Retreats, Rewritten

When Ryan Welti boarded a flight from Dallas to Miami, she had no plans to start a company.
She was in yoga teacher training at the time—deep in a moment of personal reset—and casually started sketching out retreat ideas in Freeform on her iPhone.

By the time the plane landed, something had shifted.

“I thought—what if there was an Airbnb for wellness retreats?” she says. “That was it. That was the moment.”

It wasn’t her first idea.
But it was the first one she couldn’t walk away from.

She spent the rest of the weekend obsessing over the concept—naming it RetreatVi, buying the domain, and writing the first copy herself.

Two days before her 28th birthday, she quit her consulting job and went all in.

Ryan wasn’t just chasing freedom—she was chasing alignment.

After six years in management consulting, she had learned how to work. How to grind. How to play the part. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t the life she wanted.

“I remember looking around and thinking—no one here is living a life I want,” she says. “And I know the life I want exists. I just don’t see it here.”

Her path had always been practical. She studied finance in college because it made sense. She followed the rules. Paid off her loans. Kept her options open.

But when RetreatVi surfaced, it felt different. Not just a brainstorm. Not just a weekend idea.

A calling.

“I had taken notes on ideas for seven years,” she says. “But this was the first time I felt like—this is the one.”

She launched the first version of RetreatVi just six months after quitting her job.
It hit the App Store by September.

But the launch felt lonelier than she expected.

“I thought it would feel amazing,” Ryan says. “But honestly, I felt kind of depressed. I had poured everything into building it—and then it was quiet.”

She started testing. Iterating. Hosting monthly networking calls with wellness creators. Offering digital planning tools. Trying to figure out what people actually needed.

Some things flopped—like a paid community that fizzled after a few months. (We get it Ryan, they’re hard to build :))

“I’m honestly so glad it failed,” she says. “That wasn’t the business I wanted to run.”

But other things clicked.

Like the real-time feedback from creators who were actually trying to plan retreats—but felt stuck.

That’s when Ryan realized the deeper opportunity wasn’t just about bookings.
It was about trust.

Today, RetreatVi is evolving into a true ecosystem: a place where wellness professionals can find trusted partners, resources, and venues.
A platform that simplifies everything about planning and hosting a retreat—from ideation to execution.

“People just want to know who they can trust,” Ryan says. “I want RetreatVi to be the place that gives them that clarity.”

But the heart of the business isn’t the tech.
It’s the human side.

“One of our community members came to a networking call, totally new, unsure if she even wanted to host retreats,” Ryan says. “Now she’s planning her first one. Watching that transformation—that’s what makes this worth it.”

Ryan isn’t trying to scale at all costs.

She’s trying to build something that makes wellness feel accessible.
Not intimidating. Not exclusive. Just real.

That’s why she’s now focused on launching a partner ecosystem to support the growing RetreatVi community—centered around trusted recommendations for retreat venues, facilitator trainings, resorts, spas, and studios. It’s a community-driven expansion designed to broaden what “retreat” can mean.

“It doesn’t have to be Bali,” she says. “It can be a half-day breathwork session. A reset weekend. A few hours away from your phone.”

RetreatVi isn’t about perfection.

It’s about taking the first step—even when you’re not sure what comes next.

Ryan didn’t wait for the perfect timing.
She didn’t wait for a cofounder.
She didn’t wait for someone to validate the idea.

She just built it.