The Sunscreen Brand That's Rewriting Performance Science
About this episode
Tom Austen is the founder of Pelotan, the world's first sun performance brand, and co-founder of Chance, a trail running apparel brand he's building with pro athlete and serial entrepreneur Christian Meier. Both brands are based in Girona, Spain — a two-square-kilometer pocket of world-class endurance athletes, cafes, and startups that's become the Boulder of Europe.
In this conversation, Tom walks through how Pelotan went from a sunburn problem on training rides to winning two Tour de Frances with Team Sky in its first year, and how the brand is now pioneering something entirely new: treating the sun as a performance variable rather than just a health risk. He also gets into the Chance origin story, why cross-pollination across categories is the key to building something original, and what it's like to run two high-growth startups at the same time from a city of 100,000 people.
Show Notes:
Popfly for Athletes/Creators
Tom Austen
Pelotan
Chance Running
Second Nature - Sea Otter Episode
Christian Meier
The Gartner Hype Cycle
Broken Arrow Skyrace
BPC - Brand, Product, Content: