Interview with Ruth Zukerman, co-founder of Soul Cycle and Flywheel

Ruth Zukerman was programmed to be the perfect princess pleaser. She pursued dance as a career and was constantly turned down which led to low self-esteem and no idea of what to do next. She thought marriage was the solution, but inevitably that failed. Her divorce judge told her to “get a job” and did she ever! Listen in to hear how this #HoShiMo led to the founding of Soul Cycle and FlyWheel!

Podcast Transcript:

Julie Roehm: 00:00 Hello everybody and welcome back to the conversational. Today I'm very excited to be in the studio with Ruth Zukerman. She, as many of you may know, is one of the cofounders of SoulCycle and Flywheel, both successful companies that innovated the studio cycling movement. I'm a big spinner, so again, I give you lots of credit for helping put me on the path to a stronger heart. She also pioneered the industry by creating the studio with a pay per class structure and offering more dedicated genre of group fitness, emphasizing customer service and quality experiences. Her mission is to connect people to each other as well as to their own inner strength and empower them to carry the positive, powerful attitude they have on the bike, on into their lives and their careers, which if anybody, and I have spun at SoulCycle as well, as you know, we have a mutual friend and I spin at a place called JoyRide. There's a shout out for Rhodie.

It is as much about the fitness as it is about the community and the people and just sort of the inspirational stories, and it's sort of those salutations you give to yourself. But for those of us who just never do meditation, it's as close to meditation as I get. So I love that. Ruth also speaks around the country. She inspires people to get unstuck and find new paths and new passions for a successful second, third, or even fourth act in their careers. Her memoir "Riding High: How I Kissed SoulCycle Goodbye, Cofounded Flywheel, and Built the Life I Always Wanted" was published in October of 2018, so I encourage everybody to check that out. Fascinating read. So jumping right in. So before we get to spinning and cycling and I really want to probe into the second, third, fourth because I think you're probably embarking on some number in there.

Tell me, where are you from?

Ruth Zukerman: 01:54 I am from Long Island. I'm very careful not to say Long Guyland. I am from Long Island. I was born there and grew up there, went to college, actually in Massachusetts and then moved right to New York City. And I've lived in the city for about 35 years.

Julie Roehm: 02:10 Wow. What did your parents do?

Ruth Zukerman: 02:14 My father was a physician, and my mother was a psychotherapist.

Julie Roehm: 02:18 Fascinating. So okay, as people know, I must have some sort of inner need to be a psychologist or psychiatrist of sorts, but clearly now like things are coming into focus for me. You've got the whole SoulCycle Flywheel thing, the physician of your father in you with health and wellness and then your mother with the psychotherapy of trying to create that connection.

Ruth Zukerman: 02:41 Exactly.

Julie Roehm: 02:44 Were they, I mean look who wouldn't be proud of you? But did they sort of feel like each one of them was trying to take credit for your success because of their influence?

Ruth Zukerman: 02:52 You know, sadly, my father passed away over 25 years ago, so he didn't get to see any of it.

Julie Roehm: 02:52 I'm sorry.

Ruth Zukerman: 02:57 No, no, that's okay. My mom, yes, she saw me through SoulCycle and the beginning of Flywheel. She's no longer here either as we might get to at some point. She was a tough cookie. So as far as being proud of me, I'm sure she was, but she had her own agenda if you will.

Julie Roehm: 03:22 Well, sure.

Ruth Zukerman: 03:23 Yeah, she was quite a narcissist, and so sometimes when you're dealing with a narcissist it actually, even if she's your mother, it becomes competitive, which one would never think a parent would do with a child. But that's what would happen.

Julie Roehm: 03:38 Were you an only child?

Ruth Zukerman: 03:39 No, I have twin brothers who are older.

Julie Roehm: 03:42 Interesting.

Ruth Zukerman: 03:42 I was the youngest, and I was obviously the only daughter and I really was programmed from birth to be the perfect princess pleaser of the family. And it takes a toll after a while. And you know with her it definitely did.

Julie Roehm: 04:02 Was she a professional? Was she in psychiatry, psychology?

Ruth Zukerman: 04:07 She was a therapist, and she had a private practice.

Julie Roehm: 04:10 So for your whole childhood?

Ruth Zukerman: 04:11 Yes, very part time, so she was definitely there for the kids. But you know, and as we got older she increased her practice.

Julie Roehm: 04:23 You look very healthy and well put together, so I'm sure that she was, but I guess my question was, did she bring some of that work home with her sometimes? [crosstalk 00:00:04:31].

Ruth Zukerman: 04:23 In terms of how she-

Julie Roehm: 04:33 Yes, how she interacted.

Ruth Zukerman: 04:34 Absolutely. And you know, she was my go to actually whenever I had an issue, especially as I was getting older and I wanted to talk about a boyfriend or I wanted to just talk about why I was feeling depressed.

She was definitely my go to, but it was a little too much. I mean I relied on her too much and she fed into that. So it caused me to really take a long time in terms of learning how to be independent.

Julie Roehm: 05:04 When you left and went to college, you said, did you say you went to Massachusetts?

Ruth Zukerman: 05:10 Yes, I went to Mount Holyoke.

Julie Roehm: 05:11 So was that moment of leaving to go again your first sort of foray into independence as you said? Was that challenging?

Ruth Zukerman: 05:19 I would say it was challenging on one side of it, but on the other side of it, it was also just really freeing for me to actually be on my own and realize that I can make decisions on my own.

Julie Roehm: 05:33 So what did you end up studying there?

Ruth Zukerman: 05:35 I was a dance major.

Julie Roehm: 05:37 No kidding.

Ruth Zukerman: 05:37 And a philosophy minor [crosstalk 00:05:39] or not.

Julie Roehm: 05:40 So you're still combining the two things. It still makes sense.

Ruth Zukerman: 05:44 It's really true. It's so strange how that is when you look back. But I was a dancer since age eight, and so I had it in my head that I was going to grow up and be a professional dancer. And so-

Julie Roehm: 05:54 What kind of dance?

Ruth Zukerman: 05:56 I evolved into a modern dancer. And so I chose a school specifically that had a strong dance department, but it was good academically as well to kind of cover all bases. And I graduated, I immediately moved to New York city and I just thought, okay, well I will now launch my career as a professional dancer. Well, it's not that easy. Super tough, especially in this city. So but I knew I wanted to live in New York, and so I gave it a shot. And about two years in I just couldn't hack it anymore.

I couldn't hack the life, the rejection over and over again, the competition. And I mean there were so many, there are obviously so many talented artists in the city and I was good and I was talented as well, but not good enough. I would go to auditions where there would be a hundred people, they were looking for 10 and maybe I made it down to the last 20 but I didn't get the job. So it was a tough decision to give it up. I mean, I directed my whole life toward that direction and that was really my first re-invention moment because I gave it up, and I literally truly had no idea what I was going to do next.

Julie Roehm: 07:10 So this was all like, we talk about Holy shit moments [crosstalk 00:00:07:13].

Ruth Zukerman: 07:13 That was my first.

Julie Roehm: 07:14 This was the one. When you were faced with that and you had come to the personal realization, this either wasn't going to happen or you just couldn't put yourself through it anymore, whichever, what did you do? Did you talk to your mom? What did you do?

Ruth Zukerman: 07:29 I did. I talked to my mom. I talked to my friends, and it was kind of this very frustrating point of my life because I literally, twofold. I literally had no idea what else I was interested in as almost pathetic as that sounds. I literally thought, "Well, I'm not interested in anything else so I have no idea what I'm going to do next." That was the thought combined with really low self esteem, which had kind of been ingrained way before I had graduated college, but it didn't help that I didn't make it as a dancer. I believe timing wise at that moment I was also broken up with by my first real boyfriend after college, so it kind of all came tumbling down on me and, and it was tough.

It was a tough time. And so I literally thought, "Well, I've always been interested in cooking and food and restaurants. Maybe I can find something with that." So I ended up taking a job at a catering company in the West Village. The office was in a dismal basement. I'll never forget. And they gave me the job to be the office manager. I'd never sat at a desk in an office in my life. Everything happens for a reason. We learn from all of our experiences. And from that one I learned that I will never sit at a desk again. And I did last there two years.

Julie Roehm: 08:59 So can I put like timescale on it? How old were you, like what kind of year was this?

Ruth Zukerman: 09:03 I have to think about that. So that happened, I would say I took the job in 81.

Julie Roehm: 09:12 So you're young. You're in your early 20s.

Ruth Zukerman: 09:14 Late 20s. Actually no, you're right. I was about 24 and a half, 25.

Julie Roehm: 09:21 Mid-20s, okay.

Ruth Zukerman: 09:22 Yes. I took the job. As I said, I was miserable. During that time period of being at that job, I was set up on a date and I met a man who thought I was the greatest thing.

Julie Roehm: 09:38 This is before Tinder everybody who's listening. This is when you actually had to meet people. [crosstalk 00:09:41].

Ruth Zukerman: 09:39 Yes, I actually met someone organically. Yes.

Julie Roehm: 09:41 By talking to them in person.

Ruth Zukerman: 09:43 Like we went to a restaurant with my friend, and we had a very nice time and he was pretty enamored with me, and we started dating and eventually I made the decision to marry this person. Part of what went into that decision in retrospect was my low self esteem and my thinking that I wasn't going to figure out on my own what kind of career I could come up with next, and so cringe-worthy moment for feminists and I like to think of myself as a feminist, I got married as a solution. I knew I wanted to be a mom at some point. My ex-husband now, spoiler alert, very ambitious, very driven, and I knew that he could create a nice life for us. And I certainly loved him at the time and it just all, I thought that will be the perfect solution and answer to my problems. So we know that's not always the best reasoning.

Julie Roehm: 10:49 But I mean look, I'm going to go back. This is in the 80s.

Ruth Zukerman: 10:52 It is in the 80s.

Julie Roehm: 10:54 I'm like a little commercial here because for people who are listening who might be younger, they might be like what? Like if you go back, and I'm big on old movies and the 80s are not that old movies.

Ruth Zukerman: 10:54 As am I. Yes.

Julie Roehm: 11:06 But like you watch like Wall Street, the movie Wall Street or you watch, I mean Working Woman or Secret of My Success. I'm trying to like, the kind of the pop culture ones. You look at those scenarios and how women were treated in them, even though that some of them the women were like heroines in it. They still were treated as second. We were still trying to overcome that in the 80s and not in such an obvious way is we've been able to as a group.

I think you're probably being a little hard on yourself that you found a solution [crosstalk 00:11:39]. I think a lot of people were like, look, this is how you do it. I mean, we were children of the boomers, right? So this is how you do it. You go to school. You find a job, maybe. Get married. You have kids, and when you're unsure yourself. No?

Ruth Zukerman: 11:54 No, you're so right. And I am hard on myself typically.

Julie Roehm: 11:59 I don't know why.

Ruth Zukerman: 12:02 But anyway, that's how it played out. And the truth was it wasn't the right partnership with him. And I, at the same time, had never been around divorce. My parents were together, were never divorced and no one in my family had been, and it wasn't an option. So I stuck with it and I had kids, thank God. And I had my two twin girls in 1990. They're 29 today. Crazy. And I thought that will solve everything because I always wanted to be a mom. I'll put all my focus on the kids. We know that doesn't work either. And so at the age of six for them, I made the decision that I was going to pick up and leave the marriage. And you know, people tell me in retrospect like, "Wow, you're really strong that you were able to do that." And even with that, I don't give myself credit.

I think, well, I felt that I had no choice. This was something I had to do. I don't want to leave out the fact that it was my intro into the therapeutic process myself that helped me get there because it helped me build the strength to do it. And it helped me realize that the marriage I was in was just not right for me.

Julie Roehm: 13:24 Was your mom still your mother still around? [crosstalk 00:13:27].

Ruth Zukerman: 13:26 She was.

Julie Roehm: 13:27 I'm very curious now because we brought her in so much. A, how did she feel about the divorce, and was she helpful to you with sort of this self therapy or-

Ruth Zukerman: 13:40 To be honest, I believe deep down she was a bit conflicted about the divorce. Again, she's from her generation. And she often, I'm going to get a little shrinky here, but she often projected her way of being onto me and she happened to be, believe it or not, a very fearful person.

Despite the narcissism and the outward appearance of being a very strong woman, she was very fearful. And so I do believe there was part of her who was terrified for me thinking "How is she going to survive on her own?" But again, those kinds of thoughts really played into my self esteem growing up. And when you're a child, you don't know what's going on.

Julie Roehm: 14:27 And when you don't have another set of experiences or emotions to pull from, it's the only one you have, right?

Ruth Zukerman: 14:33 Exactly. So on the one hand, I think she was very nervous and scared for me. On the other hand, she knew the marriage wasn't right for me. And you know, of course, ultimately wanted me to be happy.

Julie Roehm: 14:45 That's good. So kind of going back to this self therapy, what did you do?

Ruth Zukerman: 14:51 So I got to the point where I realized I had to leave. I knew it was the right decision, so I literally had to pick up with my six year old girls and move out of

Ruth Zukerman: 15:00 They literally had to pick up with my six year old girls and move out of the apartment. That was the only choice I was given. I had to find another apartment quickly and I did and we moved out. I was so nervous about the girls and how they would react, but they were pretty great about it. I remember putting the key in the door of the new apartment and they were six, so I couldn't really explain to them exactly what was going on other than we're moving into a new apartment and I was so nervous. I opened the door and this apartment had a very long hallway that led to their bedroom and I said, "Your bedroom's at the end of the hall." They ran down the hallway and we're jumping up and down because of how much they love their new bedroom. I just looked up at the sky and I said, "Thank you. Thank you.".

Julie Roehm: 15:51 Oh my God. Oh my God.

Ruth Zukerman: 15:53 That was the start of my life on my own as a single mom.

Julie Roehm: 15:58 Isn't that funny how just something simple like that can totally... I'm sure that did a lot for, no? Changing your confidence. I mean versus that they come in and lay on the floor crying.

Ruth Zukerman: 16:10 Yes, so much and life changed drastically from that point because I had a full time help with the girls when I was married, now I don't, can't afford it. I was there for them every day, once in a while I would get a babysitter to get a break at night, but I was hands on 24/7-

Julie Roehm: 16:31 Were you working, still?

Ruth Zukerman: 16:32 At that time I was not working and that was my next moment. That was my next moment of reinvention because I was a stay at home mom and I'll never forget, unfortunately, during the divorce process and the separation process we had to go to court one day. Excuse me. We couldn't make a decision about something and we sat in the judges chambers and it was a woman and part of the disagreement was over alimony and child support. I had a woman judge and I thought, okay, this is going to work for me because she'll understand that I was a stay at home mom and the girls were only six and I think they still need me at home. I kind of pled my cause and she looked at me and she said, "Honey, you're going to have to get a job."

Julie Roehm: 17:25 Wow.

Ruth Zukerman: 17:25 Yeah. I believe I was trembling, again, didn't know what I'm going to do now and walked out of there and thought, okay, I'm just going to have to figure this out. It just so happens that was when I discovered the spin class for the first time.

Julie Roehm: 17:46 You walked out of there... Is this still like '96, like mid '90s type of thing?

Ruth Zukerman: 17:50 This is late '90s.

Julie Roehm: 17:52 Late '90s, okay. Where did you find this?

Ruth Zukerman: 17:55 What happened was and I just want to include because it's important part of the story, that previous to that and when I was married and before I was married, I was also teaching group fitness part time. I had found an aerobic studio in my neighborhood on the upper west side, it was the small hole in the wall, boutique actually and the woman who owned it asked me... I went there to take a class and she asked me if I wanted to teach there because she saw my dance background and it was kind of a dance-

Julie Roehm: 18:24 Was it like a step class? I remember those old step-

Ruth Zukerman: 18:26 I did step after that. Yeah. I did it all. I just wanted to include that little did I know, again, looking back in retrospect, that was kind of my master's degree in group fitness.

Julie Roehm: 18:38 Did you end up teaching?

Ruth Zukerman: 18:39 I did.

Julie Roehm: 18:39 You did. Okay.

Ruth Zukerman: 18:40 I taught there for eight years.

Julie Roehm: 18:41 Eight years?

Ruth Zukerman: 18:42 I combined-

Julie Roehm: 18:44 Just part time, right?

Ruth Zukerman: 18:44 Yes, part time-

Julie Roehm: 18:44 Just a couple of hours.

Ruth Zukerman: 18:44 Yes and I did private training and I did some step classes. Again, I would do it part time because the girls were then born and I was taking care of them as well. Back to, I was a member of the Reebok Club on the upper west side, it's actually now an Equinox. It was a beautiful full service gym and I was able to keep my membership after I had left the marriage. I decided during this period, which was very difficult, needless to say, we need to take care of ourselves, right? We need to stay strong, we need to not let ourselves go. I thought, I'm going to keep going to the gym and take care of my body and my head. I had seen the spin classes going on in this all glass room at the Reebok Club and they were very intimidating to me. I would hear this loud kind of clubby music and the room would be packed in the sound of the wheels and it looked like a club and I was nervous.

One day I said, "I'm just going to bite the bullet. I'm going to go in there.", because I was very intrigued. I didn't go with a friend. I went in by myself. Julie, that was it. By the end of the 45 minutes I saw what happened to me. I went through this routine and I say routine because in a way it kind of was like a dance routine because you were doing choreographed movement to the beat of the music that the instructor chose, the playlist. Something about it, at the end of the 45 minutes I felt physically exhilarated. I felt mentally exhilarated because there was something about being on a stationary bike where obviously you're not going to fall off, you can close your eyes, you can tap into the music, you can tap into whatever mood you are in, the thoughts that are going on in your head and make it all work for you. It became this experience as opposed to an exercise class. I got it after the first class and then I started going regularly and it became a very important part of my life.

Julie Roehm: 20:53 Did you have another job at this point or was this-

Ruth Zukerman: 20:55 I did not.

Julie Roehm: 20:56 No. Okay. You were doing this and still part time... Were you still part time?

Ruth Zukerman: 20:59 I was able, no. I had a certain period of time where I was able to stay afloat, if you will, with the payments I was getting and fortunately have this time to explore a little bit. Again, a looking back moment... You know how mothers always say, "Maybe you should take a course." I always hated when she said that, but I thought she's probably right. Let me just explore and figure this out. Oddly, I took a course in memoir writing. I knew that writing was something I always appreciated and enjoyed and I have no idea why I took a memoir course, but I did. Never in a million years thought I would ever write a memoir, let alone publish a book, but I did. It's just interesting how-

Julie Roehm: 20:59 Amazing.

Ruth Zukerman: 21:50 It's interesting to look at what happened during that period.

Julie Roehm: 21:53 Well, I mean, yes, I'm sure it served you well in terms of writing your book, but also I've had the privilege now because you were a guest at Joyride, of taking one of your classes, which I think makes me special.

Ruth Zukerman: 22:05 Thank you.

Julie Roehm: 22:06 When you speak, it's a little like excerpts from a memoir, at least my experience was, of listening to you-

Ruth Zukerman: 22:13 That's exactly right.

Julie Roehm: 22:15 You didn't just give general philosophical Buddha-like comments, you kind of connected it to yourself and helping people find similar connections. I think in some ways it probably helps.... How did you... Memoir writing. Now you love spinning, you're cycling, okay. How does SoulCycle?

Ruth Zukerman: 22:36 I'll tell you how it happened. I guess two years in, my kind of guru spin instructor because we all kind of find our guru instructor, whatever the genre is. One day announced he was leaving town, he was moving to Florida. It was a, I'm embarrassed to say, a devastating moment for me. I literally thought my world fell apart.

Julie Roehm: 23:01 Well, he was probably kind of like your therapist in some ways, right?

Ruth Zukerman: 23:03 Completely. He was part of my experience with spin and I had no idea how I was going to handle this and I thought... I wasn't really wild about the other instructors who were at the club at that time. I loved it so much I thought, you know what, I'm just going to have to start teaching myself. I started to go into the spin room by myself. I made my own playlists and realized I can do this. I asked if I could audition. They said, sure. I audition one day, they hired me in three minutes. They said, you're done. You're good. You're hired. Again, because of my dance experience. I knew music. I knew how to count music. I knew how to move to music, how to choreograph so it came pretty easily to me.

What didn't come easily was being up there in front of a group. I mean on the one hand I grew up as a performer and I had my experience performing as a dancer, which I always loved, but it was a whole different thing getting up there and having to speak. That took a while. It took a while for me to get comfortable with it and it took a while for me to kind of hone what would become my way of teaching a spin class. As you just touched upon, a big part of that became this ability that I kind of cultivated to speak about my own issues and things I would go through during the course of my week to an entire group of strangers. When I did it, and when I do it, it's never subjective. It's because I don't want to make the class about me. I put all of the kind of little anecdotes in objective terms and in a way that everybody can hopefully relate to it. What I quickly found was that all of the issues we go through, pretty much everyone else is going through them too. Most importantly, if I was able to make myself vulnerable and courageous enough to make myself vulnerable in front of all of these people, that's when it would resonate with the people in the class.

That's how it started and I found that with every class people would come up to me after the class and say, "Oh my God, I can't believe you talked about such and such because I felt like you were talking to me. I went through that this week." The more of that kind of feedback that I received, the more it encouraged me to keep doing it.

Julie Roehm: 25:35 From there you co-founded so you met some other people-

Ruth Zukerman: 25:39 Yes.

Julie Roehm: 25:39 Were they in class with you that you-

Ruth Zukerman: 25:41 Yes. One of my SoulCycle co-founders had been taking my class out in the Hamptons on the east end of Long Island and she found me one summer, actually it was the summer of 2005, followed me in the fall back to the Reebok Club and approached me one day and said, "Hey, love your class. I've become a big fan of it. I would like to open a spin studio in New York and I know nothing about spin or teaching spin, I just know that I love it and I would love you to be the face of the business. I want it to be your method. What do you think?" Within 30 seconds, Julie, I said, I'm in.

Julie Roehm: 25:41 You knew.

Ruth Zukerman: 26:20 It had already been my dream, but I never had the capital to do it. That was what she was bringing to the game.

Julie Roehm: 26:26 Did she have a business sense?

Ruth Zukerman: 26:29 Her experience was in selling real estate, so she had-

Julie Roehm: 26:32 A little bit.

Ruth Zukerman: 26:33 ... a little experience with that. Obviously not on the creative end.

Julie Roehm: 26:35 It was a good marriage though. A little bit more of the-

Ruth Zukerman: 26:38 Yes. Look, she was providing the capital and I couldn't do that myself. I had never run a business so it would have been hard for me to get the funding myself or at least I thought so at that time. We ended up with three co-founders because the third co-founder was one of my closest friends and also a big fan of my class. She had just moved to New York from LA. She was a talent agent in LA and she and I used to have dreams of opening our own place and she didn't have the capital either. I'm a very loyal person, especially when it comes to friends and family and I felt bad about going off with someone else and kind of leaving her out of it. I talked about her to Elizabeth, who was the first person who approached me and asked if the three of us could meet. Elizabeth said, "Sure." We did and Elizabeth and Julie hit it off and so that was the start of SoulCycle.

Julie Roehm: 27:36 How quickly did it start? 2005 is the conversation started. When did you open the first one?

Ruth Zukerman: 27:41 In the spring of 2006.

Julie Roehm: 27:43 Wow.

Ruth Zukerman: 27:44 I know.

Julie Roehm: 27:44 That was pretty quick.

Ruth Zukerman: 27:44 It was very quick. Literally went out, bought our front desk at Ikea, set it up ourselves, found the space, which was again, a hole in the wall, ironically, directly across the street from where I taught aerobics in the '80s.

Julie Roehm: 28:00 Oh my gosh.

Ruth Zukerman: 28:00 How crazy is that? Again, it was actually a former dance studio in the back of a building on the first floor. We were able to fit in, I believe it was 32 bikes. We barely had an office, it was really the cubbies where we stored the shoes and we fit a desk back in the back area as well. That was SoulCycle. We found out, there are always mishaps when you start a business. We found out after we signed the lease that we would not be able to have any signage outside, could you imagine?

Julie Roehm: 28:32 What?

Ruth Zukerman: 28:32 We're in the back of a building. We didn't know what we were going to do. Elizabeth came up with the idea of taking a Rickshaw, with a bike and painting it the SoulCycle yellow and we just parked it outside the door with a big sign on it that said SoulCycle and that was our solution. Little did we know that as time went on, again, no signage outside, it became kind of the club that you had to know, right?

Julie Roehm: 29:04 Love that. Kind of cultish-

Ruth Zukerman: 29:05 To get into it, right. I really do think it was... It added to the vibe that eventually grew out of SoulCycle, which was a very exclusive kind of place where you had to kind of be trendy and be in the know to know about it. I mean, before we knew it, there were Escalades lined up down the block with SoulCycle riders.

Julie Roehm: 29:29 That's crazy. All right, so how many years... Kind of fast forward me towards how many studios, how quickly did it get there?

Ruth Zukerman: 29:38 Our second studio happened in the summer of 2007 because we decided we needed to open in the Hamptons. I mean, what better way to get the word out? You have people coming there from all over the world.

Julie Roehm: 29:51 The summer, people summer there.

Ruth Zukerman: 29:53 Totally. That was our idea for studio two. We lucked out and found an incredible space in this barn in Bridgehampton so it felt very.

Ruth Zukerman: 30:00 Double space in this barn in Bridgehampton. So it felt very country-ish in Hamptons-ish. And so we opened there and by the end of that summer, the business exploded literally to the point where we got back into the upper West side studio in the fall and could not fit everyone through our doors. That's how incredible it was. And we had already started a third studio that was in the works on the upper East side. Things did not turn out to be very easy for me in that I made some mistakes in terms of lack of my legal protection. And there were pitfalls along the way because the partnership was ultimately not working out. And so I left soul cycle three years in. I speak about it very easily, I rack it up as one of the few traumatic experiences in my life.

Julie Roehm: 31:03 A big [inaudible 00:31:04].

Ruth Zukerman: 31:04 Yes. I had to leave what was my baby. I had to leave my entire clientele of people that I had actually built at the Reebok Club. They all came over, Julie.

Julie Roehm: 31:17 Because of you.

Ruth Zukerman: 31:17 Yes.

Julie Roehm: 31:18 I'm sure.

Ruth Zukerman: 31:19 And as I said, they left this beautiful facility and were willing to come to a home wall to take the spin class that eventually was honed in this boutique environment. And so it was traumatic and I never in a million years predicted things would work out that way. But they did. And so I left and fortunately met up with my future co-founders, a Flywheel at a soul cycle class. And that was the summer of 2009 and they found me and asked me if I would meet with them. And I did. And my partner Jay was the person who came up with this concept of adding technology, adding metrics to the bike so you could finally be able to measure what you were doing in the spin room.

And I thought it was genius. No one had done it. And what really excited me about it was here I was starting round two of the same type of business. But it was such an amazing way to differentiate ourselves from soul cycle. So we launched Flywheel in February of 2010 and there I was competing with my first business.

Julie Roehm: 32:34 Right. Super. I mean that must have been awkward. And I know you said things didn't work out well with part of the partnership. And look, sometimes three's a crowd as they say. Right. And there's weird dynamics, but I wanted to go back to something that I think is profound because I think for anybody in business, I think probably especially for women in business, I'm the same way. When it's people that I and love personally, I tend to be all in and the sort of the legal thing almost feels like an insult.

Ruth Zukerman: 33:05 That's exactly what happened.

Julie Roehm: 33:07 So, and then you find out that maybe they weren't as loyal or as committed or connected as you and you end up with a major short end of the stick. And I know financially you didn't win in the thing that was yours. I'm sure it left a very bitter taste in your mouth that would have mine. I would love to people can look up legal Preston, I don't care about that. I'm much more interested in you personally because I think being able to pull yourself back up and start this Flywheel, but I'm sure you still had a lot of this emotion and energy from what happened carry forward. How did you deal with that in the midst of everything and you're still raising two girls or I mean like, I'm sure it was just wildly tumultuous for you.

Ruth Zukerman: 33:55 Absolutely. It was, and as you astutely pointed out, it was tumultuous for a while and I kind of had one day, an aha moment and that was probably a year into Flywheel. And my co-founder, Jay said to me maybe you should just focus on the fact that you have now not started just one successful business, but now you've started two successful businesses. You have co-founded two successful spin businesses. And as simple as that sounds, there was just something I guess about the timing and the way he said it that that really helped me enormously. It was unfortunate that my former co-founders after all of a sudden done for whatever reason chose to erase me from the story. And that was one of the hardest parts because I couldn't fathom how anyone could really do that. Obviously they must've had their reasons but that made the struggle that much harder. And so-

Julie Roehm: 35:00 Because it became personal.

Ruth Zukerman: 35:00 It did, it became personal. And I was constantly calling people like Time Magazine, a reputable periodical obviously. And I remember our PR person at Flywheel had to tell them actually, do you understand that you have erroneous information in the article? And they were furious and they changed it and they retracted and they put in something about me but anyone want to keep doing that. But eventually I was able to start talking about myself as I am co-founder of two spin businesses and as time went on that kind of helped in that entire area in that subject matter.

Julie Roehm: 35:43 Well you earned it.

Ruth Zukerman: 35:43 I did.

Julie Roehm: 35:43 I mean why should you allow, I mean that's standing up for it. I mean talk about self-esteem and confidence is just to, you're not bashing anything but you're owning the thing that you do deserve.

Ruth Zukerman: 35:54 I'm owning it.

Julie Roehm: 35:54 That's yours.

Ruth Zukerman: 35:55 100%.

Julie Roehm: 35:56 All right. So Flywheel when did that? So walk me to the end of Flywheel.

Ruth Zukerman: 36:00 So Flywheels started 2010 again a moment where sometimes it's helpful to be second in the marketplace. More people knew about spin at that point. However, we opened downtown, SoulCycle was more uptown at that point in time. And so at the same time we got to introduce spinning to a whole new group because there was nothing going on in flat iron back then. It's interesting that flat iron is literally the fitness hub. Today everything is there, but business grew quickly for us. We sold out our first-class probably a month in. And our philosophy was we need to run with this, we need to open as many studios as we can, as quickly as we can. So that was the way we approached it. People always laugh at the fact that one of our business strategies was to open a Flywheel wherever there was whole foods. So we would go into-

Julie Roehm: 36:55 That was funny.

Ruth Zukerman: 36:56 That was it. And so we would go into other cities. We focused mostly on urban areas in the beginning and we would open next to a whole foods. And that was our formula. And it worked. And so I'm just going to jump ahead. But eventually we opened, I guess we had 22 studios across the country by 2013 and it was at that point so we're three years in that we started fielding interest in from people who were interested in buying the company. And this was just such an ego boost for all of us. I mean, it was kind of like a pinch ourselves moment and felt amazing and that was a big moment where the three of us looked at each other and thought, are we ready to sell? Is this something we really want to do?

And then the offers started coming in more frequently and we started entertaining them. And the truth is, excuse my language the three of us had worked our asses off for all of those years. We were ready to see some money that would be nice. And so we got very close to a deal with one particular company and at that point we had had a strategic investor who had come in in 2012 who came in and really helped us with expansion.

He kind of stepped in at the last minute and said, hold on, if anyone's going to buy this company, I will. And that was it. We were able to make a deal with him and sell Flywheel. And that monetary event financial event happened in March of 2014 and so another huge moment because the company sold. You can declare victory.

Julie Roehm: 38:40 Exactly.

Ruth Zukerman: 38:41 And it felt really good and did I make a killing and am I never working another day in my life? The answer is no. I probably will always want to work, but I'll have to as well and I will. But I was able to really create a beautiful life for myself and it felt amazing and for my daughters. And I think the biggest gift that I gave to myself was I bought a house in Sag Harbor, a little house in the village. It's 200 years old and I love it. And it brings me an enormous amount of pleasure as does it for my girls as well.

So that happened, and I know this is very common, but everything changed. And I know this happens with takeovers. I stayed with the company, my two co-founders left very quickly and a lot of people left really quickly. And so the entire kind of team that helped create Flywheel was gone.

And I felt kind of like I was operating without a net, all of my kind of support system had left. And so it was kind of a growing experience for me, growing pains in terms of how to handle this new iteration of the company. So it was difficult. It had been a difficult time and I felt my way through it and kind of had to advocate for myself in terms of where I really wanted to see myself, what I wanted my role to be. So I did and stuck with it as long as I could. And then made the very difficult decision to leave this company in December of last year. So it's been almost a year that I've been away.

Julie Roehm: 40:30 So when did you write the book?

Ruth Zukerman: 40:33 I wrote the book... The book was released in-

Julie Roehm: 40:37 Right, 18?

Ruth Zukerman: 40:37 In 18 I probably wrote it a year and a half before that.

Julie Roehm: 40:42 Okay. So is there another book in the works maybe?

Ruth Zukerman: 40:46 I've been encouraged to write another book and I'm thinking about it. Not sure yet. Not formulated yet.

Julie Roehm: 40:52 And so given that you opened up with second, third, fourth careers that we talked about in your bio, what are you exploring? What are you thinking about?

Ruth Zukerman: 41:01 Well, one of the things the book afforded me was, as you said in the beginning of the podcast that I am doing speaking engagements across the country and I am loving them. I didn't know how I would do and how I would feel about them, but they're going really well. And what I realized was kind of like the book with the speaking engagements, I'm able to kind of do what I did on a bike, but just obviously reach a larger audience and not be on a bike.

And I do the same thing. I just inspire people by telling them my life story, which is what the book is. And I've been getting such incredible feedback from it. And I've been speaking at anywhere from large banks and finance institutions to graduate schools. I'm speaking at Stanford business school next week.

Julie Roehm: 41:50 Oh my God that's amazing.

Ruth Zukerman: 41:51 I can't wait. And then was in a couple of weeks ago and all the grad students come to me and they want to share their business ideas and I love it. I'm having a great time, so I'd like to continue doing that.

Julie Roehm: 42:01 That's great.

Ruth Zukerman: 42:02 Yes. I'm just started teaching again, so I'm doing a pop up at the JCC on the upper West side, which interestingly is a place I always seem to come back to because it's like home for me and we actually had a Flywheel at the JCC that we had built out and Flywheel had pulled out of there in the new iteration.

They kept it actually the same way. We still have stadium seating and so I thought, I'll just go back there and it'll feel like home and it does. I just started back there and all my people are coming back and it feels amazing. So between teaching and the speaking engagement, I'm really figuring it out, Julie, whether I want to start a new business, start round three, which is a little intimidating.

Julie Roehm: 42:48 Daunting, right?

Ruth Zukerman: 42:49 Daunting to do it again. But it's not out of the realm of possibilities at all. Do I want to focus on working on kind of the root brand and seeing in how many different ways I can take it, whether it's product, partnership, retail I don't know. So I think the most important thing I've realized is that I need to take my time and be mindful about this next decision.

I do a lot of networking and just trying to speak to as many people in and out of the industry as possible and get people's feedback, kind of really study the industry because it's changed so much. And certainly with Peloton and bringing exercise and fitness into the home, there's a lot to look at-

Julie Roehm: 43:37 I love the subway today, by the way is that the Mirror.

Ruth Zukerman: 43:39 The Mirror is huge. And I have met brand who founded the Mirror. It's a great product and yeah, so it's important to see what's taking, what's not taking and in which direction to go.

Julie Roehm: 43:51 Well, I think you'd be a massive asset to any of those people for certainly board positions and things like that.

Ruth Zukerman: 43:57 Thank you, yes. That too as well.

Julie Roehm: 43:58 I love, so I've done a lot of speaking myself and I think you would be hugely great. I've also had to bring in speakers for big company and I think you would be brilliant. What a great inspirational story. For me, your story embodies sort of what the conversation is about, which is you successful people's careers and these moments that come along that kind of can knock you off course and what can happen and in some ways sad as it was for you to be knocked off course you could certainly declare victory with what you've done. And I think you'll be, I mean look, you've already won the game, but I think you have so much to give to people who are thinking about it or feeling down and even daily in those classes, those pop up classes. I know I was inspired by you, so.

Ruth Zukerman: 44:48 Thank you.

Julie Roehm: 44:49 Thank you so much for coming today. I appreciate it.

Ruth Zukerman: 44:51 Of course, thank you for having me.

Julie Roehm: 44:51 Thank you.