We recently sat down with Emily Bent, Co-Founder of Othership, the top-rated social spa in North America. Emily and her husband Robbie launched Othership during the pandemic to help people feel more connected, to themselves and to each other, through guided sauna, cold plunge, and breathwork experiences. Today, Othership welcomes guests at its locations in Toronto and New York City. Othership also built a category that barely existed a few years ago, which makes it a useful case study for any business that depends on being discovered. We asked Emily how guests find a new kind of wellness experience, and what she has learned about earning trust before someone ever walks through the door.
Q: Othership helped define the social spa as a new category. What does it take to build awareness for something people haven’t experienced before?
Emily Bent: When you create a new category, your first job is to make it easy to picture. We describe Othership in plain, consistent words everywhere: guided heat, cold, and breathwork, done together. Every page, every review response, and every partner conversation reinforces that same idea, so people know what to expect before they arrive. We also connect it to things they already love, like a great sauna, an ice bath, or a night out with friends that doesn’t revolve around drinking. That consistency matters even more now, because AI tools piece together an answer about you from everything written across the web. If your story changes from site to site, the answer gets blurry.
Q: How has the way guests research a wellness experience changed?
Emily Bent: People ask full questions now. Not “sauna Brooklyn,” but “Is a cold plunge safe for a beginner?” or “Where can I do a sauna with friends in New York?” They want reassurance before they book, especially for something that sounds intimidating. Our guests tend to ask the same handful of questions: what to wear, how cold the plunge really is, and whether they need any breathwork experience. Answering those directly, on our site and in how our team talks about the experience, is part of hospitality. It also happens to be what search engines and AI assistants look for when they decide who to recommend.
Q: How much do reviews shape whether someone books?
Emily Bent: A huge amount. For a wellness brand, a review is a guest describing how they felt in their own words, and that is more persuasive than anything we could write. We read them closely and respond, because they show us what people value and the language they use. When a guest writes that a session helped them sleep better or reconnect with a friend, that’s our story in its most credible form. Businesses sometimes treat reviews as a reputation chore. I’d treat them as your most honest content.
Q: What advice would you give small and mid-sized businesses that want to be recommended by AI search?
Emily Bent: Know what you want to be known for, and say it the same way everywhere. At Othership, we want to be recognized as the top-rated social spa in North America, so that idea shows up in how we describe ourselves, how partners describe us, and how the press writes about us. Then earn it. The experience has to deliver, or no amount of optimization will hold up. Finally, answer real questions generously. The businesses that get recommended are the ones that make the searcher’s decision easier.
Q: Where do you see discovery heading for experience-based businesses?
Emily Bent: More people will ask an assistant to plan their evening or their weekend, and the assistant will handle the booking. That raises the bar on clarity. Your hours, your pricing, and what a first visit looks like all need to be easy for both a person and a machine to understand. But the fundamentals don’t change. People want to feel better and feel connected. The brands that describe that promise clearly, and then keep it, will be the ones that get found.
