By their very definitions, a big-league Wall Street bank and a homey yoga studio couldn’t be more dissimilar. But for Mike Patton, the latter was not just an escape from the former — it was a business opportunity in its own right.

The former Bear Stearns broker, 29, is the founder of Yoga Vida, a pair of rapidly growing downtown yoga studios. And while his transformation from burnt-out suit to barefoot yogi seems nearly complete, “it was a relatively gradual process,” says Patton.

When his former employer collapsed in 2008, Patton automatically began looking for another finance gig, expecting to continue the career path he’d started right out of Princeton. But a year of job searching yielded nothing but frustration.

To cope, the East Village resident turned to yoga, which he’d first tried on a Costa Rica vacation a couple years earlier.

“It was the only thing that comforted me when everything was so uncertain,” he says. “I noticed how much happier I was.”

The experience was so transformative that he soon found himself disenchanted with the idea of another desk job, and realized his real goal “was to try and find a way to earn a living by sharing that journey with others.”

To that end, he began contemplating ways to make the yoga experience more affordable and welcoming, especially for first-timers.

“For people to receive yoga, it has to be presented to them in a accessible way,” says the former college hockey player, noting that he was initially “freaked out” by the chanting and spiritual sermons sometimes involved.

Over strategy sessions with fellow yogis, Patton crystallized the concept for a different kind of studio, one where classes would cost just $10 (a mere $5 for students), there would be no chanting or “om”-ing in beginner and basic classes, and ancient Yogi philosophy would be available, but not force-fed, to students.

“I had a lot of confidence in the model,” he says. “I thought the potential was there.”

So did his friends and family, who became ready investors. Bolstered by their encouragement, Patton sat down in the summer of 2009 and knocked out a business plan, then began searching for Yoga Vida’s first home. By that fall, he’d leased a vacant loft on University Place and began renovating the space along with his father, a Pennsylvania hockey rink owner with a knack for building.

The DIY approach saved both money and time, ensuring Yoga Vida was ready for customers in January 2010.

The first night of classes, a few dozen people showed up, many of them followers of the instructors he’d recruited from other studios. In the weeks that followed, that number grew steadily through word of mouth.

“The bigger the snowball got, the faster it rolled, and the bigger it continued to get,” he says.

Within four months, the business was breaking even. At the one-year mark, the studio was turning people away at peak times.

To accommodate both his growing clientele and the teacher-training program he was eager to launch, Patton began looking for a second space. He landed on a sun-filled, 8,000-square-foot space in NoHo, which he, his father and a group of friends renovated in a matter of weeks. When doors opened this past May, over 100 people arrived for the inaugural classes.

“It was exciting, for sure,” he says.

But now that Patton’s finally able to step back and take stock of his venture’s whirlwind success — and finally able to pay himself — he realizes there are still plenty of challenges to overcome.

“One of the hardest things has been learning to delegate,” says Patton, who, before recently hiring two managers, handled everything from bookkeeping and marketing to a long list of operational duties himself.

“For the first year, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to even clean the other studio.”

He’s also learning to cope with the pressure that comes with building a business.

“There are times I get overwhelmed by the amount of risk and exposure we have right now,” he says.

But the entwined rewards of sharing his passion for yoga with others and indulging his love for business — of “having a vision and developing it” — are hugely satisfying, he says. And when workaday stress gets out of hand, he’s got a readymade outlet.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I have to take a breath and go take a yoga class.”

Learning curves

Mike Patton’s biz-building advice: 1. Dare to be different: Whether it’s your price point, presentation or core principles, a unique approach can boost a business. “Standing out isn’t always a bad thing,” says Patton.

2. Communicate clearly: Laying out clear guidelines eliminates guess work and ensures the day-to-day runs smoothly. “Manage the expectations of those around you by enforcing principled policies with grace,” says Patton.

3. Do what you love: “Every time a paycheck hits my account, it’s like, “Oh my god, I’m paying myself money from yoga!” he says. “It’s incredibly rewarding.”