Building a yoga business from scratch (answer from Katie)

We map a safer path from a marketing career to a sustainable yoga business, focusing on smart transitions, low overheads, and the power of a clear niche. We share why studios are risky now, how to avoid burnout, and how to build reliable income across classes and online offers.

• planning a phased transition with income buffer
• why bricks-and-mortar studios struggle in big cities
• using gyms and studios to build reach and cash flow
• limiting weekly classes and travel to prevent burnout
• diversifying revenue with 1:1s, courses and workshops
• choosing a focused niche to stand out online
• building a simple online pathway and audience

Want to continue working with us?

The Yoga Business Accelerator Program is an immersive online reset for your business to have you gain focus and a plan for profit. We start in early March 2026.

Whether you're at the very beginning of your business (you might not even have a website yet!) or you've been going for a while this intensive program will support you to vision into growth and clarity.

Here's what's included:

✅ Personalised attention. We want to give you our focused attention to accelerate your business. Let’s go from overwhelm and procrastination to profit and passion together.⁠

✅ A live online container, we will hold your hand through marketing, business strategy, content creation and pricing and more. ⁠

✅ Practical and energetic support. We need a clear plan of action based on strategy. And we need a steady mindset so we can stay aligned with the vision. We've got you covered for both.

✅ Nine months of support, our first three months together will be intensive and focused and you'll have still have monthly zoom sessions after that to keep you accountable and supported.

https://www.bhaktibusiness.com.au/yogabusinessaccelerator

Edwina & Katie x

Chapters

• 0:03 Welcome And The Big Question
• 0:37 Don’t Quit Too Fast: Plan The Shift
• 1:56 Why Studios No Longer Add Up
• 3:48 Avoid Burnout: Cap Classes And Travel
• 4:30 Diversify Income And Pick A Niche
• 6:10 Build Online Offers And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Okay, welcome. The first question that I'm going to answer comes from Nicola. And she says, I've just made the break away from my marketing career to build a business that's more aligned and has yoga central to it. Looking ahead with a completely blank sheet, if you were to build your yoga business again from scratch now, with all the knowledge you've gained, how might you approach it and how is that different to how you did set it up? Beautiful question. And what a bold move, Nicola. I'm so inspired and excited for you at just taking the leap. One thing I would say is in general, my recommendation is not to give up the day job too early. I know a lot of people want to start a yoga business and kind of give up a corporate role or give up another career. And my usual advice, honestly, is actually do a transition, take it slowly. Start building up your yoga career first. If possible, cut back your other career, like maybe go part-time, and then sort of let the transition happen over, you know, a year, 18 months, something like that. Because that way you don't put yourself under a huge amount of pressure to suddenly start generating income in your yoga business immediately. The other option, of course, is if you have some savings, you can create a budget and somewhat, you know, try to live off your savings over that period of time. But you do want to have a bit of a buffer where you're not just completely dependent on your yoga income suddenly completely supporting you, especially if you've been used to a more corporate salary. So, with that said, um, how I would do things differently, I mean, I try to look back on the past and feel like I have no regrets. So, my short answer is I wouldn't do anything differently because it's all been beautiful. But from a purely business point of view and sort of um uh income generation point of view, I will answer that question. One thing I will say is um I ran yoga studios in the first half of my career, and that honestly, I'm sad to say this, but it's the truth, is not something I recommend anymore. I most certainly would not open a bricks and mortar yoga studio these days. Um I absolutely loved running a yoga studio, like I really did love it, and um, it was such a beautiful thing for me. Um, but these days it's really hard to have it make money. The um the gym culture, like places like Virgin Active and Elixir, are so competitive in the yoga industry. Like, you know, just close to where I live, we've got Marrickville Fitness Playground, and it's a gym, and for under your membership, you also get yoga and Pilates classes, and the yoga studio within the facility there is beautiful. It's a stunning state-of-the-art yoga space, and they hire really good teachers, like local teachers who are of a really high calibre and you know really do a great job. So it's a really competitive market, it's almost impossible for a small local studio to compete with that type of um membership model and the infrastructure and the budget that they have. So I don't, I genuinely don't recommend opening a studio or taking on a bricks and mortar lease. The only exception I would say is if you've got already a pre-established community or you're a small country town where there's not much competition. So in the big cities, definitely I wouldn't advise it, but in smaller country towns, um, like for example, I know a lovely woman who's just opened a studio in Mildura. I think that's a great business opportunity for her because she's the only yoga studio in the whole town. Um, what you want to minimize is your outgoings. So you want to ideally not be taking on a lease or taking on something that has a lot of outgoings. Another thing I would advise is try not to burn out by teaching classes all over the place. So I always feel that 10 classes a week is a maximum amount that a yoga teacher can teach sustainably. Once you go over 10 classes a week, you're most likely heading towards burnout. So that's the kind of ballpark number that I have in my mind. Um, you can do it for short periods of time, but as a sustainable long-term career, more than 10 classes a week is going to definitely tip you to burnout. Um, and ideally, there's not massive amounts of travel time involved because that again will tip you towards burnout. Like traveling around all over the place and teaching in different places can get very depleting. Um, so that's all the bad news. And that might sound a bit negative having just started with all the bad news, but the good news is I definitely do believe it's possible to create a career teaching yoga. I a hundred percent believe that. Um, I think you should really look at diversifying how you generate your income. So do some work for other people. Go teach at Virgin, go teach at Elixir, go teach for these big super gyms that have these beautiful facilities. That will help you build an audience, it will help you with sustainable, reliable uh revenue income. Um, and then I would also be definitely looking at the online space. I would be um looking at what gaps I feel I can uniquely offer support for my students and my clients. So is it that you would be really great at offering one-to-one sessions? Is it that you would be really great at offering a yoga philosophy course or a breathwork course or a nervous system rebalancing course? You want to niche in. So, one thing I definitely think has changed in the yoga industry in the last few years is the teachers that I see who are really successful are those who are niching. They are choosing a particular lane and a particular group of people that they want to serve, um, and they're really sticking to that. That seems to be the best way to get known for something, to get really skilled in that thing. Um, and then you'll find that you know it's a lot easier to generate revenue. And particularly in the online space, niching becomes even more important. So I would be thinking about what is it that I really want to do? Who do I want to serve? How can I build my audience around that? Um, and then in all honesty, there's there's a whole art and science to building an audience online, which we talk about a lot in our business accelerator program. Um, it's way too much for me to go into detail here. But what I will tell you is that having a niche, having a specific market in mind is the thing that will make the world of difference. So the starting point I would say to you, Nicola, is what is it you're really passionate about? Who is it that you want to serve and what can you offer of value to them? Um and then think about diversifying your income streams. Um, you could think about later, you could also think about running workshops, retreats, um, mini-intensives. But I would, if I was starting blank slate, I would think of, I would decide on a niche. I would teach some studio classes in different locations, but without a big rental outlay. Um, and I would build an online offering aligned to my niche. I hope that's helpful. Um, I'm sure you have lots more questions, and I definitely think, you know, someone who's at this point of just beginning completely new, um, it's great that you have a marketing background that's definitely going to help you, but there still are some considerations that um yeah, we go into in a lot of detail in the accelerator program, and you'd definitely be a really good fit for that.