It’s not today. Today is a great time to start a float center, but that’s not the best time. The best time was a year ago. Or a month ago. Or yesterday.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing people from their first, innocent float all the way through opening the doors on their own business. David Brickman, who floated first on a trip to Portland, flew back out for our apprenticeship, and under a year later he began running floats in New York out of his own center, BodyMind.

I’ve also met people who tell me they’ve been wanting to open a float center for years. One gentleman who came into Float On informed me that he’d had the idea since the 80’s. For most of these people, and for most people in general who consider, fleetingly, the life of a float center owner, it will never go from being an idea to a reality.

Right now, you probably can’t say that you’ve been running a float center for years. Three years from now, you could have been running a successful float center for two.

I went from my first float to opening day of Float On in under six months. Admittedly… that was a little intense, even for me. We bootstrapped the entire business, and still haven’t taken on any outside investment. In just over three years, we’ve done nearly 35,000 floats, and we’ve expanded from 4 tanks to 6.

Yesterday may have been the best time to start, but today isn’t looking bad at all. If, however, you find that the best day for you consistently takes the form of ‘Tomorrow,’ be warned. Tomorrow has a sneaky way of never coming.

From our Grand Opening – October 17, 2010
Christopher, Quinn, and me (with blonde hair)

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Graham Talley, Co Founder, Float On