Julie Rice Built a $180M+ Community with SoulCycle, Now She's Doing it Again
Julie Rice built one of the most recognizable brands of our time: SoulCycle. In five years, the team scaled from a studio sourced on Craigslist to a genuinely adored brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars. We asked her all about it and, um, it‘s been a ride. And now she‘s taking those lessons to build a second business, Peoplehood.
Julie was a talent agent in LA craving change, so she moved to New York. She missed the social aspect of fitness she had in LA, and was set up on a friend-date to meet Elizabeth, who wanted to create a fitness business too. The year was 2006 and they decided to open a new kind of cycle studio. They called it SoulCycle.
Julie didn‘t know back then that she was building the SoulCycle as we know it today—she just wanted to make the single cycle studio work as a viable business. They found a space on Craigslist, rented bikes, and pulled together $250k to get started.
“It was my job to make sure that at least 75 people got on bikes a day and I couldn't go home until that happened. If I had to walk up and down Broadway or hand out flyers to doormen, that is what I did.”
Right from the beginning, Julie and Elizabeth focused on turning customers into community by making sure every interaction with the brand helped to build true SoulCycle fans. She says this is an approach that still works today.
“if we all doubled down and really invested in turning our customers into communities, I believe that is the way that you get people to stay and you create a [customer for life].”
After their first year, SoulCycle opened a second location in the Hamptons at a spot called The Barn. This was a real turning point! After that summer, the New York studio started booking out, and SoulCycle opened more studios.
Julie was obsessed with training staff—every single new hire (even the CFO!) spent two weeks behind the front desk learning the business. This move helped SoulCycle maintain the heart and energy that the OG studio was known for, as it scaled into new locations.
After five years of building a truly iconic brand, SoulCycle sold a majority of the business in a strategic partnership with Equinox, AKA the Chanel of gyms. Reports say Julie and Elizabeth both eventually made $90 million from the partnership.
Now, they‘re focused on a new project, Peoplehood: “modern medicine for the loneliness epidemic.“ It‘s basically a workout for your relationships.
With her second business, we wanted to know what Julie was going to do the same and replicate. Much like with SoulCycle, they are both creating something based on a personal need and personal experiences. To build an initial community for Peoplehood, Julie’s been tapping into existing communities or spots where they can find individuals with like-minded interests.
