We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lacey Wadhwani. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lacey below.

Lacey, appreciate you joining us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

When we started our first version of our business we went for a full spa, including skincare. We didn’t have a lot of experience in esthetics but it seemed pretty obvious that in order to call ourselves a full spa we would need facials and some sort of wax/sugaring hair removal. My business partner is a licensed chiropractor so she knew how to manage and promote massage and infrared sauna services. But we were both new to adding skincare and didn’t have any formal training in it. We went to a Las Vegas spa convention and interviewed many companies and learned that we would have a large buy-in to bring in skincare lines. We also knew we’d need a company that could offer training in those products and services. We found a great company based out of Italy. What we didn’t fully anticipate is the difficulty of hiring and managing estheticians to offer those services. We also wouldn’t be able to fill in for those services if we didn’t have staff available. We should have followed the old adage of of “do what you know”. We KNEW about massage. We KNEW about infrared saunas. We were able to effectively market and manage and fill in for anything massage or sauna related. We spent a lot of time and money learning that for us, the management of skincare products and staff was not going to profit enough to make the time and effort we had to put in worthwhile. So in 2019 (3 years later) we dropped the “full spa” offering of skin services and focused on just sauna and massage and really found our rhythm and profitability.

Lacey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We wanted to create a business in the spa industry that really stuck to products and services that had both health benefits AND more cosmetic benefits. Massage and sauna have been around for centuries in many different cultures and with a large population of health-focused individuals in Seattle that want to look and feel good it was a no brainer. We focused on infrared sauna rather than traditional hot saunas because infrared studies have shown that it’s more efficient at detoxing the body, burning calories and isn’t as dehydrating or strenuous on the skin as traditional sauna heat. We find with the specialty of infrared sauna and red light therapy we get referrals from Naturopathic doctors, Chiropractic doctors, and massage therapists to help with many conditions gives us an edge over other sauna options. People seeking adjacent therapy for Lymes disease, post-chemo therapy issues, chronic arthritic pain, sleep disorders, SADs and many other types of ailments seek out our types of sauna therapy and also often benefit from regular massage therapy. On top of the therapeutic benefits for our services, many of them also give the client a boost in how they look and feel about themselves which is an awesome bonus!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic pivoted many businesses, ourselves included. During that time, we had to do extra research on the ability of an infrared sauna to kill something like COVID-19. We changed our scheduling format to stagger when people came in for a service, the amount of time in between each service to allow for safety precaution, and removed the receptionist check-in to reduce the amount of contact each client would be exposed to.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I used to work in the restaurant industry and was bartending at an Italian restaurant with my business partner’s husband. She owned her own chiropractic and massage business and over time I was in a role of marketing and selling wine for a wine/liquor/spirits company. When she sold her chiropractic business and was interested in opening a spa, she and her husband thought of me as a perfect pairing. I knew sales and marketing and loved the idea of working for myself. We had similar taste in the look and feel of companies as well as enjoying partaking in different types of self-care. After taking a day to “urban hike” through the city where we’d walk 5-10 miles and stop into different restaurants, retail shops and bars we outlined what we would want our business to look like and offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thesaunahut.com
• Instagram: @thesaunahut
• Facebook: The Sauna Hut
• Yelp: Sauna Hut

Image Credits
Kee May photography kmayphoto.com