Down Dog Yoga’s Owners Go With the Flow
• December 11, 2014

When Patty Ivey opened Down Dog Yoga in 2003, her intention was to leave the teaching to her partner, yoga instructor Cathy Cox. But less than a year later, after Cox’s sudden relocation, she found herself in a roomful of sweating yogis, cue card in hand, calling out: “Step your right foot forward, warrior one.”

“I had no interest in teaching,” she recalled recently, sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in her Georgetown studio. “I just wanted to run a business. I learned very quickly that that’s not how this works. Yoga is not a business. It is something very separate that then supports a business. It is spirited by the community.”

Today, with a $2-million business and an estimated 75,000 people having rolled out their mats in the flagship studio, she has come a long way from the days of teaching yoga with a cheat sheet.

With dark, straight bangs falling over brown eyes, she looks a decade younger than her 61 years. No doubt this is due in part to her daily practice of the heated vinyasa power yoga (also called “flow” yoga) offered at Down Dog, in which temperatures reach 90 to 95 degrees.

Along with her husband Scott Ivey, 62, she now owns studios in Bethesda and Herndon. There are plans to open a fourth in Clarendon in January. Around the same time, they hope to move into their new Georgetown space at the corner of Prospect and 34th Streets, Govinda Gallery’s home for 35 years. (Down Dog’s current location, by Dean & DeLuca, will be used to train teachers.)

Acknowledging the changes ahead, she said, “I didn’t plan it that way. But I’ve just got to jump into the flow.” She laughed. “That’s what vinyasa is, right? Absence of resistance.”

She looked at husband, seated nearby on a yoga block, who also laughed. With no official title — “We call him our director of smiles” — he is literally the happy face of the business, an enthusiastic student who can often be found on his mat alongside college students, professionals and carpool moms and dads.

The key to their successful partnership, he says, is that there’s only one boss. “It’s her baby, it’s her vision and she’s very good at it. So, why would I interfere? I just do my part.”

“He’s great at quietly supporting me and my vision, in the background,” she said. “But I work for myself because I don’t want to be told what to do.” She paused. “I’m the boss.” They laughed again.

Friends First

Patty may like being the boss, but she never dreamed she would one day own a yoga studio. In the 1980s, she owned retail bakeries called the Cookie Lady, but sold them in the early 1990s when her mother became ill. Needing a job with flexibility, she talked the manager of the Palm Restaurant into hiring her with no experience. That’s how she met Scott, the waiter assigned to train her.

“Scott gave me 20 bucks and said, ‘Don’t bother me,’” recalled Patty, looking squarely at Scott, who has short, graying hair. “That was the start of our relationship: not good. He called me an airhead. Isn’t that funny?”

“True,” Scott admitted, laughing.

Undaunted, Patty became good enough at her job to consistently win the wine-selling contest. She also started walking to work with Scott, who lived three blocks from her in Adams Morgan. Both divorced, they walked and talked together every day, gradually getting to know one another.

“He was just very aware, always a good listener,” Patty said, as Scott listened with a smile. “He never tried to fix anything. That’s what attracted me to Scott and his sensitive soul.”

Having given herself two years to figure out her next move, Patty attended massage school while waiting tables at the Palm. She then worked at the Four Seasons as a massage therapist for a year before starting a private practice. In 1998, she and Scott married and moved into the top-floor rental space of a large home at 29th and Q Streets.

A year later they moved to Dent Place, where they still live today with a cat and two shelter dogs: Elijah, a retriever-chow mix, and Coco, a chocolate lab. (They work actively with Lucky Dog Animal Rescue, started by one of their students, to help find dogs homes.) They picked Georgetown as their studio location because they wanted to walk to work and because — a recurrent theme — “community mattered to me,” said Patty.

Baptiste-Inspired

Yoga wasn’t something she actively sought out. But when a doctor suggested it as a way to rehab an injured knee, she found it healed more than her physical ailments. She had been through some emotionally rough years, including her divorce and the death of her mother.

“I had suffered from an eating disorder and had a pretty damaged sense of self,” she wrote in an email. “My yoga practice brought me back to feeling whole and complete.”

Her yoga teacher was Cox, who became her friend and then suggested they buy a yoga studio together. But though she felt the familiar entrepreneurial itch, she hesitated until Cox took her to a class at the studios of Baron Baptiste, a pioneer of power vinyasa yoga. Teaching the class that day was none other than Baptiste himself. It was life-changing.

“After that class I looked at her and said, ‘I’m in.’ I walked up to Baron and said, ‘What is your business model? Are you planning on opening studios?’”

That was in December 2002. Down Dog Yoga opened as the first Baptiste affiliate four months later.

Ups and Downs

Defying expectations, the studio made money from the start. Leslie Morgan Steiner, an author and Georgetown resident who has been going to Down Dog since 2005, said it paved the way for future studios in the neighborhood. “Patty showed that you could make money — and have a very good business — off of a Georgetown-based exercise studio, even a small one.”

Rolf Gates, a yoga teacher and former Baptiste partner whom Patty calls a mentor, goes as far as to say that Patty belongs to a generation of yoga teachers who pioneered modern yoga in America.

“They will go on a short list of people who entrepreneurially took a risk and opened a studio when yoga was practiced by a million people, and had the vision to bring it into a place today where yoga is practiced by 25 million people,” said Gates. “It’s impossible to calculate the impact of Down Dog.”

He also speaks admiringly of her and Scott’s “backbone and courage” through the ups and downs. As other studios — yoga, Pilates and even barre — opened in Georgetown, Scott and Patty’s biggest challenge came from within their own business: they were sued by a now former partner.

“The legal process was three years, and we came close to losing the company,” Patty said. “It would have been a lot easier to close down and start up again, and it would have cost a lot less money, but I wanted to keep this community together.”

It was during this time, she said, that she realized the importance of her yoga practice, which not only deepened and strengthened her personally, but ultimately strengthened her vision for the company.

“My yoga mat has become my best friend and my place that I come to do my inquiry work, the practice of who I’m being as a human being in my life,” she said. “How did I get here? How am I taking action? It takes us out of blame and brings us into our accountabilities.”

That self-awareness and accountability is what Patty tries to bring out in her students. She is considered by some to be a tough teacher. She said she doesn’t see her classes as hard, but she does ask that students “show up.”

“Many people aren’t used to that. They’re on auto-pilot. My request is, let’s actually show up and go through this with presence. It sometimes makes my classes feel more challenging.”

Dr. Jay Greenstein, a sports chiropractor who has taken Patty’s classes, says he is impressed by two aspects of her teaching: how she ensures her students’ safety by being a stickler for the mechanics, and how she emphasizes the mind-body connection. “People take for granted the mind component of the practice of yoga and how everything going on between the ears plays a role with your overall health,” he said.

Steiner says Patty has such high standards for herself and her students because she passionately believes in the power of yoga to change not just one’s body but one’s life. “She’s really into self-empowerment,” Steiner said. “She’s got such a big heart.”

Maybe more than anything, it’s that heart that pulses through Down Dog Yoga. What started out as a business venture for Patty has become her and Scott’s mission — one that has required persistence, faith, going with the flow and more than a few drops of sweat along the way. Their hope is that their students feel that, too, and — more importantly — find connection.

“The way I was trained through Baron is that when you’re standing up in front of that room, you’re teaching to a sea of humanity,” Patty said. “We know everyone in that room has something going on in their lives. We don’t know what, but we just need them to know we understand them. We’ve been there too.”
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Fun Facts on Bluemercury in Georgetown
• September 29, 2014

– During the store’s first year, Rod Stewart was being chased by fans and ran into the

store. Barry, who was behind the counter, locked the door after letting him. He spent

thousands of dollars buying gifts for friends. “I never acknowledged who he was or

said I was the owner of the company,” Barry says. “Then I turned him loose with all

these shopping bags, walking down the street.”

– Arnold Schwarzenegger used to buy a large-size toothbrush called the Supersmile

toothbrush.

– Anna Nicole Smith was staying at the Four Seasons and would have her limo drive her

a half a block to get a facial.

– Aerosmith would come into town and order products to be delivered backstage.

– Goldie Hawn, who is fro Bethesda, used to stop in often. Mary Louise Parker too.

– The Becks came up with the name Bluemercury while sitting on the floor of Barnes &

Noble on M Street, poring over books. Marla’s favorite color is blue, and Barry, looking

in astrological books, liked “mercury,” associated with speed, plus Mercury was the god

of information. They took the name to their board of directors, who hated it and asked

them to do focus groups. Barry said, “Does anyone know what Starbucks is?” The name

stayed.

Bluemercury Rising
• September 26, 2014

Marla Beck, wearing a sleeveless black dress and gold cuff bracelet, and Barry Beck, in a crisp white shirt and silvery blue tie, appear as one might imagine the founders of a $100-million luxury cosmetics and skincare company to be: chic, well-groomed and smelling slightly of Barry’s favorite body wash, Molton Brown Black Peppercorn.

Yet the couple, who’ve gone from owning one Bluemercury store at 3059 M St., NW, 15 years ago to 55 nationwide today, revolutionizing the beauty business in the process, would prefer customers to think of them simply as the “mom and pop” of the industry.

“It used to bug us a little when people would say, ‘Oh, those Bluemercury beauty shops.’ We wanted to be this big national chain. The truth is that today, it’s this mom-and-pop shop feeling that’s really been the driver of our success,” said Barry, sitting with Marla in their Georgetown headquarters.

Success in this case means owning the fastest growing beauty and spa business in the country, with 20 to 30 stores opening in the next year, plus an Internet business that earns the equivalent of 60 brick and mortar stores. Indeed, in the District, home to four stores including the Georgetown original, Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans declared Sept. 13, “Bluemercury Day,” after the District Council voted unanimously in favor of the designation.

The concept of the beauty shop around the corner began with Marla, a California native and self-professed “product junkie” who was getting facials before most people had heard of them. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, she attended Harvard Business School in Boston, where she would drive 45 minutes to buy her favorite MAC lipstick because cosmetics were sold only in drug and department stores.

“In the back of my mind, I always loved the business,” she recalled, flashing a smile. “But it wasn’t something I was focused on until I came here to D.C.”

She moved to Washington to head up mergers and acquisitions for a large janitorial services company but was more interested in running her own business. She’d heard Jeff Bezos give a speech in 1997 about the future of e-commerce and “caught the bug.” She knew there was a gap in the cosmetics market and was mulling the idea of bringing luxury cosmetics to the Internet.

It was right around this time that she met Barry, who owned a maintenance company he had started with his brother while at Cornell University. He was trying to sell that company to the company Marla worked for.

“I’m embarrassed to say I never even looked at Marla the whole time during the meeting,” Barry recalled, relishing telling the story. “Honestly, I thought she was the secretary. She never said a word. She was just watching me the whole time. At the end of the meeting, she said, ‘By the way, I’m the head of M&A. I make all the decisions about which companies we buy and which ones we don’t.’”

Afterward, his brother asked him how the meeting went. Barry replied: “I don’t know, but I think I’m resigning. I think I met the woman I’m going to marry.”

She didn’t buy his company, but Barry did ask her out. In fact, the two left their jobs and raised $1 million in investment capital to create Bluemercury online and open one brick-and-mortar store in 1999.

They also started a life together in Georgetown, getting married (at store number four), having three children (stores five, eight, and thirteen) and finally, today, employing 600-plus people.

Like any good partnership – personal or public – the Becks appear to fill in each other’s gaps. In business, she is the CEO, a strategist who handles all things customer-related: merchandising, marketing, staffing and product development. He is the COO, the tactician who oversees finance, real estate and e-commerce.

He is also the boyish talker who clearly loves to tell – and sell – their story, while she’s the quiet listener who occasionally interjects with a clarification or correction.

At one point Barry said that Bluemercury has more stores than Neiman Marcus and Saks combined.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Marla said quickly. “We should count them.”

“Well, yes, we should count them,” Barry agreed “But it’s close.”

At another point, he revealed that next year the company is launching several new brands, including color cosmetics, haircare and sun-care lines, to which Marla said, “Wait, we’re not supposed to be talking about that.”

“We can’t tell you the names and what’s going to be in them,” Barry said. “We can’t tell you what they are. [But] we’re going to build a house of brands.”

Marla remained unfazed, leaving the salesmanship to him. But as soon as the conversation turned to her role in the business, her blue eyes lit up and her speech quickened. She takes a hands-on approach to hiring people and selecting products, she said, personally interviewing every store manager and trying every product that goes on the shelf.

In addition to selling dozens of brands such as Laura Mercier, Trish McEvoy and Bobbi Brown at Bluemercury stores, Marla launched her own line of natural, dermatologically-tested products called M-61 two years ago after seeing a gap in the market.

“A product has to have great quality, great packaging and a great plan for product development,” she explained. “I look for a lot of authenticity. That’s why we have makeup artists’ brands, because there are people behind them creating the product. I don’t like the fads where someone’s like, ‘I think this is cool this year.’ ”

Her perennial favorites are Trish McEvoy’s High-Volume Mascara and the M-61 Power Glow Peel. Here is the latter’s Bluemercury website description: “Marla loves this pre-makeup and pre-moisturizer before a very important event for a radiant glow. She also loves it for hormone-related breakouts, which she seems to get.”

Clearly, Marla, who pens a beauty blog, spends a good deal of time testing these products. Where does all this experimentation take place? They receive so many prospective products at their office, Barry said, that they put them in a spot dubbed “the garage.” Every so often, they pull them out, set them up and Marla goes through them like movie scripts with Post-it notes in hand.

“I’m like: ‘No, no, no, we need more information on this,’ or ‘Who’s doing this?’ or ‘This one I want to take home’,” she said.

“You know a brand is on its way into the store… ” Barry started. “Could be going in,” Marla interrupted.

Barry flashed his brown eyes at her, finishing, “Because the train stop right before that is in our bathroom.”

She did not disagree. In fact, there seems to be little the Becks don’t ultimately agree on, at least in business. Barry describes their partnership as “magical” and “this amazing combination that has really worked well for us.” Their list of professional accomplishments is long, including Marla’s recent appointment as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School and Barry’s lecturing on entrepreneurship at Cornell and Columbia universities.

They seem to have figured out what works well for them at home, too. They include their three children, ages 7, 9 and 11, in store openings and activities as much as possible. “We’ve never seen our life as, ‘Here is our work life and here is our family life,’ ” Barry said. “It’s a blend. Bluemercury is who we are, who our family is.”

That life includes a considerable amount of business travel. Marla noted that she logged 13,000 miles in June alone and met with every store manager during August. “There was one week I was in a different city every day,” she said. “So it depends. But it’s a minimum of one day a week.”

Even so, they make a big effort to be home at night with their kids. If they need to visit a store together, no matter where it is, they try to make it a day trip. If going to the West Coast, they often fly out in the morning and take the red eye back.

“We like to go to bed under our own roof,” Barry said. “Husband, wife, three kids. The truth is, it’s a labor of love for us. We love what we’re doing. We’re excited to see a store in Santa Monica and can’t wait to get out there. And we also can’t wait to get back to our family.”

Another way they stay connected is by taking nightly walks through their Bethesda neighborhood, or wherever they happen to be. It’s a habit they started when they lived in Georgetown and would walk down to the monuments a few times a week. They’ve calculated they’ve walked halfway around the world.

“Last night, we walked almost five miles,” Barry said. “We were in a great conversation, saw something funny, gave each other a little hug…”

“And I walked into a tree,” said Marla with a laugh.

And if she got a scratch from the branch, she knew she could walk to the beauty shop down the street for the perfect product to cover it up. [gallery ids="101863,137669,137666,137660" nav="thumbs"]