Beyond Yoga Founder: How Starting a Side Hustle Ultimately Led to a $400 Million Dollar Exit to Levi’s - Michelle Wahler

Behind Her Empire

Michelle Wahler is the co-founder and former CEO of Beyond Yoga, a company that’s on a mission to give every body the luxury-level comfort they deserve from activewear.

Coming from the fashion world, Michelle realized the need for a body positive brand with pieces that flatter a wide range of women’s bodies. After creating her own line which started as a side hustle, she met and then partnered with Jodi to build Beyond Yoga in 2005. Michelle has built the product and brand from the ground up and served as its CEO for nearly 20 years. What started as a mere concept led to a global wholesale business, ecommerce site and opening of six retail stores, selling tens of millions of units around the world. She also led the negotiations and her team through the brand’s acquisition to Levi Strauss & Co in 2021 for a reported $400 million dollars.

In this week’s episode, we talk to Michelle about how the idea for Beyond Yoga started, the initial challenges and investments involved in getting it off the ground, and the importance of staying profitable and reinvesting in the company for long-term success. Michelle shares insights into the early strategies that led to incredible success, including the introduction of their popular space dye fabric, and the lessons learned from partnerships they pursued. She walks us through how Beyond Yoga lost over six million dollars in revenue in one week and how she navigated the business through such challenging times. Michelle also offers valuable advice on avoiding burnout, how they ended up selling to Levi’s despite never wanting to sell the business, and so much more.

In this episode, we’ll talk to Michelle about:

* The importance of giving yourself grace. [03:42]

* Sustainable and profitable growth of Beyond Yoga. [05:15]

* Michelle's upbringing and her relationship with her parents. [07:40]

* Initial work experiences and starting her first venture, Unsweetened. [09:50]

* Meeting her business partner, Jodi. [11:05]

* Biggest learnings from Unsweetened. [16:54]

* Funding the business and finding the right contractors locally. [20:14]

* A major inflection point: Introducing space dye fabric. [29:16]

* Hiring her husband as the COO/CFO. [31:31]

* Michelle’s learnings as a leader. [36:19]

* Michelle’s experience of motherhood. [39:15]

* Saving Beyond Yoga during COVID and millions in lost revenue.[46:03]

* Selling Beyond Yoga to Levi Strauss & Co for $400 million. [54:03]

* Re-investing and her first experience with investors. [59:39]

* Advice she would give her younger self. [01:02:26]

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Follow Yasmin:

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminknouri/

* Website: https://www.behindherempire.com/

Follow Michelle:

* Website: https://beyondyoga.com/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondyoga/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelle.wahler/

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