Hoda Kotb’s new business, Joy 101, announces Ochsner partnership and 2027 ‘Joy Fest’ in New Orleans

Former “Today” show co-host Hoda Kotb tried her first “breathwork” training session a few years ago on the advice of a friend — and she said the experience was transformative.

“I followed the instructions, did the exercises, and suddenly I just exploded in tears from the stress relief,” she said last week during a phone interview. “The next time I arrived at work at my usual 4 a.m., it was like someone had taken a squeegee to my brain and got rid of the fog. It was like a magic trick.”

Kotb’s experience with one of the fastest-growing practices in the wellness world proved so powerful that after she left “Today” last year to spend more time with her kids, her next big project was partnering to launch an app called “Joy 101,” a clearinghouse for “bite-sized” lessons from experts on breathwork, meditation, stretching and other activities designed to improve physical, mental and emotional well-being.

Now, a little more than a year after unveiling the platform, Kotb and her Joy 101 co-founders — including her longtime friend and former WWL-TV anchor Karen Swensen — are announcing plans to scale up. And New Orleans features prominently in those plans.

On Thursday, the startup announced a partnership with Ochsner Health that will provide all of the health system’s roughly 40,000 employees access to Joy 101’s content. Kotb and Swensen also announced this week that next year New Orleans will be the site of their company’s biggest-ever event, called “Joy Fest.”

Contributors to Kotb’s startup include Harvard University’s “happiness” professor Arthur C. Brooks and designer and HGTV personality Joanna Gaines, among dozens of other experts and household names, but Kotb also relied heavily on her New Orleans connections, forged during her 1990s stint as an anchor at WWL, to get the project off the ground. Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson, for instance, is one of the venture’s investors.

Now, with this week’s announcements, she’s leaning further into those ties.

“All roads lead to New Orleans, and that’s the way it’s worked for me my whole career,” Kotb said. “That’s why hardly a day on the ‘Today’ show went by where somebody didn’t hold up a Who Dat sign outside the window.”

A new competitor in massive ‘wellness’ marketplace

Kotb stepped away from her “Today” co-anchor role in January 2025 and unveiled Joy 101 about five months later.

Now, instead of showing up at Rockefeller Center at 4 a.m. every day, the veteran anchor oversees the new company’s growth strategy and about 20 mostly remote employees from a second-floor office above a bank in Westchester County, just north of New York City. Gaines, the HGTV designer, gave the place a major makeover before Joy 101 moved in.

Kotb gets help from Swensen, who lives in New Orleans’ Lakeview neighborhood, and several other co-founders, including her sister Hala Kotb. Together, the partners are fine tuning a strategy to compete in the $6.8 trillion — yes, that’s trillion with a “T” — global wellness industry, which has grown 35% since the pandemic as interest in health and well-being has increased worldwide. One of their more established competitors in the app space is Calm, a 14-year-old digital wellness company valued at $2 billion.

After a free trial, Joy 101’s members pay about $17 per month or a $100 annual fee to access content about sleep, meditation, breathwork, positivity, movement, personal growth and longevity. Users can upload details about their age, stress levels, goals and time constraints to receive custom programs and checklists.

The company hasn’t released a current subscriber count, but last September, one of its investors, CapStone Holdings, reported the startup signed up 5,000 paying customers in its first week of operation while securing $2 million in brand partnerships. Kotb has leveraged her trademark warmth and good cheer to grow that number by making regular appearances on the app, introducing experts, delivering pep talks and offering personalized messages.

Since the launch, she’s also focused on bringing Joy 101’s content to new places.

In January, she launched the mobile interview show “Joy Rides” on Joy 101’s YouTube channel, which already has more than 200,000 subscribers. In June, she launched the “Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb” podcast, talking to experts about how to find happiness during major life changes and challenges. Both shows bring in sponsorship revenue.

Kotb published the book “Jump and Find Joy” last year. She also hosts live “happiness hours” online that sometimes feature her former TV colleagues.

In addition to the multipronged media approach, Kotb is prioritizing in-person events.

“Being with people is what lights me up and makes me come alive, so we had to have experiences where people can look each other in the eye,” she said.

Last year, Kotb appeared at a free retreat for New York City public school teachers, followed by a paid event in February in Scottsdale, Arizona. Next up is a fall retreat at a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida. Tickets starting at $3,300 are on sale now. 

Plans for Joy Fest next year in New Orleans are still coming together, but Kotb said she expects between 1,500 and 2,000 people to attend.

Swensen said she and Kotb were inspired by another longtime New Orleans-based gathering as they chose the location.

“Hoda and I remember the first Essence Fest, the original ‘party with a purpose,’ and we watched them grow,” she said.

New Orleans connections

Kotb’s Joy 101 collaborators include many prominent national figures, like neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki, a professor at New York University; and Maria Shriver, the journalist, former California first lady and member of the Kennedy family. The startup’s co-founder and executive chair is Mike Xenakis, one of the founders of the successful technology company Open Table.

But Joy 101 has a lot of New Orleans connections as well, all tracing back to Kotb’s stint at WWL from 1992 to 1998.

Former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste — two New Orleans icons — are advisers. And because of relationships like this, Swensen believes the city is the perfect place to kickstart the venture’s first “enterprise” partnership, selling bulk subscriptions at a discount.

She and Kotb met Ochsner CEO Pete November several months ago to successfully pitch the idea, with help from Benson, who said the app “gives people practical tools they can use every day.”

Swensen said Joy 101’s bite-sized exercises make sense for the fast-paced environment of a healthcare system that’s also the region’s biggest private employer.

“People are encouraged to use it on the clock because it gives a moment to recharge and refocus,” she said. “We want to help people in high-stress, high-performance environments perform better.”

Now Kotb, Swensen and their partners and investors are hoping the Ochsner deal will lead the way for more companies in more cities to buy in — but Kotb said she wants the growth to happen organically.

“I don’t know where we’ll wind up in the end, but I believe it will be a great place because we’re helping people,” Kotb said.

“Karen is my best friend and one of the smartest people I know, and to bring in Gayle, Drew and Jon into the equation, it all makes sense. We’re going to go where the energy flows.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to correctly identify Wendy Suzuki as a neuroscientist.