Sep 11, 2017 · 48m · how-i-built-this
Barre3: Sadie Lincoln
Sadie Lincoln · 26m spoken Guy Raz · 14m spoken Matt Wallace · 57s spoken Corey Wallace · 24s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of NPR's How I Built This, Sadie Lincoln describes how she and her husband Chris walked away from corporate careers to build Barre3, a global boutique fitness empire centered on community, body intuition, and an 'anti-guru' philosophy.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 35% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.2 Guest teaching 2.1 Guest disagreement 0.9 Guy pushing back 0.9
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 0:28 Rejecting the Five Guys control comparison
Sadie directly pushes back against Guy's comparison to Five Guys, arguing that people cannot and should not be controlled like burgers.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 0:28 Pressing on fear of franchisee quality dilutionGuy presses Sadie on whether she feared giving up control of her handcrafted method to franchisees who might ruin it.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 0:17 Educating on the anti-guru philosophySadie educates Guy on why Barre3 deliberately avoids being a centralized guru methodology, empowering students to listen to their own bodies.
Guy holds their own ▶ 0:36 Citing sustainable business modelsGuy validates Sadie's resistance to growth by detailing prior interviews with sustainable, break-even businesses like Angie's List.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Lincoln Presents the One-Year Dropout Spreadsheet | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy provides historical industry context regarding Lotte Berk and the growth of boutique fitness. Sadie shares the opening hook about her husband's spreadsheet to drop out. | |
| Sadie's Counterculture Childhood and Communal Family Upbringing | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy inquires about Sadie's childhood in Taos, asking if the communal mothers had a detailed plan. Sadie explains the counterculture lifestyle was intuitive and unplanned. | |
| Corporate Rise at 24 Hour Fitness and Partnership | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sadie describes her corporate rise under Mark Mastrov at 24 Hour Fitness and meeting her husband Chris. Guy guides the narrative chronologically with engaged prompts. | |
| Corporate Burnout and the Courage to Drop Out | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Sadie explains her realization that mainstream fitness dogmas were failing people rather than people failing fitness. Guy listens as she describes her husband presenting the spreadsheet to quit corporate life. | |
| Founding Barre3 and Launching the Portland Studio | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Guy asks Sadie to define barre and wonders how confused ordinary passersby were by the concept. Sadie explains her philosophy of bodily balance and student autonomy rather than a rigid method. | |
| Mid-Episode Break and Commercial Sponsor Messages | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Following mid-episode sponsor reads, Sadie explains suffering physical breakdown from teaching 19 classes weekly. She details choosing owner-operated franchising rather than institutional venture capital. | |
| The Anti-Guru Philosophy of Collective Partner Ownership | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Guy compares Sadie's openness to franchising with Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell's intense resistance to giving up control. Sadie counters that her business is about human connection rather than burger standardization, firmly rejecting the guru archetype. | |
| Rejecting Fitness Celebrity Culture and Choosing Stillness | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Sadie recounts facing pressure to become a commercial fitness celebrity and deciding to pause company expansion instead. Guy supports her framing by citing sustainable, break-even business models like Angie's List. | |
| Spousal Dynamics, Entrepreneurial Luck, and Family Connections | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about working with a spouse and attributes Sadie's success to skill versus luck. Guy connects her communal upbringing to her brother Miguel McKelvey, founder of WeWork. | |
| Program Interlude and American Express Sponsor Message | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy introduces the 'How You Built That' segment featuring Matt and Corey Wallace discussing their fruit ketchup venture Chups. |
Statements from this episode (9)
Lincoln: The booming fitness industry fails the vast majority of people
“Even though the fitness industry is booming, the vast majority of us, it's not working. I mean, that's the news story on the news every day. It's like obesity is on the rise. People are more stressed out than they ever have been.”
Lincoln: Mark Mastrov is Barre3's sole outside investor
“So our only investor to this day is Mark Mastroff.”
Barre3 launched with under $200k from 24 Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov
“So he gave us a small investment. I want to say like under 200,000 and then our house, which so we probably had maybe three or 400,000 and that was with a cushion, a little cushion, life savings.”
Barre3 rejected institutional capital to franchise with individual owner-operators
“We didn't want to be beholden to institutional money. Instead, I was really excited about, I still am excited about the idea of being beholden into other people just like me, who had a dream and wanted to open their own business and have their own skin in the …”
Barre3 requires all its franchise studios to be strictly owner-operated
“Unlike some franchises, our franchise is owner operated. So if you're going to franchise with us, you're really going to live and breathe the product. You're going to teach and manage and, you know, be the face of it.”
Barre3 operates six corporate locations and 124 franchises
“We own six locations, and then we have a 124 franchises.”
Barre3 intentionally paused franchising to halt growth and hold steady
“In terms of growing bigger, I'm actually not focused on growing bigger anymore with the company. We've paused franchising for now. We're just holding. We're being still”
Lincoln: Competitor Pure Barre sold for $121 million
“Pure Bar was sold for a hundred and twenty-one million dollars.”
WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey and Barre3 founder Sadie Lincoln are siblings
“By the way, if her childhood story sounded somewhat familiar, it's probably because you heard her brother Miguel's version on a previous episode of this show. He's Miguel McKelvey, founder of the multi-billion dollar company WeWork. Miguel also grew up in that…”