Michelle Wahler co-founded Beyond Yoga, the comfort-first activewear brand she built from scratch and later sold. These days, she splits her time mentoring founders, teaching at USC Marshall, and, of course, building brand new ventures of her own.
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Ireland Dress
Ireland Dress
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OUR CHAT WITH MICHELLE
We sat down for a cuppa with Michelle to chat about the realities of grief after an exit, protecting equity, and why young founders should stick with it.
MICHELLE: Selling Beyond Yoga changed everything about how I see this game, and yes, parts of it genuinely surprised me. What I didn’t expect was how much I’d grieve the process itself. So many founders are sprinting toward the exit, treating it like the finish line. I never was. Selling wasn’t part of my plan. But once you’re on the other side, you realize the building was the best part, whether you planned for that moment or not. The insight that hit me hardest was around the word company. I used to think it was just another word for business. It’s not. A company is the company you keep: your team, your vendors, your partners, the people who showed up every day and built something alongside you. I don’t miss the business. But I deeply miss the company.
MICHELLE: Selling Beyond Yoga changed everything about how I see this game, and yes, parts of it genuinely surprised me. What I didn’t expect was how much I’d grieve the process itself. So many founders are sprinting toward the exit, treating it like the finish line. I never was. Selling wasn’t part of my plan. But once you’re on the other side, you realize the building was the best part, whether you planned for that moment or not. The insight that hit me hardest was around the word company. I used to think it was just another word for business. It’s not. A company is the company you keep: your team, your vendors, your partners, the people who showed up every day and built something alongside you. I don’t miss the business. But I deeply miss the company.
MICHELLE: September is a full-circle kind of month for me. My daughter is starting second grade and my son is entering a new school for middle school, and as the self-appointed social director of this family, making sure they feel settled and excited is my first priority.
Professionally, it’s a rich season. I’ll be heading to the Bay Area for Title 9’s pitch fest, my third year, one of my favorite events of the year. It brings together female entrepreneurs and the people who support them in the best way, and I’ve had the chance to mentor some incredible women through it.
I’m also continuing my weekly Thursday mentoring sessions with three to five founders at various stages of their journeys, and deepening my work through Quince Hill, my advisory and investment platform focused on the next generation of founders. Teaching at USC Marshall has become a real passion too. Being in that room with students who are just beginning to see what’s possible keeps me sharp and reminds me why I started.
And quietly, I’m building again. A couple of new ventures, both born out of problems I couldn’t find good solutions for myself. That’s always been my starting point, and I have a feeling it always will be.
I also have a girlfriends’ trip to New York I’ve been looking forward to, a group of women I met through this entrepreneurial world who have become some of my closest friends. Female founders have to stick together, and these women walk that talk.
MICHELLE: September is a full-circle kind of month for me. My daughter is starting second grade and my son is entering a new school for middle school, and as the self-appointed social director of this family, making sure they feel settled and excited is my first priority.
Professionally, it’s a rich season. I’ll be heading to the Bay Area for Title 9’s pitch fest, my third year, one of my favorite events of the year. It brings together female entrepreneurs and the people who support them in the best way, and I’ve had the chance to mentor some incredible women through it.
I’m also continuing my weekly Thursday mentoring sessions with three to five founders at various stages of their journeys, and deepening my work through Quince Hill, my advisory and investment platform focused on the next generation of founders. Teaching at USC Marshall has become a real passion too. Being in that room with students who are just beginning to see what’s possible keeps me sharp and reminds me why I started.
And quietly, I’m building again. A couple of new ventures, both born out of problems I couldn’t find good solutions for myself. That’s always been my starting point, and I have a feeling it always will be.
I also have a girlfriends’ trip to New York I’ve been looking forward to, a group of women I met through this entrepreneurial world who have become some of my closest friends. Female founders have to stick together, and these women walk that talk.
F&E: When in your life has clothing mattered the most, and what were you wearing?
MICHELLE: The moment clothing mattered most to me was during my pregnancies, and honestly, that need is part of what drove the Beyond the Bump collection at Beyond Yoga.
There’s so much emphasis on staying active and healthy during pregnancy, but nobody was making clothes that actually made you feel good while doing it. Your body is changing constantly, and what you put on your skin matters. I wanted women to feel pampered and supported, not like they were just getting through it.
I’ll be honest: I was not one of those women who bounced back in two weeks. I’m a firm believer in nine months in, nine months out. So having something comfortable, beautiful, and designed with me in mind during that season of life meant everything. And to this day, when I see someone wearing Beyond the Bump, I feel pure joy.
F&E: Tell us about your favorite place to recharge, and what makes it so special.
MICHELLE: Recharging for me happens in the smallest, most unglamorous places, and I think that’s the point.
The shower. The bathtub. Those are my daily resets. No phone, no agenda, just a few minutes of quiet that belong entirely to me.
But my favorite? Dance Fit LA in Santa Monica. I want to be very clear: I am not a good dancer. Not even close. But that’s exactly why I love it. The room is a beautiful mix of people: professional dancers, beginners, and yes, 80-year-old men who showed up, and that alone deserves a standing ovation. When the music comes on and everyone is just moving and doing their own thing, something shifts in me. It fills my cup in a way that little else does. I always leave with more energy than I came in with, and that’s the whole point of recharging, isn’t it?
MICHELLE: I don’t have a perfect blueprint for what that world looks like, but I know it would be built differently.
When I create, I’m not starting from “how do we monetize this.” I’m starting from “this needs to exist.” The female founders I’ve had the privilege of spending time with tend to operate the same way; they’re solving problems that are personal to them, that matter to them, that they’ve lived. That instinct produces something different than building purely for profit.
I also want to be careful not to put this in a men-versus-women bucket; there are incredible builders of all genders. But there is a thread I keep seeing with women founders: they’re building for impact first. And when more of us are solving the problems that women actually experience every day, our collective quality of life gets better. Women give so much to this world. It would be a beautiful thing to have more of the world built with us genuinely in mind.
MICHELLE: I don’t have a perfect blueprint for what that world looks like, but I know it would be built differently.
When I create, I’m not starting from “how do we monetize this.” I’m starting from “this needs to exist.” The female founders I’ve had the privilege of spending time with tend to operate the same way; they’re solving problems that are personal to them, that matter to them, that they’ve lived. That instinct produces something different than building purely for profit.
I also want to be careful not to put this in a men-versus-women bucket; there are incredible builders of all genders. But there is a thread I keep seeing with women founders: they’re building for impact first. And when more of us are solving the problems that women actually experience every day, our collective quality of life gets better. Women give so much to this world. It would be a beautiful thing to have more of the world built with us genuinely in mind.
F&E: Looking back, if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be? Then, what piece of advice would you give someone starting their entrepreneurial journey now? (Oftentimes these two pieces of advice are quite different.)
MICHELLE: To my younger self? Stick with it. Honestly, I’m almost afraid to say more than that; I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about the path I took. Every hard moment, every wrong turn, every season of burnout led me exactly here. And I’m deeply grateful for where we’ve landed.
For someone starting out today, I have three things:
Put the real work in. This doesn’t happen without full commitment. There’s no shortcut, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Find your mentors and actually use them. I was so heads-down building that I didn’t take advantage of the incredible people around me who were willing to help, for free, no strings attached. I could have gotten somewhere faster and with less burnout if I’d just asked. I became a mentor because I know firsthand what that support can mean. Don’t be too proud or too busy to receive it.
Protect your equity like your life depends on it. It is the most valuable thing you have. I talk to founders every week who are giving away staggering amounts just to get started. I’d rather see you pay more to hire great talent than hand over ownership too early. Be careful, be deliberate, and know what you’re worth.
F&E: Do you have an everyday uniform that limits your decision fatigue, or what’s your approach to getting dressed?
MICHELLE: My approach to getting dressed starts with one non-negotiable: comfort that doesn’t compromise. I wear Beyond Yoga every single day, and I say that not just as its founder, but as someone who genuinely never stopped reaching for it. I built those pieces for women like me, and it turns out I am very much still that woman.
Beyond that, my philosophy is simple: if it can’t go in the washer and dryer, it’s probably not for me. I want to get dressed and go, no fussing, no dry cleaning, no second-guessing. Decision fatigue is real, and my wardrobe is one place I refuse to let it win.
When I do step it up, I reach for pieces that feel effortless and intentional, brands built by people who actually thought about the woman wearing them. That ethos matters to me as much as the fabric itself.
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