Project 5

Summary

The guest recommends two resources: the book "Building a Story Brand" by Don Miller, which provides a simple storytelling framework for marketing and internal communications, and the 99% Invisible podcast, particularly the 12-part series on the book "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro, which explores how decisions can have lasting impacts on systems. As for the 2025 mountain bike UCI World Championship, the guest predicts that it will be won on Sram, but acknowledges that specialized was very: In this episode, host talks about ecosystem strategies in the cycling industry with guest James Meyer, the head of ecosystem strategy at Sram. Sram is an American manufacturer of high performance bicycle components, known for their innovative drive train systems, electronic shifting, and ecosystem-driven approach. James shares his background as a lifelong cyclist, his career in engineering, and how he became responsible for the ecosystem strategy at Sram through their acquisition of his previous company, a power meter company called quark. James In this interview, James Meyer, Chief of Product Development at SRAM, discusses the company's ecosystem strategy for its flagship product, AXS. He explains how the company identified a customer problem (bent derailleur hangers) and used it as an opportunity to innovate and establish a new industry standard, the universal derailleur hanger. He also talks about the importance of simplicity and user experience in product design and how it will continue to drive the company's future plans. James recommends looking into Stan Day, CEO of SRAM, talks about the development and evolution of the company's ecosystem of electronic shifting products for bicycles. He discusses the origin of the vision for the ecosystem, the company's growth strategy, and the importance of staying connected to other networks and platforms. He also touches on the company's acquisition of other technology companies and the integration of their products into the ecosystem. Canada Immigration Newsletter: August Congratulations on having another successful month! Each month, the Government of Canada sends out a newsletter showcasing its achievements and updates in the immigration sector. Here are some highlights from the August edition: 1. Express Entry Rounds of Invitations In August, there were two rounds of invitations for Express Entry candidates to apply for permanent residence, with a total of 3,900 invitations issued. This brings the total Invitations to Apply (ITAs) issued in 2021

Transcription

Hello and welcome to a new episode of our podcast, Beyond Core, the podcast for business leaders who dare to think beyond today's success and build a future. And as you know, in every episode we explore entrepreneurial strategies for unlocking new growth beyond your core business could be platforms, digital ecosystems, AI driven ventures, or circular business models. We dive deep with industry pioneers who are shaping what's next. If you are looking to scale innovation, create new markets and future proof your company, you're in the right place. So let's go beyond the core and build what's next? And um, yeah, welcome to our today's episode. And I'm really, really, really happy to have, uh, a great guest with me. Uh, I come to that in a second. But before we go into the topic, I want to share with you a personal thing. Uh, maybe you can see it's a bicycle helmet. It's my bicycle helmet. I'm love to drive and to write mountain bikes. And some years ago, I went to a big cycling event close to here in the Czech Republic. And I'm met my favorite mountain biker, Nino Shorter. And I was lucky enough to get an autograph from him. Uh, so the helmet brings me hopefully a bit of luck when I ride the bike. And so the topic of today is also about cycling. And we talk about ecosystem strategies in the cycling industry. And one of the biggest companies in the cycling industry is Sram. Sram is a leading American manufacturer of high performance bicycle components. A bit old, let's say, this way. It's, uh, they were founded in 1987 and are headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. So in America, uh, but they are, but they have grown into one of the most influential brands in the cycling industry, uh, competing with companies like Shimano, Campagnolo, etc. and they are known for their innovative drive train systems, electronic shifting and the ecosystem driven approach to cycling technology. And so I'm really honored to introduce to you James Meyer. Hello, James. Hello. Glad to be here. James is the head of the ecosystem strategy at Shrum. Uh, with the excess ecosystem. But he will talk a bit more about what is access, what is the ecosystem strategy, and what makes it so unique compared to all the other competitors out there. So welcome, James, to the podcast. And maybe we start first with a short intro about yourself. So maybe give you a bit of a background, who you are, where you are from, what have you done so far and what you are doing at scrum? Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to be here. Like I love to talk about Sram and ecosystems. Uh, so yeah, I've been a lifelong cyclist. I did a little bit of swimming competitively in high school, which led to triathlon. Uh, and of course was I, you know, in and around just shortly after the birth of mountain biking in the early 80s. Uh, and, uh, the bicycles really love drove my love of building things. Uh, and science and engineering and led me to, uh, to engineering school. Uh, and then, uh, a little bit after kind of into my early career, I started, uh, building a power meter company called quark, uh, to build power meters for bicycles. Uh, and that was, uh, really what launched my career in the in the true bicycle industry. Yeah, and I have also a power meter on my bike. It really helps a lot to to understand how much power you put into your bike. Uh, but how have it come that you joined Sram and you became kind of responsible for the the ecosystem strategy at Rome? Right. So I, I formed a quark in 2006. Uh, and then we were acquired by Sram in 2011. Uh, and that was right at the, at the birth of electronic shifting on bicycles. So for those of the kind of the audience here that that isn't familiar with, uh, bicycle technology, uh, you know, we've all ridden, you know, back in the day, the ten speed bicycles, uh, where you've got levers that, uh, that pull cable and that shifts the shifts, the gears. Uh, now that's all driven by a by a wireless protocol. So it's a push of a button. Uh, and then a servo motor moves the the driver back and forth, which makes the gear shift. Um, those just started becoming available by some of Sram's competitors in 2008. Uh, and so when I joined Sram in 2011 with the, with our power meter company, uh, we were just beginning to into the development of our first, uh, electronic shifting system called the eTap. Uh, and so it was really my participation in Sram through the power meters and through the birth of eTap. Uh, that set up, uh, where we are with our ecosystem strategy and the access ecosystem today. And, um, so maybe you can also give a bit more of an overview what the excess ecosystem is today. So you talked about the origins with the ETB etc., but maybe also for our listeners that they understood when we talk about excess, what is the excess product ecosystem. So maybe you can give a bit of an overview. Yeah. And we can think about that through through, you know your hero Nino. Uh, Nino is uh, one of our, uh, one of our athletes and, uh, kind of the winning most, uh, uh, mountain biker in history, uh, you know, with, I think, what is it, ten world championships or it's a lot, uh, you know, and, uh, so when you go to to Nino's, uh, race bike today, uh, you'll actually find that there's a lot of electronics on it. So the rear derailleur, uh, with the shifting is driven, uh, electronically with wireless buttons that control that, uh, the saddle or seatpost will go up and down, uh, electronically. So you can press a button, sit down, the seat goes down. And that helps you go over, uh, the rough terrain. Uh, and then particularly on Nino's bike. He has a product we call flight attendant, uh, which is, uh, electronic suspension. Uh, and so that suspension will change its lockout state. Uh, you know, up to, like, a thousand times a lap, uh, to, uh, both be compliant and supple and fast over the rough parts of the course, but also rigid and efficient. Uh, when, uh, when needle's putting the power through the pedals. Uh, and so that whole ecosystem, all those components are part of the same, uh, wireless network. A lot of the data is captured by a GPS. Uh, and then all that can be analyzed, uh, after the race or ride. And so that's not just, uh, for Nino and the, the, the, you know, the elite of the world, but that's the, the flagship bicycles that every consumer can buy. Uh, it's actually that's one of the fun things about the bicycle ecosystem and the bicycle industry, uh, is, you know, Nino's race bike that he raced at the Olympics. Uh, you can go to a store and buy all the same parts that he was on. So, um, it's basically what we call, uh, in a business term, a functional integrated ecosystem. So you have multiple components, and they are working together in a kind of a seamless experience for the for the user. In your case, it's about cycling. So the rider of the bike, you don't have to care about the suspension or whatever. But the more uh, can really focus on riding and less on all the other, let's say, details of, uh, with the suspension or with the seatpost and stuff like that. So you can really, um, uh, rely on the electronics supporting them. And, and also core of your ecosystem is the app, uh, is a, as an application on your phone where you can control everything where you can. Yeah. Uh, you know, do all these settings, setups, etc.. Yeah. And it's a good example of how to think about, uh, kind of the, the boundaries of the ecosystems and how they, how they work. Uh, you know, what you said on Nino's bike is exactly correct. Uh, before he had the flight attendant suspension system, uh, there was a lever on the handlebar that actually had three positions. Uh, that Nino would have to to move with his thumb throughout the racecourse. Uh, and so that's something that, as a writer, you're managing, uh, the position of your suspension system. And when you get to flight attendant that that activity goes away entirely. Uh, the complexity on the bike is gone. That lever isn't there anymore. Um, but more importantly, the complexity in your mind, isn't there? Uh, you know, you no longer have to think about managing that part of the bicycle. And you can, you know, think about, uh, racing the race here in for Nino or just enjoying the ride, uh, for everyone else, uh, that's like the the components talking together. And it turns out the power meter is an important part of, uh, flight attendant. Uh, how hard you're pedaling helps the suspension decide what to do. Uh, that's. Ecosystem and components within the Sram world like Sram makes all of those components. When you think about power meters and power training, uh, Sram and quark, we build the power meter itself. So that's the part of the bicycle that's doing the measurement, measuring in watts, how hard you're pedaling. The experience of of ingesting that data actually connects to a couple of other ecosystems. One of them is Strava, uh, which is an online social network, not our product. Uh, but a lot of riders are, in fact, most riders now competitively, uh, when you do your ride, you upload it to Strava. The power data comes along with that. And so Strava is an important part of, uh, of the power meter ecosystem. Uh, and the experience of, of that, that product. In addition, there's now indoor training with, uh, you know, kind of one of the leading companies there is called Zwift. Um, so it's been around for about ten years now. Uh, you can go ride your bikes online with other riders. And one of the things that we found was that, uh, through the increasing popularity of Zwift, which got everyone riding inside that required a power meter. That's how you know you can race up the hills with your friends on different continents. Is because the power meters are measuring how hard you're pedaling. Um, and a lot of people were exposed to power meters first through Zwift and then wanted to take that experience outside and, and began to demand power meters on basically all of their bikes, uh, when they're riding outdoors. And so it's I think it's a good example of how to think about the ecosystem, you know, one within our product, uh, environment of, of access, but also how how our products interact with ecosystems that are industry wide and not strictly inside the, the Sram organization. And so it's also, uh, connecting to the network effects of other platforms like Strava or, uh, Swift and so on. Uh, and and integrate them. So also not just being a closed product ecosystem with your own products, but also being open and connected to other networks and other kind of platforms, ecosystems. Yeah, exactly. Most of our listeners, um. Also asking themselves how to start, how to how to get how to build an ecosystem. So when you joined, you said yes, there was a bit of an early technology there with E-Type, etc. but how have you formed the vision of um, of access? Uh, was it on the go or was Division there already some years ago and now you're executing. So how what was the origin of the of the vision of the access ecosystem? Yeah, it was really making it a long story simple. I think there was really kind of two, two steps to it. First was seeing the development of electronic shifting. Uh, and we saw some competitors do that, do the electronic shifting. And our first system, eTap in 2016 was our first, uh, go at building electronic shifting in our components. And that was a big deal because prior to eTap, we didn't have electrical engineering at Sram. There was nowhere in writing code at Sram for, uh, deployment into an actual commercial product. All the products were mechanical. Uh, so the first step just to get to eTap was quite a journey. Organizationally, there was an entirely new set of skills, entirely new set of vendors, you know, uh, a new set of problems to solve and technologies to apply, uh, just to get us to, to, to market with eTap. Uh, and of course, when we think about the success of eTap, at the end of the day, eTap wasn't part of a of a broad, uh, ecosystem. It was a more a kind of conservative application of of here's the bike. We're going to take this cable away and replace it with electronics. Uh, and I think one of the key things that we discovered there, uh. Is that the this is kind of a specific writer thing. When you have a mechanical shifting, your finger has to follow through, and it's getting feedback of like the all the what the cable is doing, you can kind of feel the chain moving all of that. And it turns out that there's kind of a learning curve and a technique, sensitivity to that. And then of course, if your hands get cold or the cable gets muddy, I you know, that experience and the reliability of creating a shift that way degrades pretty quickly. When you move to electronics, all that becomes instantaneous. You know, it's it's it's a switch. You you you click the button. We actually did a ton of engineering into the literal feel of the button. And you click and, you know, kind of famously on the internet, it goes beep boop. And the and the gear changes. Um, I kind of describe all that because that was actually the first really, truly key, uh, important thing that we learned. That was a key step in building the ecosystem. If we were going to build an ecosystem electronically on the bike, you needed that first use case, like the true killer app to get that electronics onto the bike. I and I for us understanding that, you know, bikes are they're supposed to be simple and joyful and like an elegant technical solution. And it's kind of why on earth would you go put batteries and radios and all of this onto the bike and make all this complexity? Um, when a bicycle is trying to be simple, well, it turns out that the experience of shifting, electronic shifting, it's joyful and simpler and better. And and that was what really got us started. And once we, like, hit with eTap and we all rode it, we all became believers. The market was buying it and we got the traction. Then the next step was actually very obvious. It was like, okay, we built eTap for road bikes, now let's build another eTap for road bikes. Let's build eTap for for mountain bikes. Let's also do the suspension system and the seatpost. And we could just the whole pathway became clear, um, immediately after the eTap project. Uh, and then we, uh, that was the next step to get to what we call access, uh, which is truly the ecosystem. Uh, and that was, uh, just three years later in 2019. Yeah, I think I think this is as well. Two things. At first, I can totally confirm this in the first time I use the electronic shifting. And it made it was different to this one with the menu shifting. Um, and um, it's also a very fantastic experience, very smooth and easy and um, but the other thing is, um, I think maybe more important for our listeners, um, I mean, you also said that you have been kind of raised in an entrepreneurial family. And so I think this entrepreneurial understanding and what you explained with, uh, finding the killer, the one killer application, uh, to launch a product, this is, um, how have you found this out? Was it your your entrepreneurial instinct, or was it a bit of, uh, research, talking to writers or how have you decided on. This is the killer feature we want to launch first, and all the other ones we put second and third. Yeah, it's certainly built into the the DNA of Schramm and the and the people that work at Sram. But it also came from from my background. I grew up, my father had started a company to build dental vacuum equipment, of all things. He was a dentist and, uh, built a dental vacuum pump that didn't consume water. Uh, and so I grew up kind of in the environment of, of thinking about, you know, why are things the way they are? Uh, how can they be different? And you realize that, you know, the world is changing all the time and and that if you understand the problems that exist in the world, and then you can go find the better solution and not create other problems along the way. Uh, that's that's the path forward. Uh, and of course, I, you know, whether it's, you know, in some B2B, uh, businesses or other businesses, you really need to do a lot of work, uh, to embed yourself in the understanding or the context of the business is you're trying to solve for. So you really understand those problems in the cycling industry. We have the advantage of most of the product leaders at Sram are cyclists, you know, very intensely in one way shape or form. Um, and so we've all been, you know, embedded in the cycling industry for a long time. I grew up, you know, working in a bike shop and, uh, was a bike mechanic for, for a long time, was always working on my own bicycles. Uh, and so with that and then being able to, uh, take that kind of that learned experience and that instinct and put it together with real rational observation of what other people do, you know, because there's a danger in becoming too insular. You like your, your, your own expert, and then you shut out the rest of the world. Uh, and of course, for the innovation, you, you you need a bit of both. Um, because if you follow all the existing product patterns and market patterns, you won't do anything new. Uh, and, uh, so, so finding that mix and that balance is, is really what's key. Now? Um, yeah. It's, uh, it's also what we say to most of the corporate companies we work with. I mean, you have all the market knowledge because you are in the market for years, so you know all about the market. There are no more experts than you. Uh, so listen to your to your to your own employees, to your own staff. Uh, what they have learned, what they have observed. And take this as a great input. Um, yeah. Um, so you, you, you started with the ecosystem, with the, with the, uh, shifting. And how have you then moved on to further scale, um, the decline and what was the strategy then? I mean, you said, uh, we started with the ETF for road bikes, then we went to the, the ETB for the mountain bikes. So it's another classification of bikes. But how have you further scaled your your ecosystem. Yeah. So we uh, one applied the electronics and the, the access ecosystem and that, that kind of delightful, uh, electronic experience of riding the bike. Uh, and we applied that across our product lines first at the high end. Uh, that was very, you know, all the, the flagship products. And then we started working at, at, uh, bringing those, uh, that performance to the lower price points. And so we've got a lot more depth in our product line from our high end flagship products to to the more entry level products of Sram, which, you know, we're a pretty high end company. So the the most inexpensive bikes that will come on is like a $2,000 bike. Uh, and uh, with the, with the electronic systems. So we, we ended up going in depth, uh, down the product line. Uh, but we maintained compatibility across everything. Uh, and that I think, has been very, very important because it allows, uh, a bit of mix and match across the product lines. And, and what we've seen is, uh, folks start to use, uh, mountain bike drivetrains. Uh, so the big wide range gears for climbing big mountains, along with the, with the shift lever setups that that are literally used in the tour de France. Uh, and uh, people can kind of mix and match those bikes together, uh, into what us Americans call the mullet build, uh, off the haircut. Uh, and, and that's been really powerful to see, uh, how how the market and consumers and riders, uh, will end up applying their own creativity to the products. Um, and then there's, there's a few other, uh, places that we explore with the electronics and, and really excited about where these will go in the future. Uh, we ended up buying a Kickstarter project at one point. Uh, called Shakey's. Uh, And that's a, a, an electronic suspension tuning product that helps a rider set up their suspension. So that's different than Flight Attendant, which is part of the riding, uh, showcases as part of the tuning experience. And then we're, we're working with tire pressure sensors as well, uh, to, to sense tire pressure. Uh, and we've have a few iterations of that product. And then finally in, uh, about three years ago, we acquired a company called hammerhead that builds, uh, cycling computer. So GPS has enabled cycling computers, uh, and that, uh, of course, can connect to the, the data to all the products and, uh, the, the hammerhead devices. We also started a new kind of part of the ecosystem. We have extensions on hammerhead Hammerheads, an Android based platform. And so we're allowed allowing third party developers to write their own applications that can run on the hammerhead device. And, uh, so altogether, uh, there's not only the core access ecosystem. Uh, that's really driving a lot of our business today. Um, but we have a lot of other peripheral parts of the ecosystem, uh, that we, we know our, our elements of of our, of our product portfolio now, but we expect those to, like, really grow that web of interconnections and those delightful experiences for the riders. And we expect that that will, you know, further integrate over time. Yeah. It's another connection point also to other platforms. Networks. Right. Um, yes. Um, so for um, when I use the hammerhead and I do route planning, uh, from maybe rely on the routes and, uh, recommendations from others. Uh, there are also other platforms out there like promote or whatever. I use Strava. Um, so for me, it's also following an observation we made, uh, when we looked at different kind of platforms and how they have scaled over the course of the years. Um, then they are following this, uh, principle or kind of a framework we developed. It's called the, uh, platform value stack. And there's basically three layers. The top layer is the engagement layer, the middle layer is the intelligence layer, and the bottom layer is the, uh, infrastructure layer. And very often the kind of digital platforms, marketplaces, they start at the top, they have the engagement, they have the buyer sellers coming together like Strava or whatever. But then they invest further into intelligence, like recommendation engines or whatever or AI to different things. They rely on the data and then they continue to invest into infrastructure and. Traditional companies, maybe like Sram, they go from bottom to the top. So you have the infrastructure, you have the components. Now you develop the electronic things with the data, and now you have flight attendant, you have and so on. And now you are climbing further up the, the, the framework or the layers. And now you're connecting to existing, uh, ecosystems like Strava etc.. So becoming more open. So um, it follows all of this bottom to the top kind of strategy. And um, question for me is, um, so um, how how is the partner strategy playing an important role for the future of your of your growth? Uh, plans, of course, from the, in the ecosystem. Yeah, it really is. I like the the thought about those layers and really the strategy of moving between the layers, uh, because we see ourselves at the engagement layer with eTap, that that delightful experience of pressing that button, that's what got us started. And that led us to to, you know, that engagement drove us into a bit of the intelligence and then the the infrastructure, which then, you know, even if some of it's just a pure organisational infrastructure of having software developers and electronic, uh, electrical engineers and tests and all of that, and then that lets us work back up to new, uh, engagement experiences. Uh, and the cycle can be kind of continue where we're moving up and down that stack back and forth and building our capabilities. And as you mentioned, with the partners, like the partners have to come along on that journey with us. I, you know, the electron, the access ecosystem, uh, that we have today. I mean, there's elements that could absolutely exist just within Sram, but there's other parts of it that that wouldn't exist without partners. Uh, one of the I think one of the most clear examples of this is when I started quark back in 2006, uh, I started building the power meter itself and a bicycle computer to go with that power meter, because at the time, uh, the, the industry standard of what we call AMP plus, it was actually a precursor to BLE or Bluetooth Low Energy, uh, that didn't even exist in 2006. Uh, and of course, the iPhone wasn't out. Like I remember watching the launch of the iPhone. And, you know, when we were in startup mode, uh, and we got a call from Garmin. Uh, and, of course, you know, Garmin, big company. Uh, they were aware of our project because we had been teasing it online in small bits. And they, uh, asked if if as quark and doing a startup if we would want to, uh, have our power meter send data over this Ant+ protocol up to Garmin head units. Uh, and I immediately said yes, because at the time, you know, we're bootstrapping a startup together. And we were going to have to build two things a power meter and a head unit. Uh, and that the head unit or the bicycle computer has a lot of other needs that drive that experience and to and a lot of other needs that need to be fulfilled in order to make a successful head unit. And once the AMP plus system came out, uh, we didn't have to solve those problems immediately. We could just focus on the power meter. Uh, and that was super helpful. And of course, in hindsight, uh, I realized like, oh, wow, we wouldn't have we would have not made it like, we would have failed if we had to build a power meter and a head unit at the same time. And so being able to rely on that partner, uh, is, was very important. And of course, that continues to this day. Uh, you know, the power meters work with Garmin and Wahoo and Hammerhead were like industries in a really good place with interchangeability of, of, um, uh, data across power meters. But then even as Sram, Sram doesn't make bicycles, uh, Sram, we make bicycle components. Uh, and then uh, our primary customer is actually the, the OE bicycle manufacturers, uh, track specialized canyon, uh, etc.. Uh, and so those bicycle manufacturers choose Sram components and we help them, uh, get those components onto those bikes. Uh, and then, and then that creates the riding experience. So all of Sram is 100% dependent on our partnership, both with the bike companies, uh, and of course, dealers and other partners within the, within the software and digital platform world. Yeah. So this is um. There's also this partnership strategy called Venture Client, where Big Company is partnering with a startup. So you benefited from that in the past. At the beginning, as you said, with the partnership with Garmin, as they found you and started to collaborate with you, so you benefited from their strategy and kind of searching for innovative products. And now you're doing the same. As you said, we've we we looked at Kickstarter, uh, projects and bought them and integrate them. So you also now a bigger company and now you are also benefiting from partnering with smaller companies. But I think also another great move you made is about the youth. We not called about the youth. So the universal director hangar, uh, thing, it's also a kind of a or the derail or hanger is also a kind of a nightmare for, for the riders. Uh, it was always very unique for each bike. But now you are creating a kind of a standard, or you established a standard, uh, for that. Um, maybe you can also talk about this move because it's, uh, a lot of companies we talk to, they also think about when we now go to the market and we create something cool. We should build a standard right away, right at the beginning. But for you, this was more like it's it's now the step to build a standard. But first you went to the market with a very killer product. You gain traction, um, uh, you found fans for your product, etc. then you have, then you grow. And now the creating a standard becomes part of your strategy. At least it looks like for me. Maybe you can give us a bit more insights on what is behind this thing. And, uh, how is it part of the strategy? Well, and I and, you know, recognize it's a podcast. We can't show the parts in front of us. So I'll describe it a little bit. I, you know, backing up like bicycles are kind of a unique thing because there's lots of bike companies, there's lots of companies making bicycle components, and there's kind of a cultural expectation or like a customer expectation that many of the parts will be interchangeable. Uh, so, you know, it's almost like bicycles are a bit like a Lego set. You're a lot of writers are expecting to be able to put these wheels on that bike or this saddle over here, or this this tape or these shifting systems from bike to bike. So there's always been an expectation that the parts are interchangeable to some extent. Some of that interchangeability is is guided by standards. Uh, but then other parts of that, uh, interchangeability uh, is just de facto, uh, it's just a pure background. Uh. A side effect of of building bikes for a long time. So when we think about innovating, uh, with, uh, with some of our new products, if we want to change something, we actually need to get all of our bicycle, uh, or all those OE brands, all of our customers, to change something at the same time. Some of them may not actually be our customer, but we want to kind of impart change on everything. So this particular example, uh, you know, for, for everyone listening, you think about the rear of the bike and their derailleur and, uh, you know, you're shifting gears and you got these little pulleys and everything needs to line up together. Uh, and for, you know, decades and decades, uh, that was accomplished through the derailleur, uh, the derailleur, which attached the bike through the derailleur hanger. And if that hanger got bent, all your shifting was bad. And of course, if you break the derailleur hanger off the bike entirely, then you ruin the entire bicycle. Uh, and so it was probably about 20 or so years ago, those derailleur hangers became replaceable so that you wouldn't break your whole bike, uh, when you, when you bent it. Uh, but then that meant that every bike manufacturer had a different derailleur hanger, and there's literally hundreds of them. And if you're on a trip and you break it, good luck going to a bike shop and then having the exact one that you want. I. So it turns out there's a ton of customer problems in there. You know, you can bend this thing. It's brittle. It's hard to replace all of that. Uh, you know, we knew that we had a technical solution of structurally changing the derailleur itself to mount in a far more robust way. Uh, that was stronger, more rigid. You can dump the bike over, you can jump on it. You're not going to bend this thing anymore. And it actually allowed us to take a couple of adjustment screws entirely off. Uh, there's some adjustment that was no longer needed at all. Uh, and so we knew we had some product innovation there that was going to be very, very powerful. Uh, and we're looking for like, okay, now we we know we have our innovation, but we need to figure out how to get the market to allow us to deploy that innovation. Like, what are we going to do to get all, all the bikes in the world to change, to allow us to apply our innovation? Uh, and the answer was what we call the universal derailleur hanger, where we establish a standard of a single new rear derailleur hanger. Uh, that, uh, would apply to all bikes and would solve this other customer problem of you bend your trailer hanger and there's 200 of them and no shop has them in stock. It also solves, uh, the our OE customer problem of having to redesign this derailleur hanger for each bike, which is also waste and overhead that they don't want. And so we started by introducing the universal trailer hangar first on its own merits. You know, we didn't have our product improvement to market at time. We started with the Universal Driller hanger a couple years ahead. And, you know, we really did think about that as its own product and making an improvement to the bicycle industry, regardless of whether we came to market with our product or not. Like, you really have to kind of separate that out and really be make sure that we're doing something valuable for everyone. And then, of course, we established that standard, that it was open enough that everyone could adopt it at no charge. And it was also compatible with our competitors products, because we knew if we were trying to create something proprietary to box out competitors, that was actually going to prevent us, um, from, uh, from getting the the market change or that, you know, that, uh, that bicycle change that we were looking for. And so it was very much a two step process, one with the innovation for the whole market that was given away for free and valuable to everyone, including our competitors. And then the second move which built upon that, uh, where once we had created that, that new interface standard, we were able to, uh, to build our product that had its own, um, you know, its own performance improvements. And it also shows that when you build up an ecosystem, um, of course you can try to design it to create a lock in effect for your products. Um, as you if you create this, if you would have create this, this, you'd only compatible with your products, then it would create of course, would would be a huge benefit with the lock in effect. So customers could not use anything else. But on the other side also it would be a um, a negative effect for the chains, as you said. So you need to find the right balance. So being more like open for the ecosystem versus creating lock in effect. And so maybe the benefits of being more open has been in general more on in total more benefits for you as a company versus creating those lock in effects and trying to prevent others to steal. So being more open has also yielded one huge advantage, you know. Yeah. And and it's, uh, when we think about the, the, the strategy of these things, you know, it's not one answer, you know, for very much like we, we really wanted a new that UDA or the university or hangar needed to be very open like that was, you know, that was what was required for, for success there. Uh, on other parts of our ecosystem, uh, we, we do stay within our own product family. For example, uh, the way the button configuration works across our our wireless components. Uh, there are a lot of the way the the the control of the important parts of the bicycle, uh, the shifting, the, the seat posts, all of that. Um, we're we want to be very careful about how we do that. Um, because the the wireless performance, the speed and security of, of that connection is very important. We care a lot about the the shifting feel of those, uh, parts of our, of our system. And so we're, we're far more, uh, you know, kind of closed around that part. Uh, parts of the, the ecosystem there. But we also know that there's still buttons that people want to push to do other things. And so it's a pretty good example because on our latest, uh, road, uh, component groupset, um, we've got a few buttons, uh, that are third party, uh, interoperable, uh, with other devices in the ecosystem. And so we're very deliberate about, you know, which of the parts, where are we going to control the experience and make sure that we have the performance, uh, that we demand. And then which parts of the, the times and places to create that openness so that everything works together. Yeah. Um, so also now, I mean, you started some years ago with this whole. The strategy and the execution, and now you're really kind of seeing the the full traction in the market with the huge bandwidth of the whole portfolio for all kinds of, uh, of bikes, uh, etc.. So, so maybe looking into the future, how do you see your ecosystem around access evolve into the next years? Um, uh, when you look at forward in the next five, ten years, I mean, we have the huge movement of e-bikes. Uh, now, last I think last year there were more e-bikes sold than bio bikes. Um, so, um, so, so how do you see the future of the cycling industry? And also how do you see your ecosystem strategy evolve in the next years? So, um, yeah, yeah, I think, uh, one, you know, e-bikes are important to us. We just, uh, launched our first, uh, e-bike about a year ago, uh, a little over a year ago. And so that's exciting. And that'll be a whole new, uh, whole new space, uh, for us to get into. So we're excited about that. I, you know, for me, like, I really think about the simplicity and making sure that we're bringing the joy and ease of use. Um, back to, uh, bicycles. We've got a, uh, uh or continue to to make it simpler, I, you know, we talk about, uh, in heroin and from a design standpoint, when you create the ship, when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck. Uh, and when you put a battery on the bike, you just introduce the chance to have a dead battery on a bike. Uh, and so it's all those, uh, user experience things, uh, where we need to just make sure that it becomes simpler and simpler and simpler. Uh, and that's really the goal is to make, uh, the, the complexity, uh, disappear from the user experience and make everything very easy to work on, very easy to live with, very natural to, to interact with. I think the, the, the simplicity is, is really the, the driver of everything. And of course, you know, it kind of goes back to the, the, the Einstein quote, you know, any intelligent fool can make something bigger, more complex, more violent. Uh, but it takes the, the courage to move the other direction. Uh, you know, we like to think that we're courageous. We also know that our writers demand it. You know, if any time that we've shipped anything that's tedious or annoying to work with, we instantly know it. Like the, you know, people, by the time you're going to ride your bike, you're done with your job. You're escaping the house for a little bit. Like you want that really to be, uh, you know, your time, uh, to enjoy the outside or nature, all that. and you don't really want to be getting into like some sort of science project with an app and a battery and something else. Uh, and so we know that the, that the simplicity is really going to be the driver of everything. Um, and then, of course, as we dream and think more, you talked about the middle layer that that ecosystem. Uh, I'm pretty excited about where the intelligence can go. Uh, you know, I, of course, the buzzword, but it does beg the question of of where are the places, um, where we can just truly be a lot smarter about the way things operate. Uh, and, and, you know, what could come of that? And how could we deploy that in a way that goes back to that joy and simplicity of a bicycle? Yeah. This is also what I thought when I learned more about the flight attendant system. I mean, you collected thousands of data points throughout the ride, and then you analyze it and instantly you can make the right setting, uh, for the suspension, for example. So this is also a bit of a learning, uh, also adapting to the style of how you ride. Um, uh, and yeah, etc.. So this is uh, the topic of intelligence bringing the intelligence, but I'm totally with you. Um, this kind of creating this very simple thing. Uh, make it very simple and seamless. Integrated. Uh, I think this is the key for all building successful ecosystems. Um. Yeah. James, um, thank you very much for, for for talking about the whole strategy behind, uh, sram's access ecosystem. I think it's a fantastic, um, um, example, every, every leader should have a look at the topic, um, and, and how you have built it. Um, so I also recommend everybody who's listening here to maybe reach out to you. I'm, uh, I'm, I hope you are fine with that. Um, yeah, but people can connect to you via LinkedIn. I would say, uh, easily connect to to you. And then maybe you can start exchanging. But it's, it's really an a great example and the, um, and, and I totally recommend people to have a closer look. I mean, it's a bit technical to understand first, if you're not riding a bike, but, uh, after five minutes, you have you have understood what is derail, what is the UDA and what is suspension or whatever. But if you got it, then you understand how everything is really integrated and that that is a perfect example. Um, so thank you very much for joining. Um, maybe as a final question, we always ask our guests, uh, if there are any recommendations from your side, uh, for our listeners, what you think they should or maybe what you what helped you to, uh, to learn more about the topic or other leadership topics? So is there any book, any podcasts, any other thing you would like to recommend to leaders? Um, yeah, I've got two of them. So one of them is on the simpler side and kind of the business side, uh, which is building a story brand. And so that's with, uh, Don Miller, uh, was the creator of that. And it's just a simple storytelling framework. Uh, and I think about the story brand framework and it's the it's a description of the hero's journey. And that's great one for your marketing, but also just for internal discussions, making internal presentations, anything where you're persuading people, uh, you know, just really starting to frame how you're thinking about, uh, you know, how you're packaging the information and communicating it. So the story brand, uh, book, I think is a great framework. Uh, the other one, which is, uh, just a joyful thing. My favorite podcast is 99% invisible, uh, with Roman Mars. Can't recommend it enough. Uh, but in particular, uh, last year they did a 12 part series on The Power Broker, which is a book written by Robert Caro in 1975. Uh, the book is about Robert Moses, uh, who was, uh, the director of parks in, uh, in New York City from I think it was 1930 through the late 50s. Uh, incredible book, incredible 12 part series about the book. Um, but it really talks about systems, uh, and how the how the decisions that you make have such lasting impacts. Uh, and so for anyone, like, in the kind of that big picture thinking about the systems and it's just a joyful, fun thing to listen to. Uh, can't recommend it enough. So that's, uh, yeah, the Power Broker series on the 99% invisible podcast. Okay. Very good. I never heard about that. But I will also tune in and I will put this into the into the show notes here so that everybody can see a link, uh, to the podcast, also the book, etc.. And maybe before we close, uh. Um, a final question for my side. What is your prediction for the 2025 mountain bike UCI World Championship? Is Nino Shorter succeeding again? Uh, or do you think someone else, uh, last year we have seen in Italy. Uh, what what is your what is your prediction? It'll be interesting. We will find out. But my prediction is that it will be won on Sram. Okay, okay. Uh, if not, then, um, but maybe in end of the year we can have another, uh, conversation about that and let's see, uh, but, um, yeah, uh, I likely that it will be uh, also specialized was very dominant last year. Yeah. Last season. So thank you very much for joining. It was a pleasure for me. Um, and, uh, I hope you enjoyed it too. And see you soon. Yeah. Great to be here. Thank you.