Alyssa Bruno: She Was Making Soap in Her Kitchen Before Yoga Changed Everything
Seven years into a supply chain career in the beauty industry, Alyssa Bruno was spending 12 hours a day in Excel and quietly asking herself if this was really it.
She didn't wake up one day knowing the answer. What followed was a year or two of trial and error: a paid yoga video platform that never took off, a natural soap business she ran out of her apartment kitchen, an Etsy drop-ship experiment. None of it stuck. But all of it taught her something.
Then she found yoga. Got her 200-hour certification. Then her 300. Then became 500-hour certified and started training other teachers. Started posting her flows on Instagram. Kept going, even when she was posting into a void for the first six months. Two years of consistent content creation later, brands started paying her. Management companies started reaching out. And now, still holding down her corporate nine to five, she is on the verge of leaving it behind entirely.
We sat down with Alyssa to talk about how she balanced all of it financially and practically, what the income breakdown actually looks like across three jobs, and what the trial and error process really feels like from the inside.
For anyone who doesn't know you, can you walk us through who you are and how you got here?
There's a lot that I do right now. I've been in supply chain planning in the beauty industry for about seven years, and I still have my corporate job. But about three years ago I got my 200-hour yoga certification, and from there things kind of snowballed.
I'm now 500-hour certified, which means I went back and completed my 300-hour training on top of the initial 200. I teach yoga, I co-lead a yoga teacher training, and I mentor trainees at a studio in Hoboken. I also do content creation, which has grown from strictly yoga content into full wellness and lifestyle. I recently signed with a content manager, which has already escalated things significantly in just the first month.
My handle is @yogabyalyssa, which started as a pure yoga account and now represents something much broader. But it's how people know me, and it's how I've built my community, so I'm keeping it for now.
My goal is to leave corporate by the end of this year. What I'm doing right now is not sustainable forever. But I know I have to grind through this period to get to the other side.
You didn't just stumble into yoga. Before it clicked, there was a lot of trial and error. What did that actually look like?
I definitely had a lot of trial and error. It wasn't like I woke up one day and said, I want to be a yoga teacher and do content creation on top of that. That realization came after a year or two of exploring first.
I tried a paid yoga video platform where I uploaded classes and advertised it. It didn't work, mostly because I didn't have a following or a real community yet. I had a natural soap business where I was literally making soap in my apartment kitchen and selling at farmers markets. I tried an Etsy drop-ship store. None of it took off.
But here's what I noticed: with every idea I tried before yoga, I had to ask everyone around me whether it was a good idea. I needed outside confirmation. With yoga and content creation, I didn't. I just knew. I didn't need anyone to tell me it was smart or that it would work. That was really telling. When you don't need anyone's approval to keep going, that's usually the sign you're on the right path.
What did getting 500-hour certified actually cost, practically speaking?
My 200-hour certification came first. Then I went through Yoga Renew for my 300-hour, which I completed in person over about 10 months. The cost was a little over $3,000 for the in-person program. They also offer an online version for under $1,000, which covers the same content but without the in-person teaching experience.
The schedule was structured around weekends so it was doable around a nine to five: one or two weekends per month, with roughly three hours on Friday, seven on Saturday, and six on Sunday. So your weekends become dedicated to training for about 10 months. After a 20-hour training weekend I'd go straight back to my full-time job and teach classes at night on top of that. It was a lot. But it was doable.
The other popular route for the 300-hour is an immersive program in Bali or India, which condenses everything into two to three weeks. That's obviously much harder to pull off with a corporate job, but it exists.
How did you balance all of this, the corporate job, the certifications, the content creation, time and money wise?
Time management is honestly the hardest part of all of it. My belief is that if you really want something, you will find time for it. If you're using "I don't have time" as an excuse, it probably means it's not as important to you as you think.
In practice that meant working on my content very late at night after long work days. Waking up at 6am to get an extra hour in. Using PATH train rides, subway rides, lunch breaks. Even 15 minutes of editing on a commute puts you 15 minutes ahead of where you were. I would break things into steps: cut the video on the ride in, add the title and sound on my lunch break, record the voiceover that night. It stops feeling like a mountain when you take it piece by piece.
The same went for pitching myself to brands. I would DM up to 100 brands a day on Instagram. Emailing them, asking for contacts, pitching from there. But a lot of that happened in moments I was already on my phone. I'd see a creator tag a brand in their story, click the tag, and DM them right there. Weaving it into things you're already doing makes it feel less like extra work.
What did the path to actually getting paid look like?
It started with gifted collaborations only. No money, just product. That phase lasted a while, and I think it's important to be honest about that because people expect to monetize immediately and then feel like they're failing when they don't.
You have to build your portfolio, build your relationships with brands, and be okay treating it like an investment before it pays off. The first payments I got were small, $100 to $150 from brands I wasn't even fully aligned with. But that was the experience phase. You learn how to film, how to edit, how to pitch.
Once I built the portfolio and created a proper media kit, I started pitching myself outbound and actually getting rates in the thousands. But that consistency only came about two years in. Content creation has really high highs and really low lows. The question is how consistent you can be during the low lows, when no one is engaging and nothing is paying.
About three months ago, management companies started reaching out to me. I took that as a signal I was doing something right. I signed with one, and my manager now handles pitching, negotiating, and logistics, which has freed up time and pushed my rates higher. Between five and six months from now I want to be in a position where I can comfortably leave my corporate job.
What does the income actually look like across all three of your income streams right now?
My corporate salary is the majority right now. I'm at six figures there, and it's consistent and reliable.
Content creation is where the growth is happening. I've hit $10,000 months, but not yet consistently. My goal before leaving my job is to hit that number for four to six consecutive months. Over the past five months it's been somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000 depending on the month. The manager should help push that upward.
Yoga teaching is the smallest slice. I get paid between $100 and $120 per class depending on how many students show up, which is better than a lot of teachers get. At chain studios it can be as low as $20 to $30 per class, which I think is genuinely unfair given the time and energy teachers put in. Teaching is something I'll always want to do weekly because I love it, but it is not something you can sustain as your only income. Teachers who go full time on teaching alone are running 17 to 20 classes a week, and that's a path to burnout.
I'm also getting married in October, so my plan is to keep the corporate job and the double income through then before making the full transition.
If you could go back a few years and give yourself advice, financial or otherwise, what would it actually be?
If you believe in yourself, you can truly do anything you set your mind to. And if you keep going and stay consistent, you will not fail. No one who keeps going regardless of the obstacles and the low lows actually fails. It might take time. But you will always find a way through if it's your real path.
Have more confidence that you can do it. Don't let other people tell you that you can't. Don't let your own inner voice tell you that you can't either. And any time you feel jealous of someone else's success, use it as data: that's something you want. So go get it.
Follow Alyssa ✨
Two years of posting into a void, a soap business in her apartment kitchen, and 12-hour days in Excel before she found the thing. Now she's weeks away from leaving corporate behind for good.
Follow Alyssa:
Instagram: @yogabyalyssa
YouTube: @yogabyalyssa
TikTok: @yogabyalyssa
Substack: The Flow State Wellness
