Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech & Live Events Podcast

The below email is real. It was sent as a response to one of our salespeople Three things I learned selling to (and around) a$$holes in 20+ years of enterprise selling. (and what to do to avoid being one of them). 1. Ignore them. If we had a nickel for every company where some bully told our team pretty much anything from the below list, we'd be retired. Especially the "don't contact us, we'll fin...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events 1. "Start-ups are like group projects were in college." What a terrific analogy. Think back to those days: If you had 5 people in a group, two would do the majority of the work, another would kind of pitch in, the fourth would at least show up for the meetings and the fifth would do just about nothing. Think about how important picking y...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events 1. Todd Boehly's group is in the driver's seat to buy Chelsea FC for $5b+. The same Chelsea FC that was sold for one pound in 1982. Some things seem so obvious in the rear view mirror when they were anything but. In "The Club"- the story of the English Premier League, the authors talk about the evolution of one of the biggest, most lucra...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events Had two mentor weeks with accelerators and funds we help with. After meeting with 16 start-ups in the past two weeks, here are the three things we advise which draw the most positive responses: 1) Jungle, Forest, Highway (by Jeff Bussgang) - Companies can be characterized by what stage they are in and it can be immensely helpful to your...

My middle school son and I played fantasy basketball this year for the first time as something to do together. What started as an afterthought became something we did together every day. And we ended up winning. It was stressful and exciting as we got closer to the end. The lessons were the same as building a $100m start-up in so many ways. Here's four things we learned running a start-up which we...

Back in 2004, a mentor convinced me reading was a life hack. They spent an entire breakfast convincing me to set aside enough time to expand my worldview while learning from those who've "done it before." Since then, we've been trying to devour 2 to 3 books per month on leadership, business and psychology. I'm 164 books deep. Of that list, here are the 5 books I've found most impactful to our jour...

1. Companies want staff back in the office more than they're letting on- and plans are in place to bring them back. They're just afraid to say it…for now. News like the Pac-12 going "permanent wfh" isnt' going to change much. Staff, for the most part, don't want to come back. No surprise. Gas prices, a commute, childcare, a side hustle and moving away from the office during the pandemic are the mo...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events: 1. There's a record amount of capital in startups. Means there's going to be a record number of failures too and, thought expected by investors, there is collateral damage to many lives. It's easy to try and keep up with the Joneses when competing for talent or sponsorships or the like with your fresh new funding. We've quoted "when rac...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events: 1. Entrepreneurship doesn't mean freedom like people think it does. The vast majority of those who intend to "be their own boss" one day overwhelmingly cite freedom as a reason. And there is a lot of freedom. But not nearly as much as most believe. Unless independently wealthy already, you'll still have banks, customers, the IRS, local...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events: 1) Fanatics announced their big new war chest this week and rumor is they're looking to buy a ticketing company by end of Q3 with Seat Geek a target. Who knows if it's true, but if Seat Geek is next in line for the unrenewed StubHub deal, things will get interesting in ticketing quick. Omnichannel isn't a new idea, it is just finally ma...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events: 1) Ukraine and off-shore development will impact a lot of businesses we all know. Unrest in the Ukraine has a number of layers - which we can't cover here. One of them: Ukraine is a very popular off-shoring destination for software development work and support for a number of western companies. There are a lot of agreements reliant on d...

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events: 1) Nobody can manufacture passion. It takes time, as we saw at Super Bowl LVI on Sunday . Same goes for culture. The Rams built a $5bln stadium and poured millions into building a fan base. They were overrun by road fans in the last two games. Culture is built by the culture. Not by mandate. Last week, at my daughters volleyball game, o...

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events Disruption meets the sports business at the LA Super Bowl The business crowd at the Super Bowl is much different than at my first in the mid-00s and it is a harbinger of massive disruption headed the way of the team's business offices. Think of what Moneyball did to the baseball industry. Only this time, it's the quants of venture, banking...

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events It's Super Bowl Week and with it comes the avalanche of people asking for tickets This week, we discuss How To Ask For Tickets using our twenty years of experience in sports and live events: The Do's 1) Ask 2) Ask once 3) Know our place on the hierarchy of tickets 4) Say thank you. A lot. 5) Send an appropriate gift 6) Inform if we go else...

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events One of the most common questions we get is around joining a startup. There are a myriad of reasons people consider the move, and those are personal and not our business. But questions about compensation lifestyle and career path we can offer our experiences on. The four things we advise when our friends and connections are considering join...

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events In 1997, we lost the gold medal match in volleyball junior nationals to a Reebok team from San Diego. There's a picture, which I can't find, of us with our hands on our hips watching them celebrate. It was the second time they'd beaten us that day solidifying the fact they were better than us- despite our winning six matches that day to ea...

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events 1. Antonio Brown and your sales team. We all watched Brown storm off the field after ripping off his jersey when the Bucs played the Jets. Turns out, he was upset about his incentives, which weren't aligned with the team's goals for the week. Comp plans are very difficult. Just know, no matter how strong a culture we think we have, sales p...

Three Things I Learned in Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events 1. When forecasting the coming year, hit the first quarter no matter what. We're all excited about the upcoming year and many of us are optimistic, it's why we're entrepreneurs! The board and investors will push for bigger growth numbers as that is their job. Stand your ground on Q1. Give elsewhere. If you miss Q1, even when you have 9 mon...

Three Things I Learned This Week In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events - 1) Nobody likes the starf**ker. It's the holiday party season and following the example of some before them, many new start up entrepreneurs try to follow the path of 'celebrity entrepreneur.' They spend time only networking with those who are very public. They're snobby to others and follow around those they're trying to get v...

Back in 2012, TicketManager was a crappy place to work. And our performance was a reflection of this reality. We got to work on changing who we were. After years of effort, we iterated to 11 interview questions that saved our company. We ask them of everyone. Today, we discuss why, how, and what they've meant for us. Hope you enjoy!

Three Things I Learned This Week In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events - 1) AEG is changing the name of Staples Center to Cypto.com Arena and investing in a major renovation. No surprise with SoFi Stadium and the Intuit Dome entering the market along with the upcoming 2028 LA Olympic Games. There's a lot of speculation about risk taking these naming rights deals in what some think is a bubble. We ta...

Three Things I Learned This Week In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events: Major cracks are showing in the live events ticketing comeback narrative, as shared by Ben Fischer (SBJ) Jacob Feldman (Sportico) and Ethan Strauss. Three Things we learned from these pieces and what to watch going forward. 1. Show rates are way down, and it's not just companies. We've been seeing the low scan rates all year in...

A bit different one today. Sharing the 7 things I've learned about volunteering the past 23 years. The goal of the Three Things is to share what we've learned that's important to me along the way. And though I'm insecure and uncomfortable about sharing on this topic - it is really important to me and I hope it helps others. so....the 7 things: 1) Ask where we can be most helpful 2) Be willing to d...

Three Things I Learned This Week In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events: 1. Go. Years ago I met a talent exec who was relentlessly persistent while being respectful. He'd say to new connects "what time do you eat breakfast? No added time for you. I'll be at your table at 6am for 10 min." or "I'll meet you when you get off the subway and walk with you to work He's still a friend I refer people to toda...

Three Things I Learned This Week In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events - Three ways we learned we will make enemies in a leadership role, no matter what we do. Most people want to be liked. When we're not, we'd like to mend the fence and clear up any misunderstandings. Unfortunately, in a leadership role, there's nothing we can do to avoid just having some people hate us even if they don't know us....