Last night, ten founders cleared their Thursday evening, drove across Austin, and sat down together for four and a half hours. No sponsor agenda. No keynote. No one trying to sell anyone anything.
Just operators telling the truth.
We started at 5:30 with a two-hour session. Wins first -- the kind people do not talk about enough because they are too busy sprinting to the next problem. Then the harder stuff. What is actually keeping you up. Where you are stuck. What you wish someone had warned you about two years ago.
The thing I have learned about high-performing founders is that they do not need advice as much as they need permission. Permission to say the thing they have been carrying alone. And when someone in the room says it first, you can feel the whole table shift.
That happened multiple times last night.
By the time we walked over to Mama Betty's for dinner, these were not strangers. They were ten people who had already seen each other clearly. And the conversation at dinner was different because of it. Deeper. More useful. More honest.
Everyone left talking about the next one.
Here is what I know after twenty years of building businesses and now building this: the highest-leverage thing a founder can do is get in the right room. Not a conference room. Not a mastermind you found on the internet. A room of people at the same altitude, with the same stakes, who have no reason to perform for each other.
That is what Giants at the Table was built to be. And last night proved it works.
Now I am building something that goes deeper.
In August, I am launching the Central Texas cohort for Birthing of Giants -- a two-year, MBA-caliber peer group for business owners doing $5M or more in annual revenue. Same small group. One full day together every quarter. Real accountability. Real growth. The kind of peer group most founders spend their whole careers wishing they had found sooner.
The dinner was a preview. The cohort is the real work.
If last night's room sounds like where you belong, grab time on my calendar or just DM me directly.
Schedule a call: calendly.com/mathiasihlenfeld
Mathias Ihlenfeld Regional Cohort Leader, Central Texas -- Birthing of Giants Former CEO, $100M+ | 3x Inc. 5000
About Mathias
Mathias Ihlenfeld is a proud father of Luca (13) and Sofia (11), loving partner to Doralicia, and an award-winning entrepreneur based in Austin, TX.
He serves as the Austin Cohort Leader and Coach for the Birthing of Giants Regional Cohort, a selective fellowship program for growth-focused founders and CEOs building high-impact companies.
He is also the creator of The R.E.C.L.A.I.M. Code, an elite personal optimization framework built specifically for divorced high performers. His proprietary 6-stage framework helps divorced founders rebuild identity, attract aligned love, and ignite purpose-driven business performance.
As the founder of woom bikes USA, Mathias built one of North America’s fastest-growing direct-to-consumer kids’ bike companies, earning multiple Inc. 5000 honors—including a 742% three-year growth rate in 2020—and recognition as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. In 2021, he played a pivotal role in merging the U.S. and European operations, leading the combined $100M global business as CEO in 2022 and 2023. His leadership has been recognized with honors such as Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and the Vistage Impact Leadership Award.
A graduate of the Birthing of Giants Fellowship Program, Mathias brings decades of expertise in entrepreneurship, business transformation, and conscious leadership. Through his coaching practice, he works with founders, executives, and high-achieving men navigating personal reinvention, guiding them through identity rebuilding, emotional mastery, business growth, and relationship alignment.
Today, Mathias mentors with SKU, invests in purpose-driven brands, and writes on his Substack—sharing hard-earned lessons, strategic insight, and stories from his journey building global brands and leading life transformations.
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