Payal Kadakia: Success Isn't the End

Hi, how's it going?

I'm really excited to be here with Payal Khadakia. Payal is the founder and chairman of ClassPass, which is a membership program that provides access to 10,000 boutique fitness studios in 50 plus cities across the globe. In her work at ClassPass, she has raised over $250 million, which is a lot. Payal is also the founder and Artistic director of the Saw Dance company, founded in 2009 with the mission to increase awareness of Indian dance in the mainstream and serve as a platform for expressing the Indian American identity through movement. Payal previously worked as a consultant at Bain & Co. And holds a degree in operations research from MIT. Payal, thank you for being here with me.

Thanks for having me.

Let's get started. At the beginning of your career you were were at Bain & Co. Working in the corporate world and today you are a very successful entrepreneur. How did you make the decision? What inspired you to make the decision to leave the corporate world and a steady paycheck to pursue your dreams?

So the journey really I think started with my parents. And I say that in the sense of my parents immigrated here in the 70s and really lived their lives for me and my sister and wanted us to have stable jobs, make sure we had security in everything we did. And I wanted to make them proud. Right. Like most children do. And so I followed a pretty standard path. I went to a good college, then got a good job. And then a little bit when I was at Bain, I started really feeling this tick towards what my real passion was, which was dance. And I felt very connected to this passion and I felt like I needed to pursue it. So when most of my friends were going off to business school, I decided that I was going to get another job. I wasn't ready to really plunge into full startup world. I was going to get a job and start my dance company on the side. And so I was really doing that for about three years before I took the leap to start the company.

Okay, I understand that there was a so youo Think youk Can Dance involved here.

Yeah. So one day when I was walking to work, I was working at Bain and I really always trust signals in the world like this. I was walking and across the street from where I lived there were tryouts for so youo Think youk Can Dance and I decided to call off work, say I was sick and I went and tried out and it was one of the coolest experiences I ever had. And I think it was moments like that for me that made me realize how important it is to continue to pursue what I loved in the world.

And you've been a dancer since you were young.

Yeah. So I started dancing when I was three years old. It was a really big part of how I wanted to express myself. And I think, in general, I think movement is so important to our lives. And I found a way that I felt like it was an activity that kept me grounded, it gave me confidence, and I didn't want to stop. And I think even when I was younger, I'm now 35, and I'm still dancing, But I think when I was in my early 20s, I thought, well, I only have five more years to dance.

I saw on Instagram that you were dancing, like, two days ago yesterday.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm still dancing. So clearly age doesn't matter.

Exactly. That's the most important message. So, okay, you started Saw Dance Company while you were still working in the corporate world. What made you decide to devote all of your time to that?

Yeah, you know, some of that wasn't deliberate. Meaning I didn't really know what I was doing, to be honest. I went to work every day. I got 10 of my friends together, and we started dancing at night. I think when we. Six months later, we ended up on the COVID of the art section of the New York Times.

Casual.

Yeah. It was actually, like, for me at that time. I remember my dad, I promised him I would maybe go to business school in a few years. So I had GMAT books. So I was studying. And that morning, it was a Friday morning, I went and got that newspaper. I stayed up all night because I knew we were on the COVID of it. So I got it, and I threw my GMAT books away that day because I just knew that there was something bigger that I had to do in the world. And so I just remember that was a moment where I was like, I don't even think I have a website for my company, you know? And I think so some of those things. And I think when you trust your purpose and your passion and you go towards it and create good work, a lot of these things emerge. But I did learn a lot in that process. I think I learned how to, you know, put together a team. I learned how to execute on something. I learned how to be a leader. And those were all really important foundational moments for me before I did take the leap to actually become an entrepreneur.

So let's talk about the actual steps you took to prepare to quit your job and go do it.

So the day I quit is the best Day of my life. Even though it's a scary day. I remember the most important thing for me was making sure my parents were sort of on board with it. I was in my early twenties, and the most amazing thing was my mom was the one who told me to quit. And I think about that because I was living two lives, right? I was going to work every day. I was an analyst, and I was doing a good job. And then at night, I was this performer, and I was meeting with creative people, and I just started feeling really disconnected, where I actually was in a bad place. Like, when I quit, I wouldn't say I was in, like, the highest point of my life. I was actually in a place where I was like, something needs to change. And I think that's when my mom realized she had seen me build the dance company. She was like, I really believe if you do something you love, you're gonna do well at it. And so that was the ammunition I needed. And I went into work that day, and I decided to quit. And a few things happened that were pretty shocking. Half the people I told were jealous, and they were jealous because they were looking at me and I could see it in them. They were like, I wish I had the guts to do that, you know? And that was actually a really interesting, you know, just feeling for me to see in other people. And then the other half of people were so supportive, so unbelievably supportive, that I walked out with a $10,000 check on the day I quit.

Must be nice.

Yeah. I mean, and I say that because it's so important that you realize that on these things that give you so much fear, like quitting your job. Right. Thinking that I'm about to give away security was going to open so many doors. And it was the vice chairman of my company. I'd worked with him a few times, but he, when I sent my email, was like, I'm really interested in what you might be working on. And he's actually one of the reasons we got into the techstars incubator. And so I realized, wow, when you're going towards something you love, people want to help you. When you're doing something you don't love, you start talking to people. They don't want to hear it either, because you're not passionate about it. And so I realized that I was like, the more I go towards something, I really care about the world, and people want to help me get there.

That's amazing. I love that story. So how did you come up with the idea for class pass. I understand that it's actually started as classivity.

Yeah. So this was nine years ago. And so I was sitting at my desk at Werner, and I was looking for a ballet class to take, and I couldn't find it. And I realized I was on, like, four different websites. I was trying to find the right time, the right teacher. And at that time, there were a lot of sites like seamless web, OpenTable, Zocdoc. And I was like, why can't this just be the same way we book classes? So that. That was that initial spark that kind of got me to realize technology could maybe solve this massive problem. But then I think over time, I think as a founder who's been on this eight, nine year journey, the deeper reason was I wanted to give people what I had in dance. And I realized how important that bond was to activities and movement. And I just knew that it was a passion and a purpose I wanted to dedicate my life to. And so that was, you know, a little bit of where. Where it came from. But it started as a separate idea, and we can go into how it became class sized.

Yes. Okay, so I'm trying to understand the timeline here. You were founding two companies at the.

Same time, so SAS starting.