--- title: "Big Blue Swim School Is a Strong Franchise Opportunity For Families Thanks to Executive Groundwork and a Community Focus" url: https://burnaze.com/article/0bc5ef54-1bb2-4323-bd05-bac0e34426ab source: "1851 Franchise" original_url: https://1851franchise.com/big-blue-swim-school-is-a-strong-franchise-opportunity-for-families-thanks-to-executive-groundwork-and-a-community-focus-2711104 category: "Fitness" industry: "Fitness" topics: ["Emerging brands"] published: 2019-12-26T06:01:07.000Z modified: 2026-11-01T02:09:21.384Z image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/754fbb9c4f34dd0f8e27318b1e2e97d38856.jpg --- # Big Blue Swim School Is a Strong Franchise Opportunity For Families Thanks to Executive Groundwork and a Community Focus **TL;DR:** Big Blue Swim School offers a unique franchise opportunity for families with its proprietary lesson planning and scheduling software and community focus. The brand has a unique approach to real estate and offers franchise fee discounts to veterans. *originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2019-12-26. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/big-blue-swim-school-is-a-strong-franchise-opportunity-for-families-thanks-to-executive-groundwork-and-a-community-focus-2711104).* ## Key facts - Big Blue Swim School has a proprietary lesson planning software - The brand offers franchise fee discounts to veterans - Big Blue has a unique approach to real estate ## Story Since its founding by national champion swimmer Chris DeJong in 2009, Big Blue Swim School has made a name for itself as an emerging dominant player in the swim instruction space. The brand’s proprietary lesson planning and scheduling software, LessonBuddy™, along with best-in-class, data-driven development and teaching methodologies and an impressive depth of executive leadership experience combine to position Big Blue Swim School as an exciting franchise opportunity —especially for families. “For families looking to franchise together, Big Blue is a great opportunity to own in their community and have a legacy business that can be passed down to their kids,” said Big Blue’s Chief Development Officer, Scott Thompson. ## Family focused business For one, there’s the nature of the service. Swim instruction serves as a crucial part of child development and safety . “This is a long-term, community-based business that gives back to area families,” Thompson said. “Like other sports, swimming contributes to positive development and a healthy, active lifestyle. But unlike other sports, swimming is unique because swim instruction is critical for safety and has lifelong positive effects. It is a vital life skill.” Thompson explained that, for parents who sign on as top franchise partners with Big Blue, “They’re finding great success and return on investment, and hopefully, they’ll have kids who go on to love swimming.” Along with an offering committed to the health and wellness of children, the innovative swim instruction brand also contributes to the health of a given Big Blue Swim School by taking a significantly different approach to real estate . Big Blue franchisees are not tasked with choosing a site—rather, Big Blue leverages a team of eight members to assist in real estate, construction and facilities. ## Real estate strategy “We strategically map the market and where we want to go first in the market. Our real estate team validates the market and then we site select based on that data,” Thompson said. “We have real estate orientation and a pool opening process to make sure that when our grand opening happens, our pre-sales numbers are already strong and we have customers lined up.” This kind of groundwork is crucial in helping Big Blue franchisees get set up for success. “It is a large investment and I think one of the things a lot of people get nervous about is uncertainty,” Thompson said. “We take some uncertainty out of the picture. Before signing a lease, we spend a great deal of time doing investigative reporting. We do a lot of strategic planning and go through a tremendous amount of data and analytics.” Once the Big Blue education franchise is up and running, the brand also takes other steps to make ownership as seamless as possible. For one, Big Blue offers proprietary scheduling software, LessonBuddy™ , which allows customers to reschedule swim classes online and through the app, rather than having to make a phone call. The brand also has a centralized member services center that answers customer phone calls, freeing up even more time for franchisees to focus on the business. ## Franchisee success stories Franchising families have already caught on to Big Blue as an especially solid fitness franchising option. Chicago-based siblings Adryenne Hearne-Alvarez and Derek Hearne will open five Big Blue units in Florida and South Carolina. Husband-and-wife team Wendy and Erik Skaalerud signed a five-unit deal to bring Big Blue to the Denver area. Then there is the husband-and-wife team of Zack and Brittany Groesbeck , who signed a three-unit deal with Big Blue earlier this year to bring the brand to Salt Lake City and have plans to eventually take over the entire Utah market. The high school sweethearts see Big Blue as both an industry and life-changing company. “Big Blue is an industry disruptor,” Zack Groesbeck said. “People aren’t used to going to one place for a swim class . They think YMCA, or gym, or neighbor’s pool. So Big Blue changes people’s thought process on what swimming is. Swim instruction is not just a pastime but a life-saving skill that happens to be fun.” The company’s proprietary technology LessonBuddy™ was another deciding factor for the Groesbecks. As the parents of two children ages 5 and 4, they are well-aware of how difficult scheduling can be and loved how the brand makes it easy for families to coordinate swimming lessons—and how much work is taken off of a fitness franchise partner’s plate as a result. “We loved that with Big Blue, parents can get on an app and schedule through proprietary software,” Groesbeck said, adding that since Big Blue locations have two pools instead of one, rescheduling lessons is even easier. “It’s super convenient for parents to schedule on their phone.” The Groesbecks plan to take advantage of Big Blue’s strong marketing tactics to spread the word about their locations in their community. “There are opportunities to partner with the local school district, do Fourth of July parades, work with pediatrician offices,” Groesbeck said. “There’s so much to do and to promote opportunities to come and try swim lessons for free. Big Blue has great rollout packages for people who sign up pre-launch. There’s definitely going to be some outreach programs to like-minded businesses.” Strong support for both incoming and established franchisees make Big Blue a franchising opportunity not to be missed. Add to that a community-friendly service, and families who want to go the franchise route together can clearly see it’s Big Blue for the win. The startup costs for a Big Blue Swim School best fitness franchise range from $1,825,500 to $3,687,000. Big Blue Swim School offers franchise fee discounts to veterans, as well as multi-unit development discounts. For more information visit . ## Entities - 1851 Franchise (publication) - Fitness (sector) - franchise opportunity (topic) - Big Blue Swim School (company) - Scott Thompson (person) - Chris DeJong (person) - YMCA (company) - real estate strategy (topic) - swim instruction (topic) - family focused business (topic) - franchise fee discounts (topic) --- Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/big-blue-swim-school-is-a-strong-franchise-opportunity-for-families-thanks-to-executive-groundwork-and-a-community-focus-2711104). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/0bc5ef54-1bb2-4323-bd05-bac0e34426ab).