Advice Line with Michelle Wahler of Beyond Yoga
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What is the background story of Michelle Wahler and Beyond Yoga?
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Hello, and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business. Business and the issues or questions that you like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me today is Michelle Whaler. She's the co-founder and former CEO of Beyond Yoga. Michelle, welcome back to the show.
Hi guy, thank you so much for having me back. I'm so excited to be here.
We're excited to have you back. Um you were, of course, first on the show back in 2025, um, when you told the story of Beyond Yoga, and it was you and your co-founder, Jody Gruber Brewski, created this line of yoga apparel for women, and for about ten years you grew it really slowly, mainly through through like wholesalers, uh, yoga studios, and then some department stores. But over time your brand really started to gain traction, especially because you were one of the only f big independent yoga brands. Uh fast forward twenty twenty one, Levi's bought the company for uh about four hundred million dollars and in twenty twenty four you stepped away from Beyond Yoga. Um by the way, if you haven't heard this episode, again I don't always say it, but it is true.
It's a fantastic story, uh, and we will put a link to it in the show notes. Um first of all, since you've last been on, any updates for us? What what's been going on in your life?
Um, so much. You know, I'm still in this mode of celebrating the win. I feel like the build of Beyond Yoga took such a long time and so much out of me, but you know, I'm still savoring this win. And I also, you know, I'm taking this as such a blessing, uh, an opportunity to spend time with my family and my husband in a in a different way. You know, I w Jesse was my business partner. partner for the last ten years at Beyond Yoga. Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's really nice to just to get to spend time and have fun and Now I'm I feel very fortunate. I have this opportunity to explore what makes me happy outside of Beyond Yoga. And I've been able to, you know, kind of choose my own busy and explore I've been teaching a course on how to create culture. at USC. Um I've created this platform called Quince Hill and I use that as an investment and a mentorship platform. And for the most part I spend my time talking to founders and giving advice. And that's been one of the things that really fills my cup.
Yeah. you get a lot of people probably and and you're investing in in businesses that they're looking at the twenty plus years that you did what you did. and trying to figure out how to, you know, do a version of that.
Yes. Um And, you know, I'm trying to share whatever nuggets of wisdom I have, whether it's, you know, the storytelling, whether it's you know, sometimes people just want you to listen, sometimes people need advice, sometimes people need a connection to somebody who can do you know, the web programming or the marketing or, you know, help them with inventory. And so that's the fun part. Like For me, I always kind of wanted to be a matchmaker. That was like my thing when I was in high school and college. And now I feel like I get to be a matchmaker by helping people find the right things they need for their business, but also helping entrepreneurs find the right people that they need at the right time.
Hm. I mean now that you again you have some distance from it and you and you've looked back on it, we did on the show. What is a a piece of startup advice that that many people get m and maybe you got that you think is just a bunch of BS?
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