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In the first half of 2020, COVID-19 hit the wellness industry like a bolt of lightning—sudden, unexpected, and devastating in its effect.

Simultaneously across more than ninety countries, the global wellness industry shut down. I know because the company I co-founded with Blake Beltram, Mindbody, handles the client bookings for much of the industry. More than 90 percent of the businesses on our platform were forced to shut their doors, either in response to government mandate or falling consumer demand, and more than 80 percent of total business activity disappeared—and it stayed that way for months.

In the midst of the dual public health and economic crisis presented by COVID-19, the seeds of our industry's future were being sown. Within days of the global collapse of our industry that began on March 11, thousands of wellness business owners were implementing virtual delivery of their services. Staying connected to their clientele and delivering wellness classes and appointments via Zoom, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other virtual techniques had become mission critical.

At Mindbody, our own software development team went into overdrive to accelerate the delivery of an integrated Virtual Wellness Platform, enabling wellness business owners of any size to upload both prerecorded classes and streaming video, restricting access of that content to paying clients only, and selling hybrid face-to-face and virtual memberships. And the people came.

In the weeks following the official declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw exponential growth of virtual wellness delivery as people sheltering at home logged into classes and appointments from their laptops, phones, and tablets. In the months that followed, as communities around the world gradually reopened and brick-and-mortar studios were once again allowed to welcome paying customers into their places of business, we saw that virtual delivery had become an important and enduring component of wellness—in addition to the brick-and-mortar offline experiences.

In short, the sudden bolt of COVID-19 lightning that so dramatically disrupted our industry in 2020 has become a spark that ignited yet another wave of wellness industry growth and innovation. This wave promises to be even larger and more exciting than the last.