STUDIO NOIR · Executive Summary

One page. For Taj first. Also for close friends, family, potential lenders, and Phase 2 investors later.

STUDIO NOIR is a luxury pole and movement studio opening in Raleigh, North Carolina. We run it at hotel-grade hospitality standard: prosecco at the door, someone greets you by name, signature scent through the room, ritual arrival and ritual departure. Where athletes train and artists perform.

We build in phases.

Phase 1 (2026 to 2028): The Boutique

A small STUDIO NOIR studio in the Raleigh-Durham metro. Roughly 2,000 square feet. Pole and movement classes. Two membership tiers. Two contract instructors. Taj as face and creative director, someone else covering ops.

Capital: $85,000 from Taj. That is the real starting number.

Target: 60 active members by end of Year 1, clean cash flow to Taj of $8K to $15K per month by month 12 to 18.

Purpose: prove the model, build the brand, generate real numbers to raise Phase 2 capital against.

Phase 2 (2028 to 2030): The Flagship

Once Phase 1 works, we raise or borrow real money and build the full luxury club: 8,000 to 15,000 square feet, sauna, cold plunge, café, small retail boutique, broadcast production floor for THE NOIR INVITATIONAL.

Capital needed: $3.5M to $5M. Raised against Phase 1 numbers, not projections.

Target: 400 to 600 members, Taj drawing $250K to $500K per year in distributions.

Phase 3 (2030+): The Franchise

Franchise the concept nationally and eventually internationally. FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document) filed. Pilot in Atlanta or Miami. Later London and Dubai.

Revenue engine: royalty stream from franchisees flows to STUDIO NOIR IP LLC (the entity that already owns the trademarks from Day 1).

Founder

Taj Hines. Widow, mother, athlete, entrepreneur. Founder, face, and creative director. Not the operator.

Chief Strategy Officer

Trill Walker. Music director and playback engineer to Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Teyana Taylor, Kelly Rowland, Khalid, 50 Cent, GloRilla, Doechii, Future. Founder of The Walker Group, which produces the competition IP starting Phase 2.

Why RDU

Real, concentrated wealth (RTP tech and finance corridor: Cisco, IBM, Epic Games, Red Hat, Fidelity Cary, MetLife). 119,000 households in Wake County earn $200K+. Duke and NC State athletics, Carolina Hurricanes (NHL), RTP-adjacent film and biotech. Growing global hub airport (RDU). Founder lives in Raleigh. Nobody at our intersection of luxury hospitality plus pole plus broadcast IP anywhere in the Triangle.

Why this wins

• Category of one. No competitor sits at luxury hospitality plus pole plus broadcast IP.
• Taj’s audience. Warm launch, not cold. Waitlist fills through her network and Tia Dunn’s marketing.
• Trill’s production infrastructure. No other pole studio can build the competition IP that scales the brand beyond four walls.
• Phased capital. We don’t gamble $8 million on a category that hasn’t been proven in the market. We prove it small first, then scale.

Full plan: 01_MASTER_PLAN.md. Every section in this dossier is depth on a claim made here.