Mindbody's first big customer bought the software on the very first phone call. Rick Stollmeyer was running the company from his garage in San Luis Obispo, California. Bob Murphy and his wife ran five yoga studios in New York and needed one schedule for all of them. The two men became partners. By 2015, Mindbody served about 42,000 studios, gyms and spas, with 24 million active consumers booking classes and appointments through them.

From a Garage to the Front Desk

Mindbody started in 2001 as desktop software for yoga and Pilates studios. Stollmeyer and Murphy spent hours behind studio front desks, fixing bugs and learning the work. In 2004 they rebuilt the business around the web. They would sell the software by monthly subscription instead of a one-time license. The first subscription version shipped in February 2005. The bigger bet was a marketplace, where consumers found classes and the studios got paid.

Vista Comes Calling

Mindbody priced its IPO at $14 a share in June 2015 and listed on Nasdaq as MB. It kept adding studios and bought fitness-tracking startup FitMetrix and salon software maker Booker. Losses lingered, though, and the stock swung hard. In December 2018 Vista Equity Partners agreed to buy Mindbody for $36.50 a share in cash, about $1.9 billion. The deal closed in February 2019, and Mindbody left the public market.

Cover: Dancer Stretching at the Bar, Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a dancer stretching at the barre (a studio class).