Hi Reader,
Some of you have been here a while. Many of you are new. And the work I do has shifted enough that I want to reintroduce myself, plainly, and tell you why.
I am Mathias. In 2014 I launched woom bikes USA with no investors, no venture capital, and no safety net. Just a container of four hundred kids' bikes, maxed-out credit cards, and an unreasonable belief that it would work. Over the next six years I bootstrapped it from nothing to +$20MM in revenue, with growth that earned multiple Inc. 5000 honors, including a 742 percent three-year run. In 2021 I helped merge the US and European operations, and I led the combined global business, north of a $100MM , as CEO through 2022 and 2023.
It was the ride of a lifetime. And it came with a cost almost no one warns you about. Loneliness.
Because here is the thing nobody tells you. When you are building a company at that scale, the problems do not get smaller. They get bigger, more complex, and more isolating. Even with a great team around me, there were long stretches where I carried the weight of the hardest decisions alone, because no one in my world had carried that same weight.
The single thing that changed that was not a new tactic or a better framework. It was a room.
In 2021 I went through the Birthing of Giants Fellowship myself, and it was a turning point. The vision framework they teach, 'One Year From Today', sharpened how I lead, and the program named something I had been getting wrong for years, the habit of oversimplifying the problems that came easily to me, when scaling actually demands respect for complexity, for your people, your systems, and your blind spots. But the deepest thing it gave me was simpler than any of that. It put me in a room of other owners who had sat in the same chair, and who would tell me the truth.
That was the thing I had been missing at the top. Not more advice. Peers.
So this is my chapter now. I am not running a company anymore. I coach and mentor founders, and I lead the Texas Regional Cohort for Birthing of Giants. Not because I went looking for the next business move, but because the room that changed me is the thing I most want to build for others.
Let me be honest about the landscape. There are plenty of coaches. Most have never built, scaled, or sold a company. They learned the frameworks. They did not live them. What makes Birthing of Giants different is that it is led by operators who actually built real companies, survived the chaos of scaling, and came out the other side. Not people who studied the playbook. People who wrote it the hard way.
It is selective and MBA-level, built for owners of seven and eight figure companies who want to scale smarter, grow real enterprise value, and prepare for capital or an exit, whether or not they ever take one.
And it is already alive here. Last Thursday I sat down with eleven business owners in Austin, more than a $100M of revenue around one table, for a workshop and a dinner. The rule was simple. No performing. The moment we got honest, nearly every one of them named some version of the same problem, the isolation of the chair and the weight of carrying it alone. Every person walked out more energized than they walked in. That room is exactly what I am building, at a deeper level, in the cohort.
Here is the structure. Quarterly in-person sessions with a curated group of peers. A proven curriculum across four pillars: building your company as if you would sell it, even if you never do; redesigning your financial model for faster growth and higher enterprise value; using data and modern tools to amplify sales; and building a business that does not depend on you for everything. It all comes together in a capstone at Fellowship Week. And running underneath all of it, the same vision work that reset my own leadership.
But the curriculum is only half of it. The other half is the room. A place where you realize you are not the only one facing this. Where other owners hold you to the goals you set. Where you can tell the unfiltered truth of leadership without it costing you anything. Where the range of experience in the room produces better answers than you would ever reach alone. You leave each session with clarity and renewed drive. Simply put, the cohort makes the lonely part of this far less lonely, and far more effective.
The next cohort starts October 15th, and I keep it small on purpose, because the quality of the room depends on who is in it.
So if you are leading a seven or eight figure company, and you are ready to stop drifting, build real enterprise value, and scale with clarity instead of carrying it alone, this is your invitation. The honest first step is a conversation. Let's find out together whether this is the right room for you, before October 15th.
You can reach me directly. Email mathias.ihlenfeld@birthingofgiants.net. Book a time at calendly.com/mathiasihlenfeld. Or text me at 737-600-6142.
And if you would rather feel the room before you commit to anything, I also host dinners for owners here in Austin. The next one is August 13th. Apply for it simply by emailing me. Come sit at the table.
I will leave you with the line that sums up why I do any of this.
Better leaders build better businesses. And better businesses build stronger communities.
That is the whole point. Glad you are here.
Mathias Ihlenfeld | Entrepreneur | Coach | Advisor
P.S. My door is open. I offer a free thirty minute call to anyone, on any topic, business or personal, no agenda and no pitch. If something is on your mind, grab a time here: calendly.com/mathiasihlenfeld