YuChiang Cheng and the business of getting people through the door

The first question was how to get somebody onto a golf course. Years later, it was how to get a loaf of bread into somebody’s shopping basket. Between the two, YuChiang Cheng helped build a business around virtual fairways, brought video games into places where people could meet, and took responsibility for the customer experience at Zwift. His career has changed industries often enough to make a recruiter reach for another sheet of paper. Look at the entrances to those businesses, though, and a pattern appears.

Cheng keeps working on the distance between a product and the person who might enjoy it. Sometimes that distance is a purchase price. Sometimes it is an unfamiliar interface. Sometimes it is a distribution agreement that asks a small company to behave like a much larger one. The work involves making an invitation practical, then watching what people actually do with it.

An Italian fairway, a San Francisco lunch

World Golf Tour began with an unsatisfactory set of pictures. Chad Nelson had attended a wedding in Italy and played a course he wanted to show his friends. Back online, he could not find photographs that conveyed the experience. He also saw an opening for a good sports game on the web. Nelson and Cheng had worked together at WagerWorks, which IGT bought in 2005.

In San Francisco, the pair discussed the idea over burritos on Potrero Hill. Their conversation went beyond how the game would look. They considered online distribution, advertising and purchases of virtual items. JF Prata and Phil Gorrow, from EA, joined to help build it. A demo appeared in 2007; open beta followed in October 2008. By early 2010, Cheng described more than a million players across over 180 countries.

There is something pleasingly appropriate about a golf business worked out over lunch. Golf already has a tradition of business conversations; this one spared everyone the green fees. More consequentially, WGT offered free entry into a sport whose real courses could be difficult to reach. The course came to the player, and the business had to earn its money after the invitation.

Golf acquires a gathering place

Topgolf acquired WGT in 2016, and Cheng became president of Topgolf Media. His task expanded from an online game into the relationship between digital entertainment and a physical visit. An evening out has a different set of requirements from a browser session: friends must agree on a place, there must be something to do, and the experience needs to survive the presence of people who have different levels of skill.

At Topgolf, those differences could be useful. In 2018, the company had 41 American venues and had served more than 13 million customers in the previous year. Cheng’s work covered games and content within a business that also included food, music and hospitality. The setting allowed someone to enjoy the occasion without having to treat every swing as an examination.

By 2019, he was discussing esports lounges. Customer research had found that close to a third of Topgolf’s guests enjoyed esports in some form. Cheng saw space between playing at home and watching elite competition in a large arena: local places where players could gather. He and chairman Erik Anderson had worked on the plans for Topgolf Media. Cheng also said the WGT acquisition had essentially kept the team together. Expansion, in this account, involved carrying people and their capabilities into a wider setting.

A bicycle, an avatar, a customer

In November 2020, Cheng announced that he was leaving Topgolf and returning to his entrepreneurial roots. His farewell gave credit to colleagues and recalled the small WGT team’s beginnings. There is a considerable difference between leaving a startup and leaving the larger organization that bought it. His note held both experiences together: the people who had made the first product and the people who had helped turn it into something broader.

Zwift announced his appointment as chief product officer in January 2021. The responsibilities were extensive: design, engineering, game art, product management, research, live operations and community support, among others. The company connected physical effort to an online world. Cheng had worked on putting a sport inside software before; now the person at home supplied the movement.

Later that year, he explained his approach to understanding customers in an interview with Sophie Wade. He described repeated conversations about what people liked, disliked and hoped for, and questions about what they would miss enough to stop using a product. This offers a useful way to read his varied résumé. The recurring work is listening closely enough to distinguish a pleasant extra from something essential. A feature list can get long very quickly. A customer’s reason for coming back is often much shorter.

“My process is really not that unique.”

YuChiang Cheng, on understanding customers, 2021

The Colorado part of the story

Cheng was born and raised in Colorado and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College. In a 2022 reflection for Zwift’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month program, he described being one of only a few Asian children at his school. There were few places to connect with and learn about his heritage. He spoke about the importance of representation and invited people to join him in celebrating the community on Zwift.

That personal account gives the idea of participation a different weight. An open invitation means more when someone can recognize a place for themselves within it. Cheng’s reflection concerned his own upbringing and his wish to cultivate diversity and community in his work. It also gives the reader a glimpse of the person behind responsibilities that otherwise sound like an organization chart.

There are less solemn details, too. His ModGolf biography lists restoring classic cars, playing hockey and wrestling with his dogs. His podcast preferences included Freakonomics, Hidden Brain and This American Life. These are interests with their own pleasures: a machine worth repairing, a game worth playing, a story worth hearing. None requires a corporate explanation. It is refreshing to find a biography in which the dogs are permitted to remain dogs.

Bread and the courage to leave

Hero Bread brought a different kind of difficulty. Founded by Cole Glass in 2019, it had a deal supplying Subway. Cheng arrived through an investment on behalf of 444 Capital and became interim chief marketing officer in 2022. The company had products, a recognizable customer and a shortage of resources. Servicing the arrangement consumed time while its margins were negative.

Cheng has accepted responsibility on the company’s behalf for selling something it was not ready to supply. The board, including Glass, supported a change of direction. Hero moved toward selling directly to consumers and building relationships with them. Cheng became CEO in November 2023. An August 2026 estimate put the company’s 2025 revenue at $54.1 million.

The temptation in a story like this is to make the departure sound obvious. A famous customer lends a young business credibility; walking away spends some of that credibility immediately. Cheng’s account includes asking the board for trust while making changes. That is the awkward middle of a turnaround, before a later revenue figure can make the decision look tidy. The product still needs buyers. The team still needs a plan it can execute. A company can close one door and spend the next stretch proving that another will open.

A shelf is another front door

Direct sales gave Hero a way to hear from customers and observe repeat purchases. Its later retail expansion put that learning to another test. In March 2026, the brand announced a debut in approximately 400 Target stores across 30 states. Its overall footprint at that point was about 9,000 stores, with retailers including Whole Foods, Sprouts, Publix and Wegmans. A website could take an order; a shelf could put the product into a shopping trip already underway.

In October, Cheng described the continuing role of direct sales alongside retail. Hero had concentrated on five staples: white and seeded breads, burger and hot dog buns, and tortillas. It tested different sorts of retailers rather than settling the question entirely in advance. The company also kept online sales as a channel for products that suited that setting.

The distinction is practical. A shopper buying an everyday staple and a customer ordering a specialty baked item may want different things from the purchase. Distribution has to accommodate both. Cheng’s career invites this reading: access keeps changing shape. The browser, the entertainment venue and the grocery aisle each meet someone in a different part of the day. Designing the product is one task. Finding the occasion on which it belongs is another.

Leaving room for other answers

Cheng’s leadership writing adds a complication to the story of an executive who keeps solving access problems. He has publicly acknowledged that early in his career he thought he needed to have every answer. His companies, he says, were limited by his own ability until he became better at hiring, listening and empowering people. The observation is candid because it gives the leader a role in the problem.

He is also the founder of MindfulGrowth.io, which sets out an approach to developing leaders, attracting talent and creating sustainable value. Its stated concerns extend to teams, consumers, investors and families. The site treats leadership as work that can be practiced and improved, with room for the people who carry out the decisions.

WGT’s beginning already had several people around the idea. Nelson returned with the frustration; Cheng helped work through the business; others helped build the game. Hero’s change of direction likewise involved its founder, board and team. The continuity in Cheng’s career may lie as much in those relationships as in the products. Getting someone through the door starts a business relationship. Listening once they are inside is how it has a chance to last.