20VC: The On Running Memo: From Swiss Mountains to NASDAQ IPO: The Story of Three Friends Who Built a Sports Giant

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The Twenty Minute VC

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4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

David Alleman is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman @ On Running one of the fastest-growing global sports brands with over 17 million products sold in 60+ countries. In 2021, On went public on the NASDAQ and today has a market cap of $8.7BN. However, it all started with three friends in the mountains experimenting with making shoes with pieces of garden hose to create a running shoe with a totally different feel.

In Today's Episode with David Alleman We Discuss:

1. From the Swiss Mountains to NASDAQ IPO:

What was the initial a-ha moment for David and his co-founders with On Running?
How did they make the first shoes?
What are some of the biggest lessons for David in V1 product build?
What does David know now that he wishes he had known at the start? Is naivete always good?

2. The Launch: First Customers:

How did On get their first customers?
What can products and companies do to instill true customer love in those first customers?
What was the hardest element of launching On to their first customers?
How does David analyze and use customer feedback? What does he listen to vs not?

3. Retail: Expanding into Own Store vs Partnerships:

What are some of David's biggest lessons in how to make retail partnerships successful?
How can brands create amazing experiences for customers in retailers that are not their own?
Why did On decide to also have their own stores? How did this change the business?
What have been David's biggest learnings on what it takes to do retail well with own stores?

4. Roger Federer: Working with a Legend:

How did the relationship with Roger begin? Where was the first meeting? What was it like?
How did Roger come to invest in On Running? Why did On not want to do the traditional athlete endorsement deal?
What role does Roger play in the company today? How does he impact product development?
What have been some of the biggest lessons for David from working with Roger?
How much of an impact has Roger had on On Running as a business?

5. Financing, IPOs, and Brand:

Does David wish they had raised venture capital sooner?
If they had more money sooner in their journey, what would David have invested in earlier?
Why did they decide to go public when they did? How has the journey been post being a public company? What changes? What is the same?
What brand does Davist most respect and admire? Why? What brand decisions does David most regret? What would he have done differently?

Transcript

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0:00.0	So Roger said, hey, I would love to get involved.
0:03.0	But how about not us giving you money, but you giving us money and becoming a co-investor
0:09.9	and a co-entrepreneur together with us?
0:12.3	And it has turned into a fantastic partnership and friendship where he now probably spends 30 to 40
0:18.1	days per year with us here in On Labs, working on products, and we're
0:23.1	completely aligned.
0:24.1	This is 20VC The Memo with me, Harry Stebbings.
0:26.8	Now, 20VC The Memo is the monthly show where we simply tell the story of an incredible company.
0:32.1	Today, I'm so excited to feature On.
0:34.4	On is one of the fastest growing global sports brands with over 17 million
0:38.7	products sold in over 60 countries. Joining us today from On is their co-founder and co-chairman, David
0:44.8	Allerman, where we discuss the journey from Idea in the Swiss Mountains with his two co-founders
0:50.1	to IPOing on the NASDAQ. This is such a special show as David does not do much public speaking,
0:55.8	and so I'm hugely honoured to have had the chance to sit down and do this one today.
0:59.4	But before we dive into the show's day, we need to talk about SANA.
1:02.7	SANA is an AI-powered learning and knowledge-sharing platform.
1:06.0	Think of it like chat GPT for all of your company's knowledge.
1:09.4	Sana integrates with all your company's apps in under five minutes and can search through
1:13.5	every single file, doc, pull request, video and more in under 100 milliseconds.
1:18.9	Assistant is generative AI at its most useful.
1:21.9	Say you need to create a course on OKR fundamentals for your employee onboarding program
1:27.3	and you're just really short on time.
	...

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