Kim Gottwald

And like with the world championships and these national championship type events, like the people that are doing a lot of the organizing tends to be like world, like the governing bodies and things like that.

And they just have never been marketing machines the same way as like BPN marketed their backyard ultra or Kim Gottwald with a rapid marketed last soul and things like that.

So to some degree, it's almost like someone needs to get interested enough that has that, that skillset and desire to put together a production that would be worth following.

So I don't know if there's like, cause to, to your point where, how do we make this long enough for people to care? You almost have to do it in the lead up where you're profiling these different runners.

And They kind of, what I would consider, they kind of hacked short form media with that one where I think one of the unique reasons why this type of event style is popular and is growing is because it's predictable about when you tune in.

but you don't have to tune in for very long because you just know at the top of every hour essentially is when all the action is going to happen so you can kind of go about your day and just say okay it's 1 55 i'm gonna flip open instagram and wait and see for the reels to come through from this last loop and pay attention for a few minutes and then go back to doing what you're doing before and wait to do it again so the the bpn version of this setup i think really blew it up to a whole new group of people And the interesting thing about that is Kim Gottwald, who was one of the participants in the original BPN event decided, hey, I think I can maybe take us to a whole nother level, because BPN was pretty committed to just using Instagram, they didn't do a YouTube live stream or anything like that.

So he put on last soul ultra in Germany, which now he's building out into be like a series of events where they're going to, I think they're gonna start with four different backyard ultra style events next year.

And he, I mean, he, I think almost literally put all his chips into the center of the table with respect to financing the thing.

And then, yeah, obviously BPN was kind of a new ignition point, especially it wasn't so much in the moment, but the way that they could produce and put together a YouTube documentary film.

i've always said that like you know my wife is the the truest example of like somebody who's not necessarily a fan of ultra running and everything within the content space and so if i can put her in front of a youtube video and have her watch it for 45 minutes it's it's clearly captivating her attention and her curiosity outside of just uh performative uh aspects with like regards to time and fitness and things like that and and so yeah i think nick is obviously a master at you know promotion and putting content together whether it's short form or long form on youtube and then yeah and then last soul ultra i think kind of doubled down on that you know kim put together and self-financed a massive event and put a ton of intentional focus on commentating and i thought lasso ultra was the best form and presentation of commentating an ultra event that we've ever experienced in the space uh the night drones were something that was a new aspect that was captivating for us um so yeah there were a lot of components there and then obviously the emergence of mark as a personality, as a character, his aura, you know, he's, he's quotable, you know, a dozen times in the event of like a three day race.

And so, yeah, all of these ingredients kind of started swirling around together.

And, and then now we just had worlds and, you know, you've got Theo Vaughn out there, not only just having Mark on his podcast, but being so interested in supporting Mark and learning more about it that he shows up and takes time out of his day to come down and check the thing out in person.

Okay, one last thing I promised.

There's a guy on the German team, his name's Kim Gottwald, and he was the guy who co-won the Go One More Ultra back in 25.

And the point here is, in a one-year span, how he pivoted that newfound fame into this economic engine of an events business.

So the very next year, he co-founds this last Soul Ultra, which is wild.

Just like the launchpad that got created there.

What did you say

his name was? Kim Gottwald.

So Kim, K-I-M, Gottwald, G-O-T-T-W-A-L-D. He's