An excerpt from the original interview:
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Robyn Shaw.
Robyn is the Founder and CEO of BODZii (www.bodzii.com) a coaching company dedicated to helping busy women lose weight for good. She is passionate about empowering women to reach their absolute full potential in all areas of life. Through this, she hopes that fitness, nutrition, business and mindset growth are all seen as one journey, not separate items on your list of “to-do’s” .
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I’m so happy to share a bit about myself! My career has gone through a natural progression, as I’m sure is the case with many. What a lot of people don’t know is that I actually have a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and spent 5 years of my life panting! Coaching was something I honestly was sort of thrown into after I graduated in 2015. I started coaching CrossFit classes at the gym I was a member at, and I fell in love with it almost immediately. CrossFit was a bit part of my family — my brother owning a gym, my parents, and other siblings also participating in the sport — and so I was excited to become a coach. In 2017, I started offering nutrition coaching services to our members to give a more holistic offering and from there, BODZii was born. We spent the first 2 years partnering with CrossFit gyms around the world, running large cohort challenges. In 2020, Covid forced our hand at pivoting online which I think was the best thing that ever happened to us.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
I honestly think that Covid 19 was one of the most interesting things that has happened to us as a company. Why it’s interesting to me is how catastrophic it was for so many, and how beneficial it was for us. I, of course, say that with an immense amount of sensitivity and compassion for those who have been struggling over the past 18 months, but at the same time I cannot ignore the massive silver lining that came with it for BODZii.
About a month before things really started to get bad (and scary), I was already thinking of pivoting the company from being a company that partners with gyms, to a company that works 1-on-1. The best way to scale this, of course, is to go online. It’s crazy to think that not long ago, the thought of Zoom coaching wasn’t really attractive. People would always prefer face to face conversation especially when it came to something so personal like their health. How times have changed!
