Karena Dawn: Co-Founder of Tone It Up
Episode 788
On today’s episode, we welcome Karena Dawn — Co-Founder of Tone It Up, founder of The Big Silence, New York Times bestselling author, wellness entrepreneur, and mental health advocate.
Karena’s journey is anything but linear. What began as a passion for fitness and community grew into Tone It Up, one of the most influential women’s wellness platforms in the world. But behind the brand is a deeply personal story shaped by growing up with a mother living with severe mental illness, navigating her own struggles with depression and addiction, and learning how building something meaningful can also be an act of healing.
In this episode, Karena opens up about breaking generational silence, the reality of building a business while still finding yourself, and why telling the truth became non-negotiable. We talk about ownership, leadership, mental health, and the powerful full-circle moment of reclaiming Tone It Up. This is an honest, moving conversation for founders, leaders, and anyone learning how to build strength — personally and professionally.
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To learn more about Karena Dawn and Tone It Up:
https://www.toneitup.com
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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 we 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. This episode of the Kara Goldin show is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs. When you’re building a business, having the right people in the right roles changes everything. And as you look ahead to 2026 whether you’re growing your team or tightening it, hiring with intention, matters more than ever. That’s where LinkedIn jobs comes in. LinkedIn jobs, AI assistant helps you identify qualified candidates faster and with greater confidence. So you’re not just filling seats, you’re building a team that sticks. In fact, LinkedIn hires are 30% more likely to stay at least a year compared to the leading competitor, and that kind of retention makes a real difference. And finding the right hire doesn’t have to feel overwhelming with LinkedIn jobs AI assistant, you can skip the guesswork and jargon. It filters candidates based on your roles specific criteria, and highlights top matches so you’re not wasting time digging through endless resumes. When you’re running a business, you need a hiring process that’s fast and focused. LinkedIn is AI assistant delivers 25 strong candidate suggestions each day, giving you the chance to invite the right people to apply and keep the process moving. It’s a smarter, faster way to hire, and it’s why I rely on LinkedIn jobs. Hire right the first time. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m Kara Goldin, absolutely honored to be joined by Kara Don who is the co founder of an incredible brand that you may be familiar with LinkedIn call Kara Goldin to post your job for free. She’s also the founder and condition big silence, New York Times, Best Selling Author, wellness entrepreneur and mental health advocate for more than a decade, Kara has helped millions of people build strength, confidence and community through Tone It Up. I cannot wait to hear the deeper story around that company and also how she decided to come back into the company after an exit and this powerful full circle moment by buying the company back that she had co founded is is one that many founders don’t necessarily expect to do, but have thought about doing, I guess is the best way to say it. So I could not wait to hear a lot more about that. Tone It Up. Goes far beyond fitness, and I cannot wait to hear about all of the work that she’s done around mental health and and other things that are really driving everything, all the growth that is coming out of Tone It Up. So Karina, welcome to the show. Very excited to finally meet you and have you here.
Karena Dawn 3:45
Thank you so much. And you know, talking about like expecting to come back, we never even expected to build, to sell. So it’s such an interesting ride that it’s been and I believe in the beginning, tono has been around for 16 years now, and I believe we work together in the beginning of Tone It Up.
Kara Goldin 4:06
I think so too. Yeah, I think we might have, we might have too. So for those who are who have been living under a rock and are not familiar with Tone It Up. How would you describe the brand? Maybe start with what you started with, like, what did you want to do? What did you set out to do?
Karena Dawn 4:27
Yeah, I think you have to start way back to even, like, little Karina, when I would growing up, and I was born in the 80s, growing up in the 90s, would watch my mom work out to Jane Fonda and Kathy Smith and I would watch her and be like, I want to do that one day. And I we were discussing before this, I grew up in a household where my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and my grandfather as well. So it was like this mental illness ran through the family, and I went through my own. Own decade of darkness is what I call it, through my teen years into my early 20s. But before all of that, I loved watching my mom work out, and I ran my first half marathon when I was like 10 or 11, and so when I was coming out of having this aha moment of this is not meant for you. You are not going to become like your mother. This illness is not going to be take over your life. And I was like, Okay, how do I make myself? When was I my happiest? And it was when I was working out. So I got back into I got into personal training. I followed that childhood dream that I had, and then eventually went on to found Tone It Up in 2009
Kara Goldin 5:46
so you co founded the company, and what, what were the initial ways that you engaged with people, and how did that change over time?
Karena Dawn 5:57
So initially, it was founded because fitness saved me. It made me happy, and I also And back in those days, those way back then, fitness was very harsh and strict, and we really wanted to share the message of making fitness fun, and that’s what Tone It Up’s been all along. And so the mission was to create a safe place for women to come and also meet each other and create friendships within Tone It Up, within the community, and get healthy together.
Kara Goldin 6:28
So as you were building the Tone It Up, brand out, you were still figuring yourself out and and what was that like? Emotionally, right, like you were, I mean, you’re, you’re building a company, you’re dealing with some of your own challenges, but you’re also, I guess, you’re helping a lot of other people. And I think whenever you can be a helper, right, like, I think you must have gotten a lot of fuel just by seeing that you could actually really help people through building the company and the brand.
Karena Dawn 7:07
Yeah, and I think that by helping other people, it also helps you. And I mean, think about like, what you’ve done in your career and providing a service for someone, and it really fulfills you as well. Knowing like, I am giving back, I am providing something that makes people’s lives better and healthier and happier. And, you know, initially it was started just to create a community, and I think even why it’s even so strong today, especially in today’s world, coming out of 2020 and women really wanting to connect in every stage of their life. It’s still the same mission of, how can I provide a service, basically to improve people’s lives, but also connection. That’s my biggest thing. Is human connection and creating a place where you feel safe to come together.
Kara Goldin 8:02
This episode of the Kara Goldin show is brought to you by LinkedIn. Jobs. When you’re building a business, having the right people in the right roles changes everything. And as you look ahead to 2026 whether you’re growing your team or tightening it, hiring with intention matters more than ever. That’s where LinkedIn jobs comes in. LinkedIn jobs, AI assistant helps you identify qualified candidates faster and with greater confidence. So you’re not just filling seats, you’re building a team that sticks. In fact, LinkedIn hires are 30% more likely to stay at least a year compared to the leading competitor, and that kind of retention makes a real difference. And finding the right hire doesn’t have to feel overwhelming with LinkedIn jobs AI assistant, you can skip the guesswork and jargon. It filters candidates based on your roles specific criteria, and highlights top matches so you’re not wasting time digging through endless resumes. When you’re running a business, you need a hiring process that’s fast and focused. Linkedin’s ai assistant delivers 25 strong candidate suggestions each day, giving you the chance to invite the right people to apply and keep the process moving. It’s a smarter, faster way to hire, and it’s why I rely on LinkedIn jobs. Hire right the first time, post your job for free at linkedin.com/kara Goldin then promote it to use LinkedIn jobs, new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates that’s linkedin.com/kara, Goldin to post your job for free, Terms and Conditions apply. So how did you get the word out about Tone It Up back then, before it, you know, really became the movement. That it became, how did you get the word out about it?
Karena Dawn 10:03
Yeah, so we were the first so YouTube, back in the day, was just music, and we were the first fitness people on YouTube. So we started on YouTube initially, and it was pre Instagram, pre, you know, all those social media. And it really, it just started resonating through YouTube initially. So, so interesting, rudest, two girls with a tripod on the beach, doing workouts, having conversations like this. And it just naturally evolved.
Kara Goldin 10:38
What did you especially in those early days, you have to try everything, right? What did you try that didn’t work in the early part of Tone It Up that, you know, maybe worked later, but, you know, obviously thought it was worth a try, but it just didn’t work.
Karena Dawn 10:56
I’m trying to do everything ourselves. I would say, you learn initially when starting something, you take on all of those roles, and you are doing everything. And then you get to that certain point where you’re like, well, maybe I need to bring someone on who can do this better than me, or I can’t. I’m starting myself way too thin. So I would say trying to do it all. This was learning, and then also learning what each of our strengths were at the time, and learning that, and then I would say over time, learning how, how to hire people and trust people. We failed here and there. We won here and there. I mean, there’s so much we’ve learned. I mean, I never went to business school, and it was such a, you know, school of hard knocks or whatever. But, you know, to learn everything that we were able to accomplish and still are.
Kara Goldin 11:58
When did you know that toning up was more than just two girls on a beach doing videos through YouTube, that this could actually be a business when like that, you were going to be successful.
Karena Dawn 12:19
I would say it was a couple years in, we were doing what we loved. I was a triathlete, sponsored triathlete, at the time, a fitness trainer, traveling the world for work. And then eventually we became like we started getting messages through YouTube and social media and Twitter and all of all the women who were engaging and saying, You’re changing my life. And right? Well, this is what we set out to do, is to help women. And so I guess, like, when it’d be, I still don’t like to say it’s a business. It is. I mean, obviously, you know, it’s not another nonprofit, but I think it’s so important for for me especially, is to provide a service to improve people’s lives. But I would say, within a couple years, we realized, like, Oh, we’re on to something, and then it’s listening to your community when they ask or something, whether it’s a nutrition program, workout plans, nutrition, products, and just listening to what the community wants. And I would say we’re the first to actually create community before product.
Kara Goldin 13:32
That was the moment. So you wrote an incredible book, The Big silence, and tell that is very honest, telling the truth so publicly, like, what made you finally ready to just to take
Karena Dawn 13:54
that step? Yeah, so that’s actually the third book, but that so there’s fitness and nutrition books for Tone It Up, and then the big silence is my memoir, and I, the thing is, and in the world that we are in, I never talked about my childhood, or my upbringing of living with a schizophrenic mother who was often in and out of the house, missing persons, my own teenage suicide attempt, and because I had so much shame behind it, but it was about it took me five years to write this book, but I realized that once I stopped hiding my past and what I came from and having shame around that and that stigma, that if I just put it All out there that I felt like I was actually being authentic to myself. For so many years, I felt that I was shielding or hiding what I came from, when actually what I came from gave me that strength and that power to do what I was doing in the fitness world so that. It’s I was like, let’s write it. And I’ve journaled since a kid. Have all of my journals, and I’ve written poetry. So I’ve always loved writing. And then finally, writing this memoir was kind of just an extension of my journaling.
Kara Goldin 15:17
So Tone It Up. Scaled super fast and reached millions. What surprised you most most about that growth? I mean, people can go down the street and go to the gym and do do things to kind of help them get healthy, work out, but Tone It Up. Just was really kind of the first to sort of take that online and and really talk about community in a way that hadn’t been talked about as it related to to fitness and mental health. But what surprised you most about that growth?
Karena Dawn 15:58
I know a lot of people say it happened so fast. But, you know, it doesn’t happen so fast. It was a lot of work behind the scenes and learning so many things. And it was, there were the first couple years, definitely, I was like, calling my dad and be like, Hey, can I borrow some money? You know, we put everything back into it, and then, you know, it just started getting traction from one friend would be watching us, and then another and another. And then we just always had, I always say that, because of my childhood, like, the worst already happened. What’s the worst that can happen? So I’m very okay with taking a risk and putting myself out there, probably why I bought the company, back to what’s the worst that could happen? And so I would just say it, and it goes back to the Word, which I know a lot of people are using. I feel like it’s the 2026. Word is authenticity, but it is like, be who you are, speak your truth, and that’s from the beginning, what it’s been and also with Tone It Up, even as we’re moving into the new chapter, it’s now all of our community is we’re in our 40s, 50s. We’re going through so much. So I think even in this new chapter, it’s still Tone It Up, but it’s we’re there for every woman in every stage of her life. I was 27 when I founded it, and I’m 44 now, and it’s just the beauty of just sticking to that mission of the beauty of every woman’s stage in life.
Kara Goldin 17:38
So before we get into you buying the company back when the company sold, I guess, to private equity in 2018 What did you What did that chapter teach you about, identity, control, values? How involved were you in the business when private equity got involved?
Karena Dawn 18:01
Yeah, so we were completely self funded until 2018 and it was around 2017 that, you know, we were growing so much. We were in 16,000 doors at retail, and, you know, had 50 employees. And I’m, as you probably have learned over the years how expensive it is to get in retail. You can be the number one selling vanilla protein at Target, but you may owe target a bill. You know, it’s a it’s difficult to manage that. And on the retail side, I didn’t we had, we did the R, and D and all the flavoring, and had input in that, but we had a whole different team. But really we needed working capital to keep growing. And so then at the time our COO, I was like, you know, you can get investment and have working capital so and again, like I said earlier, we never built, never started the company to sell it, but we realized, wow, we’re growing so much and okay, how do we keep this going without having to put all of our money back into it? And so we took on investment. And the intention, obviously, with any partner and private equity is it’s a good intention, but it’s I’ve also learned a lot of the choices I would make in the future on who I choose to work with, if that makes sense. But yeah, it was something that we needed to do, and we were learning along the way as well. But I will say that our community immediately saw that change because other CEOs came in. We were very involved on a day to day basis, until we took investment. But then, without saying too much, but it changed a lot. And it was very it was very hard,
Kara Goldin 20:04
yeah, and were you? Did you stay involved in the company through that process?
Karena Dawn 20:11
Yeah, I switched from CO CEO to President, and then over the years, a little bit of creative direction, but not as much say as I would have wanted.
Kara Goldin 20:24
Yeah, definitely. So you are buying back, Tone It Up, or you have bought back, or you’re in the process of buying it back.
Karena Dawn 20:35
I’m done. You’re done. You did it. I did it. It’s a year of, it was a year of a lot of negotiations.
Kara Goldin 20:46
So how did I know you have to you can’t talk specifically about everything. But when for another founder, what advice would you give them, maybe, sitting in in that place where they don’t like what they see, I guess, in terms of what’s happening with the brand. And you know, what do you do at that point?
Karena Dawn 21:21
Kick and scream. You know, I didn’t leave the company, and with each we had two different transactions go through. And you know, private equity wanted me to stay there and be an advisor. There were limits to what I could advise, but I did my best at founder. I just, I don’t know, I always say there was like this instinct of me that, trust me, there were many days where I was I said, I am going to quit. I can’t take this. It’s so hard. But then this little gut instinct in me who said, no, no, no. And I had this gut instinct that one day I would get it back. And so I just stuck with it. And then with the last private equity we had, they were doing a transaction, and I was like, I want to be the buyer. And with myself, I’ve invested for over a decade, and with my own funds, and I have a family fund that we invest in 30 different wellness and tech companies. And so I talked to my husband, I’m like, what if we just buy turn up back? And he was like, let’s do it. And so here it is, 100% just me right now, just me on the cap table, building out my team again, building out my trainers again, building out new nutrition products. And it feels really good. It feels like I’m home. It feels like the community is so excited. It’s exactly where it needs to be right now.
Kara Goldin 22:55
That’s incredible. So is it as hard, or it’s a different type of hard, because you’ve got a brand, but there’s been some changes over the last few years that you want to maybe go back to that core consumer. What are the steps that you need to do in order to get it to the place where it’s going to be, where your vision, I guess, wants it to
Karena Dawn 23:19
be, yeah, the steps, I think, you know, we have such a large community of millions of women, and I think step number one is having that voice and be like, This is what happened. This is why this, you know, the transitions that we had to go through for Tone It Up, and then coming back to the core and gaining, you know, the trust, which is there, if you know what I mean, like, and as soon as the women found out that I bought, Tone It Up back, they’re all here like we’ve been waiting for this. Thank you for doing this for us, and it’s really going back to those core roots of, we’re in this together. And ever, you know, so many messages and emails and DMS of you know, how can you like, how do we come together now that we’re in this different stage of life, but we’re still Tone It Up. And you mentioned, like, Tone It Up, spin around. It’s like a legacy brand. It’s a legacy name, and I’m just here to carry that out how I’m doing it. I’m definitely, I have a few employees showing up in about 10 minutes here, and we’re doing, you know, whole planning and, you know, just really looking at like, what she needs right now in this stage of her life.
Kara Goldin 24:39
How do you think about success differently today than you did when Tone It Up first launched,
Karena Dawn 24:47
because we never built Tone It Up to be we built it for community and connection. So that was success in itself. So I feel like I’ve already had this success. Deaths in my life that I’ve always wanted as a as a kid, if I if little Kara was to look at me now and be like you have everything that you’ve ever wanted. So success now is just to keep giving back and improving women’s lives. That’s it. And make and you know, living in joy.
Kara Goldin 25:21
Will you work as much in the different channels that you had launched? I mean, you’re a pretty big company, big brand. Is there? Are there things that now that you get to kind of rejigger the brand again? Is there anything that you wouldn’t do again?
Karena Dawn 25:41
I would be very cautious of who I bring on as partners.
Kara Goldin 25:45
Yeah, that’s the I think that is that’s so common that people talk about that your board is also, I think a lot of people talk about that as well. So you can’t imagine, I guess, and and until it’s not exactly where you need it to be, and where you see the company being hurt by it.
Karena Dawn 26:08
Yeah, and I don’t regret anything that’s happened in the past. I love learning and experiencing I’m but definitely doing my research on who I like deep, diving more into who my partners are, and and again, I you when you have a partnership in business, the intentions are always there to grow together, but sometimes it just doesn’t work, and then you learn from it. And I’m not going to regret that. And you know my all of my ex partners, I can be friendly with and friends with, but you know it just on the business side maybe
Kara Goldin 26:51
didn’t work. What are you most excited about this last question, what are you most excited about, as we are launching into 2026 you’re launching into your planning meetings. But what are you most excited about for for yourself, as well as Tone It Up,
Karena Dawn 27:12
just having fun with it again. I’ve always I’ve and it’s hard when you talk about business like I just want to have fun working. I want to have fun doing what I love, but I feel like there’s a new opportunity right now to have fun, enjoy less stress. I just launched another podcast, my second podcast today called tone it down, which is girlfriend to girlfriend, conversations around health, fitness, wellness, just all things women, womanhood and doing live events and coming up with new products and innovation, and really having that full control again and that creative ability. I’m such a creative person that it feels so good to be able to be in that seat again where I can make those choices for what I feel like we really need.
Kara Goldin 28:04
I love it well. Kara, thank you so much for joining us today. You are doing incredible work. So proud of you, and really excited to see Tone It Up, relaunching and everything that you’re going to do with that, everyone needs to check it out and follow along, for sure. Also explore the big silence, because it’s, it’s such a incredible book. So really, really great memoir that that you’ve, you’ve really shared your life with and I think it’s really motivating, encouraging, and obviously so authentic. So love what you’ve done. So definitely everyone needs to check check out what they’re doing, what Kara is doing, as well, and definitely sign on, and I cannot wait to re catch up again soon, too. So thank you again for listening everyone, and I’ll see you next time on the Kara Goldin show. Thank you, Kara. Thank you. 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, best selling 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.
