She Just Wanted a Dance Class. Now She Has 50 Franchises. | episode 2
Jami Stigliano didn't set out to build a business. She walked out of a dance class on the corner of 57th and Broadway in New York City, frustrated, feeling invisible, and decided she'd just teach her own.
That was the beginning of DivaDance, a dance fitness brand with over 50 franchise locations and a growing national footprint. But the origin story isn't about vision or a grand plan. It's about a woman who wanted something that didn't exist and decided to create it.
Jami joined me for Episode 2 of Success, Rewritten, and she held nothing back. We talked about the 18 years she spent in the music industry while building DivaDance as a side hustle. The moment a franchisee's check bounced and her business account was overdrawn by $10,000. The COVID pivot she made on a Friday in March 2020, pointing a camera at herself and just starting to livestream. And the hard decisions of the past year, including parting ways with her business partner, that she believes are setting DivaDance up for what comes next.
A few things stuck with me.
On the difference between self-employed and a business owner:
"Self-employed means when you don't work, you don't make money. Being a business owner means that even if you don't work, you will make money." Franchising, she argues, is how she built toward the second definition.
On not paying yourself:
"I think that as entrepreneurs, it's some sort of badge of honor to not pay ourselves. ‘I didn't pay myself for five years’ and I'm kinda like, why not?" She's since changed her approach. She now pays herself enough to outsource what drains her at home, a house assistant, meal prep, the logistics of daily life, so she can show up fully for her business and her family.
On running her health like a business:
Watching her parents age on two very different trajectories was the turning point. Her father, vibrant and mobile at 83. Her mother, in a wheelchair. She started treating her health KPIs the way she treats business KPIs: blood work, A1C, glucose, regular check-ins with a nutritionist. "If we don't do that, 10 years from now is not gonna look how we want it to."
On knowing when to make the hard call:
The last year has been the most difficult of her entire business, more than the overdraft, more than COVID. Implementing EOS (the Entrepreneur Operating System from the book Traction) forced her to question everything, including who was in which seat and whether those seats even needed to exist. Painful and clarifying in equal measure.
Jami also breaks down how franchising actually works and why it's more accessible than most people assume. If you've ever thought about scaling a concept but weren't sure whether to license, open locations, or franchise, that part of the conversation is worth the listen alone.
Watch the full episode below, or find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And if you know someone who's building something, send it to them.
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