10 Years of KPole - 2016-2019
On 12th March 2026 KPole will have been my life for 10 years!
I have met and taught literally thousands of you over that ten years, but realised most of you don't know much about me or the studio history, so for the blog over the next few months I thought I thought I would give you a short history of KPole!
God, lets take it back to 2016 shall we! What were you doing in 2016? I was working as an intelligence analyst for a private firm (haha my history in intelligence is a story for another day!) and starting my own pole studio!
This is the very first logo for KPole, created about 6 weeks before I opened by a boyfriend at the time (less said abut him the better!). My step mum came up with the name KPole as we were all sat in my dad's living room one day. I realised I needed to advertise and didn't have a clue what to call the studio and she said 'what about K for Kim Pole'. It still makes me laugh when people say KPole like its a real thing, when it was come up with in such a spur of the moment decision!
I had signed the contract on a studio space about a month prior to this on a whim and had literally zero clue about running a business, booking systems, websites and accounts .So I sat and I learnt. To be honest I would say although I obviously know a lot more about accounts and websites and booking systems now, nothing much has changed. I come across problems almost every day running KPole and, having absolutely zero business background or training, I have to sit, figure them out and learn how to do things I never thought I would end up doing!
When the first KPole studio opened in Shirley, pole was nowhere near as mainstream as it is today. The last 10 years the industry has changed such an insane amount I cant even begin to explain, but I was so lucky that I decided to open the studio right at the time when everything was just about starting to take off and the studio went from strength to strength.
The studio took on its first instructors Ellie and Leanne (who a lot of you will know very well) and so came the challenge of learning how to be a good boss and make sure your instructors are always learning and growing (this is something i am continually trying to work on and absolutely love that now the majority of our instructors come through as students to begin with and are trained up to become instructors through KPole).
The landscape of what we were teaching back in 2016 was so different to what you get taught now in classes. There were way more pole moves than when I originally started pole in 2012, but nothing like the amount of moves and transitions we have today. I think back in 2016 everything was very 'move' focused, so you would learn your front hook, back hook, genie, superman, butterfly etc but we didn't massively focus on transitions or the big long combos you learn now (everyone still hated laybacks though).
At the end of 2017 everything seemed to happen at once! I was at a crossroads. Stay in my job and this was the biggest the studio would ever be as I didn't have any more time to give to the business, or quit my job and go for it.
So the day after I completed on my first ever house, I handed my notice in at my job. I know you might be thinking this is going to be inspiring and a big success story, but when I tell you about a week after this the owner of the building I was renting from told me he was selling the building and KPole had to leave - you can imagine the panic! Next life/business lesson, prepare to be thrown curve balls every single day of the week!
Lucikly, I was introduced to Zack, who is the landlord of the building we are in now in Solihull and he purpose built us the beautiful room we are still in today! We still had stage pole though (business loans seemed like too big of a risk for such a small time fry at this point!)
In 2018 we started hoop classes at KPole (yes I am a qualified hoop instructor believe it or not!) and it bought a whole new dimension to the timetable and the lessons which we could offer.
Luckily for you lot, we very quickly took on some aerial hoop instructors at the studio and the aerial tribe of KPole began! I'm not even going to begin to try and name all the instructors we have had over the years in this blog as I will definitely leave some out, but through them we have opened up KPole to a whole different variety of people, who would never have come if it was still just pole classes - they literally made the studio what it is today!
This is when I first thought about expansion. If i'm honest up till this point I hadn't really had a plan, but I think my business head was starting to kick in a bit more at this point and I very much like to think ahead - where do I want to be in 5 years time? The studio was buzzing and it seemed like the right time to try and see what else we could do.
Enter 'Studio 2'
This room was actually next door to the room we already used in Solihull - we took it on as a second space and we had EVERY class you can imagine under the sun in there!
From acro to belly dance, hula hoop to slackline, that room saw some action! We welcomed such a huge array of instructors to the studio and it was seriously cool! The studio ran classes across the two rooms for the end of 2018 and all of 2019 and it was amazing to see such a variety of things going on every night.
However, one of the biggest things I've learned owning the studios (and its helped me massively in life as well) is that you have to be ok with failing. Truth was, I didn't really know how to advertise classes that I didn't have a clue about and although our current students tried out lots of the new classes and some new people joined as well, it just wasn't enough to make the room viable.
I've got to say at the time that 'Studio 2' failed, I definitely was not as ok with failing as I am now, it certainly felt like I had tried something and I wasn't 'good enough' to make it succeed. Luckily... well not lucky in any way whatsoever, but COVID was just around the corner to make me face the reality of having to close the studio and realise that when you put the worst case scenario in front of you, you can see that it's not all that bad and you can find a way through things.
I hope you've enjoyed learning a bit about the first few years of KPole and maybe learnt a few bits that you didn't know about before. I feel like there's so much I want to say about the amazing people i've met and the instructors that have come and gone along the way, but I would literally be here all day! Next month i'll be covering the COVID years, floods, renovations and taking on a second studio!
I cant wait to see so many of you at the showcase weekend, if you haven't already, get your tickets, there are still a few left and it is going to be the biggest and best night the studio has ever held. Thank you so much to you all for being part of the journey so far - i'm so excited to see where we can go together!
Lots of love, Kim xxx
