How to Start a Yoga Business and Not Lose Money
Step 1 is “keep your day job.”
As a young’un, I was dedicated to monetizing my time. I tried to convince my mom that hanging out with my brother should count as babysitting. (That might have worked if my brother hadn’t been older than I was.)
Since I couldn’t find employment in the babysitting field, I decided to make money by distributing industry-related information products. I began renting out my extensive Baby-Sitters Club collection to my classmates for $0.10 a book. (My fifth-grade teacher shut that down pretty quickly; apparently, elementary schools frown on an entrepreneurial spirit.)
But that’s who I am: if I’m interested in something I’m going to look for a way to turn it into an income stream. So, when I found myself attending yoga classes on a daily basis, it didn’t take long for me to take the leap from student to teacher.
It is well documented that yoga teacher training does not have the greatest return on investment:
When I started thinking about teaching yoga, I decided to figure out how how to make yoga work for me. (Literally.) If you’re looking to do the same thing, I’ll lay out my process in 10 steps:
Step 1: Keep your day job
My first step was to stay employed. I had a great full-time employer and a semi-flexible schedule that allowed me to teach yoga during business hours, though the vast majority of my teaching was done after hours. Even though I was working 60–70 hours between my full-time job and teaching, I didn’t feel burnt out. I was sharing my passion and making money off it! I felt like I had achieved a childhood dream.
I made back my initial investment of yoga teacher training within a year, and all the money I made teaching I put back into various trainings and retreats to expand my knowledge and credentials (and as an excuse to expense trips to Mexico and Costa Rica).
Step 2: Specialize
Through the flourishing Instagram yoga community, I discovered stand-up paddleboard yoga, or SUP yoga. I had the opportunity to take a workshop with one of the more well-known paddleboard yoga business owners, Amelia Travis of Stoked Yogi, when she came through my small town on a West Coast tour. The two hours we spent on the water were a blast, and after a few more months of SUP I signed up for Amelia’s teacher training—which included tactics on building one’s own SUP yoga business.
I live in a touristy beach town where there are loads of paddleboard rental opportunities. A quick Google search revealed that a local fitness company offered SUP yoga by appointment, but they didn’t have regularly scheduled classes. I decided that this was a niche market I could fill.
Step 3: Budget for start-up costs
I called the owner of the fitness company to explain that I was planning on starting my own SUP yoga business and was wondering if I could rent boards from them at a discount. After explaining that SUP yoga was a very small part of their business and that I wouldn’t be any real competition, they readily agreed to a partnership.
The only disadvantage was the quality of their boards; the paddleboards I had trained on with Amelia were specifically designed for SUP yoga and were extremely stable; their boards were designed for speed and were not nearly so stable. If I was going to be as good a teacher as I wanted, I needed better boards.
Though I had generous offers of investment from my very supportive family members, I didn’t want to risk harming personal relationships over yoga boards, especially since I had money saved up on my own to pay for the initial investment. I dedicated $2,000 to start-up costs; not an insignificant amount of money, but a drop in the bucket for a new business, and nothing that would ruin me if (you’ll have to excuse the ocean metaphor) the seas got rough.
I reached out to friends who had started their own businesses to get their input on how best to budget for a growing business. With their input, I spent a weekend building a business plan and doing a cost/benefit analysis for initial set-up fees, which would include equipment (boards, paddles, anchors, personal flotation devices), a business license, insurance, a website, and a payment processor. I was fortunate to have a very generous boyfriend who gave me unlimited access to his awesome 1970 Chevy pickup, so board transport wouldn’t be an issue.
I quickly realized that it didn’t make sense for me to invest in an entire fleet of boards — it would have taken too long to recoup the costs — but buying one or two would increase my per-class revenue and pay for itself within a season. Excited as I was at the prospect of going all in, imagining full classes and hoards of private clients, my boyfriend gave me some good advice: I needed to spend a full season working as a SUP yoga teacher to get a good understanding of my abilities, the market, and the cashflow situation before I threw any real money into my infant business.
So I spent the bulk of my $2,000 on two high-quality boards that I bought from a SUP yoga teacher who was moving away. Anything else I wanted to buy, I’d have to earn—after I made sure that my business worked.
Step 4: Set up your business
It was time to get serious. I got a tax ID number from the IRS and applied for a business license. Then I spent a weekend buying my domain name and setting up Santa Barbara SUP Yoga. I should note that I used to design web sites as a hobby when I was a kid, back when you had to hand-code HTML. (Uphill! Both ways! In the snow!) Today’s templates are a lot easier.
I also paid for a service that allows students to schedule and pay for a class online. Although I could have saved a small amount of money by doing this manually, I knew that if I had to call or email someone to sign up for a class, I would never actually do it—and my students probably wouldn’t either. So that $19 a month was worth it to me to ensure there was no roadblock to getting students.
Step 5: Test the product
Since I’ve been a yoga teacher in my community for several years, I have a good base of friends and acquaintances from which to draw a student base. I mentioned my endeavor to a few friends during a night out at a bar, and by the end of the night had five people signed up for a class that weekend. Yahtzee! Nervous but excited, I called the fitness company to ensure that the additional boards I needed would be available and crossed my fingers that everyone would have fun.
I am so grateful my first class was with friends, because we ran into a lot of issues. It took me way longer to set up than I estimated. I had to frantically Google videos of sailing knots in order to attach the anchors to the boards. Before we even got on the water, I was physically exhausted from hauling the boards across the beach to the ocean.
One guy’s anchor rope ended up being so long I had to paddle back and forth between him and the rest of the group to teach (overwhelmed, it didn’t occur to me at the time to shorten the rope or have him anchor elsewhere). I neglected to wipe the camera lens regularly so all the photos had water spots. But no one drowned, people were smiling and laughing, and we all got a post-class beer to celebrate.
Step 6: Troubleshoot the product
The best part of inviting friends out was that I got genuine feedback and was able to make significant changes to my teaching system. I refined my set-up system, shortened the anchor lines, and got in the habit of fastidiously cleaning the camera lens.
I officially launched Santa Barbara SUP Yoga in September, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. Though the weather in my town is mild all year around, the tourist season is May-September, and only diehard salty souls want to get on the water in the winter. I hustled and managed to get three more classes in, making room for improvements all the while, and then settled in for a long, slow winter.
Step 7: Understand the market
I foolheartedly assumed that anyone who practices yoga would want to practice yoga on the water. This is not the case.
It took genuine hustle (i.e., begging) to get students, and I had many weeks of absolutely no students. The number of people who say they want to try a SUP yoga class is not directly proportional to the number of people who will actually pay for and attend a class.
S0 I fine-tuned my technique, following up constantly through various mediums (Instagram, text, email, carrier pigeon) with students who had expressed an interest. I realized quickly that I needed students to pay in advance, not only to hold them accountable (it’s easy to say that you’ll wake up early on a Sunday, when in reality it is even easier to sleep through a commitment) but because accepting money on the beach opens up a number of permitting issues.
By the time the next season propped up, I had the benefit of SEO on my side. After carefully promoting my website and business, I was on the front page of Google for anything related to paddleboard yoga and Santa Barbara.
Step 8: Make friends with your competition
As is the nature with any business, competition quickly arose.
One woman who had done a SUP yoga training through the same program as I asked if she could teach under my business name — only to turn around and start her own SUP yoga business with a separate investor a week after I divulged all my hard-won techniques. The initial sting of betrayal wore off when she arranged for me to store my boards with her and rent her proper SUP yoga boards for a fraction of the cost from the fitness company.
Several other SUP yoga teachers have popped up under various entities in the intervening months. The yoga market is saturated in any medium, but it’s a big ocean; the more the merrier. I offer teachers advice—“take pictures!”—and ask when they’re teaching so I can attend their class.
It helps that this is not a make-it-or-break-it career move for me; this business is a way to make a teensy bit of money, but mostly an excuse for me to have some fun on the water.
Step 9: Expand your business
I am currently entering my second full season of teaching. In that time, I’ve refined my teaching techniques and focused my efforts primarily on building my web presence and following up with previous students to get them psyched for the forthcoming season.
I was surprised that the bulk of my students came from Google last season, so I’ve redesigned my website twice and refined my SEO skills.
I’ve also worked out mutually beneficial trades with local business owners. Fellow small business owners are my hugest supporters in spirit if not practice, providing invaluable cross-promotion, advertising, and encouragement.
I’ve argued with the local municipalities about my right to do business without acquiring additional permits, using loopholes and compromise to avoid fines.
With the proceeds from previous years, I’ve even ordered merchandise to supplement my income. If you want a Santa Barbara SUP Yoga hat or T-shirt, I’ve got you covered.
Lastly, I’ve trained local yoga teachers to sub for me and am considering organizing my own paddleboard yoga teacher training. After all, I have to inspire the next generation of yoga teachers—right?
Step 10: Focus on the positive, but learn from criticism
I’ve received tons of feedback, positive and negative, in the two years since I started my own tiny business. Students who come back for multiple classes are the ultimate compliment.
I start every workshop with a huge, genuine smile and end every class with a hug for each student.
That said, I’ve definitely had students who didn’t quite know what they were themselves getting into. “Am I going to get wet?” is a question I didn’t initially anticipate. I do my best to empathize with their experience and format each class on the fly to the individual student.
But at the end of each workshop, after three hours of extreme physical and mental exertion, when I’m devouring my post-teaching huevos rancheros and breaking down what went great and what could have gone better, I’m so glad I made this choice. I have my day job and I have my yoga job, and I’ve figured out how to make money doing something I love—without also losing money in the process.
Morgan Balavage teaches yoga in Santa Barbara.
