Our Investment in Masters — ‘train with the best, become your best’
The first three books I read when I was just old enough to read an entire book were the biographies of Pele, Martina Navratilova, and Emil Zatopek, the latter two being national heroes of Czechoslovakia, my home country. Emil Zatopek, who at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 won three gold medals (5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon) and broke 18 World Records throughout his career, was known for unconventional training techniques including running in gumboots in a forest for hours on end. With that type of practice, the real competition was the easy part!
For a young kid who was taught that ‘where there is a will, there is a way,’ it seemed to follow that if I just have the same attitude and grit as these athletes, I can achieve extraordinary things. This belief disregarded my relatively pedestrian athletic talent, however, it carried me through practice and instilled in me a discipline that, even if it didn’t lead to achieving the results I was dreaming of in competition, produced my happiest childhood memories and served me well in life in general later on.
The desire for understanding an AAA-star athlete’s ‘secret sauce’ and getting to know their habits and mindset is what drives a lot of fan behaviour and content consumption. Even though athletes talk about themselves in manicured press conferences, glossy magazine articles, or snippety IG stories, fans can’t really get access to a comprehensive playbook of an elite’s athlete training methods and attitudes that made them the champions they’ve become. There are only a handful of Netflix or Masterclass shows of the most revered sports icons, however, they are made to entertain rather than inspire people to take concrete, practical steps to improve their own athleticism and mindset.
What if you could literally train with your favourite athletes every day? Or do a short weekend bootcamp with them, along with getting insights on how they make the small decisions every day that add up to them beating their toughest opponent when it counts?
Here is where Masters comes in. It was conceived to enable sports enthusiasts to train with their favourite athletes, in a remote, cohort-based way, in ‘interactive training documentaries.’ The Masters team works with individual elite athletes with large global audiences such as the big wave surfers Kai Lenny, Nic von Rupp, and several signed but unannounced all-star NBA players, Grand Slam champion tennis players, football players, golfers, NFL stars, and others. The content creation also involves their trainers, nutritionists, and psychologists, covering both mind and body.
Every month, and soon more often than that, a new program with a star athlete ‘drops,’ offering a 4-week comprehensive program that fans of all fitness levels can participate in wherever they are, covering topics such as strength, mobility, cardio, and mindset training. Each user will become a member of a cohort of other fans following along the same program, having started on the same day, typically every Sunday. When the program is over, they can begin another program by the same athlete (Masters will offer 4-week, weekly, or weekend programs) or try to get to know better the routines of other star athletes that they may or may not know very well.
The appeal of such an innovative product is clear: everyone can see close up how the best athletes in the world get in shape, in a way which has never been possible before. Some athletes may have a book written about their routines one day, but the experience of training along with your favourite athlete at the peak of their game, and being immersed in a community of like-minded fans you can support and get to know, makes this a unique and superior experience. This is the powerful proposition we invested behind and the early conversion and completion rates from beta programs are very promising.
This bold vision is being brought to reality by a purpose-built founding team of Greg Drach, Christian Dörffer, and Daniel Taschik. Christian and Greg are the creators of Midnight Runners, a very successful global run community, among other achievements. Daniel previously co-founded Dubsmash, a viral B2C app with hundreds of millions of downloads. Together they have an exceptional track record building best-in-class consumer products and forming highly engaged communities around them.
The team’s seductive enthusiasm for the Masters mission has translated into an uncanny ability to bring AAA-talent onboard, who themselves see value in the product as a unique way to engage with their fanbases, giving them tangible advice with lasting impact, and join an elite community of other world-class athletes who want to do the same.
At KAYA VC, we are thrilled to be along for the journey and can’t wait for the programs to launch and exciting athletes to be added! And maybe one of them will preach running through the forest in gumboots like Emil Zatopek did 70 years ago. I’m sure I’ll find many inspiring stories on Masters and get in better shape to boot.
Many thanks to Henrik Kraft for the initial introduction!
