This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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To her 769,000 Instagram followers, fitness entrepreneur-turned-brand founder Amanda Kloots feels like a friend who just happens to sometimes star in movies or host TV shows — she wrapped her gig on CBS’s “The Talk” when the show ended last year and hosts “Live From The Other Side” on Netflix. Some of her fans have been following her journey since she started teaching fitness classes nearly a decade ago, in 2016. That was when she first transitioned out of her previous career as a Radio City Rockette and Broadway dancer and started building her fitness business, Amanda Kloots Fitness.
Earlier this month, Kloots launched Proper, a wellness brand that debuted with five powder supplements. It is the seventh brand to launch in partnership with Ben Bennett’s incubator, The Center — its other brands include Naturium, which exited to E.l.f. Beauty at the end of 2023. Bennett and Kloots are striving to create products that appeal to the “everyday woman who comes to my classes, who is really just looking for something to keep her happy and to make her feel her best,” Kloots said on this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast.
Proper’s first five products include the greens powder Daily Boost, Metabolism + Energy Boost, Digestion + Bloat Relief, Immune Support, and Calming Aid. Each is $28 and, for now, exclusively available direct-to-consumer. And they’re brightly colored to represent the idea of “drinking the rainbow,” Kloots said.
On this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Kloots discusses how the early days of the boutique fitness boom made her social media savvy, what business lessons she learned from past ventures and collaborations, and what’s next for Proper.
Below are highlights from the episode, which have been lightly edited for clarity.
Understanding Instagram’s impact
“[At the] beginning of Instagram, I was working at Body By Simone. We sat down and had an Instagram talk, like, ‘This is a new app, and this is how you use it.’ [But] it wasn’t until I started training Arielle Charnas, [aka] Something Navy. I remember [around the time of] our second or third session, she was celebrating a million followers on Instagram. I [thought], ‘Maybe this is a big deal.’ Through training her and her posting videos, that’s when my social media account started to gain followers. I was like, ‘Whoa, this social media thing is a thing.’ And I started catching on. Watching her taught me a lot about how you can post and how you can grow your followers.”
Business lessons learned the hard way
“I made a CBD muscle relief cream, and I had two partners in that. And unfortunately, that was right when I gave birth to [my son] Elvis. I was pregnant, and then I was a new mom. I was overwhelmed with being a new mom, and the operational side of that company was a bit of a disaster, I’ll say kindly, and it really let me down. I learned very quickly how, if you get into business with people who say a lot of things but can’t uphold their promises and know when it’s their turn to help out, you really suffer. And so I was really kind of bruised badly by that company, and I learned a lot of lessons.”
Proper’s point of difference and what’s next for the brand
“We’ll have a couple more powders to round out the superfood powders that we’ve launched so far. We’re keeping an eye out on all the trends, and we’re looking ahead and seeing what’s even ahead of those [trends] and how we can always help that person who just needs a little extra love in their day and wants to put something in their body that makes them feel good — [something that] tastes good and is affordable and attainable. … I have spent a lot of dollars on supplements over the years. At $150, when you’re pressing ‘place order,’ you’re like, ‘Oh, I hope I like this. I better use all of this.’ And then it sits on the countertop and it doesn’t get used. I did not want that to be the case, and Ben [Bennett] didn’t, either. And we really connected over that. … We’ve got some great ideas coming down the pipeline.”
