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SAN FRANCISCO -- As a young mother and dancer three decades ago, Joan Barnes founded the Gymboree play programs to nurture babies and preschool kids.
Now, still the entrepreneur at nearly 60, she's launched an upscale business called Yoga Studio to nurture and soothe grownups stressed by daily life.
Barnes is an avid yoga practitioner who suffered through bulimia and a nervous breakdown that forced her to leave Gymboree after a decade of frenetically building the company.
Her aim with Yoga Studio is to introduce consumers to "the yoga lifestyle" in a relaxed, spa-like atmosphere. To that end, Yoga Studio offers hundreds of yoga exercise classes, yoga clothing and travel retreats through its retail-studio sites in Mill Valley and Larkspur in suburban Marin County north of here, plus a new San Francisco site that opened in January.
"When you come through these doors," Barnes says, "we want you to experience the peace and beauty and sense of wholeness that's part of the yoga lifestyle."
Not too long ago, many saw yoga as a New Age trend. But now, the ancient practice from India is big business. Some 17 million people stay fit through yoga and spent $3 billion last year on classes and yoga-related clothing, books, CDs and exercise mats, reports the Yoga Journal.
Expansion possibilities
The timing seems ripe for Yoga Studio. Barnes says investors and venture capitalists are interested, but she says it's too soon to know whether Yoga Studio will roll out sites nationwide.
"We know we have something unique and special that no one else is doing," Barnes says.
In the late 1970s, Barnes and another dancer, Karen Robbins, started Gymboree -- then called KinderGym -- at the Jewish Community Center in Marin County. They wanted a safe neighborhood place where mothers could meet and their toddlers could play.
But Barnes, a Chicago native who had gone to San Francisco with her then-husband in a beat-up Volkswagen van "like all the other hippies," also was a budding entrepreneur.
She expanded her programs, using church basements and other low-cost sites. Her energy and ideas seemed boundless, whether she was working all night or brainstorming with colleagues on mountain hikes.
Most of Barnes' early hires also were young mothers eager to learn new skills and make their mark in the business world.
"We worked well as a team, we believed in what we were doing, and Joan's personality was infectious," says Nancy Bott, a former Gymboree executive.
While the play programs were popular, they didn't make enough money. The next move? Retail outlets to buy preschoolers' clothes and other products.
This was the mid-1980s, when high-tech start-ups such as Apple Computer, not tiny retail businesses, were the darlings of venture capitalists.
But Barnes forged ahead. Through mutual friends, she hooked up with Robert "Bud" Jacob, an investor and expert on business franchises who had advised the founders of Midas and Arby's. Jacob was quickly sold on the Gymboree concept and Barnes.
"She was a visionary capable of turning a concept into a growth company," Jacob says. "She had the smarts, the charisma, the energy, to be successful."
Gymboree quickly received $1 million in seed money after meeting with Stuart Moldow at U.S. Venture Partners, which had just launched a $100 million fund for retail-related start-ups. Soon, investors poured millions more into the company.
When Barnes left Gymboree in 1990, the business boasted 400 play center franchises and retail outlets worldwide. Today, the San Francisco-based company hauls in $600 million a year in revenue from 1,100 apparel stores and play-and-music program sites.
Barnes' drive fed the company's rapid growth, but also had an impact on her personal and professional lives. She worked seven days a week, juggling many projects and overseeing all of Gymboree's operations. Barnes was brimming with entrepreneurial vision, but lacked the experience to run a large retail company.
"Frankly, I was in over my head for many years," she says. "I had reached my limits."
To escape the pressure, Barnes became a self-described "exercise addict," mountainbiking constantly, taking off for long runs during the workday, opening an aerobics studio in Gymboree's offices.
Unbeknownst to her colleagues, Barnes also had been tormented by bulimia and body image problems for years. She furiously ate bags of corn chips and other food, purged the food, then ate again. She grew dizzy and had arrhythmic heartbeats. In 1990, she had a breakdown.
"I was still CEO, but I could barely function," Barnes says. "I still had a family and business, but inside I was bereft. I had no will."
After leaving Gymboree, Barnes spent 30 days at an eating-disorder facility on the East Coast. It took several years before she felt strong enough to return to San Francisco and the hard-driving, entrepreneurial climate that fueled her personal problems.
When Barnes returned, her old friend, Robbins, took her to her first yoga class. Barnes instantly felt in harmony with the exercises, the music, the instructor.
With her own money, Barnes opened the first Yoga Studio site in 1993. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she says, classes overflowed with people "seeking comfort from all the chaos," so she opened a second in 2002 as "a gift to the community."
For Yoga Studio, Barnes didn't want a "workout gym feel" or retail outlets that bombarded shoppers with a hard sell, says Tim Chappelle, a partner at San Francisco-based Arcanum Architecture, which designed the San Francisco and Larkspur sites.
Rather, she wanted warm gathering places for people to exercise, shop, sip tea and chat at their leisure. The architects used dark-stained wood cabinets and furniture, satin lights, altars and other natural and Asian artifacts "to create a sense of calmness and simplicity and timelessness," Chappelle says.
Friends say Barnes' entrepreneurial spark is back. But Barnes vows she won't build another Gymboree and burn out again.
If Yoga Studio keeps growing, she plans to step aside and let her management team -- led by Allison Berardi, director of Yoga Studio's San Francisco site -- chart the future. Barnes will stay as an adviser.
"I'm still a dream maker and a rainmaker," Barnes says, smiling. "So this yoga business is so very perfect."
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