Meet Matt Radford of Third Space & Co.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Radford.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I moved to Colorado from Brooklyn about three years ago. Back in the city, some of my favorite spots were places like the Williamsburg Bathhouse and the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village, these incredible community hubs where you’d walk in stressed and leave feeling completely reset. When I got to Boulder, I noticed the options were pretty limited compared to what I’d been used to.

Fast forward to Fall of 2024, I left my tech job and started seriously thinking about what I wanted to build next. The idea of a brick-and-mortar space kept pulling at me, and sauna culture felt like the most natural fit given how much those places had meant to me. So I dove in, it’s much easier said than done, but I worked through the business model, pulled together funding, found a location, and launched Third Space & Co in the fall of last year.

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?
Yes and no. There were real obstacles, but also a lot of green lights along the way.

On the harder side, finding the right location was more difficult than I ever anticipated. Beyond the endless online searches, I spent months slowly biking around Denver and Boulder, scoping out spots, then cold-reaching out to landlords and property managers. It was a daily grind.

But I’ve also felt genuinely fortunate to have a strong network of family and friends around me. Help never felt more than a phone call away, whether that was someone with industry experience or just a person to think things through with. That made a real difference.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Third Space & Co. ?
Third Space & Co. is a modern sauna and wellness space in Boulder built around the idea that everyone deserves a place to slow down and connect. The name comes from the concept of a “third place”, not home, not work, but somewhere we choose to go to be with people. A space that’s yours without really being yours.

We offer a range of bathhouse experiences, from traditional Finnish-style dry heat saunas to cold plunges ranging from 40 to 60 degrees, and the environment is intentionally communal, the kind of place where you can come in alone and leave having had a great conversation with a stranger.

What sets us apart is less about the amenities and more about the atmosphere. A lot of wellness spaces can feel clinical or exclusive. We’ve leaned into something different, unpretentious, grounded, and a little neighborhood-y.

What I’m most proud of is the community that’s formed around it. People are becoming regulars, word is spreading organically, and guests are bringing their friends and treat it like their spot. That’s exactly what I was hoping to create.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I think the US is finally starting to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to bathhouses as communal spaces. Cultures in Finland, Japan, Korea, Russia, they’ve had these traditions going back thousands of years. Finland alone has roughly one sauna for every two people. There’s a reason these spaces have endured: they work.

We’re starting to understand why. The research on heat therapy has grown significantly in recent years, benefits around cardiovascular health, recovery, stress, sleep and I think that’s accelerating mainstream adoption in a way that moves it beyond just a wellness trend and into something more like a daily habit for a lot of people.

Beyond the health side, I think there’s also a cultural moment happening. People are craving real, in-person community in a way that feels different from even five years ago. Bathhouses offer something that’s genuinely hard to replicate, you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) really be on your phone in a sauna. It creates a different kind of presence and connection.

I expect to see many more social sauna spaces opening across Colorado and the US over the next decade. The question won’t be whether the category grows, but which spaces build real community around them and which ones are just following a trend.

Pricing:

• $7 for 7 Days (Trial)
• Drop In: $30
• 4 Drop In Credits: $95
• Full Membership (4 Weeks): $125

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Thirdspaceand.co
• Instagram: instagram.com/thirdspaceandco

Image Credits
Iveth Martinez, Sara DeFazio