SoulCycle: 7 fun Insights which made 2 moms turn a dingy funeral home into a multi-million dollar fitness empire

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Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

You believe you need a revolutionary idea that doesn't exist yet to build a million-dollar business.

This wrong belief keeps solopreneurs stuck in endless brainstorming sessions, convinced their "obvious" idea isn't special enough.

But wait - what if the most profitable businesses come from taking something everyone thinks is "dead" and making it joyful?

Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler proved this by turning boring stationary bikes into a $180 million fitness empire called SoulCycle.

You'll discover how two moms took an "old" idea that friends called "dead" and transformed it into a premium experience celebrities couldn't resist.

Let's investigate their secret formula!

🍹 The humble beginnings...

Julie Rice worked in Hollywood for 9 years as a talent manager at Handprint Entertainment.

She scouted actors, signed them, and developed film and television careers.

Her father was a physical education teacher, so fitness was always part of her upbringing.

Elizabeth Cutler grew up outside Chicago with two entrepreneur parents in a conservative but risk-taking community.

Her family moved to Colorado where her mom became a real estate broker.

Elizabeth majored in religious studies at the University of Colorado and ended up selling luxury real estate after college.

At 16, her best friend died of cancer, which sparked her interest in healing arts.

She became a certified Jin Shin Jyutsu healer and started her own practice.

In Colorado's relaxed environment, she managed both real estate sales and her yoga practice.

But the money wasn't great from her healing practice.

Elizabeth moved to New York in 2005 when her husband got a job there.

After having her first daughter, she gained 45 pounds during pregnancy.

Six weeks postpartum, she still had 45 pounds to lose and felt intimidated by cardio classes.

A friend suggested she try indoor cycling, and she loved it immediately.

Meanwhile, Julie had moved to New York in 2002 with her husband Spencer.

She tried every indoor cycling place in the city but couldn't find anything like the LA studios she loved.

Both women had independently been telling friends they wanted to start an indoor cycling studio.

A mutual friend was about to change everything with one lunch invitation...

1. 🤝 Stop waiting for the perfect co-founder to appear

Both women had been dreaming about indoor cycling studios separately for months.

They kept telling friends about their ideas but weren't taking action alone, you know?

Both felt stuck because they thought they needed to find the "right" business partner first.

But here's the crazy part - in early 2006, their mutual friend Ruth Zukerman introduced them at lunch in Soho House.

They discovered they had identical visions for a high-end cycling studio with inspirational coaching and high-energy music.

"It was the best blind date we'd ever been on," says Julie.

They drew their business plan on a napkin and left with a to-do list for each other.

But finding each other was just the beginning - they still had zero business experience...

2. 💰 Start before you feel financially ready

Elizabeth had recently received money from selling her investment in Izze Beverage Co. to PepsiCo.

But the amount wasn't enough to feel "safe" about starting a business, right?

She was scared to risk the money on an unproven idea with no business background.

Instead of waiting to save more, she decided to invest what she had and become the sole investor.

"It was extremely timely because I could use that money and do what we needed to do," says Elizabeth.

Even though SoulCycle eventually became profitable, having some initial funding took pressure off.

This allowed them to focus on building rather than constantly worrying about money.

Money solved one problem, but finding a location created an even bigger challenge...

3. 🏠 Turn location disadvantages into marketing advantages

Nobody wanted to rent space to two women with zero business track record, can you imagine?

Elizabeth searched Craigslist and found a sublet in a former funeral home's back lobby.

It was below a gym on West 72nd Street with no shower and no outdoor signage allowed.

They almost walked away because the location seemed terrible for attracting customers.

But here's the thing - they couldn't find anything else and needed to start somewhere.

They signed a 5-year lease and decided to make the "hidden" location work for them.

The building owners wouldn't let them hang a sign, so they bought a rickshaw from eBay.

They painted it silver and yellow with their logo and parked it outside with an arrow pointing to their door.

The rickshaw worked, but their real marketing crisis was just beginning...

4. 🎯 Focus on survival metrics instead of vanity metrics

Elizabeth and Julie calculated they needed 100 customers per day just to keep the lights on.

But wait - their first classes had only one or two riders showing up.

They felt embarrassed and wondered if anyone would ever come, right?

Instead of focusing on growing big, they focused purely on not dying.

They walked their neighborhood every day, begging doormen to let them hand out fliers in apartment buildings.

Get this - with only $2,500 left in their budget, they designed 200 SoulCycle T-shirts.

They asked friends to wear the shirts as free walking advertisements.

T-shirts helped, but they were about to face their biggest test of resilience...

5. 🛠️ Embrace being the janitor of your own business

In the first six months, there were no employees - just Elizabeth and Julie.

They worked the front desk, cleaned shoes, painted bathrooms, fixed bikes, and took out trash.

Julie lived across the street and would check on weekends to make sure candles weren't still burning.

They hired part-time employees only if they could also babysit their four young daughters.

"It wasn't glamorous. We focused on cost controls internally and customer service externally," says Elizabeth.

They built their front desk from IKEA furniture and made 13 trips to load everything in Elizabeth's station wagon.

This hands-on approach taught them every aspect of their business intimately.

Their scrappy approach was working, but a major disaster threatened everything...

6. 🔧 Treat every mistake as expensive business school tuition

They hired a contractor who'd built adult movie studios to soundproof their space.

He had no idea what he was doing, and riders could hear weights dropping from the gym above during classes.

Neighbors, tenants, and landlords complained constantly about noise.

They spent thousands trying different solutions while losing customers daily.

"The biggest piece for us is that we look at every mistake we make as tuition," says Elizabeth.

"Since we didn't go to business school, we just say 'oh, that's part of tuition, that's fine, so we'll learn from that."

They eventually fixed the soundproofing and now SoulCycle leads the industry in this technology.

Just when things stabilized, the entire economy collapsed around them...

7. 🌪️ Design your business to thrive during tough times

In 2008, the market crashed and Elizabeth's husband lost his job when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

They had no idea if people would still pay $34 for cycling classes during a recession.

"It was terrifying," says Elizabeth, but they discovered something unexpected.

Their riders came to SoulCycle because times were tough, not despite the tough times.

People needed stress relief and community more than ever during the downturn.

"What we didn't realize was that we had been operating in 'downturn mode' from the beginning," Elizabeth says.

Their focus had always been making money ("butts on bikes") rather than raising money.

This resilience attracted attention from someone who would change everything...

💰 The epic win

Within six months, their first studio was turning a profit.

By 2013, revenue hit $18.6 million and jumped to $112 million in 2014.

They grew to over 60 studios across the country with 15,000 riders per day.

In 2011, they sold to Equinox Fitness with each founder making an estimated $90 million.

🥂 Your turn to change the game!

That's it, my fellow rebels!

You believe you need a revolutionary idea that doesn't exist yet, but Julie and Elizabeth proved the opposite works better.

They went from friends telling them indoor cycling was "dead" to building a $180 million empire with that same "dead" idea.

"One friend said 'I don't have the heart to tell you this, but you know spinning is dead,'" says Elizabeth about the early doubts.

"We were like 'Well, I think we can still do it. I think we can still reinvent it,'" adds Julie about ignoring the naysayers.

Stop waiting for the perfect revolutionary idea and start looking at "obvious" problems you can solve better.

Something tells me you're about to turn everything upside down.

Keep zoooming 🚀🍧

Yours 'rooting for your success' vijay peduru 🦸‍♂️