Editor’s note: We’re going to be doing a series of podcasts on how Boulder small business owners and others who are adapting to the coronavirus-inspired slowdown. First up is Alia Sebben, founder of Amana Yoga.
Alia Sebben founded Amana Yoga in 2014 and opened her current studio space at 949 Walnut St., near the Pearl Street Mall’s West End, in 2015. Like many other Boulder business owners, Alia had to shutter her doors in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
After reading news stories and thinking deeply about the responsibility we all have, she made the decision to close Amana down on Thursday evening, March 12. From that Friday onward, she and her 17 yoga teachers lost their income.
Like many other studios, she started coordinating virtual classes for students via Zoom and began reaching out to her network for other ways to serve the community — and stay in business — with a virtual offering.
Thanks to a new local investor with deep business resources and knowledge, Alia came up with an online course offering — Amana Yoga Online — which officially launched on Friday, a week after shuttering Amana’s physical doors.
She and 12 of her yoga teachers now have 17 classes on the platform and plan to add more. They’ll have a mix of recorded and live classes for a subscription of $39.99 per month.
We spoke to Alia about the challenges of running a small Boulder business amid the coronavirus crisis, pivoting as an entrepreneur and what’s next for Amana. We spoke to Alia for a 2017 profile when she was pregnant with her now 2-year-old daughter, who you can hear in the podcast background.
Header image: Shot from an intro video to Amana Yoga Online. Source: Amana Yoga
