Building WOOP: A Journey of Resilience and Innovation

They’re the 300 dollar subscription fitness bands being worn by a host of celebrity-backers in 2024. But who is the business leader behind the billion-dollar Whoop brand?

The son of an Egyptian migrant to the US, Will Ahmed was always interested in sports. During his college years he started to notice the dangers of doing too much sports training. He describes this as a ‘rabbit hole’ as he began researching sleep and recovery patterns in professional athletes.

This led him to create a fitness tracker company that is a 3.4 billion dollar venture today, attracting famous athlete-investors like Michael Phelps and Cristiano Ronaldo and taking on established names in fitness tech like Apple, Google, Garmin and Fitbit.

We hear how he did it, and what challenges he’s faced along the way.

(Picture: Will Ahmed in his office, wearing a Whoop device. Credit: Whoop)

Presented and produced by Devina Gupta