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....