The Sunscreen Brand That's Rewriting Performance Science
Thinking about the sun as a performance variable, and other interesting approaches to building partnerships and brands...
Starting Line
We met Tom Austen at Sea Otter earlier this year, and after a few minutes chatting with him, we knew there needed to be a dedicated episode with his story. We’ve been using Pelotan for a while (Jeremy Dunn brought it as a BPC for the famous “you can just do things” episode), and now we have the full story.
👉 There is a reference in this podcast to the Gartner Hype Cycle, definitely have a look at this, because it’s appeared in multiple conversations since then. This feels like the perfect visual representation of what many of us have gone (or will go) through.
The Sunscreen Brand That's Rewriting Performance Science
Tom Austen is the founder of Pelotan, the world's first sun performance brand, and co-founder of Chance Running, a trail running apparel brand he's building with pro athlete and serial entrepreneur Christian Meier. Both brands are based in Girona, Spain — a two-square-kilometer pocket of world-class endurance athletes, cafes, and startups that's become the Boulder of Europe.
In this conversation, Tom walks through how Pelotan went from a sunburn problem on training rides to winning two Tour de Frances with Team Sky in its first year, and how the brand is now pioneering something entirely new: treating the sun as a performance variable rather than just a health risk. He also gets into the Chance origin story, why cross-pollination across categories is the key to building something original, and what it's like to run two high-growth startups at the same time from a city of 100,000 people.
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
👉 Arc’teryx is hiring an Area Community Director for the USA. Check out this job description…this looks really interesting.
Article Of The Week
Congrats to our friend Jonathan Levitt for making the leap one full year ago! Interesting to read his experience over the past year, it’s been fun to watch this unfold (and we’re extremely grateful for his support via the Long Run Labs Network).
Show Notes
BPC - Brand, Product, Content
BPC is our closing segment where we share Brands we’ve discovered, Products we’re using and Content we love.
🥦 Nomio: How far would you go for a performance boost? How about drinking broccoli juice? This was the first we’d heard of this magical elixir, but Tom says it’s legit!
🏆 Adidas World Cup ad: This reference is going to appear in upcoming episodes, and it’s clear after watching this why it made such an impression on so many of our guests.
⚽️ Nike - Airport soccer: Another legendary World Cup ad from many years ago, we had to dig deep on YouTube to find this one!
🎥 Insta360 GO Ultra: Aaron’s go-to lightweight 4K camera, the size of a GoPro battery! This thing has some serious power, and you won’t even notice it’s there.
Thank You
Next week we’re bringing on an incredibly talented guest who has co-founded both a brand as well as a brand agency. She shares some incredible frameworks that anyone can apply and follow - and gave us so much insight into her approach to entrepreneurship. We can’t wait to share this one with you!
thanks for the shoutout!! stoked to be working with you guys.