Zenoti CEO sudheer Koneru unveils Growth Diaries, a field guide to scaling Beauty and Wellness Brands from 1 Store to 100+. New book draws on 42 industry leaders across nine countries to map the four phases of growth from a single location to institutional scale. Sudheer Koneru, CEO and founder of Zenoti, today unveiled Growth Diaries: How the Best Beauty and Wellness Brands Scale from 1 Store to 100+ at Innergize, Zenoti's annual conference for the beauty and wellness industry. The book, Koneru's first, is built from conversations with 42 founders, CEOs, and industry leaders across nine countries who have built beauty, wellness, and fitness businesses from single locations into multi-unit brands. Business publishing has produced extensive playbooks for scaling software companies, retailers, and restaurants, but far less has been written about scaling beauty and wellness businesses, where services are delivered live, an unfilled appointment represents revenue that cannot be recovered, and culture and craft have to scale alongside operations. Growth Diaries grew out of Koneru's video series of the same name, in which he interviewed the leaders building some of the industry's most successful brands. The book organizes their experiences into four phases of growth: the first store, the early chain, infrastructure, and institutional scale, giving founders a practical playbook for each stage. It also reflects Koneru's belief that the impact of these businesses goes far beyond growth, helping people feel more confident and ready to take on the world. Among the leaders featured in Growth Diaries are Van Council of Van Michael Salons, Shane Evans of Heights Wellness Retreat, Dave Mortensen of Anytime Fitness and Purpose Brands, and Melanie Gleeson of Endota Spa. Koneru brings an operator's history to the material. Before founding Zenoti, he ran Latitudes Health Club and Tangerine Spas, and has since built the cloud platform trusted by more than 30,000 beauty and wellness businesses worldwide. That combination of firsthand operating experience and years of relationships across the industry shapes the book's approach: the founders' own experiences carry each chapter, including the mistakes, systems, and moments of reinvention that accompanied growth. "The most valuable lessons often come from the people who have already lived them: what they figured out the hard way, what nearly broke them, and what they would tell themselves 10 years back if they could," said Koneru. "Their businesses looked nothing alike. Their answers, again and again, did. This book is my attempt to put those answers in one place."

Zenoti's Innergize 2026 brings AI transformation to beauty and wellness; live from the people already doing it. More than 1,000 salon, spa, medspa, and fitness leaders are expected to gather in Seattle over three days in September to see AI in action, learn from one another, and leave with a plan they can use the moment they land home. August 27, 2026 5 min to read * Zenoti's Innergize 2026 event in Seattle aims to showcase AI implementations in the beauty and wellness industry. * The gathering expects participation from over 1,000 leaders across salons, spas, medspas, and fitness sectors. * Attendees will engage in learning and collaboration, with the goal of crafting actionable plans to implement upon returning home. *Summarized by AI Zenoti, a leading cloud software platform for the beauty and wellness industry, recently announced the agenda for Innergize 2026, its annual conference taking place September 20-22 in Seattle. AI is moving faster than any business can keep up with alone. That's the reality facing every beauty and wellness operator today, and it is why more than 1,000 salon, spa, medspa, and fitness owners will come together for three days built around one conviction: the operators pulling ahead are not reading about AI. They are learning from each other. Innergize 2026 is where that learning happens. Attendees will see exactly how businesses like theirs are using AI right now, get hands-on with what is working, and walk away with a network of peers navigating the same moment. Ad Loading... "We built Innergize around a simple belief: no operator should have to figure this out alone," said Sudheer Koneru, CEOof Zenoti. "The businesses that will lead this industry over the next decade are not going to be the ones that waited for a perfect plan. They are going to be the ones who showed up, found their people, saw what was possible, and moved. Innergize is where that starts." AI sessions focused on practical application. Every session at Innergize 2026 is built around practical application of AI, with sessions featuring real-world use cases, operator experiences, and strategies attendees can apply to their own businesses. AI Leader Showcase: Ten brands share how they are using AI right now to move faster, serve better, and outthink the competition. Not a panel of predictions, but a room full of peers who have made the shift, showing exactly what changed. Z-Force: Your Super-Powered AI Workforce: A full session on Zenoti's AI workforce of over 12 specialized agents built to run around the clock. Zenoti's product leadership walks through what each agent does, how they work together, and where to start. 10x Your AI Productivity - Stanford professor Jeremy Utley, whose podcast Beyond the Prompt ranks in the top 1% globally, leads a session on moving beyond using AI as a tool and learning to work with it as a strategic thought partner. Ad Loading... The End of Anti-Aging: How AI and Longevity Are Creating the Next Consumer Health Revolution - Microsoft's Sally Ann Frank explores how AI and personalized wellness are reshaping the longevity economy and creating new opportunities for health and wellness businesses. The business case for AI. Across Zenoti's base of more than 30,000 beauty and wellness businesses, AI-powered automation has generated over $1 billion in incremental revenue - through recovered bookings, converted leads, defended chargebacks, and filled slots. Medspas using smart automation have seen up to 90% reductions in no-shows. Salons leveraging Zenoti's shared AI intelligence model are acquiring 12% more new guests per location annually. AI is now converting 40% of missed calls with booking intent into confirmed appointments - even after hours and on holidays. New AI agents to debut at Innergize. Innergize attendees will get a firsthand look at Zenoti's latest AI innovations, including Predictive Intelligence, a recently announced suite of AI agents designed to help operators move from understanding what has already happened to anticipating what is likely to happen next. Dedicated agents address guest retention risk, staff scheduling, and inventory management, helping operators identify potential issues earlier and take action. Innergize will also be the stage for the next additions to Zenoti's AI Workforce. Attendees will get a first look at new AI agents debuting at the conference, designed to take on more of the work that currently falls on operators and their teams. A free AI consultation for every attendee. Every registered attendee can receive a complimentary 45-minute AI Workforce Clinic: a private, pre-booked session with a Zenoti expert who pulls up their actual business data, benchmarks them against top performers in their vertical, and builds a personalized step-by-step growth roadmap. Attendees leave with a specific list of AI agents to activate first and quick wins they can act on immediately. Ad Loading... What attendees say about Innergize. "The collaboration and the number of people coming together through Innergize - so passionate, kind, and open to sharing knowledge - is really special. The sense of community that's always there really stands out. For me, that's always going to be the most meaningful part." - Megan Murphy, President of Stores, The W Nail Bar "What I'm most excited about at Innergize is the opportunity to connect with other founders and entrepreneurs in the beauty and wellness space. It's a chance to develop partnerships that we may not have otherwise had access to, and that's been such a blessing for us."- Sarah Allen, CEO, Founder & Chief Clinical Officer, The Skin Clique Additional conference highlights. Deep End Competition - $50,000 Prize: Three finalists pitch their transformation ideas live on stage to a panel of industry leaders - including CEOs of The Joint Chiropractic, Head to Toe Brands, and 4Ever Young - for a shot at $50,000 in real capital. Golden Hands Awards: Eight categories honoring the industry's most outstanding providers across salons, spas, medspas, and nail studios. Keynote Speakers: Carlos Andrés Gómez (Author, Poet, Actor - featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam) and David Wagner (Founder & CEO, Juut Salonspa - creator of the Daymaker movement) headline a speaker lineup that gives the industry permission to lead. Ad Loading... Golden Hands Celebration at the Seattle Aquarium: The awards evening takes place on Pier 59 overlooking Elliott Bay - with live feeding shows, VR experiences, sweeping waterfront views, and the live reveal of the Deep End winner. Registration and Information Innergize 2026 takes place September 20-22, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. Registration is open at www.innergize.me. Seats are limited. About Zenoti: Zenoti is a leading cloud software platform for the beauty and wellness industry, trusted by more than 30,000 businesses worldwide - from independent boutique salons to multi-location enterprise brands. Zenoti's unified platform covers appointment booking, payments, marketing, memberships, inventory, employee management, and AI-powered intelligence, giving operators a single source of truth across their entire business. About Inngergize: Innergize is Zenoti's annual conference for the beauty and wellness industry, bringing together salon, spa, medspa, and fitness leaders for keynotes, hands-on AI sessions, peer networking, and industry awards. Now in its third year, Innergize has become a defining gathering for operators who want to lead, not follow, what comes next. Quick answers. *Summarized by AI Ad Loading...