Running a gym is extremely difficult.
First - you gotta find a proper location. No offense to South Dakota... but it is very hard to make a successful gym in SD. Why? Not a high population, not a large population interested in cheer, not a culture around to support it. On the reverse if you open a gym in a highly competitive area you are going to have people competing against you. Every once in a while you will find golden opportunities with areas underserved and it is much easier to succeed, but I would not recommend opening a gym in Dallas TX right now.
Second - business differentiation. What makes your gym different than others? A cheerlebrity name helps with the levels 3-5 and the older ages but a Tiny 1 or Mini 2 is 'probably' not going to a gym just because of a famous name. They go for the gym name, or their friend recommended it, or had wanted to do a 'flip class'.
Third - just managing it. While it is awesome everyone has a quadruple full being able to do billing properly, logistics of equipment, management of employees, offering the classes at the proper times in the proper areas. Unless you are in an extremely unique situation (like that of GT which is college Worlds top heavy) most of your money is from the younger lower level kids teaching flips. Camps are easy money comparatively. You step in, you flip and stunt, you take your check, and you go home.
Can this be done by a 17 year old? Sure, crazier things have happened. But are the expectations to create a successful business, win worlds, or do both? Making money, being successful, and winning is all really hard and takes the right combo of 'usually' years of business maturity to happen.
