Rowing is an incredibly efficient way to stay fit, but it has two major drawbacks: it’s boring, and most people don’t know how to do it properly. So says former USA National Rowing Team member Bruce Smith, and that’s what he was inspired to found Hydrowan immersive home rowing machine and streaming workout program.
“As a coach of elite athletes, I had to learn a lot about physiology and how to improve people’s performance, and I learned that when people sit on a bike, they literally have to spend twice as much time to get the same benefit as rowing.” Smith said businessman. “Rowing is the best-kept secret to ‘total health,’ and so I wanted to build a company that wasn’t just an exercise company, but one that helped harness that incredible sense of flow that comes from rowing. ‘water,’ he said. he says. “You put those two things together and it’s like peanut butter and chocolate.”
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Hydrow’s Wave ($1,495) is a sleek, relatively compact machine that has a 16-inch touchscreen where rowers can access thousands of coached workouts or free-form POV videos that simulate rowing everywhere from Boston to Switzerland. “With a fun and engaging training program that you can watch and learn from, we believe that in the next five to 10 years, we will outsell bikes and treadmills,” says Smith.
businessman sat down (and rowed!) with the founder and CEO to learn how he turned his big idea into a business that experienced 300% growth last year. Watch the video above to see how he approached every aspect of the launch, from concept to design to delivery, and was able to break out into a crowded home exercise market. (Attention the end to see if businessmanthe interviewer’s interviewer is put at the end of the interview/training!)