“What I like best about Vivid is that I can upload my receipts with every transaction. That means when I have spent something, I can attach the receipt to it directly. And that’s great, because I work in a very structured way and do my own bookkeeping: that fits me exactly.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
Walk into either of YOGALOFT Frankfurt’s two studios and someone will say your name. The community, in her words, is the heart of YOGALOFT. Eva Karina Gouveia opened her first studio in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen in February 2023 with one format, eight classes a week and one teacher, who was herself. Today YOGALOFT runs two locations, roughly fifty classes a week in each of them, and a team of some twenty-five to thirty teachers.
Between those two points sits everything that makes a small business hard: a space that fell through after the equipment had already been ordered, a year-long build-out, a teacher-selection process she ran herself, German bureaucracy learned one letter at a time, and a company formation. When the second location came into view and she set up a GmbH, one of the practical decisions was choosing where the money would sit. After several days of comparing conditions, she chose the fintech platform Vivid.
Eight Classes, One Teacher
The first YOGALOFT opened in February 2023 in Sachsenhausen with a single format: Yoga Sculpt, the studio’s signature class, a mix of yoga sequencing and strength work. As Eva tells it, nothing in Frankfurt was doing Sculpt at the time. The trend then was Reformer Pilates, so the question was open: would people take to it at all? There were about eight classes a week, and she taught every one.
Within about six months, the picture had changed. She ran what she calls a casting call, inviting prospective teachers into the studio to lead a short session with her.
“I invited new teachers to give a short class with me, a 1:1, to see whether they had the skills, and above all whether they had the attitude, the charisma and the empathy I absolutely want in this studio.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
Eight classes became twenty inside a year, and one teacher became ten. In 2024, while teaching Reformer classes in parallel, she decided YOGALOFT should offer Reformer alongside Yoga Sculpt, and ordered the machines on the strength of a second space she thought she had. The space fell through. The Reformers went into Sachsenhausen instead, which made an already tight room tighter, and she kept looking, on one condition: the next location had to hold both mat and Reformer classes, plus room for the community to spend time together.
She found it in March of last year, through a member of the community. The space was a single room; it took a year of rebuilding to divide it into two rooms that can run classes in parallel, each with its own community area. Eight classes a week have become about fifty in each studio, a change she says she has not yet had the time to take in.
Not Customers. Community.
The vocabulary at YOGALOFT is deliberate, and it starts with what the studio refuses to call the people who train there.
“First of all, we don’t call them customers. Every person who comes through this door is not a customer. We don’t want to sell something, we want to share moments with these people. That’s why we call it community, and that is already the difference: when you see the participants as a community instead of as customers, the relationship is closer, it is more real, and it is nicer for us too.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
In practice that means a broad timetable and a lot of room around it. There are mat classes in yoga, Pilates and strength; recovery classes built around stretching, because Eva believes movement matters when you sweat and just as much when you stretch; and Reformer classes split into beginner, intermediate and advanced levels so that people can start where they recognise themselves and progress from there.
Around the classes sits the part that is harder to put on a schedule. There is space for community events, and the studio uses it often, to celebrate something and to do things together beyond YOGALOFT itself. The newer location added a shake bar: they had thought about how to support people on the nutrition side as well, and protein shakes are something they take daily themselves. Her own favourite is the anti-ageing one. There is merch in colours chosen to sit alongside the studio’s interior, grippy socks in several colours and sizes, and, since this year, branded equipment: bands, rings and blocks carrying the logo, so that members can take them home for their own training.
Starting From Zero, Twice
Eva found yoga during her university years, looking for movement, and practised three times a week. What kept her there was not only the practice but the people: a real relationship with her teacher and with the others in the room, something that felt like a community. It became her counterweight to the situations life brought at the time, at home or in her relationship.
Then she left. Born and raised in Venezuela, she studied law, qualified, and worked as a lawyer for a year and a half. Why she left her country is, in her words, always a difficult question. Venezuela’s political and economic situation was one she did not identify with.
“When I was 23 I made the decision to leave my country, even though at the same time it meant that I would have to start from zero, and above all that I would no longer be with my family.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
Madrid came first: Spanish is her mother tongue, her mother is originally from Spain, and she thought she could continue her legal career there with a master’s degree. By her own assessment, it did not work. She missed her family, and she did not believe Spain, beautiful as it is, could give her the thing she was actually looking for, which was stability. She researched which European country could give her that, and one of them was Germany: stability, security and punctuality were what convinced her. She arrived in Munich, worked as an au pair to get closer to the language, and moved to Frankfurt three years later for the job she had at the time.
Yoga stayed a plan she talked about rather than one she acted on. Years later, unhappy in the job she had then, it was her partner who put the idea into words: go self-employed, teach, open your own studio. She found it overwhelming, and believed it anyway. Five jobs later, with enough saved to pay a deposit and open a studio, she and her partner did it.
The Accent on the Phone
Ask her what was hardest about building her own company in Germany, and she names a mix of things, starting with language, in a very specific setting: on the phone, trying to get through the door of a commercial space.
“I often had calls where I asked for a viewing appointment for a space, and of course the other person sounds sceptical, simply because you have an accent, and then you lose a bit of credibility.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
As a person, she says, that does not feel good. It also did not stop her. In the end, she believes, there are people who will give you a chance, and that is what happened. Bureaucracy was the second obstacle: in a country you did not grow up in, you do not know which papers exist until they arrive in your letterbox telling you to register something. And yet she is glad it is there. The order, the organisation, the structure are exactly what she came looking for. Culture was the third, and she counts it as her advantage, because the openness and warmth she grew up with open doors.
She had read the question about being a woman founder the day before the interview, and answered it honestly: the comparison is not one she carries around. She feels proud as a person, independent of gender. It is a good thing, she says, to be an example for women who ask themselves whether they are ready or whether their gender will limit them, and to represent women. But she deals with a great many self-employed women, and a lot of the people training at YOGALOFT are building their own businesses and chasing their own dreams. Perhaps because of that, she says, she forgets that a woman founder is perhaps not such a common thing.
Three Hours Early
Two locations, in her telling, sound stronger from the outside than they feel from inside a working day. She has not yet had the moment to sit down and register it. What she does register is making her parents proud; that the courage and the energy keep showing up; and that the passion keeps growing rather than shrinking.
Asked what people are looking for at YOGALOFT, she begins with what the days outside the studio do to them.
“We are very often in the head and sometimes very little in the body. Very busy with thoughts, with to-dos. We work like machines.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
People want to be noticed, she says, and they want a break from what is happening outside, the wars, the anger on the street, everything set against everything else. What they look for inside is the opposite of that.
The best example she gives is from the week of the interview. Someone turned up three hours before her class. Eva opened the door, asked her why she was so early, told her to sit down, and eventually said: now you have to join in. The woman did three classes back to back. Afterwards she told Eva that she had arrived feeling bad, had finished her appointments and thought she would go to YOGALOFT because at least there she would feel good; and that now, completely wiped out, she felt so good, and thanked her for it. That, Eva says, is the best feedback, and the reason she puts her whole heart into it every day. Her advice to anyone thinking about their own business: believe in your dreams, organise your things, find whatever you need to make the dream real, and if it does not work, try again.
Every Receipt With Its Transaction
The finance decision arrived with the second location. Before opening it, for a number of reasons, the business became a GmbH, and Eva’s existing provider at the time had no option for a company account. So she researched several providers that offered business accounts, with two priorities in mind, over several days of reading and comparing.
“After all the conditions and all the research, I definitely decided on Vivid. They had the best conditions.”
Eva Karina Gouveia, Founder, YOGALOFT Frankfurt
What she values most in daily use is one function: with the Vivid Business Account she can attach the receipt to the transaction it belongs to, right after she has spent the money. She works in a very structured way and does her own bookkeeping.
The door opens again, and whoever walks in is greeted by name, with a hug. Ask Eva what she wants people to feel after an hour, and she will tell you what she wants to hear: that they come in saying they have had a lousy day, and leave saying their day has completely changed.
Note: This article reflects the individual experience of a Vivid customer and is provided for general information only. It is not legal, financial, investment or tax advice, and is not a guarantee of future results. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital, and the value of investments can go down as well as up. Product availability, rates and conditions depend on your plan and may change. Information is current as of October 2026. Please seek advice from a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
