Diary of a Startup Fundraising, marketing and location shopping are all in a day's work.

It's been a long and interesting journey toward the opening of Karen Jashinsky's teen gym and hangout. We initially visited the 29-year-old entrepreneur in December 2005, and we've watched her various triumphs and setbacks as she's battled to open O2 Max Fitness. Although there's been a delay in the scheduled opening date, Jashinsky is still plowing full speed ahead toward a 2007 launch.

It was the ongoing consultations Jashinsky had with her advisory board that convinced her to think bigger. Originally planning to launch the gym in a smaller space with an SBA loan, she is now finalizing investment deals to raise $1.6 million in startup capital to build out her 10,000- to 12,000-square-foot space. "After crunching the numbers on the various locations we found, the return on the bigger space just made more sense," says Jashinsky. "And [my] advisors felt strongly that that was representative of what the market can really support."

All Jashinsky's business networking and searching for funding and advice confirmed that her idea was a timely one. She found a lot of interest in her concept from both the fitness community and the business community at large, especially amidst the growing alarm over childhood obesity. Her advisors told her to think big and make provisions, even during her startup phase, to open a second location. With that in mind, she's now factoring some growth capital into her startup costs.