Last week I caught up with yoga teacher turned entrepreneur Thierry Giunta who many of you may recognise from the current series of BBC Dragon’s Den where he won investment from three of the well known investor entrepreneurs including Peter Jones.
Thierry has had quite a remarkable life journey with many ups a downs. Born into a family a small town in France he became fascinated by fitness as he turned from boy to teenager even though he had be written off as being un-sporty. His journey would take him from the gym environment to training as a yoga teacher, teaching in various health clubs and eventually building a client base including high achievers, celebrities and entrepreneurs.
I first met Thierry several years ago when he attended my Be Your Own Brand workshop at the British Library’s Business & IP Centre. as he was building his personal and business profile as a unique Yoga teacher and the brand that he had founded at that time Progressive Yoga. This progression and his interest in modernising yoga and make it far more cool, contemporary and appealing to far more people including the more sporty types, eventually led him to develop BeamBlock Yoga. In those years prior to that venture Thierry and I ran a retreat for entrepreneurs through a venture we developed at the time called Gravity & Growth. But it was the phase after the close of Gravity & Growth that was most auspicious for Thierry. I remember Thierry telling me about his business idea for this invention. He showed me early drawings and soon he was obsessed by this idea. So much so that I was slightly concerned about his yoga work, his impressive list of successful clients and so on. But Thierry must of and very much did completely believe in what he was doing.
Thierry did what lots of budding entrepreneurs don’t do and ensured he got good advice and did things right. The used resources like the British Library’s Business & IP Centre. He learned about Trade Marks and Patents and soon was working toward a Patent application. He has to seek out graphic designers, products design experts and those who could develop prototypes. Even with some help available it can be a tough, lonely, challenging and difficult journey. But he persisted.
I remember Thierry telling me that he wanted to appear on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, a show that he had always been a fan of. At the time – and probably more than once – I advised him to think several times about and perhaps to not do it as my feeling was that it might be too risky and that he and his product was not ready. As someone who trains people to appear on TV and radio I know how reputations can be made or broken on TV. Media was very much in my background and appearing on TV was something I was familiar with. I was aware that Thierry comes across very well in presenting, teaching and training as he was a very accomplished Yoga teacher with charisma which was part of what had led to the retreats business blending yoga and coaching / development but I really wasn’t sure about the combination of him, his fledgling product and BBC Dragon’s Den.
Some time passed and Thierry got back in touch with me out of the blue and told me he was going to be on Dragon’s Den. The rest you may well know. He appeared. He gave an excellent and compelling pitch and he won the backing of three of the Dragon investors. He told me about his success (in that very particular time frame where you can tell people) and I was very thrilled that he had succeeded. I was also very pleased that I was actually wrong. But as well as being wrong I had been right. I had highlighted the importance of really, really being ready and resourceful and that’s one of the things that Thierry had taken on board and run with.
What you may not quite get from this interview – and that is very difficult to grasp unless you have been on this kind of entrepreneurial journey – is just quite the hard work, heartache, challenges, tough decisions and personal, practical and financial costs that all the years leading up to the Dragon’s “I’m in” that Thierry had been through willingly. I suspect there is something in what I call “the attitude of an athlete” that Thierry literally has. Having been in health, fitness and yoga for most of his life Thierry understands the work, effort and sweat involved in achieving any kind of result.
I hope you enjoy the interview and I wish Thierry and BeamBlock Yoga every success. I also wish you every success whatever your particular goal is. As Thierry points at the end of this interview everyone’s journey is indifferent as is their ambition. Perhaps Thierry is among the new type of creative and holistic entrepreneurs those who people have felt of in the past aren’t business minded – or who themselves blocked on business or felt they couldn’t do it.
I guess Thierry really ran with whatever he took from that Be Your Own Brand workshop of mine all those years ago. Or perhaps he already knew that his personal brand would take flight. In fact while it may have been a bit of both I think it was mainly the latter because when I first spoke to him at and after my event he already had a number of entrepreneurial ideas to take him beyond being a yoga teacher alone.
Rasheed Ogunlaru, Coach- Speaker- Author Soul Trader – Putting the Heart Back into Your Business Join Rasheed at “Networking for Success” his new workshop / networking event for aspiring and established entrepreneurs and professionals.
