Startup Spotlight #83: Aviron

Aviron’s interactive rowing machine will transport you to scenic destinations, a place of ﬁerce competition, or self-improvement through hundreds of exciting and engaging workouts.

Feb 08, 2021

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I got the chance to speak with Andy Hoang, founder and CEO of Aviron, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.

Andy Hoang is the founder and CEO of Aviron Interactive. His background is in business and operations, but it was really his gym routine that sparked the idea behind Aviron. Even though the idea itself was a classic light bulb moment that many entrepreneurs reference, Hoang’s family history feels like it predetermined his path as a founder.

His grandfather started multiple businesses throughout his life in Vietnam, including schools, hotels, and shops. His father, a refugee, followed in the same footsteps in Canada hustling his way through as many as 3 unsuccessful businesses - including a Tech Spy Shop - before finding success with i3 International, a video surveillance and business intelligence company that employees 150 people and was named Canada’s 13th fastest growing companies.

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Startup Spotlight: Aviron

Problem: Customers who want studio fitness classes are switching to connected home fitness equipment, while customers who want high-intensity and competitive workouts at home continue searching for an alternative.

Market: Connected fitness equipment industry TAM is $93B and growing at 31.2% CAGR. Nine in 10 Americans plan to continue at-home workouts even once gyms fully reopen.

Solution: Aviron’s interactive rower is equipped with a 22” HD touchscreen and loaded with hundreds of competitive and high-intensity games, races, and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) programs, letting you train with others from the comfort of your home, on your schedule.

Team: The team consists of Andy Hoang, Founder & CEO – former COO at Canada’s 13th fastest growing company; Bao Ho, CTO – Former lead engineer at Gameloft (5000 employees); and Inessa Karlinsky, CMO - 8+ years ad agency /marketing.

Recent Success:

Hoang: I’m extremely proud of my team. With very little funding, we’ve built something with great product-market fit. Even more impressive is we are a hardware and consumer products company, which is extremely challenging with limited funding. Executing on a hardware business with a very small budget. Being a Canadian company, a hardware company and consumer-facing made it challenging to raise capital. We pushed forward with very little of it and leaned on what we knew; we launched into the B2B space, hustled our way to a somewhat solid baseline, and launched our B2C product when the timing was right.

Summer 2020 was a challenging time, but also a good market opportunity for connected home fitness. We took the leap and achieved 40% MoM growth since July, less than 1% churn, and high customer engagement within six months of the consumer launch.

Recent Struggle:

Hoang: I am a non-technical solo founder having to design a technical product as well as solve technical problems.

I had to learn system architecture (software + hardware), fix hardware issues (ex. learn to use an oscilloscope), and software issues (firmware). Both my father and brother are engineers so maybe I’m at least somewhat technically minded, but it was a challenge nonetheless.

This might be obvious, but as a solo founder developing a physical product, I am carrying the entire product development workload. While I’m attempting to understand and develop the technical and software sides, I am also working on finding a supplier, developing a trusting relationship, and finally signing a production contract. I had no idea that large manufacturers are not only difficult to find, but even more difficult to get ahold of for a meeting. When no one would take my call for almost a year, I ended up flying to Taiwan and physically knocking on doors to get the process kick-started. It was another full year before we had a contract for production signed.

Founder Advice:

Hoang: Take every meeting and respond to every email. You never know where it could lead and honestly, I’m a big believer in karma. I took a cold call that led to a great relationship with a marketing advisor. I also connected with Pioneer through a contact for an unrelated conversation which led to a sizable contribution during the bridge round.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Hoang: Here are three founders you should check out next!

Dillon Zhang Forrest, Founder of Picasso: ???
Apoorva Pande, Founder of Focused Founder: Focused Founder is a startup accelerator that provides a step by step process for transitioning to a growth algorithm business.
Daryl Sew, Founder of Taste Technologies: Taste's mission is to help amazing restaurants thrive during these unprecedented times.

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