Yogi entrepreneurs makes thriving business out of Yoga

Here’s how yogi entrepreneurs have made thriving business out of Yoga.

Zorba chain of yoga studios

CEO of startup Zorba, Sarvesh Shashi, had his first encounter with yoga at the age of 17 when his father, Chennai-based businessman Shashi Kumar, urged him to take up a few classes that he had paid for but could not attend. Few years later, the young entrepreneur has made a thriving business out of yoga with his startup Zorba, a chain of yoga studios across India.

Zorba yoga studios in India offer around 25 forms of yoga (including dance yoga and aqua yoga) to its customers that includes kids as well as senior citizens. The company has over hundreds of trainers specialising in various forms of yoga (yoga in the water and air, basketball yoga, and more).

Zorba yoga studios are also artistically designed studios which make them look more like luxury spas than yoga studios.

Sarvesh’s father, who is chairman of Sabari Group that has business interests in various segments in India’s southern states, was instrumental in encouraging his son to build his own business and subsequently scale it up.

Sarvesh started Zorba’s first studio on Chennai’s Mount Road in an empty warehouse that his father’s company owned. He invested ₹16 lakh to do the interiors and fir branding and marketing; the venture broke even in four months, and more outlets followed (using the franchisee-owned company operated (FOCO) model).

‘Zorba’ in Greek means to live each day fully.

On the advise of his father (to scale big), Sarvesh got his company valued by Chennai-based investment advisory firm Dandekar Capital. Incidentally, Dandekar Capital was advising Talwalkars Better Value Fitness for some strategic deals at the time and helped Zorba connect with Talwalkars. The senior management of Talwalkars visited Zorba’s studios in Chennai, liked the concept and Sarvesh’s vision, and agreed to pick up a stake in Zorba.

Talwalkars acquired a 50 percent stake in Zorba in exchange for $2 million in cash and the understanding that Zorba can set up its shop-in-shop studios at Talwalkars’ gyms across the country on preferential terms of lease. Today, most of Zorba’s studios are located within Talwalkars’ facilities across India. In addition to this, Zorba also leases out the gym floor at several fitness centres (within and outside Talwalkars) during non-peak hours to offer yoga classes.

Zorba has tied up with actor-cum-host Malaika Arora to launch Diva Yoga, targeted at women.

Talwalkar says his company is committed to investing additional resources into Zorba as and when required, but Sarvesh is also scouting for new investors.

Full Story here.