The Athlete Who Thinks Like a Founder
And how she's opening the door for athletes everywhere...
Starting Line
This week’s conversation with Annijke Wade was a fascinating insight into an athlete who is opening doors for other athletes and helping events develop an entirely new category of competitor. We love having conversations on the podcast about how athletes work with brands, but it’s not too often you hear about athletes working with the events themselves to open the doors for even more people to participate. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did!
The Athlete Who Thinks Like a Founder
Annijke Wade became an adaptive mountain biker in 2021 after a downhill accident left her with a spinal cord injury. Four years later, she's racing at events like SBT Gravel and Sea Otter Classic, running a nonprofit called Dirt Bound that develops para athletes, building a content strategy sophisticated enough to land her in a Meta Creator program, and already planning for goals she can't quite reveal yet for 2027 and 2028.
In this conversation, Annijke and Aaron dig into what's changed in adaptive mountain biking over the last five years, how she thinks about building a career that doesn't depend on race results or viral moments, and what it actually takes to convince race organizers to include para athletes. They also get into her content strategy — from 822 followers to 10,000, the loop format, and working with Meta on creator growth — and what brands should look for when building long-term athlete partnerships.
Here To Help
The most common refrain we hear from friends working at brands is “we need to find content creators, but we are strapped on time”. This is the exact problem that Popfly has solved. If you’re working at a brand that needs this kind of help, you need to check this out (and tell them we sent you), it’ll be worth it. And…if you’re an athlete or creator, you should definitely get on this platform - there are brands, ready to support you and looking for your talent. We’re using it outside of the podcast and having a lot of success with it - and this is exactly why we wanted to partner with Popfly in the first place. Highly recommended!
Job Of The Week
There are a mountain of new roles this week - most of them originally appeared in our Slack channel. If you’re not already there, here’s the link to join us!
🐐 Our friends at Backcountry have two roles open: Senior Director, Performance Marketing and Vice President, Performance Marketing.
🙌 Join the team at Skratch! They also have two openings: Director of Commercial Sales and Fractional Growth Marketing Leader.
👟 Avelo, the smart footwear brand we interviewed before their launch, is looking for a Head of Marketing.
👉 Keen has a Senior US Community & Partnerships Manager, Running role open - based in their Portland office.
⛰️ Raide has four new jobs open in their Boulder office: Design Director (Equipment & Apparel), Head of Sales, Product Development & Production Manager, Customer Support Agent.
🚴 Apidura has three roles in their Camden, UK location: Sports Marketing & Community Manager, Technical Repair Specialist, Product Developer.
🎥 Fiska Media has three openings at their agency: Email Marketing Specialist, Graphic Designer, Senior Account Manager.
There’s a lot more besides open roles in our Slack channel. If you haven’t joined us yet, now would be a great time to hop in!
Article Of The Week
The data always tells the real story - here’s a breakdown of the shoe selection at Western States, and what that might mean for the brands represented (or not represented, in some cases).
Show Notes
Second Nature Is Supported By Halo
Halo is a hospitality platform built by trail runners specifically for sports and event travel. They work with brands, event organizers and professional leagues to simplify one of the most operationally painful parts of any event: lodging. If you’re a brand thinking about experiential marketing, managing travel for your team or professional athletes, or a league handling lodging for your athletes and fans, Halo’s platform gives your brand a custom hotel booking platform and locks in better rates so you’re not managing hotel logistics from scratch. They’re already working with names like Western States, Aravaipa, Rabbit and New Balance.
And if you’re just heading to a race or event yourself this year, it’s worth checking out, too. Same platform with great rates, community, perks from band partners and less hassle. If any of this sounds like you, reach out to their team and tell them you heard about Halo on Second Nature.
BPC - Brand, Product, Content
BPC is our closing segment where we share Brands we’ve discovered, Products we’re using and Content that we love.
🏆 Lael Wilcox: Arguably one of the greatest endurance athletes of all time? She’s on a mission to break the world record for circumnavigating her bike around the globe!
🦷 Matador - refillable toothpaste: Annijke brought another new discovery to our ongoing travel kit. Add this one to the list!
😴 Ozlo Sleepbuds: Get REM sleep on an airplane? Aaron swears by these sleepbuds (which just released a 2.0 version recently) for all his traveling and sleeping needs. Highly recommended.
✈️ TRTL Travel Pillow: Another standby in our travel kit - this neck wrap looks a little funny, but works like a charm.
🎥 Any One Of Us (Film): Designed to be the “field guide for spinal cord injury”, this film was created to help people going through life-changing injury (and those supporting them) have a clearer picture of what to expect.
Thank You
Stay tuned for next week, we’ve got the mastermind(s) behind the city - and trails - of Bentonville joining us on the podcast. We went deep with them about what they did; but more importantly, the elements that ANY city or region could do to create a community (and the opportunities that follow).