Most people in the creator economy build the audience first, then figure out what to sell. Mel Grauds did it backwards, and it worked.

Mel founded Melrose Training in 2020 with virtual classes, one-on-one clients and no following. Six years later she's running three Toronto studio locations, Yorkville, Rosedale and King West, plus virtual training and LIFT, her new small-group strength class. Along the way she's partnered with alo, Knix, Under Armour, Formula Fig, Revlon and Healthy Planet, and was chosen by Sporting Life to lead the official stretch at the Sporting Life 10K.

In this episode of That Digital Take, host Torri Webster sits down with Mel to talk about what the business actually looks like behind the Instagram version, and the bet she's making that's quietly rewriting the influencer event playbook: taking the production, the brand access and the budget, and pointing all of it at real customers instead of creators.

They get into the real barrier keeping women out of the weight room, the cost of building a brand on transparency, the structural risk of being the face of your own company, how motherhood changed what she's willing to say yes to, and how you prove community is real when brands only measure impressions.

Topics covered: creator economy · fitness entrepreneurship · brand partnerships · influencer marketing · community building · women's strength training · Toronto small business · motherhood and entrepreneurship · in-person events · personal branding