GoSaga, a holding company launched by Cava Capital founder Geoff Schneider, bought 14-unit Squeeze and plans to restart franchise development next year. The acquisition is part of Schneider’s “efficient franchisor” strategy to create a platform of fitness and wellness brands that can tap into shared services and vendor partnerships at a larger scale.
In a segment that includes large, lower-cost franchise players such as Massage Envy and Hand & Stone, and higher end brands such as Woodhouse Spa, Geoff Schneider said Squeeze Massage fills a hole in the marketplace for consumers seeking affordable luxury.
“We’re not Gucci. We’re more like Coach,” said Schneider as he made a comparison between the high-fashion Italian brand and an accessibly priced American counterpart.
Geoff Schneider co-founded GoSaga in 2020 and is working to build a portfolio of fitness and wellness brands.
“You're going to get a spa-like experience at a price that is much, much better,” he continued. “But it's not $65 a massage. We're not going after the volume. We're going after a high quality, great user experience, but not at Four Seasons pricing.”
Schneider through his GoSaga holding company is the new owner of 14-unit Squeeze after closing on the acquisition in November. Squeeze has a “fantastic brand presence” and is well-positioned in the segment, he noted, “but I think they got in a little bit of trouble by underestimating … what it takes to be an efficient franchisor.”
At the franchisor level, explained Schneider, Squeeze was focused on fast growth and wasn’t “delivering wins” to its franchisee network. Though he didn’t detail specific problems, he said the company got “behind the eight ball, and then it spirals …”
Founded by Alli Webb and her brother Michael Landau, the creators of blowout salon Drybar, Squeeze opened its first location in March 2019 in Los Angeles. It uses an app-based booking platform where customers can book, pay, tip and set personalized preferences, such as massage pressure, aromatherapy, heat therapy and music. By 2023 it was touting more than 70 locations in development. The brand opened its 20th unit in 2024 but since then closed six locations.
Its monthly member rate for a 50-minute massage is $95; Massage Envy charges about $90, depending on the market.
Schneider, GoSaga’s CEO, said the situation at Squeeze meant his company was able to buy it at a “heavy, heavy discount,” and the opportunity is there to quickly address areas of concern and get the brand back on track. The branding and the user experience are both “incredibly strong,” he stressed, “but yet the business functionality of it was fairly weak.”
“We felt like that's where we can make our mark almost immediately. Now, we have a long way to go. We've only owned it for a month, but we're off to a good start.”
Jessica Yarmey, the new president of Squeeze, said she’s been working with the franchisees who operate 13 of the 14 locations (one unit is company owned) over the past several months to identify issues and create an action plan. Among the priorities is streamlined lead generation and a marketing strategy that puts more control in the franchisee’s hands. The goal, said Yarmey, is to give operators more keys to their business, including access to better marketing technology, so they can effectively drive sales at the local level.
Jessica Yarmey is the new president of Squeeze Massage.
“Really having enterprise-level support, but localized platforms and localized tools so that they can make good decisions on their own that they know will impact their business most dramatically,” she said.
Yarmey began working with GoSaga as a marketing adviser a year and half ago. Earlier in her career, she spent three years as the chief marketing officer for Club Pilates, and has worked with brands such as Burger King and Gold’s Gym. She started kickboxing franchise KickHouse, now owned by Giant Ideas, in 2020.
Schneider said Squeeze will file a new franchise disclosure document in the first quarter of 2026 with an aim to start selling franchises again in the spring. His goal is to pursue larger, established operators who can better support development.
GoSaga’s portfolio keeps evolving
Schneider is the founder and managing partner of early-stage private equity and venture capital investment platform Cava Capital. GoSaga, which he co-founded in 2020, was born from his experience investing in and incubating new brands, and Cava Capital was an early backer of Lymbr, a stretching concept he created and grew to eight studios.
Lymbr announced the launch of a franchise program in April 2024, but Schneider said over the past 18 months he’s refocused GoSaga’s efforts to “enhance our ownership positions versus our operating positions.”
The company closed all of its Lymbr locations (it still provides stretching services to some corporate clients under the Lymbr name) and also hit pause on its plans to develop fitness studios under FitLab. GoSaga signed a multi-brand master territory development agreement in 2023 to open FitLab concepts such as weightlifting-focused Racked and Extreme Performance Training across 12 states. It hasn’t built any locations yet, said Schneider, “and I'm in discussions with them now about what we want to try to do.”
GoSaga is also an area developer of Vio Med Spa with the rights for Connecticut and Rhode Island. It has one location open and is working with a sub-franchise on a second location.
“The goal would be to find additional multi-unit sub-franchisees to build out the rest of those,” Schneider said.
Another piece of the portfolio, online fitness and wellness company Tone It Up, is being sold back to one of the founders of that platform. GoSaga bought Tone It Up in January from Tengram Capital Partners and is selling to Karena Dawn, who co-founded it in 2009.
The moves, said Schneider, are all part of his “efficient franchisor” strategy to create a platform of fitness and wellness brands that can tap into shared services and vendor partnerships at a larger scale. Other platform companies in the fitness and wellness space include Xponential Fitness, which owns brands such as Club Pilates and Pure Barre, and Extraordinary Brands, owner of Neighborhood Barre and three brands it acquired from Xponential: Row House, Cyclebar and Rumble Boxing.
“We're sort of in the messy middle, as I like to call it,” he said, “where we're transitioning some brands, buying others, but we're pointing in the direction we wanted to go now.”