Episode 20 is here! In this episode, I sat down with Natalie Holloway, the co-founder and CEO of Bala. She’s a fellow Austinite, now living in Los Angeles where she and and her husband Max own and operate the company they started in 2018 together. Natalie and I connected for the purpose of this podcast, but we actually have quite a bit in common, so I am looking forward to getting to know her better. She has a fun story to share about how Bala came about, and how they got to appear on Shark Tank and walked away with investments from Mark Cuban and Maria Sharapova. Bala is a fitness company, their hero product being Bala Bangles, which are stylish weighted bands that amplify the fitness benefits of just about any routine. I heard about Bala about a year ago, but it wasn’t until Covid hit that one of my best friends told me I needed these stylish fitness accessories. My mom got me the white 1lb bangles for my birthday, which I immediately slid onto my wrists and did a happy dance. They’re just so fun! In this episode, we talk about: Natalie’s background and what she did before Bala came about the idea of Bala & how their products stand out uses for Bala products the meaning of the name Bala what the beginning of Bala looked like for Natalie & her husband Max in Brooklyn what working with family is like new products on the horizon their experience on Shark Tank how Covid affected their sales where they’re sold and how they got such big accounts like Goop, Free People & more how they market Bala All about Natalie/Bala: Natalie Holloway is the co-founder and CEO of Bala. She’s a fellow Austinite, now living in Los Angeles where and and her husband Max own and operate the company together. Bala is a fitness company that Natalie & Max founded in 2018. Their first collection, Bala Bangles, are stylish weighted bands that amplify the fitness benefits of just about any routine. Today their line of fashion-forward fitness products are designed to bring a little something extra to a range of activities. They are carried in over 1000 retail locations worldwide. Their mission is to inspire movement by design. Where to find Phillip: Natalie’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/nnholloway/ Bala’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/bala Bala’s website: https://shopbala.com/ Other resources we mention: The clip on Shark Tank:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PetyqLnkYmM&t=6s Workouts on Bala: https://shopbala.com/pages/workouts If you enjoyed this episode,  please head to Apple podcasts, subscribe (so you’ll see each new episode!) and leave a review and a rating: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fitness-insider/id1485908967#see-all/reviews. This helps others discover my podcast and also provides me with some much needed feedback :) If you’d like to follow along updates with this podcast, be sure to follow me here: @thefitnessinsiderpodcast --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-fitness-insider/support