Business Daily meets: Whoop founder Will Ahmed

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

They’re the 300 dollar subscription fitness bands being worn by a host of celebrity-backers in 2024. But who is the business leader behind the billion-dollar Whoop brand?

The son of an Egyptian migrant to the US, Will Ahmed was always interested in sports. During his college years he started to notice the dangers of doing too much sports training. He describes this as a ‘rabbit hole’ as he began researching sleep and recovery patterns in professional athletes.

This led him to create a fitness tracker company that is a 3.4 billion dollar venture today, attracting famous athlete-investors like Michael Phelps and Cristiano Ronaldo and taking on established names in fitness tech like Apple, Google, Garmin and Fitbit.

We hear how he did it, and what challenges he’s faced along the way.

(Picture: Will Ahmed in his office, wearing a Whoop device. Credit: Whoop)

Presented and produced by Devina Gupta

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and namaste. I'm Divina Gupta and welcome to Business Daily Meets on the BBC World Service.
0:08.4	This is where we bring you in-depth interviews of people in business from across the world.
0:13.4	Today we are meeting Will Ahmed, a newer space entrepreneur obsessed with healthy sleeping and exercise habits.
0:20.8	So I got very interested in what could you measure about the body?
0:24.0	Why is there no information?
0:26.2	He turned his obsession into a business venture based in the city of Boston
0:30.2	and launched a wristpan that is now used by celebrities like athletes LeBron James,
0:36.1	Serena Williams, as well as the Prince of Wales,
0:39.0	Prince William.
0:39.7	We don't have a screen. We aren't a watch. We don't do push notifications, phone calls.
0:47.4	Whoop is a $3.4 billion fitness brand taking on big tech companies like Apple and Google,
0:53.8	as well as fitness trackers like Garmin and Fitbit.
0:57.8	We hear about how Will has cracked this competitive market.
1:02.1	Over the course of 12 years, probably 500 investors have said no to me.
1:07.5	This is Business Daily Meets with fitness tech entrepreneur Will Ahmed. Welcome, welcome to Business
1:16.7	Daily, Will. So tell us what you're having. I'm having a black coffee right now to be ready for you.
1:23.0	Well, are you wearing your whoop? Of course I'm wearing my woof. Very proudly, yes.
1:28.5	I've got a navy blue one on.
1:30.2	What's it saying?
1:31.2	Let's see, I'm 73% recovered.
1:34.0	I did a workout this morning.
1:36.7	So I got a 13.4 strain, which whoop tells me was the right amount for my recovery score.
	...

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