SoulCycle: Julie Rice & Elizabeth Cutler

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2019

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice met, they shared a common belief: New York City gyms didn't have the kind of exercise classes they craved, and each of them wanted to change that. A fitness instructor introduced them over lunch in 2005, and before the meal was done they were set on opening a stationary bike studio, with a chic and aspirational vibe. A few months later, the first SoulCycle opened in upper Manhattan. Today, SoulCycle has cultivated a near-tribal devotion among its clients, with studios across the United States and Canada. PLUS for our postscript "How You Built That," how "kid-preneur" Gabrielle Goodwin and her mom Rozalynn invented a double-face double snap barrette that doesn't slip out of little girls' hair, no matter how much they play around. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:30.0	I'll never forget. The first time I took my parents, they came to the studio.
0:34.0	My dad looked around and my mom opened doors and peeked under desks and my dad looks around.
0:40.0	He says to me, no showers. Who is going to come here?
0:44.0	I thought this is not a battle worth fighting.
0:55.0	Brahmin PR is how I built this. A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:07.0	I'm Guy Raus and I'm the show today, how two women with no background and fitness set up some stationary bikes,
1:14.0	dim the lights, boost to the music, and built a multi-million dollar business called Soulcycle.
1:22.0	Okay, so imagine going to an electronic dance show, right? The music's throbbing, the lights are flashing, the DJ is twisting the knobs on his computer.
1:32.0	Everyone is moving to the music, turning, and swaying, and sweating, and oh yeah, you are doing all of this on a stationary bicycle.
1:42.0	That basically is Soulcycle.
1:45.0	An indoor cycling business that grew from one little studio in New York in 2006 to nearly 90 today.
1:54.0	And when it sold to a larger company about 10 years after it started, the founders walked away with 90 million dollars each.
2:03.0	And if you haven't heard Soulcycle, well, it's one of those fitness companies that people get super excited about.
2:09.0	Like, if you have a friend who happens to be a devotee, be careful because once they get started, they can go on and on about the celebrity style instructors, the scented candles in the studio, the merch, the music.
2:22.0	And that sense of loyalty of near tribal devotion is kind of what the founders of Soulcycle envisioned when they set out to build it.
2:31.0	Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler met in New York in 2005.
	...

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