Barre3: Sadie Lincoln (2017)

Sadie Lincoln and her husband, Chris, had what seemed like the perfect life – well-paying jobs, a house in the Bay Area, two kids. But one day they decided to sell everything and start a new business called Barre3: a studio exercise program that blends ballet with pilates and yoga. Today, Barre3 has more than 100 studios across the country. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Alexander Harik, who turned his mom's recipe for fragrant Middle Eastern za'atar spread into Zesty Z: The Za'atar Company. (Original broadcast date: September 11, 2017.) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, it's Guy here. You know, Sadie Lincoln still remembers the name of the very first person who signed up for a membership with Bar Three back in 2008, which is pretty incredible because at the time, she was also teaching 19 classes a week and cleaning the bathrooms at the studio. Today, there are Bar Three studios in 33 states. Sadie also joined us for our first ever How I Built This summit last month, and she shared some helpful tips on how to build a great company culture right from the start. If you want to check out a video of Sadie from the summit, we just posted it at our How I Built This Facebook page. Go check it out. Anyway, this episode with Sadie first ran about a year ago, and I hope you enjoy it.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  One evening, we put the kids to bed. I'll never forget this. We're in the living room, and Chris came up to me, and he pulled a spreadsheet out of his pocket. And he said, Sadie, I've been holding this in my pocket for a couple of weeks. And he opened it up, and it was a spreadsheet, a model of how we could sell our home, all our possessions, and drop out and not work.

• 1:16Guy Raz?

  For...

• 1:17Speaker 01

  A year.

• 1:18Guy Raz?

  For a year. Wow.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  And that was the spark to building what we built.

• 1:33Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:44Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Sadie Lincoln turned a room with mirrors and a ballet bar into a multimillion-dollar company that's now one of the fastest-growing fitness programs in the US.

• 2:00Guy Raz?

  So if you were to take a little bit of Pilates and some yoga and then throw in some ballet into the mix, you'd get bar. It's actually been around since 1959, when a former ballerina named Lottie Burke invented the whole concept in London. But it didn't really begin to take off in the US until this past decade. And today, there are more than 700 bar studios around the country. Companies like Core Fusion, Physique 57, and Pure Bar. Now, the people who go to bar classes are overwhelmingly women. And most of them aren't just going for the exercises. They're actually connected to the culture around the whole bar movement. It's about building confidence and esteem.

• 2:45Guy Raz?

  But it's also big business. The whole boutique fitness sector, which bar is definitely a part of, is now a $30 billion industry. And one of the best-known faces of bar, Sadie Lincoln. Her company, Bar3, now has about 130 locations all around the world. And the company is still privately owned by Sadie and her husband, Chris, and just one outside investor. Now, all of this has, of course, made them rich. And in Sadie's case, it's made her a celebrity fitness guru, which, as you will hear, has made her very uncomfortable. Because Sadie isn't actually as flashy and slick as her online videos would suggest. In fact, her upbringing, it was pretty unconventional.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  My mom and her four best friends dropped out. They're part of the counterculture in the 60s.

• 3:36Guy Raz?

  They were like, they were living in California and they just dropped out?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  They were living in California. Yep, they found each other. They're kind of gypsy-like. They're traveling around together. They ended up in Taos, New Mexico. And each of them ended up having a child. The dads all split. And they basically raised us kids collaboratively.

• 3:57Guy Raz?

  That's, I mean, was that their, their plan? Like, to all these women to move to Taos and, you know, basically have children and then... All to raise these children together? Because it, I mean, that's how it worked out. Is that how they thought it was going to work out?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  I don't think they had a plan. I think it just happened and it was a time of exploration. It was a time for them to go inward, look inside, live close to nature, trust their intellect, and create and discover a new way of living.

• 4:31Guy Raz?

  And there were five kids altogether?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yes, let's see. So Lark is eight years older than me, so she's sort of like an honorary auntie in a way. But Lark, Sophia, Chia, Kyle, Miguel, me.

• 4:45Guy Raz?

  So six.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:46Guy Raz?

  And was fitness part of your early childhood?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Well, we, we used to do what we called boogie parties. We would put on a rad record and boogie, dance our butts off. Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, of course. We did that as a family often. So that was my first kind of introduction to just loving moving.

• 5:09Guy Raz?

  And how did, how did your mom, like, make ends meet?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, we were often on food stamps. I do have memories of going to the store with food stamps with a note from my mom that I could use them and thinking, oh, this is, I have different money than other people. But they did end up, once they got secure and they had some stability, they, they created their own business. They created a newspaper called What's Happening and then changed it in later years to Eugene Weekly, which is still the weekly publication in Eugene.

• 5:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And did you sometimes feel like a weird kid, like a different kid?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Yes, I felt like a weird kid. And then I tried to play normal, you know? I played normal for a long time, just I didn't want my friends to know that I had this alternative, out of the box family. I was really attracted to normal kids, normal families.

• 6:01Guy Raz?

  Were you embarrassed?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was embarrassed. I mean, my mom was wearing Birkenstocks before they were cool. They were smoking weed before it was legal. They were just outrageous in some ways. Now, I think it's wonderful, but back then, you know, I wanted to be, I was like Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties.

• 6:20Guy Raz?

  Really?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Kind of. I was like, you know, I became a cheerleader, you know, which is very, you know. Of course, they all supported me because that's what they do, unconditional love, no matter what your choice is. It was really social. I just wanted to be normal.

• 6:36Guy Raz?

  So were you a pretty good student in high school?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Horrible student.

• 6:41Guy Raz?

  Really?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Really bad. I went to alternative school called Magnet Arts. I developed a great deal of confidence there. You know, we did pottery and dance and music and, but I didn't learn the basics. And then middle school, I entered middle school and I didn't have the foundation nor the interest. And so I just kind of survived on having fun.

• 7:07Guy Raz?

  So after high school, Sadie took off for LA. She thought she'd become an actor. And in the meantime, she started to take classes at Santa Monica City College, and she discovered that she actually liked it. So a couple of years in, she transferred to UCLA. And it was during that time she got really into fitness classes. So after college, Sadie decided to look for work in the fitness industry.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I landed a job with a company called 24 Hour Fitness. And the reason I took that job really was I wanted to move to San Francisco to live with my girlfriend. I had lived on her dining room floor, literally. And they were based out of the Bay Area and fitness. I was like, perfect. Yeah. That sounds great.

• 7:52Guy Raz?

  And what was the job that you were hired to do?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  I was hired to run all of the group exercise for, I think, 25 gyms.

• 7:58Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  It was a big job. We were acquiring gyms at a rapid pace. So I started, I think we had around 50 gyms, and I ended up staying there for 11 years. And when I left, we had 430 locations.

• 8:10Guy Raz?

  Wow. So this was just massive explosive growth.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Explosive growth. I thought I was going to work there maybe two, one to two years. And I ended up reporting direct to the founder and CEO, Mark Mastrov. And he just kept igniting interest in me because he'd give me all these incredible projects along the way. So, everything from sales to brand strategy, which was my favorite. I mean, it was the ultimate learning experience for me. I traveled all over the world, all through Scandinavia, and Asia, and Spain, and Italy. Mark had other businesses besides 24 Hour Fitness that I got to be a part of, gyms in Russia.

• 8:49Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, he's like a major, like, fitness mogul.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  There's no one greater. I mean, in the fitness industry, he's known.

• 8:57Guy Raz?

  Even to this day?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 8:59Guy Raz?

  Hmm. Okay, so you are at 24 Hour Fitness. It's exploding in growth. And is that, by the way, is that where you met your husband, Chris?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  I met Chris in San Francisco, outside of 24 Hour Fitness. He was working for a startup software company. I met him at a Super Bowl party.

• 9:16Guy Raz?

  Oh, right.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  And we connected instantly. His last name's Lincoln, and I remember he introduced himself as Lincoln. Everybody called him Lincoln. And I remember in that moment thinking, oh, my name's going to be Mercedes Lincoln. My real name's Mercedes. I knew that instant.

• 9:30Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I knew. I knew.

• 9:33Guy Raz?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was the one. And he, after a couple lunches with Mark Mastrov, Mark pulled Chris into the loop as well. So, he ended up working direct for Mark as well. And so, Mark now had me and Chris, and he would put us on projects together. So, it was a wonderful testing ground for us as business partners to see how we work together. Chris is really analytical, really grounded. I'm more of the new shiny thing dreamer. We bought a house, which is like climbing Mount Everest in the Bay Area, which is really exciting, defining moment for us, for me especially. I rented almost my entire life growing up. So, actually owning a home was incredible. We had two children, back to back, 18 months apart.

• 10:19Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, you're living in the Bay Area, and you've got this gig with Mark, and both you and Chris are kind of doing projects for him. And what happens? Is there some sort of crisis that kind of propels you to make a big life change?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Well, the first crisis for me, I think, happened before I was pregnant with my first child. I, even though I was part of this booming business and my career was booming and I was making a great salary and, you know, we were buying a house and all that good stuff, my own health was declining and I didn't feel good. You know, I've just been immersed in the fitness industry, but it wasn't working in my own body.

• 11:00Guy Raz?

  What do you mean?

• 11:02Speaker 01

  I was really uncomfortable in my own skin. I didn't feel alive inside, if that makes sense. I was working out really hard.

• 11:11Guy Raz?

  Every day?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Every day, running on the treadmill, counting how many calories I was eating and how many calories I was expending, because that's scientific, you know? Calories in, calories out. You know, doing all the right things that I had learned was the formula for success. And this is multi-billion dollar industry I was in was working. I mean, it was selling like hotcakes. And this attachment to an ideal, I was sort of drinking that Kool-Aid. And I was shameful that I wasn't looking that ideal or feeling that ideal.

• 11:41Guy Raz?

  So what changed?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  When I got pregnant with Audrey. I think being pregnant is the ultimate opportunity to realize intuition. Because if you think about it, inside your body, I was creating a baby without thinking about it. And I never felt more alive and connected and happy. For me, becoming pregnant reminded me of my roots. My aunties, the power of intuition, what healthy really was, was living close to nature, being intuitive versus following someone else's formula. And I had this aha. I started to do yoga at home. And I had this moment of clarity, I'll never forget it, where I literally said to myself, maybe I'm not failing fitness, maybe fitness is failing me.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  And I'm probably not alone.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Even though the fitness industry is booming, the vast majority of us, it's not working. I mean, that's the news story on the news every day. It's like obesity is on the rise. People are more stressed out than they ever have been. There's all these magic pills, magic answers, formulas that we're all so desperately seeking.

• 12:52Guy Raz?

  And were you having this conversation with your husband, with Chris, at the same time?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  I would say the conversation Chris and I were having more at that point versus fitness is failing or not, was we were lonely, really lonely as a couple. We were having a hard time finding belonging. We didn't have a strong community. And we were kind of like, is this it? Like, is it just you and me? You know, what's going on? He was having a hard time relating to business as he was managing the studios he was managing with 24 Hour Fitness. And, you know, I just, I remember this one moment walking into the room and he was on speakerphone and the manager that was working with, coaching him, they were on a conference call. The guy, and he was, did it with such great intention, but he was, you know, nobody could see each other.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  So he was saying, OK, everybody, raise your right hand. Now put it on your back. Now lift it up. Now put it back down. Now lift it up, put it back down. So he was having everyone on the conference call pat their own back. And Chris, instead of doing that, was flipping off the speaker.

• 13:57Guy Raz?

  Right?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I was like, something needs to change. This is not working for us.

• 14:02Guy Raz?

  So...

• 14:02Speaker 01

  We felt empty. There wasn't a sense of purpose.

• 14:05Guy Raz?

  So what did you do?

• 14:07Speaker 01

  So we started, I mean, over the years, over like maybe a two year, we, he was coming up with all kinds of different business plans, from plant watering business to pizza to nail studio chain.

• 14:18Guy Raz?

  Chris was.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that was sort of in the backdrop. But also, it was like, I had this good gig. I was working from home. I had two babies. He had a good job. I mean, we had bought our house. So I felt like things were kind of moving along pretty, pretty well. And one evening, we put the kids to bed. I'll never forget this. We're in the living room and Chris came up to me and he pulled a spreadsheet out of his pocket. And he said, Sadie, I've been holding this in my pocket for a couple of weeks, and I just need to share it with you. And he opened it up. And it was a spreadsheet, a model of how we could sell our home,

• 15:02Speaker 01

  all our possessions, and move to Bend, Oregon, and drop out and not work.

• 15:09Guy Raz?

  For?

• 15:10Speaker 01

  A year.

• 15:10Guy Raz?

  For a year. Wow.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  And, you know, I'm the one that's usually thinking of these outrageous ideas. He's more conservative and super analytical. For him to bring me this outrageous idea was honestly one of the hottest things he's ever done. Because I was just like, you see me. You see adventure. And it's also a reflection of how I was raised.

• 15:32Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  It gave us permission to think outside of any kind of boundary. If we cannot work for a year, what can we really do?

• 15:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  So that idea morphed into, let's sell the house. And let's put every single penny into a dream job that might fail, but we don't care. Let's just try to build a life for ourselves that will feel like dropping out, that will feel free. And that was the spark to building what we built with Bar Three.

• 16:10Guy Raz?

  Wow. And so with the money, you moved to Bend, Oregon?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  We ended up deciding on Portland. Because I wasn't as excited about Bend. You know, I wanted to be in a more thriving urban market.

• 16:25Guy Raz?

  How much cash did you guys have to live off?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  I don't remember the exact number, but I can tell you this. We went down to one car. We packed all of our belongings into the car, a moving van. We moved our two kids, our cat, to Portland, Oregon. We rented a small, little house. We just went down to the bare minimum.

• 16:43Guy Raz?

  And how much did you have to put towards this business idea?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  So our only investor to this day is Mark Mastrow.

• 16:50Guy Raz?

  So he said, hey, I'll work with you guys?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So he gave us a small investment. I want to say like under $200,000. And then our house, which, so we probably had maybe $300,000 or $400,000. And that was with a cushion.

• 17:05Guy Raz?

  Your life savings.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  A little cushion, life savings.

• 17:07Guy Raz?

  And you poured much of that into this business idea?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:11Guy Raz?

  So what was the concept that you guys started to work on when you got to Oregon?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Well, I became enamored with studio culture and going to yoga studios, going to bar studios. In the late 90s, early 2000s, bar was really igniting in New York and in San Francisco.

• 17:30Guy Raz?

  And just for people who have no idea what bar is, can you just explain it a little bit, a little bit more?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, bar back then was based off of the Lottie Burke method, which she was a dancer who rehabbed herself basically at a ballet bar. And her first instructors started the first bar studios, Core Fusion, Physique 57, Bar Method, there's a bunch of them out there. And they sort of had a renaissance in the early 2000s. And I started to take those classes and I was intrigued by them.

• 17:59Guy Raz?

  How come?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  For one thing, they reminded me of sort of a contemporary jazzercise, to be honest. And then using the ballet bar as a prop just has this instant grace and art and heritage that was really attractive to me.

• 18:16Guy Raz?

  I mean, when you got into, when you decided to open a bar studio, there were competitors out there, right? So did you think, how were you able to say, well, we're going to be different this way or attract customers by doing this?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we moved to Portland, a conscious decision where there was no bar around us. And I loved using the ballet bar. I loved the isometric work of Lottie Burke and the small movements and the music. But I wanted to create a studio that instead of being something, being the answer, being a methodology, I didn't want to be the Sadie Lincoln method or the bar three method, I just wanted it to be an exercise experience. From the very beginning, in our instructor manual, the very first sentence is, "The one thing that never changes at bar three is we're always changing." At the very beginning of class, almost every instructor will start by saying, "Welcome to bar three. I give you full permission to do something different than I say.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Your only job is to listen, not to me, but yourself. I'm your guide. We're going to turn the music on. I'm going to show you how to align your body, and then I want you to make it your own."

• 19:27Guy Raz?

  But just as an idea to introduce people, I mean, obviously, you introduce it to people when they show up and when they start taking the classes, right? But like, when you passed by the studio and you saw this thing, bar three, B-A-R-R-E three, like, a lot of people, maybe I'm speaking for men, I guess, I don't know, I'm probably betraying my stupidity, would say, "What is this barre? Like, what is this thing?" Right? And so I can't be the only person who thought that when I first saw it.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Nobody knew how to pronounce it. Nobody knew what it was. I had a tagline at the beginning, "Where ballet bar meets yoga and platties."

• 20:06Guy Raz?

  Which you, okay, that makes sense.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Right. It was a descriptor to explain what it was.

• 20:11Guy Raz?

  How did you come up with a routine? Did you spend like, weeks and months kind of writing it down, or?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I had taught for about 20 years, all different concepts. And so I started to piece together the concepts that balanced the body. So I really focused on working opposing muscle groups in every exercise. So if I worked the bicep, I was going to equally work the tricep. So I had this whole system.

• 20:37Guy Raz?

  When you opened your doors, and this is August 2008,

• 20:42Guy Raz?

  was it right away, was it like a hit? Did people, were people like lining up to come in? Was it a curiosity?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Before I even opened our studio, I taught free classes upstairs of what is now Whole Foods, but at the time it was Wild Oats. And I'll never forget, the day we finally got our permit to open the doors, I sent out an email to the community that was coming to my free classes. And I said, "Hey, I got my certificate of occupancy. I'm going to teach a class tonight." And I thought maybe a couple of people would show up, you know, my friends, my good friends that I had made. 12 people showed up and paid that night. And I sent out the email at 2:00, and I think I taught at 5:45. And I will never forget that moment. The sun was coming in. I played, my opening song was Seal Amazing.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  And to this day, when I hear that song, it's such a visceral memory of... This is going to work.

• 21:39Guy Raz?

  Sadie Lincoln. In just a moment, how she took bar three from a studio above Wild Oats to locations across the country, and in the process, almost became someone she didn't want to be. I'm Guy Raz. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 22:12Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2008, and at this point, Sadie and Chris are pretty busy running their studio in Portland. And they spend so much time there that they actually have to hire a babysitter to be at the studio so that their kids, and then their clients' kids, can also come to the studio.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  I was a busy mom with two kids. And I think the most important thing to both Chris and I is we wanted to have a community. We wanted a place where we could attract people that were inspirational, thoughtful, connected, exciting to be around.

• 22:49Guy Raz?

  And it was just the two of you at the beginning, right?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  It was just the two of us at the beginning. And then one of my girlfriends, who had moved from the Bay Area, she taught one or two classes in the evening. But I checked everybody in, opened the doors, checked everybody in, cleaned the bathrooms, I mean, the whole thing, taught all 19 classes, 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. I was there. I knew every single client. Mary Ellen, I remember she was the first person to sign a membership. She's still one of my clients.

• 23:15Guy Raz?

  And if you were a drop-in at that time, how much did you have to pay to take a class?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  $20.

• 23:19Guy Raz?

  So it wasn't cheap.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  It wasn't. It was probably, it was around $5 more than yoga.

• 23:25Guy Raz?

  How much runway did you have before this had to actually start making a profit?

• 23:31Speaker 01

  I think our return was maybe in 16 months or so. It was a pretty quick return. You know, starting with 19 classes a week and having those classes have at least 10 to 12 people was our goal, and that's exactly what we did.

• 23:47Guy Raz?

  I mean, you must have been stressed out.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:50Guy Raz?

  Even though you were doing 19 classes a week and you probably got a lot of your stress out that way, you still must have been stressed out.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Teaching 19 classes a week is not healthy. It is not balanced.

• 24:01Guy Raz?

  All right. Yeah, right.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  It is not. The short of the story is my body broke. Literally, my back went out. And I remember my mom saying to me, "Honey, you're embodying your business." Because I was like walking around like a 90-year-old woman, you know, with my back slimmed over, like whining and hurting.

• 24:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  And it was like, "Oh, yeah. Shoot, you know, this isn't good." So that was a moment. I was training instructors at the time, so I did have some relief. But I learned that to be healthy, it really is OK to pause, to not move, to not achieve, and to not have an outward expression of what exercise means.

• 24:46Guy Raz?

  But I mean, you must have like, you know, pulled out of this because you, I mean, you still managed to open up a second location pretty fast, right?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Pretty much right away. I mean, the first year we were open, we put up a tab on our website that said, "Grow with us," and we got instant interest.

• 25:04Guy Raz?

  What did that mean? You'd like, like, start your own bar three?

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we knew. We had, you know, we grew up in an industry where we knew how to run multi-unit operations. So going into bar three, we thought, you know, let's open maybe 20 of these in the Pacific Northwest.

• 25:18Guy Raz?

  So from the get-go, you thought our model should be franchising?

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. We have this unique knowledge and wisdom in the industry, so... Instead of raising money to open our own, let's look into this franchise model, which is really ultimately about empowering someone else to invest in this idea that we have in our wisdom and open up their own business.

• 25:38Guy Raz?

  And so instead of going to venture capitalists and banks or whatever,

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:43Guy Raz?

  you didn't have to.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  We didn't want to. We didn't want to be beholden to institutional money.

• 25:50Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Instead, I was really excited about, I still am excited about the idea of being beholden into other people just like me, who had a dream and wanted to open their own business and have their own skin in the game and be able to make it their own.

• 26:04Guy Raz?

  So where was the second location?

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Our first two partners to sign were the Philippines and Manila and Bend, Oregon.

• 26:14Guy Raz?

  Wow, so you franchised immediately to Manila?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. This woman came in, her name's Tanya Tan, and she was in the States and discovered us. And her family's very entrepreneurial. They have a family business. And then their children each have different business models. And she's the youngest of all the children, and she chose Bar Three.

• 26:35Guy Raz?

  Wow. And because you and Chris had this experience at 24 Hour Fitness franchising, you kind of understood how to structure it.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  I did. I was, we were bullish that way. And I mean, it was exciting. It was an adventure, but we knew we could do it. We knew we could do it internationally with the right partner. And then Darcy and Bend was close enough, and she was coming to class and really a part of our tribe. Shortly after that was Carrie, who opened in Vancouver, Washington, which is just 20 minutes away. So most of our franchise partners were our clients. So they came to Bar Three, loved Bar Three, knew Bar Three, were owner operated. So unlike some franchises, our franchise is owner operated. So if you're going to franchise with us, you're really going to live and breathe the product. You're going to teach and manage and be the face of it.

• 27:22Guy Raz?

  It's interesting because we had Jerry Morrell on the show, the founder of Five Guys, and which is like one of the fastest growing, very different business from yours, burgers and fries.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Although I bet more similar than different in some ways, but you never know.

• 27:36Guy Raz?

  And he was opposed to it. Like, all of his sons, part of the, you know, of the five guys, they were like, Dad, let's do this. And he really didn't want to do it because to him, like, the burger that they were serving and the fries that they were serving was, it was great. He could control the quality. He just, he was completely opposed to the idea. Obviously, he feels differently today. So, weren't you nervous about handing over your concept to somebody who could, like, screw it up?

• 28:05Speaker 01

  No. I, I think that's one thing about, I have unbridled optimism in people. Sometimes to a fault, to be honest, but I really do believe in people. And here's the thing, we don't, our product isn't a burger. It's a person. It's someone teaching a class. And I cannot pretend to be able to control that because I can't control other people, nor do I want to.

• 28:30Guy Raz?

  But how did you? I mean, there's no way, I mean, as a creative person and a creator of this concept that you spent, you know, years on honing, there's no way that you just handed it over and said, "Go run with it." Like, you had to get there mentally, I have to assume.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Well, it's person by person. You know, we would meet with these people and see if there was a deep connection. I believed in our training program. I believed in my ability. My master's is in education. I love training and developing people. And that's what I wanted to bring to fitness, is this idea of teaching. And a true teacher, the teachers that I love the most, going back to Santa Monica City College, and the teachers who really brought something out of me, it wasn't that they were all-knowing and that they had the answers. They sparked something inside of me that made me realize I have the answers. And I love doing that with body. I love doing that with movement. I love showing people that you can, first of all, run your own studio and you can do it your own way.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Here's our blueprint. But you now get to go and put your own fingerprint on it.

• 29:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Because I do not want you to copy. This is not the Sadie Lincoln method. I am not a guru. We're the anti-guru company.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  And your true power, all of my owners, is in collective wisdom, just like I was raised. We didn't even use the word chain. We still don't. We're a family of owners.

• 29:58Guy Raz?

  I mean, were all of the partners just like, everything was, was it just a perfect fit? It all, it all worked out great? Because that's what it sounds like. You didn't really run into any problems.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Well, we did. I mean, I think the biggest problem was it's emotional. It's scary and it's emotional. And those first partners took a big risk in us. And we took a big, you know, jump and leap of faith, trust fall with them as well. Every owner to this day is a trust fall.

• 30:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  And when you franchise, you can't fire someone when you franchise.

• 30:29Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  You're, you're in a partnership. And it's for the long term. And me and Chris, our job is to always keep that value up. So they see that importance of being connected to something bigger. And, you know, that's really what drives me. I'm beholden to all of these partners.

• 30:49Guy Raz?

  You're the CEO of the company?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  I am.

• 30:51Guy Raz?

  How many locations do you guys own?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  We own six locations. And then we have 124 franchised.

• 31:00Guy Raz?

  As you guys were just expanding and exploding in growth, I mean, at what point did you just, did you and Chris just say, this is crazy? I mean, it must have been like a hamster wheel that just never stopped going.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, right in the middle there, I kind of lost myself in it. We were booming. We were being acknowledged as like, we were getting great press. You know, we really hit mainstream. And it went from this really insular, like word of mouth, tribal kind of secret to boom national stage.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  And world stage, really. And I was at the center of that. So that was kind of crazy. I got lost in that a little bit, just being a public figure.

• 31:45Guy Raz?

  You became kind of a fitness celebrity.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  In a way, yeah. And I started to fall into this marketing machine, which I had left. When we moved to Portland, we decidedly shut out all traditional marketing and a way to like, express ourselves. We didn't even like using the word fitness. And then all of a sudden, I kind of got back into that machine. And I was in publications. I was working with this producer in LA. And everybody was telling me this way of speaking about fitness. This is the way you speak about what you're doing.

• 32:21Guy Raz?

  You had people come to you saying, Sadie, we can turn you into the next Jane Fonda.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 32:26Guy Raz?

  And if you go to the website, I mean, you still are the face of it. And there are videos of you. And but you didn't want to embrace that?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Well, I did want it because the idea of growing and serving the company that way was really exciting to me. And to be able to get that kind of attention and to fuel our business was super exciting. I mean, it really helps. Soulfully, though, it went against my intuition about not being a guru. And I don't want to feed the messages that are already so loud. We've got the message. It's loud and clear everywhere. Yes, if you work out and you do these things, you're going to look like this. And I was getting trained by producers and stuff to say things. So while you're working out, you're always supposed to say, you're working out this muscle so you can have a thinner waist for bikini season. You're doing this so that you can have this, you know? It sells like hotcakes. This is the way you're supposed to do it.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And I tried it on for size. They also said, get hair and makeup, you know, get a stylist. So I did all that. So we have online workouts. And there's this little era of online workouts where you can see where I did this change. We've pulled some of them, but. I hired a makeup person. I started to be more self-conscious about what I wore on camera. And then I started to speak in a different language that was more like, quote unquote, "results oriented." And under the videos, the people who were commenting, they were checking me. My clients, the people who are part of my movement, were checking me at the door.

• 33:54Guy Raz?

  They were saying?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  They were saying, "Honey, you don't need to wear all that bronzer. You're beautiful as you are." And you know what? You don't need to tell me to get teeny tiny arms. Like, I'm doing this because I want to be strong.

• 34:06Guy Raz?

  I'm sure there are people who were saying to you, "Look, do you want to be a X-million-dollar company? Or do you want to be an XXXX-million-dollar company?" And you can do that. I mean, you can become like Jillian Michaels or like another Jane Fonda kind of person.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  And by the way, I respect all those people. Mad respect for all these incredible... Most people in my space who are booming right now are incredible women. And I think we all want the same thing. In terms of growing bigger, I'm actually not focused on growing bigger anymore with a company. We've paused franchising for now. We're just holding. We're being still, and we're being uncomfortable and still. Being still is uncomfortable. It's very analogous in class. When we're still in class, or when you try to meditate, I don't know if you ever have, it's uncomfortable to be still.

• 34:55Guy Raz?

  I do every day, and I'm still crazy.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  It's hard. It's hard to be still because it's a real, like, inner mirror thing. You have to check in and see things. So if you look at a company as a person, we've decidedly decided to meditate for a moment. Just, "Phew, be still."

• 35:11Guy Raz?

  What was the reason? I mean, did something happen? Or did you and Chris just sit down and say, "Let's just put this on pause"? Why? I mean, in any other business, people would say, "We're growing. Let's grow, let's grow and grow, grow."

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is exciting. Well, we started to be courted by a lot of institutional bankers. Pure Bar was sold for $121 million. They're a bar chain.

• 35:33Guy Raz?

  Yes, and bigger. They have bigger locations.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Bigger, amazing, incredible. A powerhouse, right? And like, the story we kept hearing is, "Who's going to be number two? Who's going to be number two? And you could be valued at gazillion dollars." And so we started to entertain a bunch of conversations.

• 35:47Guy Raz?

  You could have just cashed out, like, majorly.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  I... yeah. There's lots of choice out there, right? And I kind of feel like...

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I want to be a bit of a rebel. So I am seeking right now, other CEOs, other founders, other people in this world who are going at it alone. So I just want to protect what I have versus make it giant. And I want to show kind of the business community that you can do it that way.

• 36:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  There's not that many people saying that in the business community. You know, the value of not growing, the value of not selling.

• 36:29Guy Raz?

  You know, it's interesting because there's this kind of drive in certain segments of the business world to do that. But there are plenty of companies, including, you know, episodes on the show we did with Angie's List, companies that are not profitable, but they're sustainable. They are more or less breaking even every year. But that has enabled them to hire, you know, more than 1,000 people. And there are lots of companies that aren't as focused on profit, but are focused on sustainability and just creating jobs and creating careers for people. I mean, so it doesn't have to be about growth and expansion and growth and expansion, right?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  That's right. That's really what I love about my product is that we literally embody ideas in bar three. So we're teaching exercise, but we're embodying ideas. So stay with me for a second. I know this is strange to hear. But I think what you just said is so analogous to fitness. You can do a 30-day extreme program with your body. You know, exercise every single day, eat nothing white, you know, drink tons of water, get 10 hours of sleep every single day, you know, lift lots of weights and get tremendous results. That's like exciting, right? It's tremendous like change in your body. Is that sustainable to exercise every single day and to be that regimented and disciplined? Not for most people.

• 37:53Guy Raz?

  Mm-mm.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  It's a short-term outcome.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And that is the story we're sold over and over again with fitness. The story, which is less intoxicating to a lot of people, but over time, I think they really get it, is the sustainability model in the body. Exercising 10 minutes a day, being in touch with the food you're eating. You know, that it's okay to drink a glass of wine, that relationships are just as healthy as exercise. And that developing a long-term relationship with exercise that's sustainable is actually going to benefit your posture, you'll live longer, you'll feel better in your skin. Yeah, you won't shed weight in 30 days necessarily, but in the long term, you will.

• 38:38Guy Raz?

  You know, this is something I've been meaning to ask you about, which is, you know, we've had like Melissa and Doug on the show, who came up with Melissa and Doug Toys for Kids. And they had these incredible partnerships. I mean, they're married and they are, you know, they built these incredible businesses together. But then, you know, I've talked to other entrepreneurs who say, there's no way I could work with my partner, there's just no way. I mean, my, the person who I have a family with, like that we would just kill each other. You and Chris have built a business together. Has it, is it just your personalities mesh and you naturally find your way? Or is there ever any tension? Or?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, there's no way, I'm sure there's a way, but I can't imagine a way of not working with Chris. Yes, there's tension. So I'll start there. We're different in that he's really analytical and his skills are different. He's very thoughtful. He doesn't talk very much. He thinks about things for a long, long, long time, whereas I just go gut instinct. Yet, we're both starters. We're both entrepreneurial. We both are really into our children and our dogs. I have my best friend by my side, my rock. He's the one that gives me courage to be bold. And to make crazy decisions.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  And so it just works for us.

• 40:03Guy Raz?

  Are you always talking about the business?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  We talk about it a lot. Like, we talk about the business more than we do our kids. We were joking, we were talking about how many business decisions have been made in bed, but then we were laughing about how funny that sounds because nothing about that sexy. It's like Carol and Mike Brady. Like, that's who we are in bed. We lie in bed with our laptops and we're like, what color should it be? Orange. Okay. What should our name be? Bar Three. Sounds great. But it's kind of beautiful, too, you know?

• 40:36Guy Raz?

  How much of, I ask pretty much everybody who's been on the show about this question, which is how much of what happened to you guys has to do with luck? And how much of it has to do with your skill and ability?

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. I think timing was great for us. This boutique movement started and people wanted connection and community. I'm a teacher and group exercise became hot again. Moving to Portland in just the right moment, being shut out from all the noise. So we weren't competing with anyone. We can just do exactly what we needed to do, scratch our own edge. So that's luck in a way, this movement, you know, at the right time. But a lot of hard work and inner work and paying our dues out there in the business world certainly was a part of this. So it's, yeah, I think probably like most businesses, a combination of all those factors.

• 41:32Guy Raz?

  Sadie Lincoln, founder of Bar Three. By the way, if her childhood story sounded somewhat familiar, it's probably because you heard her brother Miguel's version on a previous episode of this show. He's Miguel McKelvey, founder of the multi-billion dollar company, WeWork. Miguel also grew up in that all-women's collective. And like his sister Sadie, he also rebelled against it by going into business.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Was it better than Miguel's?

• 42:02Guy Raz?

  So much better. So much better than Miguel's.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  I'm just kidding. But I will say I was really excited because my high school chose me over him for the Hall of Fame.

• 42:11Guy Raz?

  Oh, that's good. Sorry, Miguel.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Us hippie kids, you know?

• 42:25Guy Raz?

  And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you're building.

• 42:34Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that. And today, we're going to update a story about Alexander Harik that we first ran last year. Alexander grew up in New York City. And when he and his sisters would sit down for meals, there was always one thing, one condiment, that they pretty much slathered on everything.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  We would put it on baked potatoes all the time. We would have it in yogurts. We'd have it on chicken, on bagels and cream cheese, on eggs, on burgers.

• 43:04Guy Raz?

  And which magical condiment could actually taste good on all of these different things? Yeah, there's sriracha, but besides sriracha.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  It's Za'atar.

• 43:14Guy Raz?

  Za'atar is this tangy, earthy, Middle Eastern spice made with different types of thyme, maybe some oregano.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  And then other spices like a cumin, sage, some sesame seeds, even chickpeas. I mean, it is a cultural food staple. You know, asking a Middle Eastern person, do you know what Za'atar is? It's like asking an American, do you know what apple pie is?

• 43:36Guy Raz?

  Anyway, a few years ago, Alexander, who happens to be of Lebanese descent, started to notice that Za'atar was showing up in all of these unexpected places, like in corner hipster restaurants, food blogs.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  On blogs, on Instagram, on social media. And I was like, no way. Is Za'atar becoming a thing?

• 43:55Guy Raz?

  Yes, in some parts of the country, Za'atar was becoming a thing. But Alexander wondered why nobody made it the way his mom did, mixing the spices with olive oil into a spread.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  It brings out the flavor of the herbs, you know, the essence of the herbs out more. And, you know, condiments are cool. Everybody loves condiments, right?

• 44:15Guy Raz?

  So Alexander was thinking about all of this last year. And at the same time, he was working at a research firm on Wall Street. It was a job he wasn't really crazy about. And so one night, he was having dinner at his parents' place. Za'atar was, of course, on the table.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  And I'm looking down, my head's between my arms, telling him what's going on. And boom, it just hit me. I'm staring at it. And I said, Mom, Dad, I got it.

• 44:40Guy Raz?

  It's his lightbulb moment. Alexander says, we have got to make Za'atar the way you make it, Mom. And we should sell it like as a spread.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  We've been eating these foods our whole life. We always joke about it. We should have started hummus or we should have started Greek yogurt. So let's do it for Za'atar. We can do this.

• 44:56Guy Raz?

  So a few months later, Alexander walked away from his job. He moved back in with his parents. He found an industrial kitchen. He Googled where to find the spices, the olive oil, the little glass jars. He made his first batch of spreadable Za'atar. And he started going door to door to sell it to specialty stores in New York.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  I had these little gift bags. I had a jar of SDZ, pita chips, recipe cards and our sales sheet. And I'd walk in and I'd say, hey, I think I've got a great product your customers would like. And I'll follow up in a week with you.

• 45:26Guy Raz?

  And when he did follow up in a week, a lot of people said, no.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  No, we don't like this. We don't think this will sell. We don't like the taste, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So dealing with that, you know, people who say that it's business, it's not personal. Whoever came up with that quote or says that never started a business because I would disagree with that for sure.

• 45:48Guy Raz?

  But a few months after he got all those no's.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  I get an email saying, thank you so much for the thoughtful package. We absolutely love this. We'll take two cases. And when I got that email, I started to cry.

• 46:00Guy Raz?

  That email was from one specialty store in Brooklyn. And from there, Alexander started to get a bit more traction. He even got a Za'atar spread into a few Whole Foods in New York City. And now, a year after we first ran this story, the Za'atar spread is in 450 Whole Foods markets across the country. And Alex is planning to roll out four new products next year. And his mom, well, she's still at the center of things. She's the head of research and development.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  I want to share what I ate growing up with everybody else. And that's what I want to do with my life.

• 46:35Guy Raz?

  Alex's company is called Zesty Z. To learn more about it or hear previous episodes of our show, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at howibuiltthis. Our show was produced this week by Rund Abdelfatah, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to J.C. Howard, Noor Kutsi, Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Mia Venkat. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.