Rob Taylor Has Fabulous Hair & Epic Bike Trips BUT This Serial Entrepreneur & VC Keeps Ego Low
03/21/25 • 70 min
To help spread the word about the show, my friend Rey Madolora put me on an email with a bunch of Austin cyclists that are also notable in the business community. One by one I was able to meet most of them, but Rob Taylor was elusive. When I followed his Strava I noticed that he was regularly climbing mountains in Europe...like really frequently and his trips had names like, “Epic Three Nations.” Needless to say this piqued my interest but he’s not on the group ride scene here so I wasn’t going to just run into him. I did run into his brother, Chris, at The Red Fridge Society, which he opened as a membership club and event space for founders. When I told Chris that we had started promoting live events, he said, “you should interview my brother, here.” And that’s how you stalk a podcast guest.
Rob’s ride through the dot com bubble and bust got him started in triathlon as an outlet to channel frustration - not exactly a joyful pursuit. Gradually, during his high flying career taking companies public, reaching a 9 figure exit and becoming a VC, Rob discovered a passion for European bike trips HEAVY on the climbing because the experience distills his complicated life down to basic pleasures: fitness, suffering, outdoors, local cuisine and companionship. We had a blast at the Red Fridge exploring Rob’s leadership insights as far as team building, communicating, and relishing the adventure as opposed to coveting the outcome. No topic was off limits for the audience Q&A, including Rob’s glorious hair. Now, enjoy the show.
Hill Climbers is more than just a podcast, it's a growing business network for cyclists. You can tap into our event by following our Linkedin and Instagram, and subscribing to our newsletter.
Startuplandia.io Sponsors Hill Climbers Content & Free Beer
www.hill-climbers.com
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Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik
To help spread the word about the show, my friend Rey Madolora put me on an email with a bunch of Austin cyclists that are also notable in the business community. One by one I was able to meet most of them, but Rob Taylor was elusive. When I followed his Strava I noticed that he was regularly climbing mountains in Europe...like really frequently and his trips had names like, “Epic Three Nations.” Needless to say this piqued my interest but he’s not on the group ride scene here so I wasn’t going to just run into him. I did run into his brother, Chris, at The Red Fridge Society, which he opened as a membership club and event space for founders. When I told Chris that we had started promoting live events, he said, “you should interview my brother, here.” And that’s how you stalk a podcast guest.
Rob’s ride through the dot com bubble and bust got him started in triathlon as an outlet to channel frustration - not exactly a joyful pursuit. Gradually, during his high flying career taking companies public, reaching a 9 figure exit and becoming a VC, Rob discovered a passion for European bike trips HEAVY on the climbing because the experience distills his complicated life down to basic pleasures: fitness, suffering, outdoors, local cuisine and companionship. We had a blast at the Red Fridge exploring Rob’s leadership insights as far as team building, communicating, and relishing the adventure as opposed to coveting the outcome. No topic was off limits for the audience Q&A, including Rob’s glorious hair. Now, enjoy the show.
Hill Climbers is more than just a podcast, it's a growing business network for cyclists. You can tap into our event by following our Linkedin and Instagram, and subscribing to our newsletter.
Startuplandia.io Sponsors Hill Climbers Content & Free Beer
www.hill-climbers.com
Instagram
Linkedin
Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik
Previous Episode
Ralli Founder Allison Morrison Slays Triathalon Worlds With a Day Job While Getting Her MBA, Ugh
We could have interviewed Allison Morrison fresh off her World’s debut in Olympic distance triathlon as a UT MBA student and full time Meta employee. However this podcast has a strong entrepreneurial theme (you, reader, are about to feel inadequate), and sure enough, Allison made room for her startup, Ralli, on top of 15hr weekly training blocks, coursework and the day job. Ralli launched in 2022 as a web app to help athletes match with training buddies, and is expanding to include club messaging features with an imminent native app release. The special sauce in this episode is the LIVE AUDIENCE! We hosted Allison at the Meteor in Austin with 40 other guests, our first public event, and the authentic laugh track takes this podcast energy to the next level. Do not miss the second half which covers the audience Q&A, because the questions about righteous selfishness, scaling the app for critical mass and fundraising were WAY better than ours! Enjoy.
Hill Climbers is more than just a podcast, it's a growing business network for cyclists. You can tap into our event by following our Linkedin and Instagram, and subscribing to our newsletter.
Startuplandia.io Sponsors Hill Climbers Content & Free Beer
www.hill-climbers.com
Instagram
Linkedin
Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik
Next Episode
Mark Farmery Created BiotechBikers to Encourage Biotech Biz Dev ON the Bike, and We Are Taking Notes!
The key metric for measuring Hill Climbers success is engagement - but I’m not talking about likes, comments and shares. The show with Eric Min from Zwift was a big milestone for us because Eric’s a known quantity in our world, and deep down I was hoping for recognition in the form of connecting with NEW folks over a shared passion for bikes and business.
On January 9th I received a message from Mark Farmery that read “Hey Sam, it's fantastic what you're doing with Hill Climb. It would be great to connect, tell you more about BiotechBikers, the cycling-centric bioscience community I founded, and explore synergies.” I didn't even notice the typo, because here was someone who has been cultivating a cycling business community for years, and he managed to find me through the show! Honestly I didn’t know any other like minded communities existed and I couldn’t have asked for a more satisfying response to my #1 KPI.
It turns out, Mark is Chief Development Officer at Anocca, a cutting edge Swedish T Cell therapy biotech that’s focused on treatments for pancreatic cancer, which is wildly fatal and therefore on the list of more menacing cancers...more on that in a future episode. It also turns out that Mark is a huge believer in the power of networking to bring the right people together to solve extremely complicated challenges like altering the body’s immune system response to cancerous cells. It was this urge AND his lifelong love of cycling that compelled him to bring his bike to big biotech conferences, and encourage others to join him. What started in 2018 with just three people has grown into an international biotech and pharma networking community with chapters all over the world! Stay tuned to meet Mark and learn how Biotech Bikers became a thriving community online and IRL.
Hill Climbers is more than just a podcast, it's a growing business network for cyclists. You can tap into our event by following our Linkedin and Instagram, and subscribing to our newsletter.
Startuplandia.io Sponsors Hill Climbers Content & Free Beer
www.hill-climbers.com
Instagram
Linkedin
Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik
Hill Climbers - Rob Taylor Has Fabulous Hair & Epic Bike Trips BUT This Serial Entrepreneur & VC Keeps Ego Low
Transcript
Speaker 4 (00:00)
yeah, we're gonna do all sorts of introductions, man, guys, thank you so much for turning out. we're two for two. The first event was fantastic. The second one, you guys filled this room. So I don't know what to say. I'm humbled. Chris is the owner, proprietor. Want him to do the first intro. So Chris, take a.
Speaker 2 (00:21)
We have some nested intros here. So hi everybody. Welcome to the Red Fridge Society. So this place, I ran a startup out of here called Square
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