Zubio located in downtown San Francisco inside a mall, it just raised a second round of funding, according to VentureWire.

Dubbed as the potential “Starbucks of chair massage” The size of the new funding was not disclosed, but chief executive Sam Keller told VentureWire it was “not far off from” the $2 million to $5 million that he was targeting earlier. It comes from individual investors including Philip Schlein of U.S. Venture Partners, former Yoga Works co-chief executive Rob Wrubel, Gary Grace of Supercuts and Rob Wilson, president of Tiburon Research Group. Keller plans to go out for more funding to finish the round in June, and to open at least one more studio by the end of this year.

As someone who owns a massage therapy business as well, I am excited that companies like Zubio are not only succeeding but also attracting funding. Most might think that this kind of success from a competitor can’t help us as small business owners but it does, Zubio’s business model is different than what we have at RPM Therapy, so there is really no competition.

Plus Zubio’s primary business model is chair massage; this emphasis on doing chair massage helps our massage therapy industry as a whole, more than we think. You see chair massage as we all know, is one of the best ways to market your massage services, With this in mind, Zubio’s business model is reaching and marketing massages, to a group of individuals who might not have ever had a massage before. A massage chair and its convenience is enticing, especially if you had never had one before, being in in a public well-lighted atmosphere takes away why most individuals won’t get one. Mall goers need not to worry about getting un-dressed, having messy oils rubbed all over them or being too time consuming, as a regular table massage ranging 60 to 90 minutes, chair massage session on the other hand typically last only 10 -20 minutes in length.

Businesses like MassageEnvy (which btw I don’t agree with) and Zubio are paving the way for future massage businesses like RPM Therapy and yours to break into markets that ordinarily would be very time consuming and expensive. As they are already doing most of the leg work for us to follow in right behind them. They are getting pre-approvals and working out all the city licensing issues and requirements, not to mention all the marketing testing that these massage businesses are providing us. We should be applauding them, so that they can keep exposing more to people to massage, it is great for us a industry, even if they do a poor job at it (Massage Envy).

When Massage businesses like (massage envy) do not hold their own, in the market place, there will be room for another massage company with improvements and innovative services, to come in and take market share from Massage Envy. As Zig Ziglar quotes, “see you at the top”.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!