1 00:00:00,577 --> 00:00:01,298 Hi everyone. 2 00:00:01,298 --> 00:00:06,443 Welcome to the Bright Signal Podcast, where we cut through the noise and bring you the latest tech news and interviews. 3 00:00:06,443 --> 00:00:09,507 My name is Morello and I'm joined by my friends Bart and Rafael. 4 00:00:09,507 --> 00:00:13,780 And we just had a very nice talk actually with Stepan from Wyder 5 00:00:13,899 --> 00:00:23,996 Yes, Stéphane is the CEO and co-founder of Wyder, which is a very young Belgian solution for endurance athletes, runners, cyclists and swimmers that is bringing coaching and 6 00:00:23,996 --> 00:00:31,131 training to the next level by solving a very specific problem, training with others without blowing up your personal plan. 7 00:00:31,131 --> 00:00:38,955 So their pitch is easy, post a session, nearby athletes join in a tap and logistics is handled. 8 00:00:39,155 --> 00:00:40,996 So let's get to the interview. 9 00:00:40,997 --> 00:00:42,174 Let's get to the interview. 10 00:00:44,952 --> 00:00:48,793 Hi Stepan and then very happy to have you on board here. 11 00:00:48,793 --> 00:00:53,244 uh Stepan is the one of the founders and CEO of Wyder. 12 00:00:53,244 --> 00:01:00,816 We're gonna get all into what Wyder does but let's perhaps first let Stepan introduce himself. 13 00:01:00,817 --> 00:01:01,457 Indeed. 14 00:01:01,457 --> 00:01:02,478 Thank you for having me on. 15 00:01:02,478 --> 00:01:04,548 It's it's a pleasure to speak to you all. 16 00:01:04,548 --> 00:01:08,562 and uh hello to all of the viewers of Bright Signal. 17 00:01:08,562 --> 00:01:10,435 I'm Stepan as Bart introduced me. 18 00:01:10,435 --> 00:01:19,140 originally French-Russian, uh been in Belgium for about three years, background in international management and strategy, and uh also a past in consulting, value 19 00:01:19,140 --> 00:01:25,334 realization, and uh now tackling uh first-time founder journey at uh at Wyder 20 00:01:25,335 --> 00:01:28,419 Cool and impressive background. 21 00:01:28,419 --> 00:01:33,734 Maybe to make the jump to wider, wider is very sports focused, right? 22 00:01:33,734 --> 00:01:40,510 Can you give us a bit of an overview of what wider is, but also what is the origin story? 23 00:01:40,510 --> 00:01:46,375 How did you get from that very much business focused background into a sports startup? 24 00:01:46,596 --> 00:01:47,086 Indeed. 25 00:01:47,086 --> 00:01:54,631 Yeah, no, it's it's an interesting story because I think uh it's quite tied together at my time at uh during uh my time at Deloitte. 26 00:01:54,631 --> 00:02:00,854 I got really into long distance travel on so it started with a half Iron Man and then eventually moved on to a full one. 27 00:02:00,854 --> 00:02:06,378 And uh during my time in training, of course, with the intense hours, I was training a lot alone. 28 00:02:06,378 --> 00:02:15,394 And uh although at the end of uh my block and when I finally completed my first Iron Man in September of this year, it was great accomplishment. 29 00:02:15,394 --> 00:02:24,705 I was really happy, but I was also very burnt out and burnt out aside from physically, also mentally, because I spent the last 18 weeks basically in isolation, as finding 30 00:02:24,705 --> 00:02:30,464 training partners and people to actually share that journey with was really complicated. 31 00:02:30,464 --> 00:02:37,250 I looked and I couldn't find a way that would both allow me to hit my goals and yeah, find somebody like-minded. 32 00:02:37,250 --> 00:02:42,954 So I turned to a couple of friends, uh software engineers as well, and uh we went on this journey together to build. 33 00:02:42,954 --> 00:02:43,428 Wyder. 34 00:02:43,428 --> 00:02:53,833 water as we like to call it is uh the world's biggest endurance sports club that you fit in your pocket it's platform which allows uh you to uh train with other people by posting 35 00:02:53,833 --> 00:03:05,809 your upcoming workouts but also it uh allows you very to very seamlessly uh create training plans either with our own uh yeah agentic system in place or also now we're 36 00:03:05,809 --> 00:03:12,572 starting to introduce uh yeah coaching uh functionality so that if you already have a coach that you work with uh we can 37 00:03:12,572 --> 00:03:21,745 enable them to train you through the wider application and save them uh the admin tasks by uh yeah saving them time with a AI co pilot. 38 00:03:21,745 --> 00:03:24,989 So that's a little bit about what we do and how we got there. 39 00:03:25,071 --> 00:03:25,753 Cool, cool. 40 00:03:25,753 --> 00:03:31,406 And can you explain a bit, you were saying you were doing it with two friends, how does the founding team look like? 41 00:03:31,656 --> 00:03:33,527 Yeah, so we're with three. 42 00:03:33,527 --> 00:03:43,873 Uh we're Rafael who is a software engineer uh and did a master's in AI uh and data science and Matthias who's a biomedical engineer. 43 00:03:43,873 --> 00:03:53,707 Rafael does most of the programming and Mateas is uh transversal across the two business and tech, and he does the project management as well uh for Wyder. 44 00:03:53,707 --> 00:03:58,229 So yeah, of course, applying his uh background in the medical field. 45 00:03:58,397 --> 00:04:03,186 do you all have like a sports interest, hobby, background? 46 00:04:03,711 --> 00:04:04,111 Of course. 47 00:04:04,111 --> 00:04:05,062 Yeah. 48 00:04:05,062 --> 00:04:05,622 Yeah. 49 00:04:05,622 --> 00:04:06,103 Indeed. 50 00:04:06,103 --> 00:04:07,345 All three of us are athletes. 51 00:04:07,345 --> 00:04:11,218 So as I mentioned before, uh I'm a long distance triathlete. 52 00:04:11,218 --> 00:04:13,911 Rafael is a runner, quite avid. 53 00:04:13,911 --> 00:04:25,054 he's training for a seventy-five K run uh now, trail run, and Mateas is quite avid cyclist, now turn tri athlete, um by peer pressure via myself, yours truly. 54 00:04:25,054 --> 00:04:25,886 So yeah. 55 00:04:25,886 --> 00:04:27,247 And and and how did it go? 56 00:04:27,247 --> 00:04:36,576 Like you you had the same patient and then and then just you just say to each other, Okay, let's build together a solution around that or uh you had an ID and then and then just 57 00:04:36,576 --> 00:04:39,248 call Mateus and and Rafael to to build it? 58 00:04:39,249 --> 00:04:49,974 Um I actually yeah I had the pain at first so it started with the pain and I was I was talking at first with Mateus and I was saying yeah it it it it's it's not not a great it's 59 00:04:49,974 --> 00:04:59,218 a very lonely journey there has to be a better way I couldn't really join all of the social clubs and social runs that were popping off at that time uh even though I really 60 00:04:59,218 --> 00:05:02,811 wanted to they looked very fun but they just couldn't fit with my plan. 61 00:05:02,811 --> 00:05:05,399 I spoke to Mateus, he had the similar problem. 62 00:05:05,399 --> 00:05:08,013 Uh we started a bit ideating on what the 63 00:05:08,013 --> 00:05:09,614 pot potential solution could be. 64 00:05:09,614 --> 00:05:19,940 And then uh Mateus was at that time working at a different startup with uh Rafael and uh we started talking the three of us uh first over over a drink uh more for more as a hobby 65 00:05:19,940 --> 00:05:27,513 and then uh progressively over months it involved evolved to us finally leaving our our jobs and going full time on it three months ago. 66 00:05:27,513 --> 00:05:29,031 So that's yeah 67 00:05:29,031 --> 00:05:35,788 i is is it scary to go from uh like a full time job in a in a consulting company to to entrepreneurship? 68 00:05:35,789 --> 00:05:46,864 It is, but at the same time at the moment things were moving and they're still are moving that fast that it was scary to think about staying because uh we were thinking, yeah, we 69 00:05:46,864 --> 00:05:53,839 either let this drop because it was becoming unsustainable to maintain both at the same time, or we go for it full time. 70 00:05:53,839 --> 00:06:03,133 So there is also was a certain amount of peace with making the decision because at that point you knew, yeah, this is my goal, this is what I'm I'm working with, uh I don't need 71 00:06:03,133 --> 00:06:04,744 to split my time anymore. 72 00:06:04,744 --> 00:06:05,176 So 73 00:06:05,176 --> 00:06:10,391 it's it's a double edged edged sword, uh but as a first time founder of course there's the nerves. 74 00:06:10,393 --> 00:06:13,756 And you said three months ago you you are dedicating this full time? 75 00:06:13,756 --> 00:06:15,760 How how old is wider? 76 00:06:15,761 --> 00:06:21,948 So the initial idea for Wyder started mid summer, last summer, but I was in the very ideation phase. 77 00:06:21,948 --> 00:06:25,412 And we really started working on it uh in October. 78 00:06:25,412 --> 00:06:35,350 first it was uh one eighth time, then a quarter time, then half time, and eventually built up to being uh parallel full-time job uh to what we were doing at the time. 79 00:06:35,350 --> 00:06:43,026 And then February the thirteenth was my last day at at Deloitte and uh my colleagues they they was 80 00:06:43,401 --> 00:06:46,065 Based on notice period, there was one or two weeks later. 81 00:06:46,065 --> 00:06:47,308 So starting from then. 82 00:06:47,308 --> 00:06:50,251 Um so yeah, two and a half, three months ago. 83 00:06:50,252 --> 00:07:03,187 cool maybe to focus a bit on like what wider is like you already explained a bit like I also installed the application myself on my iPhone so 84 00:07:03,187 --> 00:07:08,971 What I understand is like you can create workouts, you can potentially invite other people to join your workout. 85 00:07:08,971 --> 00:07:18,298 And next to that, since recently you also have these AI coaching features, which is new to me, like you also allow human coaches to coach athletes. 86 00:07:18,298 --> 00:07:19,511 There are... 87 00:07:19,511 --> 00:07:21,294 quite a few of these type of applications, right? 88 00:07:21,294 --> 00:07:23,799 Like what makes Wyder stand out? 89 00:07:23,799 --> 00:07:30,190 Like what is your, what makes it stand out and also, maybe also what, who is your ideal customer here? 90 00:07:30,191 --> 00:07:32,025 Yeah, it's a it's a very good question. 91 00:07:32,025 --> 00:07:32,665 Uh 92 00:07:32,665 --> 00:07:36,477 What makes us stand out is that we're the first social coaching application. 93 00:07:36,477 --> 00:07:43,240 So uh a lot of the time applications like maybe the Strava clubs or the run clubs that you see online, they really focus on the social aspects. 94 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,375 So joining together, having a coffee after. 95 00:07:46,375 --> 00:07:56,466 Uh and then on the other side of the spectrum, the training applications uh are very focused on uh hyper scientific training and optimization for performance. 96 00:07:56,466 --> 00:08:02,080 And we saw that's for somebody like ourselves, uh people that are working, so that's a bit ties 97 00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:05,423 Into your second question about the ICP. 98 00:08:05,423 --> 00:08:15,418 Both are important, but both play a very major role because you cannot follow a plan if your social life and professional life is falling under because we're not professional 99 00:08:15,418 --> 00:08:16,188 athletes. 100 00:08:16,188 --> 00:08:26,585 But at the same time, uh yeah, if you're training for something like an Ironman or a long trail distance or yeah, a triathlon, even even a quarter triathlon requires very quite 101 00:08:26,585 --> 00:08:27,610 heavy dedication. 102 00:08:27,610 --> 00:08:31,664 you would need quite quite a heavy structure. 103 00:08:31,664 --> 00:08:37,911 So it's balancing the two, the focus on performance and the f while finding like minded people like yourself. 104 00:08:37,911 --> 00:08:38,371 there. 105 00:08:38,371 --> 00:08:53,478 So if we look at our CP it's young professionals, people aged from about uh twenty three to thirty-five, forty years old, uh typically living in in bigger cities and working uh at 106 00:08:53,478 --> 00:08:54,638 the at the corporate job. 107 00:08:54,638 --> 00:08:58,030 That's that's what we've identified for our first wedge. 108 00:08:58,030 --> 00:09:04,091 and by avid we also mean people that train five hours or more uh a week. 109 00:09:04,091 --> 00:09:07,936 So that's a little bit who we're targeting at the moment. 110 00:09:08,182 --> 00:09:10,372 It's already serious endurance at least, right? 111 00:09:10,372 --> 00:09:11,776 Five hours or more. 112 00:09:11,947 --> 00:09:12,508 Indeed. 113 00:09:12,508 --> 00:09:13,540 Yes, indeed. 114 00:09:13,540 --> 00:09:16,674 That's that's who we want to focus on at first. 115 00:09:16,696 --> 00:09:17,198 Yes. 116 00:09:17,198 --> 00:09:21,648 there a reason to why you're focusing on these type of athletes? 117 00:09:21,829 --> 00:09:22,460 Yeah, indeed. 118 00:09:22,460 --> 00:09:34,694 We see uh that those athletes are ones that have already tried um many solutions or are quite uh let's say uh aware of what's present on the market and uh technologically 119 00:09:34,696 --> 00:09:37,749 They have a certain technological proclivity. 120 00:09:37,749 --> 00:09:39,270 They've used tools before. 121 00:09:39,270 --> 00:09:41,263 They have wearables most often. 122 00:09:41,263 --> 00:09:46,297 And also they their average spend on the hobby is quite high. 123 00:09:46,297 --> 00:09:57,459 So triathlete a triathlete can spend upwards of three and a half thousand euros a year on their hobby, which is why we believe the pay readiness in that sector in our first uh 124 00:09:57,459 --> 00:10:00,040 stages is uh is the highest. 125 00:10:00,041 --> 00:10:01,962 Maybe to walk me through as well. 126 00:10:01,962 --> 00:10:04,585 Like if I let's imagine I I'm friends with Bart. 127 00:10:04,585 --> 00:10:06,046 Imagine, hypothetically. 128 00:10:06,046 --> 00:10:11,019 But imagine that w do we need to run the same race to to have this social component. 129 00:10:11,019 --> 00:10:13,721 How does the app work if for someone that don't don't know? 130 00:10:13,721 --> 00:10:14,832 Yeah, just to 131 00:10:14,879 --> 00:10:17,641 We like to give the example of a marketplace. 132 00:10:17,641 --> 00:10:20,863 and say you are training for a marathon. 133 00:10:20,863 --> 00:10:25,195 And next week you on Saturday you need to run twenty kilometers. 134 00:10:25,195 --> 00:10:28,007 But yeah, twenty kilometers is a long time. 135 00:10:28,007 --> 00:10:36,752 you don't want to do it by yourself, but you have a certain pace that you need to run, either hopefully assigned by the wider coach or maybe in in some somewhere else. 136 00:10:36,752 --> 00:10:41,415 and you post that workout on Wyder, you say next Saturday. 137 00:10:41,415 --> 00:10:47,781 At 9 a.m., I want to run 20 kilometers at a pace of 530 minutes per kilometer. 138 00:10:47,781 --> 00:10:54,468 You can even upload the route so that people that join can easily export it to their wearable and be able to navigate it. 139 00:10:54,468 --> 00:11:01,953 And then BAT with uh C that workout if the visibility options that you selected allow it. 140 00:11:01,953 --> 00:11:04,335 So the privacy is fully in the hands of the user. 141 00:11:04,335 --> 00:11:07,399 You can choose that maybe everybody in the area can see the uh 142 00:11:07,399 --> 00:11:08,450 workout. 143 00:11:08,450 --> 00:11:16,917 Maybe only specifically people that you're in in the same group that you're a part of or only your friends can see that workout or you can even make it invite only so only the 144 00:11:16,917 --> 00:11:19,741 people that you actively invite would be able to see it. 145 00:11:19,741 --> 00:11:28,858 Which removes obviously the friction because now as an athlete, uh before wider I would spend half an hour in fifteen group chats sending messages. 146 00:11:28,858 --> 00:11:30,129 I can't, yes, I can. 147 00:11:30,129 --> 00:11:33,472 Which pace, which duration, which distance, where do we start? 148 00:11:33,472 --> 00:11:40,778 And then you end up, yeah, spending uh time, mental space and effort just to end up training alone because nobody responded in time. 149 00:11:40,778 --> 00:11:43,640 So that's a little bit what what drove that first 150 00:11:44,077 --> 00:11:45,461 Yeah, idea. 151 00:11:45,461 --> 00:11:48,568 And of course we built on top of it with a coach. 152 00:11:48,705 --> 00:11:52,089 That can first of all take all of those social workouts into account. 153 00:11:52,089 --> 00:11:58,115 See that uh, for example, next week you have on Wednesday a workout planned with somebody else. 154 00:11:58,115 --> 00:12:04,582 Let me fit that into the training, maybe add a little bit to it, maybe make a rest day after, because that's already quite a lot. 155 00:12:04,582 --> 00:12:12,889 and then of course, all of the workouts that the coach creates for you, you can post to wider just with one click and confirming a couple details. 156 00:12:13,001 --> 00:12:18,761 And that's coach is the AI coach or the human coach or any. 157 00:12:19,166 --> 00:12:22,148 For now, the only the AI coach is in place. 158 00:12:22,148 --> 00:12:25,490 The human coach integration is something that we're working on and ideating. 159 00:12:25,490 --> 00:12:34,637 We're having conversations right now with coaches to see what their needs are and to yeah build the platform around them to really help them uh optimize their time. 160 00:12:34,637 --> 00:12:37,629 So this is a feature that we're still currently building. 161 00:12:37,629 --> 00:12:39,839 It's not yet in place in the application. 162 00:12:39,935 --> 00:12:49,853 Maybe I also I w I have more questions on the the coach part, but uh but before I go there, so you you mentioned the workflow for for someone that is initiating, let's say, 163 00:12:49,853 --> 00:12:51,806 that is organizing the the run, the workout. 164 00:12:51,806 --> 00:12:55,099 if like we are connected and you want to run, do I get a notification on my app? 165 00:12:55,099 --> 00:12:56,240 How does how does that work? 166 00:12:56,240 --> 00:13:03,045 Or do I have to log in the app to to see how how does that go for the the person that is not organizing the the the run? 167 00:13:03,236 --> 00:13:04,977 Yeah, so there's an explore page. 168 00:13:04,977 --> 00:13:15,722 Um you can enter when you enter in the app, ranked by location, you can see everybody around you that is yeah, either in your circle or just uh available to you. 169 00:13:15,722 --> 00:13:21,216 You can scroll for all the workouts that are available and uh you can see the paces and the distances there. 170 00:13:21,216 --> 00:13:24,388 You can filter them as well with a filter that that we have in place. 171 00:13:24,388 --> 00:13:30,431 and then once you enter it, you can see which route it is, export the route directly to your wearable, you can uh 172 00:13:30,431 --> 00:13:37,701 Yeah, copy the addresses, uh and uh yeah, you can join the workouts and check in to say that you're you're joining. 173 00:13:37,702 --> 00:13:44,512 So your app is also useful for uh people who usually train alone, which is for example my case. 174 00:13:44,574 --> 00:13:51,925 like to it gives also a nudge for uh sharing a session like a run or a swimming session for with other people. 175 00:13:51,926 --> 00:14:05,032 That's that's a very big part of what we're trying to do as well is is encourage people to connect more because in this this age of uh yeah hyperdigitalization, a lot of uh 176 00:14:05,032 --> 00:14:16,026 connection is online and we really want to try uh and enable people to uh connect in the real world, uh share workout together, uh share a real connection because we truly believe 177 00:14:16,026 --> 00:14:18,910 that's very important now for mental health as well. 178 00:14:18,911 --> 00:14:28,691 So it's a social platform, like the challenge of a social platform is also that you need to have a lot of people on there for it to be social. 179 00:14:28,691 --> 00:14:31,991 Like, you share a bit on your approach there? 180 00:14:31,991 --> 00:14:36,251 You need to start from scratch and like where, how do you tackle this? 181 00:14:36,251 --> 00:14:37,911 How do you grow your user base? 182 00:14:37,911 --> 00:14:41,731 Can you also show maybe a bit on what is your current user base? 183 00:14:42,008 --> 00:14:42,774 Yes. 184 00:14:43,019 --> 00:14:47,311 Maybe the easiest way to to to talk about this is about our journey so far. 185 00:14:47,311 --> 00:14:53,296 So we're Leuven based and we we were founded directly in uh in the tracks of Aremberg. 186 00:14:53,296 --> 00:15:00,527 and there we started our first yeah application and the application was initially blocked off to everybody that's outside of Leuven. 187 00:15:00,527 --> 00:15:08,413 meaning that if you wanted to join from from Antwerp, instead of showing you a blank screen with no workouts in it, we just kindly asked you to 188 00:15:08,413 --> 00:15:21,545 sign up on the wait list which allowed us to uh amass a critical mass in a specific city before uh expanding outwards because but uh as you mentioned that's uh our the power of 189 00:15:21,545 --> 00:15:25,330 our platform lies a lot in uh the user base 190 00:15:25,330 --> 00:15:31,772 Then we would focus our efforts on go-to-market in a specific city by collaborating with local businesses. 191 00:15:31,772 --> 00:15:40,829 So local running stores, even student organizations, although we haven't been students for a little while, communities, uh running communities in the city, doing joint events with 192 00:15:40,829 --> 00:15:43,770 them and therefore attracting people to our platform. 193 00:15:43,991 --> 00:15:50,910 last week we've hit a thousand four hundred euro 1400 users on our platform in Leuven only. 194 00:15:51,131 --> 00:16:00,280 And we uh so about two months and a half after, and we are expand we have expanded to Antwerp last Friday with our launch event here. 195 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:03,245 And that is our second city that we're tackling. 196 00:16:03,245 --> 00:16:15,400 Course scalability on long term is very important for us and going from city by city and focusing all the founding teams effort on on uh one city is uh not scalable on the long 197 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:26,364 term, which is why we want to uh work with ambassadors and we're already going to start testing this in Leuven with some uh influencers becoming wider ambassadors and yeah 198 00:16:26,364 --> 00:16:27,963 helping us uh 199 00:16:27,991 --> 00:16:32,252 continue activate the community there while our efforts can shift. 200 00:16:32,593 --> 00:16:35,395 Maybe to zoom into the Leuven user base. 201 00:16:35,395 --> 00:16:38,837 It's impressive to build such a user base in such a short period. 202 00:16:38,837 --> 00:16:41,371 But like, is it critical enough mass? 203 00:16:41,371 --> 00:16:49,047 Like this, like these thousand, 400 people, do you see that they create enough workouts and these people participate enough? 204 00:16:49,047 --> 00:16:59,036 Like, because I can imagine like a lot of people that join will be passive in a sense that they're going to look at interesting workouts that pass by, but they're not going to... 205 00:16:59,036 --> 00:17:00,870 host one themselves, right. 206 00:17:00,956 --> 00:17:01,446 Indeed. 207 00:17:01,446 --> 00:17:07,280 Yeah, that's that's uh that's a big part of what that's a big challenge that uh of course we have to tackle. 208 00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:11,262 because a lot of uh users as as we see they're very eager to join. 209 00:17:11,262 --> 00:17:18,264 And whenever we host a workout, we we've had events with more than seventy people joining at at once. 210 00:17:18,614 --> 00:17:25,472 but hosting we have uh key users uh that we already we don't know them personally, but yeah, we see them 211 00:17:25,639 --> 00:17:29,075 ten, fifteen, twenty users that are posting quite often. 212 00:17:29,075 --> 00:17:38,939 And the activation of the broader community that is that remains uh a challenge and we're quite transparent at that and we're working on ways to activate the user base through 213 00:17:38,939 --> 00:17:41,431 gamification challenges, things like that. 214 00:17:41,433 --> 00:17:42,358 And and 215 00:17:42,358 --> 00:17:46,353 the these these the special users quote unquote uh somehow differently? 216 00:17:46,353 --> 00:17:51,790 Like the because I feel like they're very foundational, right, for the app to to to f flourish. 217 00:17:51,790 --> 00:17:55,714 Do you have any special I don't know, plans or anything? 218 00:17:55,919 --> 00:18:00,510 Yeah, so um we've run a campaign called uh wider champion before. 219 00:18:00,510 --> 00:18:11,008 we've had gamification where for uh each join of a workout you would get one point and for each host of our workout you would gain three plus one point for every person that joins. 220 00:18:11,008 --> 00:18:19,374 and the winner of that would get uh a t-shirt from wider with the date and the word champion on the back in uh big letters. 221 00:18:19,374 --> 00:18:20,624 and we've also introduced 222 00:18:20,917 --> 00:18:33,815 We've recently gone through a UI uh UX redesign about uh let's say a week ago, uh week and a half ago, uh, which is why the gamification still needs to catch up to that, uh, as it's 223 00:18:33,815 --> 00:18:35,586 it's not yet in the new version. 224 00:18:35,586 --> 00:18:43,802 But indeed that's that's a that's a point that we isolated uh a month, a month and a half ago, and we really want to foster those users and make them feel very welcome on the 225 00:18:43,802 --> 00:18:44,723 platform. 226 00:18:44,819 --> 00:18:47,681 And do you work with current running clubs? 227 00:18:47,681 --> 00:18:50,353 Because there are more and more running clubs in in the cities. 228 00:18:50,353 --> 00:18:56,030 For example, in Brussels, I think there is a new running club popping up every every month. 229 00:18:56,030 --> 00:18:59,693 it creates a big user, like uh a hub of users. 230 00:18:59,693 --> 00:19:03,426 You can also benefit from this kind of of running clubs or 231 00:19:03,427 --> 00:19:11,964 Are the question is also are you replacing uh a running club or are you using also running club to get these ambassadors in your in your app? 232 00:19:12,337 --> 00:19:13,437 We are working together. 233 00:19:13,437 --> 00:19:16,600 We would say we we would want to work together with running clubs. 234 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:26,113 We don't definitely want to replace them as uh we want to position ourselves as the platform for social uh social events and uh yeah endurance events. 235 00:19:26,113 --> 00:19:35,176 here in Antwerp, for example, we hosted it uh ourselves, our launch event together with uh Hoka, the shoe brand, and Cofero, which is an endurance hub here. 236 00:19:35,237 --> 00:19:46,349 in Leuven on the other hand we have done yeah collaborations with yeah Absolute Run which is a store that also has quite a big community such a as a as a running club together. 237 00:19:46,349 --> 00:19:51,031 we've of course worked as as mentioned before with Apollon for example. 238 00:19:51,031 --> 00:20:02,170 We've worked with yeah Triathlon Londeren and uh Tedel Leuven which is yeah traveling clubs uh in and uh around Leuven and as well with shoe retailers uh quite 239 00:20:02,170 --> 00:20:11,793 quite a good uh with uh shoe manufacturers rather yeah so we've had cohabitation new balance as well with brooks as mentioned with hoka so that's a little bit the avenues of 240 00:20:11,793 --> 00:20:14,336 growth that that we've been pursuing so far. 241 00:20:14,337 --> 00:20:15,764 Nice collaborations. 242 00:20:15,765 --> 00:20:24,874 And over on the topic of collaboration, you were mentioning that you're going to try out collaboration with influencers to also grow user base in certain geographic areas. 243 00:20:24,874 --> 00:20:31,140 I was wondering, do you already have a view on how you're going to incentivize influencers to do these things? 244 00:20:31,140 --> 00:20:31,961 how do you tackle this? 245 00:20:31,961 --> 00:20:34,122 Do you have a standard proposal? 246 00:20:34,122 --> 00:20:37,628 Or is this always very custom made for a certain influencer? 247 00:20:37,628 --> 00:20:45,231 What was very interesting to us when we started this journey is that we assumed that um influencers would be very monetarily driven. 248 00:20:45,231 --> 00:20:50,635 we we assumed that influencers uh would want money and it would be a simple exchange of goods. 249 00:20:50,635 --> 00:21:02,111 what we realize now is that we were wrong in that assumption and um most influencers or a lot of them, especially uh micro influencers, for them the alignment with the brand is a 250 00:21:02,111 --> 00:21:04,586 lot more important and the delivery of 251 00:21:04,586 --> 00:21:06,377 an experience as well. 252 00:21:06,377 --> 00:21:17,313 So f i in of course if if we start yeah tackling uh the larger scale influencers, people with more than uh let's say uh more or around fifty thousand followers, yeah, typically 253 00:21:17,313 --> 00:21:19,596 there's management and management fees to pay. 254 00:21:19,596 --> 00:21:20,931 but before that it's 255 00:21:20,931 --> 00:21:24,335 uh alignment and typically barter of goods and and hosting good events. 256 00:21:24,335 --> 00:21:32,755 As we had quite for example at the our launch event here in Antwerp, we had quite a lot of influencers join and as well do content about it as the event. 257 00:21:32,755 --> 00:21:38,202 We had a DJ, we had drinks, we had uh a social run, we had uh music throughout the whole time. 258 00:21:38,202 --> 00:21:40,664 So of course it's also great content for them. 259 00:21:40,666 --> 00:21:51,786 Do already have a vision on, because you're in Jens, you started a few months ago, so it's still very early days, but do you already have a vision on how you're going to monetize? 260 00:21:51,786 --> 00:21:53,196 Because I can see... 261 00:21:53,272 --> 00:21:54,784 Like a lot of different things, right? 262 00:21:54,784 --> 00:21:57,598 You have people joining workouts, you could monetize that. 263 00:21:57,598 --> 00:21:59,570 Like you have a coaching aspect that you can monetize. 264 00:21:59,570 --> 00:22:02,995 You can have a human coach that wants to coach other people that you could monetize. 265 00:22:02,995 --> 00:22:06,459 You uh organize events for brands which you could monetize. 266 00:22:06,459 --> 00:22:11,825 Like, do you already have an idea on where this will lead in the coming few years? 267 00:22:12,243 --> 00:22:17,797 Yeah, um the main thing that we're working on right now, so we have two two levers that we want to work on. 268 00:22:17,797 --> 00:22:25,484 Firstly is our B2C lever, which is the training plans, the specifically the AI coaching that we have in the application. 269 00:22:25,484 --> 00:22:30,724 We launched it last Friday as well, adjacent to our launch uh in Antwerp. 270 00:22:30,724 --> 00:22:32,511 Good timing for the interview. 271 00:22:32,936 --> 00:22:33,858 Yes, indeed. 272 00:22:33,858 --> 00:22:34,620 Think so too. 273 00:22:34,620 --> 00:22:37,552 and that is uh priced at fourteen euros a month. 274 00:22:37,552 --> 00:22:49,691 So quite below a coach, but yeah uh delivering uh yeah of course not the same uh not the same experience, but somebody that you can uh talk to and ask for advice and that is more 275 00:22:49,691 --> 00:22:53,124 aware of your context than other solutions that are out there now. 276 00:22:53,125 --> 00:23:02,394 and then the second lever that we are working on is our B2B lever, which is of course still in more the ideation phase than uh yeah, still live. 277 00:23:02,394 --> 00:23:09,250 Uh and there like platfor we are tackling the approach and the main consumer being the coach. 278 00:23:09,250 --> 00:23:14,375 So the coach to pay for the service of having their athletes trained through wider. 279 00:23:14,788 --> 00:23:23,183 So maybe just to recap for people that don't know the app or something, so you said there is a there is a paid tier, which is the AI coach, but then everything else that we 280 00:23:23,183 --> 00:23:27,660 discussed, the social part of posting and gathering people, this is all free. 281 00:23:27,780 --> 00:23:28,250 Completely. 282 00:23:28,250 --> 00:23:28,981 Yeah. 283 00:23:28,981 --> 00:23:36,329 we see uh the the social layer of wider as a flywheel for the premium uh layer. 284 00:23:36,329 --> 00:23:46,182 So we believe that it enhances the experience of a user, of course, to have to be able to post their workouts and and train socially, which is why we want to keep it free and use 285 00:23:46,182 --> 00:23:48,364 that as a funnel for for users. 286 00:23:48,365 --> 00:23:55,369 So the the free to to paid conversion ratio will be really important for you in the coming months. 287 00:23:55,577 --> 00:23:59,231 Yeah, that's North Storm metric that that we look at, indeed. 288 00:23:59,232 --> 00:24:09,500 think it makes sense that with that approach that you focus on athletes that have a high willingness to pay, which typically is indeed triathletes, right? 289 00:24:09,500 --> 00:24:19,988 The 30 plus triathletes that is used to paying a lot for nutrition, a lot for material, a lot for coaching. 290 00:24:19,988 --> 00:24:30,494 Because you do have this weird dynamic, if you don't look in this small niche of the 30 plus triathlete, there is this weird thing where people won't bat an eye on buying a bike 291 00:24:30,494 --> 00:24:36,696 of 3000 euros, 4000 euros, but they will not pay 10 euros for a Strava subscription per month, right? 292 00:24:36,696 --> 00:24:45,780 There is this weird disjoint in willingness to pay here, but in certain groups like triathletes, think there's definitely willingness to pay. 293 00:24:46,005 --> 00:24:50,327 we've noticed that there's selves um and in ourselves as well. 294 00:24:50,327 --> 00:24:59,589 Um because there's uh as you mentioned, people that pay thousands of euros for a bike, but they still use my woosh instead of Zwift, and because that's the free solution uh for 295 00:24:59,589 --> 00:25:00,599 cycling. 296 00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:10,295 and there we we're trying to isolate because we've had this discussion ourselves within the team of what separates something that the uh athlete is ready to pay for versus not. 297 00:25:10,295 --> 00:25:15,577 And what we see is that uh performance gain is a very strong stimuli. 298 00:25:15,577 --> 00:25:25,565 And uh yeah, if we can of course position ourselves as as a tool that can help you improve your performance rather than just uh, for example, analyze data, it's it increases the 299 00:25:25,565 --> 00:25:27,846 willingness to pay of a of an athlete. 300 00:25:27,847 --> 00:25:38,318 And in terms of of of data, do you gather data from wearables, for example Garmin or like Choros data, to to give the personalized training? 301 00:25:38,318 --> 00:25:47,235 I I I mean the AI training, not like the the coach training, because with the coach training there is a discussion also um so more on the AI coach. 302 00:25:47,236 --> 00:25:48,226 Indeed, yes. 303 00:25:48,226 --> 00:25:56,542 So uh we're very happy that uh since uh a couple of weeks ago we managed to integrate with most leading wearable manufacturers. 304 00:25:56,542 --> 00:26:03,076 So we have a connection with uh Garmin, Koros, uh Polar, Sunto as well and 305 00:26:03,460 --> 00:26:16,217 course uh allows us to give uh quite a good amount of context to our uh agent to make very informed decisions based on yeah on on the volume uh to assign to a specific athlete but 306 00:26:16,217 --> 00:26:22,471 also on the type of training and as well on some metrics and of course on the completion of a specific workout. 307 00:26:22,471 --> 00:26:31,177 adaptations we're still working with it like active adaptations but already our our platform is able to see if you have or haven't completed a specific workout 308 00:26:31,177 --> 00:26:41,967 of course if you recorded it with a wearable and it allows you to analyze it and uh yeah a adjust your load saying yeah this workout went this way, have a look and yeah. 309 00:26:41,969 --> 00:26:48,338 What I find interesting is that you were already able to integrate with a lot of major hardware vendors. 310 00:26:48,338 --> 00:27:01,321 I've noticed, not necessarily in this niche, but that one of the side effects of the AI native software development is that everybody is currently developing that project that 311 00:27:01,321 --> 00:27:03,012 they had in mind 10 years ago. 312 00:27:03,212 --> 00:27:11,700 which basically means that we see queues appearing at every integration application form. 313 00:27:11,700 --> 00:27:14,602 Things like Google Auth takes way longer. 314 00:27:14,602 --> 00:27:16,353 can imagine Garmin takes way longer. 315 00:27:16,353 --> 00:27:19,007 There was a lot of stuff about Strava Auth taking way longer. 316 00:27:19,007 --> 00:27:24,361 Did you notice this in this integration process, that it was harder than it would have been two years ago? 317 00:27:24,825 --> 00:27:25,294 It. 318 00:27:25,294 --> 00:27:29,027 was one of the biggest challenges that we faced in the last couple of months. 319 00:27:29,027 --> 00:27:40,725 wearable integration was taking ages and we still weren't getting approval uh and we weren't even getting yeah an email back unfortunately at that time to the point where uh I 320 00:27:40,725 --> 00:27:52,050 was calling uh at uh very uh early mornings American uh Garmin's Garmin's number for fishing trawlers to somehow get the human on the phone and ask 321 00:27:52,050 --> 00:27:55,074 Yeah what's what's going on and how how can we get there. 322 00:27:55,074 --> 00:28:04,813 which is why we finally managed to find a way to integrate through a third party uh service solution uh which works structuring data. 323 00:28:04,824 --> 00:28:07,436 so we're collaborating, collaborating with them on that. 324 00:28:07,436 --> 00:28:12,795 And we were very happy to uh yeah reach that because it was a big stress point for us. 325 00:28:12,795 --> 00:28:21,496 I can imagine because you're extremely dependent on these hardware vendors, Especially something like Garmin, which has like 80 % of the market. 326 00:28:21,561 --> 00:28:22,451 Yeah, indeed. 327 00:28:22,451 --> 00:28:22,863 Indeed. 328 00:28:22,863 --> 00:28:31,629 Garmin, there was a workaround, of course, that we could use the Apple Health and it's not Android Health, but yeah, the Android ecosystem health application. 329 00:28:31,629 --> 00:28:41,564 but of course there, yeah, there was it was very prone to duplicates, uh and then aligning that data between different var wearables active time is calculated d differently. 330 00:28:41,564 --> 00:28:44,957 So there was uh yeah, uh a very large complication there. 331 00:28:44,957 --> 00:28:48,190 but indeed the dependency is very heavy uh for 332 00:28:48,190 --> 00:28:59,615 a lot of uh a lot of users now uh and uh yeah platforms as Strava and the the lawsuits that were going on in in the last couple of months as well have proven how important it is 333 00:28:59,615 --> 00:29:01,976 to all these platforms to also have credit for it. 334 00:29:01,976 --> 00:29:05,877 So that's uh yeah also something that we all of course keep in mind. 335 00:29:05,878 --> 00:29:10,884 Maybe um you mentioned how the AI coach also has access to these wearables, right? 336 00:29:10,884 --> 00:29:19,834 So how if I'm if I'm considering to to have the purchase the the paid subscription and using the coach, what else can I expect? 337 00:29:19,834 --> 00:29:21,865 Does it part also mention nutrition? 338 00:29:21,865 --> 00:29:26,572 What kinda advice or what kind of things can the the AI coach do? 339 00:29:26,572 --> 00:29:27,262 Yeah. 340 00:29:27,262 --> 00:29:27,764 Indeed. 341 00:29:27,764 --> 00:29:31,445 right now, so the the coach first of all generates your plan. 342 00:29:31,445 --> 00:29:39,849 So how how it works is that you uh enter in the flow and you tell it the the races that you have coming up and you set the priority to the race. 343 00:29:39,849 --> 00:29:50,684 So A for the most important races, B for the races uh that are still quite important for you but less important than the A, and C is for more recreational races that you're doing 344 00:29:50,684 --> 00:29:53,736 uh yeah on the side or as training. 345 00:29:53,736 --> 00:29:55,781 You set yeah the priorities, you set the 346 00:29:55,781 --> 00:29:59,695 Distances, your goal times, and after which you also connect your wearables. 347 00:30:00,116 --> 00:30:13,866 We import the historical data from them and we see what your volume has been in the last uh couple of weeks and months, and we uh create a uh overview of yeah where you are as an 348 00:30:13,866 --> 00:30:19,800 athlete right now, and we combine that also with the uh quantitative and qualitative input that a user gives. 349 00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:24,173 So I can say I'm a beginner, I'm advanced, I'm yeah uh 350 00:30:24,173 --> 00:30:34,505 uh quite yeah higher and active and also we combine that with the intensity uh and the time that the user has to dedicate so if you are want your plan to be competitive if you 351 00:30:34,505 --> 00:30:44,770 want it to be advanced if you want it to be beginner it's also about the intensity and we shape all of that yeah into the agents and therefore generate the plan on top of that to 352 00:30:44,770 --> 00:30:50,591 really make sure it can fit into the life of a of an athlete and combine with it. 353 00:30:50,592 --> 00:30:54,325 And maybe how so you mentioned like there's some input fields and all these things. 354 00:30:54,325 --> 00:30:56,396 How how does it how does it work? 355 00:30:56,396 --> 00:30:58,357 Like are the input fields very structured? 356 00:30:58,357 --> 00:30:59,467 Can I also write text? 357 00:30:59,467 --> 00:31:02,829 Can I kind of say like yeah, I'm kinda intermediate, but I like to do this sometimes? 358 00:31:02,829 --> 00:31:05,326 Or I got the question like, uh, are you a runner? 359 00:31:05,326 --> 00:31:09,771 I said, Well, not really, but I do play football, so you know, I wanted to start. 360 00:31:09,771 --> 00:31:15,222 So how how flexible is it and how how does it work in the in the back if you can discuss it as well of course? 361 00:31:15,222 --> 00:31:16,251 Yeah, of course. 362 00:31:16,251 --> 00:31:18,018 Um so uh 363 00:31:18,018 --> 00:31:19,899 We have different options. 364 00:31:19,899 --> 00:31:28,783 So we have a very structured and preset fields where yeah you can click and select yeah, I'm doing a uh long distance triathlon and then you indicate that. 365 00:31:28,783 --> 00:31:32,225 You indicate which sports that uh you do. 366 00:31:32,225 --> 00:31:37,469 So you can indicate I run, my typical running paces are between this and that. 367 00:31:37,469 --> 00:31:42,572 and my yeah metrics for that specific sport are X, Y, and Z. 368 00:31:42,572 --> 00:31:45,805 So for example, what's yeah, not to get into technicalities 369 00:31:45,805 --> 00:31:55,298 of of training but my thresholds lactate thresholds so how uh how my energy systems are used are this and this and if you don't know you can schedule a test as well and the coach 370 00:31:55,298 --> 00:31:58,022 will will create a test to determine those 371 00:31:58,022 --> 00:31:59,413 thresholds for you. 372 00:31:59,413 --> 00:32:08,148 So you can you can go with the more structured routes, but as well we have uh yeah a way right now if for example you want to do maintenance for now it's called maintenance you 373 00:32:08,148 --> 00:32:16,926 can in your own language explain to it I would like to increase my cycling power well threshold power let's say but again not to use too technical of terms I would like to 374 00:32:16,926 --> 00:32:24,219 increase my cycling power over the next uh twelve weeks let's say and uh the coach can take that 375 00:32:24,219 --> 00:32:34,462 into account, look at what your base level is and from the unstructured input that that you give create a program for your specific goal or for example if you're training for a 376 00:32:34,462 --> 00:32:41,329 short trail race which is a bit rarer you can also uh explain it in a least less structured way. 377 00:32:41,331 --> 00:32:43,474 If I how how flexible is this as well? 378 00:32:43,474 --> 00:32:51,823 Like if I say I'm I'm a football player and I wanna train for that, would it is I mean I know it's probably not the intended use, right? 379 00:32:51,823 --> 00:32:53,897 But uh how far can I push this? 380 00:32:53,897 --> 00:33:04,846 You can definitely d indicate your your level there, but typically if you would say yeah, uh I do run, but I don't know how how much I run because I'm a football player, I don't 381 00:33:04,846 --> 00:33:07,090 typically do efforts on the distance. 382 00:33:07,090 --> 00:33:10,802 What you can say is indicate uh yeah a specific 383 00:33:10,804 --> 00:33:12,995 Indicate that you need a specific test to do it. 384 00:33:12,995 --> 00:33:23,430 And then based on your fitness level, the agent will schedule a s a test in your calendar for the upcoming couple of weeks that you would execute and then give the feedback back 385 00:33:23,430 --> 00:33:24,691 into our application. 386 00:33:24,691 --> 00:33:30,916 Say I hit this average pace and this average heart rate uh for that specific test. 387 00:33:30,916 --> 00:33:38,960 and then it would take that into account to adjust your training zones and adjust your plan in advance, but it uh fully unstructured. 388 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:52,121 we chose not to do that just because we need to that's also one of the challenges that we have is balancing the safety of the training and uh yeah its validity with freedom. 389 00:33:52,355 --> 00:34:05,475 So on the one hand, we can give the agent a lot of freedom to make decisions for the user, but then of course we compromise the yeah, we we risk the training plans not being up to 390 00:34:05,475 --> 00:34:17,052 our standards, which is why we chose to limit the journey to a certain extent so we can have more control and be more confident of the outputs that it that it gives. 391 00:34:17,053 --> 00:34:22,629 And to to to give like personalized training and safe training, uh you need a lot of data. 392 00:34:22,629 --> 00:34:30,117 but maybe a challenge uh from what I observed in sports is that wearable sometimes don't catch all the data. 393 00:34:30,117 --> 00:34:41,255 Um I'm explaining, especially for multi-sports athletes, if I run I run with my with my wa with my watch, it captures pretty much all the all the data but 394 00:34:41,687 --> 00:34:47,943 If I'm cycling, I'm cycling with you know the the little Garmin box in front of your bike, which is not capturing the data. 395 00:34:47,943 --> 00:34:56,510 except if you have like this bracelet that you put on your chest or on your arm, which is an issue, uh not related to wider but more on on the on the Garmin side. 396 00:34:56,510 --> 00:35:02,996 But it's is this non monitoring of some of the aspects like for example the heart rate. 397 00:35:03,017 --> 00:35:04,268 did you already 398 00:35:04,268 --> 00:35:08,447 tackle this this issue or at least uh thought about that? 399 00:35:08,794 --> 00:35:17,647 Yeah, so cycling is something that we think about a lot because it's one that poses quite a bit of complications as uh many coaches that we talk to in the development of the 400 00:35:17,647 --> 00:35:22,252 platform do believe that power, for example, is a very yeah, 401 00:35:22,254 --> 00:35:27,224 Very important metric to use in cycling, but the power meter starts at 400 euros. 402 00:35:27,224 --> 00:35:39,464 not everybody has one and not everybody, as you mentioned, can connect it, which is why we also are right now working to include heart rate in the data, but we would need just like 403 00:35:39,464 --> 00:35:46,617 a coach would, either power or in the future heart rate to be able to determine the the zones specifically for cycling. 404 00:35:46,617 --> 00:35:50,779 As otherwise uh it would be really hard to determine the performance. 405 00:35:50,779 --> 00:35:52,862 Output a specific effort. 406 00:35:52,862 --> 00:35:59,088 And we base a bit that methodology on what we see with coaches that we've talked to during the development process as well. 407 00:35:59,089 --> 00:36:01,241 Maybe on the topic of data, do you... 408 00:36:01,241 --> 00:36:14,133 Well, something else like that I think is gonna become almost like you can't miss it as a coaching application in the future anymore is stuff like sleep, stuff like HRV, like how 409 00:36:14,133 --> 00:36:15,145 much you've recovered. 410 00:36:15,145 --> 00:36:23,092 In the end, like it also comes down to the same hardware vendors like Garmin has their own ecosystem and... 411 00:36:23,093 --> 00:36:32,333 You also see that the same hardware vendors are at the same time also working on paid plans on coaching while they have like full access, uh unlimited access to the data that 412 00:36:32,333 --> 00:36:33,775 their devices provide. 413 00:36:33,775 --> 00:36:36,889 Like, do you see this as a challenge? 414 00:36:36,889 --> 00:36:43,916 And do you know about what you could do to build some safeguards against this challenge? 415 00:36:43,917 --> 00:36:44,835 Indeed. 416 00:36:45,036 --> 00:36:50,228 Right now, what we are focusing on is specifically on the performance and less on the lifestyle. 417 00:36:50,228 --> 00:36:54,203 Um, the reasoning for that is also just our capacity at the beginning. 418 00:36:54,203 --> 00:37:02,977 we do of course plan to integrate biometric data such as you mentioned, HRV, sleep data, and as well a native RPE recognition. 419 00:37:02,977 --> 00:37:08,692 So when you do a workout and you can integrate integrate the RPE, the perceived effort of a specific workout. 420 00:37:08,692 --> 00:37:10,953 but we plan to integrate that into the coach. 421 00:37:10,953 --> 00:37:22,979 Coaching dashboard as uh feedback for uh a coach specifically, and uh in the next couple of months we will we will also start integrating that with uh the uh yeah agent on the B2C 422 00:37:22,979 --> 00:37:23,859 side. 423 00:37:23,861 --> 00:37:27,450 a lot of the time we see that raw data uh 424 00:37:27,450 --> 00:37:33,705 HRV data, for example, is very it's more complicated to process because it it requires a baseline. 425 00:37:33,705 --> 00:37:40,809 my HRV and your HRV might be completely different, but we might both be in yeah, a healthy for us zone. 426 00:37:40,809 --> 00:37:52,355 so we see also quite a good amount of benefits uh in the processing of the data and creating an infrastructure around visualization of said data and its utilization in making 427 00:37:52,355 --> 00:37:53,256 decisions. 428 00:37:53,256 --> 00:37:54,046 So uh 429 00:37:54,046 --> 00:37:59,961 Of course there is a risk and unfortunately we are dependent on the wearables that uh that we utilize. 430 00:37:59,961 --> 00:38:04,546 but we we want to we see a software solution around that problem. 431 00:38:04,904 --> 00:38:08,005 And maybe while we're on the topic of data, we're in the EU. 432 00:38:08,005 --> 00:38:11,066 EU has a lot of regulation on data. 433 00:38:11,066 --> 00:38:14,329 think what is very relevant here is GDPR, also the AI Act. 434 00:38:14,329 --> 00:38:18,361 This is the data you're talking about is, I think it's classified as medical data. 435 00:38:18,361 --> 00:38:20,573 It's at least very, it's at least high risk data. 436 00:38:20,573 --> 00:38:26,357 How hard is it to launch something into the markets and being compliant? 437 00:38:26,591 --> 00:38:27,118 Yeah. 438 00:38:27,118 --> 00:38:35,953 That's uh that was a very, very big priority and that was something that we were uh quite preoccupied with, especially at the beginning before commercializing the platform. 439 00:38:35,953 --> 00:38:43,793 we are very lucky to uh have been selected for iUS Start, which was uh legal accelerator here in Leuven. 440 00:38:43,793 --> 00:38:55,158 And uh they they have helped us uh out a lot with uh being uh GDPR compliant uh and data privacy policies and as well the protection of our intellectual property. 441 00:38:55,158 --> 00:39:06,404 at the beginning, which is what we focused on quite a lot to make sure that uh yeah we have all all of our terms and conditions and data policies are up to date and that we are 442 00:39:06,404 --> 00:39:15,518 first of all also self hosting the models that we're using and and not the just using uh yeah APIs and not transferring the data outside so 443 00:39:15,806 --> 00:39:23,499 Indeed that's uh that was a big big big part of the first step when we decided to introduce AI coaching uh into the platform. 444 00:39:23,499 --> 00:39:26,814 That was a big big challenge that we we tackled. 445 00:39:26,991 --> 00:39:28,358 Yeah, I think that 446 00:39:28,358 --> 00:39:38,498 You mentioned your self-hosting parts, but basically because of this regulation, so it did make an impact on architectural decisions. 447 00:39:38,499 --> 00:39:39,179 Yeah, indeed. 448 00:39:39,179 --> 00:39:41,082 So b by self hosting, yeah. 449 00:39:41,082 --> 00:39:48,687 So we're uh where our models are through yeah AWS yeah, we're using AWS bedrock there and in a secure environment. 450 00:39:48,687 --> 00:40:01,060 So of course we we also seek advice from yeah others in in the space of AI to understand how to set that up and we cross reference that that infrastructural advice with 451 00:40:01,536 --> 00:40:06,281 start as well to make sure that we are fully legally compliant before we commercialize. 452 00:40:06,281 --> 00:40:06,929 Yeah, yeah. 453 00:40:06,929 --> 00:40:08,743 Our our architecture. 454 00:40:08,746 --> 00:40:16,725 Yes, so you have like a Belgian footprint with a lot of partnership with local stores, with uh local brands. 455 00:40:16,725 --> 00:40:21,850 I guess that yeah this is the first step as you are a pretty pretty young a young company. 456 00:40:21,850 --> 00:40:31,225 If you were on a cat table right now, like a round table, if you were to to raise funds, what would be the allocation of 457 00:40:31,225 --> 00:40:32,816 The funds that you would target? 458 00:40:32,816 --> 00:40:34,218 I mean in terms of service. 459 00:40:34,218 --> 00:40:42,482 do you want to target first marketing, a new geography, a new a new like market product, I don't know, like tech development? 460 00:40:42,522 --> 00:40:44,913 What would be what would be the use of these funds? 461 00:40:45,132 --> 00:40:45,465 Yeah. 462 00:40:45,465 --> 00:40:46,348 mainly. 463 00:40:46,348 --> 00:40:50,490 Are a big part of our so as a consumer product as well at at its core. 464 00:40:50,490 --> 00:40:56,063 Of course, we're developing a B2B side right now, but it as mentioned before, it is not yet uh in place. 465 00:40:56,063 --> 00:40:57,854 marketing will be a big big part of it. 466 00:40:57,854 --> 00:41:05,710 Uh our community is what drives us, and creating events uh and content that uh truly drives the community, of course. 467 00:41:05,820 --> 00:41:09,703 so of course that it costs a good amount of money. 468 00:41:09,703 --> 00:41:12,666 and as well, uh we see a strong need for rap. 469 00:41:12,666 --> 00:41:13,377 expansion. 470 00:41:13,377 --> 00:41:24,992 So of course uh once our model is validated and we we're able to sustainably grow in cities uh we will need to very quickly expand and as well grow uh our our network of 471 00:41:24,992 --> 00:41:26,827 ambassadors um 472 00:41:26,828 --> 00:41:41,067 uh the the geographies that we expand to so the we dedicate that as well a good chunk and thirdly is development efforts because right now uh code is written by our CTO uh Rafael 473 00:41:41,067 --> 00:41:51,347 mostly uh let's say 80 percent 80 to 90 percent and although we are applying uh all the best practices of course with yeah agentic 474 00:41:51,524 --> 00:41:52,425 say development. 475 00:41:52,425 --> 00:41:56,977 we also prioritization is something that we are having to do on a daily. 476 00:41:56,977 --> 00:42:02,970 Do we fix that bug that has been reported to us or do we push for the new feature that we promised to release? 477 00:42:02,970 --> 00:42:10,193 And of course we create timelines and of sure as as as you know as well, create timelines and 478 00:42:10,288 --> 00:42:13,740 Then a bug happens and we have to spend two days fixing it. 479 00:42:13,740 --> 00:42:28,039 And we we need additional developer gun power, not just for yeah, just increasing the capacity, but rather to be able to separate tasks and uh clearly dedicate uh efforts on on 480 00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:29,271 on separate things. 481 00:42:29,271 --> 00:42:32,388 You you didn't fundraise yet, huh, if I'm not mistaken. 482 00:42:32,388 --> 00:42:34,012 You are not preceded. 483 00:42:34,479 --> 00:42:43,089 No, no, we are fully bootstrapped at uh until this Monday or maybe even until uh today formally as it arrived. 484 00:42:43,089 --> 00:42:47,490 We did receive non-dilutive grant funding from the from VLIO. 485 00:42:49,693 --> 00:42:51,014 we're no thank you very much. 486 00:42:51,014 --> 00:42:56,919 We were notified uh last week of it and but this week we are we can say fully that we are. 487 00:42:56,921 --> 00:42:57,702 And you a 488 00:42:57,702 --> 00:43:04,628 on the topic of funding, like you're completely bootstrapped, have a grant of the government. 489 00:43:04,628 --> 00:43:07,110 It will probably not last you three years, right? 490 00:43:07,110 --> 00:43:11,074 So at some point you probably need to raise money. 491 00:43:11,074 --> 00:43:12,805 What's your plan there? 492 00:43:12,806 --> 00:43:21,483 Yeah, so uh at uh of course again we're all first time founders, all all three of us in the team, so we're learning as as we go and we're very transparent about that. 493 00:43:21,483 --> 00:43:24,798 Uh and at the beginning we were very uh let's say 494 00:43:24,799 --> 00:43:35,735 maybe not avid, but very yeah, ready to fundraise from the very first trades, which first of all pose itself as quite complicated as at that moment traction numbers were not uh not 495 00:43:35,735 --> 00:43:36,106 there yet. 496 00:43:36,106 --> 00:43:38,826 but uh secondly it after 497 00:43:38,826 --> 00:43:48,819 of months we came to the realization that waiting until uh we have the traction in place if we can afford to wait and if we can take that risk on ourselves could be a better s 498 00:43:48,819 --> 00:43:50,624 strategic solution for the long term. 499 00:43:50,624 --> 00:44:02,085 So right now we are focusing on uh sustainable traction numbers in the next couple of months before raising a couple of weeks slash months before raising a pre seed uh round 500 00:44:02,085 --> 00:44:03,665 there and 501 00:44:03,665 --> 00:44:14,875 Of course, there's still a lot of yeah decisions that we have to make because for us a strategic partner, one that can help us as well with uh our our development of our go to 502 00:44:14,875 --> 00:44:25,167 market is very important as we are aware of our limitations and uh we we know that of course an advice uh sounding board is very important for us, especially at this stage. 503 00:44:25,168 --> 00:44:37,528 And if you were to choose one specific not not name a fund but what would be the the the like because we we we talk a lot about smart money uh etc like the the involvement of also 504 00:44:37,528 --> 00:44:48,359 of the external shareholder in a company what w would be your ideal the ideal fund that would be in in your capital, like in terms of the the skills that they have for you? 505 00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:49,254 Yeah. 506 00:44:49,620 --> 00:44:59,945 I think in uh especially in our pre-seed round, we we would really want to focus on uh angels, and we want to focus on individuals who have had past experience, of course, uh 507 00:44:59,945 --> 00:45:07,611 scaling and growing uh technology startups, uh, specifically in the EU, as we we are based here and we want to grow here. 508 00:45:07,611 --> 00:45:17,916 we also, in an ideal world, would want somebody that understands endurance sports and the technicalities uh of it, as we see that as an industry that is quite. 509 00:45:17,916 --> 00:45:25,270 rapidly growing right now and yeah it's requires as well some some understanding and some network as well to grow. 510 00:45:25,270 --> 00:45:36,412 And thirdly is yeah that that network because w to expand rapidly and expand abroad a strong network among the insurance space is is very important. 511 00:45:36,412 --> 00:45:43,540 So somebody that is involved of course in the endurance business uh would uh would be yeah a very very big plus for us. 512 00:45:43,541 --> 00:45:44,597 . 513 00:45:44,597 --> 00:45:47,922 we are not used to see sports tech in the in the funds. 514 00:45:47,922 --> 00:45:53,627 I can I I think I can't even name one fund uh like in this specific topic. 515 00:45:53,628 --> 00:45:55,619 I think there are a few worldwide. 516 00:45:55,619 --> 00:45:59,193 think the most well-known is probably Next Ventures by Lance Armstrong. 517 00:45:59,193 --> 00:46:03,097 There are only a few dedicated sports tech VCs. 518 00:46:03,097 --> 00:46:08,843 But maybe also something that is with Bright Signal we're focusing on European textile ellipse. 519 00:46:08,843 --> 00:46:15,323 But what I also do notice, unfortunately, that there are very few... 520 00:46:15,323 --> 00:46:19,251 big VCs in Europe that truly want to do B2C. 521 00:46:19,251 --> 00:46:20,407 Yeah, yeah. 522 00:46:20,628 --> 00:46:23,334 if you encountered this challenge? 523 00:46:23,592 --> 00:46:24,402 One hundred percent. 524 00:46:24,402 --> 00:46:31,576 Yeah, that's that's something that that of course right now as fundraising is of course is so quite important to us, but not the main thing. 525 00:46:31,576 --> 00:46:35,097 We're focusing on our product first and our go to market. 526 00:46:35,207 --> 00:46:37,429 but before we noticed it a lot. 527 00:46:37,429 --> 00:46:43,314 we had uh a lot of interest and but a lot of the times fund would tell us, uh yeah, we only focus on B to B. 528 00:46:43,314 --> 00:46:44,834 Our portfolio is fully B to B. 529 00:46:44,834 --> 00:46:48,055 We only work with B to B as we believe the risks are lower. 530 00:46:48,076 --> 00:46:57,051 And of course in the US we've heard uh yeah, that's the perspective on that is a bit different as it's uh of course high risk but also very high reward. 531 00:46:57,533 --> 00:46:58,023 Yeah, exactly. 532 00:46:58,023 --> 00:47:07,394 I think the simplification in the US is that if the restriction is a very big market, right, and if you have a Belgian VC and that takes risk of doing a B2C, they're not 533 00:47:07,394 --> 00:47:10,976 accustomed to if it works, it's just Belgium and it's not enough, right? 534 00:47:10,976 --> 00:47:13,620 Like, the next step is again a risk, right? 535 00:47:13,620 --> 00:47:17,783 And I don't honestly don't think it's impossible to get funding for... 536 00:47:17,858 --> 00:47:28,066 B2C in Europe, but probably a bit what you're saying, like you need to show that you have enough traction to really make people believe in it and to basically de-risk a bit for 537 00:47:28,066 --> 00:47:29,216 these funds, 538 00:47:29,718 --> 00:47:39,521 Yeah, that's that's exactly where our reasoning for delaying a little bit the the the process of fundraising lays is with the fact that we wanna create traction and take the 539 00:47:39,521 --> 00:47:44,186 risks ourselves and to create confidence in the investors that uh join us. 540 00:47:44,187 --> 00:47:45,045 sense. 541 00:47:45,374 --> 00:47:54,227 Yeah, maybe related to that, if we ask you what the next twelve month look look for you, what would be your priority right now? 542 00:47:54,631 --> 00:47:54,913 Yeah. 543 00:47:54,913 --> 00:47:55,770 so it 544 00:47:55,770 --> 00:48:01,055 For us it goes from uh yeah local to already global to semi-global. 545 00:48:01,055 --> 00:48:05,842 so firstly we want to create uh sustainable traction here in Antwerp as well. 546 00:48:05,842 --> 00:48:14,959 So we've uh we've had traction in Leuven and we've want to apply the same playbook to Antwerp and validate it on a bigger city and a bigger playground. 547 00:48:14,959 --> 00:48:19,454 also yeah as as I mentioned previously, we've launched our uh 548 00:48:19,454 --> 00:48:20,245 yeah. 549 00:48:20,279 --> 00:48:32,275 B2C premium offering, so of course uh our first revenue numbers as well are are gonna be quite important for us and the conversion uh numbers there, really focusing on on CAC, uh 550 00:48:32,275 --> 00:48:43,842 LTV, the ratios between that and how we can optimize that, looking at churn and looking at the metrics and really isolating the first mistakes that we have, which we will, and 551 00:48:43,842 --> 00:48:45,544 approaching that very numerically. 552 00:48:45,544 --> 00:48:46,505 and following that. 553 00:48:46,505 --> 00:48:52,563 That is uh of course our expansion across Belgium and into strategic cities. 554 00:48:52,563 --> 00:48:56,397 So we've isolated about thirty cities around the world uh and 555 00:48:56,397 --> 00:49:08,823 orders of priorities either from a perspective of just large population centers such as those could be uh Paris, Madrid, London, New York, uh but also cities such as Ancy, 556 00:49:08,823 --> 00:49:16,222 Chamonix, Boulder in Colorado, cities that by population, they're not very big but they have a very avid 557 00:49:16,222 --> 00:49:22,226 endurance athlete community in them and uh that would create a lot of ambassadors for us if we do expand to them. 558 00:49:22,226 --> 00:49:29,781 so that would be the the second step is uh going down that priority list and beginning uh expansion. 559 00:49:29,781 --> 00:49:40,618 and of course once our revenue numbers do hit the values that we believe are sustainable enough to to open around we will do so and open a first pre-seed round. 560 00:49:40,619 --> 00:49:45,482 And you you have a business that depends on on the number of users. 561 00:49:45,482 --> 00:49:48,383 Let's imagine that you have like ten million of users. 562 00:49:48,422 --> 00:49:57,349 Is there like a feature in in in Wyder that's you would love to implement but you are not implementing right now but because of the bandwidth? 563 00:49:57,349 --> 00:50:00,371 But let's imagine that you have a lot of users. 564 00:50:00,371 --> 00:50:03,442 Is there any specific feature that you would implement? 565 00:50:03,443 --> 00:50:06,035 there's there's so many that that we think about. 566 00:50:06,035 --> 00:50:08,636 First of all, we need to strengthen our gamification. 567 00:50:08,636 --> 00:50:19,039 We we believe there's there's real value in that, but of course it's not directly tied to performance uh for users, so we're not focusing as much uh on that. 568 00:50:19,039 --> 00:50:22,511 So that that is a very big part that that we have in mind. 569 00:50:22,511 --> 00:50:28,014 additionally to that we of course want to yeah work a lot more on 570 00:50:28,229 --> 00:50:34,363 our visual side, yeah, things such as animations, UI design, and branding within the application. 571 00:50:34,363 --> 00:50:44,682 We do everything that we can on our side, but we also uh know that if we take a a much wider approach, this this can be refined quite a lot, pun intended. 572 00:50:44,682 --> 00:50:48,866 and then as well additionally to that we we see a lot of 573 00:50:48,905 --> 00:50:51,356 benefits and a lot of data visualizations. 574 00:50:51,356 --> 00:51:00,521 And there the complex part is about providing the user with enough data without uh overcomplicating it because that's what we hear a lot from uh users that have tried other 575 00:51:00,521 --> 00:51:06,175 platforms is that they open it and it feels like a Airbus 360 yeah cockpits. 576 00:51:06,175 --> 00:51:14,630 There's buttons and graphs all over the place and you don't really understand what they mean and it's a bit overwhelming and we really want to avoid that so we want to be very 577 00:51:14,630 --> 00:51:16,211 conscious with what we add. 578 00:51:16,573 --> 00:51:19,558 let's imagine that I I do a race in two months. 579 00:51:19,558 --> 00:51:24,241 I do a a 20km training, I just post it on on Wyder. 580 00:51:24,241 --> 00:51:27,664 Bart and Murillo see it, they join me. 581 00:51:27,665 --> 00:51:31,067 But is the inverse also doable? 582 00:51:31,067 --> 00:51:32,427 I'm explaining. 583 00:51:32,598 --> 00:51:36,219 we are training together, Murillo, Bart and myself. 584 00:51:36,469 --> 00:51:40,235 And we don't have the same level but we want to do a race together. 585 00:51:40,235 --> 00:51:51,832 Is like wider can Wyder find a race based on our performance that would fit us like in terms of level of of of training. 586 00:51:51,833 --> 00:51:58,786 We haven't thought about that feature of selecting a specific race yet, but what we did think of is do and trio plans. 587 00:51:58,786 --> 00:52:10,492 So for example, if the three of you say, Okay, we want to do a marathon in November uh together, uh you can sign up for the same goal and tie your profiles together. 588 00:52:10,843 --> 00:52:20,748 through through the application and then uh yeah maybe for for one of you the session would be a threshold session or for another person that same session would be in the 589 00:52:20,748 --> 00:52:22,179 calendar as a recovery session. 590 00:52:22,179 --> 00:52:27,341 So it's align the workouts together, allowing everybody to hit their specific goal. 591 00:52:27,341 --> 00:52:36,055 Maybe one of you is going for a sub four, the other one is going for a sub three and the other one is going for a sub two thirty, for example, uh marathon time. 592 00:52:36,055 --> 00:52:37,976 And then everybody can get as much 593 00:52:37,976 --> 00:52:42,218 Training and optimize around their goal while still maximizing training together. 594 00:52:42,218 --> 00:52:52,495 It for example, two weeks ago I ran with a middle distance runner, not to drop names, and that that person he he is going uh on to the Belgian championships and everything. 595 00:52:52,495 --> 00:52:55,787 And I set my ten kilometer PR on that run. 596 00:52:55,787 --> 00:52:58,951 his heart rate was one twenty-five, so that the 597 00:52:58,951 --> 00:53:02,484 a recovery run, a very, very easy uh session for him. 598 00:53:02,484 --> 00:53:05,048 He was fully talking, he was not even breathing heavy. 599 00:53:05,048 --> 00:53:08,671 I do consider myself a bit of an avid athlete, so that was very humbling. 600 00:53:08,671 --> 00:53:11,114 And this is exactly what we want to encourage. 601 00:53:11,114 --> 00:53:16,919 People of different levels still finding a way to connect and train together while hitting their own goals. 602 00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:23,417 Guys, among us I'm not doing uh the under a two thirty, just saying I'm not the one doing that. 603 00:53:23,665 --> 00:53:24,167 Me neither. 604 00:53:24,167 --> 00:53:24,689 Me neither. 605 00:53:24,689 --> 00:53:28,416 I'm I'm not yeah, I'm definitely not there. 606 00:53:28,417 --> 00:53:34,937 Maybe to wrap up Stepan, a very interesting project that you're working on. 607 00:53:34,937 --> 00:53:43,840 I can imagine that there are a lot of athletes, especially the ones that train them many hours, that do a lot of workouts on their own and for... 608 00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:53,624 whatever reason, whether it be practical or others, like it's hard for them to schedule something with friends or baby teachers don't know enough people that can run the same 609 00:53:53,624 --> 00:53:54,625 pace as them. 610 00:53:54,625 --> 00:53:58,449 Like what is the best way for them to check out wider? 611 00:53:58,450 --> 00:54:01,932 Um I would definitely say our uh social media. 612 00:54:01,932 --> 00:54:03,741 We're very active on social media. 613 00:54:03,741 --> 00:54:09,616 You can find us uh on Instagram specifically, but also uh on on on TikTok as well. 614 00:54:09,836 --> 00:54:21,117 we try to really approach this as uh showing our journey and and building in public, explaining our experience, our mistakes, uh and as well of course not taking ourselves too 615 00:54:21,117 --> 00:54:23,650 seriously while while building a community together. 616 00:54:23,650 --> 00:54:24,279 So it's 617 00:54:24,279 --> 00:54:33,597 In the terms, LinkedIn is a bit more formal and uh Instagram is really the journey of three guys trying to build something great for the endurance community worldwide. 618 00:54:33,598 --> 00:54:36,240 Thanks a lot for joining us. 619 00:54:36,240 --> 00:54:41,864 We'll definitely make sure to check your progress in the coming months and years. 620 00:54:41,864 --> 00:54:46,927 I have the app installed and I live very close to Leuven where you already have a lot of users. 621 00:54:46,927 --> 00:54:51,070 So I'll definitely join one of the next workouts. 622 00:54:51,393 --> 00:54:51,795 Amazing. 623 00:54:51,795 --> 00:54:53,461 Thank you very much for having me. 624 00:54:54,874 --> 00:54:55,815 Thank you.