ($999/month, unlimited plus recovery plus concierge extras)
  • GM hired 6 months before opening
  • Head of Programming hired 3 months before opening
  • Capital needed: $3.5M to $5M. Raised through some mix of Phase 1 retained earnings, SBA loan (Small Business Administration government-backed loan), tenant improvement allowance from landlord, and possibly outside equity.
  • Timeline: 2028 site search, 2029 buildout, 2029 or 2030 open

Full Phase 2 sizing lives in the finance and real estate sections and gets rewritten in 2028 against real Phase 1 numbers.

6. Phase 3: The Franchise

Assumes Phase 2 works. Not before 2030.

  • Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) filed with FTC and state regulators
  • VP of Franchise Development hired
  • Pilot: a 3-unit area development agreement (one operator commits to open 3 units in a region) in Atlanta or Miami
  • International master franchise conversations begin: London, Dubai, Toronto priority
  • Royalty stream flows to STUDIO NOIR IP LLC (already exists from Day 1)

We do this because franchising is how boutique fitness brands scale to real wealth without opening every location ourselves. Barry’s, Orangetheory, F45, Pure Barre all took this path. We do it slower and only after the flagship is proven, so brand quality does not erode.

7. THE NOIR INVITATIONAL

The annual pole and movement championship. Produced by The Walker Group with real broadcast production. Ticketed. Sponsored. Streamed.

Not Phase 1. Not Phase 2 opening day. Phase 2 Year 2 at earliest, which means around 2030.

Reason for waiting: a broadcast-grade competition needs a physical venue (the flagship’s broadcast floor), a sponsor sell built on real member base and press coverage, and 12 to 18 months of pre-event work by TWG. None of that exists in Phase 1.

We register the trademark on Day 1 so nobody else takes the name. But we do not spend money producing it until Phase 2 is stable. Details in 08_NOIR_INVITATIONAL.

8. The RDU reason

The Triangle (Raleigh + Durham + Chapel Hill) has real, growing wealth. Roughly 119,000 households in Wake County alone earn $200K+. West Cary (ZIP 27519) has 38.9% of households above $200K — the densest wealth cluster in the metro. Raleigh’s addressable pool of women in $250K+ households aged 25 to 45 sits at roughly 35,000 to 40,000. Capturing 1% of that population is a full waitlist club.

Raleigh’s retail vacancy is 2.3%, one of the tightest in the country. Landlords in North Hills and Fenton (the two anchor lifestyle centers) are preferentially placing wellness tenants because service categories now outpace traditional retail for lease absorption in the Triangle.

Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) is a fast-growing global hub with direct flights to LA, NYC, London, and most major domestic markets. That matters for Phase 2 when we fly in judges, athletes, and press for THE NOIR INVITATIONAL.

Nothing in RDU competes with STUDIO NOIR at the intersection of luxury hospitality + pole + private-club membership + creator-friendly production. That whitespace is the whole opening. See 04_MARKET_SELECTION_RDU and 07_MARKET_BRIEF_RDU for the full analysis.

Founder proximity is the tiebreaker. Taj lives in Raleigh; running the launch from her home city is worth more than any marginal wealth density another metro offered. Charlotte becomes a Phase 3 franchise candidate.

9. What could kill this

The five biggest risks (full list in 05_RISK_REGISTER):

  1. We spend the reserve on buildout, then run out of rent money before members ramp. Kill fee: shutdown or emergency loan. Prevention: the $25K reserve is untouchable. Buildout overruns come out of buildout scope, not reserve.
  2. The lease we sign has a landlord who won’t approve pole installation. Kill fee: 3 months lost, deposit at risk. Prevention: pole rigging clause in every lease before signing. Structural check by a licensed engineer before signing.
  3. Taj gets pulled into daily operations. Kill fee: burnout, brand erosion. Prevention: hard rule, no exceptions. Trill enforces. Contract instructors cover classes always. If nobody can cover, we cancel the class rather than put Taj on the floor.
  4. A member gets injured on the pole. Kill fee: lawsuit, insurance rate hike, reputation damage. Prevention: proper insurance, signed waivers with pole-specific language, quarterly rigging inspection by certified rigger, progression rules (no advanced moves until prerequisites are done). Details in 07_OPERATIONS/02_SAFETY_LIABILITY.
  5. Phase 1 does not clear 50 members in 12 months. Kill fee: Phase 2 does not happen. Prevention: aggressive pre-launch waitlist through Taj + Tia (see 10_MARKETING_LAUNCH). Warm launch, not a cold one.

10. What “success” looks like

End of Phase 1 (fall 2028): - 60 to 80 active paying members - $8K to $15K per month clean cash flow to Taj - Real numbers we can show to a lender or investor for Phase 2 - Waitlist that proves demand for the flagship version

End of Phase 2 (2030 to 2031): - Flagship open, 400 to 600 members, $200K to $350K per month revenue - Taj drawing $250K to $500K per year in distributions - STUDIO NOIR is a household name in the Triangle and known regionally

End of Phase 3 (2033+): - 5 to 8 units live (some franchised, some corporate) - STUDIO NOIR IP LLC valuation supports strategic exit if desired - Or, keep running and compound

11. The founder promise

STUDIO NOIR is Taj’s wealth vehicle. It is designed to make her a founder who owns distribution rights, not an employee at her own club. Every decision in this dossier is tested against that: does this move Taj closer to owning outcomes without owning shifts?

If a decision looks smart on paper but puts her behind the desk on a Saturday morning, we reject it.

Full plan continues in sections 01 through 16.