Athlete Narrative
07

7 of 16

Growth

Where the subscribers came from

29.3K
Total subscribers
from 5K in Nov 25
5.9×
Growth in nine months
24.9% compounded monthly
9 of 9
Months ahead of plan
+787 versus the July target
24
Countries live
Adding more monthly

Actual versus plan

Subscribers have beaten the board plan every month

The dashed line is what the board underwrote. The solid line is what happened — while the product still cost $15 a month.

010K20K30K40KNov 25Dec 25Jan 26Feb 26Mar 26Apr 26May 26Jun 26Jul 26
Total subscribersBoard plan

Acquisition

New subscribers per month

0400800Nov 25Dec 25Jan 26Feb 26Mar 26Apr 26May 26Jun 26Jul 26
New subscribersPlan

Read on the shape

New subscriber adds sat in a band around 390 a month from March through June, then jumped to 689 in July — the strongest month of the run and 15% ahead of a plan that had been raised every quarter.

That July step change came alongside the App 2.0 launch and the marketing ramp to $13K a month. It is the clearest signal we have that spend converts.

Total subscribers exceed the running sum of new subscribers because the total also reflects accounts added through partner and coach channels. Source: Operating Cash Flow Forecast tab.

The plan this round funds

100K by December. 2M by October 2028.

These are the board’s forward targets, and they assume the app goes free. Every figure past July 2026 is a projection.

0750K1.5M2.25M3MAug 26Sep 26Oct 26Nov 26Dec 26Mar 27Jun 27Sep 27Dec 27Mar 28Jun 28Oct 28
Projected total subscribers

Dec 2026

100K

Total subscribers

Aug 2027

500K

Total subscribers

Jan 2028

1.02M

Total subscribers

Oct 2028

2.01M

Total subscribers

The honest constraint

The December target needs acquisition cost to fall

$900K of marketing has to carry us from 29.3K to 100K. At today’s cost per user it lands short. Removing the price is the lever that closes the gap.

At $18 per user

79.3K

total users, buying 50K

Short of 100K

At $12 per user

104K

total users, buying 75K

Clears 100K

At $8 per user

142K

total users, buying 113K

Clears 100K

At $5 per user

209K

total users, buying 180K

Clears 100K

At the $18 we pay today, the round’s marketing budget reaches roughly 79.3K users — short of the December target. The plan requires cost per user to fall to around $12, and paid acquisition is budgeted on that basis.

The reason we think it will: every user in the 2.07% July conversion rate converted with a fifteen-dollar price standing in the way. Removing it is the single largest change we can make to the funnel, and it costs nothing to make. Paid acquisition then compounds against a converting funnel rather than fighting a price objection.

Operating KPIs

Sixteen months of funnel, not nine

The traction sheet runs back to April 2025 — seven months further than the P&L. Its user lines tie exactly to the income statement, which is the best evidence we have that the subscriber numbers are clean.

6.9K
Monthly active users
13.0× April 2025
23.5%
Active share of base
MAU over total registered
0.43%
Monthly churn
5.1% annualised
20:1
LTV to CAC
$360 against $18
2.07%
Visit to customer
33.3K visits in July
34K
Social followers
from 1.83K in April 2025
010K20K30K40KApr 25Jun 25Aug 25Oct 25Dec 25Feb 26Apr 26Jun 26
Monthly active usersSite visits

Read on engagement

Active users flattened between February and May 2026 — 4,111 to 4,809 — while the registered base nearly doubled. June and July broke the plateau to 6.9K, which is the same two months the App 2.0 launch and the marketing ramp landed in.

23% of the registered base is active in a given month. That is the number a brand partner will underwrite against, not the 29.3K headline.

Conversion is new customers over site visits, as reported. The July rate of 2.07% is the strongest since April 2025 and reverses four months of decline.

Retention and efficiency

Cheap to acquire, slow to leave

$18 to acquire a customer

July marketing spend of $13K across 689 new customers works out near the reported figure, so the two workbooks agree on acquisition cost.

0.43% monthly attrition

108 accounts lost in July against an opening base of 25K. Attrition has grown with the base but has never accelerated faster than it.

20:1 on a stated assumption

LTV is a flat $360 per customer in every month of the sheet — 24 months at the $15 price. It is an assumption, not a measured cohort, and should be presented that way.

Audience

Fewer partners, more output

010K20K30K40KApr 25Jun 25Aug 25Oct 25Dec 25Feb 26Apr 26Jun 26
Social followers

Partner count peaked at 178 in Apr 26 and has come down to 154, with monthly posts down from 168 to 140 over the same stretch. New customers went up 78% across those months.

We read that as concentration working — pruning partners who weren’t converting and putting the support behind the ones who were. It is worth saying plainly rather than hiding a declining line, because the outcome improved while the input shrank.

Channels

What actually moves the number

  • Partnership marketing

    5% of raise

    Already good, and the cheapest subscriber we acquire. This round funds targeted support and materials so partners can push harder. 5% of the raise.

  • Influencer layer + paid

    36% of raise

    A mixture of free and paid influencers layered behind a marketing push. This is where 36% of the round goes, against $13.2K a month today.

  • Owned social, run by the ESOP

    $80K/yr avoided

    VPs bring their own audiences to their own verticals. That structure avoids roughly $80K a year in social media headcount.

  • Freemium down to 7th grade

    4M → 16M

    Opening the platform to middle schoolers builds recruiting habits early and moves the addressable base from 4M to 16M in the US alone.

Market

The addressable base grows with the model

4MUS high school upperclassmenCurrent target segment
16MUS middle + high schoolWith the 7th-grade freemium expansion
260MAthletes worldwideNon-US expansion, 24 countries live today

Nobody else in this category views it internationally. Sports are international, and the athletes we want to attract are too. The non-US market adds roughly 260 million athletes worldwide, which is the single largest lever on the addressable market.