Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events

1) Headcount comes last. When things start to go well, your team will have a new kind of fear - "how do we keep up?" Often, the first reaction is headcount. And that's okay. Just be careful. Headcount is the most expensive, most permanent, and often least efficient answer.

2) Get you a hype man! A good friend went through a job change at the worst possible time- during a live events pandemic shut down. Like all of us, as the time piled up, they started to doubt. We spoke a few times as they were considering jobs which, imo, were way below their talent. Got a call last week about their new gig - which is the right gig. We all need ambassadors of Quan, especially when it seems dark.

3) We're a number too! The other day a close friend/vendor stated they wished they had the certainty we have as a founder/CEO. Had to remind them, as I do the team often, everyone has superiors. Entrepreneurs, once they raise capital or rely on a bank, are easily ousted and often have many who can enact the process. Get used to the lack of certainty- it's the only certainty in life.

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports Tech and Live Events:

1) The SF Giants are in first place thanks to cast of pitchers having career years. How? How can we do this in our business? Get everyone doing what they're best at and clear off the rest of their plate. Very similar to what Jobs did when he returned to Apple with the iMac. Find what we're best at - a simple hack

2) "We're not looking for a team full of exceptions" - Kirby Smart in the early days of the Alabama dynasty. The Tide were getting pressure for not recruiting some media darling recruits. That pressure grows in the early days. Exceptions and exceptional are different things. That pressure was very real for us.

3) Nobody likes accountability but everyone likes winning. Can't win without accountability, no matter how many surveys tell us we all, and our staffs, don't want it. When leading a bible study for 10 years, that weekly stake in ground made me do the work when I didn't want to. Next thing you know, you'll have years of three things to share with your loved ones.

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports Tech and Live Events:

1. The dramatic increase in the consumer savings rate - from $2.7T to $4.6T- is leading live events companies into a new "Roaring 20s," at least that's what they're pitching to investors and financiers as seen in the below linked Vivid Seats pipe deck. The plan calls for 2x-3x as many live shows in the coming 18 months which, if bought, would normalize the savings rate. It's a spring for market share we're all about to watch.

2. Live events are rushing back and staffing up quick. It's a stampede. Hiring managers, remember the experience from the other side. When they didn’t call us. When we couldn't get a chance. When we didn't have a way in and tried our best with a cold outreach. Return calls. Return notes. Have the courage to give feedback. Don’t leave people waiting by the phone - good news or bad. Help. If even for self interest - you never know where they end up.

3. "It's easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled" - Mark Twain. If around long enough, you'll lose an employee, a prospect, a deal or a partner to dishonesty. It's best to take time working to "unfool" them as nobody likes to admit they've fallen for a deception….at least not right away.

1. The best advice seems so obvious it is easy to miss. I blew off so much good advice as too simple in the early days. Youthful ignorance which cost us money. It isn't nefarious - I was focused on the trains leaving on time and "grinding." In reality, I thought I was the exception, like we all do. There is so much nuance to the obvious. If we don't pay attention, we may miss it.

2. Early hires matter so much more than I knew. We're in a hurry and we need to staff up to meet demand. Slow down. Treat every early teammate like twenty teammates - because that is a conservative number of how many a good hire will impact as you grow. Take your time and never ever settle- especially in the first hires after each round.

3. Keep in touch. A huge regret. Along the way, through all the raises, shows, and conferences, I met a lot of people who I did a poor job of keeping up with. Again, too focused on the here and now. Costly. Our company really could have benefited by me doing a better job of staying in touch with all the panelists and stars I met in the early days.

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports Tech and Live Events

1. No showing, or cancelling last minute, is the biggest networking mistake anyone can make. When I was 22 I no-showed an interview with the Clippers.* I paid for it years later. A decade ago a team exec no showed me. He met with our team last month and asked why we don't work with his firm. It's common, I get stood up often. It ain't worth it though.

2. Endeavor went big on their bid for Olympics hospitality. So did Facebook when buying Instagram, Google buying YouTube and Apple buying Next. Even Ballmer buying the Clippers for $2b doesn't seem so crazy already. Markets are efficient but they often miss transcendent value. Know your worth.

3. Pride loses. Ben Simmons can't shoot a free-throw. It changes the game. Shaq couldn't either- but he was over 80% shooting grannie style, as Gladwell points out here. My Senior year in HS club a new coach arrived wanting to introduce the back slide to our offense. Only girls hit slides. It was worse than grannies. Buried on the bench, I was the only MB to swallow my pride and try it. Changed the game, our offense, and my prospects completely. We won silver**. Pride is in the win column. Have the courage to change the game.

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events

How we screwed up our SDR program for over a decade (and counting)

In today's blog post and video commentary we share, in depth, the mistakes we've made in building an SDR program

The five ways - with much more in the blog and vlog:

1. Make room for everyone to succeed - or don't hire them

2. Stop the fight

3. No first impressions

4. Zero turnover from 120 to 730

5. Kill the manager

Hope ya'll enjoy learning from our mistakes….

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports Tech & Live Events

1. Margin is directly tied to value and pricing is a trade secret. Learfield IMG College made news when Sportico released their net profit on a number of deals. Learfield fought the release of the info citing trade secrets. They're right. The ability to provide value to partners and run a growing business is as difficult as it sounds. Protect your financials to protect your customers.

2. Stay in your lane. Chasing the shiny thing, when outside your core competency, slowly kills companies. An example: After years of misplaced application of the blockchain to live events*, it has found a home. Specific collectibles which have a high counterfeit rate benefit greatly from blockchain. There's $ to be made in the NFT 1.0 world, just don't take your eye off the ball to chase the gold rush.

3. Never have any important interactions without a lawyer. Ever. Finished Cialdini's follow-up to his best seller Influence (Pre-Suasion). The amount of false admissions of guilt is stunning. Never enter any combative situation without a lawyer in your business. Terminations, high stakes negotiations with customers/partners, or M&A talks. You think Learfield's expensive? Try these convos without counsel....

1. "Do you want to be rich or do you want to be king"- was reminded of this great line from "The Founder's Dilemma." Scale requires help. Great help. Great help will want to share in the bounty. Keeping it too tight to the vest has the potential to really hurt growth. Giving out too much?....well that hurts too- trust me, I learned that one the hard way early.

2. Nearly everyone wants to lead- but they don’t want to do what's needed to BE a great leader. Expand your leadership reach. Read. Volunteer to coach. Get exposure to leaders outside of our direct boss, teacher, coach, parents. And make absolutely certain our leaders are doing the same. Otherwise, bad habits compound and spread like a virus. If we're not looking outside our experience, we'll never be great leaders.

3. "When should we let go of someone we have questions about? A) The moment the question is first asked." The biggest problem entrepreneurs have is terminating people. It's hard. It sucks. And it is always our fault. However, the most common feedback after making the hard choice: "We should have made the move sooner." The only thing worse than making a bad hiring decision (and by bad, we mean bad for everyone), is letting it continue. Nobody benefits.

Getting in front of executives is very hard. Four times not to try:

1. After a big announcement or achievement - When a professional buys or sells a company, announces a big win or raises money, it can be the busiest time for them. Add to the work the avalanche of congratulations, job requests, long lost friends and sales pitches, and our message is easily lost.

2. After an appearance. People do press or conferences for a few reasons: To promote their business/selves, to help a cause they care about or as a favor to a friend. Some conferences do a terrific job of allowing to 'meet the speaker' but even then, it isn't the time for a pitch

3. Upon a career change. When an exec takes a new job, think about the amount of work they have in front of them. Every other sales person has the same triggers, read the same trades, and call them at the same time. We get lost.

4. After a partnership announcement with a competitor. A company goes through a process choosing a vendor/partner, gets approval for that partner, and is now on the hook for their success. Think about the optics being displayed here. Are we rooting for them to fail? B/c that's what it sounds like