Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2011. “Fifteen years ago” refers to the mid-1990s, and the figure of more than 20,000 students and the business being “in full expansion” are from 2011. The studios’ current status is unknown.
As we’ve said many times, business ideas are everywhere: it’s simply a matter of staying alert and seizing the opportunities life puts in front of us. Today we’re talking about Lucía Kelley, an entrepreneur who one day decided to quit her job and launch an innovative business in Spain. There was already competition, with hundreds of centers offering the same service, but she had something: an innovative system, one she believed in and trusted, and without a doubt a service she was passionate about.
Fifteen years ago, Lucía Kelley worked for a French company. Her job meant she had to travel quite a bit. On a trip to Los Angeles, after a difficult meeting, she felt stressed, and someone recommended that before leaving the United States she attend some yoga classes taught by an instructor with a rather innovative style of yoga. She was delighted with the results and how quickly the practice worked. This yoga was different from anything she had known until then. It was Bikram Yoga.
Back in France, she looked for studios in Paris that taught this style, but the only ones were in Marseille and on an island in England. At that moment she saw clearly that opening a Bikram Yoga studio could be a profitable business.
Lucía Kelley asked for a transfer to her company’s California office so she could study this style of yoga. Once she felt ready to start teaching, and without leaving her job, she would give classes at her own home or organize them in the hotels where she stayed. To her surprise, wherever she traveled there was a huge waiting list for her classes.
Lucía decided to get married in Spain and open the first Bikram Yoga studio in Madrid. The studio was a success from its very first month, so she soon opened a second one in the Spanish capital and a third in Barcelona.
More than 20,000 people have taken her classes to date, and she is now in the middle of an expansion.
She is an example of a woman entrepreneur who turned her hobby and her passion into a profitable business.
And let’s not forget that the creator of this style of yoga also found his livelihood in the solution to a problem. Bikram Choudhury injured his knees and back lifting weights. Doctors told him he would never walk again. His teacher and mentor designed a specific program so that wouldn’t happen. That’s where this style of yoga comes from. Today Bikram Choudhury not only walks again but is considered the best yoga teacher in the world, and he teaches many Hollywood stars. So the thing that once “saved his life” has become his main source of income, and a source of millions.
Further reading
- How to find business ideas
- Life is risk: if you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived
- Donald Trump and the mindset of an entrepreneur
- The man who had to start a business to save his children’s lives
Featured image: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Brandon Esau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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