Lauren Kleban: Founder & CEO of LEKFIT

Episode 863

On today’s episode, we welcome Lauren Kleban, Founder and CEO of LEKFIT — the luxury fitness brand known for its signature rebounder-based workouts, devoted community, and intentional approach to movement and wellness.
Lauren started teaching her method out of her garage in 2014. Within a year, classes were selling out, celebrities like Busy Philipps were showing up, and LEKFIT was becoming more than a workout — it was becoming a movement built on consistency, trust, and results.
In this episode, Lauren shares how she grew LEKFIT into a global digital platform and flagship Los Angeles studio, what separates a lasting fitness method from a trend, and how she has scaled without losing the integrity, safety, and community that made the brand special.
So good! This is a must listen.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control, control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go, let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. In a world full of wellness trends and viral workouts and influencer-led studios, what makes a fitness method actually last? Well, our next guest, Lauren Kleban, who is the founder and CEO of LEKFIT, all one word, she has built something different, a method people return to because it actually works. So I’ve been a fan of hers for a while. She’s a former dancer, fitness expert, and celebrity trainer. Started LEKFIT in her garage in 2014 love that, so, so fun, and LEKFIT is a global luxury fitness brand with a devoted community digital platform, signature rebounder, and a flagship LA studio. So I’m so excited to have her here with us today to talk more about what it takes to build a brand as she has and have a global platform that people cannot wait to come to sign into, so, so great. So, Lauren, welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So, so nice to meet you.

Lauren Kleban 1:58
Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.

Kara Goldin 2:01
Absolutely. So, for listeners who are just discovering LEKFIT, how do you describe the brand and what makes the method so different?

Lauren Kleban 2:11
We pride ourselves on being your complete fitness method, and we came to that because when we started, we noticed a trend of clients going from, like, a yoga class to a spin class to a boot camp, like they weren’t able to get everything they needed in one place, and we wanted to be that one place, so that you weren’t going from the gym to your private trainer to your Pilates class that you could really get your cardio, your strength training, your sculpting, your stretching, and your community all in one place. So that’s first and foremost. And then the second part of LEKFIT is that our cardio is done on a rebounder, and that’s a small trampoline design specifically for fitness, and all of our concepts, our cardio concepts also include strength and sculpt, as to our mat classes. So, nothing is just straight out cardio, and nothing is just flat out strength training. We combine all of it, so that you can get it done, and then you can come back to it daily. We truly believe in moving your body seven days a week. Take us back to the beginning. You started teaching LEKFIT in your garage in 2014 I love that story so much. And what was happening in your life that led you to decide I’m gonna do this. I was a new mom with my first of now three children, and prior to having my first, I was a professional dancer, and already in the fitness space. I knew that’s where I was headed post dance life, and at the time when a pre-mom life, I too was going from teaching a dance class, taking a dance class, working as a dancer, rehearsal, plus running Runyon Canyon, taking a ballet class, teaching a ballet class, and I wanted, once I became a new mom, I no longer had a full day to work on my body, I wanted to maintain my body, and I wanted to maintain it daily in an hour or less. So it was really the birth of my son, Miles, who’s now 13, that got me to now what is LEKFIT, our hero concept, LEKFIT Boost, which is our rebounder cardio strength sculpt and tone concept, and you’re in and out in 50 minutes, full body, complete strength and cardio.

Kara Goldin 4:46
That’s amazing. So, did you have an audience of people who maybe your friends, or how did you get going?

Lauren Kleban 4:54
Yeah, I started teaching dance-based fitness. More dancers and non-dancers alike, and I started that way back when I was even before college, and that I just kind of knew that was going to be my journey, and when I was graduating from high school, moving to LA, like dance fitness was very much coming back, like it was the MTV Grind era, Carmen Electra striptease era Sheila Kelly S factor, like all of that was coming back into play. It was like post my mom’s like Jane Fonda world and kind of like the MTV vibe of cardio dance based fitness, and so I really gravitated towards that, and I had already been dabbling in it, playing with it. Yes, my friends were so many of my private clients teaching small group classes throughout LA and Las Vegas, and it was just a ton of trial and error, working one on one. I wanted to make sure that I came to the fitness space well-rounded, so I made sure that I worked with yoga instructors and Pilates instructors, also dance-based instructors, and really true, like old school bodybuilder type fitness guys, because I wanted to know everything and anything, and how I could combine bits and pieces into the LEKFIT method.

Kara Goldin 6:15
How did you know how to like charge for this, and, and all like, what was the business model that that you like went out with, and maybe how has that developed over the years.

Lauren Kleban 6:29
I think that when I, at the time that I officially started LEKFIT, was also the time of the influencer, and so, and also the time of social media, like, of course, we had Facebook and Friendster and MySpace, and all those things, but none of them were like driving brands, at least that was not my understanding of it. When I was on Facebook, we were in college, and you had to be in college to be on Facebook, and there was really Instagram, was really the very beginning of all that, and we got on at that time, and it was also like I said, the beginning of the influencer, and so we used that to kind of catapult us as a catalyst to become a brand that really relied solely on word of mouth.

Kara Goldin 7:18
Within a year, I read your classes were selling out, and celebrities were showing up and getting their friends to show up, so the word of mouth was definitely working. When did you realize that this could actually scale, that you, it wasn’t just something in your mind that you like to do, but that it could actually be much bigger.

Lauren Kleban 7:43
I think I always knew that. I think the who I am in my personality, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know that it was going to be a success. So, I think that, and whether that’s just a mindset manifestation, whatever it is, I knew that it would be in that, I think that’s what drives me to continue on, so that I was confident in, and thankfully I was correct, but I think I think when you’re starting something, especially if you’re going to be a CEO, an entrepreneur, and create your own business, you really have no choice but to believe that it’s going to be successful, and then you have to, you have to agree, you have to accept that you’re going to do whatever it takes to maintain that success, to build that success, because, of course, there’s ebbs and flows, there’s good times, there’s bad times, and you, you have to believe in it, and you have to hold on to that belief, and I think if you were ever to let go of it, then everything would just crumble, right? Because that’s what drives you, that’s what gets you through all of the difficult times in business.

Kara Goldin 8:50
Yeah, definitely. I always share with other founders, usually newer founders, that if you don’t believe, no one else will either, right? So you have to be the one who is spearheading that belief, for sure. So, fitness is such a crowded space. You obviously built credibility early in this crazy market. When did the signature rebounder that you have kind of come along? Was that always there? When did that kind of become a core part?

Lauren Kleban 9:23
The rebounder became a core part, probably in about 2015 So, a year after kind of making our classes, we weren’t online yet, but making the group classes public. The rebounder came in. I knew that we needed to have cardio, and I knew that I wanted something that anyone could do, despite any injury, age, whatever, I wanted something that was fairly inexpensive, easy to store, easy to have in your home or anywhere, and I. Overall, I wanted something that worked, so the cardio options are like right a treadmill, a bike, an elliptical, jumping on the floor, running, and I knew that an elliptical isn’t it, unless God forbid you’re injured or rehabbing, that’s probably the only time you need it. Same with the bike, sitting down to workout, laying down to workout, those are not workouts. Running on a treadmill, running on the floor, jumping on the ground, all of that is very short-lived. It’s very damaging to your body, and ultimately it produces the opposite effect in your body than what you’re wanting when you’re doing cardio, and that led me to the rebounder, and I love that we’re the pioneer of using the rebounder for fitness. I love that we’re still one of the only ones. I know there’s so many that have brought it in, but I’m also consistently, constantly baffled that, like, people are still on a bike and still running on a treadmill. Like, the rebounder is the most brilliant piece of equipment that exists, it activates your lymphatic system and drains it, plus simultaneously strengthens your pelvic floor and your, you have force, there’s no way around it, you must engage every muscle in your body, also it makes you the happiest you could possibly be doing any form of exercise, so I’m like, love that it’s us, and really we’re synonymous with LEKFIT, but it’s also like, oh my god, why is everyone not only doing the rebounder for Cardiff? So that’s how I got there, and I was a little.. it was.. it was not a hard sell for me, because of the benefits, but for us, like LEKFIT, just the vibe that we are is very, very sensual and very esthetically pleasing, and so the rebounder wasn’t, which then led us to creating and designing our own rebounder, because I didn’t all of a sudden want this like bulky, weird thing in a very esthetically pleasing space, so that’s how we ended up creating our own, and we started to design our own, probably 2017 and then finally, obviously, there were delays, but finally by 2021 it was there, it existed.

Kara Goldin 12:18
That’s amazing, and I read that you sold out of the product a couple of times.

Lauren Kleban 12:24
Oh, yeah, yeah,

Kara Goldin 12:26
wow, that’s that’s a good problem to have, for sure. Yes, for sure. So, you have a physical location that you also teach at. So, where is that location?

Lauren Kleban 12:38
We’re in Los Angeles, Mid City, on La Brea,

Kara Goldin 12:42
amazing, amazing. So, have you thought about, you know, building more of these physical locations? Is a big decision, right? It’s a big one, and that’s that’s not my journey. No, and you’ve been done. Yeah, you’ve built such an amazing digital platform, you were early. Yes, we were in building 2016 which is great, because at a time when Covid was hitting for so many fitness brands, it was paralyzing, right? But you were already ready to do this. So, what do you think being kind of ready allowed you to do, and how did it help you during that period of time?

Lauren Kleban 13:28
First and foremost, it allowed me to keep all of my team members employed, which was really amazing, and we had a substantial team at that time, so when, when that time hit, we were actually only producing two workouts a week, and we quickly moved to producing five. Now we produce 11, but that helps me, you know, maintain my staff and allow them to have allowed them to continue working and earning an income, and for us, it, of course, allowed us to grow our subscriber community, and yeah, I mean, it was not.. I don’t even want to call it.. I don’t even know what it was, but it worked for us, because we had been online, of course, it’s never anything I want to live through again, but it did allow us to maintain our staff, and we were able to raise everyone and really help everyone continue to live in LA during that time, and that’s something I’m really proud of, that we were able to do, and we just kept creating content, and it just kept, for me personally, it helped me maintain my creativity, and still, to this day, like I said, we went from two to now 11 brand new workouts that get released online, plus we now have our sister app, but yeah, it helped us continue to grow, whatever, however dreadful that time period was.

Kara Goldin 14:54
That’s amazing. So the boutique fitness has gone through some. Major saturation points. What do you think the category got right, and where do you think it’s gone wrong now that you’ve been able to spend so much time with consumers that it that you’ve gotten to know over the

Lauren Kleban 15:15
years? Yeah, I mean, I think I’ll go back to the beginning when I started LEKFIT. It was at the time of fitness where everything was really about there wasn’t any talk about longevity. It was really about we need to get ready for spring break, we need to get our bodies ready for summer, for Memorial Day, for the fourth, like for a wedding, for being a bridesmaid, like there wasn’t any talk of being healthy and fit all the time for life, like not to fit into a dress or to wear a bikini on the beach, like all those things are amazing, and everyone should be able to feel happy and excited to do those things, but why not feel happy and excited, like, why not go out this Saturday and be totally ready to put on a dress, versus like, oh my god, getting ready for three months from now. And I think I still think that really wreaks havoc on, especially women today, like it’s just such a messed up mindset, and I always compare it to what I saw my mom doing, which was like a ton of yo-yo fad dieting, like it just it constantly, and as I’ve gotten older and been in business and in the space for so long, I feel like women are just constantly being bombarded and targeted with all kinds of propaganda. Right now, at my age in life, 46 years old, a mom of three, like I’m constantly being targeted with like menopause and perimenopause, and like it’s just it all feels like it’s so just a constant way to get us to be duped and spend more money and all those things, and I think that it’s always been that way. So, like I said, when I got started in my late teens, 20s, it was all about bikini body ready, and then it became like a really exclusive space, and that may have only been in New York and LA, but it was so exclusive and felt so intimidating, and so when I created LEKFIT, I wanted to be the opposite, I wanted to give, particularly females, although, of course we train and work out with men, but I wanted to give women a space where they could feel completely comfortable showing up at, especially their first time, and they could feel like they wanted to continue to come back, and they could feel like they were getting results and not results for a particular event or item of clothing they wanted to wear, but results for the long haul, for their life, and so I think that the industry is, is for many, they would say they’re getting it right, because I think they get big, big revenue bursts right by following those trends, by continuing on with the propaganda, but for us, we don’t do any of that. We don’t follow any of that stuff. We don’t become something that we’re not simply because it’s trending. Like, I didn’t all of a sudden put reformers in the studio because that became popular for a moment. So I think what some boutiques might get right, but then you see them open and close so quickly as that they follow whatever, and I’d say particularly female, because that’s my large part of my audience. I think that most follow whatever is being thrown at women at that time. There was a time, not that long ago, where everybody was against cardio, and you could only be lifting weights, and you should only be walking for 10,000 steps a day, and I think that where they get it wrong is following that, because those trends come and go, and women quickly realize, consumers quickly realize that that’s not giving them the body that they’re desiring. What’s

Kara Goldin 19:00
been the hardest part of scaling a brand, LEKFIT, that started with such a personal founder-led experience. You have teachers, you know, that are working with you, but your name is still very much a part of LEKFIT. So, what has been the most challenging and maybe surprising piece of that,

Lauren Kleban 19:22
I think that I was not necessarily ready for the backlash that I would experience from time to time, or the attacks from time to time, and I think that’s in large part because everyone is so visible now with the internet, right, and Instagram, and social media, and all of the things in the beginning, like it was very clear and simple, and when I started LEKFIT, it was also like the era of like the mom entrepreneur, like the CEO, like the girl boss that. All things, so like we were immersed in that, and thankfully, like it was fine, but it didn’t, it wasn’t like naturally, didn’t like naturally fit us, we weren’t, we weren’t a female only company or anything like that, but I think that, so there was that, and then there was a time where I really felt inclined to, like, I wanted to be able to separate me, Lek, from LEKFIT, and that actually didn’t work for the company at all. Like, I quickly realized people wanted me, for better or for worse, no matter how many staff, no matter how many amazing people I had with us, I was LEKFIT, LEKFIT is me, and so I kind of had to just accept it, and then I had to embrace it, and so there was a time where I outsourced our social media, I didn’t run it, I didn’t communicate on it, it was not me, and, and that really wasn’t good for the brand and for us, and so I accepted, and now I’ve embraced it, and here we are. It’s also really hard. The particular industry I’m in, in the particular state that I’ve developed it, which is California, it’s next to, if not completely and totally impossible for me to protect my IP, which is terribly upsetting for someone who’s truly creating brand new, fresh content every single day of the week, so I went from a really, really large team, and I scaled it down because I couldn’t risk any more giving out my IP, and the way that my business was developed, and the way that my brand and creativity is, you know, somebody wants to go be a yoga teacher, they actually have to pay that yoga studio to learn yoga, right, which yoga isn’t even theirs, it wasn’t, it’s not even something that started here in the West, but for me, I have to do the opposite, if I want to hire instructors, I not only have to train them in my IP, but I have to pay them to learn it, and then there’s nothing that protects me from them taking it and going to start their own thing. So, in recent years, I’ve simply just embraced that I’m LEKFIT. LEKFIT is me, and I have very limited staff who I let in on the secrets of creating our content

Kara Goldin 22:22
that’s so interesting, and so can you share a little bit about how you came up with the name LEKFIT?

Lauren Kleban 22:30
Yeah, it’s my initials, and honestly, it was just the easiest thing to trademark, and there were a couple of times that I wanted to change it, but once you start getting press and once that name is out there, you’re really, it’s not worth changing it. So, here we are.

Kara Goldin 22:47
I love that. So, when I, it’s, it’s great, it’s really, really good. So, AI is like, you know, the, the term of the, of the hour, not just of the day, these days, so AI coaches and fitness technology probably becoming more and more common. What do you see there that could be opportunity, or is it just we shouldn’t worry about

Lauren Kleban 23:14
it? You know, I think it’s kind of like the boutique, the trends in fitness, and the, you know, the different studios that you see pop up, I think AI might kind of be the same, like you might see this like big jolt of like all these like fake trainers and online whatever, and this and that, but I think ultimately people will realize that they want to work out with the human and there’s something so special and impossible to replace when you go to work out with a trainer or you go to a fitness class and you get to have that moment with the instructor and the instructor gets to have that moment with the client and learn why they’re there, what their goal is, what brought them there, how they’re feeling after class, what the changes are, what they’ve seen in their body, what the results have been like. You’ll never have that with the robot, and at the end of the day, we can’t change the fact that they’re, we are humans, thank goodness, and human connection is, is what we’re, we are seeking every day, all day, from day one till the very end. So I think that it will see a jolt, and it might, you know, hurt some of us, but I think I’ve always said, no matter what it is, we stay on our path, we have our blinders, we’re here to do what we are gifted with, and we just can’t pay no mind to anything else.

Kara Goldin 24:47
I’m sure you’ve heard lots of stories from consumers that have told you how much you know they can’t live without LEKFIT, and and. And what’s what’s one of your favorite ones that you’ve heard over the years.

Lauren Kleban 25:04
Oh, I mean, my fa.. I, so many, but I think always, always, always my favorite is.. well, I love when the guys tell me they’re like, “Oh my goodness, Lauren, like I’ve never felt my glutes that way, or “I can’t believe I moved that way, and that was so hard, that was harder than any sport or anything. I, of course, love that, but I really love hearing from all of my ladies just how amazing they feel in their own bodies, and how, how sensual they feel, and how beautiful they feel in the movement, like that’s just that means everything, and then of course all of the women that I work with who work with me trying to get pregnant while they’re pregnant postpartum, like I just of course love to hear those stories,

Kara Goldin 25:51
I love that. So looking back, last question, looking back, What do you know now about building a fitness brand that you wish you knew back then, I guess. What would.. what are the words that you would have said to yourself? Because I’m sure in the beginning you had those days in the garage where you were like, okay, what am I doing right, and or maybe sharing with a friend, but what do you wish you knew back then that you know today.

Lauren Kleban 26:24
I don’t know if there’s anything I wish I knew, because I wouldn’t change anything, but I think what I, what I know, and what over time, and with age and experience, that it works out, and it may not work out the way that you had planned for it to, but you just have to keep going, and just like we discussed when we first got on, that you have to continue to believe in in the success of what you’ve created and the capabilities, and then ultimately you do need to stay on your path, stay in your lane, you can’t be everything to everyone, but you can do what you’re gifted with, what you’re best at, and then take that and pivot whenever necessary, so like with 2020 like we only did two workouts and we had to quickly pivot to more to keep everyone staffed, so I think you have to have, you have to be able to loosen the reins, and you have to be able to pivot, and

Kara Goldin 27:30
then you know just keep trusting and keep believing, and somehow some way it all ends up working out. Yeah, definitely. I love it. Well, Lauren, you are terrific. Le K Fit is awesome. Everyone needs to check out what you’re doing, for sure. It’s really unique and different. And for everyone listening, we’ll have all the info in the show notes. But definitely, their digital platform is awesome. And Lauren, you and your the other fitness instructors are amazing too, so thank you again, and thanks everyone for listening. Until next time on the Kara Goldin show,

Lauren Kleban 28:11
thank you.

Kara Goldin 28:13
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit, and of course, feel free to subscribe, so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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