Democracia directa y participativa

nder Armour is not just a company. It’s a locker room created by the country’s greatest coaches where everybody is dedicated to ‘making all athletes better through passion, design, and relentless pursuit of innovation.’”

The words roll off Chip Adams’ tongue because he practices them as chief performance o cer of the tness apparel company Under Armour. Driven by the vision of founder and CEO, Kevin Plank, Under Armour has pursued its mission by creating great products that appeal to a de ned group of customers, marketing them broadly, and selling them through retailers. With 2012 revenues of $1.8 billion, Under Armour has become familiar as athletes of every ilk don its performance apparel to feel cool in the midst of their workouts or strolls through the mall. But like most consumer product companies that sell through retail, Under Armour rarely has a direct connection to its customers.

Not so, Nike, Under Armour’s erce competitor. Since 2006, Nike has been harnessing the mobile mind shift to serve its customers directly. Beginning with its Nike+ iPod sensor and app and continuing with many other apps, Nike has built direct relationships with 18 million runners tracking their workouts.1 _{Nike now knows more things about}

these dedicated athletes than any market research company could tell them.

Athletes are some of the most Shifted people on the planet. As a group, athletes’ and particularly young athletes’ Mobile Mind Shift Index is much higher than the general population (see Figure 8-1). Not only are they more Shifted; they communicate, consume, and transact on their mobile devices at much higher rates than the general population. The high Communicate and Transact scores of athletes indicate their readiness to share results and do business over mobile devices. Athletes are also avid users of smartphones while exercising. Among athletes with smartphones, 26% use them when exercising; that number rises to 33% among athletes ages 18 to 40. Only 12% of non-athletes with smartphones do. Athletes are ready for a direct relationship in their mobile performance moments.

Nike is not the only innovator tapping into athletes’ mobile mind shift. A new category of mobile tness apps, including Strava and MapMyRide, serves athletes using any smartphone in their mobile moments. The advantage of these tness apps is that they are built on an open cloud platform, so an athlete can connect them with data from any wearable device or mobile app. With an open platform, Under Armour could pursue direct connections to customers and potential customers. But how could Under Armour get an edge on that platform?

This is where Robin Thurston comes in. Robin is a hyper-Shifted athlete who is also the CEO of MapMyFitness, the company that builds the mobile tness apps MapMyRide, MapMyRun, and MapMyWalk. As a former professional cyclist, Robin started the company because he was looking for a better way to nd the best cycling routes anywhere in the world. And because Robin still rides between 8,000 and 10,000 miles a year, he’s as passionate about his mission as Kevin Plank and Chip Adams are about

Under Armour’s.

Cyclists with a smartphone and MapMyRide in their pocket nd routes, track their performance, log personal records, and compete with friends and other athletes doing the same segments. It’s like running a virtual race against yourself and anybody else that slogs up the same hills you do. The pinnacle of achievement is to be the fastest up the hill—or at least the fastest in your network.

In 2013 MapMyFitness had 21 million registered users, up from 13 million in 2012. And 9 million of those customers are active every month. When Kevin met Robin in 2013, he realized he had found his direct connection to athletes in their mobile moments.

Under Armour purchased MapMyFitness in December 2013 for $150 million.

MapMyFitness’ business model is digital. It sells subscriptions for athletes that want to share routes broadly or compare their statistics over time. It sells advertisements. But Robin’s real business model innovation is bigger than that: He is making MapMyFitness into an open “ tness cloud” that any company can use to serve athletes in their mobile moments. A tness cloud, like a social network for athletes, is an Internet-hosted platform for storing tness data, managing personal accounts, establishing social connections, and hosting new devices and applications from any company. When your mission is making all athletes better, you have to pursue every advantage and be open to every device and application, especially those from other companies. Hundreds of gadget, gear, and service companies already use MapMyFitness’ software to enhance their products and services.

MapMyFitness’ business model is thus more than digital—it’s mobile-native. It wouldn’t exist without mobile moments.

So when Kevin Plank met Robin Thurston, it was a match of common missions and diverse business models. As Chip Adams explains, “If we both focus on every athlete and their needs, good things will come. Any money will be a byproduct of doing the right thing.”

With MapMyFitness in its portfolio, Under Armour can enhance its existing physical products business model. The direct relationship with tens of millions of athletes gives Under Armour new data about how its customers and potential customers use apparel and footwear in sports. Simply being able to correlate weather conditions with running sessions sheds new light on the requirements of performance clothing. MapMyFitness has this data from its athlete customers. Under Armour can use this information to create better products and find ways to market them directly to athletes.

Under Armour also now owns a new mobile-native business model completely in line with its mission. Just like an entrepreneur, it can help drive the mobile mind shift by delivering new services into athletes’ mobile moments.