About Boutique Fitness Broker
Your team of experts ready to help you sell your studio for more
Why this firm exists
In 2012, my wife Karson and I bought our favorite yoga studio. We signed the LOI a day before finding out we were pregnant with our first child. After a few years I began consulting for Mindbody — the platform most of the industry ran on — which put me inside the numbers of studios all over the world.
Our first attempt to sell the studio was a disaster. Someone approached us, we engaged in six months of exhausting conversations, and in the end we had nothing to show for it. But the failed process taught us exactly what we’d missed. We went back to work and cleaned everything up — the books, the team, the lease. We filed our best-looking tax returns. The second attempt was a completely different story. We sold in 2019 for five times what we had paid.
Then the calls started. Friends and peers across the boutique fitness industry were trying to sell their studios and running into the same walls. No one else had combined real transaction experience with an actual understanding of this industry. So I built the firm that didn’t exist. BFB was formally founded in 2019.
Kristin came into the story in 2022, when she was ready to exit the studio she had owned for 17 years. I helped her, and in a perfect twist of fate, she joined as a partner in 2023. It’s really just the two of us — both of us, every deal.
Mitch McGinley, Founder + CEO
Mitch spent his early career in hotel operations and boutique hotel M&A before buying his favorite yoga studio with his wife Karson in 2012. He sold that business in 2019 and founded Boutique Fitness Broker. He has since closed 70+ transactions totaling over $30M. He’s the author of The Number Nobody Talks About: How to Prepare, Price, and Sell Your Boutique Fitness Studio (May 2026) and has upcoming speaking engagements at HFA, the Reformer Pilates Conference, ZaxFit and Pilates Journal. He currently lives in Sitges, Spain with Karson and their two kids.
Kristin Abel, President
Kristin is a former CPA and yoga studio owner who sold her own business in 2022 with Mitch representing her — and joined Boutique Fitness Broker as a partner in 2023. She leads exit planning and seller engagements and has become one of the most trusted voices across boutique fitness. Sellers who work with Kristin consistently say the same thing: she tells you the truth earlier than you want to hear it, which is exactly why the deal closes.
