Eunji Reformer Studio

Background

Eunji Reformer Studio is a 6-machine boutique in Yongsan, opened in 2024. Evening classes (18:30, 19:30, 20:30) filled steadily — the usual post-work office worker crowd. Weekend mornings did fine. But weekday morning classes at 10:00 and 11:00 were brutal. Some days the 10am class had one person. Some days zero. Eunji was paying an instructor to run those classes anyway, because cancelling them would have killed any hope of ever building a morning book.

What we tried

A very specific offer: a weekday 10:00 or 11:00 drop-in reformer pass at ₩18,000 (40% off the ₩30,000 regular drop-in), no package required, bookable up to one hour before class on joayo. We intentionally limited it to drop-ins — no discounted packages — so the people who found it were genuinely testing, not committing. Cap of 5 drop-ins per class (the studio has 6 machines; one stayed reserved for existing package holders).

What happened

Week one: 7 drop-ins across 10 scheduled classes. Week two: 18. Week four: 34 and the cap hitting on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. By week eight, Eunji's morning classes were running at 80–100% capacity four days a week, and — the number she cared about — 43% of drop-ins had converted to a 10-class package within 30 days of their first visit.

Who actually showed up

Not who Eunji expected. She'd pictured stay-at-home moms and early retirees. What she got was freelancers (graphic designers, translators, a handful of software engineers working remote), a surprising number of shift workers (nurses, airline crew) whose schedules left weekday mornings free, and a small cluster of people between jobs. Her morning demographic was completely different from her evening demographic, and it turned out Yongsan had a lot of them hiding.

What Eunji says

"오전 수업은 거의 포기한 상태였어요. 인스트럭터 한 명은 거의 기부하는 마음으로 돌렸거든요. 드롭인 오퍼 하나 걸었을 뿐인데, 두 달 뒤에 오전반이 저녁반 다음으로 제일 바쁜 시간대가 됐어요. 용산에 이 시간에 운동할 수 있는 사람이 이렇게 많은 줄 몰랐어요."

What's next

Eunji is adding a 09:00 class — earlier than anything she's offered before — aimed at freelancers who want to finish a workout before their first call of the day. If the 10am conversion pattern holds, she expects the slot to pay for itself within five weeks.