Athlete to Entrepreneur: How Olivier Bernhard Started On Running

All they threw at me was ‘impossible, impossible, impossible.’ I said, ‘OK. I accept but how are you going to do it?’ They said, ‘You don’t get it. It’s impossible.’ I said, ‘No, you don’t get it. How are you going to make it happen anyway?’ Probably from being a coach and an athlete, I can set that spark in people so that they trust me and if I really believed so much in this idea that they joined the team to make it happen.”
Olivier Bernhard is one of the founders of On Running. He’s been a runner and athlete his entire life but in 2010, he was looking to pitch several major sportswear companies on selling runners and athletes a new experience and feel while running as opposed to just another product. When he was turned away several times, he took it upon himself to create a prototype and pursue the project independently. He showed off the first Frankenstein shoe to his friends David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti and they decided to partner on starting On. The brand has since partnered with tennis legend Roger Federer and IPO’ed in September 2022 with a $6 billion valuation. I had the chance to sit down with Olivier last month and got a bit of the story of how this company came together and why they’re going to continue pushing innovation and high performance with their athletes and a major investment in running.
🎧 You can listen to this full conversation in podcast form:
APPLE PODCASTS: 🎙️ apple.co/3fgRdH9
SPOTIFY: 🎙️ spoti.fi/3Fr5Y6X
Video shot and produced by Mac Fleet. Supported by On.
FOLLOW CITIUS MAG
▶ Subscribe to the podcast: apple.co/3Byp72I
▶ On Twitter: / citiusmag
▶ On Instagram: / citiusmag
▶ On Facebook: / citiusmag
▶ Support us on Patreon: / citiusmag
▶ On our website: citiusmag.com
For business inquiries: [e-mail]
Thanks for watching - please like, share and comment, and subscribe!

[@alexanderschilke]

Awesome interview!