From SKINS bankruptcy to an ASX listing: Jaimie Fuller on the lessons he’s using to grow new sportstech company, eo

It’s been a wild ride for Aussie entrepreneur Jaimie Fuller. After his company SKINS — at one time among the most successful global activewear brands — filed for bankruptcy in 2019, the Sydney-based businessman took some time out but now is back growing his new venture, eo.

Several years since the “slow trainwreck” of SKINS’ demise, Fuller is upbeat about the prospects for eo, a sports tech company targeted at pro athletes and elite amateurs. 

And why shouldn’t he be?

Established in 2020, eo — co-founded by Fuller, former NSW Institute of Sport scientist Kenneth Graham and ex-Mogo Holdings CEO Dean Hawkins — raised $2.5 million in seed funding last year and plans a Series A of at least $5 million in 2022 to boost domestic growth and set up a team in the US, its first overseas market entry.

Its lead products are a palm-sized device for swimmers that measures the force of their hands through the water and a portable headset for concussion assessment, with a hydration device with metrics for sweat loss and a carbon-fibre ankle support are in development. 

Eo’s longer-term ambition, according to Fuller, is an ASX-listing in 24 months after the company cracks the lucrative US market, which dwarfs Australia when it comes to sports.

“We have a pipeline of five products which will be progressively launched. The third product in the pipeline, the sweat analysis patch we are developing with input from CSIRO, could be the most exciting, and biggest, opportunity of the lot,” Fuller said.

Key takeaways

1. Despite a business going bankrupt, it can still provide good ideas and good foundations for future ventures.

2. Innovating with investors all over the world allows for diverse perspectives, rather than restricting your vision.

3. Startups can fail if you’re trying to ‘out better’ someone else. Building something unique gives your business a better shot at success.

‘Moving the needle’ for athletes

Fuller tells SmartCompany Plus eo initially took shape over a meeting with Graham in January 2020, which fast became a “fascinating conversation” about how existing tech in adjacent fields could be applied to help athletes across a range of sports.

Fuller says when you cross the “knowledge of what moves the needle for elite athletes alongside emerging research, and add emerging technologies, suddenly you can visualise and conceptualise products that don’t exist that can be created to help elite athletes”.

It’s similar, he says, to the approach he took with SKINS that filtered an “authentic” relationship between product and elite user to the consumer. SKINS, which led creation and manufacture of sports compression wear, used tech crossed over from the medical arena.

Creating a sense of corporate authenticity is “unbelievably powerful” for a brand, he says, pointing to Olympic swimming gold medallist Kyle Chalmers’ involvement with the startup.

Olympian Kyle Chalmers wearing eo. Source: supplied

Other big names onboard are Olympic swimmer James Magnussen’s’ coach Brant Best, NRL team South Sydney Rabbitohs, triathlete Vincent Luis, A League team Melbourne City FC, and peak body Swimming Australia. Chalmers and Luis are also investors in the company.

“With SKINS, we took a technology from a medical channel that hadn’t been used in sport and in doing so you then make it relevant for elite athletes and you can create a product that gives them something that’s unique,” Fuller explained.

“That creates an opportunity to create a brand that has an authentic engagement with elite athletes and coaches, then you use that to create the connection with the consumer.”

Getting the best innovators onboard

From brainstorming with Graham over coffee, the Sydney-headquartered startup moved into product development. That phase lasted through 2020, with the company committed to searching out innovators who understood both algorithms and software, and sport. 

It’s a key reason, Fuller says, why eo partnered with external innovators from Australia and the US instead of going in-house with development, which would have limited options.

Eo will work with “the best innovation partners we can find” irrespective of where they’re based”, Fuller says.

“The idea is that if you’re restricted to your internal capabilities then you restrict your vision and capacity to make something pretty mind boggling.”

Timing is also on eo’s side, according to the co-founder, who notes that the global sports tech sector is growing at well over 20% and is set to exceed $40 billion by 2024. 

It’s a claim backed up by recent industry research, which forecasts the worldwide market for sports technology to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 17.5% to 2026, with much of the uplift tipped to be in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region and be fuelled by demand for sports data analytics, smart stadiums and wearable devices.

Fuller believes the uniqueness of eo’s product suite will also help it along, pointing in particular to a lack of rivals for eo’s swim device, giving it a clear run at Australia’s swim market and the around 400,000 triathletes and 280,000 competitive swimmers in the US.

Learning lessons from SKINS

Additionally, eo has benefited from what Fuller learned at the helm of SKINS. 

One big lesson from that company, which he purchased in 2002 and at its height had offices in eight countries, was to get the best people on board from the get-go at eo.

The startup, which has around 10 staff, draws heavily from Fuller’s prior venture.

“Five of us are ex-SKINS, I’ve been able to pick the absolute eyes out of the very best people,” he said.

eo founders Jaimie Fuller, Dean Hawkins and Dr Kenneth Graham. Source: supplied

Another lesson — one he believes budding entrepreneurs should heed — is the importance of going to market with a product that has a unique selling point, and proprietary status.

He sees this as a big plus for eo. For instance, it’s swim device is able to log information previously unmeasurable such as force production, consistency, efficiency and stroke rate. Similarly, its brain assessment headset uses a one-of-a-kind “neurological biomarker” that the company says is completely objective, meaning players cannot manipulate outcomes.

“Everything we do, we’re not interested in trying to out-market somebody else, it needs to be unique and needs to be protectable by patents,” Fuller said.

“I see guys that don’t understand that and investors looking to invest in businesses that have no genuine unique selling proposition. There’s got to be more than ‘my tee-shirts are green as opposed to blue’. That’s why I believe that 90% of startups fail.”