On today’s episode, I sit down with Gabe Turner, co-founder of Fjord, a floating sauna and cold plunge experience built on the water in Sausalito.

In this conversation, we talk about how the business actually came together, from early experiments with a mobile sauna to navigating an 18-month permitting process across multiple agencies and ultimately building their first unit in the Bay using repurposed materials.

We also get into how the experience is designed, including why they chose to keep it simple, root it in nature, and avoid layering on additional services typically associated with spas.

We spend time on how the business works today, from session structure and capacity to pricing, and what changed when a model that was expected to be difficult to fill ended up fully booked from day one.

Gabe also walks through how they are thinking about expansion, the complexities around scaling business like theirs, and how they plan to grow without compromising the core experience.

I learned so much during my conversation with Gabe, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.