You are putting sensors in a running shoe. I have shipped that product before.
At Kinematix in Porto we built TUNE, a sensor insole that measured how a runner actually runs, and an app that turned the data into custom training programs and corrective exercises to change their form. The same premise as Personal Running Intelligence. The same hard part: making biomechanics mean something to a runner on a Tuesday morning.
"When it comes to how we actually run, the impact, the form, the forces that shape every stride, we've been left guessing."
I have worked on that gap from every side it has: the shoe, the sensor, the wearable, the app, and the behavior that has to change before any of it matters. Ten years inside a running brand. Fifteen more inside startups building the measurement layer.
Four things you need, already done.
Two current practices.
NeuroBrandLab
Messaging scored through the lens of neuroscience. NeuroBrandLab reveals how a message is decoded by the buyer's brain, before logic or comparison appears, and what to change so it lands. Signal is a scored behavioral read across four neurological dimensions. Compass is a fifteen-section architectural audit with a recognition-first rewrite.
Relevant here because a smart shoe has to be explained to people who do not yet know they need one. That is a decoding problem before it is a media problem. This page is built in the NeuroBrandLab visual language for the same reason.
FuseHub Creative Group
Complete marketing solutions for a variety of clients. International go-to-market strategies, brand management and messaging optimization, campaign management and performance evaluation, website design and development, new product conceptualization and vision.
Also strategic partnership development for investment, acquisition and business partnership, and continuous monitoring of customer, competitive and industry trends.
Your six, line by line.
Brand strategic execution including identity and messaging.
Brands built from nothing at Tractivity, Whistler Water and Alano Edzerza Sports, including guidelines, positioning and packaging. Repositioning challenger brands is what FuseHub has done for clients since 2014. How messaging is decoded is the whole subject of NeuroBrandLab.
Full-funnel marketing across organic, community, partnership, retail, and paid media channels.
All five. Community at My ASICS. Retail through the ASICS sub-brand, Onitsuka Tiger, including its introduction and flagship store opening, with sales tripling year over year. Partnership through co-branding and private label concepts for Kaiser Permanente, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and TD Bank. Organic and paid across a Facebook campaign that went from zero to 25,000 followers in three months. E-commerce implementation led at Tractivity and Alano Edzerza Sports.
Content strategy and creation.
Owned at Kinematix across inbound content, social and PR, and at FuseHub for clients across web, campaign and thought leadership. What NeuroBrandLab adds is a way to know whether content is landing before it ships. Every piece gets read the way the brain actually decodes it: what registers in the first moment, where attention splits, which mental model the reader is running when they arrive. Content stops being a volume exercise and becomes a sequencing one, which matters more when the product is a shoe nobody has a category for yet.
Achieving revenue, LTV, CAC and retention goals.
These are the numbers I have carried, at multinational scale and at pre-revenue scale. At Nike I held inventory and financial control across 55 factory stores, and the opening merchandise package for the NikeTowns in London and Berlin fell under my responsibility, which is revenue accountability measured store by store. At ASICS I created and controlled an annual marketing plan and balanced its budget, in a period when our share at major marathons reached 55 percent. At Fatigue Science the conversion funnel I put in place converted above the industry standard. At Tractivity I refined the business model itself when the marketing plan alone would not have produced sustainable growth.
Analytics and reporting infrastructure that drives decision making.
Built, not inherited. CRM management, drip marketing and lead capture pages stood up from scratch at Fatigue Science. Marketing processes, methodologies and reporting templates handed to the Kinematix team so results could be read the same way twice.
Building a high-performing marketing team.
Twelve direct reports at ASICS Europe. A global team recruited, trained and mentored at Kinematix. Identifying and developing long-term marketing talent is on my list of expertise because I have done it in both settings: hiring into structure at a multinational, and hiring the first few people who have to cover everything at a startup.
7 to 10+ years, full-funnel at an early-stage consumer brand.
Over twenty years, and most of the last fifteen at early-stage consumer brands where I was the marketing function, not a layer of it.
You've built and led marketing teams.
ASICS Europe and Kinematix, in two different countries and two different stages. Lead by example, which in a startup mostly means doing the work alongside the team.
Energized by early-stage building, comfortable as a player-coach.
Fractional and interim work is player-coach by definition, and it is how I have worked since 2014. Startups in Vancouver, Porto and internationally.
I was a runner. I ran a marathon, and a knee injury ended it.
That is the exact failure Avelo is built to see coming. Nothing in my training told me what my form was doing to my knee, because nothing was measuring it. It is why I want to work on this rather than on another brand's funnel.
A fractional role to start, transitioning to full-time within 3 to 6 months.
Fractional is how I have worked for the last decade, so there is no ramp on the working model itself. RunGo, Whistler Water, Kinematix and Fatigue Science were all fractional or interim mandates, and in each one I was hired to produce a result inside a fixed window rather than to settle in.
What that means practically: I start on the launch in week one, not week six, and the transition to full-time is a decision we both make with evidence in hand.
Must be based in the U.S. or Canada.
Vancouver, British Columbia. Pacific time, which is the same working day as a team shipping a fall launch, and a short flight to most of it.
Where the rest of it happened.
RunGo
Outsourced Sales and Marketing Consultant. Vancouver, July 2017 to March 2020
Responsible for the planning and implementing of sales, marketing and product development programs, both short and long range, targeted toward existing and new markets. Improving product marketability and profitability by researching, identifying, and capitalizing on market opportunities, and coordinating new product development.
Whistler Water
Outsourced Brand Marketing Consultant. Vancouver, March to August 2017
Created an authentic, relevant and differentiated brand identity for Whistler Water. Developed creative, grassroots marketing campaigns that drove brand awareness, experience and engagement across all channels, including web, social, email and retail.
Kinematix
Go-To-Market and Marketing Consultant. Porto, Portugal, September 2015 to December 2016
Developed, implemented and executed a tailored international go-to-market strategy championing the latest inbound and outbound strategies. Increased Kinematix's overall leads, sales and brand awareness in the highly competitive wearables market. Managed and mentored the existing marketing team through marketing processes, methodologies, report templates, guidance, program feedback and best practices. Recruited, trained, and motivated a global team in marketing, advertising, content strategy, social media, brand building, public relations, sales, operations, logistics, and customer success.
Fatigue Science
Interim Marketing Consultant. Vancouver, February to May 2015
Short term fractional contract to develop a long-lasting foundation for marketing initiatives through CRM management, drip-marketing and lead capture pages. The process I put in place led to an above industry standard conversion rate by optimizing the conversion funnel.
Tractivity
Director of Marketing and Product Development. Vancouver, 2011 to 2014
Conceptualized and developed the brand for an innovative health and fitness wearable, then formulated and implemented the marketing and product strategies and launched the product into healthcare, corporate wellness, education, research and consumer markets. Directed a team of hardware and software engineers, and web and graphic designers. Theorized the UI and UX direction of the iOS and Android apps. Refined the business model to establish stronger and more sustainable business growth. Developed brand guidelines, reformed the website for additional markets and SEO, led a Facebook campaign increasing likes from 0 to 25,000 in three months, developed co-branding and private label concepts for Kaiser Permanente, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and TD Bank, led e-commerce implementation, and provided direction for packaging and communication material.
Alano Edzerza Sports
Director of Marketing and Business Development. Vancouver, 2010 to 2011
Comprised the business plan and raised capital to source, develop, design and produce a limited edition collection of performance sports apparel. Led design and development of the website including e-commerce, led the design and crafting of the apparel collection, and directed strategic promotion strategies.
ASICS European HQ
Marketing Manager. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1999 to 2009
Managed a team of 12 direct reports. Responsible for developing marketing, communication, promotion and online strategies, and for creating and controlling the annual marketing plan and departmental budget. Innovated marketing projects that helped double unaided brand awareness. Initiated and created the first ever global online running community, My ASICS, which reached over 360,000 registered users by 2009 and was adopted by ASICS globally. Supervised the introduction of the sub-brand Onitsuka Tiger including a flagship store opening with sales tripling year over year. Part of the executive team that expanded market leader positions. Under my guidance, ASICS' attitudinal equity in the Dutch market became the highest in the world.
Nike European HQ
Nike Town Merchandise Manager. Hilversum, The Netherlands, 1997 to 1998
Established and maintained optimum inventory levels to ensure effective inventory management and financial control for 55 factory stores and two employee stores, and was responsible for the opening merchandise package for the two NikeTowns in London and Berlin. Coached store managers on product selection, inventory and product mix, with each store having an exclusive overall merchandising strategy and presentation.
A launch this specific deserves a conversation, not a resume screen.
The Supertrainer One ships this fall, and the role starts fractional. Both of those suit me. Give me thirty minutes and I will walk you through how I would take it to market, where I think the story lands and where it splits attention.
Roland van den Hout. Vancouver, British Columbia.