The Hand Up Project
Dr. Kate Riegle van West, Founder & CEO
SpinPoi
Most founders are waiting for the moment everything changes. The big client. The viral post. The investment that finally validates what they’ve been building. Kate Riegle van West waited too … until she stopped waiting, and started trusting the process instead.
Kate built SpinPoi from a deeply personal place: a discovery that poi spinning had a profound effect on the body and mind, and a conviction that if she could understand why, she could bring it to the people who needed it most. What followed was a PhD, a global instructor certification programme, and a business now operating across five continents. None of it arrived in a single dramatic turning point.
What Kate’s journey makes clear is that the compounding of small, consistent actions is wildly underrated, and that the invisible architecture holding a business together matters just as much as the visible results. A CRM that finally brought her customer relationships out of her head and into a system she could actually manage. A time management approach that didn’t reduce her workload but changed how she moved through it. A mindset shift, grounded in neuroscience, that transformed not just how she led, but who she was becoming.
There’s also something refreshingly honest in what Kate shares about the middle ground: that long stretch where a business is neither failing nor flying, just holding steady. She names it for what it is: normal, and more common than anyone admits.
If you’re somewhere in that in-between space right now, this one’s for you.
What originally inspired you to start your business, and how has that initial motivation evolved?
When I first discovered poi while performing in a circus in the U.S., I became completely obsessed. I started spinning everywhere – in the park, at parties, during breaks between my university classes. No matter what was going on, poi always made me feel better. Every time I started spinning, people would stop and ask “What is it? It’s so cool! Can I try?” Without fail, after a few minutes they’d say something like, “Wow I feel so relaxed,” or “This is the first time I’ve been able to clear my mind in weeks,” or “My shoulder felt terrible but suddenly it feels great.”
After witnessing this again and again, I thought okay, something is going on here. Maybe if I learn how poi is affecting the body and the mind from a scientific perspective, I can help pave the way for its use in places that can really benefit from it like hospitals, schools, and senior care.
This eventually led me to pursue a PhD researching the effects of poi on physical and cognitive function, and ultimately to founding SpinPoi.
A lot has happened along the way, but my motivation hasn’t changed: I’m still driven to help others by sharing something that helped me, one orbit at a time.
What problem does your business solve better today than when you first began?
Reaching people. SpinPoi is paving the way for the research-backed therapeutic applications of poi. That means unlike something familiar — like yoga classes or meditation apps — people aren’t searching for it yet, and when they first see it they may not immediately understand what it is. As a result, we’ve largely been building the product and the market at the same time.
Over the years our reach has expanded, and our instructor certification program has played a huge role in that growth. We now have more than 150 Certified SpinPoi Instructors running classes and programs across five continents. They’re doing what they love and improving wellbeing in their communities, and in turn SpinPoi spreads organically through real-world experiences and connections.
What operational change or system had the biggest impact on your ability to step out of the day-to-day?
Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. I didn’t even know CRMs existed for the first couple of years (I’ll never forget the first time I heard someone say “CRM.” Having never seen the acronym before, I misheard it as the completely made-up word “Serium” and spent hours trying to google it). What I eventually found out is that a CRM is a system that keeps track of all the relationships you have with your customers and potential customers.
All business owners are already doing this somehow – whether it’s in your head, lists on your phone, labels in your inbox, etc. What’s great about a CRM is that it tracks relationships across the entire customer lifecycle. You can see who someone is, what they’ve purchased, when it’s a good time to follow up, and you can automate a lot of tasks too.
Even if you only have a handful of customers I recommend starting with a CRM right away. Even a few customers can become surprisingly complex, and nurturing those relationships is important and really hard to do and time consuming without a CRM.
What internal shift or mindset change has most transformed the way you lead?
When I began to understand that all the negative self talk and self doubt rattling around in my brain was literally influencing my biology, down to a cellular level (if you aren’t acquainted with the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, I highly recommend it). Knowing that the brain wires itself around the emotional states you practice most often kicked off a big shift for me.
I got crystal clear on who I wanted to be – what she acted like, what she ate, how she dressed. And then I began rehearsing it, thinking and feeling and acting like that future version of me. Since the brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s happening in your mind and what’s happening in the outerworld, then by all accounts I was the future version of me already.
This transformed my life and my capacity as a leader. People can sense when your thoughts and emotions aren’t in sync, when you’re trying to project confidence but don’t actually feel it. And they can sense the opposite too.
What was a turning point or decision that significantly accelerated your business’s growth?
There haven’t been any standout turning points, as SpinPoi’s growth has been slow and steady, with tons of small things compounding over time. I’ve learned to stop waiting for that big moment we so often hear about in entrepreneurial journeys – landing a huge client, content going viral, a major investment. The thing is, everything you do, big or small, builds upon itself and moves the needle forward. Sometimes it won’t move the needle for years, but then all of a sudden that video you made ages ago suddenly falls into place and connects to dozens of other things.
I’ve learned to trust the process, and to both think strategically and also just do things when they feel right. I know it’ll all add up to steady growth, even if I can’t understand how in the moment.
"The thing is, everything you do, big or small, builds upon itself and moves the needle forward."
What challenge did you not see coming, and how did you navigate it?
On one occasion someone became so upset about a project SpinPoi was doing that they took it upon themselves to try to tear the company down. Like most business owners, I expected some pushback from time to time (you can’t please everyone). What I didn’t expect was the extent to which one individual might go in trying to dismantle things.
That experience reinforced something that has always been important to me: letting your moral compass guide your business decisions. When your actions are grounded in clear values, it becomes much easier to stand behind what you’ve done when things get difficult. Yes this person was trying to tear my company down, but I knew the project was rooted in morals and values I felt good about, so I never doubted the integrity of the work itself. And more broadly, when your values are clear, decision-making within the company becomes much simpler. Instead of constantly debating what to do, your values act as a filter.
What role, hire, or support made the biggest difference in how your business operates?
My partner. When you feel safe, supported, loved, and grounded in your personal life, it frees up so much mental space and gives you this huge safety net. On top of that, my partner happens to have a lot of skills that directly relate to my business endeavors, from negotiation to user experience to that kind of high level thinking behind all big ideas.
We talk about everything, and his presence and knowledge have made a big difference in how SpinPoi operates. I’m super lucky, and I also know that everyone has friends or family or mentors or someone who is cheering them on.
"Surround yourself with these people. Good support outside the business is everything."
What advice would you give to other female founders working to move from doing the work to leading the business more effectively?
During my first two years I’d wake up and respond to every email, every crisis, and every random thought that popped into my head until I could no longer stay awake. Then sleep and repeat. Because the to-do list always felt endless, I never stopped to question whether the way I was working actually made sense.
I had an “aha” moment when I read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber, which explains the difference between working in your business and working on it. Many founders start a business because they love doing the thing — baking cookies, for example — so they continue to pour most of their energy into baking cookies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but that’s the mindset of a baker, not a business owner. A business owner should instead be focused on building a system that could theoretically bake cookies without them.
That was a huge conceptual shift for me, and I started implementing systems that allowed me to take a step back from some of the tasks. One that really helped was a time management system. The number of things I needed to do didn’t change, but the way I organized and executed them did, which increased my productivity and created more space.
I encourage founders to do some research on time management systems (I use Getting Things Done by David Allen) and find one that works for them, or combine elements of a few different ones to create the right fit.
What shift do you believe female founders are uniquely positioned to benefit from right now?
For a long time entrepreneurship celebrated constant hustle and rapid growth at all costs. But now many consumers are interested in and conscious of businesses that integrate purpose, values, and sustainability alongside profitability. Because many female founders are innately driven by things like social impact, purpose, and passion, they’re particularly well positioned to benefit from increasingly conscientious consumerism.
What’s one thing you wish more founders understood about building a sustainable, long-term business?
When I started running a company I heard a lot of stories about businesses that experienced rapid growth or dramatic failure, but I didn’t hear much about the stage where a business is neither failing nor thriving, it’s simply surviving. Which makes sense, because it’s not a very compelling headline…“Business continues doing roughly the same thing for five years.” But for a long time I didn’t really accept being in that middle space, it felt like failure to me.
But I also felt I wasn’t failing enough to walk away. So it created this constant sense of tension. I wish someone had told me hey, if you’re trying to build something sustainable over the long term, you may spend quite a while in this middle space where you’re mainly maintaining.
It’s a thing, and a lot of founders are there, and it’s ok.
Bonus: What’s one piece of advice you wish you had received as a female leader?
Trust yourself. No one does things like you, and that is exactly why people will engage with you and your business.
Get in touch with Kate or find out more about SpinPoi here:
