The Incredible Story of Whoop

Imagine this- you make something pretty cool, and Lebron James is one of the first 100 people that use your product.

Sounds insane? Well this is the story of Whoop, an iconic device that has become your typical 8-year overnight tech-startup success. 

Let's rewind the clock a little bit. By a little bit, I mean a decade.

Will Ahmed, an athlete from Harvard, founded Whoop in 2012. The mission was simple- to help athletes gain more visibility into both their fitness and their rest.  In a recent interview, Will stated that though 1 hour of intense exercise is important, the market was missing a device that allowed you to track the other 23 hours.

Will was initially really frustrated. As a Harvard Squash athlete, he and his teammates frequently misinterpreted fitness peaks, overtrained, and often did not have the adequate rest they needed to perform at the highest level. In a D1 sport, this was game over. 

There had to be a better way to gain insights into your body, as well as optimize athletic recovery.

So, in the incubation lab at Harvard, Will worked with John and Aurelian, releasing his prototype of a wrist-worn device, which became known as Whoop. In the lab, they designed it so that it could track a user’s sleep, activity, and recovery. Whoop was born- out of frustration, and pure hustle.

 Will and the initial team released Whoop to the world- little did they know, at the time, how sensational and monumental the product would become. 

Will and the team went big, and they hit big.

Upon releasing the product, some of the first hundred users are names you will undoubtedly recognize- Lebron James, for one. Will spoke of the time when, as he was watching a game, seeing Lebron with the Whoop. It was absolutely surreal. It was in this moment, he knew, that product market fit had been achieved. 

The initial strategy Will used to gain traction was quite elegant and simple: he really focused on his ideal customer, asking himself: who needs this? Simply put, it's himself! See how much easier this becomes when you build something that solves your own pains and frustrations?

To target people like himself, he focused on outreach and building relationships with athletes, as well as coaches. Relationship building was paramount in the early stages of a company. 

In fact, he got a lot of social proof by garnering testimonials from the first few athletes and coaches that utilized Whoop, supplementing this with effective social media outreach. 

Some common questions that Whoop helped within the initial stages: what is my resting heart rate? What is my heart rate variability? What are my blood oxygen levels?

These are all key questions and are indicators of an individual's health over a consistent timespan.

Simply put, Whoop outworked the competition in a sense- even consuming 1000x more data on a person than a Fitbit. Simply wild. 

Props to Will- there’re many lessons you’ can take from this one.

Some Key ones that stuck out to us are:

1. Some of the best ideas you have stemmed from personal frustration-> get pissed at something kind of regularly? There might be a unicorn business right there

2. Relationship building & Get the Power Users on board-> Will built relationships with coaches and athletes, allowing him to land Lebron James as an initial user, providing jet fuel on his brand

3. What get’s measured gets managed-> Will’s device tracked the other 23 non-workout hours of the day, focusing on key wellness metrics. Y’all should definitely track your calories, steps, and blood sugar levels regularly.

Alright, lads, get a whoop- it's got a snazzy mission, to Unlock Human Performance- say that 3 times fast. 

Get your deep work done, and kick some ass. Peace.