We recently connected with Lee-Anne Reuber and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lee-Anne, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Sekond Skin Society started as a brick and mortar yoga studio Nov. 2018. We had a really great first year building our community and connecting with others in the health and wellness space. We won an award for Best Yoga studio in our first year and celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a huge event. From this event, we gained a lot of exposure and had many studios/people reaching out from across Southwestern Ontario to see if we would come and teach in their region. Before renewing the studio lease after the first year, I really thought hard about the opportunity that seemed to be presenting itself to me… the opportunity to expand our community and grow it even larger, while also letting go of a heavy lease and choosing to expand in a different way. I went with my gut and left the studio. I didn’t know it at the time but it was 3 months prior to the pandemic. I travelled across the region teaching classes until it was no longer an option and then immediately looked to the virtual space as a way to continue to grow. Not only did I shift our services to a virtual platform, I also started reaching out to corporations and selling our services in the corporate space as part of employee wellness initiatives. After 2 years of this I realized the feedback I was getting the most was how grateful members were for our accessible options. This is where everything clicked (in summer 2022). Prior to starting my business, I had spent over 20 years supporting people with disabilities in a variety of capacities. When I recognized this recurring feedback about our services, I realized I could create more access, do it better, and make it more inclusive. it was a full circle moment I could literally FEEL in my body when I had the idea and what has unfolded over the last 8 months of building the idea and bringing around me the people necessary to bring it to fruition has been just divine (just as divine as it was when I had the feeling of knowing I should let go of the studio lease). Now, Sekond Skin Society is a health and fitness app designed to be accessible for everyone and inclusive of all. Our app allows those with vision loss, hearing loss and other physical disabilities to access health and fitness in a way that works for them. Our content is designed so people with disabilities and their family/friends/caregivers can participate in wellness content together, while still meeting each individual’s needs. We offer our app to corporations as part of their employee wellness initiatives, and we offer a direct to consumer membership as well. I am most excited about disrupting the health and fitness industry in such a big way by simply including EVERYONE.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We are developing the most accessible and inclusive health and fitness app on the market.
Some of the key features of our app include:
ability to add captions
ability to change text size
ability to adjust lighting (for those who are colourblind or have low vision)
ability to adjust the volume of the instructor
ability to adjust the volume of the background music/turn it off completely
ability to slow down or speed up the class (slightly)
enhanced cueing
We offer 4 different variations of each class (2 different standing versions and 2 different seated versions) so family/friends/caregivers can participate in classes together. Users will have the ability to choose up to 2 different instructors to enlarge on the screen at the same time, allowing for people with disabilities and people without disabilities to workout together.
Over time we will continue to add instructors (with amputation/limb difference, instructors who are blind and deaf, etc) and users will be able to scroll through to choose the instructor(s) they want to follow for each class (if you imagine choosing the avatar you would like to be when you are playing a video game, the experience will be similar in that you will be able to scroll through the variety of instructors and choose the instructor, or two instructors, you’d like to follow). We are also working with an organization to add ASL to our content as another accessibility feature on our product roadmap.
We do everything through the lens of inclusion. Our content is co-created by fitness instructors with disabilities and fitness instructors without disabilities. Every team members and advisory board member has a personal connection to our mission, either having a disability themselves, having a family/friend with a disability, or working in the disability space. We intend to offer scholarships for people with disabilities to become certified in the movement modality of their choice and then hire them to create content for us.
Our work is truly build with, by and for people with disabilities and I couldn’t be more proud!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Everything about my business journey has been challenging. Starting with a brick and mortar yoga studio, in a city where not many knew me, teaching a niche yoga practice most had never heard of… it was tough to build momentum. A year later and COVID-19 came into the picture. Just prior to the pandemic, I had made the decision not to renew my studio lease (what a blessing I didn’t know at the time). When we celebrated our 1-year studio anniversary, I started getting people from surrounding areas ask if I would come and teach in their city/town. In pursuit of expansion, I decided to let go of the studio and travel to teach and really build a larger community base. When the pandemic started, I could no longer teach in-person classes and so I decided to develop a virtual platform to continue my business. It was very much like starting my business over completely. With this pivot, I decided to focus on working with corporations and their employee teams, rather than focusing in the direct to consumer market. I worked in this space for 2 years, through and beyond the pandemic, and learned a lot. It was through this learning and the feedback I received that I came to the idea of yet another pivot, accessibility in the health and fitness space. The resilience, determination, grit and belief in myself through it all has made me an incredibly strong business leader.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Initially I was able to secure a small loan from my bank to fund my business. As business continued to change, I also borrow money from family to continue to make it work. With the latest pivot to our new app, I am actively fundraising and planning to close my seed round end of June 2023. Shifting from a small business to a tech startup was another challenge to face, but one that has been the most rewarding part of my business thus far.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sekondskinsociety.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sekond_skin_society
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sekondskinsociety
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sekond-skin-society/