182: Don’t Build Companies - Build Teams! Valerie Bures, Serial Entrepreneur

Valerie Bures is a serial entrepreneur, and founder, CEO,
investor, board member, and a mom of three with an incredible
track record. 


Over the past 20 years, she founded and scaled Mrs.Sporty,
Pixformance and VAHA - successful businesses at the intersection
of fitness, health and technology. 


Mrs.Sporty is a Europe-wide chain of fitness clubs that Valerie
helped to scale to around 300.000 members in 550 Clubs and 10
countries with revenues of more than 80 Million EUR during this
time period. 


The insights gained at Mrs.Sporty led her to found Pixformance,
which offers digitally-enhanced movement therapy and is now
entering the US market. 


In 2019, she also founded VAHA, a smart fitness mirror company
that offers live and on-demand classes from yoga to strength and
aims to be the best alternative to a gym. Last year, Bioniq
acquired VAHA, and Valerie joined their board.  


Valerie’s view is that “you are not building companies. You are
building teams. Teams who want to create and change the world
together. That’s what I learnt from sports. It is more about the
team than the company. You have to fail again and again to
eventually score.” 


Part of her extended team has been athletes turned investors in
her companies such as Steffi Graf, who was one of the early
investors in Mrs.Sporty, and German football star Manuel Neuer
who backed Vaha.  


In this wide-ranging conversation, Valerie explains how
Mrs.Sporty built a sales machine, and predicts which companies
will win in the health & fitness space in the future.