We are a family-owned company consisting of Vanessa, Daniel and Conor Yelseth, and Katharine Williams.
Vanessa, who has a TV production background, was instrumental in funding the building of the mobile sauna and driving the lengthy licensing campaign, aided by her sons Conor and Daniel who spent many hours explaining what it was and how it worked. The fourth crew member, Katharine, is Vanessa’s sister.
It’s pretty much a team effort with everyone playing various roles within the company whether it’s cleaning down the sauna, dealing with customers, writing copy and doing social media - or little bit of all of them as we have a vested interest in seeing Hot Huts mobile saunas take off and become the success we believe they can be.
Well, once upon a time… only joking. The big idea came one morning after a particularly cold swim when Daniel casually remarked how nice a sauna would be there. From there he and Vanessa got the ball rolling in terms of bringing our mobile sauna to life.
They found a traditional sauna maker and a mobile trailer maker and after some exciting design sessions came up with the blueprint for what would become our first Hot Hut.
The licensing of the mobile sauna took nine frustrating months, the reason being we were the first to bring this before the various panels and departments that need to authorise new business applications, but we think the wait was truly worth it.
During our research it became apparent that saunas were only available to gym members, hotel guests or spa frequenters. And the more we researched and the more we learned about the health and relaxation benefits of a sauna, we realised that offering mobile sauna facilities to customers would fill a unique gap in the market.
New to the Cape we soon felt the benefits of cold water swimming and that, together with a sauna, added a whole new dimension to the offering. And then last, but not least, the venues. We choose our destinations for the views where we can so that people in the mobile sauna can look out through our big postcard window at the ocean, beach and rocks.
The complete the experience you can be assured that the sauna gets a thorough clean after day’s outing and is regularly swept and wiped between the sessions.
