Eric Min. He’s the CEO and founder of a company called Zwift.com. Eric is a tech entrepreneur, a lifelong cyclist and is now spreading fitness through virtualization and gamification.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm What CEO do you follow? – Max Levchin Favorite online tool? — Slack How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Taking risks earlier”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:47 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show 02:11 – Zwift is creating a virtual space where cyclists can interact with each other in real time 02:31 – Eric is trying to solve one of the most common problems of cyclists 03:26 – Zwift is a pure SaaS company 03:29 – Zwift charges $10 a month 03:36 – “We’re an asset-like company” 03:38 – Zwift works with partners who have all the different equipment available in the market 04:08 – The most basic setup to use Zwift is an iPad; a trainer that can be attached to your traditional bike to make it stationary 04:32 – Based on your weight and how you’re pedaling, Zwift can put you in the game 05:08 – Zwift was launched in January 2014 05:18 – Eric and his co-founder committed a couple of million dollars to build Zwift 05:36 – Their friends and families had raised around $7M 05:47 – Zwift just closed their series A and they have a total of $45M raised 06:07 – Prior to Zwift, Eric and his co-founder built a trading platform 06:28 – Eric and co-founders wanted to build something out of their comfort zones 06:41 – Eric was 30 when he launched the trading company 07:08 – “Enterprise business is tough” 07:45 – Eric and his co-founder had a $100M contract and spent 5 years extracting the contract 08:18 – Initial capital was $3M 09:17 – Eric and his co-founder are set out to be category leaders, so they made a new category 09:51 – Zwift currently has over 300K accounts created 10:07 – Zwift has 5M rides and 5M hours of pedaling 10:16 – The average ride is 1 hour 10:28 – Zwift also has 88M miles recorded 10:36 – The engagement is fairly high 10:38 – People log in to Zwift to watch other people 10:44 – 202 hours of people logging in just to watch 11:07 – People are also broadcasting their experience with Zwift 11:42 – Zwift doesn’t have free users and what they have is a trial period 12:00 – Zwift doesn’t have year-long contracts at the moment 12:02 – Eric wants to understand the behavior of the customers 12:10 – Most of the customers are outdoor cyclists 12:33 – Eric believes that over time, Zwift will be a year-round overtime preposition for not just cyclist but fitness enthusiast too 13:11 – Almost all consumer businesses are seasonal, like gaming 13:20 – People spend less time playing games in the summer 13:34 – Zwift makes it easy for people to consume fitness 13:42 – “Our belief is that everyone is chasing fitness and everyone would like to consume fitness in the most efficient way” 13:53 – The solution enables you to be at home and it’s cost-effective 14:55 – Zwift has 70% of the people stay with them every year 15:10 – Eric calls them “pause” and not churn 15:27 – As the social network expands, it’s gaining more interest 15:40 – Zwift also crowdsources content 15:54 – Zwift has a community of users who want to volunteer their services 16:17 – 97% of Zwift’s user acquisition is organic 16:54 – Zwift targets cyclists and most cyclists belong to a tribe or a team 17:29 – Zwift does a little on the digital advertising side 18:00 – Eric has invested in Zwift Academy which is modeled after GTA Academy 18:11 – GTA Academy is a marketing advertising program between Gran Turismo and Nissan 18:50 – Zwift took GT Academy’s model and made Zwift Academy 18:55 – Zwift Academy called out ladies around the world to join and 1200 ladies joined the program 19:03 – Zwift had a public PR in different media channels to announce Zwift Academy 19:15 – There were 3 finalists and they had to go through numbers of different tests 19:29 – The 3 finalists were taken to Majorca, Spain where they trained for 10 days with a professional team 19:37 – The professional team tested the finalists and offered a professional contract to one of them 19:45 – One of them is now a professional rider who was a former series marathoner 21:12 – Eric doesn’t worry about the valuation 23:07 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Get out of your comfort zone – you’ll never know what’s in store for you until you get there. A large, initial fund that was raised should NOT affect your valuation if your company is doing well. Take risks...the earlier the better.
Resources Mentioned:
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOWShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
