In January 2022, things werenât going particularly well on a personal level. We had to pause our travels and return to England to care for a family member. At that stage, I was 9 months into leaving my job to start something on my own.
Warrior Flow TV was up and running, but it had hit a plateau. I also had my self-employed French business, taking on some small projects here and there, but none of it was long-term sustainable. Looking back, I didnât have a clear vision or goal. I was more waiting for something to come around than actively pursuing it.
Luckily, thatâs kind of what happened. Around late January or early February, Adrianâwhom I was working with on Warrior Flow TVâcalled me. The conversation went something like this:
âHey J, look, what weâre doing with WFTV is fine, but itâs not sustainable, and I canât say Iâm excited about it. You know what I can do, and I know what you can do. I think we could put together something bigger that could really make an impact. I know yoga, trauma, mental health, and trainings; you know tech and online tools. Letâs brainstorm and see what we can create if youâre open to it.â
We had more conversations, brainstorming different ideas and eventually landed on creating a specialized 200-hour yoga teacher training. From the start, we knew it would be a fully online, remote-focused education platform (starting with yoga but avoiding the word âyogaâ in the name so we wouldnât get boxed in). We envisioned something scalable, with a mix of live and pre-recorded sessions.
It didnât take long for us to launch Warrior Flow School, setting the ambitious goal of offering our first training on June 21st, 2022âjust four months after our initial talks.
Here are some behind-the-scenes details we havenât shared publicly that I think are interesting from a business standpoint:
We tapped into Adrianâs extensive network of experienced people to put together an incredible faculty and support team (his 20+ years in yoga were key). But we didnât have any starting capital. We kicked off with just a few hundred dollars, which meant we had to get creative with payment.
We wanted more than just a transactional approach where teachers get paid for their hours and thatâs it. We wanted them to feel invested in the long-term vision. So, we came up with a revenue-sharing model. Faculty members would get paid based on the number of hours they contributed, but theyâd also earn royalties each time we ran the training. Their few hours of filming would become a passive income stream. The royalties would scale with the programâs success, so if we won, everyone won.
From the start, we knew we couldnât go it alone. It had to be a collective effort, and we wanted to be fair with everyone who trusted us.
âIf you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.â
We also did something unconventional: we sold the training before weâd filmed anything. We had a solid curriculum, but we only started recording once we had a few sign-ups, ensuring the training would be profitable. We started filming three weeks before the launch and kept pace by staying just a few weeks ahead of the content release.
These choices allowed us to start quickly, with minimal risk and capital investment.
Iâve got to admit, when our first group of students graduated in December 2022 and shared how transformative the experience was for them, I couldnât help but feel emotional 𼲠and proud of what weâd built. It was the beginning of something truly special.
đ This is part of my Entrepreneur Chroniclesâreal stories, real lessons. Dive into the full series here.