Jiří Koleňák: Welcome back to another episode of the Úspěšní (Successful) podcast. My name is Jiří Koleňák, and today we take another look at the life story of someone who transformed talent, discipline, and a core personal philosophy into a meaningful business. If you enjoy our interviews, don't forget to subscribe, share, and listen on your commutes. Our guest today is Kristýna Svobodová, a woman who has dedicated her entire life to movement: first through professional dance, later through fitness, and ultimately through yoga. From a former ballerina with the National Theatre Brno, she has evolved into the owner of successful yoga and Pilates Reformer studios, an entrepreneur, instructor, movement event organizer, mother, and partner. Her story is about discipline, intuition, courage, and a deep personal calling. Hi, Kristýna.
Kristýna Svobodová: Hi, Jirka, thank you for the invitation.
Jiří Koleňák: Welcome to the podcast. Kristýna, what brought you the greatest joy in recent days?
Kristýna Svobodová: On the business side, opening our brand-new studio location three days ago brought me immense joy. The past month was extremely demanding, but everything came together without needing any compromises. On a personal level, I'm most looking forward to putting on my pajamas tonight, sitting down with my kids to watch fairy tales, and enjoying well-deserved rest.
Jiří Koleňák: Before the next studio expansion begins! Let's return to the start of your journey. You began dancing at a very young age and later attended a dance conservatory. Is there a principle from that ballet discipline that you still rely on in business today?
Kristýna Svobodová: Uncompromising discipline and hard work. When people ask whether they should send their child to a dance conservatory, I jokingly reply: "Only if you want to ruin their life!" It was rigorous work, but it laid a strong foundation.
Jiří Koleňák: What did your tenure at the National Theatre Brno teach you about business practice?
Kristýna Svobodová: Personal accountability for your role. That sense of ownership is often missing in modern workplaces.
Jiří Koleňák: Why did you eventually decide to step away from professional dance?
Kristýna Svobodová: To be honest, because I wasn't the absolute best. I had talent and skill, but I recognized I wasn't among the elite top performers. I wanted to find a field where growth felt more organic—where reaching the top wouldn't require constant, unnatural strain. Thankfully, I found it.
Jiří Koleňák: Do you recall the decision-making period when you chose to pivot?
Kristýna Svobodová: I am a family-oriented person at heart. I realized that a career in fine arts rarely provides long-term financial security for a family. You pour your soul out continuously, but the personal and financial return didn't feel balanced. I needed a new direction.
Jiří Koleňák: What provided the impulse in 2016 to open your first yoga studio?
Kristýna Svobodová: The transition happened gradually. I was earning extra income as a fitness trainer, which led me to fall in love with yoga. Working across traditional fitness centers, I felt restricted—I couldn't deliver classes or client care the way I envisioned. Wanting total creative freedom, I decided to open my own studio and build it my way.
Jiří Koleňák: What experience did you want to offer clients?
Kristýna Svobodová: Beyond teaching yoga, movement, and a healthy lifestyle, I wanted to offer a sanctuary—a beautiful, welcoming environment and a genuine community where clients love returning. I didn't want a transactional space where people just exercise and leave. I wanted to build a "second home."
Jiří Koleňák: How important is community in your business model?
Kristýna Svobodová: Extremely important. Community is the foundation of our entire team and client experience.
Jiří Koleňák: Is community the primary glue holding your studios together?
Kristýna Svobodová: Community connects both our internal staff and our clients. Our core strength is that clients feel we are a healthy, aligned team with shared values. That is why they keep coming back.
Jiří Koleňák: Clients feel like true members of the community?
Kristýna Svobodová: Absolutely.
Jiří Koleňák: How do you maintain communication across this community?
Kristýna Svobodová: With our core internal team, active communication, personal care, professional education, and shared growth are paramount. When I worked as an instructor for other facilities, nobody invested in my personal growth. I had to grow independently rather than alongside a cohesive team, because no true team existed.
Jiří Koleňák: Your studios feature exceptionally beautiful aesthetics. Is environment part of how you communicate with your community?
Kristýna Svobodová: The environments where we spend time directly impact our mental state. I refuse to settle for mediocre spaces. While high-quality instruction is essential, the physical aesthetic and how clients feel the moment they step through the door are equally vital.
Jiří Koleňák: Allowing clients to leave their personal yoga mats stored at the studio is a brilliant touch!
Kristýna Svobodová: Where space permits, we offer that service! Storage space fills up fast, but clients who store their mats at the studio stay deeply loyal. It serves as a natural loyalty program.
Jiří Koleňák: Your business spans yoga, Pilates, and Pilates Reformer apparatus training. What is the next phase of evolution?
Kristýna Svobodová: We are launching accredited instructor training programs. Managing multiple physical locations alongside retreats and major events requires a expanding pipeline of top-tier instructors. Finding specialized Reformer Pilates instructors in the market is difficult, so I decided to establish our own educational academy to train instructors directly to our quality standards.
Jiří Koleňák: What is your overarching business vision? Is it driven by studio counts or client metrics?
Kristýna Svobodová: It was never about hitting a specific studio count. Every location opened organically based on team expansion and client demand—we simply needed more space to accommodate people. I don't build locations just for the sake of scaling; I expand only when it serves the growth of our team and community.
Jiří Koleňák: What core values guide your leadership across an organization employing around 60 people?
Kristýna Svobodová: Deep empathy. While high empathy can occasionally be challenging in business, prioritizing mutual care and shared team growth has built a family-like internal culture.
Jiří Koleňák: How does a ballerina evolve into an executive leader?
Kristýna Svobodová: It happened naturally as the business grew step by step.
Jiří Koleňák: Looking back at that evolution, were there critical management milestones required to scale?
Kristýna Svobodová: When launching our first studio, executive leadership was split among multiple partners. Over time, I realized that structure wasn't working—I had a strong drive to innovate and lead decisively. Streamlining executive leadership so I could guide the vision independently was a crucial turning point.
Jiří Koleňák: How do you ensure every studio retains your personal signature across different locations?
Kristýna Svobodová: Through direct personal involvement. I don't hire external interior designers and hand off the keys. My husband and I build every studio from the ground up—from brickwork to final decor. That hands-on execution creates an authentic, recognizable signature across every location.
Jiří Koleňák: You co-found and run the business alongside your life partner. What does that dynamic bring to your enterprise?
Kristýna Svobodová: It provides unshakeable, natural support.
Jiří Koleňák: How do you structure that working partnership?
Kristýna Svobodová: It evolved organically. While running my first studio with a young child at home, an opportunity arose to open a Pilates studio. I knew I couldn't handle the physical construction and expansion alone. My husband stepped in to manage the construction, technical operations, and infrastructure.
Conversely, his primary background is in the music industry, where he occasionally needed my care, organizational perspective, and female energy. Supporting each other across our respective ventures creates a powerful, balanced dynamic.
Jiří Koleňák: What are the top three benefits of co-founding a business with your spouse?
Kristýna Svobodová: 1. Quality, meaningful time spent together—we never run out of engaging topics to discuss. 2. Modeling teamwork for our children—they watch their parents communicate, solve problems, and build as a unified team. 3. Family cohesion—our kids naturally integrate into our entrepreneurial life and appreciate collective family teamwork.
Jiří Koleňák: It dismantles the outdated myth that spouses shouldn't do business together. When aligned, it offers immense strategic advantages.
Kristýna Svobodová: Absolutely. When both partners share equal understanding, supporting each other across childcare and household duties becomes seamless.
Jiří Koleňák: Do you feel a need to rigidly separate business life from personal life?
Kristýna Svobodová: No, we thrive in this integrated flow.
Jiří Koleňák: How does your husband support your strategic growth?
Kristýna Svobodová: He listens openly to every new concept I pitch. His masculine, strategic perspective brings fresh angles to my ideas, evolving raw concepts into well-rounded strategies I couldn't have developed alone.
Jiří Koleňák: Have you ever experienced business pressures overwhelming your personal relationship?
Kristýna Svobodová: When you genuinely love your work, work doesn't feel like a burden. My husband often says he would do his job for free because he loves it, and I feel the same. The key is practicing intentional, restorative rest when physical or mental fatigue sets in. When core passion is present, you don't need artificial separation—you just need healthy self-care.
Jiří Koleňák: "Do work you would do for free" is a foundational entrepreneurial principle.
Kristýna Svobodová: When you pour heart and soul into your work, you enter a natural state of flow where long-term success becomes inevitable.
Jiří Koleňák: Do you have specific daily routines that keep your family aligned?
Kristýna Svobodová: Every evening after putting the kids to bed, my husband and I sit down with our calendars to synchronize the next day's logistics—aligning business tasks, client meetings, and our children's activity schedules.
Jiří Koleňák: How has motherhood shaped your perspective as a business leader?
Kristýna Svobodová: Motherhood taught me to find deep fulfillment in simplicity. Before having children, resting meant traveling abroad or booking hotels. Today, simply being home with my family provides total restoration.
My children teach me daily to cherish simple moments—like holding my youngest son's hand or looking into his eyes. Those simple moments ground everything I do.
Jiří Koleňák: As a leader who gives immense energy to your teams, how do you recharge your personal tank?
Kristýna Svobodová: Before having a family, I invested heavily in personal development courses and retreats. Today, raising my family provides that grounding balance and quiet rest.
Jiří Koleňák: Picture the year 2030. What does success look like for you then?
Kristýna Svobodová: Success means looking back at a satisfied, thriving team that loves coming to work, seeing loyal clients who find genuine sanctuary in our studios, and enjoying a happy, healthy family life.
For my children, I want them to absorb the work ethic and passion my husband and I model, empowering them to pursue their own unique paths confidently. For my marriage, I want us to remain the same great partners we are today.
Jiří Koleňák: What myth about yoga or entrepreneurship would you like to dispel?
Kristýna Svobodová: Regarding yoga: Yoga doesn't just happen on the mat. The mat is merely practice. A true yogi is revealed off the mat—through their daily actions, ethics, empathy, and how they treat others. When clients translate mat mindfulness into their daily lives, their entire world transforms.
Regarding entrepreneurship: Women and mothers can build thriving, scalable businesses without sacrificing family life when supported by an aligned partner.
Jiří Koleňák: What is the single greatest challenge in building a business?
Kristýna Svobodová: Ensuring overall satisfaction—keeping the team fulfilled, clients happy, and service quality uncompromised. As the saying goes, "the fish rots from the head down." Leadership authenticity must start with the founder; if you don't live your values genuinely, people notice immediately.
Jiří Koleňák: What advice would you offer your younger self graduating from the dance conservatory?
Kristýna Svobodová: The intense pressure of the conservatory temporarily broke my self-esteem. I would tell young Kristýna: "Don't be afraid. You have everything it takes within you, and you can achieve anything you set your mind to."
Jiří Koleňák: Kristýna Svobodová. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation and sharing your inspiring journey with us.
Kristýna Svobodová: Thank you very much, Jirka.
Jiří Koleňák: To our viewers, thank you for watching, and see you next time with more inspiring guests!
