NOBULL Co-Founder on Keeping Good Habits

The MBA Class of 2004 made its presence known on the final night of MIT Sloan Reunion 2024 when Marcus Wilson, MBA ’04, took the stage at the Wong Auditorium.

“My understanding is that you have a big fan club here,” said Georgia Perakis (John C Head III Dean (Interim) at the MIT Sloan School of Management) amid cheers at the beginning of her fireside chat with Wilson, who added: “They will certainly be the most raucous.”

A branding and marketing expert who has helped many startups scale up, Wilson co-founded the athletic brand NOBULL in 2015 with his former Reebok colleague, Michael Schaffer.

“We were tired of hearing brands say their products would help you run faster or jump higher,” said Wilson. “For us, it was about this: If you want to be better at anything, if you want to be able to run faster or jump higher, you need to stop making excuses and put in the work. It’s really up to you.”

In conversation with Interim Dean Perakis, Wilson told his story and the story of NOBULL. He recalled how his time at MIT Sloan and the friends he made there were instrumental in his success and offered advice to entrepreneurs and innovators in the audience.

Forming good habits

The mentality of putting in the work—of becoming “a better professor or firefighter or whatever it is you want to be,” as Wilson described it—was quickly embraced by NOBULL’s initial consumer base: the CrossFit community. The co-founders felt like they had tapped into something special, but as Wilson explained, what looks like overnight success was not without struggle.

When he left Reebok to join another startup, Wilson “drastically” underestimated how much work and time would be needed to navigate transitioning from a larger company to a much smaller enterprise. He stopped working out, paid less attention to his diet, and gradually let the good habits of a lifetime of athleticism fall to the wayside.

“One morning, I went to put on my sock and pulled something in my back,” he said. “I was devastated. I literally sat on the bed for 30 minutes, staring at the carpet and wondering, ‘What is happening to me?’”

Instead of dwelling on the pain, Wilson went to a local CrossFit studio, signed up for classes, and soon found himself diving back into the athletic lifestyle. By coincidence, Schaffer had also signed up for CrossFit classes. The pair quickly embraced the fitness trend and began discussing it in their regular entrepreneurial brainstorming sessions.

These conversations were another good habit that Wilson credits with his and NOBULL’s success: communication. Good communication is integral to relationships, whether personal or professional, and it is “an important part of being optimistic,” which is a crucial mindset to have if you want to be an entrepreneur. As Wilson reminded the audience, “entrepreneurship is hard.”

“There are going to be a lot of hard times, and you have to believe you can get through them, and really believe in what you’re doing, to set out on a path that you can feel proud of,” he said.

Marcus Wilson | MBA ’04, Co-Founder of NOBULL

There are going to be a lot of hard times, and you have to believe you can get through them, and really believe in what you’re doing, to set out on a path that you can feel proud of.

The power of community

As CrossFit gained in popularity, its community quickly swelled with professional athletes and everyday people. Their abilities and backgrounds were varied, but their dedication to the training program and their fellow participants was strong.

NOBULL benefited just as much from the timing of their entry into CrossFit as they did from the intensity of the community’s devotion. As Wilson explained, “We were avid CrossFitters and we really believed in the brand. It was a part of who we were, and we were creating products that we were proud of. We were creating messaging that really connected with us.”

Their early messaging also resonated with the growing CrossFit community, a “passionate consumer base” that embraced NOBULL wholeheartedly throughout its early marketing campaigns and powerful word-of-mouth effects. This community adopted NOBULL as its own, and in turn, Wilson, Schaffer, and the NOBULL team adopted and celebrated the community.

“We invite people in and highlight those who have worked hard and those who are seeing success. One of the things about CrossFit is that people are intimidated by it early on, but it’s a very inviting community once you’re in it,” said Wilson.

In founding NOBULL, Wilson and Schaffer were adamant about their desire to avoid making claims about their products’ supposed performance-enhancing qualities. Instead, they wanted to emphasize the individual accomplishments of their customers—triumphs they themselves were achieving—and the CrossFit community understood this approach.

A part of something very important

The MIT Sloan community was also receptive to Wilson’s motivations at NOBULL. When Interim Dean Perakis asked him about any specific lessons or experiences from the school that stuck with him, Wilson gestured to the MBA Class of 2004 members in the front row.

“It’s the alumni network, your friends, your classmates, [and] being able to talk to people who have gone through similar things,” he said. “We’re at a stage for about a 20-year reunion where we’ve all had to deal with a lot of personal things: personal losses, classmates of ours who have passed away, and people who’ve had family struggles.”

Obviously, Wilson admitted, older alumni celebrating later reunion years will have experienced far more in terms of professional and personal successes and losses, but the point remains relevant.

“It’s really [about] recognizing life as a part of all this. It’s something that’s very important, and that I’ve really started to appreciate,” he said.”

Check out the MIT Sloan Reunion 2024 website to see more highlights and videos.