On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Amy Buchan Siegfried, an experienced founder, CEO, entrepreneur, investor, and speaker. Amy is the Co-Founder of Last Night’s Game, a platform that breaks down sports in an easy-to-understand way, through email and weekly podcasts. She also serves as the “on-air talent” and face for the company.

From creation to execution, Amy has managed organisations and significant initiatives, including fundraising, marketing, program development, and community relations to empower others with ideas, information, mentorship experience, and resources.

Sports Tech includes over 17,000 startups ventures 30% of which have raised $35 billion of VC funding with 11 active unicorns. Business models range from fantasy sports, eSports or Casino games to Fitness and Wellness tech often used in health insurance.

On this episode the pair discuss Amy the investor, the entrepreneur and the women in tech, why Last Night's Game, niche markets yield success, the challenge and the opportunity for women entrepreneurs, and tips and best practices.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I love to recognise the talent of those that are out there hustling trying to make things happen, and making those connections and making things happen for them. You want to support those who have the ideas, what’s 15-30 minutes of my time for somebody who’s trying to make their thing happen? Getting things started and taking the first step is the hardest part, if you can give that extra vote of confidence or ideas or connections, that can help them be successful. The ideas to differentiate yourself only come from talking to others because, when you’re the founder, you’re stuck in your own head and don’t see all those other things. Be a sounding board, be available.
• Last Night’s Game was set up about 20 years ago. I was working as an intern at the Arizona Diamondbacks MLB team and one of my girlfriends asked why certain things were happening and I thought she was really missing out on an opportunity to connect with her co-workers. We were working in a male-dominated industry and sports is a common language that allows you to level the playing field in the office. So, I thought about how to teach her about sports in an interesting way. My brother and I devised a way to make sports approachable so they could use it in day-to-day interactions, or dates, etc. But it took until 14 years later before we had the time to work on and launch it.
• I’m successful because of what I learned in the corporate world. It was a good structure for me. So often now the corporate world is depicted as the bad character in a movie, but it’s not, there’s a lot we can learn from it. You learn to work as a team in the corporate environment, you have to work in someone else’s structure, alongside personalities that are not like you. There’s still a way the corporate world can evolve, and we should all be evolving no matter how big your business is so that we don’t end up as a ‘has-been’ company that nobody wants to work with.
• The foundation of having relationships is still critical today. We’re more connected than ever but more removed than ever. How do we maximise and humanise that connection? Get out and meet people, build relationships. If you’re not comfortable being the people person, hire someone who is. It’s the same as building a team around you that isn’t like you, doesn’t think like you, doesn’t live on the same block as you. A diverse team brings a different perspective, and everyone has their different talents. 

BEST MOMENTS
‘Sports is like food: It’s a common language that we can all speak, everywhere you go has a national dish and a national sport and everyone’s really proud of that.’
‘How are you making yourself different from everybody else? That is how you get funded, if you’re different that’s an excellent thing.’
‘The biggest challenge in investing in businesses, from an angel investor viewpoint, is that everyone wants to be everything to all people. You can’t be, it’s not possible. Identify your target market.’
‘Our whole goal is short and sweet. We all know we have information overload, but we crank out a lot of content.’

ABOUT THE GUEST
After seeing how the ability to talk sports gave her the upper hand as a woman in business, Amy and her brother Scott created Last Night’s Game to give their friends the same advantage. Last Night’s Game empowers its readers to join the sports conversation, even if they don’t know the first thing about sports.
Her career has included working for a Major League Baseball team and in other male-dominated industries. A third-generation entrepreneur, Amy once flew around the world in 58 hours and 37 minutes, has lived internationally and is a master of small talk, bringing people together and the handwritten note. You can often find this married lady working with the entrepreneurship community nationwide and teaching her toddler about sports, food and other things he’ll have to use to make small talk one day.
Reach out to Amy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybsiegfried/

About Last night’s game
Empowering you with the latest sports and pop culture news, so you never have to resort to talking about the weather. Last Night’s Game empowers its readers to join the sports conversation, even if they don’t know the first thing about sports.
The conversation doesn’t have to be that painful. Having worked in the sports and corporate world, Amy knows how sports can level the playing field and how helpful it is to have a team behind you.  Last Night’s Game goal is to make it easier for you to stand out in the crowd.  Follow updates on the sports and pop culture world so you never have to be left talking about the weather.
Discover: https://lastnightsgame.com/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. 

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