Athlete Founder: Julien Jané (Former Rugby Player)
Julien Jané
From professional rugby player to athlete founder of a Smart Bowl startup, the story of Julien Jané 🥣
His company, maju, has 50,000 users and €4 million in revenue.
In my previous post, I talked about how athlete challenges can become great business opportunities. Julien's story validates this:
As an elite athlete, he worked with a dietitian friend who told him to measure his food and count protein intake. This was hell for Julien, just as it was for many others facing the same task.
He always had an idea in mind, but it wasn't until he stopped competing that he pursued it.
At the end of his rugby career, he didn't want to stay in the sport, he was drawn to the challenges, human adventure, resilience, and constant questioning that entrepreneurship offers.
He joined an entrepreneurial business program where he could directly apply business learnings to his own project.
The result:The Maju smart bowl uses three adjustable compartments (vegetables, protein, starches) to help users portion meals according to their nutritional needs, connected to an app that provides personalized dietary guidance.
It removes the mental load of following a nutrition program - making healthy eating simple, accessible, and effortless.
My best recommendation for aspiring Athlete Founders: choose entrepreneurial programs where you can learn and apply immediately.Generic business programs are too broad and often leave you unsatisfied.
Related resources
Athlete Founder: Brent Luyckx (Former Cyclist)
The Belgians are doing well in the World of Athlete Founders 🇧🇪! Former Belgian cyclist Brent Luyckx is launching his new health startup, Superhlth, today!
His own past health struggles, which ended his pro cycling career, became the inspiration for launching a solution.
"At three, I was temporarily paralyzed due to Lyme disease. As a professional cyclist, I collapsed twice from heat stroke and decided to quit. At 22, after years of misdiagnoses, I underwent a life-or-death surgery for Crohn's disease, which I still live with today." - Brent Luyckx
He realized one thing very clearly:
- His body is not your body.
- His triggers are not your triggers.
- What works for someone else may do nothing for him.
Yet, 99% of health advice is still generic. We're being "health-influenced" on Instagram and TikTok by people with entirely different bodies and needs.And even though we have more health data than ever, it's scattered everywhere—across apps, PDFs, wearables, and other platforms.We're drowning in data but starving for personal answers.
His startup, Superhlth, is built to solve exactly that: a platform that understands your body, not the body of the "average person," and where all of your biology is interpreted together, not as separate fragments. Turning complexity into clarity.
This is another proof point that athletes are very strong entrepreneurs. They have the determination, the drive, consistency, and know how to deal with pressure.
It's really a matter of finding the right business idea in which you feel strong and interested - he definitely found his match!I am on a mission to prove that pro athletes can have exciting careers as entrepreneurs!
Book Recommendation for Athlete Founders
My favorite book recommendation for athletes wanting to become entrepreneurs: read a book on how NOT to run a startup.
After a decade in scale-ups, early-stage startups, and launching my own company, I've encountered many costly mistakes. Most of them were captured in one book: "Why Startups Fail: And How Yours Can Succeed."
A big barrier for athletes is uncertainty. Beyond taking action, one of the best ways to gain confidence is inversion thinking: think about why your startup would fail. This helps you spot problems early and avoid them.
How to do this? Read books like this one and learn from other athlete founders with similar business ideas.
It's a technique used by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner.
My mission with Athlete Founders is simple: help athletes become entrepreneurs. Athletes have the right skills—you just need to know which business idea to pursue, what partners you need, and how to get started with your time and money limits.
Athlete Founder: Dennis Kraft (Former Cyclist)
Dennis Kraft
a former German pro cyclist, founded the OXYDrive eQuadricycle, a futuristic bicycle-car hybrid inspired by his experience as a pro cyclist.
“36,000 kilometers on a bike a year taught me one thing: motion has a rhythm — and design should follow it.” - Dennis Kraft