Badii Talk Gathers Sauna Founders’ Advice on Building a Business

Sauna founders describe local relevance, operating discipline, and guest feedback as essential to building a business in a new Badii Talk compilation released October 4. Their experiences also show why expansion can take different forms, from larger bathhouses to a founder-led retreat program.

Host Sarah Spoto’s 36-minute episode brings together earlier interviews with founders of seven businesses: Hideout Sauna Club, Cedar & Stone, Sisu Mobile Sauna, Howl at the Moon Sauna Co., BATHHOUSE, DRYYP, and Fad Saoil.

The discussion adds firsthand operator perspectives to the questions in SaunaNews’ reporting on bathhouse development and bathhouse operating benchmarks. It contains personal experience and advice; it does not establish a universal demand forecast or financial model.

Start with the people and the place

Spoto opens with a practical question: what makes an experience relevant to its location? A sauna in the Maine woods will serve a different setting from one on the Connecticut coast. Local culture and the people an operator hopes to welcome should shape the offering.

She describes several possibilities, including partnerships with running clubs or yoga studios, community residencies that make sessions more affordable, and a focus on everyday sauna etiquette. Structured rituals are one option within that range. The starting point is understanding the community.

Ryan Linner: expect the operational work

Hideout Sauna Club founder Ryan Linner, based in Stamford, Connecticut, describes entrepreneurship as a daily test of adaptability. Building the brand is one part of the work. The founder also has to solve operational problems and welcome guests while under pressure.

Linner draws on his own cold-plunge mindset as a metaphor for staying composed. His broader advice is to build discipline, recognize small wins, and keep confidence through setbacks. A prospective host can take that as a prompt to consider the daily work of running the experience.

Justin Juntunen: define the problem the sauna solves

Justin Juntunen, co-founder of Cedar & Stone in Duluth, Minnesota, argues that a clear vision should guide the business before its doors open. Enjoying sauna does not by itself identify an audience or explain why someone would choose the experience.

He encourages founders to be specific about the need they hope to address, such as stress, isolation, or a desire for connection. He also encourages action: talk about the project, try things, and learn whether people respond to the vision. Clarity can develop through those conversations.

Katie More: take small steps and learn from peers

Katie More of Sisu Mobile Sauna in Michigan recalls being held back by the feeling that she needed every detail settled. Her advice is to make progress through small, concrete tasks and ask other operators questions along the way.

She also names work that a mobile-sauna plan needs to account for: delivery, cleaning, towel laundry, maintenance, and getting the sauna into a customer’s driveway. Relationships with fellow operators help her keep learning. She sees collaboration as part of building a wider sauna culture.

Alisa Cardenas: choose a scale that fits your life

Alisa Cardenas of Howl at the Moon Sauna Co. in Michigan wants growth to stay connected to the reasons she began. She describes setting personal boundaries and considering how a larger business would affect her autonomy.

Rather than defaulting to a fleet of mobile saunas or a permanent location, she is developing thermal-bathing retreats that bring together her interests in travel, hospitality, and exploring places. Her example gives founders another question to ask: which kind of growth would they actually want to live with?

Travis Talmadge: let guests show you what needs to change

BATHHOUSE co-founder Travis Talmadge describes how customer feedback changed the company’s understanding of capacity. After the first location opened, guest comments and observed behavior showed that the pools and saunas needed more room.

For Talmadge, listening includes watching how people use a space. That experience helped shape BATHHOUSE’s approach to scale. It is an account of demand at his business; prospective hosts still need to learn what guests in their own location want.

Mike and Meg Garrow: build a circle of support

Mike and Meg Garrow of DRYYP in New Haven, Connecticut, emphasize finding people who share the project’s passions and values. They describe the amount of learning involved in getting started and the importance of the community around them.

For their accessible sauna concept, that support is part of how the project became possible. The lesson for a new host is to seek collaborators early, especially people who understand both the experience and the community it is meant to serve.

Steve Crosbie: give the idea time to develop

Steve Crosbie of Fad Saoil in Ireland returns to purpose and patience. He encourages founders to work out what they want to create, make room for reflection, and resist forcing the business into a model that does not fit.

His advice adds a useful balance to the calls for action elsewhere in the episode. A founder can test an idea while continuing to think carefully about its direction. Building something intended to last takes time.

What prospective operators can take into planning

The accounts point to decisions that should sit alongside a build plan: define the local audience, account for routine operating work, establish relationships with peers, and decide how customer feedback will be collected. Growth also needs to fit the founder’s aims and capacity.

Spoto’s own advice is to evaluate both the economics and the qualitative feedback. The next step for an operator is to test those assumptions in the community the business intends to serve.

By SaunaShare. Adapted from SaunaShare’s companion article. Source: Sarah Spoto’s Badii Talk, October 4, 2026. Listen to the full episode or read the publisher’s transcript. Episode artwork: Badii Talk.