TOP RIGHT, HOTWORX FOUNDER STEPHEN SMITH
Stephen Smith first began selling gym memberships as an 18-year-old in Mississippi. What started as a career in gym franchising — eventually owning three Gold’s Gyms — evolved into something unexpected. In the mid-1990s, Stephen teamed up with business partner Nancy Price to launch Planet Beach, one of the first tanning salon franchises in the US, which would spawn the creation of the fitness franchise, HOTWORX.
When Planet Beach began, no one was franchising tanning salons and the duo built a booming business. But when the 2008 financial crash hit, followed by the 2010 imposition of a 10% federal tanning tax under the Affordable Care Act, the tanning industry imploded almost overnight. They needed to pivot fast.
In August 2014, on vacation with Nancy and her husband Jerome, an exercise physiologist and former competitive bodybuilder like Stephen, a conversation sparked a game-changing idea. Jerome had been practicing Bikram yoga – discovering the benefits of this hot workout, but found it was too time consuming at 90 minutes. Stephen had recently added infrared saunas to some Planet Beach locations. What if, Jerome wondered aloud, you could practice yoga inside the infrared sauna? Read More
