Nicolas Pierron is the guest on En Roue Libre Podcast
Episode in French.
Nicolas Pierron is the head of the Van Rysel brand.
A few years ago, the founder of a prestigious bike brand teasingly pointed out to him that Decathlon was bringing him customers in droves.
Nicolas had made that observation many times during more than two decades at Decathlon, working in a wide range of roles in retail and then in product.
But that day was the last straw, and the conditions were right for Nicolas to pitch the Decathlon group a hyper-ambitious project built around a slightly crazy idea: create and develop a high-end bike brand within the group to go and challenge the industry giants.
What’s fascinating about this story is that Decathlon already had a brand in place at the time, and it was called Btwin.
And even as Btwin Racing, a name that came from a mass-market leisure bike with worldwide success was a major handicap for any serious claim to the high-end segment and for convincing riders and professionals.
Nicolas’s team proposed the name Van Rysel and put it on the bikes and apparel without changing anything else, and the results they got stunned them.
Van Rysel is a textbook case that will no doubt be taught in marketing classes, so great was the impact of a name change on Decathlon as a company, its products, its employees, its sales and its visibility — far beyond what you might imagine.
In this episode, expect to discover:
– How the Decathlon group took the step of competing with the major players in the high-end bike market, something it had refused to do until then.
– How the birth of the Van Rysel brand wiped out overnight all the obstacles the Btwin brand had posed until then.
– What sponsoring a Pro Tour team brings to the brand and the group in terms of return on investment, visibility and performance
– Why, for Nicolas, it’s important to take the first step and set yourself goals to achieve extraordinary things.
– The brand’s dizzying five-year ambitions and the resources it is giving itself to get there.
– How the team is working to make its pro team as competitive as, if not more than, the current benchmarks, and why you should expect to see them at the front of the race
– And plenty of other things.
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To support your cycling projects with specialists and increase your chances of success, call on LINE by booking a call with me directly at agenceline.fr
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Episode chapters
00:01 Teaser
01:08 Introducing Nicolas
03:13 Introducing Agence Line
03:43 Van Rysel, a childhood dream?
14:40 The competitive spirit
24:18 The Embrun Man effect
28:36 Arriving at headquarters
41:42 Ultra vs performance
57:06 The genesis of Van Rysel
01:05:57 The limits of the BTWIN brand
01:10:39 Choosing the name
01:18:53 The effect of the name change
01:30:55 The impact on the teams
01:33:44 The impact of the Pro Tour team
01:38:29 How the riders see it
01:43:32 What separates VR from the world top 5
01:55:31 Revenue targets
01:58:02 Distribution
02:11:50 E-bikes at VR
02:15:30 Made in France at VR?
02:21:55 What we can wish him for the future
02:23:02 The En Roue Libre / VR giveaway
02:27:09 A next guest?
02:27:54:24 My final word
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