In early 2020, the music-infused, flow-by-candle hot yoga brand Y7 was growing fast, with 15 studios in three cities across the U.S. Then in March 2020, they were forced to close their doors. “We went online basically overnight,” says Sarah Larson Levey, Y7’s founder and CEO.
Now 200+ classes, 16,000 hours of watch time, and over a year later, they’ve built a digital community for thousands of yogis — for fans-from-way-back to new folks who never even went IRL.
Taking their signature vibe virtual
“What makes Y7 different from other yoga studios is the experience in the room,” Sarah explains. “It's that darkness, it's the heat, it's the music.” And don’t forget those super soothing studio spaces the Y7 team worked so hard to perfect. She adds, “They’re clean. They feel calm.”
Unfortunately, none of those aspects factor into an online experience. So Y7’s tight-knit team had to strategize how to bring a “super solidified, recognizable” version of their brand to the possibly cramped and fluorescent-lit bedrooms, hallways, and living rooms where fans would now watch.
As their founder, Sarah realized that Y7 mixed a freedom of movement like “dancing alone in your towel” with a challenging “we flow hard” practice. Maybe the online experience wouldn’t mirror the studio one exactly — and that’s okay. Ultimately, “we just want it to be real," says Sarah.
And at first, that meant quickly pivoting to IG live classes — while they planned a more sustainable, professional (and monetizable) space to support their community and their trainers.
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Making it work with OTT
“You should have seen us,” Sarah says, describing the first weeks after their studios closed. “Our CFO is editing videos. Our Ops Coordinator who is now our Production Manager, she has fully switched roles and we’re all editing videos. We’re uploading them to YouTube.” She laughs, “I’m writing notes, like, ‘At 6:07 I hear a squeaking noise,’ and we’re figuring it out as we go, right?”
Then, Y7 found Vimeo OTT — “the way that Vimeo is structured is really workable for individuals or companies like us who, like, don’t have a tech team,” says Sarah. Her team of yogis-turned-video-makers appreciate how easy Vimeo OTT makes setting up and branding their video site: “We understand what’s going on, and it lets us really focus on the content, which is what we’re good at.”
"The way that Vimeo is structured is really workable for individuals or companies like us who, like, don’t have a tech team. We understand what’s going on, and it lets us really focus on the content, which is what we’re good at and what we bring to the table.”
Using Vimeo OTT, Y7 launched a professional site that allowed them to monetize their backlog of fitness content — and it only took them a few weeks. The videos they used to post on IG or YouTube for free now provide direct income for their team and help them continue to employ many of their instructors from before. Plus, they still stream freebie live classes every week (at a much higher quality than on social media) and even tantalize the folks on the fence with a 7-day free trial. Win-win!
This video library also gave Y7 a chance to expand their offerings. Their in-studio experience was almost entirely 60-minute yoga flows, with the occasional 75-minute workshop. “We just didn’t have space on the schedule to be offering 20 different kinds of classes,” she remembers.
Streaming workouts, made easy
But now, with most of Y7’s customers “on their computers all day staring at screens” they’ve added new, shorter classes in addition to their classic hour flow. They’ve also added an online yoga teacher training program, short videos focusing on form, and new yoga series that build to different goals. “This has been a really cool opportunity. What we’ve really been able to do with this is really broaden the platforms so that our clients can progress with us.”
Introducing the new Y7
Now, Y7’s fitness community is made up of die-hard regulars as well as a whole new host of practitioners who are now experiencing Y7 for the first time. “People who have never had the chance to really experience Y7 in the studio are loving it, and just so appreciative that they're able to get these kinds of flows,” says their proud founder.
“We've learned that it's not about perfection,” she continues. “It's about making our community feel like they're still with us. That connection is helping us grow way beyond the four walls of our studio and allowing us to reach more people than we ever could.”
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