Payal Kadakia: Founder of ClassPass, the monthly fitness class subscription that grew into a billion-dollar-valued company; former dancer, ex-Bain consultant, and author.
What this episode covers
Payal Kadakia traces her journey from a young Indian-American girl who found identity through dance to building ClassPass, valued at over a billion dollars. She explains how dissatisfaction in management consulting at Bain pushed her toward entrepreneurship and how a frustrating attempt to book a ballet class sparked the idea. The conversation covers three years of stumbling, a half-million-dollar product that failed, and the pivot to a subscription model after discovering customers craved variety. She shares lessons on purpose over money, building confidence through small steps, delegating, and a goal-setting method that reshaped her personal life. The episode closes on relationships, motherhood, therapy, and her view that following your inner voice leads to fulfillment.
The guest's own work
ClassPass
Payal Kadakia
“and we've booked like 100 million hours of workouts at this point you know and when someone comes to me and is and says to me like i just went and worked out because of class past”— Payal Kadakia
LifePass
Payal Kadakia
“i remember like i mean i talk about it in my book but there were some some really harsh moments you know”— Payal Kadakia
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
OpenTable
OpenTable
“so there were things you know in the us like opentable seamless web that just made this type of information so accessible and so easy and convenient for a customer”— Payal Kadakia
Seamless
Seamless
“like opentable seamless web that just made this type of information so accessible and so easy and convenient for a customer”— Payal Kadakia
Big reveals from this episode
- ClassPass spent a year and half a million dollars building a first product that completely failed, with no one transacting.
- The company changed its name three times and threw away multiple product ideas, pricing, and plans before finding fit.
- The pivot came from finally talking to studio owners and customers, leading to the 'passport' discovery product that revealed people loved variety.
- The monthly subscription ClassPass launched to about 50 customers in June 2013 and grew exponentially, taking three years total from her 2010 SF trip.
- After creating her goal-setting method, she met her husband a month later and sold out a 1,000-seat dance show at Alvin Ailey six months later.
- She eventually delegated the CEO role because the job had become managing investors, team, and press instead of solving the problem.
- When she resigned, her one caveat to the company was that she be allowed to keep her ClassPass email address.
Worth remembering
- Payal discovered the power of dance to make others feel something at four or five years old, performing spontaneously at a wedding.
- As a child she was told she smelled or didn't belong because her food, hair, and heritage were different from her town.
- A trigger moment came when she chose a Times Square dance performance over a client meeting, then her boss asked if consulting was really the job she wanted.
- On the day she quit Warner Music, the vice chairman wrote her a $10,000 check and gave her an introduction to a New York incubator.
- She realized fitness differs from food: everyone has to eat, but working out is aspirational and often scary, breaking her OpenTable parallel.
- She says the day her first product failed was the day she truly became an entrepreneur.
- Payal noted she was only 39 and her mother joked she could retire, which she rejected outright.
- She started therapy at the beginning of the prior year after having a baby six weeks before the pandemic and her company halting.
- She is 4 foot 11 and says her fears are physical rather than mental; her dream-if-unafraid answer was to run a marathon.