February 26, 2017

Meet Rob Rubano of Playlist Yoga in West Hollywood

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rob Rubano.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Jordan Cohen & I set out to create a fun and more approachable yoga concept that was centered on the music, featuring carefully curated and often beat pumping playlists. We felt there was a void in the market for a more mainstream yoga concept that had a very broad-based appeal. The goal has always been to create a community that welcomes everyone from experienced yogis to those new to the practice and everyone in-between. Our success can be attributed to having a great team in place, which includes the best instructors in LA and an amazing studio staff.

Has it been a smooth road?
From my experience, entrepreneurship is rarely a smooth road. Having said that, we’re excited about where we are as a company as we complete our first year. We have worked hard to deliver a great product to the market, with an all-star roster of technically sound instructors who care deeply about each flow and each yogi. Building a brand is never an easy proposition and we have learned a myriad of things as we have gone through our first year. One of the biggest keys to success is awareness, combined with adaptability and being nimble to incorporate changes as necessary.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Playlist Yoga story. Tell us more about the business.
We are really proud that in a relatively short period of time we have established a strong positioning within the Los Angeles fitness market. We offer an athletic Power Vinyasa Flow that we feel is the ultimate modern, music based approach to yoga. We’re known for our beat pumping playlists, top quality instructors, and our clean and modern studio. We benefit from our location at what really has become ground zero for boutique fitness in Los Angeles, at the corner of La Cienega and Melrose in the heart of West Hollywood. We’re really thankful for building our community with such a broad range of people, which was really important as we set out on this journey.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The expectation is that the boutique fitness market as a whole will continue to grow at a healthy rate. There is a number of driving factors but importantly the trends are consistent. More specifically to yoga, we expect the consumer yoga market to grown at an even healthier clip. Currently, there are approximately 36 million people practicing yoga in the US, which is up from 20 million just four years ago. One of the bigger near-term questions for boutique fitness studio owners will be identifying and responding to any changes in the market driven by changes that ClassPass is going through as a company.

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