I'd previously been providing management consultancy, earning a Masters in Business Administration and latterly working as a Group Operations Manager. I enjoyed it but didn't feel I'd ever be super-motivated making money for other people. My wife Sarah is from Sheffield so we moved up here from London to release some equity we'd built up in our house and began exploring doing something ourselves.

My talent is in operations - I'm good at executing but not really an ideas man so franchising provided a route into an established business. I was introduced to Meditech via a guy I know who was financing the equipment. I got to thinking about it and realised that people pay for their self-image and prefer a natural solution. Also, the track record of the Meditech management team (who are also behind the Snack-in-the-Box franchise network) was a very powerful attraction.

I did enough research into the machine to know that it delivers great results. I got in touch with Meditech in March, signed the franchise agreement in April, hired a therapist and got her trained up by Meditech in May and was trading in June. The business picked up its first two clients in the first week and had done £20,000 worth of business after 10 weeks.

We did a lot of free and heavily discounted treatments early on to get the business off the ground, but now it is up to speed my target for the next 12 months is to turnover about £150,000. I've hired a second therapist who, once she's trained up, will enable my clinic to open seven days a week. I also own the territory for Leeds, so I'll look at getting another machine established there and, if the territories can handle it, look at having two machines in each city. I'd be chuffed with that - it would work out at grossing £500,000 a year while keeping the overheads pretty lean.

Interview: Stuart Anderson