YOGA: STRETCHING AN EMPIRE
When the Internet boom came crashing down, high-tech entrepreneurs Rob Wrubel and George Lichter were left with bad backs from too much time on airplanes and in front of computers. To recuperate, the duo--who'd previously led the software company Knowledge Adventures and the search engine Ask Jeeves--turned to yoga. And while casting about for their next business venture, they bypassed ideas like water-purification technology and instead became the co-CEOs of Yoga Works. Their goal: to launch a national chain of high-quality yoga studios.
Since last year they've bought up established studios in Los Angeles, New York and Orange County, Calif.; they currently operate 14 locations and are working the kinks out before expanding nationally. They compare their business to Whole Foods Market, which brings healthy food to the masses while earning nice profits. Fifteen million Americans already practice yoga, according to Yoga Journal, and 20 million others intend to start. "It's not a fad," says venture capitalist Corey Mulloy of Highland Capital Partners, which is backing Yoga Works. If this start-up succeeds, its founders may invent a new pose to perform alongside the downward dog and the lotus: counting the coins.
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Daniel McGinn is a national correspondent, based in Boston. He writes about management and other topics, and also helps oversee Newsweek's partnership in the Kaplan-Newsweek MBA program, which launched in late 2006.
McGinn joined Newsweek in 1992 as a summer intern. He worked in New York until 1996, when he moved to Detroit as a correspondent and bureau chief. In Detroit he covered the auto industry and other Midwest business stories. He moved to Boston in 1999. He has written cover profiles of business leaders like Bill Ford and Jack Welch, along with cover stories on topics ranging from the economy to marriage to children's television. His work as won awards from the Automotive Press Association and the National Association of Real Estate Editors, and he was twice ranked among America's 30 best young business reporters.
McGinn is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College, and he also holds an MBA from Auburn University. His freelance writing has appeared in Wired, Inc., Fast Company and The Boston Globe Magazine. He has appeared as a guest on NBC's Today Show, NPR, CNBC and MSNBC. His first book, "HOUSE LUST: America's Obsession with our Homes," will be published by Doubleday in December 2007. A native of New Jersey, McGinn and his wife live in Massachusetts with their three children.
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