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Robin Thurston

Founder and CEO, Outside Interactive · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutive@RobinJThurston ↗LinkedIn ↗outsideinc.com ↗

Robin Thurston is the CEO of Outside Interactive, an active lifestyle media and connected fitness network. He previously co-founded MapMyFitness, which was acquired by Under Armour in 2013 for $150 million, and served as Under Armour's Chief Digital Officer.

15statements → 13claims → 1claims resolved → 3.87/5average certainty → 1.13/5average debate potential → 6said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not yet assessed 9 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

13 assertions · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, 3 are not yet assessed, and 9 name 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 Robin argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Robin Thurston on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Robin Thurston said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
MapMyFitness acquired 100% of its users organically without paid ad spend
“So, you know, we never really spent any money on acquisition. So we were very, very lucky to acquire, you know, really a hundred percent of our user base through organic, you know, sort of connections.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 8:16 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
MapMyFitness generated $17M in trailing revenue when acquired by Under Armour
“We had an advertising business when Under Armour bought us, I think it's public. We were about seventeen million in revenue.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 6:38 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Under Armour ignored MapMyFitness revenue, buying it purely for the user community
“It wasn't, they didn't even care about the revenue. Under Armour was like, we don't really care about any of those businesses. Like, we want to build a community. We have a vision around health and fitness.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 6:58 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank initiated acquisition talks as an active user
“Kevin Plank called me in the middle of the whole thing. He called me. He was a user of map my run using it three days a week. And he basically originally just called, he was like, what are you doing with the business?”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 9:29 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
MapMyFitness apps were numbers 97 and 101 in the Apple App Store
“We actually had about a million users on the web even before the iPhone launched, but map my run and map my ride were app number 97 in the store and number one oh one.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 5:16 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
MapMyFitness generated $5M in SaaS API licensing revenue before exiting
“So we also had a SaaS business when Under Armour bought us that was, you know, it was significant. It was, you know, five plus million dollars in SaaS revenue that we had built off the top of the platform.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 6:23 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MapMyFitness generated $5 US monthly ARPU versus under $0.30 internationally
“We were doing, I think we were roughly about five bucks per user in the U.S. And less than 30 cents outside the U.S.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 7:34 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Disclosure
MapMyFitness planned a $50M to $100M Series D before exiting
“We were kind of in the process of looking at raising 50 to a hundred million and kind of rolling up some of the market and going after it in a bigger way. We had a number of VC firms that had basically come to us looking to do that series D.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 9:14 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Disclosure
MapMyFitness sought a $200M to $250M pre-money valuation before its exit
“We were trying to raise over 200. So like we were pretty set on that, that number had to be two to two 50.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 10:35 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Under Armour had only 20 software engineers total in 2013
“Under Armour was, you know, what Kevin will say is that they were in this moment where, like, they only had about 20 engineers in the entire company. Most of them were e-commerce because they had a fairly, you know, fairly large e-commerce business in 13.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 11:00 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Under Armour announced its MapMyFitness acquisition under three months after initial contact
“We literally, day, day Kevin called me to basically the public announcement, which was not the actual close date, but the public announcement for a public company is a very important date. It was less than three months.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 12:34 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MapMyFitness burned $200,000 to $300,000 monthly prior to its acquisition
“We were getting, like, I would say maybe 200 K, 300 K. It wasn't a terrible burn.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 13:04 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Partly supported
MapMyFitness raised $21M in total funding prior to its exit
“A, B. 20, twenty-one million.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 13:25 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MapMyFitness owned 250 activity-specific domain names, including MapMyBeerCrawl
“We actually had, like, at the end, we had 200 and 50 domains. Like, we had Map My Beer Crawl, and Map My Horseback Riding, and we had all these domains.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 4:51 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MapMyFitness had 103 employees before being acquired by Under Armour
“We were a 103 employees.”
Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 12:58 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston

The other half of the tape: Robin Thurston's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes on Top Founders. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 5

Statements about Robin Thurston, by other people (1)

Assertion Supported
MapMyFitness reached 20 million users before its Under Armour exit
“So, you know, he created a little company called Map My Fitness, ok, grew it to over twenty million, ok, twenty million users, and then exited to Under Armour, where he now serves as Senior Vice President.”
Nathan Latka Jun 6, 2016 ▶ 1:27 From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0032532016episodesmentions
0232016episodes it came up in
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2016 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
From 0 to 20,000,000 Users and a $150,000,000 Exit to Under Armour, EP 261: Robin Thurston Jun 6, 2016 9m
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