She Built Her App 3 Times… And Still Didn’t Quit with Carla Nokes The Fitness Directory

In this episode of Business Mutiny, Jon Graves sits down with Carla Nokes, founder of The Fitness Directory, to explore a raw and honest founder journey built on resilience, rejection, sport, injury, mistakes and relentless persistence. Carla started out as a high-level tennis player, reaching the top 10 in Great Britain as a junior and representing at international level. Tennis shaped her mindset from an early age, teaching her resilience, discipline, competitiveness and the ability to solve problems under pressure. But when injury disrupted her tennis career, Carla had to rethink everything. After shoulder surgery, financial pressure and the reality that tennis may no longer be the route forward, she moved into the fitness industry and began working across multiple gyms. She was doing brutal hours, sometimes working from early morning until late at night, trying to earn enough money to fund her way back into tennis. But while working across those gyms, she spotted a major problem. Gyms were constantly struggling to find reliable cover for fitness instructors, PTs and class leaders. Fitness professionals were stuck on spreadsheets, waiting weeks to be paid, and trying to find work across fragmented networks. That is where the idea for The Fitness Directory was born. Carla describes it as an “Uber for fitness” — an on-demand platform connecting gyms with vetted fitness professionals for short-term cover, classes and shifts, while removing the headache of invoicing, admin and delayed payments. But the journey has been anything but easy. In this conversation, Carla talks openly about building the app three times, getting development wrong, spending money on expensive lessons, struggling with perfectionism, being scared to sell, learning how to cold approach gyms, dealing with rejection, navigating a male-dominated industry and building a startup alone. She also shares how working with a business coach helped her realise that the biggest thing holding her back was herself. This episode is packed with lessons for founders, entrepreneurs, startup owners, fitness professionals and anyone building something from scratch. We discuss: High-level tennis and the mindset it created Why injury forced Carla to rethink her future How The Fitness Directory idea was born Building software as a non-technical founder Expensive startup mistakes Why perfectionism can kill progress Learning how to sell Pitching gyms and handling rejection The reality of being a solo founder Raising investment Why validation matters The future of fitness recruitment This is a brilliant conversation about resilience, founder mindset, learning the hard way and refusing to quit when most people would have walked away. If you are building a business, launching an app, trying to raise investment or fighting through the messy early stages of a startup, this episode will hit home.