The next time a work colleague or your boss tells you they “gotta run,” maybe it’s because they’re headed to another meeting or out to lunch.
When Gavin Woody has to run, he might not be back for a few days and a few hundred miles.
Woody is the co-founder and CEO of Felix&Fido, a Seattle startup focused on addressing a shortage in veterinarians with its subscription-based pet care model. The company emerged from stealth mode in March with $4 million in pre-seed funding from PSL Ventures and pet-sitting giant Rover.
‘He’s truly one of a kind. He’s got to be the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.’
— PSL Managing Director Greg Gottesman
When he’s not focused on the issues impacting his startup or the direction he is taking the company, Woody is focused on the issues and direction tied to his latest extreme adventure. An ultra trail runner, mountain climber, backcountry skier, cyclist, Ironman competitor and more, Woody has conquered some of the world’s most demanding terrain and tests of human endurance.
Earlier this year, Woody completed Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Invitational, a 350-mile ultramarathon on the famous dog sled course. He did the race on skis in eight days, six hours, becoming only the third person to have completed ITI by all three modes of travel — foot, ski, or bike. In 2018, he won the race on foot in five and a half days.
Woody, who is also a decorated Army veteran, brings the same mindset to his adventures as he does to running a startup.
“You’re just constantly thinking about all of these different elements — how can I keep moving forward and what’s the highest priority?” he said.
Greg Gottesman, managing director of Seattle’s Pioneer Square Labs, has worked with over 200 companies and worked closely with hundreds of CEOs. He’s never met anyone like Woody.
“When I say he’s one of a kind, he’s truly one of a kind,” Gottesman said. “He’s got to be the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.”
Mountains, trails and miles of inspiration
During a chat in Seattle this week with GeekWire, Woody said his feet were sore.
At age 46, the married father of two didn’t come across as any worse for wear, and appeared as fit as you’d expect someone to be when their LinkedIn profile includes mention of being an “endurance athlete.”
“I actually ran a 100 miler this weekend, up near Leavenworth,” Woody admitted. “It took me 33 hours.”
The Plain 100 features 21,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, and a website for the race boasts that only four people finished in the race’s first eight years. For Woody, the race was clearly another endurance test — but it also provided another chance to learn, not just about his body and pushing through challenges.
“I’m always trying to maximize time,” he said. “I listened to this 22-hour audio book the whole time. If I can learn something and run, that’s great.”
The book was called “Enlightenment Now,” which he says was recommended somewhere by Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
“I’m kind of interested in AI … I mean, who isn’t right?” Woody said.
While most of us aren’t boning up on tech’s latest craze in the middle of a grueling race, it’s par for the course for Woody, who checks off books or quotes that have inspired him as easily and humbly as he mentions another element of terrain he has conquered:
- He’s climbed Mount Rainier 15 times and skied down three times. He and a friend were first to complete the “Infinity Loop,” which involves, in part, summiting and descending twice and running the Wonderland Trail around the mountain.
- He ran and won the Bigfoot 200 race in the Cascade Mountains, described online as a “massive, life-changing event” and by Woody as the one place where you might just see Sasquatch.
- He’s run the UTMB 100-mile race around Mont-Blanc; the Tor des Géants 200-mile race in Italy; the Western States 100 miler; Colorado’s Hardrock 100 miler; and the Badwater 135-mile desert race, billed as “the most demanding and extreme running race offered anywhere on the planet.”
- He also proposed to his wife Sara — an ultra runner herself — on Mount Kilimanjaro, got married at Yosemite and then hiked the John Muir Trail.
From the ranch to the battlefield
Woody’s upbringing, schooling and military service all shaped the leader he is today.
He grew up on a cattle ranch in an unincorporated town named after his great-great grandfather, Woody, near Bakersfield, Calif. Both of his parents were veterinarians: his mother tended to smaller animals and his father focused on larger ones.
“On a ranch you have to be a generalist — a master of none and a jack of all trades,” Woody said. “You’re a plumber, an electrician, a business person.”
In high school he rose to commander of his Junior ROTC unit. He wrestled and ran track, but he says he wasn’t very good. But again, diversifying and learning was the key.
“I had this goal of being a good leader in the military, and I think you need to demonstrate a wide range of abilities,” Woody said.
He enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and studied mechanical engineering — and it was here that Woody ran his first marathon.
‘I was never very fast, but I was pretty good at putting these different pieces together and then just kind of plugging away.’
— Gavin Woody
“It was terrible,” he said. “I was puking at the finish and walking backwards. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, never again. Check that box, I’m done.'”
After West Point he went to the Army’s Airborne School in Fort Benning, Ga., where he went through infantry training “to learn how to jump out of planes and carry heavy things.”
Next stop was Italy and the 173rd Airborne Brigade where Woody got close with guys who liked to run marathons and cycle long distances in the mountains. He threw swimming into the mix and started doing Ironman races.
“I was never very fast, but I was pretty good at putting these different pieces together and then just kind of plugging away,” he said.
Woody was on a training deployment in Germany on Sept. 11, 2001, when he watched from a small barracks TV as the Twin Towers fell in New York. He never went to Afghanistan, but eventually, as an infantry captain and platoon leader, he parachuted into Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. He earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and a Bronze Star Award.
After Iraq, Woody returned to the U.S. and attended Stanford University for his MBA. He started doing marathons again. And when he read “Born to Run” and “Ultramarathon Man” he was inspired by the prospect of getting off road for much longer runs in the wild.
Inspiring people to push a little harder
Prior to Felix&Fido, Woody spent time as a consultant with McKinsey and Co., and worked at Expedia, A Place For Mom, and most recently Porch, the Seattle-based home improvement marketplace.
He’s a past board member and president at The Mountaineers and now leads the board of the Northwest Avalanche Center, which provides a daily avalanche forecast to snowshoers, snowmobilers and backcountry skiers.
He’s big on operational efficiency and creating what he calls “awesome customer experiences at scale.” He says process, people and technology underpin everything that he does. And he credits the military with honing his management style — know the mission, build a great team, and then help them execute without micromanaging.
With close knowledge of the big ups and big downs that startups go through, PSL’s Gottesman said what separates good entrepreneurs from great entrepreneurs is not what they do when it’s easy and times are good, but how well they execute when it’s hard.
“I can’t think of anyone that I know that handles hard better than Gavin, not just in his startup life but also in the way he approaches life,” Gottesman said. “I think this particular hobby that he has is directly attributable to what it means to be a leader, especially in a startup that’s going to have more ups and downs than your typical company.”
An experience at the Tour of Giants race in the Italian Alps demonstrated that approach and what Woody brings back to work. Near the end of the 200-mile race, which features 72,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, Woody experienced leg pain which necessitated traversing the last 30 miles while walking backwards.
When most might quit, Woody was determined to grind it out and finish.
“Generally, I feel like people have a lot more to give than they give themselves credit for,” he said. “That’s what’s fun, even in the business world — inspiring people to just push a little harder. You do these little bits every single day, and that’s ultimately what shows up to make something big.”
