Female emPOWERED: Winning in Business & Life

Episode 327: How to start and grow a successful online studio or business interview with Kaleen Canevari

• Christa Gurka

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Episode Summary

What does the future of Pilates look like when technology supports (not replaces) instructors?

In this episode, Christa Gurka sits down with Kaleen Canevari—a mechanical engineer, Pilates instructor, and founder in the Pilates tech space—to talk about building a smarter, more sustainable studio model through hybrid programming and Pilates-specific technology.

Kaleen shares her journey from engineering at Balanced Body to founding Flexia (smart Pilates + online platform), exiting the company, and now building what’s next: Motra, a Pilates-focused platform designed to help studios launch an online studio that actually works—through personalization, accountability, and programming tools that reduce decision fatigue and increase engagement.

If you’re a Pilates studio owner feeling the pressure of competition and rising costs, this conversation will help you think bigger about retention, recurring revenue, and delivering a “sticky” client experience without adding more teaching hours.

What You’ll Learn

  • Why AI won’t replace Pilates instructors—and what tech should do instead
  • The real problem with most online studios: video libraries without personalization
  • How “Netflix-style recommendations” can reduce decision fatigue and improve adherence
  • How hybrid programs can make your studio more competitive, valuable, and “sticky”
  • Practical ways studios can add recurring revenue without burning out instructors
  • What to film first (and what not to waste money on) when launching an online studio
  • Why 30–50 minute classes often outperform short classes at home (even if people don’t finish)
  • Kaleen’s vision for the next 5–10 years: how Pilates can quantify the magic without losing it

Key Quotes

  • “Technology helps us do what Pilates instructors do in their head—so we can do what only humans can do.”
  • “People aren’t paying for a video library. They’re paying for personalization, accountability, and community.”
  • “The hardest part isn’t launching. The hardest part is staying consistent.”

Topics Covered

  • Kaleen’s background: engineering → Balanced Body → Pilates instructor
  • Founding and exiting Flexia (smart Pilates + online studio)
  • What Motra is and how it supports in-person studios with online offerings
  • Retention, churn, and why online-only fitness churn is so high
  • How studios can use hybrid to improve results and increase perceived value
  • Pricing + packaging ideas for adding online access
  • How to start: minimum viable launch, feedback loops, and consistency
  • Where the Pilates industry is heading (and how to avoid a “bubble”)

Resources Mentioned

  • Free 7-day email course: Launch an Online Studio
    motrastudio.com/launch
  • Kaleen’s website / Substack: kaleencanevari.com
  • Connect with Christa on Instagram: @ChristaGurka (DM for an intro to Kaleen)

If this episode sparked ideas for your studio, share it on Instagram and tag @ChristaGurka—and tell me: Would a hybrid online studio help your clients stay consistent and improve results?

Want Kaleen’s resources? Grab her free email course at motrastudio.com/launch or DM me and I’ll connect you.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered Podcast. I'm once again your host, Christa Gurka, and today you don't have to listen to only me talk'cause I have a guest, which is wonderful. We have Kaleen here. we were actually just looking at the last time she was on the show. She is a former guest. First episode was episode 86, if you wanna go all the way back to the archives of 2021, which is crazy to think about. Five years ago, 86, we featured Kaleen and her role in what was, she was the founder of Flexia, which Performer brand. She has a long history with balanced body. She's a Pilates instructor, but also an engineer. She has so much knowledge and information. She's gonna chat with us today about the online space and online studios and stuff. But Kaleen, would you take a moment and just yourself to the audience again? Tell us a little bit about who you are, what your, work has been in the Pilates world.

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to be back. I love our conversations so much. I am a mechanical engineer and a Pilates instructor, and I work at the intersection of Pilates and technology. So I first found Pilates when I got a job as an engineer at Balanced Body. I've worked as an equipment technician. And then in 2020 I founded Flexia, which is the world's first smart Pilates company. So imagine a professional grade reformer and online studio platform, some sensors on the machine. Some content, et cetera. and then I exited Flexia last year, and now I'm working on my next company, which is Flexia. And the whole point of this is to continue that dive into Pilates and technology and empower Pilates pros. To make more money. I know as an instructor of what it's like, it's so hard to make a living and let's get technology into Pilates to help us help more people and make more money.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

I think that's so great and it's one of the things. First of all, we don't see that many women, in the tech space. Number I think just in terms of big tech, right? For sure. It's more, but it's definitely a small percentage, number one. Number two, as a female founder in tech, even less,

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah. Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

then I think too in the Pilates, universe, movement based people. most part. And so I love how you said the intersection between movement and tech, because even though I am, I'm not as tech savvy, I'm learning to be tech savvy and embrace it. I do think that's the future of how we stay ahead of the game. You can either adapt or die, and I wanna see the Pilates industry continue to adapt and be here for the next 50 years. And so I love conversations with women like you because you actually have the knowledge base of the tech side and the movement side. So we're not just talking about coders, but you have both, you really do have both, which is so, so, so

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah, and I love this. I love the way you frame that and I wanna be clear from the beginning, I don't believe AI is gonna replace an instructor. that's not what we're talking about here. technology is really good at a lot of things that Pilates instructors do in their head. And, and that we should get technology to help us do those things better, so we can do the things that only humans are good at. And if we advance Pilates along the way, make it more scientifically competitive and literate. Make people, feed real Pilates data into these huge digital health algorithms that are starting to rule our lives. that's just a win for all of us. Pilates pros.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

So good. I'm definitely clipping that part. It is a, it is a win. It is a win. and I agree. I don't think AI is, I mean, maybe down the road there'll be real, but it's, it will never replace the real thing. It will never

Kaleen Canevari

No.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

the real thing. And we can learn to use technology to make our lives easier, whether that be through how we build our business, how we track metrics. I'm talking not even movement metrics, but business metrics. How can ai. Help us buy back some of our time in terms of writing sales page copy or helping me plan a retreat and just being here's where I would to go. Can you find me five of the best bed and breakfast within this zip code? Right? I mean, we can embrace things to make our lives easier, so I would love to hear. I forget if I asked you this the first time, but I would love to hear how you we're gonna just go way back a little bit, how you took your mechanical engineering brain and got into P. Was it through balance body, right? Was it through there? Did you think this, when you were becoming a mechanical engineer, were you just a tinkerer? Is that kind of what you love to do and then. Applied for a job at a Pilates company. How did that happen?

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah, I got a job at Balanced Body as an engineer having never done Pilates before. Had a lot of experience in a wood shop. My dad was a professional woodworker for years and years and years. and I loved to build things and I had several jobs in, automotive industry, in the orthopedic implant industry. And they were a part of big organizations and the balanced body job was a part, was a three person engineering team. I was the third person right next to the manufacturing floor, working with the creators, it was a mechanical engineering dream job. and so I started taking Pilates to learn more about what I was designing, building and breaking. and it changed my life. I tore my ACL in high school twice. Had surgery. No. And had chronic knee pain for 10 years. Despite the rehab, I bopped around from different fitness methods and it just, I felt it was always stuck. Start, stop. And Pilates made me have able to have a real life. I mean, it was great. and so that's when I started my teacher training and I'm, Left balanced body a couple years later and split my time between teaching Pilates in a studio and traveling the country as a Pilates equipment technician. So that was the transition where I was look, I've had a lot of engineering jobs for not a very long time. Each of them, because I get bored. I wanna solve problems. I don't wanna do the same thing every day. I wanna be my own boss. And I knew that there was a huge need for. People to support primarily women owners of studios and Pilates equipment. I saw behind the scenes how they were treated, how few resources they have, and how simple the equipment is actually to work on. and that was my first foray into, I went from service based trading, time for money to building my first online courses. I taught studio owners how to take care of their equipment. Pro program ranges from$30 to$500. And then I created the world's first Pilates equipment technician program. So that was more, yeah, yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

I loved it.

Kaleen Canevari

So, higher, higher price point. and through those travels, I, again, I saw. Problems across the industry that I just wanted to keep poking at and solve. and that's what led to Flexio, this idea that there wasn't a Pilates reformer that fit the bodies that actually came into the studios, that there. Wasn't a place to get one of them that was consumer friendly. People wanted to either have a hybrid set up home and in a studio, or they wanted to go only work out at home because cost, accessibility, whatever. and I had this bug. I had been tinkering for a couple years about sensors and Pilates and what can we measure and what's important. Not I think the big misconception about the conversation in Pilates, in tech right now is this concept of we're gonna, one product is gonna solve the whole Pilates problem at once. And I've been working on what's the first step? What's the second step? Can this make a difference? Knowing it's not the complete solution for seven years now. So that's in the end. And so with Flexia. Was my experience, creating a new product, pre-selling, designing a reformer from scratch, which I never did at Balanced Body, figuring out how to get it manufactured, raising venture capital. So I've raised millions in venture capital and then manufacturing thousands of reformers and running an six figure online. Studio. And so yeah, that culminated in an exit last year. and now I'm in the tinkering and, and solving, solving the next problems,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah,

Kaleen Canevari

plural.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

let's, let's talk about that. What are you solving for today?

Kaleen Canevari

So Pilates classes. Exist in a 60 minute window, specifically, especially assume I'm talking about a group class, which is how most people experience Pilates these days. It exists in a 60 minute window. After 60 minutes, it's gone. What you did. Do you remember what you taught? Does the student remember what they did? More importantly, does the student remember how they experienced each of those exercises might be hard for one, easy for another, and so there's, it's impossible to connect five group classes together in the way that we try and do in private sessions. private sessions, we try usually to build one on top of the other. This is a super common thing in every other fitness modality, strength, pt, PT is in personal training and physical therapy. cardio, there are metrics you can measure to. Make a path to achieve a goal. And in Pilates, that goal is so tied to feeling that it is really hard to get a feedback, a positive feedback loop going. And a lot of people are so disconnected from their bodies. And so at, so when I think about, okay, what am I solving? There are a lot of problems that can be solved in the industry if we know what happens in a Pilates session. It is actually Pilates relevant, so it crosses Pilates, but also common health metrics, right? What do we know about breath? What do we know about body awareness? What do we know about strength? What do we know about cardio? Right? Pilates isn't one of those. It's many of those. So how do we start picking out pieces of that? To easily carry over into the design of the next class. And that's, there are a lot of ways to do that. So I have one platform now, which is Motra, and that helps Pilates Studios build an online studio. The point of that is not to host a video library. The point of that is to analyze what's in their classes and actually make the end user experience for their students an elevated fitness experience specifically for Pilates. So what's in a class? What have you done this week? What did you do in studio? What should you do the next class based on the last seven days or the last 14 days, or what your goals are, and that's the throughput. I think that can launch a lot of other interesting angles from the Pilates perspective.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

So gonna put my brain in the minds of some listeners, and so some people lost you at technology they're what? So let's just say for an instructor who's This just sounds way more than I, I need to do, I just wanna teach footwork and my, feet and straps, et cetera, et cetera. Can you break it down for them and how this helps them help their clients, in a real life situation? So, Christa comes in, she's ready to teach her class. How can I incorporate Motra what does it actually do for me and my client?

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah, great question. So the conversation we're having is, I do, to bring it back is focused on building an online. Platform for your in-person Pilates studio. I've talked to countless instructors who tell me they spend 15 minutes after every private session making notes, planning for the next class, right? What are they? What did they do in this last session? How did that person feel? I have, a friend who has a collection of videos that she's accumulated over time from COVID and before that she stores and then will manually email hunt for an email, certain videos to send to her clients when they applicable. Go to your homework. This is important and the common theme that I hear all the time from my clients. Is, well, I wanna come more, but I can't afford it, or I can't get into the studio or this, this. I'm I don't wanna teach more than X number of hours a week. How can I help those students improve their results? Feel better through an online content platform, a student management system. So in Motra, not only is there a class library option, if you wanna have multiple classes stalked Netflix, Peloton, think about that. The thing that makes those big platforms powerful is not that they have thousands of pieces of content, it's that they personalize what they recommend. If you take a platform you screen, which anybody who has thought about it opening an online studio has probably seen, it's a generic platform and it has all the business tools, but it has no Pilates specific tools. So any tags, any specific concepts or themes or contraindications, it makes it. Impossible to personalize a Pilates program for someone because you just don't know what's in the class. I've filmed hundreds of videos. I don't know what's in them. I barely remember the last five. It's our brains should not and cannot remember that. So. on Motra, there's the library, but then there's a way to do programs and there's a way to assign individual homework. And this is why I think that the tools need to evolve for Pilates teachers in studio is you and I have talked, right? just having videos. They just sit there. Clients don't watch them. You're why did I spend time on this? This is dumb. I'm, but an online studio's not working. But think about the reasons that an in-person, one-on-one or one-to-many relationship works. There's accountability, there's community, and there's personalization, and that has to carry over into the digital world for it to be effective. And that's what. Motra does is to tie those things together. Can you make it that person feel accountable? If I don't do this, my teacher knows not in the way of like, I can't do this thing as well as I did. Right? But they can see, did I do this when we weren't together?

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Mm-hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

And that makes a big difference. A big part of our job as an instructor is accountability. Like whether you want it to be or not.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

So is the way that you envision this, like, I'm a client of yours

Kaleen Canevari

mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

When I enroll in my whatever membership, I decide to get two classes a week, three classes a week, whatever it is. I also get access to this online portal as well, I can then go in and maybe see like this class I took, I'm taking this,'cause I saw this from your Instagram, so I'm assuming this like. Is something, but it could like my instructor or would automatically do it, I'm not sure, would say like, these are the muscles, et cetera, that you worked during this class. are the follow-up exercises or maybe additional classes that we recommend for you at home. I, as a client can decide if I'm gonna do it or not do it, but it kind of does the work for me and being like, this is the recommendation. I'm also. Wondering,'cause you did mention Netflix. Would it learn enough about me through all the stuff that I do, that it will then start to recommend additional things for me, if that makes sense.

Kaleen Canevari

That's the goal.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Okay.

Kaleen Canevari

That's the goal.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Okay.

Kaleen Canevari

yeah, to your point, uh, and, and we saw this at Flexia um, decision fatigue is the worst thing. Netflix knows. They have 90 seconds to get you to pick something to watch, or they lose you.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah.

Kaleen Canevari

And people on average spend 1.8 seconds looking at each title. How are you supposed to decide? So. Surfacing those recommendations is really key. And what happens currently in in the fitness world, which is important, is that especially on Peloton, 80% of all the classes that are taken today were published in the last two weeks. Pelotons content is. Designed to be relevant. I mean, they're an entertainment company. It's um, it's, it is timely, but that's true across all platforms. And at flexio, when we stopped bulk launching and went to twice a week, we saw engagement increase. We saw churn decrease. People stopped asking us. When the next class was gonna come out, they stopped leaving saying there aren't enough classes, even though they didn't do all the classes right? So there's this, this, um, idea of making the choice easier for someone. And so there's a low hanging fruit there. There's low hanging fruit that doesn't need Pilates specific, um, information. To go from a random library to something that is interesting for the client and, um, that has a lot to do with consistently post. But can you go from, you know, a, what's the low budget, like free movie platform, like how do you go from nothing to that to then Netflix, right? Pilates literally cannot go to Netflix because it lacks anything, any information to put into the algorithms about what Pilates is. So back to your point, yes. Let's think about what has a client done on the platform. Then what have they done in studio? Then maybe they went for a walk. The generic thing we want to do as a Pilates teacher, if we know nothing about the person is balanced muscle development. Okay, so what should your muscle heat map look like? What if you have an injury or what? If you have a specific goal, then your heat map might look a little bit different. So what are some activities we can suggest, including Pilates, that help achieve that? Heat on your body muscle.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah. Yeah. what I'm hearing, too, correct me if I'm wrong. Is how this could help Pilates studio owners, Is now you're taking what we're offering to our clients and making it more than just coming to the studio to lie on the reformer and take a class, right? We're giving them something that is, will be hopefully. Too sticky for them to leave because we're giving them this like real holistic experience. Right? So whereas yes, we talk about community building in a studio, we talk about like, let's be more than just a number. Let's know people's names. That makes people feel like they don't wanna leave because they're somehow committed. But if another studio does that, not that sticky for them to. Right. Whereas when we have our scheduling platforms, it's really sticky for us to lead because the thought of switching a platform is like ripping off 5 million bandaids all at the same time. the way that I'm hearing this is like. If, if clients are like, oh, I wanna leave, but they're like, God, I get like, this is not just Pilates for me. It tells me could walk to increase like the, my goal of exercising, or I should do more flexibility. I, these are some stretching exercise I could do. Like they give me so much more than just lying on the Pilates bed. Which, if you can be an early adopter of this. Will put you ahead of the competition, which is opening on every corner in America today.

Kaleen Canevari

Yes. Um, I think, uh, one thing I've noticed over the last 10 years is the people I was teaching 10 years ago often only did Pilates.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

Maybe they walked, Pilates was the only form of fitness. It worked for them. They're happy. But

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Those

Kaleen Canevari

I.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

the glory days of boutique fitness. Those, by the way, 10 years ago, boutique fitness, you could literally put up a shingle and you could have clients like you didn't have to buy ads. You, you were like, those were the glory days of boutique fitness. You're yes,

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah, yeah. No longer. And now we see that our clients are doing multiple things. I mean, people, my clients love class paths and I'm like,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

but that's, they wanna sample.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

They want a little bit of everything.

Kaleen Canevari

And, and that makes, that makes it hard to fit into someone's life and understand how Pilates fits into their life. And that's if you can make it easier to fit into their life and get more of what they love without. Making them have to pay a bunch more money without you having to show up more hours a week in person. That's a big differentiator. And I love, like, I believe, I'm not talking like this is not designed for people who only have an online presence, and I believe that's because of the community that's developed in an in-person studio and experience. Those, you've developed a trust there. Online marketing is its own beast,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

different.

Kaleen Canevari

and in fact, only on, you know, if you look at the statistics between online only fitness platforms, the churn rates are insane. There are so high. People leave so quick and connected fitness, the Pelotons, the Tonals, the Flexions of the world. Were so popular for a while with investors because their churn rate was so low because people had invested in, they had this, um, product that not only built trust, but they paid to be a part of, it's a part of a bigger experience than just. Showing up on screen. And so this ecosystem, this is not a replace your studio, this is not become an influencer. This is how can you help more people on their schedule without charging them an arm and a leg? How can you make more money and and slowly start to build this concept of, well, I don't have to show up to make$80 if I do this work. It could be worth a few hundred dollars for the same amount of work that's scalable, recurring revenue. And that's, I want more of that in Pilates teachers' lives.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

We all do.

Kaleen Canevari

So, um, I think those two things work together

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah.

Kaleen Canevari

that's, that makes a powerful recurring revenue engine because you don't need to. Perfect. These online marketing skills that sort of

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

totally different.

Kaleen Canevari

Market online mar right? You have a relationship with the people in your studio and it becomes a normal part of the studio, the studio's operations. Oh, did you do the class for the whole, you know, this week's mat class at home? Oh, you wanna, you or you're having some, uh, heel pain plantar fasciitis. Here, let me send you this video. I'm gonna ask if you do it next week, right? Like, and I can see that's the sort of, that takes that personalization, that knowing someone's name that takes that relationship to the next level. So, um, you differentiate from other studios, and if you're talking about exits, you've got a much more attractive business model for someone to come in and buy.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah, well you took me right to my next question'cause of course, great minds right. Um. Yeah, like recurring revenue is what buyers are looking for. Like any smart buyer is looking for a recurring revenue model. Um, you know, are showing anywhere from, like, they would love to see 50% or more in recurring revenue. Some studies are showing they wanna see more. I think it's just variable, really. But take this now into like, how does this become, like how do you envision. This becoming recurring revenue for a studio. So I'm adopting, I'm, I'm like, I'm in. Tell me how, how I can add, obviously, value to my clients, but how do I add recurring revenue to my, to my, uh, p and l?

Kaleen Canevari

Are a couple ways to think about it. Uh, depending on the problem you wanna solve, do you have below average retention?

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

No, we have above

Kaleen Canevari

If you have above average retention, I would look at how do you expand your total client base? Can you get people to come into the studio one less time, spend that money on your online studio subscription so they get eight classes. At home and they come into the studio seven times instead of eight times a month, and you fill their space with another person, in person who also buys the online studio portion of your offering. So you're starting to, one, we want diver, we want a lot of people in the online, in the in-person studio so that you're not reliant. On just a few clients, if they all go on vacation or if it's a slow summer or whatever. Right? Having more people regularly committed to your studio, great thing. And then being able to build up, Hey, can I have 50 clients on this premium package that right now I start and maybe I have two, but I keep doing that work and that same two or three hours a week of filming, editing, uploading. Stop serving two people and start serving 50 people with literally the same amount of work,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Which is true scale.

Kaleen Canevari

which is the, this is why software companies are so valuable, right?

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

sell for 15 time

Kaleen Canevari

Yes,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

right? Because that's true scale.

Kaleen Canevari

yes.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

oh, I wanna scale my Pilate studio, I'm like, you wanna grow your Pilate studio Like unfortunately, a. The only way to truly scale is what you're talking about,

Kaleen Canevari

Yes,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

of work and time stays the same, but the amount of like people that can have access to it

Kaleen Canevari

yes, yes. So that.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

you looking at in terms of, what are you envisioning in terms of like price point? So someone buy, let's say someone buys a four class a month membership, it's$129. They can come in four times a month for the studio. What are you envisioning in, in terms of helping studios price this for their clients? Are you envisioning like a tier type thing as well? Like, oh, you get access to this Much of the online platform, or anyone in any membership can add the online platform for, I don't know,$29 a month,$99 a month. Where? Where are you seeing this? Hopefully go to.

Kaleen Canevari

I think about this in terms of leaps and experimentation. So any business, and I do want to talk about like how you get started because this is really important, is experimenting what works for your clients and knowing you're gonna get it wrong and being able to fix it.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Mm-hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

So my, the hypothesis you start with. Can I use that mental math, mental model of costs? One group class price per month to get access to the online portal. So then you have, okay, so maybe this is$39, maybe it's why depends on your studio rate. Then you go along and you see what is the adoption, what is, what are people saying about this? For some people. That might work really well for other people. That might mean people might not be interested in adding it, but they're willing to think about the pricing differently. If you say you bundle it,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Mm-hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

membership price goes up, but you get this included and that's why you come to this studio over someone else's because the membership gives you more benefits. So there's, there's a few different ways to think about it. Um, I think the final piece of that is, um, getting into the personalized. If you're, if you're going from, Hey, I'm a 10 reformer group studio to, I mostly have private clients, now you can start talking about those, really the high ticket items. And you go, this is a coaching. Platform. I give you homework. It's not written on a post-it note. It's not my hand drawn diagrams. It's in a platform designed to support you while you're away. And I want like, this is an important mental model that I think we need to talk about more in the Pilates world. And I think it used to be implied. It's sort of fading with the rise of group fitness. This concept of Pilates teachers are experts, movement experts. Well-trained experts. Why does someone need to come to me and pay me a hundred dollars just to move their body? They're think about music teachers. I mean, you could even think about personal trainers. Come to me once a week and do this when you're not with me, because I can give you something you can't get on your own, but you'll make better progress if you go practice this without me, which is more accessible, but also without me as a crutch every time you move. And that model. Pilates is so ripe for that. It is such a, the teaching, the learning that happens in Pilates, in a good Pilates class is so that's why I fell in love with Pilates. I learned about my body and that carried over into the rest of the physical activities I did. Um, and so. Not only is that a more interesting business model to me, it's also something that helps, that is more, it's more scalable business model, but it, it's better for the clients, more people, and it helps hopefully studio teachers work less, avoid burnout. Like, look, my level's eight hours a week. It's not a full-time job. I don't teach more than that. I don't know how I could, but everybody, so, so there's a few ways I, I want that, that transition of, hey, I'm just giving the service because people come in and wanna move with me to not be afraid to saying I know things. I can guide them even if I don't know everything, but I can guide them. On this journey of learning about their body and how they,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah. What about people that would push back and say, well, what if they love the online platform so much? It's at a lower price point, and now they don't come in twice a week?

Kaleen Canevari

and you didn't really have them in the beginning. Um, and I would also say, uh. Those people. People who only do online fitness, their average retention is three months,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Right.

Kaleen Canevari

and so across all fitness, but like that's not gonna be something that people stick with for a long time. You have to be able to let them go and be like, I'm gonna focus on the people who value what I'm offering. Because they're gonna stick around and then I don't have to go find every three months. I don't have to go find someone new to come into the studio. I'm sure. Yeah. That, that reten, that's why retention is so important is'cause it's work to get new people into the studio. Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

It's expensive work it's work and retention is great. okay, so let's talk about someone's listening to this and they're like, this sounds really exciting to me, but. I don't know how to, like, what is the number one, first step would, you would advise someone to do if they wanted to like, adopt this into their studio? Like what do what, what is required of them to get started and what does the first year look like for them? Or even the first three months?

Kaleen Canevari

Before you start, before you decide to start, you have to think about why do you wanna build an online studio? Who are you teaching? How much time do you really have to devote to this? I think there's two big myths to bust about starting an online studio, which is one, it's passive income. And two, you're gonna have a meteoric rise to fame because you have,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

go viral tomorrow.

Kaleen Canevari

that's not the case. Um, tacked onto that myth, which is once you decide, okay, I wanna help more people without teaching more hours in person, and, um, thinking about, can I commit to this? Regularly for a period of six months, two to three hours a week. That's it. You can, the beauty of that is yes, it's more work, but it's different work than teaching and you can do it whenever. You don't have to schedule with a client, so you should schedule with yourself. So getting yourself set up for that. So you decide, yes, I want to do this. Um. You can launch in 10 days. Flexio launched with eight classes. I have another friend whose company launched with three classes, and the reason I say that is not because you're always gonna have eight classes, it's because it's what you do after your launch that makes the biggest impact. So you launch with your three classes, you get a couple of your clients who are interested in the idea. You say, here's your program. Right? In Flexia, you said you make your programs, you have your weekly classes. You can assign homework, you have them use it for a month. You launch two classes a week that you have to do that. You have to be consistent at launching in a predictable way. That's the thing that makes this successful. And then you have very honest conversations with those people testing it. How does this fit into your life? What do you like about it? What do you wish we did differently? What do you want next? And sometimes I'll even say like, this feedback loop is a really interesting thing. Sometimes I'd say give'em surveys to fill out because you want them to be honest. A lot of times people can't be honest face to face. They love you, they don't wanna hurt your feelings, whatever. But you need the brutal feedback to tell you if you're on the right track or now. Um, and then you open it up to more students. After a month, you launch three classes, sorry, two classes a week for six months. That's 24 classes, 48 classes, right? So the library slowly builds. Your subscriber base will slowly build. That's how the, that's the logistics of it. Now, the investment part of it is really important too. I say you need to launch three classes in 10 days, because I. Until you're a six figure subscription, you should not be using any contractors to film your videos. You should not use any camera besides your iPhone. You should spend less than a hundred dollars on lights, and you should spend a hundred dollars on mic. A mic, and you do all your own editing and that. We messed that up at Flexi. Like this is one of the big things we spent. We at one point, we 10 x the production cost of our videos. Not only did it slow the film to launch cycle down, that just made getting feedback worse. It made launching consistently harder and it made incorporating feedback from our clients, our subscribers to our teachers. So slow. Like what if someone requests something and they don't get it for three months, like they're gone. And I thought when we cut back on all this, we started filming in-house again. We did our own editing. I thought people would complain, but instead. People were happier. They didn't leave. Our churn went way down. Our engagement went way up. And guess what? Our costs went way down. And so this, this concept of like, the part is the biggest barrier to starting is the consistency part. You don't need to order fancy things. You don't need to create fancy programming like. First five classes you do should mirror classes you have in class. You use the same language, you use the similar cues that maybe it's on a mat instead of a reformer. Um, but it's an extension of the in studio experience. It's not some perfect vision of whatever Instagram. It's not the, that's not the goal. So, so that's the, that's the starting point. And as you build your class library, you have more tools, you have more content to reach into and assign people homework and create programs. When we ran challenges at Flexion during the month. We do like a month of a challenge or two weeks of a challenge, and then we do nothing. The engagement of our users went way up and people voluntarily told us, I love this because I don't wanna think about what class to take.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Mm-hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

So again, going on that sort of Netflix

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

People really don't

Kaleen Canevari

concept, they don't, they show up. I mean, why do they show up to your class?

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

they No, precisely. They, they want someone to tell them what to do.

Kaleen Canevari

So, so all of those things, right? The, it's really very simple and the hardest part is to keep doing it.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah. have you found in your, in your like research with Flexi and even now, the time, the class time, that someone will dedicate to. At home, is it still like 50, 60 minutes? Is it more like 25, 30 minutes. And is there a recommendation that you're giving people now, like film a real 50 minute class or are you like the home stuff can be less?

Kaleen Canevari

Uh, in the beginning it needs to be 30 to 50 minutes

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Okay.

Kaleen Canevari

regular classes. We launched with a lot of short classes. People didn't want that. We had one long class and it was the most watched class.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Interesting.

Kaleen Canevari

Um, how you position it within your studio is important. So you know, if you find that you're mostly using the platform for homework and you wanna give your private clients 10 minutes to do every morning. That's a different story, but when you're talking about a workout, the, the mental hurdle for your subscriber to get over to go from walking around their house with a lot of distractions to logging onto the platform is quite high. And they're not gonna log on to do 15 minutes. They wanna log on and go, I'm gonna get a good workout. How much of the video they watch is a different story. But there's gotta be that I'm gonna do this for myself and it's gonna be worth it. It's not worth it if there's not, they don't perceive the value in 15 minutes. And that's a, that's a weird thing. We, that's what we learned at Flexion. Um, and that's not what we were told.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Yeah, we, we saw for the time period we had a, our online program, we started doing 50 minute, like that's what we just put on. We just put on 50 minutes.

Kaleen Canevari

Yep.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

time on all of the videos was nowhere near 50 minutes. It, it ranged 24 to 36 minutes, I wanna say. we started putting, then we started doing shorter videos and I was like, well, forget it. I don't need people to spend, you know. But then some people wouldn't even watch those videos. So I see what you're saying in terms of like the mindset is, I don't wanna sit down if I know the video's only 20 minutes. So they wanna go, they wanna turn on a 45 or 50 minute video, but they might not do the whole thing. Yeah,

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah. Absolutely. That is just the reality of at home media.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

yeah. And there was also one of the things we found that was super hard for us. It, it really was two totally different avatars. Like your in-person person is a whole different being than someone who just wants an online experience and has no desire to go into a studio. So it really was like running two completely separate businesses, of which I did not have the bandwidth to do. is why our online studio really, I, I'm not gonna say it never took off'cause I didn't give it. Any love, but not know because I didn't give it any love because it was literally like the marketing is different, price point is different, the messaging to the per, because we weren't, we were trying to say like, oh, you can have both, but really like the person that was coming in studio had different messaging than the person that was like, oh, I just want online stuff. I also think since COVID things have. rebounded a little bit Um, people are looking for hybrid situations. Um, and I just think you're right. I think like the price point for people. Some, some people are really, you know, I talk to studio owners are like, you know, we've seen a big dip. And a lot of the reasons we get from people is price point. You know, I, I just got off a call with someone today that was saying, well, we started doing 30 minute sessions because people. Said they couldn't afford the full hour. And I'm like, but they come twice a week for 30 minutes, which is the same time as once a week for an an. It's like the same price point. It's just like a mind thing sometimes. And so, you know, but learning who your clientele is, what they care about, and being able to offer something that, you know, Pilates cue down the street is not offering is how we. Differentiate ourselves. You know,

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

a lot of money coming into this space right now. A lot of hence why I was able to exit.

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

So I'm happy about the money. I also am happy about the fact that, you know, you can, it's the same thing like classical versus contemporary. You can focus on fighting about that shit, or you can just say more people are talking about Pilates and that's better for all of us.

Kaleen Canevari

Yep,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

better for all of us

Kaleen Canevari

absolutely.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

small studios can still survive. just have to embrace how we are different. Right. I, you know, if you don't wanna have 10 reformers in your studio, that's great. Don't have 10 reformers in your studio. Embrace that you have four. Embrace that messaging because the more people learn about, this is just my soapbox. The more people learn about Pilates, there are some people that are gonna go to the 10 12 14 studio reform studios and be like, I don't like this. I wanna, I like the movement. I don't like this container. And they will find you. But business owners, studio owners have to be smarter Now, it is not the glory days of 10 years ago where you could be like, oh, I have this boutique fitness studio and I have thousands of members. No,

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

have more options, more choices,

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

we have to be smarter.

Kaleen Canevari

yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

and

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Open our mind. Open our mind to adapt slightly. And so I love these kind of things'cause it's just teaching us of like. How can we adapt, right? So if people are interested in learning more,'cause I'm sure lots of people are gonna wanna learn more. is the next step? How do they get in touch with you? Where can they find you? Where can they find more information on this?

Kaleen Canevari

Have a free seven day email course on how to launch an online studio.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Love it.

Kaleen Canevari

They can get it at motrastudio.com/launch.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

We will link that in the show notes.

Kaleen Canevari

If you wanna hear more about what I am thinking about and tinkering with, and you wanna have a, like, I love having conversations about. How people really run their business, what's really happening, because that sparks new ideas. Most of that is on my website, my Substack, so that's Kaleencanevari.com

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Great. We will link that in the show notes. I would love to. Ask you just one final question, if I may, just because you have a lot of information. You're very smart and you're seeing the industry in a lot of different lights right now, I

Kaleen Canevari

Mm-hmm.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Where do you see the future of the Pilates, Pilates industry going in the next five to 10 years? I know I kind of threw, just threw you a curve ball. That's like a big question. So.

Kaleen Canevari

not on our prep

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

That was

Kaleen Canevari

sheet Christa

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

the prep sheet. That was not on the prep sheet, but I feel like you have such a good vision of where you would like it to go. And so I'm just curious like where do you see, there's so much, there's just so much chatter out there about this, about our industry right now.

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah,

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

love, I would love to hear from like different colleagues and professionals, like where do you see the industry going?

Kaleen Canevari

where I want it to go. Is that Pilates finds a way to talk about itself in terms that the rest of the health and fitness world understands, and that helps advance the way we're perceived and it helps streamline everything in our industry from understanding what kind of training you're getting to picking the right studio as a student to go to, to integrating Pilates into your broader life. That's all predicated on being able to talk about Pilates and quantify it in a way that captures the magic. Understanding Pilates is unique from every other fitness out there, but we're not just like, oh, well it's just the magic. You just get it. You just feel it. And what I'm afraid will happen is that in the pursuit of that. People with big budgets and flashy products will falsely good intentions, but falsely associate health metrics with Pilates that don't actually matter. And all that's gonna do is turn people off of the method

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Mm-hmm.

Kaleen Canevari

and we see a contraction. That's right. There's a lot of discussion about the bubble. Are we in a Pilates bubble right now? And I think there, those are the two paths, and I don't want it to be a bubble. And I think to get out of the bubble and to keep that growth and respect and impact going, we have to get smarter about evolving Pilates and how we teach it and how we program it in the modern tech enabled world.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

That's a great answer. That's a great answer. I, I agree. I think that if we have an opportunity now that that. Whatever happened, and I, I will say I, I'm not gonna say that I was the one that called it, but I did say Pilates was gonna have a huge resurgence post COVID because of the in-person, um, aspect. And because most people didn't have reformers at home where you can buy a kettlebell. Fine at home you can, everyone bought Pelotons. People didn't have the knowledge, knowledge to use the reformers and they didn't have the space to put reformers in their home. So I was like, Pilates is gonna bounce back and I'm going to work my fricking ass off to make sure I'm here to, when

Kaleen Canevari

Yeah.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

bounce back now, I believe it's given us the opportunity that everyone's talking about it. Everyone's doing it from, from seven to 77. we as the Pilates like. Lovers of like the movement and are looking at it in terms of we love this industry and yes, we also wanna make money. If we can take those people that are now early adopters in this and just say, even if the bus bubble bursts even, we have all of these people now. We can still be like, Hey, we're not going anywhere. Like you can come over here now with us, and we're still going to give you movement with the beautiful like tech that you've come to love from all of these other health and fitness, you know, modalities. Right? And, and the, the consumers getting younger, which means that this is how they live. I mean, this is how they live. know, like it's not like my. Parents that like, don't wanna be on this, but this is how they live. And we, and in order to find them, we have to be in here at some point. Right. And so I just think like, stop worrying about the wrong shit is what I feel like.

Kaleen Canevari

Amen.

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies

Good. Good, good, good. So Kaleen, thank you. It's always such a great conversation with you. I hope so many people reach out to you. We are gonna link all of the things she talked about her website and her, link to do the. Seven day email challenge. We'll link it in the show notes. if you need information on her, you can always DM me on Instagram. I'm at Christa, I will connect you with her directly. until next time, bye for now. I.