Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in wellness for massage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Bradley Jadir and Pete Wetherton, Founders of Ebodhi, located in London, UK.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Bradley Jadir: We are Ebodhi, a two-man team from England, and we sell online video-based massage courses to students all over the world – from beginners who are just beginning to learn massage from scratch to experienced professionals at the very top of the industry, who want to expand their skill set. Our customers span all age groups and demographics, from young adults planning to launch their first freelance business to retired people seeking new hobbies. We also issue professional, insurable certificates for 16 different types of massage, and this is quite an important aspect of the service.
Pete Wetherton: Embracing the fact that we live in a super-saturated, 'free information' era, as Ebodhi, we wanted to create courses that stood out, both in terms of the quality of the information and the quality of the production values. So, we spent most of our budget traveling to various scenic spots in Croatia, England, and Morocco, shooting each massage technique from multiple angles, and we hired an award-winning actress, Michelle Fahrenheim, for most of the narration. We also wanted to make this course a 'one-stop learning resource,' presenting many different disciplines of massage together and demonstrating how to blend them creatively.
The goal was to remove the guesswork, the variable results, and the 'hit-and-miss' factor associated with learning massage online. And we also wanted to reduce the financial barrier to obtaining a pretty world-class massage skill set, as many people can't afford to spend thousands on massage school tuition fees, often paying for international flights as well as taking months off work.
Tell us about yourself
Bradley: Massage has been a passion of mine since my teenage years. When I received treatments when I was younger, I felt like the therapists were some kind of magical wizards, and they all seemed very relaxed and chilled with a great lifestyle, and this encouraged me to take that pathway. So, after finishing my degree at university, instead of pursuing more formal career routes, I began my first freelance massage practice in High Street Kensington in London.
I quickly realized that the massage industry was all about your skill set and expanding and diversifying those skills as far as possible, so, over the years, I ended up traveling around the world learning from as many of the best teachers in the world as my resources allowed.
Pete: I met Brad at a party in London in 2009, and, at this party, he gave me my first ever Thai massage, and I immediately decided, 'I have to learn how to do that.' I began learning Thai massage from Brad and also did formal courses in Swedish body massage, Indian head massage, and Zen Shiatsu. At the time, I had been working as a copywriter for a multinational and was getting sick of writing ads for other people's products. So, when Brad suggested creating an online course, I was game. We originally thought the project would take 'about three weeks' but achieving our goals with the product ended up taking closer to three years!
Bradley: We wanted to make an online course as it seemed like it could be an easy, passive revenue stream. Unfortunately, in the end, nothing about it was easy or passive!
Pete: Yeah, I would say the greatest motivator back then was creating the 'best massage course online,' and the greatest motivator for all the updates and expansions we've done over the subsequent years has been 'keeping it the best.'
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Bradley: Chronic stress and constant, unsatisfying habits of over-consumption have become the default modes in our society. So, it's awesome to think of the fact we've helped spread massage skills to thousands of people as a kind of beneficial counter-influence. While many of our customers are either pros or aspiring pros, it's nice to think of friends or partners switching off the vicarious, virtual pleasures of Netflix and spending an evening sharing the deep, real pleasures of massage – a healthy, grounding, relaxing, and sustainable activity.
I'm also proud of the fact that we provide an effective solution for a major problem faced by many massage therapists: physical exhaustion and repetitive strain. These issues ruin many massage careers very early on, and it was a challenge for me as well in the early years, but the deep Thai body weight techniques we teach in our course show how these important problems can be very effectively avoided entirely. These particular techniques can save some careers for sure and substantially improve most ones.
Overall, I'm proud to be part of a business with positive karma.
Pete: Yeah, perhaps the most rewarding moments in this business have been when students email us and say things along the lines of 'your course has changed my life.' We are one of the most successful massage instructors online. However, in terms of the work, money, and time we put into this project over the years, those efforts, honestly, would've been best spent doing something else.
So, overall, I'm most proud of the quality of the content we produced and the fact that students from lower-income backgrounds can get a comprehensive skill set and a learning experience from us that otherwise would've been cost prohibitive.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Pete: If you're creating your own product, it's easy to get carried away with the pursuit of perfection, but this pursuit can burn a great deal of time, which is ultimately your most valuable resource. Sometimes just 'good' is good enough, but this can be difficult to judge in a very competitive market or when the quality or quantity aspects of the product are important USPs.
Bradley: I think that it comes down to the individual. For me, I struggle with the admin and marketing that business involves because I don't enjoy them very much.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
Bradley:
- Get a good team around you and listen to them. Find the people who fill the gaps in your own expertise and interests.
- Choose to work on something you are passionate about. Virtually 100% of the time, the idea of the task always seems much smaller than the actual task itself. Don't sign up for something you're not ready to dedicate yourself to.
- Remember, 'hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard,' but also appreciate it's better to work at 50% intensity on the right thing than at 100% intensity on the wrong thing!
Pete:
- Try to avoid making quality, quantity, or cheapness the USP of your product or service. Instead, try to be different. If you can, try to avoid very obvious, mainstream, hyper-competitive markets. Instead, look for a highly specific or overlooked niche you can occupy.
- Start testing the market for your product or service as soon as possible. There's a book about this called 'Traction,' which is one of the few business books I'd recommend.
- Appreciate the fact that nowadays, middleman companies have much more scope for profit than the actual creators of products and services. Consider whether you actually want to create a new product or service or whether you would do better at selling the products and services offered by others.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.ebodhi.com/
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