One of our newest franchisees, Sophie is a former wedding and events manager who has always loved yoga and felt drawn to the idea of one day opening her own studio. She found that her practice had amazing benefits both mentally and physically, and wanted to share this experience with as many people as possible.
Sophie’s passion for health and wellbeing started with yoga about 15 years ago. With a high pressure career working as a wedding and events manager everyday, she found a release and calming escape within her yoga practice. Yoga then became even more powerful to her when she found Hotpod Yoga, believing there was nothing quite like and knew then it was a Hotpod Yoga Studio she wanted to open.
Having grown up in Cheltenham and relocating to Poole to live with her husband, an SBS soldier based in Poole, Sophie has now settled in Cheltenham Spa where they both always dreamed of ending up, surrounded by friends and family and owning her own Hotpod Yoga Studio with her late husband as inspiration to keep moving forward and to never give up on our dream.
Sophie launched Hotpod Yoga Cheltenham at the end of 2023. We wanted to know more about how she felt about the journey of becoming a HPY Studio Owner:
The process has been amazing, from the initial call of interest to visiting HQ and signing my contract. The continued love and support from the entire team and fellow franchisees is something very special. You become part of the Hotpod family straight away and feel so supported. Owning and running a business can be a very lonely, solitary and scary pursuit however opening a franchise takes those feelings away somewhat as you always have the amazing, talented and experienced team to fall back on and talk to when things aren’t quite as you expected. After all, they’ve seen it all before. It’s hard work and at times I may question it all, especially during the expensive build process and run up to actually launching my business however I truly believe that the things in life worth having, aren’t supposed to be easy. That’s the fun of the journey.
Sophie has always enjoyed meeting new people and bringing people together, which is one of the aspects of being a studio owner she is most excited about:
I’m excited to create a community and enjoy seeing people stepping into the pod for the first time and becoming obsessed, just like I did. I love that I will be the reason in creating a space for so many amazing people to visit and start, adapt or continue their yoga journey.
Sophie will be launching her own Hotpod Yoga studio in Cheltenham. Find out more about becoming a HPY Studio Owner.