With Founders Row, Jamie Weeks Is Giving Entrepreneurs Access To The Support He Never Had

Weeks, once the biggest franchisee of Orangetheory studios and the founder of SweatHouz, created Founders Row last year to give business owners a more hands-on, holistic approach to traditional private equity

Jamie Weeks does not want to be a shark. 

In fact, he finds the whole concept absurd. Predators swirling the waters, angling to attack their prey — founders who have done the hard work and have real dreams.  

“Who wants to dive into a shark tank and get eaten?” he asks, the popular ABC show not far from mind. “A bunch of billionaires on a stage competing with their money, thinking they’re smarter because they’ve had success — and they are the sharks. They’re going to eat up your company and take it away. I like to be in the koi tank.”

It’s a telling parallel from an entrepreneur who began advising family offices on Wall Street and then spent the better part of three decades in the fitness industry. He had his first Orangetheory Fitness studio in 2014 and then sold the franchise group to private equity in 2017. Under his leadership, the business scaled to more than 140 studios over the next four years, making it the largest Orangetheory franchisee in the world.

He then went on to found cold plunge and infrared sauna studio concept SweatHouz (SWTHZ) in 2019 and sold a majority stake in 2022.

By any conventional measure, Weeks won. And yet there’s a new mission that awaits, with the advantages of experience and hindsight.

“As private equity has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, the little guy has gotten forgotten about more and more and more — and there’s nothing in between,” he says. 

That’s where Weeks is stepping in with Founders Row, the firm he launched last year, with a deal-by-deal model designed to deploy capital in a brand’s early years while remaining founder-first.

“The vision that the founder has that got it to the point where private equity wants to buy it, is the single most important part of the business,” he points out. “And the second that founder sells, they no longer have control of the vision. Private equity doesn’t think the vision is a big deal. They focus on a spreadsheet. You can’t put a vision on a spreadsheet.”

A Portfolio Takes Shape

Founders Row has closed eight deals in the five months since its launch, with more expected in the months ahead. The portfolio is deliberately eclectic, although two of the most recent deals are in the fitness and wellness arena.

In February, Founders Row backed SculptHouse, an Atlanta-based boutique fitness brand that is the first to combine the Lagree Megaformer with interval cardio on a Woodway Curve treadmill. The capital will fuel expansion into South Florida, Charlotte, Nashville and Boston.

There was also a strategic investment in Ohm Health, whose Resonance Lamp guides users through breathwork using light, sound and touch cues to regulate the nervous system. The deal hints at an area in which Weeks is clearly interested.

“For 45 years, we focused on the body,” he says. “Where do you go today for mental health or brain health? You can have abs, but if you don’t have your mental health, those abs are worthless. Brain health is the future, and I’m running to that space as fast as I can.”

Not every idea makes the cut, though, and the reasons may be surprising to hopeful founders.

“The product doesn’t need to be an A-plus,” he says. “The product can be a B-minus, and if the marketing is an A-plus, you’re going to crush it. But if your product is an A-plus and your marketing is a C-minus or a D, it doesn’t matter. No one’s going to see it.”

The Part No One Talks About

Weeks is honest about what he didn’t have coming up as an entrepreneur and what he’s trying to give the founders he backs now.

“Being a founder is the loneliest thing you have ever done in your life,” he says. 

His cell number is in the hands of every founder he works with, encouraging them to text at any time.

“What’s shocking to me is the number of founders who don’t have anyone to call and ask for help,” he says. “There are thousands of those stories. Just having somewhere you can call and say, ‘Can you take 10 minutes and help me think through this?’ — that’s the whole point of having this experience. That’s what you’re supposed to do as a mentor.”

In addition to an open-door policy, Founders Row has an expert team across marketing, operations, finance and development, as well as FR Advisory, a consulting arm that incubates up to four brands at a time with the potential to graduate them into the FPV.

And just as so many young consumers are invested in their health and wellness, Weeks is equally bullish on today’s Gen Z entrepreneurs, many of whom he says are more prepared than any previous generation of founders.

“A 25-year-old today has the business intelligence of a 40-year-old 25 years ago, because they’re getting information so much faster than anyone else,” he says.

But what they are still missing, in his view, is someone in their corner who has already made the expensive mistakes and is willing to say so out loud.

“I’m trying to create something here where early-stage founders with really good ideas have a place they can go,” Weeks says. “When you’ve never done it before, you don’t know what being taken advantage of looks like.”

The koi tank, he will tell you, is a better place to build than a pool of sharks. 

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