14 years.
14 consecutive years.
After 14 years of running, owning, and working for LA Academy, Jeremy Burridge has sold the business that he dedicated his life towards.
In 2010, when the swim school was first sprouting into the world, there was only 120 students a week and 2 staff members.
Now, in 2024, there are 2,600 students and 45+ staff, what a contrast!
However, before Jeremy split the original business of Little Aqua to LA Academy, it had a total of 4,900 students and 80 staff members.
For some context, in 2021 Jeremy decided to split his business down into 2 from Little Aqua to LA Academy due to the business as a whole being "too big a monster to work on" and as it's clear with there being just under 5,000 students: it was too busy.
Due to the vast number of staff, as well as all the students and parents expecting such high standards from him, Jeremy felt that there was quite an impact on his mental health and felt as if he was surrounded by the wrong people.
In response to this, LA Academy was born.
LA Academy was smaller and much more manageable, with just the closest of the original team around.
Now, the whole of LA Academy has been sold because after 14 years of running a swim school, and 20 years of being a swimming instructor , Jeremy wants to try something new.
He feels as though he has lost the energy and enthusiasm for the day-to-day operations which in this industry, he believes the owners need those qualities for the business to thrive.
Jeremy is now going to be running his own swimming club for advanced swimmers, this essentially takes children around the East of England to compete against others.
At the moment, it's a small club of only 100 children but Jeremy is looking to double it so that over the next couple of years the competitions can begin.
Jeremy also owns a few swimming pools that he sub-lets to other swim schools as a form of income, so now that he has sold LA Academy he claims that he's going to look into properties to see if he can build his own pool and rent it out.
Jeremy really emphasises that he has loved every second of his career, of course COVID-19 and lockdown made running his business difficult due to the leisure industry being hit HARD; during this time Jeremy lost 11 months of income, that's around £250,000!
But out of love for his business, he built it back.
He feels as if it is a very rewarding job, and that he really did love his career.
