Chief Endurance Officer

How can endurance sports principles shape leadership, team culture, and innovation in business?

Today’s guest is a visionary founder who inspires with lessons from both athletics and entrepreneurship! Introducing Zack Isaacs, Founder and CEO of Movemint. Zack partners with host Gregory McDonough to share how endurance sports shaped his approach to business, the origin and pivot of Movemint, and strategies for building resilient teams and innovative products. He also delves into practical leadership advice, the importance of curiosity, and designing experiences that delight customers and stakeholders.

Takeaways
  • Focus on what matters most and dedicate steady effort over time. Celebrate persistence and learn from setbacks rather than seeking quick wins.
  • Challenge yourself and your team with bold goals, but take time to acknowledge progress. Avoid constantly escalating goals without pausing to reflect.
  • Hire and develop people who offer solutions, not just criticism. Encourage curiosity and shared success over individual heroics.
  • Use small experiments to validate concepts before investing heavily. Stay open to feedback and adjust direction when needed.
  • Anchor decisions in your core passions and principles. Map the full journey to create value for every stakeholder, not just at obvious touchpoints.

Quote of the Show:
  • "No endurance athlete does great things all by themselves. Look for people who want to be on a team, want to support each other, want to bring each other up." - Zack Isaacs

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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
Gabby Aloisi

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_Zack Isaacs
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[00:00:00]

Greg Mcdonough: Well, welcome to the show. I am super excited for our guest today. He brings decades of experience in the endurance sports industry, starting his career as a web developer for professional cycling team and event organizer. He was the first hire at str first API hire at Strava, forging partnerships with Garmin wa Peloton, swift.

Also led engineering to key features like paid routes and Strava's messaging platform. He's a racer himself, uh, having a podium finish in the 2021. Lost and found 100. He combines his passion for cycling with his experience in building tech that empowers racing, race, directors, timers, and athletes. He is the founder and CEO of [00:01:00] movement.

Please welcome Zach, Isaac. Zach, welcome to the show.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Wow. Thanks for that intro. Thanks so much for having me, Greg. Um, it's an honor to be here with you.

Greg Mcdonough: It's my pleasure. I can't wait to unravel, uh, lots of things today, but let's jump into the endurance mindset first. So Zach, can you tell me how your endurance mindset has impacted your life Unexpectedly.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: I think the thing that comes to mind for me is trade-offs, and so you know, when you're an endurance athlete and you're trying to train to be your best. There are certain things that are incompatible, incompatible with, um, that drive to be the best endurance athlete. For example, you know, if you want to bench press 250 pounds and you also wanna run a sub three hour marathon, those things are pretty much impossible. I mean, there's some people on the internet who do it, but, um, those things are extremely intention with each other. And I think the same [00:02:00] thing is true. Um. lots of areas of life, whether it be or or you know, iron Man's, um, you, you have to make trade-offs and, um, you know, be intentional about what you're choosing.

Greg Mcdonough: I am really happy you brought that up 'cause it's, it's a hundred percent true. Um. Zach, as you were saying that, is there a specific trade off sort of over your cycling career, your athletic, your endurance career so far, um, that comes to mind? Is there something really to boil up to the top?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: I mean, my cycling career, I think that. It really, you know, cycling is just, um, you know, more than running unless you're an ultra runner. Um, cycling really just does take so much time in order to do it at a high level and in order to have explosiveness after five or six hours, which is what's required at some of these gravel [00:03:00] races and longer road races. And so, you know, just the time away from home, um. The time spent, you know, you've talked about it on your last couple of episodes, but just the time on, you know, getting up early when it's dark, when it's cold, um, those are trade-offs, you know? and so yeah, I think just time away from home, time away from family, um, you know, time away from job, those are all things that, know, you forego when you prioritize endurance sports and when and when you want to do it at a high level.

Greg Mcdonough: Absolutely. Yeah. There's really no shortcuts, right? I mean that, that five hour ride followed by an hour run brick session. There's no way to get to that sixth hour without going through the first five. Um, you left me a little breadcrumb there around explosiveness after five hours on the bike. Um, talk to me a little bit about, like, educate our audience of, of what, how do you develop that as an [00:04:00] athlete?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Yeah, I mean some of it is certainly physical and so, you know, I've worked with the same cycling coach since I was in college and um, some of that is certainly physical of, you know, doing hard efforts in training when you're fatigued. And so I think. are no shortcuts for being at the end of a five or six hour ride and sprinting as hard as you can.

But, there are ways to simulate that when you don't, when you're not a professional cyclist. you know, for example, um, going like pre fatiguing yourself by going to the gym, um, and then, you know, doing like a two hour ride with sprints. Um. Like, you'll feel a lot of the same lead legs and feelings that you would feel at the end of a five or six hour race. so, um, I think, I think, you know, there's also the mental aspect of it and um, you know, just the perseverance and the determination. Um, those are all really [00:05:00] important.

Greg Mcdonough: Certainly. In fact, this morning I had an interval session on my bike. And almost immediately I felt my long run from Sunday kind of creeping back into my legs. And it's supposed to be the off season, but that's a whole other podcast. Uh, Zach, you mentioned the, the mental aspect of this. Um, let's talk about that a little bit more of how we sort of build that mental muscle to be able to.

Push, do a sprint at the end of a five hour ride or go into a brick session. You know, many audience members who are considering going longer maybe don't have the mental muscle built yet. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on like, how do you develop that? I.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: I think just consistency and steady building. Um, know, there's a reason why, you know, after Ian Boswell retired from the world tour, with minimal training, he jumped back into the gravel cycling scene and [00:06:00] was beating everyone. And it's because he had built up. The muscle memory and the mental fitness to, you know, that like over the course of his entire career for 10 plus years. And, um, and there really is, um, you know, I think experience really does play a big part in, in that. And, um, you know, more time training, um, it's, it's just brick by brick. Like even if, you know, you get injured, if you have setbacks, if you, you know, stop. for a week or a month. Um, those things really do compound and, um, you know, if you're able to be consistent over a long period of time, when then good things will happen.

Greg Mcdonough: Certainly I, you know, as we're talking about mental fitness, physical fitness as it pertains to endurance and, and training and racing. What comes to mind is where else have you seen that show [00:07:00] up, that consistency, the steady building. Where else have you seen that benefit other parts of your life?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Yeah, I mean, I certainly see it all the, every single day at movement. Um. You know, I think that, there are things we can do today and that, you know, would've seemed just absolutely impossible a year ago. um, you know, I think when you, yeah, like when you set ambitious goals, um. You almost go into a, like, at least I go into almost a survival instinct of like, okay, how am I going to achieve this goal, um, that I've set for myself?

Like, what do I need to do to achieve this goal? often, w you know. hen you're faced with challenges you think you cannot overcome, whether it be training for an Ironman or building a business or becoming profitable or whatever your goal is, you know, it leads to a level of creative thinking. [00:08:00] Um, sometimes it's fear-based, honestly, but it leads to a level of creative thinking that it, I think sparks, you know, in the business world, you call it innovation training for athletic events.

I think you would call it, you know, fitness and growth. Um, but that's just extremely powerful when you're on that knife's edge and just, um, you know, trying to achieve something, um, day after day.

Greg Mcdonough: I love the fact that you brought up ambitious goals because what I find when I set a goal that I think is almost Unac accomplishable, and then I get there or get pretty close, the next time I'm goal setting, I start wondering, is this goal big enough? Then when does that, when do you stop sort of expanding the goal because you believe in yourself to get there and you really just hunker down on what's, do you get what I'm trying to say?

Like, like you almost, it becomes the disease almost, where it just grows and grows and grows, and at some point you just gotta set the goal and get [00:09:00] going. Does that resonate with you?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Yeah, totally. I think. It's, it's a double edged sword. Like I think I am also the type of person where I'm never satisfied. I always want to set a bigger and bigger goal, and at least so far I've been content with that mindset because something I've learned about myself in professional settings, but also in training on the bike, is that I get bored easily and when I get bored, I find that I get depressed and just, you know. upset about whatever it is I'm focusing on. And so for me, setting more ambitious goals and, um, you know, growing a team or doing dynamic workouts, um, you know, introducing gym work into my training, are all ways that, you know, not only help me achieve the goal, but also, um, I [00:10:00] think that they also. Bring a level of newness and excitement to what I'm trying to achieve. And, and to me that's really motivating. on the flip side, you are thinking about starting something, like, starting from, starting from scratch. you know, I've seen, like I have some very close friends who are thinking about starting companies right now and, um, you know, have just cycled through dozens of ideas like. you know, whether it's a brewery or a tech startup or these things are very different and like a million tech startups and, um, I do think that for some people, know, you just have to, even if you're not fully sure about it, when you start, I think you just gotta give yourself space and say like, listen, I'm just gonna take this bet and be all in, um, for three or four months. if you're not all in it is definitely not gonna work. Um, yeah.

Greg Mcdonough: That that's a hundred percent correct. Um, yeah, you mentioned your [00:11:00] team. I would love to dig into sort of the characteristics of the people you surround yourself with, especially in movement. Can you talk to that, like are they as goal-oriented, ambitious, endurance mindset? Do you find yourself in a similar group of people or are you sort of the opposites attract group?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: No, it's definitely the former. Um. I think the, I didn't, when I started movement, I didn't actually feel this way. Um, but something I've learned from hiring people for movement and from learning from my mistakes as well, is, um, main thing I actually try to screen for is constructively. Um, so are you constructive because, um, and it's totally okay to, you know. Have, um, negative feedback, um, constructive feedback, um, that is not positive. [00:12:00] Like it's completely fine and healthy to admit when things are not all going right. But the most important trait that I think for, um, might be honestly any teammate, but for sure when you're in a high stress small team environment where you're interacting with everyone is after you give that negative feedback, is that it?

Or. Does your mind say like, okay, how are we gonna make this better? And so, um, know pretty quick when you start working with people, um, they're going to, um, you know, provide that level of constructive, constructive feedback and, um, if they're going to. know, basically try to problem solve it or not. And something I've learned is that it's really hard to change people's outlook if they're constructive or not. And so, um, yeah, that's something that I screen for pretty heavily now. Um, I think, you know, also to your point, just being goal oriented, being competitive, [00:13:00] I think that those are all positive things.

Um, you know, also have to be careful though because with endurance athletes. It is a, I mean, it's not a, it is not a no endurance athlete does great things all by themself, but there can be, you know, certain endurance athletes and certain folks who are really competitive, but they have like a superhero complex and just

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Themselves.

And that's also not okay. They have to understand that like, you know, um, look for people who want to be on a team, wanna support each other, wanna bring each other up. No territorialism, And are most of all constructive?

[00:14:00]

Greg Mcdonough: Fantastic. I've also find that curiosity. Builds into that as well, right? That curiosity to improve the curiosity of how other teammates are doing. Curiosity of a better way of executing or training, or you name it, both from the endurance sport and also business leadership. You know, Zach, your website, uh, mentions that mo the idea for movement.

That came to you while on a bike ride. And, and there's so many stories, at least for me, that these great ideas that I come up with and on long [00:15:00] runs or long rides. But I'd love to hear your story about the, the, where the idea bubbled up with movement and then we'll get into what it does. Um, but let's go back to sort of that light bulb moment.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Sure. Well, I, I have to make a caveat about the bike ride moment because the bike ride moment is what led to movement becoming the business that I was working on. But it was actually our, a previous iteration of like what we were working on. It was, we pivoted. so, you know, uh, three years ago, um, I got on a bike ride with, um. friend who ended up becoming my co-founder of the original movement, um, Taylor Palka. uh, the time knew each other from, you know, like group rides and stuff, but we weren't really close and, um. I ended up catching up to him at a light, I remember I was feeling like really crummy that day and [00:16:00] it was just planning to go for a one hour spin, we ended up connecting so much that we, I ended up tagging on with him for like an 80 mile ride all through Marin, which, you know, just speaks to how much I liked him, um, and how much we connected.

And, um, it was a completely different idea. I just want to caveat that, like what I'm about to say is gonna make it sound like I live in San Francisco and I do. But um, basically the idea, or like the need was, um, you know, I've been incy in the cycling space for so long and I have all these friends who are trying to make it as pro cyclists or are pro cyclists. something that I've felt for a really long time is that they give us so much as fans of the sport. So much inspiration, so much joy. Um, but they receive very little in return. Like it's really hard to make it as a pro cyclist or a pro runner. And so I thought, okay, like how could we. [00:17:00] it possible for them to basically monetize this value that they're giving to their fans.

How could we have, like, have their fans help support them? Um, and so we, the original idea with Movement was actually, um, GoFundMe for athletes, it was a crypto based athletes, and thus, that is why the Mint is MINT. Um, I did not name, I didn't think of the name. Um, I'm, I'm actually really bad at marketing, but, um, my, my, my friend who is in marketing thought of the name um, and so we jammed on that. got, you know, dozens of the highest level athletes in the world to join. We had, like, Ted King, Amity Rockwell, Kristen Faulkner, who won the Olympics, was one of our earliest athletes and continues to give, you know. like a, somebody I trust a lot with, um, talking about business ideas and, and so we sold a couple hundred of these [00:18:00] achievements is what we called 'em.

Um, and it was great. Like the athletes loved it. Um, you know, it was basically found money for them, but. I just didn't feel like it was gonna be an enduring, an enduring business. And I just had this conversation, very two very similar conversations, one with Kristen and one with Michael Horvath who started Strava. And they both basically told me, you don't have product market fit. I just remember thinking like, man, that's so hard to hear, but you're totally right. and so, um, that winter I, uh. It was November and I signed up for a Grasshopper, um, like this big gravel race. It's actually now one of our customers.

It's the oldest gravel series in the world, um, over 30 years old now. And, I was just signing up for it and I thought, man, this is just, this is just such a joyless experience. Um, what's always made me so excited [00:19:00] about events is that they're more than the sum of their parts. like anybody can go to New York and run 26 miles any, any day you want, you can go do that. But there's only one day a year when it's the New York City Marathon. And I just thought, man, like there's so much joy and um, connection that's just being dropped on the floor here. Um, would it be possible for me to create something that captures the joy of an event, um, and really. know, motivates people and just helps 'em have the best experience possible. And then I started talking to organizers of these events realized that they had way more problems than athletes. You know, like there's a million things getting paid out late, um, you know, inability to like, send emails. Um, no way to like contact your list of past participants. you know, just like.

It doesn't work on [00:20:00] mobile, like a million issues. And um, like no, no help with marketing and actually filling up the event is a huge one. Um, also on the timer side, like no way to get the data from the participant platform into your timing system. There's just like, this is a million things. And so I thought, okay, um, this is something I want to try. so we started, I started writing code in November of 2023. Um. I, you know, as an engineer, I just thought, okay, I'm just gonna test my way into this the fastest way I can. Um, and so originally I just put up a few landing pages. Um. And I just ran, I had like almost no money, um, but I put like $25 a day behind five different ads that were just on Google, just like the home for cycling directors, the home for cyclists, the home for runners. And I, and I just saw, and I had a email form where people could just enter, um, their email address I saw that [00:21:00] we, we got like our first thousand users that way. Um, with, there was no product. It was just like, put in your email address and like, we'll let you know when we launch. And, um, and so then I, I just jammed and like my girlfriend, like, went to the East coast for the holidays.

I just stayed home. I, you know, started, uh, you know, I just coded as fast as I could. And, um, in January after two months of development, we had our MVP launched, we immediately won our first three big customers. Um, all three of them are still with us today. And then. You know, we were able to raise, um, a pre-seed and, you know, we've just on this rollercoaster, mostly rocket ship upwards, um, since.

Greg Mcdonough: That's awesome. Can you just broad brush, give us a sense of, of what the full gamut of movement is for the audience?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Yeah. So movements, um. [00:22:00] The way I would probably describe movements to, um, an endurance audience is if you think about Strava, the atomic unit is the activity and everything revolves around the activity. So you've got routes for planning, you've got segments for seeing how fast you did, and then you know, you've got challenges for motivation if you're new to Strava. And the way I think about is that our atomic unit is the event

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Everything revolves around the event. And so. There's a lot of overlap in those Venn diagrams between Strava and movement. But, the reason that I think the event is a good idea to index on is because, is because events drive a cycle of high intent and spend. So if you sign up, I mean, you know better than anyone. Like if you sign up for an Iron Man, chances are extremely good. know, you're gonna be in the market for nutrition and training. Flights if it's not in your hometown and a [00:23:00] million other things. And

Greg Mcdonough: right.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: side, the exact same thing is true. They all need insurance and you know, timers and porta-potties and a million things. And what I learned is that nobody is using this super important event to help these people have a better experience. And so what movement is about is. Helping athletes have as much fun as possible, like have the best ready, stay possible.

And then for the organizers who create these events and the brands that sponsor them, we want to make those events as lucrative as possible and as easy to host as possible. so that's what movement's about. Um, so right now the primary way we make money is by adding a service fee to our registrations. Um, but. Registrations are really just our wedge into the market. Um, we, like, I see movement as the entire event lifecycle. So we want to be the [00:24:00] place where, um, you know, athletes the same way you can go to Strava. And what was so powerful about routes was you could, it unlocked the ability for you to say, where should I go? We want athletes to eventually be able to come to movement and. Say, what should I do this weekend? And I think that would just be such a powerful unlock. But before you can be really great at discovery, you need to have a large catalog of events and like a, a big inventory because if you're, you know, you can have the best discovery technology in the world, but if you don't have enough events, it's gonna look lame if there's like three in your city for the next year. And so what we're focused on right now is organizers. Um, and just building the best platform for organizers possible. But what I see 2026 being for us is kind of the year of the, the athlete and the brand, and really bringing on those other those other like, you know, archetypes into the space.

Greg Mcdonough: I love it. Um, and you're spot on. You know, just thinking back. [00:25:00] About the comment you made around leaving or dropping joy on the floor, right? If you think about sort of Ritz Carlton, the minute you register for a hotel room is like when your experience starts. Not even, it's even before that. It's like it's when you're on the website or when you're thinking about going on a trip, but when you, and so if you can sort of mind map out that customer experience, to your point, really race day starts.

Just after you're thinking about doing it and then you're going online for registration, and if you can improve that journey between registration and race, start, race, finish, and follow up. I mean, what a powerful community you're building.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Absolutely. that is what we are trying to do. Um, you know, the incumbents in the space, their interaction with. Especially athletes is really just two points in time, maybe three. It's like you go there to sign up and then you forget about it, and then you maybe go the day before the race to like see where it is and then [00:26:00] you maybe just go back for your result. But there's all that time and all that training. All that, like, love and like, and everyone's has this shared goal who's doing this event. Um, where all the time is spent is between when you sign up and when you actually do the event for, I mean, unless it's like a really short one, you know, like a 5K that you sign up the day before for these cycling events and these A races for people, um, you know, there's just so much value, um, and so much opportunity to help them have a better experience between when they sign up and when they do the race.

Greg Mcdonough: In fact, I just to clarify for the audience. It's really any event. So it could be your local 5K where you've got 35 50 participants who wants to have a better registration experience versus, you know, sending an email to the registrar, you know, to come up with, um, your event coordination. And so, and I, I clarify this for the audience, you know, if you're thinking [00:27:00] about or organizing your.

Your 5K, your Turkey trot, your local, you know, around the, around the park, you know, seriously consider a movement solution because it's gonna make your user experience that more powerful. Um, Zach, I gotta ask you about your experiences at Strava when that hockey stick hit, like when you were one of the early guys, gal, people, teammates in that team on that team.

Um, I'd love to hear the story a any story about like, when in inside did you guys realize that this thing is moving and moving in the direction that it ultimately went?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Yeah. Um, there was a really clear inflection point for us, especially on the API team. And so I have to just say like, this was going to Strava. I went after grad school. I was just an IC when I started. So this vision that I'm about to say, it was not mine, it was my bosses. So important to clarify that I'm not taking credit for like all strava's success, [00:28:00] but um. On the API team, my boss had this vision of being the home of connected fitness. And, um, you know, I just thought that was, that was a really inspiring idea and that we could, he wanted to build this API so that other businesses could build on top of what we built. And nobody else at the time was, know. Trying to be a hub in this way or doing it with success. And so we built systems and followed potential partners around, um, just built whatever they needed. And for years we were trying to convince, we. Like Peloton and z WT and Wahoo to upload to us. And that is why we have photos. Like I, my team built photos so that those partners would start uploading, you know, like the Zift photos that you see all the time.

Like we built that for them. [00:29:00] there are certain partners where they were, you know, they really just didn't see the value. And we wanted them to integrate with us so bad that I would literally like get on a Zoom with them and start writing code for them. to integrate against our API we would do whatever it took to get people to integrate with Strava. the inflection point was after a couple years of doing that, we ended up having this inflection point where we found that partners started reaching out to us because we had done such a good job that athletes started demanding it. And so when athletes started demanding that their device manufacturers and. Everything in their connected ecosystem integrate with Strava. we actually disbanded the API team because it was like our, our work was done. And there are actually still some features that I wish we had built while I was there. I actually was just at Strava, um, last week for their developer conference.

And I, [00:30:00] that was my feature request to my old boss was like, please just do this thing that I didn't have time to do, like eight years ago. Um, um, that was the inflection point was we built a. gained enough traction and then athletes did our, our bidding for us.

Greg Mcdonough: It, it's so, that's amazing. It's magical Just thinking about what it was like on the inside, experiencing that. Um, which leads me to another question, Zach. So looking forward for movement, what's your anticipated inflection point? Like we're telling, we're doing this podcast five years from now. Let's talk about the, the inflection point that's happened and, and the characteristics around that.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Yeah, I mean, I think that on the organizer side. I think we are currently experiencing. Um, I mean it's hard to say, you know, like hindsight is 2020.

Greg Mcdonough: Of course.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: I [00:31:00] mean, it's hard to imagine growing any faster than we're growing right now. And then, you know, every, every day Rebecca or who leads partnerships for us will have some event that's, you know, the next biggest event we've ever hosted.

And I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe this is possible. So. hard for me to say. Um, I think we really have product market fit on the organizer side. I do not think that we have, we intentionally have not really gone after athletes and brands yet, and so I think that there's, um, inflection points still to be had there.

Like on the organizer side, we have a. Pretty clear articulation of our value prop and how we're differentiated from our competitors. we can make that pitch. Rebecca can, I can and have success with it. Um, but I, I think, you know, just being critical for a second, I don't think that from an athlete perspective right now, besides just that it's easier to use and it works on mobile, like sort of these [00:32:00] peripheral things.

Um, I don't think that. Movement is way better than everyone else. I think it's easier to use, but I don't think we provide of differentiation, um, on the athlete side the same way we do on the organizer side. And so I think that we have a lot of work to do next year to unlock that, but it's also okay that we haven't figured it out.

Like we, we have intent been intentional about, going after organizers first and then, um, you know, saving athletes and brands for when we're at larger scale.

Greg Mcdonough: Certainly. So as a founder, um, you, you talked about the movement pivot. Um, you're in a totally different space now and direction. Um, you know, as a founder, what sort of obstacles, challenges. Have come up that you weren't really anticipating

or something unexpected that you said, Hey, I, I just wasn't [00:33:00] expecting to get this joy out of doing payroll or something to that effect.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: something unexpected is, um, just how varied the advice is on how to run a successful business. You know, there are if you ask. A CEO or someone who has been in business or been successful, like what you should do for your own business. You ask another person the exact same question, they're gonna often give you two very different answers. And so, you know, I have people all the time telling me, when are you gonna raise? You should raise as much as possible. You know, like, you should be growing the team faster. I have other people who are like, are you growing the team too fast? You know, um, do you really want to take their money? Um, don't you want to control this? Um, and just like work on this for the next 10 years and not have any chance that someone takes it from you. And you [00:34:00] know, in general, everybody's like, these are all good points, but you also have to make a decision about what type of business you're gonna create. And, um, the truth is of course, that you can create great businesses many different ways.

Um, but I think. My guiding, what's guided me has been, um, thinking through what makes me passionate and, um, and what makes me passionate is, um, I I actually just enumerated this to, to Michael since we were talking about this earlier this week. And the three things I realized after deep reflection that me passionate are bikes. It's a professionally, i, I love product market fit and just building really deeply for people who want to use my product. I just find a tremendous amount of satisfaction from building something that people appreciate [00:35:00] and use. And the third thing is taking care of the people around me. And, um, you know, I try to, if I'm unsure of, um. to do, or there are two seemingly, you know, good or bad options. I I try to anchor on those values.

Greg Mcdonough: That's an awesome lens, Zach, and thank you for sharing it. Um, again, another great breadcrumb, uh, you put out there for me in the audience, Zach, an audience member, wants to get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Um, Zach at Movement cc. Um, yeah, feel free to email me. Um, I, uh, I read every email, um, you know, I get feedback from people constantly. I read every email. So far I've been able to respond to every email. Um, so that's the best way.

Greg Mcdonough: That's awesome, and we'll put that in our show notes. Um, Zach, I could go on for hours and hours and hours just peppering you with questions, but [00:36:00] I'm gonna wrap up our show. I, I love the guiding principles you just shared with us about passion for bikes, your product fit, taking care of the people around you.

It's so important, not just as a, a business owner, but as an athlete, as an endurance participant, right? You think about your coaching, your nutritionist, and et cetera, et cetera, that this is a team. Experience. And so having that in your forefront, uh, of your mind is, is super powerful. Again, man, awesome show.

Keep up the great work. I can't wait to participate in my first movement race. I was on your website this morning looking for one. You seem to be a little west coast heavy at the moment, but that's okay. We will get you there at some point.

squadcaster-87b5_1_10-29-2025_080500: Totally. Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure speaking with you and um, yeah.

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