Hoda Kotb announces new business, New Orleans festival | Innovation

Former “Today” present co-host Hoda Kotb tried her first “breathwork” coaching session just a few years in the past on the recommendation of a good friend — and he or she mentioned the expertise was transformative.

“I followed the instructions, did the exercises, and suddenly I just exploded in tears from the stress relief,” she mentioned final week throughout a telephone interview. “The next time I arrived at work at my usual 4 a.m., it was like someone had taken a squeegee to my brain and got rid of the fog. It was like a magic trick.”

Kotb’s expertise with one of many fastest-growing practices within the wellness world proved so highly effective that after she left “Today” final 12 months to spend extra time along with her children, her subsequent huge venture was partnering to launch an app known as “Joy 101,” a clearinghouse for “bite-sized” classes from specialists on breathwork, meditation, stretching and different actions designed to enhance bodily, psychological and emotional well-being.

Now, somewhat greater than a 12 months after unveiling the platform, Kotb and her Joy 101 co-founders — together with her longtime good friend and former WWL-TV anchor Karen Swensen — are saying plans to scale up. And New Orleans options prominently in these plans.

On Thursday, the startup introduced a partnership with Ochsner Health that can present all the well being system’s roughly 40,000 staff entry to Joy 101’s content material. Kotb and Swensen additionally introduced this week that subsequent 12 months New Orleans would be the website of their firm’s biggest-ever occasion, known as “Joy Fest.”

Contributors to Kotb’s startup embrace Harvard University’s “happiness” professor Arthur C. Brooks and designer and HGTV persona Joanna Gaines, amongst dozens of different specialists and family names, however Kotb additionally relied closely on her New Orleans connections, cast throughout her Nineties stint as an anchor at WWL, to get the venture off the bottom. Saints and Pelicans proprietor Gayle Benson, as an illustration, is likely one of the enterprise’s traders.

Now, with this week’s bulletins, she’s leaning additional into these ties.

“All roads lead to New Orleans, and that’s the way it’s worked for me my whole career,” Kotb mentioned. “That’s why hardly a day on the ‘Today’ show went by where somebody didn’t hold up a Who Dat sign outside the window.”

A new competitor in huge ‘wellness’ market

Kotb stepped away from her “Today” co-anchor position in January 2025 and unveiled Joy 101 about 5 months later.

Now, as an alternative of displaying up at Rockefeller Center at 4 a.m. each day, the veteran anchor oversees the new firm’s progress technique and about 20 largely distant staff from a second-floor workplace above a financial institution in Westchester County, simply north of New York City. Gaines, the HGTV designer, gave the place a significant makeover earlier than Joy 101 moved in.

Kotb will get assist from Swensen, who lives in New Orleans’ Lakeview neighborhood, and a number of other different co-founders, together with her sister Hala Kotb. Together, the companions are advantageous tuning a method to compete within the $6.8 trillion — sure, that is trillion with a “T” — international wellness trade, which has grown 35% for the reason that pandemic as curiosity in well being and well-being has elevated worldwide. One of their extra established opponents within the app house is Calm, a 14-year-old digital wellness firm valued at $2 billion.

After a free trial, Joy 101’s members pay about $17 per 30 days or a $100 annual payment to entry content material about sleep, meditation, breathwork, positivity, motion, private progress and longevity. Users can add particulars about their age, stress ranges, targets and time constraints to obtain customized applications and checklists.

The firm hasn’t launched a present subscriber rely, however final September, certainly one of its traders, CapStone Holdings, reported the startup signed up 5,000 paying prospects in its first week of operation whereas securing $2 million in model partnerships. Kotb has leveraged her trademark heat and good cheer to develop that quantity by making common appearances on the app, introducing specialists, delivering pep talks and providing customized messages.

Since the launch, she’s additionally centered on bringing Joy 101’s content material to new locations.

In January, she launched the cellular interview present “Joy Rides” on Joy 101’s YouTube channel, which already has greater than 200,000 subscribers. In June, she launched the “Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb” podcast, speaking to specialists about the best way to discover happiness throughout main life modifications and challenges. Both reveals herald sponsorship income.

Kotb revealed the ebook “Jump and Find Joy” final 12 months. She additionally hosts stay “happiness hours” on-line that generally characteristic her former TV colleagues.

In addition to the multipronged media method, Kotb is prioritizing in-person occasions.

“Being with people is what lights me up and makes me come alive, so we had to have experiences where people can look each other in the eye,” she mentioned.

Last 12 months, Kotb appeared at a free retreat for New York City public college lecturers, adopted by a paid occasion in February in Scottsdale, Arizona. Next up is a fall retreat at a Ritz-Carlton resort in Amelia Island, Florida. Tickets beginning at $3,300 are on sale now. 

Plans for Joy Fest subsequent 12 months in New Orleans are nonetheless coming collectively, however Kotb mentioned she expects between 1,500 and a couple of,000 folks to attend.

Swensen mentioned she and Kotb had been impressed by one other longtime New Orleans-based gathering as they selected the placement.

“Hoda and I remember the first Essence Fest, the original ‘party with a purpose,’ and we watched them grow,” she mentioned.

New Orleans connections

Kotb’s Joy 101 collaborators embrace many outstanding nationwide figures, like neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki, a professor at New York University; and Maria Shriver, the journalist, former California first woman and member of the Kennedy household. The startup’s co-founder and govt chair is Mike Xenakis, one of many founders of the profitable expertise firm Open Table.

But Joy 101 has a variety of New Orleans connections as nicely, all tracing again to Kotb’s stint at WWL from 1992 to 1998.

Former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste — two New Orleans icons — are advisers. And due to relationships like this, Swensen believes town is the proper place to kickstart the enterprise’s first “enterprise” partnership, promoting bulk subscriptions at a reduction.

She and Kotb met Ochsner CEO Pete November a number of months in the past to efficiently pitch the thought, with assist from Benson, who mentioned the app “gives people practical tools they can use every day.”

Swensen mentioned Joy 101’s bite-sized workout routines make sense for the fast-paced surroundings of a healthcare system that is additionally the area’s greatest personal employer.

“People are encouraged to use it on the clock because it gives a moment to recharge and refocus,” she mentioned. “We want to help people in high-stress, high-performance environments perform better.”

Now Kotb, Swensen and their companions and traders are hoping the Ochsner deal will paved the way for extra firms in additional cities to purchase in — however Kotb mentioned she needs the expansion to occur organically.

“I don’t know where we’ll wind up in the end, but I believe it will be a great place because we’re helping people,” Kotb mentioned.

“Karen is my best friend and one of the smartest people I know, and to bring in Gayle, Drew and Jon into the equation, it all makes sense. We’re going to go where the energy flows.”

Editor’s Note: This story was up to date to appropriately establish Wendy Suzuki as a neuroscientist.