USA Olympian Lea Davison’s top 5 tips for starting your own business

13 | 7 | 2017

Lea Davison, a two-time Olympian in mountain biking, shares her thoughts on setting up her own business as part of the Athlete Learning Gateway’s new course Business Start-Up: From Idea to Launch. The Athlete Learning Gateway is brought to you by the International Olympic Committee.

Nine years ago Lea co-founded Little Bellas, a non-profit, all-girls mentoring mountain bike programme with her sister, Sabra. She has shared her experiences with the Athlete Learning Gateway in order to help other Olympians who are looking at starting their own business.

• Just start somewhere. As an Olympian, you have a lot of power and you can make a lot of impact. So you just have to start somewhere, put your head down and do the work and it will work out.
• Be determined. If you have a goal and you put your mind to it, just like in sport, you can really make big things happen and now we’re a national non-profit.
• Have a great team behind the operation. When you’re an elite level athlete it truly takes a village to get great results. That’s proving handy for Little Bellas as well - we’ve assembled a great team.
• Use your network. My position as a professional mountain biker has really helped grow our non-profit, Little Bellas. I really used a lot of my contacts within the sport, whether it be media or sponsor contacts; just being well networked within the mountain bike world has really helped us.
• Be willing to listen. Go into it without an ego - be willing to improve and always willing to listen because there’s a lot to learn and absorb.

You can watch the full interview with Lea, which is part of the course Business Start-Up: From Idea to Launch.