{"id":689,"date":"2014-11-06T11:41:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T19:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.thinkapps.com\/?p=689"},"modified":"2015-04-21T14:55:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T22:55:25","slug":"two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/","title":{"rendered":"How Two Designers Are Changing the Way Yoga Teachers and Students Find Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beau Bergeron and Robin McIntosh were both graphic designers when they met at IDEO. It was there that they first started talking about the counterintuitive possibility that technology could help yogis get offline faster.<\/p>\n

Ever since yoga was brought to the attention of mainstream American culture in the early 1960s, the way teachers set up shop hasn\u2019t changed much. With the proliferation of small business innovation and the sharing economy, we have a world primed for a re-invention of how and where yoga classes take place.<\/p>\n

In the last few months, YogaBuddy<\/a> has developed an app that enables teachers to set up their business and schedule classes instantly and easily. Students are able to see all the classes near them with a glance, read about each potential teacher, and see who their friends follow.<\/p>\n

I recently got to talk about all of this with YogaBuddy cofounder, Beau Bergeron.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"TeamYogaBuddyRED\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

So, what is YogaBuddy?<\/h2>\n

YogaBuddy is a mobile-first marketplace and a SaaS platform for yoga teachers and students. For teachers YogaBuddy is a way to open up for business in five minutes, and then manage their business. For students it\u2019s a great way to take independent creative classes anywhere anytime. We\u2019ve seen great usership in the Bay Area where we started, as well as four other markets where we\u2019ve had pilot teachers. With Thinkapps<\/a> we just finished our 2.0 app and we\u2019re looking to pump up our web presence. Specifically, our teacher listing sites, where students can book classes and follow their teachers.<\/p>\n

\"Yogaonbeach\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How did the idea for this come about?<\/h2>\n

I was a yoga novice and I started taking yoga classes in Millennium Park in Chicago. I enjoyed having this big community experience outside the studio. And then when I moved to the Bay Area I was inspired by all of the companies\u2014like Lyft and Airbnb\u2014that are creating community where previously it wasn\u2019t, connecting people offline in really interesting ways. So I brought that inspiration and Robin certainly shared that as well. Her sister is a yoga teacher and many of her close friends are certified yoga teachers. We felt there was an opportunity to give teachers the control over their businesses and create a community around yoga like never before.<\/p>\n

Is it more focused toward small studios, or someone teaching classes in a backyard?<\/h2>\n

Our focus has been independent teachers. Many of them also teach in the studio, but our primary focus has been on teachers creating independent classes outside the traditional system. Longer term our vision is to create a competitive product to the software that studios use. Our goal is to offer them a great alternative to the current industry monopoly.<\/p>\n

\"Yogabuddy_Beach\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And what would you say is unique about YogaBuddy?<\/h2>\n

As of seven months ago there was no way for yoga teachers to create classes, take payments, manage their students, and manage their bookkeeping. For students there was no local or even national marketplace for classes. YogaBuddy charges no membership or drop-in fee. We\u2019re not gouging students for dropping in. This way they can socialize their practice and explore our awesome marketplace of classes.<\/p>\n

When you were forming the idea of YogaBuddy, was there a moment when you committed to the idea? When it all became clear that you were to going put everything into this?<\/h2>\n

The decisive moment came when we knew that there was something promising in our user testing. I left IDEO end of 2013, and we certainly did a lot before I left, but drawing on our IDEO backgrounds we did quite a few user sessions. We were basically prototyping the full experience of having independent classes and mocking up the convenience of paying as well as the mobile experience. And we knew we were on to something. We discovered that students and teachers had a lot of interest in this product and it was solving common problems. So we went for it.<\/p>\n

\"Yoga_Tahoe\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What was the first thing you guys did when you started YogaBuddy? What was your first step?<\/h2>\n

For me everything starts as sketches in my notebook. And from there it was about talking to real teachers and real students, and showing them the rough mockups to get feedback. From there, prototyping the experience.<\/p>\n

How do you and Robin split your time and what are the differences in your skill sets?<\/h2>\n

We\u2019re both designers but Robin leads the product side and product design. She\u2019s been really great at industry partnerships. Through her diligence we\u2019ve landed the partnership with Yoga Journal, which is huge for us. They are the bible of yoga. And all credit goes to her for really pushing that. I lead the marketing, and I lead community development. I also work with her on product design but my silo is more so on marking and community where she leads product, industry relationships, and we both do our best on fundraising.<\/p>\n

How did you validate YogaBuddy?<\/h2>\n

We validated it with user testing. We had probably ten faux YogaBuddy classes, classes that replicated the experience. We had classes with friends but also with people we didn\u2019t know, then we followed up with all of them using surveys and ethnographic research. You know, \u201cWhat did you like?\u201d \u201cWhat did you not like?\u201d That shaped the product and we knew we were on to something because everyone had very positive responses, and in teachers\u2019 cases we heard them saying, \u201cI love this.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are you currently doing to grow your app?<\/h2>\n

We\u2019ve always hustled on social media. Instagram is such a huge channel for us. We get about three to five teacher applicants every day just through social media and word of mouth. Teachers identify with what we\u2019re offering and it\u2019s absolutely the solution to their problems. There are tons of teachers every day\u2014both seasoned teachers as well as newly certified teachers\u2014that need YogaBuddy\u2019s disruptive innovation.<\/p>\n

And were there any major discoveries after going through version one, or things that you wish you could have known before you dove in?<\/h2>\n

Sometimes, in retrospect, I wish that we made a web app (as opposed to an iOS app); It would be easer to take all payment types. Our capabilities to take all payments with our 1.0 were incomplete, and that was a big headache for teachers and for students. We also we had a weird payment metaphor in our 1.0 app\u2014we were inspired by a lot of donation based classes, where you pay afterward. But with 2.0 we\u2019re changing it to pre-booking, whether it\u2019s a donation or a fixed-fee class. It\u2019s all pre-booking, just like a concert, so you pay before you go.<\/p>\n

Can you share any future plans for YogaBuddy?<\/h2>\n

Our product pipeline is giving teachers the teacher sites and a suite of tools to manage their businesses. Then activating the Yoga Journal partnership\u2014that\u2019s going to help us launch on a more national level. There\u2019s also some internal talk of opening it up to be FitBuddy. We already have teachers hacking the product to be more diverse than yoga, and we\u2019re certainly not opposed to that, but we do love yoga and we do want to create a solution for the yogis. In making our product we\u2019ve seen that it\u2019s useful beyond yoga.<\/p>\n

Looking to grow? Learn how other successful founders grew their business.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n


\nYou can find YogaBuddy on Instagram @yogabuddyapp<\/a>, in the iOS app store<\/a>, or at YogaBuddy.co<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Images courtesy of @kaylala88<\/a> on Instagram<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former IDEO designers are changing the way Yoga classes are taken. Yoga classes will never be the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30,76,38,81,82],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Two Designers are Disrupting the Yoga Industry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yoga classes will never be the same.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Two Designers are Disrupting the Yoga Industry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yoga classes will never be the same.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Build Blog by ThinkApps | Content on Entrepreneurship, Mobile Apps, Web Platforms and more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-06T19:41:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-21T22:55:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1136\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tricina Elliker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tricina Elliker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/\",\"name\":\"How Two Designers are Disrupting the Yoga Industry\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-06T19:41:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-21T22:55:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/24dfd33b95eedf4c71b150932cc580a2\"},\"description\":\"Yoga classes will never be the same.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg\",\"width\":1136,\"height\":640},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How Two Designers Are Changing the Way Yoga Teachers and Students Find Each Other\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Build Blog by ThinkApps | Content on Entrepreneurship, Mobile Apps, Web Platforms and more\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/24dfd33b95eedf4c71b150932cc580a2\",\"name\":\"Tricina Elliker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ce28715b50633868ecce34ae43db778?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ce28715b50633868ecce34ae43db778?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Tricina Elliker\"},\"description\":\"Tricina Elliker is a content strategist and co-founder of The Den, a boutique branding agency in Portland, Oregon.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/tricina.com\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/tricina\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/author\/tricina\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Two Designers are Disrupting the Yoga Industry","description":"Yoga classes will never be the same.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Two Designers are Disrupting the Yoga Industry","og_description":"Yoga classes will never be the same.","og_url":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/","og_site_name":"Build Blog by ThinkApps | Content on Entrepreneurship, Mobile Apps, Web Platforms and more","article_published_time":"2014-11-06T19:41:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-04-21T22:55:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1136,"height":640,"url":"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Tricina Elliker","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tricina Elliker","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/","url":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/","name":"How Two Designers are Disrupting the Yoga Industry","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg","datePublished":"2014-11-06T19:41:56+00:00","dateModified":"2015-04-21T22:55:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/24dfd33b95eedf4c71b150932cc580a2"},"description":"Yoga classes will never be the same.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/06194156\/photo-8.jpg","width":1136,"height":640},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/two-designers-changing-way-yoga-teachers-students-find\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Two Designers Are Changing the Way Yoga Teachers and Students Find Each Other"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#website","url":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/","name":"Build Blog by ThinkApps | Content on Entrepreneurship, Mobile Apps, Web Platforms and more","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/24dfd33b95eedf4c71b150932cc580a2","name":"Tricina Elliker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ce28715b50633868ecce34ae43db778?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ce28715b50633868ecce34ae43db778?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Tricina Elliker"},"description":"Tricina Elliker is a content strategist and co-founder of The Den, a boutique branding agency in Portland, Oregon.","sameAs":["http:\/\/tricina.com","https:\/\/x.com\/tricina"],"url":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/author\/tricina\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3070,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/3070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}