Will Ahmed- Founder & CEO of WHOOP -The Tool That Unlocks Human Performance
What does Whoop do? We create technology that can measure strain, recovery, and sleep. You get really high-level analytics on your body. We make money by charging a monthly membership. The wearable hardware is free.
I believe the more data you collect, the less data you want to show a user: It is not helpful to have 1,000 different data points on a screen. You don’t know what to do with it.
Why did you start Whoop? I believe every individual has inner potential. The key to reaching that potential is a better understanding of your body. Whoop’s mission is to unlock human performance. When I was a college athlete I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was overtraining. I didn’t understand the importance of recovery or sleep. I got really interested in this idea of how can I better understand my body?
An advantage that helped Whoop: We were very focused on the main idea from day one. We didn’t veer too far off from that. The paper I wrote [before starting Whoop] was literally titled The Feedback Tool: How To Measure Strain, Recovery, and Sleep. That is the three main things we show in the app.
Startups often talk about the advantage of pivoting along the way. I’m skeptical of that: It just means you were wrong about something. The goal is to be right. The sooner you can be right the better.
With startups you need to have cash and belief. If you have those two things you can keep going forever: If you are short on one you want to have a lot of the other. If you are low on cash you really need a lot of belief. And if you don’t have a lot of belief you’re going to need cash so you have some runway. Give yourself options.
Sometimes being unprepared can be a good way to learn: It forces you to figure out what actually matters as fast as possible.