Name: How Solidcore's 43-year-old founder made her $100 million fortune
Uploaded: 2024-03-28
Duration: 6 min 40 s
Description: Anne Mahlum, the founder of pilates workout chain [solidcore], is a self-made millionaire with an estimated net worth of $100 million.

Anne Mahlum, the founder of pilates workout chain [solidcore], is a self-made millionaire with an estimated net worth of $100 million.

How Solidcore's 43-year-old founder made her $100 million fortune

Anne Mahlum is the Founder and former CEO of both [solidcore] and Back on My Feet.

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So when I was 16 years old, I found out that my dad gambled away $50,000 of money, which we frankly didn't have. I don't think I understood the magnitude, you know, at that time as a 16 year old. Um, but my mom asked my dad to leave that day and for a 16 year old kid who thought her dad hung the moon. It had a massive impact on me. I took my resentment out on my mom. And I think in that moment, I, you know, I just never wanted money to cause conflict in my life. I just never wanted to find myself in that situation again where money could cause such a disruption in a relationship like that. Hi, my name is Anne Mallam. I am 43 years old. I am the founder and former CEO of Soor and this is how I made my first million. I grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota. I had a pretty normal childhood. Both my parents worked, my dad sold insurance and my mom was a teacher. I played a ton of sports in North Dakota. Super safe up. You know, we didn't lock our doors left their keys in our car. So pretty, pretty normal childhood until I was 16 or so. I went to college at a place called Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. I majored in political science and communications. I also graduated in three years because I was in such a hurry to be an adult and have a job and make money and get married and have kids. So, when I was like 2627 completely lost in my life. I didn't really have any kind of fulfillment in my life. And I was running every day at 530 in the morning. And there was this homeless shelter that I ran by again on like every morning run and never really thought twice about the people that I saw and one morning, um, these guys waved at me and we just started building this relationship and it was like a light bulb where I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna start a running club for these guys. I knew the power of running. I mean, I felt so alive and I felt so in control of my life. When I was running, I had just taken a big job at Comcast. It was going to be my first into the for profit world. And this idea for back on my feet happened at the same time once I had the running club going for a few weeks, like I just knew this is what I was supposed to do with my life. I called Comcast and I told them, I think I've found my calling and my purpose and I was so grateful that I can't take this job. I built that into a national nonprofit and ran it for 6.5 years. So six years in the back of my feet, I started to get this feeling that it was time to do something else. I took this massive risk. Life is so fulfilling. I get to help all these people. Where is this coming from? So, you know, I tried to brush it off and it just kept coming back up. I was afraid to like leave this thing that I started that I got so much attention for that was successful and working once the feelings didn't go away, I sort of was like, ok, I have to start looking for my next thing. So I was in L A getting ready to launch back on my feet in L A and I walked by this studio. It was like a Pilates E studio and was very pink and I was like, ok, I'll go, I'll go take this class. I went to take the class and I got my butt kicked. I couldn't believe how hard it was. It didn't make sense to me that it was so hard. And the next day I was sore in all of the places that as a woman, I was trying to target my core, my obliques, my inner thighs, my, I mean, everything was just pulsating and of course, I had to tell everybody how sore I was. I started doing the math on how many people were in classroom machines. And I started to ask some questions. I'm like, this is what I'm going to do next. I didn't think that many people knew that you could work out this way and the results I was seeing the strength I was developing and I thought I could take everything I had learned at the back of my feet and put that into, you know, this new type of workout and build a really incredible brand. So I moved back to DC and I felt it would be the perfect place to launch the first solid core studio. I had saved 100 and 70 $5000 from bonuses from salary from speaking engagements. I was doing, it took 95% of that $175,000 to get this first studio open. I have been taking risks my whole life. So it didn't feel so scary when I was like, going to bet on myself because I'm not gonna grow. If I don't take risks, my views and predictions about solid core came true. We were very busy from day one. I got pretty lucky with the timing. So in 2013, there was really no boutique fitness in DC. There was no soul cycle. There was no orange berry, there was no fly wheel, there was no berries, there was nothing. And so when I showed up with this new type of workout, um people were really curious, I was able to get some good press. One thing I have learned about clio, our biggest marketing tool was the fact that everybody had to go tell anybody, they knew how sore they were and they wanted to be the ones to tell their friends that they had to go try this because it gives them good social cred in their circle. So we were really busy from the start and profitable from month 10, my goodness. I learned so many lessons in solid core and I can tell you from the beginning I had no boundaries as a CEO. And if I'm being honest with myself, I think a lot of that came from my insecurity of, you know, not really knowing how to lead quite yet. I was friends with a lot of our employees and, you know, we had conversations that were outside of work and it was just like, I don't have a lot of boundaries as a person, not having those boundaries in the beginning were what made the magic of Cicor. But I think later, I didn't do a good enough job at resetting those boundaries as it was turning into a really big company. And that got confusing for folks. I made my first million dollars in the first year of solid core, which is pretty incredible. And I know that's not, that's not normal. The money I was putting back into the company. Yes. But I was able, because I was 100% owner in the business to take out enough distribution to have a million dollars in my bank account. One of the greatest pieces of advice, uh, I have heard about money is that money follows, it doesn't lead and that really stuck with me because what I was focus on was not really making money. There's nothing wrong with making money, but what I was focused on was building an incredible company. I mean, I had the time of my life building this business. I loved every second of it and I put in time energy uh like you wouldn't believe so when you do that as an entrepreneur, right? Money for me is a reward. It means I'm doing a good job. It means what I'm doing is quality. It means it's a value that people are coming back. So it's just a reward for all of that.