Kristen Nicholson | Urban Sweat
Owner of Urban Sweat
Kristen Nicholson, founder of Urban Sweat, shares her path from corporate healthcare to entrepreneurship. Learn how she turned her vision into a successful wellness studio and franchise, and hear her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs about betting on yourself and embracing the challenges of growth.
What Businesses Do You Run?
Kristen Nicholson is the founder and owner of Urban Sweat, a wellness studio focused on proactive approaches to physical and mental health. The business first opened in February 2022 in The Nations neighborhood in Nashville, TN. Within two years, Kristen expanded Urban Sweat into a franchise model, launching the first franchise location in Wedgewood-Houston, Nashville, by February 2024. Urban Sweat’s growth reflects Kristen’s mission to make holistic health accessible to more people.
How Did You Get Started as an Entrepreneur?
Before starting Urban Sweat, Kristen spent over 20 years in corporate healthcare. Over time, she grew frustrated with what she saw as the "band-aid" approach of the healthcare system and felt a need to create something more proactive and impactful. This dissatisfaction became the catalyst for her leap into entrepreneurship.
Taking that leap wasn’t easy. Kristen remembers a pivotal moment when, in a single day, four people told her, “Kristen, you’ve got to bet on yourself.” That encouragement gave her the courage to leave behind the safety of a corporate career and pursue her vision for Urban Sweat. “I wish I had done this sooner,” she often reflects, a testament to how fulfilling she finds her work today.
How Do You Think About Growth in Your Current Business? How Do You Plan for the Future?
Kristen balances ambition with patience, strategically franchising Urban Sweat while staying true to its core values. She compares growth to a cold plunge: “When you step into the cold water, your body panics, and it’s uncomfortable. But if you breathe through the discomfort, you start to feel strong and empowered. That’s what growth feels like as an entrepreneur—it’s uncomfortable, but it’s also exhilarating and rewarding when you push through.” Her focus remains on sustainable expansion and supporting her franchisees for long-term success.
What Advice Do You Have for Aspiring Entrepreneurs?
Kristen advises entrepreneurs to bet on themselves, even when it feels risky, and to embrace the nerves as motivation to succeed. She stresses the importance of building a strong support system. Her entrepreneurial philosophy is rooted in resilience, focus, and a willingness to embrace discomfort. As Kristen’s journey shows, the most rewarding leaps often come from the moments when you trust yourself the most.
“Taking the risk to bet on yourself is uncomfortable, but it’s essential. No one else will believe in your vision as strongly as you do”
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Kristen Nicholson 0:00
Hi. My name is Kristen Nicholson, and I am the founder and owner of urban sweat. So urban sweat opened up in February of 2022 with its first location in the nations, and then shortly thereafter, we turned it into a franchise and had our first franchisee open up in the Wedgewood, Houston area of Nashville in February of 24 Well, I spent over 20 years in corporate healthcare and found myself really burned out on the band aid that sometimes, you know US healthcare feels like, and knew that there had to be a better way, that there was a proactive approach that could be taken to our health in both physical and mental, and just took a leap. I've literally said every day since opening, I wish I had done this sooner. The mental toughness to be an entrepreneur is a real thing. It's a real thing. You just you don't know what's around the corner.
You know, as an entrepreneur, you want to fix things immediately and and and want to rush through things sometimes, but sometimes slowing down to speed up is the right thing to do in those in those ways, I believe it has made me more resilient. And I think, and I just to take it back to the modalities that we offer in the studio. To me, it's like a cold plunge session, where, you know, you get in the cold plunge and it's you're in fight or flight in the first 30 seconds, but you have to breathe through it. And once you get to that 45 second or one minute mark, you start to settle out, but it's still really uncomfortable. And as you get those next 30 seconds, you start to really settle out. And you think you want to stay 30 more seconds, and by the time that you get out of that cold water, you feel so powerful. You feel really proud of yourself. You have your energetic you you know you have, you feel stronger than you ever have. And that, to me, just coincides right along with being an entrepreneur. I think some entrepreneurs fail when others can succeed, if one they don't have the right support group. And you know, I think that's the hardest part about being an entrepreneur, is that your friends and your family are not always going to understand what you're talking about. Being able to take the risk it's it's really uncomfortable to jump and and to be able to bet on yourself, which is something that was said to me right before I started my business. I don't know if maybe I was listening more that day or not, but in one day, I had four people tell me, Kristen, you've got to bet on yourself. Well, I've received two pieces of advice that I think have really hit home so far in my entrepreneur journey. One is when I decided to get started, which was hearing to bet on yourself. And the second piece of it was I was at the gym and I was talking with another entrepreneur, and was telling him, before the business got started, how nervous I was and, you know, how exciting it was. And in in this guy reminded me. He was like, good, you should you should be nervous. And I was like, what does that mean? I was like, what does that mean? You think it's a bad idea? And he's like, No, I think that you have to be nervous to to want to work to make this a success.
