Today, I’m joined by Andy Hoang, founder & CEO of Aviron, makers of connected rowing machines.
Aviron gamifies the HIIT workout experience, pairing a streamlined, dual-resistance ergometer with arcade games and a streaming content platform.
In this episode, we discuss the company’s bootstrapped start, pivoting from commercial sales to at-home during the pandemic, and the gamified fitness landscape.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How Aviron overcame early obstacles and achieved success
- Tips for adapting your sales funnel to current market trends
- Andy’s candid insights about developing & launching a physical product
- What Aviron is doing to prepare for a potential recession
Links & Resources
- Subscribe to the Fitt Insider newsletter
- Visit the Fitt Insider jobs board
- View current Fitt Insider investment and get in touch
Andy Hoang’s Links
- Aviron’s website
- Follow Aviron on Twitter
- Join Aviron’s Facebook community
- Join Aviron’s Discord channel
- Aviron is on Instagram
- Check out Aviron on YouTube
Episode Transcript
This is a machine-generated transcript. Please excuse any errors.
[00:00:00] Andy:
Everyone knows rowing. It’s not new. What we found was the rowing machines out there haven’t changed in a long time; that machine with a hard seat, that’s pretty loud, that’s low to the ground, and really caters to a very niche group.
We wanted to bring rowing to the general public, and make it more accessible for more people. What makes us different and unique is we use gaming psychology and game design to make the experience really fun. Some people even say it’s addictive.
[00:00:37] Joe:
Welcome back to the Fitt Insider Podcast. I’m your host, Joe Vennare.
Today I’m joined by Andy Hoang, Founder and CEO of Aviron, makers of connected rowing machines. In this episode we discuss the company’s bootstrap start, pivoting from commercial sales to at home during the pandemic, and everyone’s approach to gamified fitness content.
Let’s get into it.
Hi Andy, welcome to Fitt Insider. Thanks for joining us.
Let’s just jump right into it. Certainly there’s a lot to talk about, from fitness trends to connected equipment at home. To kick things off can you introduce yourself and Aviron?
[00:01:13] Andy:
Absolutely. My name is Andy. I’m Founder and CEO of Aviron. Aviron is a game-based connected rowing machine. We focus on fitness entertainment, so that includes things like streaming, we have coached classes, games, races, and virtual rows.
What makes us different or unique is we use gaming psychology and game design to make that experience really fun. Some people even say it’s addictive.
[00:01:39] Joe:
Yeah, for sure.
There’s a lot of different things that have happened. It feels like a long time, but really a short amount of time in terms of the equipment, connected equipment at home, smart training, all that stuff. Certainly the gaming and game design has added another element to it.
You guys have been at it for a minute, right? When did you start the company, and how have things accelerated and sped up in recent years?
[00:02:05] Andy:
Yeah. We were just talking about this. We’re probably one of the first companies to market. I think we were established in 2018. We were a lot different back then. We bootstrapped our way to our first million dollars in sales. So it was just a grind. Part of bootstrapping means you can’t really penetrate the market like you would if you had funding. So we didn’t go after consumers, we went after your standard vertical markets. So things like gyms, hotels, apartments, and things like that.
[00:02:37] Joe:
So, making the jump from bootstrapping to trying to figure things out, basically it’s like wherever you can go with the budget you have, right? Kind of like making things work on a much shorter timeline and budget, to then starting to raise money, build out the team, and expand.
How did you initially make that transition, and how has it gone?
[00:03:01] Andy:
Yeah. and it’ll be pretty, pretty Frank. It was a grind like anybody that’s bootstrapping a business. And then a lot of people that are listening are, probably bootstrapping the business is, you know, exponentially harder. we pivoted because it was a necessity. So our business started picking up and we started doing a little bit better, in, in the beginning of 2020, but that’s when COVID hit.
So, you know, our B2B market was really, So hotels were closing down gyms, condos, things like that. So we had to, we really had to pivot over we’re pretty much going to go bankrupt. and I was also reluctant to move into the consumer side because, you know, I didn’t have too much experience and that’s like a whole new world.
There’s a lot to learn when you’re, when you’re selling tickets. and not only just like the sales part, supporting the customers, being available for them from a tech support and logistics standpoint was it was quite challenging. but we pivoted in mid 20, 20, I’d say July 24. and then we just started getting a little bit of traction and we were learning how to like, kinda operate the business.
Fortunately for us, we applied to Y Combinator got into that program and that’s really when you know the doors open and we got into the investor community. We raised a seed round early that year. and it’s been a rocket ship since then. We raised our series a shortly after that. and then we did a venture debt round. we’re about to sign a term sheet for venture debt as well. So that’s, that’s exciting.
[00:04:27] Joe:
Yeah. certainly a have navigated that, pretty exceptionally to be able to turn the corner from like, Hey, we might go bankrupt. Oh, by the way, there’s a pandemic. And we have to figure out a completely new business model, to, to now continuing to accelerate. just to give us a sense of kind of how things have grown, how big is the team?
What, how much funding have you raised to date and, how are you thinking about then, like continuing to accelerate that.
[00:04:54] Andy:
Yeah, the team is, it’s. yeah, I don’t think we have a huge team. I look at our competitors and everyone has these monitor numbers. We have a modest, about 40 employees. Constantly looking for great people. last year at this time, we’re about maybe a quarter or a third that size. So it is like a good amount of growth. so we raised four and a half million in our seed round. We probably did around half a million in our pre-seed, which is really just friends and family, my own money. And then our series a was an 18 and a half million dollar, led by Stripe out of New York, a great, great investor.
And then, you know, we’re not finalized yet, but we’re looking around five to $7 million in,
[00:05:35] Joe:
Nice. Yeah. certainly helpful. but. The investment comes. You just have to work that much harder and kind of grow that much faster. what has the experience been like? You know, making that transition from trying to get product into market right. During the pandemic one demand was basically at its peak and now.
And you can talk about what you’re experiencing, but across the broader industry, you know, some folks pointing to maybe a slowdown or maybe, you know, some of that demand was pulled forward and now consumers aren’t maybe spending on buying at home equipment at the same rate. What are you experiencing?
And what does that like kind of a pendulum been like, or, or maybe even like ping pong ball, bouncing back and between those two extremes.
[00:06:19] Andy:
Yeah. It’s crazy landscape. And like my perspective is that this industry is here to stay. and, and the, the reason why I say that is because Peloton, you know, obviously they’re going through a tough time right now, you know, pre pandemic. They had raised a billion dollars, so they were growing at an exponential pace.
So this is something that I feel is. It’s going to stick around. it’s not just fueled by the pandemic, but the pandemic probably accelerated things a little bit. it’s wild right now. full transparency. Like if we’re lucky we raised our round when we did. so those that aren’t in the investment community, like there’s no way, like most companies trying to raise this, their series a right now or are in a lot of hurt.
Valuations are probably down. At least 40%. And from what I hear, it depends on what industry you’re in, but if you’re in the consumer industry, like we are, and in hardware, it’s almost impossible to get funding right now. and if you, if you’re lucky enough to get funding, it’s going to be at a depressed valuation. Yeah, it’s, a lot of uncertainty, and we’re expecting to get into a recession. So having, good amount of runways is. but yeah, like this is, I can’t say like, you know, we have these expectations, we’re going to blow the numbers out of the water, but at the same time we’re seeing like consumer sentiment going down, getting harder to acquire customers at the same time as the seasonality.
Like, we’re not really sure what’s going on and that’s how the truth.
[00:07:45] Joe:
Yeah. I mean like, and I appreciate you being direct about it. It’s like, don’t have all the answers, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean just because the, the, the unsustainable, like pandemic peak is no longer the norm. People aren’t working out at home and there’s not going to be demand for this, type of product.
So I think it’s interesting. And it’s being smart about how you’re thinking about building a company and deploying capital and, charting that course forward.
As you mentioned. I don’t think that people, a lot of people think about it like this, but Peloton was founded way before the pandemic. And they were doubling sales every year until I think the most recent quarters when they started this either a downturn.
And that was kind of, you know, maybe because they got a little too far forward on their skis and not necessarily, indicative of at-home fitness. So,
[00:08:39] Andy:
Yeah, I’ll add to that. I think a lot, like what’s happened in the, in the last couple of years is there’s, it’s been a bull market, but there’s a lot of capital in the market. And what that means is you can operate a business less efficiently. And I think if there is a recession coming, it’s, it’s important.
As a business owner, you have the right unit economics, you have the right metrics in terms of your churn, your, your retention, your growth rate. but like last year, it didn’t matter as much. If you were losing, you know, X amount of dollars, it was most important that you were hitting the sales metrics and that gave you that high valuation.
You can raise more capital and then therefore you could hire more people than you actually needed. Now it’s going to be different. And those companies that are we’re pretty much overspending and not really watching their unit economics are going to have a bit of a tougher time and we might weed out some of the bad companies.
[00:09:31] Joe:
That’s how it goes. So that’s how those cycles work. And, it’s almost. If having that experience, bootstrapping at the onset will, will benefit you as you think about, what it’s like, tightening the belt and, kind of getting back to the fundamentals.
[00:09:46] Andy:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. There’s a ton of companies and I don’t have to tell you like, companies that have a ton of employees and they’re just hiring and they’re spending lots of marketing, but maybe they don’t have the traction yet, like they should. so we’re gonna, we’re going to see what’s going to happen the next couple of months.
[00:10:01] Joe:
Yeah. I want to talk about some of the specifics around, both the equipment and like the content aspects. But, since we were on the. What is working or maybe what channels are you seeing success with in terms of acquisition? Is it primarily social and like figuring out those ads and kind of hacking that, you know, LTV and conversion, or is it more so I’m sure there’s an element, right.
Of like word of mouth and just getting the brand out there and getting it in front of more people.
[00:10:30] Andy:
Yeah. And great question for our industry specifically. It’s not an easy question to answer because the sales cycle is very long. It’s a high consideration product. You know, it’s not like you’re selling a t-shirt where someone sees the ad clicks on it. And two days later, two days later they buy it.
Right? So it might be 12 months before they make that buying decision. And so during that 12 month process, they’re at the top of the funnel and they’re looking at PR they’re looking at reviews on YouTube. They’re going to your Facebook group and talking to your customers. So it’s hard to say, you know, one channel. Really important or more important than another channel. Cause it’s so hard to attribute where they sales are coming from. But what I will say is like it’s important for, for any connected fitness company or any company in the e-commerce space to continue testing. We’re literally just looking for, new channels every single month or quarter.
So we’re going to do TikTok. We’re going to do Pinterest. We’re doing connected TV. You know what obviously worked really well is going to be your, your standard, Facebook and Instagram and Google and YouTube. No what’s gotten us here is not going to get us to the next level. So, and what’s gotten us here may not work a month from now, so we’re not only testing new channels, but then you gotta figure out, the language and messaging.
So to give you a really good example, During the pandemic using the messaging around, working out at home was really strong. People didn’t want to go to the gym. They want to stay at home, but you can’t use that same messaging now to what’s worked for free for you like eight months ago. it’s definitely not going to work for you now.
And you see you’re, you’re constantly testing.
[00:12:08] Joe:
Yeah.
It’s a work in progress. maybe zooming out a little bit. We were kind of in the weeds there, minute, but even just talking about, you know, the rower in general and that not being like a new modality, right. You have like the old school concept too, which is kind of like the pioneer in the space.
But also, even as someone who has one and uses one, like. It only does kind of like that one thing. And there’s, if you don’t have the discipline to kind of get in that seat, which is not comfortable, right. And just row and, you know, totally crush yourself. Like I can see how it’s not going to be appealing to a lot of people.
But, at the same time, super efficient, full body workout, like all those things that maybe people don’t realize, how did you come to the rower and then like, add that element of the gamified.
[00:13:00] Andy:
Yeah.
So, and you nailed it, right? Like rowing is such a great modality. It is, something that I think more like you go to any gym, you’re going to see a rower, whether someone is on it is another, another question,
[00:13:12] Joe:
Or using
[00:13:13] Andy:
Exactly. Yeah. And it’s such a difficult exercise in terms of like, if you just look at this machine, you’re like, it’s pretty daunting to get on for the first time. So there’s a few things that we thought about. one, when we were thinking about, you know, building. we want them to find a product that had the biggest market opportunity. Spinning is, you know, really saturated. There’s a lot of competitors in that market. but rowing on the other hand was one of the fastest growing.
It’s not the fastest growing modality, thanks to things like orange theory and CrossFit. So it was getting a lot more popular and it’s a global sport. Like it’s an Olympic sport. Everyone knows rowing, it’s not new. and so you go to anywhere around the world, people pretty much understand rowing as well, but it’s obviously much smaller. what we found though, was rowers. Like the rowing machines out that they haven’t changed in a long time, right? Unlike a treadmill or a bike, you know, there’s a lot of tech, technological advancements, but rowing really hasn’t changed it. And it really caters to a very niche group. And, you know, those people are mentally, I would say really strong.
They would sit on that machine. Like you said, with a hard seat, its pretty loud, it’s low to the ground. and so we wanted to bring rowing to, you know, the general public and make it more accessible for more people. And so if you actually look at our data, 90% of our customers have never wrote more than two times in their life before purchasing and 50% have never wrote it off.
So we’re really tapping into people that understand the benefits rowing, and making it accessible for, for everyone.
[00:14:42] Joe:
Yeah, it’s awesome. I think. And getting people in terms of bang for your buck and efficiency, like as opposed to if, I mean, if you’re doing anything props, like keep doing it, hopefully you love it and found some that it works, but, just in terms of like full body engagement. Yeah. Calories, per or per workout, like a few things stack up to that.
And then one of the things of course that you added is like, when you do get on a rower, there are companies now taking different approaches in terms of what that content looks like. Obviously, you know, you kind of have this like studio based content where it’s an instructor coach.
You have the game based content and design that goes with it. And some folks that are just putting. Hey, let’s see if we can get Netflix on this thing.
And in terms of entertainment, you’re doing some elements, maybe of all those things. Can you talk about like what the experience is beyond the equipment?
[00:15:35] Andy:
Yeah, so I’ll, I’ll start off with like the actual equipment and. Yeah, obviously I’m biased. I think it’s one of the best rowers in the market, but people have asked us, like investors have asked, like, why didn’t you just create this
Amazing content, which is, which is the biggest part of our product on, you know, a constitute or a water rower. And the reason is because those rowers are, they haven’t changed. And the design for rowers, to, to give you an example, rowers. Typically the foot placements are quite narrow because it generates the most power when your feet are closer together. And that is easy when you’re not, you know, if you’re a big dude or a lady and you got wide hips, like it’s not going to be comfortable for you.
So we wanted to build a role that’s more accessible. So having wider foot placements, having it still the rail isn’t, you know, four inches off the ground. 20 inches off the ground is some of the features that make our row are more accessible to more people. but then the content is, really what separates us.
And like, like you mentioned, we do have a ton of variety and that’s kind of what we want to really focus on is that variety. So everything from streaming services. So we have your Netflix or prime, YouTube,
Other streaming services, Disney, and then we have, on the other spectrum, we have. Hardcore games where you’re being chased by zombies and you’re playing old school brick breaker, or you’re shooting, robots. And a big part of our experience is, you know, even though we don’t have classes and you’re not in a class with other people, you’re actually competing and racing against other people. So a little bit of backstory is I really built or just decided to build this product because I want it to build it for me.
And me personally, like the class experience, isn’t that exciting to me. And it’s not exciting to me, not just from a content standpoint, but like cardio is hard for me. Like I hate doing anything for 45 minutes, 60 minutes. Like that’s tough for me. And like you mentioned, the rower is a great workout where you can do it in, you know, five or 10 minutes, 20 minutes and have a great week.
A big part of our rowers that we have, a really comprehensive resistance system. So it has air like a standard rower, and that gives you that realistic feeling of being on the water. Even the more, the faster you pull, the more air you displace. but we also have a magnetic side that puts up to a hundred pounds of resistance.
So it goes super high and. Added that because we wanted like a machine that was like more high intensity focus where we can get on for five minutes, do some sprints do intervals, and have that type of experience. So that’s what really makes our product different from a physical roller it’s more accessible and our workouts are, you know, we have the long form of cardio workup, but we have these high intensity races where you’re on there for 30 minutes, 45 seconds, three minutes and you’re getting a great workout.
And then obviously the content. Super broad in terms of, you know, streaming classes at, in games.
[00:18:34] Joe:
Yeah. Right. And it’s important when you think about just appealing to a broader audience and especially in the place where it’s like, like you said, many of these people will never. Road before. And certainly, I don’t even think a ton of people associate it with necessarily rowing on the water. It’s like, maybe that’s how they know it, but they’ve seen this piece of equipment and it’s almost an entirely different experience.
So then bringing those elements of entertainment and competition and gaming around it is like totally an entirely new experience, like from the ground up, which I think is interesting. In terms of like, designing And building the hardware, where was that purely a, figuring out who can manufacture this, developing those relationships dealing with, as we’ve seen during the pandemic and still now as well, the supply chain and logistics, and like, how have you navigated.
[00:19:25] Andy:
I think in hindsight, a lot of people would say this because most people who start businesses are like pretty naive and you’re like yeah, man, it’s going to be easy. And like, I’m going to hire people. And, you know, once I, once, once we get bigger, I’ll do less work.
It’s like, never like that.
Right. So, yeah, getting off the ground and building a hardware company is tough. building a hardware company that, where you’re selling a machine that weighs like 150 pounds is like stupid, tough. so the, for like the first. Like year, like We were just trying to find the right partner to build the rower for us.
And it was difficult. We weren’t fund it. We didn’t really have a business. So actually like was traveling overseas. I hired translator, to follow me to like random buildings where it’d be manufacturer knock on their door and was like, Hey man, we’re starting a business.
We had this great idea. I’d love to show you our concept. so that was really challenging, but every step of the way is being challenging. So we found a manufacturer, we built a product, but even getting the product here in like super. you know, we’ve heard it before. but like getting the product here, I think our shipping costs have increased like 250% raw materials are up, like at least 15 to 20%.
You know, we use a pretty complex computer system and getting the right components in the chip sets has been tough. So balancing, getting the product here and meeting demand, like all that being quite shocked.
It’s
[00:20:50] Joe:
Yeah. It’s and it’s almost like I’m sure going through. Some of the conversations with investors and even yourselves as a team, it’s like, oh, once we reached, like this scale, the price will come down and this will get more efficient. and like just given the state of the world. Right. And everything else, like it’s probably gotten exponentially harder in fact, to do that.
And now, as you think about ramping up and continuing to sell more, it’s like it’s a gift and a curse. It’s like, you’ve got to figure out how to get all this stuff here and continue to keep, the supply company.
[00:21:21] Andy:
Exactly. Yeah. Like we had were fortunate for us. We were like growing at an exceptional pace, but it’s like really hard to like forecast what that pace is going to be. So, give people a little bit of a perspective. It’s not like we order a product and it shows. A month later, like you really ordered the product a year in advance, but you need to give the factory a schedule.
You’re like, this is how many I’m going to order in January, February, March, April, may, whatever.
And then you got to put deposits down. So yeah, like forecasting a year in advance and saying, okay, I’m hoping I’m going to grow by X hundred percent. And then, you know, Amazing. If you can like sell that many, but if you’re, you’re not selling that many, then now you’re sitting on millions of dollars with an inventory and if you sell too much and yet you’ve got pissed customers that are, like, okay, there’s a lead time of like 12 weeks.
So getting the balance right is super finicky and tricky, especially in this environment.
[00:22:17] Joe:
Yeah, I can’t, it’s crazy on the hardware side. It’s no joke.
And then of course there’s like the content and whether that’s content. Coaching, whether that’s content gaming, same, I guess, same question almost, right. Like going from that place of like, Hey, I know I want, I want this to show up on the screen and then getting there and seeing how people respond and then iterating on that.
What has the development been like on the content?
[00:22:43] Andy:
Yeah. Fortunately for us content, like we are, I’m really oppressive, like our team and the content. it’s hard for people like who haven’t been following along, but we’ve come up with like crazy amount of updates. Like we probably push major updates faster than any other company. Like I’d even say Peloton doesn’t move at our pace. so, you know, one of the things that we we’ve done is, Obviously we’re fitness entertainment,
But we say we were game design and game psychology is like at our core. And it’s true because every single one of our developers is actually from the gaming industry. So we use an engine called unity, which is a gaming engine.
So like we have to hire a game developers or they’re not going to understand how to build on our platform.
And the gaming. Face is like such a cool space is like so much there that people like don’t really know that, especially from the fitness side, like we’re bringing all this like gaming, like concepts and features and things like that to, to this side that, that it makes me really excited to give you some example.
Of some of the things that we do, like for every minute that you row on the Aviron, you get an experienced coin and use that coin to like unlock backgrounds and unlock characters and like new workouts. So that journey has been super fun for me. And I think, you know, we’re doing a great job where we’re releasing tons of updates and people are loving the content.
So, yeah.
[00:24:02] Joe:
And this might be, I think, first of all, it’s like same thing back to creating the hardware to appeal to an entirely different audience. Like there are so many things that appeal to people who are already fit or already exercise, or have a certain perspective that they like going to the gym. Doing straight training.
And they like going to boutique fitness classes and like, that’s what they understand, but merging these different worlds where it’s like, if you can get somebody who never rode, right. And maybe you never exercise, but was into gaming and this is their on-ramp to that. it’s something I’ve been super excited about is like the fitness industry continues to evolve and especially people who now come to.
Maybe from outside that world that are saying like, Hey, how do we tap into other experts who aren’t just from that traditional mindset of this is exercise. This is a treadmill, this is a class. so it’s super cool to see that.
[00:24:55] Andy:
Yeah.
And it honestly, it’s tough because most people, when they see the word gaming, it’s like, it doesn’t really resonate with them. They almost have aren’t, you know, 22 year olds that are buying a $2,000 rowing machine and paying a monthly subscription there, you know, older people, their families, and. So getting that messaging right.
And getting that message out and even the content, like that’s what we don’t just focus on gaming. We think gaming brings so much to the, like to our fitness industry. Like you can make workouts fun by like using gaming psychology and design, but you can’t just go a hundred percent hard into gaming and just come up with games because you’re not going to be able to sell enough product.
So that’s when we’re really broad. When we say we’re fitness entertainment, and we try to add all these. types of content, but it all comes, it all like it’s pulled in using like that gaming aspect.
[00:25:43] Joe:
For sure. And then it’s, you know, it’s probably a question that maybe investors have asked or that you’ve kind of talked about internally as well. Maybe definitely right too early to know ultimately where it goes, but is it, Hey, let’s take this content, and apply it to every different machine and every different modality or is it, Hey, let’s have these partnerships where we lug our content into existing pieces of hardware or, you know, maybe some combination of both ultimately, how do you think about evolving that offering?
[00:26:12] Andy:
Yeah.
A hundred percent. So I got to like be careful of how much I divulge obviously. but you’re, you’re a hundred percent. Right. And what I will say is Like. if you look at our content, it’s not rowing content, right? Like. throwing snowballs at wolves and stuff, or running away from zombies or, racing at the Olympic athletes.
We have, you can race against Olympic sprinters and Olympic boxers. Like that’s not rowing. So we really can use our content, this amazing Like engine that we’ve built, onto pretty much any, any machine, any modality. what I’ll also add is like, what’s interesting about the fitness industry is. Like up until recently, it’s very slow moving industry.
Like if You look at all the biggest fitness players out there, like we’ll name some, like the tech on jam, like fitness pre-core I think they make great equipment. Like I go to the gym, I love like their equipment. It’s like. Beautiful. And it works really well, but you get, you get on their treadmill or their bike.
And you’re like, this thing looks like it’s made in like 1980s. Like you’re lucky if you have some streaming services on there, but you have no profile. You can’t check out your workout history. you can’t like work out with other people. So that’s like a little taste of like what we’re seeing and where we think the future can be.
[00:27:31] Joe:
Yeah.
And you know, you don’t have to say it directly. We’ll, we’ll definitely keep an eye out to see how it evolves, but it’s also pointing towards, and we talked about this a little bit in the newsletters, like. Not only consolidation, but thinking about what these open platforms look like and how different players play to their strengths and leverage what they do really well and partner with other people who do other things really well.
Yeah, I think just after the kind of ups and downs, the last couple of years, people are starting to look around and be like, ah, you know, how do we work together?
How do we partner folks And what does that look so it’ll be interesting to see.
[00:28:08] Andy:
Most, probably one of the most siloed industries. you’d be like another tidbit. Like if, if I’m a manufacturer and I want to integrate to like Netflix or create a profile or integrate your. You’re doing it by yourself. Like there’s no like Android operating system that kind of connects all the devices together.
It’s a super solid industry. It’s going to be interesting to see where this kind of goes.
[00:28:31] Joe:
Yeah. And let’s, I guess kind of keeps that going is as we get towards the end of the conversation, looking ahead, you mentioned, having raised, funding. I think it was, was it early this year?
[00:28:42] Andy:
December is when we raised it and then we’re raising venture that.
[00:28:45] Joe:
Yeah.
And so potentially adding some additional funding. And now thinking about how you accelerate, you know, both the, the sales aspect, but potentially other modalities of partnerships, what, from a team perspective, what are you guys talking about as like, Hey, what’s on the roadmap. What are these kinds of milestones that you’re either working towards or most excited about that we should maybe look at?
[00:29:09] Andy:
Yeah. from like a top line business standpoint, you know, we’re venture back, which means we’re expected to grow like comfortably for investors. They want to see 150% growth every year. So two and a half X. and fortunately for us, we raised a ton of capital, which is we get to put it to work and we’re going to put it to work in, you know, to grow that size.
You need to make your product better. We’re investing a lot into the development side, and I think our development team is amazing. Considering how hard hardware is, the software side is just so much easier. That’s why I’m super positive about it because it’s just jumping through a lot of hoops to get the hardware out there.
You can expect to see many more amazing updates coming out, from a software standpoint, just because we’re building out that team and it’s just going to get better and better. We’re really just building out the team, trying to hit these milestones, but at the same time kind of pulling it back a bit.
Consumer sentiment is down, the public markets are kind of down, so we’re not really sure what what’s going to happen, but we’re well-capitalized. It’s a balance between making sure you don’t run out of money and making sure you hit these great milestones that your investors are setting for you.
[00:30:18] Joe:
Definitely not an easy road ahead, but like you said, you’re well-positioned, and certainly putting that capital to work is a good place to be.
In wrapping up, and we’ll get you out of here on this, for folks who want to learn more, maybe check out what you have going on, where would you point them?
[00:30:36] Andy:
Yeah, I’d point to obviously our website. We have a lot of great content and videos on there. There’s a lot of great reviews on YouTube. Where I encourage people to visit is actually our Facebook community or our Discord community. I know it seems a little bit strange, but it’s a public community, so you just need to request to join.
If you’re in there you’re going to really “drink the Kool-Aid.” The energy in that community, people really love the product, and they love doing group workouts and racing against each other. Last year we had one of our customers actually tattoo our logo onto her arm because she loves the community, loves the product, lost a ton of weight.
If you really want to dive into who Aviron is, join either our Discord or Facebook community, and read some of the posts.
[00:31:22] Joe:
For sure. I hope folks do that. See what that cult life is all about; getting the tattoos and joining full-force.
It was awesome chatting today. I appreciate you making some time.
[00:31:32] Andy:
Thank you. I appreciate it.