Chief Endurance Officer

Is your startup built to endure the long ride, or will it buckle under pressure? In this episode of Chief Endurance Officer, Greg McDonough talks with Nick, founder of Wove, a company revolutionizing custom bike saddles for cyclists. Nick shares how his background in organizational psychology and an endurance mindset helped him stay laser-focused on solving real rider pain points like soft tissue pressure and thigh clearance. 

Takeaways:
  • Leaders should cultivate and encourage a culture of focused dedication to a single goal or task, especially in the early stages of any project or startup.
  • Build teams with individuals who share your vision and work ethic. Clear alignment on goals and values is crucial for long-term success.
  • Invest in understanding and solving specific customer problems. Exceptional customer service can differentiate your brand and build loyalty.
  • Leaders should anticipate and strategically plan for the complexities of scaling, especially regarding quality control and customer satisfaction.
  • Use technology and personal interactions to offer customized solutions, enhancing customer experience and perceived value.
  • Balance resources and demand effectively. Strategically manage growth to avoid overpromising and underdelivering.
  • Being transparent about challenges and demonstrating a willingness to solve them builds trust and credibility with customers and stakeholders.

Quote of the Show:
  • " Your reliability of getting a consistent result every single time, that's the hardest business to go  into." - Nick with Wove 

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Chief Endurance Officer is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 

Creators and Guests

Host
Gregory McDonough
Greg McDonough is a seasoned executive who has owned and operated businesses in the professional services sector, navigating them through both good and tough times. He brings his personal experience of knowing what it’s like to be ‘in the owner’s seat’ when working with clients, taking time to ask the questions others may not.
Producer
Rebecca Leberman

What is Chief Endurance Officer?

Join host Greg McDonough on a transformative journey as "The Chief Endurance Officer" explores the incredible power of positive energy and sustained effort. This podcast delves into the real-life stories of individuals who have harnessed the endurance mindset to achieve remarkable goals in every facet of life – personal achievements, professional success, and athletic triumphs. Visit our website www.chiefenduranceofficer.com for additional resources and exclusive content, and subscribe to hear these inspiring episodes every Friday!

CEO_Nick With Wove
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[00:00:00]

Greg McDonough: Well, welcome to the show. Today we've got a brilliant and resilient entrepreneur whose journey is as inspiring as it is unconventional. He has an academic background in organizational psychology, conducted research in several national labs, has been published, work in biometric, has also spent time at Harvard studying the human evolutionary biology.

He has designed his first bike saddle in 2015 and by 2022 had started his own company. Please welcome the founder of Wove. Hey Nick, it's great to have you on the show.

Nick: Okay. Thank you Greg. I appreciate this.

Greg McDonough: I'm really excited to get into the content and to talk about your saddle. But before we do that, Nick, I'd love to know how your endurance [00:01:00] mindset has impacted your life unexpectedly.

Nick: I guess the primary thing, people think about persistence primarily, but I think for myself, um, my endurance mindset is an ability to focus and, um, I guess a technical term for that would be like tropic atropic sort of focus, like just honed in on a singular, a singular task.

Uh, some people have even called that singularity and, and I think that's been quite a boon for myself because. I've set out on an obsession with, with bicycle saddles, then producing bicycle saddles. And that has not wavered. no matter what's going on in my personal life, um, the work gets done for my company.

And so I think that's absolutely necessary. Uh, you Yep. 'cause in any sort of entrepreneurship venture, if you want it to scale, you, you cannot lose focus or let your attention deviate.

Greg McDonough: [00:02:00] You are, that's a hundred percent. Uh, correct. Um, and it's almost to a point, like for me it's that intersection between sort of focus and passion and it gets really blurred in the middle of like, am I doing this because I'm just doing it 'cause it's me and it I'm determined? Or is it because there's a higher.

Purpose and passion. So as an entrepreneur, fellow entrepreneur, uh, the question comes up of how do you handle working with other entrepreneurs that are extremely distracted, right? Like, I open up my email this morning and there's a new idea that I think I should go chase, and I'm gonna go chase that for a few minutes, and then I'm into.

Chat GPT, and I'm gonna chase a different idea. Next thing you know, it's this and it's very easy to get distracted and, and clearly you don't have that, uh, disadvantage, but many entrepreneurs and people that you'd partner with or people that you team up with, probably do. And I'm curious, Nick, how have you sort of [00:03:00] handled that dynamic of you being laser focused and somebody you're relying on to?

Produce a design or come up with a manufacturing strategy is a little bit more loosey goosey or a little bit more distracting.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: Okay. So, you know, I, I did a lot of the heavy lifting on the front end in terms of choosing who I was working with. And, you know, the, the first person was David Simmons who makes the custom, he makes custom carbon fiber shoes. Um, his shoes are used by most of the Olympic track cycling teams in the world, like British Cycling, New Zealand, Germany.

Um, they're 100% custom molded to your feet. So we started working together and we really hit it off 'cause we had that laser focus you could focus on. Uh, buckle systems for the Olympic shoes that were gonna be used by the, by the British cycling team. And then 2015, I came to him with a saddle design. I've been obsessed with saddle since the late nineties for comfort reasons primarily.

I mean, I had the first body geometry saddle that Andy Pruitt designed [00:04:00] for specialized, the first ISM in 2008, the first dash saddle 2009. Um, and everything in between, just obsessed with bike saddles for comfort and performance reasons. And it's like I, I decided, okay, I need to make my. Own design, like the dash just wasn't cutting it.

None of the other designs were cutting it. The new specialized power power saddle was not cutting it and. And so it just didn't have enough soft tissue pressure relief. It hit the back of the thighs. It just wasn't doing, and it wasn't allowing the, myself or other, I, I do a lot of bike fits. I've done well over 4,000 bike fits in my lifetime.

I, I do bike fits every week and so, uh, I don't have a studio at this point, but I just help my customers in my pro athletes. So most of the pro athletes you see on Wove are being bike fit by me also. And so. Um, decided like, okay, if I wanna put the rider into the right position where they can put out the most power comfortably, I need to make my own saddle. So So, so we, you know, so in 2015 he made the first saddle, It was out of [00:05:00] a need 'cause no other saddles were providing the soft tissue relief, the thigh clearance, or the ability to get in the right position. Uh, so I worked with quite a bit of pro athletes who just having a hard time getting them in the right position.

So made, made my own saddle in 2015 and he and I communicated pretty much seven days a week all the way through 2024. So that's nine years of just every day just chipping away at it from the shape to the foams, to the cover materials. So, so, so that's an example of, you know, on the front end, choosing people to work with who have that focus.

I've definitely had people in the past, in other ventures or corporate spaces, academic spaces, who just have a hard time staying focused and. I don't have people coming to me with, with, you know, bright shiny object ideas. Like, oh look, let's maybe do this. Like, every now and then someone does it. I, I know how much [00:06:00] work goes in to scaling a good idea.

And, um, and it's almost like. So like, I'll, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll, I wanna make sure my story is linear, but I'll say like, you know, so the other people on my team, like Matthew Valour, who's my head of marketing laser focus, you know, um, but I was recently down in California and I have. A mentee who I helped her through high school.

And actually, so, so I have two mentees that are at Caltech right now. Obviously a very demanding school. And, and she was talking to me about, you know, so, so she's focusing on startups, so we talk about business and startups and she's in the bio biomedical space and um, and she has people coming to her.

Like, she'll have friends in college being like, let's do this idea. You know? And they get really excited. And [00:07:00] she's at, you know, at the young age of 19, 20 years old, she's, she's seeing wow. Like, it's almost as if the more excitement she's approached with. The less likely they are to be able to carry on the idea.

And I was joking with her saying that, you know, well, it's kinda like dating, right? You know, if you meet someone in the first two weeks of dating, they're over the moon about you, that that might be a red flag. And that goes back to the prior conversation about the emotional capabilities that are absolutely required to focus. The, the, the, the, the, the, the father of modern psychology, William James, says the greatest human capability is the ability to focus. So, okay, I'll leave it at that.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: A hundred percent. Yeah, it's um, and you're really brightening up a light bulb for me, like when I've. I've done my best work. It's when I'm laser focused, it's when on this [00:08:00] podcast is an example of that. Like, I love doing this and I get into it and, and the research and the preparation and the rest of it.

Um, Nick, you maybe think about something as you were talking about. Developing the designs, working, uh, with David for the, those nine years, you know, tinkering away, tinkering away your passion. And it, the light bulb that came on for me when you were talking about that is, you know, as an amateur and, and many of our listeners are like, we're sort of, at least I am a, a back of the pack, sort of triathlon finisher.

I, I, I get the most outta my day and I love it. Um, but I haven't really thought much about. My saddle other than it hurts eventually. Um, and so I, my question for you is like, what, as an amateur, what should we be thinking about when it comes to the, like you go to the bike shop, you buy your bike, maybe you're working with a coach.

You definitely get a, a [00:09:00] fit, you get the geometry, right? Um, but what other concept, what other things should we be considering as sort of a, you know, an amateur cyclist? Amateur triathlete, when. Um, considering which saddle to put on our it's great question. And so coming from a bike fit background, you know, when I, I've, I, I viewed the saddle as the starting place. And I, and so often it was very rare that someone comes in and I see them just in a good position on the saddle. 'cause they're, they're, they're, they're often, people are often fighting their saddle, where they're posteriorly rotating their hips, rear words to get office soft tissue pressure.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: They're dealing with thigh rubbing, they're putting themselves in compromised positions and hurting their lower backs. Because of the saddle. So the first thing is like, well, I would rotate someone through like five to eight saddles blind blindly. And I would go through like, you know, five, five rounds in [00:10:00] each round.

I'd be pulling out saddles. And as the person goes through that, they're gonna self-select and say, Ooh, that doesn't feel good. So first, if you're an amateur athlete. Y you should work with a fitter that's gonna do blind testing and say, okay, we're gonna rotate through these five saddles that I think will work from you.

You're not gonna look at the saddle and by the second time you're going through, you're gonna tell me what does not feel good the first time. Most people are gonna say, oh, I guess this feels okay. The second time, they're gonna have frames of reference. People are gonna say, oh, that does not feel good. So I think just getting that education and going into the fitter and doing that, finding a fitter that views that as an absolute necessity and the best use of time and knows how to set up the angle of the saddle.

So, so that's needed. And then so, and then what are you gonna be feeling? Soft tissue pressure. As you rotate through different saddles, you're gonna see that some saddles cause a lot of pressure, you know, in your soft [00:11:00] tissue region, that's male or female. And then, then from there, you're gonna have bone pressure.

Sometimes some saddles are so hard, they cause pain along the bones. Other saddles cause comfort along the bones, and then the other ones are gonna be. Are you, are, is the rear of your hamstring hitting the wings of the saddle or your thighs hitting the nose of the saddle? Does the fitter know how to set you up on the saddle so that if, that, if you are getting rubbing, can they position the saddle so the rubbing goes away?

Um, and then is it even possible or do you need to go to a new saddle to make that happen? So yeah, those are things to think about.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: That's super helpful. And the next question that, the follow on for that, um, is how often do you change saddles? Like I've been riding my same saddle for 10 years. It's been through a handful of Ironman races. If I sent you a picture, you'd probably be ashamed of it. Um, but one, technology's changed for sure, but two, as I've aged 10 years, I'm sure my body [00:12:00] composition's changed and, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

So as a rule of thumb is, well, is there a rule of thumb of like, how often should you consider changing your saddle, redoing a bike fit, those types of things.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: changing to a new model or changing that specific one saddle. So

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: I guess either, um, I, I guess how often should I be thinking about, you know, what, this has been five years on this saddle. Maybe I should see what else is out there or see, you know, does it still fit the right way or is it still fitting, producing

what it was producing for me so with your specific saddle. Let's say you're on one model, you should be watching to see if the foam is compressing. If it's getting like, sort of bottoming out too quickly, if the saddle's starting to sag in the middle. Uh, I'll say that with our saddles we offer, um. Like you can, you, uh, for the, within the first year, it's free to replace the foam.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: You just mail the saddle back in. We [00:13:00] replace the foam, and after the first year, it's only a hundred dollars to replace the foam. So you should keep an eye on the foam. Like our, our foam lasts about 15,000 miles, so for most people that'll last one to two years, you know, uh, depending on how much you're riding and then, or, or more.

And so you replace the phone. But as far as the model of saddle, um. We are seeing different models of saddles coming out. For example, this past year, Ergon put out two models of saddles that looked really awesome. Um, they're not perfect, but they're really awesome. And I would say go down to your bike fitter and say, Hey, I wanna rotate through my current saddle in these new models of saddle.

And to see what might feel different, you know? Um. That's the sort of thing that I wouldn't even charge for a full bike fit for 'cause it's, it's just giving someone that opportunity to rotate through and see, and, and, and we've seen other model physique put out a new triathlon saddle last year. It's not getting a lot of attention, but it's, but it's the sort of thing where if I were an athlete, I would say, okay, how does that [00:14:00] feel?

I wanna jump on that. Or obviously there are my saddles with Wove and I say, go down to your bike fitter and, and see if you can try a Wove saddle and rotate through. You know, the different models and um, and we also have a 30 day no question asked return policy and some other companies do too. And it's like, well then that's pretty risk free.

Sure. You, you pay the cost up front, you try it. If it doesn't work, you return it, you get a full refund. So, so, so there's enough options out there that when you see something pop up on the market, you can say, well, you know, I am experiencing a little bit of soft tissue pressure, or I am experiencing some bone discomfort.

Let me see if. If there's another model that might help relieve that, so,

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: That's super helpful. Um, and Nick, what it made me think of when you're talking about bike fittings is the question between. You know, an in-person bike fitting and a virtual, like I'm thinking about my shop, who I love, um, the bike lane here in Western Virginia and they've been great to me over the years, but if I want to go [00:15:00] see the bike fitter, right, it's a 45 day, 30 day, 45 day scheduling commitment.

'cause they're just that good in that busy where the virtual option right, is almost instantaneous. If I know if I've got a good virtual bike fitter,

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: So couple things I the greatest advantage to in person is being able to try different equipment. You're not gonna get that virtually, you know? Unless you order everything yourself. And the great thing is about like, you know, when I've had my own FIT studios, I would have 20 saddles or more on the wall.

So I could just pull from all, I mean, obviously I've been obsessed with saddles. So when I was, you know, in New York or in Boston, I, I could just, I had my own fit studios and I could just pull from the wall, all these different saddles. So that's an advantage of in-person. It's also worth trying to, if, so this is to anyone listening.

I would try to convince your fitter to say, Hey, I'm not needing a full bike fit. All I need to do is rotate through five saddles as a bike fitter. I can get that done in 30 minutes. [00:16:00] If I say, well, if that's all you're needing, then I, that's not a full bike fit. Like, I'm gonna squeeze people in because let's just be honest.

I'm probably gonna sell a bike saddle that day, you know? And it's like, okay, and I'm gonna get a lifelong customer that's gonna buy other stuff. I mean, it's just business. It's good business. And, and, and so, you know, everyone has their prerogative how they wanna run their business. But, uh, I can say, um, from someone who would very often do six bike fits a day and had huge demand, um.

There's no way I would ever schedule anyone out that far out in advance. I would, I would get them in. Um, so that's just me and everyone, ev everyone has their own prerogative how they wanna run their business, but I wanted to make money and, um, and so I was gonna get people in. Right now, I, I'll say, uh, in terms of the virtual stuff.

Um, a lot of our customers will send me videos over WhatsApp, um, and a lot of our pros now, I, I work with [00:17:00] our Rosen person. I was over at Rudy Von Berg's house last night, for example. That's a very common thing I'm meeting up with. Ran Koontz, uh, later today. Uh, he's an Olympic track cyclist and went to the last Olympics and I worked with those guys in person, but honestly.

Even if they're here in Boulder so often I prefer they just send me a video because I can put it in slow motion and it's in slow mo. I, I need to go through in slow motion and dissect things. Uh, I personally find that. I don't need retool or other camera cat. I can just put a video over WhatsApp in slow motion.

I mean, I save it to my iPhone so I can go like, you know, 60 frames per second. But you know, I go 60 frames per second and, and just dissect. And what's nice about that? Okay. Actually I'm gonna, I'm gonna expand this conversation one step further. So if you could, if, if money were no object, and you had to choose two types of [00:18:00] physicians, one physician is the guy who's running a good business model, you're gonna go in there and you're gonna talk to him.

And he is probably only gonna visit with you for 15 minutes, right? You're gonna have to schedule out a month ahead of time. You're gonna get 15 minutes, but you're having some kind of mysterious symptoms, you know, not unlike. Spike saddle issues. You know, like, man, like I'm having this discomfort. I can't put it into words.

Well, you're gonna get 15 minutes with that physician, so that's physician A, and he's gonna see you for 15 minutes and he's gonna use his wealth of knowledge to diagnose you. Then you have physician B. Physician B follows you around seven days a week for multiple hours a day with a clipboard, taking notes and observing you for months at a time. Now, now that guy's gonna go outta business real quick, but if money or no object, which of those two physicians are you gonna choose?

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: Obviously physician b.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: that's kind [00:19:00] of why, that's why I no longer have a FIT studio. It's like I don't want to be physician A anymore. I, I, so what I, a lot of my pro athletes, they're just, they're just sending me videos.

Sometimes 3, 4, 5 times a week. But the thing is, is that like I can spot it, you know, having done so many bike fits since the mid nineties, I can spot their issues so quickly. It's like, okay, let's make this change. Let's make this change. Let's, let's just, let's go on a, actually with my own FIT studio in New York, uh, I would actually. So often require people to go on a bike ride with me, and I'd bring my tools and we'd be stop, go, stop, go outdoors. Like find, and that's how it is here in Boulder with the pro athletes. So often it's like, okay, we've done everything we can indoors now let's head outdoors. You know? Or, or you go outdoors and get someone to videotape you and like three hours into a ride at race power, let's see.

Or in a race. Okay, you're, you're doing Ironman, [00:20:00] Frankfurt. Let's, let's get some video footage of you in the race so I can look at how you actually look in a race, not in a, not indoors, on a trainer in a studio. Uh, and so a lot of this is said, this isn't a critique of the bike of bike fitters. This is saying, Hey, you could actually probably do shorter bike fits more often, and, and, and that's just gonna keep those customers coming back into your

store.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: a hundred percent. Um, and it's really well said between, you know, the comparison between physician, physician A and physician B. And you're right, like you do race differently than you train. And even if you're training outdoors for a long ride, like when you're. I, and I noticed that my heart rate, right? I was, I was talking to my coach after, uh, Chattanooga a few months ago and I was like, yeah, the goal was X heart rate and I was x plus 10.

And I think it's just the, the excitement of race day. And to your point, I suspect that [00:21:00] relates to how you sit on your bike and how you're in your arrow and how, like your body position and how do you deal with, you know, cyclists near you versus just being out on open roads. So make the points you're making are, are really insightful.

Um, and worth considering

for the audience members,

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: I mean, we, we, we, we, we have athletes right now in the, in the Women's j Talia, and you better believe that. Like, they just did a time trial, and what do I do? I, I, I, you know, get ahold of their team. I'm like, I need some video footage. Let's look at how they actually look in on race day in the race, and then, and then we're going to make some tweaks to their bike fit based off of that.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: That's fa. Awesome. So Nick, I'm so curious, like when did this obsession with saddles happen? Were you obsessed with saddles and then you had studios, or did you start your studios and then you realized that there was that one key component? Like where the, where it all starts to the point you made earlier in the show?

Like what was the sequence

of getting You to where you are [00:22:00] today?

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: You know, I, I just outta, there are so many people that can relate to this, but just buying like five plus saddles a year looking for the right one. That, I mean, that for me, that began in 1998 probably, you know, like just, I just, I just couldn't find something and I just couldn't believe that.

Discomfort was the path forward, you know? And then like in 2001, um, you know, I'd been working at Oakridge National Labs, decided to leave, and I moved out to Boulder and I lived with some Olympic cyclists. And, you better believe I asked them, I was like, so, what, are you doing for saddles?

Discomfort? 'cause you guys are riding six days a week, five hours a day. And, they're like, oh, there's no issue. But then like later that year, I asked the question again and I got the honest answer. And what the honest answer was after 90 minutes, I go numb. And [00:23:00] I said, no way in hell is that gonna be my reality.

Like there's, and then luckily it was right around that time that, you know, Andy Pruitt released the very first body geometry saddle. And that was a life changer for me. I mean, it weighed, oh, oh my God, that thing had to have weighed 600 grams. It was insane. And just to give you reference, my current road saddles that I make weigh under 125 grams.

So. It was a boat anchor, but I was like, I don't, and I'm, I'm a weight weenie, but I said, I don't care. This thing. I mean, it changed how I could ride. I mean, once I tossed that thing on, I could start, like, I, I had weeks, you know, around 40 hours on the bike, you know, and, and that, and that just wasn't gonna be possible with a, so with another saddle.

So that, that, that gets into the relationship between saddle and performance. You can ride more, you can put yourself in a more powerful position. And you can focus. Going back to focus, you can focus on the task at hand, which is riding [00:24:00] not discomfort.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: Not squirming around in your saddle trying to find the right spot for

that particular climb or that particular push or, um, so Nick, I'm gonna change topics on you slightly and I'd love to know, um, a little bit about

the business side. Like where is Wove in its lifecycle?

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: We are at a critical juncture. You know, I, I say so, you know, so my, my, my doctoral training was in organizational behavior and organizational behavior splits itself between the org psych side of things, organizational psychology, which is more my focus. And then. Strategic management so I can, I can speak to strategic management quite a bit from that doctoral training, even though it's not my specialty, but it is my lived experience every day with this business.

From a strategic standpoint, you know, you're constantly finding yourself where you either need more demand [00:25:00] or you have too much demand and you need more product, you know? And, and we're constantly fluctuating. And for the last year we've been in a, so, so in the first between, um, we started shipping in 2022.

So between in, so the end of 2022 and all of 2023 and all of 2024, we are in a position to where way too much demand, not enough product. So. We switched to a new manufacturer, uh, down in Mexico. Uh, great capabilities, um, but I'll be candid, we are battling with quality control issues where, when we only had, when David Simmons only made six saddles a week, quality control is easier because, I mean, the reality is, is in his own words, to get the foam perfect. Each saddle, he probably had to strip the foam off and re foam it again, three to four times per saddle. And that's [00:26:00] why our capacity was six saddles a week. So now that we're able to produce 200 saddles a week, that is um, and, and our saddle's very complex. A lot of trade secrets are shell and rails are all one piece of carbon fiber molded at the same time.

That's what makes it so strong and so light. Um, you know, our saddles have been tested at 320 pounds, so they get pre, like there's a weight that presses on it 200,000 times and we've done it 320 pounds, which surpasses industry standards by, you know, 100 pounds. So it's very strong, very light. The foam is attached in a very unique manner.

All this stuff together makes manufacturing very difficult. We could have gone the easy path and just gone to Taiwan, called up Velo. You know, everyone, everyone knows the owner, uh, Charla Velo and just think, Hey, let's make my saddle for me. And they would've said, sure, but we're gonna use our manufacturing methods.

And that just wouldn't have worked for us. It would've been heavy. We wouldn't have got the [00:27:00] shape correct, the foam. We would've had to use their foam. Not like we, we tested hundreds of foams. Probably more like thousands, not, not kidding. And um, so coming back, so, so, so on the, so where we are as a company is we are scaling.

And, you know, John lists the, the Economist at University of Chicago. He wrote a brilliant book a couple years ago called The Voltage Effect, why Some Ideas Scale and Some Ideas Don't. And he's been the, the, he was the chief economist on staff economist at Uber for a while. Now he's at, um, um, Lyft and. And yeah, he talks about the, the problems that companies face when they're trying to scale.

And we're facing those, like we have to get our quality control where it needs to be so that every saddle that's delivered to us is perfect. But the reality is, is that our demand is so huge. I mean, right now, today, I have 300 saddles in the queue, 350 saddles in the queue that need to be delivered. [00:28:00] And if we get a batch of saddles, a hundred saddles that arrive in the mail today, and only 70% of 'em are hitting qc.

That means we're not shipping to our customers that are waiting, you know, and we don't have product on the shelves like we need to, which in the next month we should, but, and then we'll have product on the shelves and then when someone place an order, boom, it ships 'cause it's on the shelf. But, but then we're in a situation to where we need to increase demand because we'll have too much product sitting on the shelf and we need our inventory turnover ratio to be better.

So it's always that balance, right? But that's where we, it, it's a good place to be. If our manufacturing can meet our goals and, and I mean, just super candid, super vulnerable and honest, but it's, you know, Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that, you know, when he made the first batch of Teslas, that was easy.

When he tried to scale, he was like, holy god, this is the hardest thing, like making one rocket for SpaceX. That he said, as [00:29:00] crazy as that is, he said, repeatability. Which is your reliability and statistics, your reliability of getting the consistent result every single time that, that, that, that's the, that's the hard, that's the hardest business to go into.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: That's right. Well, and that's what made the difference for McDonald's and not using them as an example on

a, on a fitness podcast, but Right. Their breakthrough was that repeatability and it. Anywhere in the world you'd go and experience whatever they're making. It's gonna be a similar experience, and they spent decades and decades and

decades figuring out that process.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: Yeah, Sam Long loves McDonald's, so I'm not gonna throw them under the bus. And I will say just to toss like that's.

Yeah, you get, you know, obviously there's that, that, that well-known book, the E myth with the entrepreneurship myth that came out, you know, like, you know, 20 years ago or more. And, and that, that's the whole thing is like [00:30:00] you, if you can have an idea that can be reliably repeatable, that that's your ticket.

So the customer has a consistent experience, but the reality is, in his own words, most entrepreneurs don't know how to delegate. And, and they don't have the focus of attention, and they start juggling balls, and then they start juggling. Next thing you know, they're juggling six balls at a time and balls start dropping and hitting the ground.

And that's why businesses don't succeed. So, yeah.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: That's right. And it goes back to the, the point we started on when we're talking about focus, right? Um, and how critical that is on your entrepreneurial journey and, and, and having that passion and, and following through and not getting distracted by the new shiny thing that's coming across your desk on a Tuesday morning.

Um, so Nick, not to fill your queue anymore, but how can an audience member find your products? Clearly? Give us your website. What's the be the best path to, uh, to securing some, to,

[00:31:00] securing one of your saddles?

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: So, uh, both our website and our Instagram, uh, is just the, the one word Wove bike, so W-O-V-E-B-I-K-E. So whether that's dot com or Instagram slash Wove bike. Yeah. So you'll, you go there, you'll, you'll learn, we have lots of educational stuff learning about us and we are available, we provide amazing customer service.

So one way we are, we are doing so well with customers that have been waiting months on saddles, is we provide exceptional customer service and we just, we, we go above and beyond. We reply instantly. Uh, we take care of people and. And that's, you know, obviously we need our quality control to, to get to where it needs to be so that we're not totally, we're not so reliant on customer service, you know, good, good experience.

But yeah. So anyway, so that, that's how people can learn about us. They can find us. A lot of people have already heard about us. 'cause the pro athletes that are on our saddles, obviously we have people like [00:32:00] Christian Bal Lucy, Charles Barclay, uh, Sam Long, Rudy Berg, Joe Skipper, uh, Braden, Curry, Magnus Diet Lift.

Um, I. Yes, we have a lot of triathletes. And then we have, you know, Ruth, uh, Ruth Edwards, who's the, she, she's the leader of a world tour team in the Jared Italia right now in our saddle we have, uh, pro gravel cyclist, Rosa Cloer, who won Unbound last year. So I go down the list. So, and it's interesting, it's all those pros are approaching us.

They're coming to us and, and, and then they're like, wow, we love this saddle. So.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: That is a real vote of confidence. Um. Impressive. Nick, keep up the great work. Uh, I love your story and your passion, your focus on this. I'm gonna have a deep conversation with my saddle in about 20 minutes. Um, audience members, have you got some value out of today's show? Please, like, please subscribe. Uh, let's share this with our community.

Let's spread the word about Wove and what Nick and his team have created. Um, and, and ultimately from the bottom of my heart, Nick, thank you for, for [00:33:00] solving a problem, uh, that so many of us have to deal with. You know that 90 minute mark when the numbness kicks in, I guess that doesn't need to be lived anymore.

Um, and I look forward to experiencing that one day.

nick-guest273_2_07-09-2025_091614: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time,

and let's get you a saddle.

greg-mcdonough_63_07-09-2025_111615: Yes, please. I.