Today we’d like to introduce you to Danyl Magick.
Hi Danyl , we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I spent most of my life doing what I thought I was supposed to do.
I followed the traditional path: went to college, got the good job, had the girlfriend, the house, the life that looked right from the outside. And yet, deep down, I always felt like something was missing. I couldn’t explain it at the time, but I felt like I was meant for something more. I just didn’t know what that “more” was yet.
As the pandemic was coming to an end, I decided to take a sabbatical from work and really invest in myself. I wanted to understand who I was underneath the mask — without the job title, without the identity, without all the external markers defining me.
During that time, I started to see life differently. I realized we’re kind of living inside a video game, and in a way, you can build anything you want if you’re willing to believe in it, align with it, and move toward it. That period sparked a profound awakening in me.
The vision that came through was a playground for adults — a place where people could come home to themselves, connect with others, have fun, and experience wellness in a completely new kind of environment.
I’m not exactly sure where the bathhouse idea came from. It honestly felt like an instant download. But the moment it arrived, I knew it was my calling.
Not long after that, I met my co-founder, and together we decided to build something Austin had never had before. We went all in. We sold everything. We moved into the building. We found the people. We started dreaming out loud. And slowly, piece by piece, we built what Bathe is today.
Bathe is hard to put into one box. It’s a bathhouse, a social club, a wellness venue, and a creative gathering space all at once. It’s not quite a spa. It’s not quite an event venue. It’s this interesting hybrid that represents so many of the things that matter to me: expression, freedom, beauty, connection, play, pleasure, and delighting all the senses.
There’s a little bit of Burning Man in it, a little bit of Austin weirdness, and a lot of intention. It’s a place where we get to create, experiment, and imagine a new kind of wellness culture.
During the day, Bathe operates as a spa and bathhouse. At night, it can transform into a social space with really intentional events. We have members, daily visitors, a 3,000-square-foot soaking garden, massage, co working, sound immersion, Pilates, yoga, and more.
But at its core, Bathe is about creating a place where people can feel alive again — where they can relax, connect, play, heal, and remember that wellness doesn’t have to be sterile or serious. It can be beautiful. It can be social. It can be fun. It can be magic.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’ve probably grown more in the last three years than I have in my entire life.
It has felt like business school on steroids — accelerated at a thousand miles per hour, headed straight toward the sun. It has been wild, beautiful, chaotic, humbling, and deeply transformative.
I’ve been fortunate to experience the full spectrum of it: moments of pure delight, moments of total chaos, and everything in between. Starting something like this from scratch takes everything from you — your resources, your energy, your money, your life force. And the hardest part is that there really isn’t a framework for what we’re building.
We’re not a restaurant. We’re not a bar. We’re not a traditional spa. We’re something different. And because of that, we’ve had to create almost everything from the ground up.
Before Bathe, I had never been a business owner. So I was learning everything in real time: how to hire, how to build a team, how to operationalize systems, how to think about customer service, how to navigate construction, designers, permits, budgets, timelines, and all the things you can’t fully understand until you’re in the middle of it.
It has been incredibly hard.
Personally, I’ve been deep in it. There have been seasons where it consumed my entire life. But it has also been one of the most rewarding journeys I’ve ever been on. I wouldn’t change it, because it has changed me — as a man, as a founder, and as a person.
At this point, I couldn’t separate myself from Bathe if I tried. I am Bathe. I live it, breathe it, bleed it, dream it, and sleep it. It has become part of me.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that building something isn’t just about how much money you have. It’s about how much determination you have. I think a lot of founders don’t fail because they run out of resources. They fail because they give up.
For me, I’ve put every dime I have into this project — and honestly, I would do it all over again.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a big dreamer. I always have been.
Not too long ago, a former girlfriend gave me one of the most profound gifts of my life: a Human Design reading. That was when I learned I’m a Manifestor, and suddenly so much of my life started to make sense.
It explained why I’ve always had these huge visions, but execution hasn’t always been the easy part. I’ve realized I need people around me who can help bring the vision into form — generators, manifesting generators, builders, operators, people who can take the spark and help turn it into something real.
Because my visions are big.
I tend to move from instinct. When I get a feeling, a gut hit, or a download, I move fast. I don’t like to overthink it. Of course, my mind still runs through every possible scenario, but when something feels right in my body, my instinct is to follow it and see what happens.
And sometimes that works beautifully. Sometimes it doesn’t.
I’ve made mistakes throughout this project. I’ve made the wrong hires. I’ve started things that didn’t work. I’ve spent money in ways I probably wouldn’t again. I’ve worked with people who didn’t fully see the vision. There have been plenty of failures and hard lessons along the way.
But all of it has taught me.
At this point, I feel like I could recreate this from the ground up because of everything I’ve learned through trial, failure, correction, and persistence. Someone once told me that failing forward is one of the best ways to grow something, and I understand that now in a way I didn’t before.
When I first started, I had no idea what this project would actually require. I had no idea how much it would stretch me, change me, or ask of me. Four years ago, I never could have imagined that I’d be building and owning a business like this.
My life has completely transformed because I followed a vision I couldn’t fully explain yet.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up in the ’80s, I had a lot of freedom.
My parents were basically like, “Come home before it gets dark.” It was that kind of childhood — riding bikes, being outside, figuring things out on your own. Kind of like what you see in Stranger Things. There was a lot of freedom, but there was also a shadow that followed me.
My parents were bilingual, but I didn’t grow up speaking Spanish fluently. For some reason, that affected the way I learned to speak English, too. I struggled with language early on, and because of that, I was placed in what people would call special education.
Back then, there wasn’t much nuance. You were either “normal” or you were “special.” And if you were “special,” you were put into classes with kids who had all kinds of different learning needs and developmental challenges. As a child, I didn’t really understand what was happening. I just knew I felt different. I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt like I couldn’t do things the way everyone else did.
That feeling stayed with me for a long time.
I remember a school counselor once telling me I probably wasn’t college material and that I should think about learning a trade. Ironically, I ended up getting a master’s degree in computer science. But those kinds of moments leave a mark. They create this voice inside you that says you have to prove yourself. That you have to work twice as hard just to be seen as capable.
And that’s what I did.
I spent seven years in school while working a full-time job. I took jobs that required 80- and 90-hour weeks. I went into consulting and management consulting on the technical side, and I did that for many years. The pay was good, and in a lot of ways it gave me freedom, but I didn’t feel alive. I wasn’t happy. It didn’t feel like my soul’s mission.
Looking back, I can see how much my upbringing shaped me as an adult. It affected my confidence. It affected my ability to believe that I could create a life outside of the normal construct. It affected my social skills, too. People see me now and probably think I’ve always been social, but that wasn’t the case. I had to grow into that. I had to learn how to feel safe being seen.
A lot of people don’t know that about me.
They don’t know that so much of what I do now comes from who I was then — the kid who felt different, underestimated, misunderstood, and sometimes abandoned by the systems that were supposed to help him.
Of course, part of me wishes the story had been different. Part of me wishes I hadn’t carried that feeling for so long. But I also know it shaped me. It gave me resilience. It gave me empathy. It gave me the drive to prove that I was never limited by what someone else thought I could become.
In many ways, it made me who I am today.
Pricing:
- 55 Soak Passes
- 33 Early bird
- 199$ Monthly Membership
- Treatments Varies
- Member Discounts
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.batheaustin.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danylmagick
