I walked into the YETI flagship store in Austin tonight expecting a standard networking event. What I got instead was a front-row seat to history in the making. Jeff Karcher, Global Managing Director of the Texas Stock Exchange, laid out a vision that's been years in development but is only now coming into focus. This isn't just another stock exchange. This is about breaking a 50-year duopoly and creating real choice for companies. As a Regional Cohort Leader for Birthing of Giants, I spend...
about 3 hours ago • 13 min read
Lead with Focus - Mathias Ihlenfeld For founders, executives, and creators who want to lead with vision, not noise Big Shifts in My Life I feel inspired to share a few updates on where I’m headed in my life. I have been doing a lot of soul searching and am now sharing my new direction. Think of it as a quick pulse on what’s unfolding.......... My Realization If you’ve been following me, you know I’ve been working on my next move after woom. In the meantime, I’ve taken time to reflect. I’ve...
13 days ago • 2 min read
How balancing structure and spontaneity fuels both sustainable businesses and lasting relationships When it comes to how we move through the world, most of us lean one way or the other: 👉 The Organizers – structured, disciplined, plan-driven.👉 The Go-With-the-Flow Types – spontaneous, adaptable, intuitive. If you know me, you won’t be surprised — I’m more of a go-with-the-flow type. I trust my gut, move quickly, and welcome change. That instinct has fueled much of my entrepreneurial journey....
17 days ago • 3 min read
As the founder of woom USA, I led the company from a garage startup into one of North America’s fastest-growing kids’ bike brands. The pressure was relentless. Those years were filled with stress, sleepless nights, and a nonstop pace that eventually caught up with me. That search for better sleep led me somewhere unexpected: meditation. I wrote more about those years in Bootstrapping from $0 to $20MM: What It Really Took to Build woom USA. What I didn’t share in detail there was how stress...
17 days ago • 4 min read
At woom USA, our mission has always been clear: to inspire millions of children to fall in love with cycling—and to make the world a better place. But here’s the thing: having a mission on paper isn’t enough. It only matters if it’s lived daily by the people who bring it to life. By 2017, we realized we had a gap. A cultural blind spot. We were scaling fast, but our mission wasn’t anchored in the way our team operated. From that moment forward, we set a new goal: not only to build a...
17 days ago • 3 min read
When people ask what helped us scale woom bikes USA from a startup in a garage into the market leader in kids’ bikes, they usually expect answers like product innovation, marketing strategy, or logistics. And while those things mattered, they weren’t what really drove our success. The real driver was mindset. Three elements in particular shaped how we led, built culture, and navigated challenges with momentum: A growth mindset A focus on the Gain (not the Gap) A culture built on celebrating...
17 days ago • 3 min read
In 2017—three years after launching woom USA—I had a leadership wake-up call I’ll never forget. At that point, we had grown from a scrappy startup in my garage into a fast-moving company with a warehouse, a small but mighty team, and a growing base of parents and kids who loved our bikes. Growth was exciting. But growth also meant complexity, stress, and more opportunities for cracks to show. One afternoon, I walked through our warehouse and noticed two of our key team members—our Operations...
17 days ago • 4 min read
The playbook I used to scale woom bikes USA from a garage startup to $20M in sales without a single outside investor. I’ve built companies the hard way. I took woom from zero to $20MM in U.S. sales without giving up any equity. If you think that was smooth or easy, let me stop you right there. If you want the full backstory on that journey, I’ve shared it in detail here: Bootstrapping from $0–$20MM: What Really Took to Build woom (This article dives into my journey of bootstrapping woom bikes...
17 days ago • 10 min read
How building woom, raising Luca and Sofia, and juggling two jobs taught me more about presence, priorities, and resilience than any business school ever could. They say kids don’t listen — they watch. And in those early years of building woom, Luca and Sofia watched everything: the late nights, the stress, the small wins, and the moments I almost gave up. In 2014, I launched woom bikes USA out of a garage with a handful of bikes, a newborn on the way, and a whole lot of uncertainty. Back...
17 days ago • 7 min read