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Meet Christie Evenson
Meet House of Movement
Olivia Weinzierl and Jorja-lee Haigh had been friends for years before they became business partners. They stayed close the way a lot of people do: letterbox book swaps, long walks, and eventually 3km runs that neither of them felt entirely ready for.
"We were both low-key terrified of running," they shared. "But that built a friendship grounded in trust and momentum."
When they reconnected at a family funeral and discovered they both wanted to start a fitness business, that same instinct kicked in. A year later, House of Movement opened in Berwick, Victoria. Those first two books they swapped now sit on a shelf in the studio. Members can take one and leave one.
It's a small thing. But it captures exactly what Olivia and Jorja-lee set out to build: a place where showing up matters more than being ready, and where the connections people make keep them coming back.
That philosophy shaped every decision about what the studio would look like, feel like, and offer. House of Movement brings reformer Pilates, heated mat Pilates, yoga, breathwork, and strength together under one roof. But the class variety was never the point. The experience before someone even walks through the door was always where Olivia and Jorja-lee put their energy.
"The biggest barrier in movement for so many people is that discomfort of stepping into something new," says Jorja-lee. "Our main focus has been ensuring that from the outside, we can create that psychological safety before you even step in the door."
The challenge
Building that kind of environment takes focus. And focus is hard to maintain when you're also trying to keep a new business alive.
When you open a studio, expenses start from day one. There's no grace period. If you haven't built momentum before you open, you're already behind. Olivia and Jorja-lee knew this going in. They also knew that the people they brought through the door in those early weeks would set the tone for everything that followed. These weren't just early sign-ups. They were the foundation of the community they were trying to create.
Choosing Momence as their platform from day one, they had to figure out how to use it as a growth tool during one of the most demanding periods any new business goes through, while still keeping their attention on the thing that mattered most: the people.
The solution
Before the doors even opened, Olivia and Jorja-lee were already building. Their pre-launch strategy centred on tiered foundation memberships, released in staged batches to create a sense of urgency and belonging. The first wave sold out in half an hour.
They also ran a free class offer to start building a community of people who were curious but not yet committed. Looking back, they'd do it slightly differently. Keep the offer tighter, have a clearer path ready for people to follow once it closed, and make sure the follow-up was doing as much work as the offer itself.
"Have a strategy around how you utilise that free class," says Olivia. "Have an intro offer ready so that when it closes, there's somewhere for people to go."
It's the kind of advice that only comes from having done it. And it's a reflection of how much Olivia and Jorja-lee have learned about turning interest into connection, not just sign-ups.
Opening a new business is all-consuming. In those first weeks, getting the doors open, building the team, and keeping everything running took everything they had. As the team found their footing, the priority shifted from getting people in the door to keeping them there. With a team that had grown to nearly 20, the feature that changed how the business ran day to day wasn't what either of them expected. Role-based security permissions gave each staff member visibility into exactly what they needed, and freed Olivia and Jorja-lee from being the bottleneck for every admin task. That meant more time and more headspace to focus on what they actually opened the studio to do.
"That's been the biggest time saver with Momence," says Olivia. "Being able to delegate and then block out what they can and can't see."
With more capacity to think beyond the day-to-day, their use of Momence deepened. Where the early months had been about survival, this was about building something more intentional. Automated email sequences now support every stage of the member journey, designed so that every touchpoint feels personal and every next step feels easy. The same thinking runs through sequences for leads, intro offers, and win-back campaigns.
That same clarity extended to their channels. Instagram became a shopfront for people who hadn't visited yet, focused entirely on creating the right first impression. Everything else, studio updates, upcoming events, member communications, moved to the Momence app newsfeed, where the audience is already part of what's being built.
"We're growing the app feed to be the number one notice board for anything happening in the studio. It becomes a one-stop shop. And you're speaking to people who are already invested, not trying to speak to everyone at once."
The impact
A year in, the business Olivia and Jorja-lee set out to build is real.
House of Movement has a strong and growing member base, and a community that comes back not just for the classes but for each other. The people who stay aren't chasing intensity or volume. They're there because it makes their day better, and because the people around them make it worth coming back to.
"The people we retain are the people that are coming to feel good in their day-to-day lives," says Jorja-lee. "A lot of them are looking for connection to others. They're connected to each other, not just to their trainer. That's really hard to build in a transactional industry."
Momence has been part of that from the start, quietly handling what needs to run in the background so Olivia and Jorja-lee can stay focused on the front. "Every single time we learn something new, it makes everything so much cleaner and easier to use," says Olivia. "The support is always so efficient in helping me get to where I need to be."
There's still more to unlock. They know that. But the foundation is there, built the same way the friendship was: by showing up, figuring it out, and trusting that the momentum would follow.
