Mathias Ihlenfeld flew to the United States with three tennis rackets, a toothbrush, and no fallback plan. He had a theory: big challenges tend to have big opportunities hiding inside them. The challenge he found was a kids’ bicycle industry that had never actually been designed for kids.

Most children’s bikes are adult frames scaled down — heavier brakes, longer crank arms, extra weight — which is why a 30-pound child hauling a typical $80 Walmart bike is carrying roughly 70% of their own body weight. Woom Bikes engineers around that problem from scratch, building the world’s lightest kids’ bikes for riders aged 18 months to 12 years. When Mathias stepped in as CEO of Woom’s US operation, there were 13 bikes in inventory. By the time he left, the company had crossed $100 million in annual revenue.

He didn’t get there by building a sales funnel. He gave out his personal cell number as the customer service line because he needed to hear what was working directly. Today Mathias lives in Round Rock, is active in the Chamber’s Entrepreneurial Council, and writes and teaches on customer obsession at bymathias.kit.com.