David Allemann

Co-Founder & Executive Co-Chairman, On · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveoperatoron.com ↗

In 2010, David Allemann co-founded Swiss sportswear brand On alongside Olivier Bernhard and Caspar Coppetti, helping guide the business through early supply chain setup, brand marketing, and its 2021 public listing. He previously worked at McKinsey & Company, Young & Rubicam Switzerland, and served as Chief Marketing Officer at Vitra.

17statements → 6claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.88/5average certainty → 1.65/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources → 2said about them ↓

2 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 1 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 5 assertions · 1 opinion · 7 insights · 2 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how David argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Allemann: Roger Federer invested in On Running instead of taking cash endorsement
“But how about not us giving you money, but you giving us money and becoming a co-investor and a co-entrepreneur together with us and To our surprise, Roger said, yes, that's what I'm gonna do.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 0:19 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.3 / 5 directness 4.3 · coherence 4.5 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

redirected or did not address 3 of 41 assessed questions (7%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

212 words/min while actually speaking · 33.7 um and uh per 1k words · 24.7 false starts per 1k · 38.2% of pauses land inside a clause

English is their second language (first language: German). These numbers measure fluency in English. They do not measure thought; the argument clarity score above is read from substance alone.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 7,305 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything David Allemann said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Allemann: Roger Federer invested in On Running instead of taking cash endorsement
“But how about not us giving you money, but you giving us money and becoming a co-investor and a co-entrepreneur together with us and To our surprise, Roger said, yes, that's what I'm gonna do.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 0:19 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Allemann: Perfection beats efficiency in product development over 80/20 optimization
“I feel doing something to perfection in many cases beats kind of optimizing for efficiency, especially when it comes to product. Not always true, but as somebody who's very much focused on product, I'm more 120%.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 49:24 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Allemann: Living in safe, wealthy countries can inhibit entrepreneurial risk-taking
“If you're coming out of Switzerland, you're coming out of one of the richest, safest places on the planet. And that sometimes can be an inhibitor because then you're in such a safe place that you probably don't take risks anymore.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 7:26 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Allemann: Hiring non-footwear designers enabled On to break shoe industry conventions
“We had asked Thilo because he's a product designer and Not a shoe designer. He had never designed a shoe. And so we felt that's a good fit with us because we also never were in the shoe business. So let's completely break conventions.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 10:53 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Allemann: Minimalist Swiss design ultimately drove On's brand differentiation
“At the beginning people told us, don't do that, that you need the running shoe bling because that's gonna put you at a disadvantage and we did it anyhow. And so at first it probably was almost a little bit an inhibitor but it made it to a very distinctive desi…”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 11:41 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Allemann: Global sports brands must be firmly rooted in the US
“If you want to be a sports brand, you have to be in the U S and you have to be firmly rooted in the U S as you have to be in many other countries like Japan, UK.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 16:11 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Allemann: Sportswear startups need retail partners because consumers distrust direct claims
“We feel it's much more effective if they talk about the shoe. If we talk about, there's been so much said about running shoes by so many different brands. If we go out there and say, hey, now we did the most amazing running shoe on the planet. Nobody will beli…”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 18:04 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Allemann: Frederik Van Lierde won 2013 Ironman World Championship in On prototype
“Fredrik von Lirde one of the top talents and contenders For the Ironman triathlon on Kona for the world championships he wore our shoe and it was a prototype. So Olivier was always cycling behind him on the running route because Olivier was afraid that the sho…”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 20:14 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
David Allemann: Apparel will not sell if merely hung on hangers
“If you just hang apparel on a hanger, it's not gonna sell.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 24:36 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Allemann: Successful retail maximizes customer interaction time over transaction time
“So people love it because it's maximizing the interaction time and not the transaction time.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 29:25 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Open · timeframe Dec 2013
Allemann: On Running nearly died in 2013 following supplier bankruptcy
“In 2013 our production partners called me and said, Hey, David, we have a little problem. Just our factory went broke. So they're shut down and all the materials for Next season's production are already in there, but they haven't been assembled. And so that wa…”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 31:28 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Roger Federer spends 30 to 40 days a year at Onlabs
“It has turned into a fantastic partnership and friendship where he now probably spends 30 days, 30 to 40 days per year with us here in Onlabs, working on products and our we're completely aligned.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 39:24 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
What-if
Allemann: On Running waited too long to invest in broad brand awareness
“Probably back then it probably waited a little bit long until we started to invest into on being bigger out there and being also having this cultural relevance. And so the moment where we see you switch from building a grassroot level brand, To then also build…”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 43:53 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2028
Allemann: On Running will expand into full-body apparel and tennis by 2028
“On in five years will be a global sports brand that still very much resonates with our core community, with runners, but also has built a second sport called tennis, and is happening for you on the full body. So not only shoes, but very much also apparel, beca…”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 53:37 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Allemann: On Running sold 50 pairs in its first D2C month in 2012
“In the first month, I think we sold 50 pairs of shoes back in 2000 and 12, I believe. And so we launched this D to C presence as well.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 18:43 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Allemann: Half of On's leadership and all DTC regional leads are female
“If you look at our senior leadership team now today, these are roughly 10 people. Half of them are female. So actually all the regions D to C is all in female hands at On”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 34:30 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Allemann: On Running founders spend 40 to 50 days yearly in lab
“We as founders probably spend 40, 50 days per year in the lab and together with an amazing team, we're trying to always shave off again as well.”
David Allemann May 31, 2023 ▶ 47:36 David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips | E1021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

The other half of the tape: David Allemann's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 2

Every mention by year

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Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
David Allemann: How I founded On Running; Working with Roger Federer; Brand Marketing Tips May 31, 2023 41m
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