“Fran gives me invaluable coaching that only another woman who has ‘been there, done that’ can do.”
–Cheryl Kellond
CEO & co-founder, Bia Sport

Fortunately for us, she uses her powers for good in her work as a mentor for women in technology and as a fierce advocate for women in business leadership. Her dedication to fostering female entrepreneurs is evident in new technology rich start-ups like Ruby Ribbon, a new, women-led social commerce apparel company, and, of course Bia. Fran joined our ranks when she became one of our angel investors, offering to match the kickstarter pledges of her friends and then spreading the word to her peers in Silicon Valley.

We’ve talked about our plans for a site that you can’t live without and a GPS watch that is going to make you throw out your Garmin….

But all we’ve delivered is a lousy t-shirt, a basic version of DailyMile meets Training Peaks, and some watchbands.

And then a friend reminded me of two things:

• Our running shirts are bad@ass
• By asking for help we are making you part of the company so we can build something amazing together..

You are our most valuable advisors and investors, so I want to let you know what’s happening behind the scenes. And I want to ask you for some more help.

Friggin’ Hustling!

Bia started because I wanted a GPS training watch that didn’t suck and it was clear no one else was going to make if for me. We’ve bootstrapped the company with credit cards, contributions from friends and family, and lots of sweat equity from an amazing team in Portland, San Francisco, Virginia, and Florida.

And I think we are on to something:

• Retailers who have seen the product have gushed over it.
• A heavyweight manufacturing partner has offered to help us produce it.
• We’ve enlisted amazing advisors including endurance pioneer, Sally Edwards.
• We have an amazing group of women on the site journaling workouts, supporting each other, and giving us feedback.

But now it’s time to raise some real money…

• We need to speed up development on the site. Two moonlighting developers and Sylvia’s html skills can only go so fast.
• We need to finish development on the watch and produce 100’s of units to test in the field to make sure it’s perfect.

It’s definitely a “special” experience working with traditional VCs and angel investors as a female-founded, female-focused company — especially one outside the “safe” zones of babies or beauty.

Along the way we’ve learned how to step around egos…

• Of course we will make a Kevlar/Titanium version just for men.
• I’ve blocked my Athlinks profile to avoid the time wasting macho chest thumping and defensive posturing – hard to tell which is which – that can derail a meeting.
• We’ve learned the proper technique for using a Shakeweight. …a story for another time.

And we’ve gotten some “classic” advice…
“Maybe you girls should try something easier first”. One potential investor suggested we start with shirts to “practice ordering stuff online and paying invoices and shipping out orders”. We had all we could do not to bust out laughing. …Ironic, eh?

The net-net is this will take some time…
Site fixes and changes are going MUCH slower than we wanted. Yet, we still need to show “momentum” and prove to investors that women who love to sweat – whether we are training for ironman or our first 5K – are not a niche market. So we need more women signed up for early access invites and more women on FB and twitter ready to spread the word when we launch. We have to show we are building an army.

Thank you for being part of that army.

Here’s is what we need to get over the next set of obstacles. Can you help?

• Rich aunts who run ultra marathons
• BFF’s with Reese Witherspoon or Julie Bowen
• DEVELOPERS! (PHP, Javascript, JQuery, MySQL, Zend, iOS …)
• Guest blogging: Be like Coach Carrie and Swim Bike Mom!

…..we promise the list is about to get easier….

• Spreading the word to your running group, your FB friends, on Twitter
• Using the site (www.bia-sport.com)

…..and of course…..

• Pick up some fabulous Bia gear to sport on your next workout!

Remember: The more practice we get “going postal” the better prepared we’ll be!

Thanks for your support, patience, and continued help.

Let’s do this.

–C2K

Kristin over at Betty Designs graced us with gorgeous designs.  You, our supporters, picked colors and together we’ll be showing the power of First!

Many of our early adopters, promoters and overall cheerleaders gave us boosts when we needed it, called in your girlfriends to set goals and start tracking their workouts.

We’ll be packaging up our First Bia Schwag bags and shipping them off next week.  Be prepared to don your Bia shirt and take a photo for our Facebook page.  Share the Bia love and #biafirst.

….as of right now we have more than 50 women getting one of these super cute shirts and a bagful of fun stuff. It’s our thank you for spreading the word about Bia in advance of our early access launch. We’d love to make that number 500!.

If you’ve already signed up for an early acces invite, share the magic URL we sent you. If you haven’t requested an invite yet, just go to our launch page. We’ll give you the scoop on what Bia is all about and let you know how you can help us build the first by women / for women sports and fitness company!

Thanks!

Cheryl + Sylvia

From a naming perspective, Bia was the Greek goddess of force and power. She was also Nike’s younger sister. Coincidence? I think not.

From a passion perspective Bia is a clear case of necessity as the mother of invention.  After years of being disappointed by Garmin, Polar, Training Peaks, Nike+, MapMyWhatever, and Somesport TrackerKeeperMeter App, and knowing that there had to be something better than our Timex watches and a pile of multi-colored sticky notes, it was time to take matters into our own hands.

No one else was going to make training tools to reflect how we – as women – motivate or how our bodies work. No one else was going to deliver the unexpected delight in products we WANTED to use everyday to propel our inner athlete and look fabulous as the same time.

If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. So we are.

Our goal is to help every woman get a day-defining high from every workout. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just discovered your inner athlete, or if you’re already well acquainted with the podium. It doesn’t matter if that post-workout high pushes you to a new athletic peak, inspires a new professional accomplishment, or just provides an extra moment of zen from the kids.

It’s a lofty goal and – while we have plenty of ideas of how to deliver on that goal with online and real world products – it is going to be hard. But it’s worth it for the promise of being part of an endless stream of “Firsts” with an amazing group of women. And it’s worth it to finally have training tools that we want to use ourselves. Click here to check them out.

Game on!