Classpass Founder: Quitting My 9-5 Led To A $1 Billion Business: Payal Kadakia
May 9, 2022
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Payal Kadakia, the founder of ClassPass, shares her inspiring journey from a stable consulting career to creating a billion-dollar fitness platform fueled by her love for dance. She discusses the challenges of balancing her Indian-American identity and societal expectations while pursuing authenticity. Payal emphasizes the importance of resilience in entrepreneurship, reflecting on early setbacks and the necessity of understanding customer needs. She also explores the impact of personal relationships on professional growth and the transformative power of following one’s passion.
Prioritizing personal fulfillment over societal norms and parental expectations.
Shift to aligning products with customer preferences, emphasizing adaptability and learning.
Deep dives
Realization of Personal Purpose through Dance
The speaker discusses how their passion for dance ignited a sense of purpose at a young age. Dance allowed them to connect with others emotionally and authentically, shaping their desire to evoke feelings in others through various endeavors throughout life.
Challenges of Fitting In and Cultural Identity
Growing up as an Indian girl in a predominantly non-Indian town led to feelings of not belonging. They navigated challenges of identity, feeling fragmented in different social settings, which influenced their drive to embrace their authenticity and resist societal labeling and expectations.
Navigating Parental Expectations and Personal Fulfillment
Facing parental pressure to pursue traditional career paths like medicine or law, the speaker highlighted the tension between conforming to societal norms and pursuing personal fulfillment. Despite striving to make their parents proud and valuing education, they ultimately prioritized aligning their career with their inner purpose.
Journey from Conformity to Rebellion to Purpose
Transitioning from a conformity-driven path to embracing rebellion and ultimately discovering personal purpose, the speaker emphasized the importance of challenging societal expectations to live authentically. Through failures, self-discovery, and reshaping her business ventures, they demonstrated resilience and commitment to meaningful endeavors beyond conventional success.
Transitioning from Product Failure to Market Success
After a product failure and reassessment, the speaker shifted focus to solve customers' fear of trying new things and their love for variety in workout classes. This led to creating a successful subscription model, highlighting the importance of adapting, learning from mistakes, and aligning products with customer preferences.
Balancing Work and Personal Life
The podcast episode highlights the challenges faced by the speaker in balancing work commitments with personal relationships and mental health. Despite the intense focus on building the company and the sacrifices made in terms of missed family events and extreme dedication to work, the speaker reflects on the importance of setting priorities. Through a period of intense work towards their business goals, the speaker realized the significance of maintaining personal connections, health, and overall well-being. This realization led to a shift towards goal setting that included considerations for personal life alongside professional success.
Importance of Purpose and Intention
The episode emphasizes the speaker's journey towards aligning their actions with a deeper purpose and intention. The speaker shares insights on the impact of intentional decision-making and pursuing goals driven by passion and purpose rather than external validation. They discuss how finding meaning in their work and personal life improved their overall satisfaction. The importance of mentoring, being clear on priorities, and fostering communication in personal relationships are highlighted as essential elements in achieving a fulfilling and balanced life.
Payal is the founder of Classpass, the app that’s helped millions of users find their passion. Her own love of dancing encouraged her to start a business which enabled anyone, anywhere to find something they loved to do.
When Payal’s parents moved to America with no money and no connections, they had to completely start their life from scratch. Payal grew up in a home where her mother often wasn’t home, working late-night shifts to keep her family going.
How far Payal has come. Today she shares exactly how she got there. The sheer determination with which she ruthlessly sets her goals and priorities, and then systematically chases after them with everything she’s got, was hugely inspiring to me, and I’m sure it will be to you too.
