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 NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives