Katrina Scott and Karena Dawn, the founders of the multi-million dollar lifestyle company Tone It Up, have built a business on being two of the most likable women you’ve ever met.

That's a feat given how easy it would be to, well, kind of envy them: Both Scott and Dawn are tan and incredibly fit. The two best friends met at an Equinox Gym, after all, and both live mere seconds away from each other and the ocean in Manhattan Beach, California.

Dawn is a fitness model, nutrition coach, and triathlete while Scott is a personal trainer, and nutrition and health expert with a BS in Health Science. They're both very serious about their Tone It Up workouts and nutrition plans. But part of what makes their hundreds of thousands of Tone It Up fans love them so much is that neither Scott nor Dawn take themselves too seriously.

When these two 30-something women started their Tone It Up company seven years ago, it was right when they were becoming best friends and moving in together. After meeting fatefully at Equinox, the pair kept running into each other all over Manhattan Beach, and finally started hanging and working out together (for these two women, sometimes that means the same thing).

"We started going on long walks on the beach and talking about our dreams and realized we had this great synergy," Dawn tells Tech Insider. "At the time, Katrina mentioned she was on YouTube and she was one of the very first fitness experts there. It was a completely new world for me, but she was like 'hey, why don’t we make fitness videos and cooking videos together?'"

In 2009, they invested $3,000 of their own money, bought a website domain, a camcorder, and began to shoot their YouTube videos. With just each other and a tripod, Dawn and Scott started shooting videos of themselves with the beach as their background. Scott points out they were so new to the scene, they didn’t realize they needed permits to do these shoots, but they wanted to bring the beach and healthy California lifestyle to anyone who was watching them at home, whether it was Dawn’s home state of Indiana or Scott’s home state of New Hampshire.

Scott says part of what made them originally successful was they were persistent as well as consistent. They developed a schedule: Motivation Monday was devoted to another woman’s success story, Tone It Up Tuesday would feature a new work out, Wednesday was Wild Wednesday where anything goes, Thirsty Thursday was reserved for healthy cocktails, and We Love Food Friday was dedicated to a new cooking video.

"We just kind of came up with that schedule and stuck to it," Scott explains. "Whenever anyone asks us how we got started, we say consistency: You just have to keep going. And if no one watches in the beginning, it’ll pick up."



And it did. Their brand began to grow, mostly through word of mouth and other women telling each other about these down-to-earth fitness experts who worked out on the beach ("It’s difficult to workout on the beach by the way," Scott tells TI, “especially with reflectors in your face and trying to do a jump squat in the sand.”). In just a few years, Scott and Dawn grew their following up to over a million followers across all social media platforms, wrote books, and even got their own show on Bravo. Today, they make countless appearances on television and in magazines, all while traveling the world to meet their fans and supporters.

Their Tone It Up brand is twofold. There’s free content on their website as well as paid-for programs where Scott and Dawn send a meal plan and workout schedule every week to their membership community. They tell TI it was priority to keep some of the content accessible and free so everyone could try it out first.

"Once you join our program, you’re always a member and you’ll always receive these challenges and meal plans, but we also thought it was important to release a free workout schedule, too," Scott says.



No matter which plan their fans choose, the driving force of the Tone It Up brand is Scott and Dawn as two best friends who genuinely love what they do as well as each other. It’s admittedly hard not to want to be their friend after watching one of their videos.

That charisma has spilled over into their personas on social media, and is arguably what keeps their Tone It Up girls coming back for more. Despite having a beautiful office near the California beach with a 25 person team, Dawn and Scott say they make it a point of doing all of their social media management on their own to stay connected to their fan base. Perhaps the best example of this is Snapchat, where they frequently share behind-the-scenes videos with their followers that show off their goofy sides.

"As long as social media is the only thing we ever do, that’s great because that’s our direct communication with our community," Dawn says.

"Social media is our way of talking with our best girlfriends," Scott chimes in. "I would say Snapchat in the last year has blown up, we can’t believe how many people are tuning into our chaos."

Dawn and Scott also meet their digital fan base in person by hosting meet ups, getaways, book signings, and other events. They say they strive to keep giving their fans more of the Tone It Up lifestyle, whether that’s by creating their own beauty products or work out apparel. And they always make a point of hugging every Tone It Up girl they meet.

Their so-called "chaos" has changed a bit since they first started. For one thing, Scott and Dawn no longer live together. Scott got married in 2014 with Dawn by her side as her maid of honor. Dawn will be getting married later this year and is sharing not only her wedding planning and engagement photos — she got engaged at a Tone It Up getaway — but also a four-week wedding program that will launch later this month.

The social media landscape has also rushed to catch up with Dawn and Scott since 2009. Other social media fitness stars have sprouted, from Kayla Itsines to Cassey Ho. But instead of viewing these women as competition, Dawn and Scott say they welcome everyone and anyone into the fold.

"We absolutely love every woman out there that is able to start her own business, go after her dreams, and encourage and help other people and inspire them to be fit," Scott says decidedly. "We’re not in competition with anyone, we hope that we all make it and we want everyone to be happy."

"Plus, having multiple brands allows women to mix it up," Dawn adds. "What stands out about Tone It Up is our community and this community of women that just really love and support each other beyond the workouts and beyond the nutrition. It’s women coming together and sharing their positive energy."

"Exactly," Scott agrees emphatically. "We want all women to know they can start their own business. And if you ever need anything, you can come to our community and you’ll have people who will support you not only in fitness, but in all of your dreams and aspirations."

You can follow Tone It Up as well as Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat (@KarenaKatrina), YouTube, and Twitter.