
Exclusive: The founders of SoulCycle built a startup for relationships, then pivoted to GLP-1 support groups. Now its assets are being acquired by WeightWatchers
Key Takeaways
Peoplehood cofounder Julie Rice is joining WeightWatchers as chief experience officer.
Article Overview
Quick insights and key information
5 min read
Estimated completion
financial news
Article classification
August 7, 2025
01:34 PM
Fortune
Original publisher
s·MPW DailyExclusive: The founders of SoulCycle built a startup for relationships, then pivoted to GLP-1 support groups
Now its assets are being acquired by WeightWatchersBy Emma HinchliffeBy Emma HinchliffeMost Powerful Women EditorEmma HinchliffeMost Powerful Women EditorEmma Hinchliffe is Fortune’s Most Powerful Women editor, overseeing editorial for the longstanding franchise
As a senior writer at Fortune, Emma has covered women in and gender-lens news across , , and culture
She is the lead author of the Most Powerful Women Daily (formerly the Broadsheet), Fortune’s daily missive for and the women leading the world.SEE FULL BIO SoulCycle cofounder Julie Rice is selling the assets of her startup Peoplehood to WeightWatchers
In today’s edition: Jane Fraser’s meeting with Trump, some dark horse candidates for Fed chair, and a startup pivot that led it to WeightWatchers. – Peoplehood pivot
Two years ago, SoulCycle cofounders Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler launched another
It was called Peoplehood, and it was billed as a way for people to work on their relationships—a kind of unofficial group therapy that captured the spirituality that drew people to SoulCycle classes with an element of leadership coaching and self-reflection
Over the past several months, Peoplehood quietly pivoted to a new model: support groups for people taking GLP-1 medications
Now, Peoplehood is shutting down and the company’s assets have a buyer: WeightWatchers
The original, 62-year-old weight-loss community network, WeightWatchers itself recently came out of bankruptcy under a new CEO, lightened its long-burdensome debt load, and unveiled its strategic direction
Two years ago it acquired Sequence, a telehealth platform for prescribing GLP-1s
Now WeightWatchers plans to offer new options menopause support
WeightWatchers didn’t disclose the financial details of the transaction, but it’s acquiring Peoplehood’s and platforms and bringing on Rice as chief experience officer (Rice was a longtime member of the WeightWatchers board)
She’s bringing three employees with her (at one point, Peoplehood had as many as 60 but slimmed down to a sixth of that); Cutler isn’t joining WeightWatchers. (“She’s happy to send this baby off,” Rice says.) Peoplehood had raised funding from the venture firm Maveron. “Community is what has underpinned this throughout and it is as important, if not more important today than it’s ever been,” says WeightWatchers CEO Tara Comonte
Peoplehood’s GLP-1 pivot, while surprising to some, came out of finding duct-market fit, Rice says
People enjoyed coming to the community for other reasons—”We tried Peoplehood, we tried couplehood, we tried motherhood, we tried singlehood,” Rice says—but they stuck around longer when it was weight loss. “It was just stickier
It just was,” Rice says
Community was at its most powerful as a tool to support “habitual change.” SoulCycle cofounder Julie Rice is selling the assets of her startup Peoplehood to WeightWatchers
As chief experience officer, Rice will lead WeightWatchers’ expansion of its longtime support groups into a virtual model
In 2024, WeightWatchers had $786 million in annual revenue and the year with 3.3 million rs
WeightWatchers will continue to offer a mix of groups, some focused purely on GLP-1 users, a place to discuss topics understanding the science of the medications, dealing with side effects, eating while taking the therapies, and supporting weight loss through exercise and strength training
As WeightWatchers attempts to keep up with fast changes in this category—an oral weight loss medication is on the way—Rice will steer efforts to evolve communities
She says her biggest lesson from her years building Peoplehood is that “people just want to be together.” “This is a really new category
It is really hard to find information
Your best friends won’t tell you that they are taking these medications,” Rice says. “What I’ve seen in these rooms is that people want a teacher
They want a best friend who will tell them where they’re buying their tein and which brands they the best
And they want a cheerleader
They want somebody who’s saying, ‘You’re doing it right, you’re doing a great job.’ I think these rooms can be all of those things for people
They can be a classroom, a support system, a confidant.” Emma Hinchliffeemma.hinchliffe@fortune.com The Most Powerful Women Daily is Fortune’s daily briefing for and the women leading the world. here.ALSO IN THE HEADLINES- Major meeting
Citi CEO Jane Fraser met with President Trump yesterday
She pitched the president on pursuing public offerings for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which could be the largest public offerings in history
Priscilla Almodovar leads Fannie Mae as CEO
Bloomberg- Contraception consequences
The Trump administration ordered $9.7 million worth of contraceptives that were en route to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali to be destroyed
The International Planned Parenthood Federation reports that that will lead to 174,000 unint pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions
Guardian- Other options
The two leading candidates to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed chair are both named Kevin. (Trump says "both Kevins are very good.") But two dark horses in the race are Michelle Bowman, the Fed's vice chair for supervision, and economist Judy Shelton
Fortune- Huckabee Sanders and health care
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is facing off with Centene, led by CEO Sarah London
The GOP governor is blaming the Medicaid and Medicare insurer for raising premiums—which insurers are doing in part as a response to political uncertainty around the future of funding for Affordable Care Act plans
BloombergMOVERS AND SHAKERSAmanda Bradford, who founded the dating app the League, is leaving Match Group, which acquired the app in 2022
ON MY RADAREnough with the mom guilt already The AtlanticLouisa Jacobson on what she learned from her mother, Meryl Streep Wall Street JournalMrs
Dalloway's midlife crisis The AtlanticPARTING WORDS"It felt very comfortable to not feel so stressed preparing
The only thing was relearning guitar again."— Lindsay Lohan on revisiting her role in Freakier FridayThis is the web version of MPW Daily, a daily for and the world’s most powerful women. to get it dered free to your inbox.
Related Articles
More insights from FinancialBooklet