“If You Don’t Have Profit, You Got a Hobby”: Krissy Cela on Building Oner Active
Krissy Cela walked into a gym at 17 as an escape from a volatile home—and turned that lifeline into a fitness content business, then into Oner Active, a bootstrapped activewear brand now doing north of $200M in revenue with global retail commitments.
Walking into a gym saved my life… I unfortunately was introduced to power before my identity, and I had hundreds of employees before I even knew who I was.
From PDFs on a student laptop to a multi‑brand empire
Before Oner, Krissy ran a decade‑long creator business: workout PDFs sold via Instagram, then a subscription app with tens of thousands of paying members. She started posting workouts to “look hot” after a breakup, kept waitressing until she had 300k followers, and only monetized once demand for her routines was obvious.
I took my university laptop and I made my first PDF… I said, ‘If one person buys, I’m going to be so proud of us.’ … £7,000, £8,000 in 10 minutes. £9,000. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m rich.’
The early app phase came with hard lessons: vague contracts, losing ownership of infrastructure, server migrations that took the app down for a month, and 10k subscribers vanishing overnight. Her crisis rhythm became a repeatable playbook.
I give myself about 24 hours to have a [__] show and then I’m like, ‘Okay, this is where we’re at. How do we solve it?’
Founders need founders who believe in you
Krissy is clear that Oner didn’t happen in a vacuum: it was built with co‑founders and partners who backed her vision before the world did. She frames this as a core advantage for any founder—having people who already “get” what you’re trying to build and are willing to stake time, reputation, and capital on it.
I think having a business partner in life and in business who believe in you so much is such a powerful tool.
That belief showed up early. Before Oner, she spent years as an influencer in her co‑founders’ ecosystem, proving she could convert audiences into sales. When she pitched the activewear idea, she didn’t come as an unknown first‑timer; she came as someone who had already moved product and built trust with a community. That track record made it easier for them to say yes—and to give her the infrastructure to incubate the brand.
Oner is bigger than any business they’ve ever built. That didn’t happen by accident. And you only know I have co‑founders because you know me and you know Oner.
She also draws a sharp line between “family” language and real partnership. To her, the healthiest founder relationships are explicit about roles, expectations, and the financial nature of the bond. That clarity protects both the business and the relationship when things get hard.
Your team… is not your family… We have a duty to each other. It’s a financial transaction.
And she’s blunt about the trap of calling employees or partners “family”: it pressures you to accept behavior you shouldn’t tolerate just to keep the peace.
You accept things that you shouldn’t because they’re family. You turn a blind eye cuz they’re family.
The lesson for other founders: don’t just look for money or logos on a cap table. Look for partners who have already seen you win, who understand your edge, and who are prepared to defend your vision when outsiders try to explain your success away.
People are looking for every other reason… for it not to be attributed to you… The right investor and the right partner will not want you to change.
The Oner thesis: design for the female cycle, not a “lifting brand” box
Oner began as “seamless leggings for lifters by lifters,” but pregnancy and lived experience pushed a broader framework: the Oner Cycle (Lift → Hybrid → Stretch → Living), mapping product and marketing to how women actually feel and move across their month.
Stop trying to put yourself in a box… Your audience is more complex than that. They don’t just want a lifting legging.
That cycle thinking birthed Soft Motion—ultra‑stretchy, PFA‑free pieces that became a core, perpetually sold‑out line. Pricing, she says, is strategic, not an afterthought.
I’m obsessed with pricing… I’m not charging people $100 for a pair of leggings. Absolutely not. But I engineer into pricing.
Community first: DMs before the bank account
Krissy treats community as the operating system. She checks Oner mentions and DMs daily, before anything else, to feel product wins and failures in real time.
You can’t call yourself a community‑based business and you don’t put your community first… I can’t hire people to be as obsessed as I am with the people that I’m selling to.
The trade‑off is a high parasocial relationship: mistakes land in her inbox instantly, and she’s learned to accept that while building better processes.
Every purchase is a commitment to your vision… But human error happens. Production fails… I need about two days to figure out what the hell has gone wrong.
Leadership, boundaries, and the cost of people‑pleasing
Early on, Krissy blurred lines—team at her house, knowing everything about her life while she knew little about theirs. That openness backfired when relationships soured and narratives spread. She now enforces clear boundaries and treats “team” as a professional compact, not family.
Your team… is not your family… Team, no. We have a duty to each other. It’s a financial transaction.
She also calls out how people‑pleasing damaged judgment. After being told she “doesn’t listen to creativity,” she handed a campaign off entirely; it missed the mark with the community. The fix was collaboration with clear creative ownership.
You cannot people‑please to be a leader… You’re going to damage your brand trying to make everyone else happy.
Being taken seriously while staying yourself
Krissy has been told to stop posting bikini content to attract investors, and has faced intrusive questions about family plans. Her stance: the right partners won’t require a personality overhaul.
I had once a publicist tell me to stop posting bikini pictures cuz no investor is going to take you seriously. Do you have a business that’s making $300 million a year? No, you don’t.
Perception is everything… I have had to scale it back a lot, but… the right investor and the right partner will not want you to change.
“America wants entrepreneurs to win… The UK does not”
Krissy ties her ambition and pace directly to her move from the UK to the US. In her view, the American ecosystem—press, peers, government, customers—rewards bold founders and pushes them to think bigger, while the UK culture often nudges entrepreneurs to “settle down” and downplay success.
America wants entrepreneurs to win, to thrive, to win big money and they push you… The UK does not want entrepreneurs to win.
That shift changed how she operates. Being between LA, New York, and Miami keeps her close to where fitness, wellness, and lifestyle trends actually start, which then informs product, color palettes, and even how the website speaks to different audiences.
You can never live in the UK ever again. You need to be between LA, New York, Miami… constantly keep your finger on the pulse.
The takeaway is twofold: environment matters as much as idea quality, and the right market will amplify your ambition instead of muting it. Krissy’s bet is that the US gives her the oxygen to turn Oner into a billion‑dollar brand—and she’s structuring the company (retail leases, C‑suite hires, profit discipline) to match that scale.
Professionalization: the path from $200M to $1B
Oner is now in a “professionalization” phase: tighter agendas, no‑assumption clarity, and a ruthless filter for projects based on two 2027 goals—scalability and consistency. That includes SKU rationalization (cutting ~2,200 SKUs toward ~1,500) to do less, better.
In order for you to get to the next stage, you’ve got to do less but do it so much better… It’s hard to kill your darlings in a business.
She brought in a seasoned CEO (Zach) after mentoring him for two years, while she focuses on three roles: founder (board/top‑line decisions), creative director (brand/product/vision/talent), and the public face. Oner remains 100% bootstrapped and profitable; Krissy still owns 50%.
If you don’t have profit, you got a hobby.
Why the US—and why now
After moving from the UK to LA and now Miami, Krissy says the US ecosystem rewards ambition and speed in a way the UK didn’t. She also tailors product and site experience by state/city because gym culture and color palettes differ wildly from London to LA to New York to Miami.
America wants entrepreneurs to win, to thrive, to win big money and they push you… The UK does not want entrepreneurs to win.
You can never live in the UK ever again. You need to be between LA, New York, Miami… constantly keep your finger on the pulse.
The Lori Harvey billboard on Sunset is a signal of the next stage: moving beyond “social‑first” into global brand stature, backed by 10‑year retail leases in LA and New York.
Signing two leases… That’s a 10‑year commitment. That is me saying, I am here to stay.
Rapid‑fire takeaways (for repoding readers)
- Must‑own Oner piece: the straight‑leg pants.
- Daily non‑negotiables: talk to her son; kiss her partner.
- Fitness rule: show up every day—even a 10–15 minute walk counts.
- What she’s stopped apologizing for: being assertive and knowing what she wants.
This recap is based on Krissy Cela’s appearance on the Aspire with Emma Grede podcast. For the full episode, click on the YouTube link at the top or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
