My Story
In 1992, my wife and I started my business from a tiny hand-me-down kitchen table in our newlywed apartment.
The business was a startup high school scouting and recruiting agency, long before there were online high school recruiting agencies. We did this all without a clue on how business works, no the internet, no contacts, and no extra money. Despite all this, I had a burning desire to help connect those “diamonds in the rough" high school football players to college football programs who were willing to pay a fee to scout, evaluate, and recommend talent.
With my experience as a high school and college football coach, I knew there was a massive market, and there were not many- or any, at the time- offering this service. With the help from my wife, lots of cold calls on that big yellow clunky phone that hung on the kitchen wall, we figured out the price colleges were willing to pay, their sales cycles, and out-cash flow- but not without making a ton of mistakes! Luckily, we learned from those mistakes, then quickly adjusted and scaled in our second year; we sold the business a few years later to a bigger agency.
Looking back, an experienced business mentor would have helped save a massive amount of wasted time, money, and connected us to the right people earlier on in the startup process. Our bootstrapped startup we dreamt up and built from that tiny hand-me-down kitchen table was the launch of a 28+ year sports marketing, media, and entrepreneur journey with the NFL, The Walt Disney Company, and my last M&A: North American Sports Group.
As the saying goes, "It's not how or where you start, it's how and where you finish."
The business was a startup high school scouting and recruiting agency, long before there were online high school recruiting agencies. We did this all without a clue on how business works, no the internet, no contacts, and no extra money. Despite all this, I had a burning desire to help connect those “diamonds in the rough" high school football players to college football programs who were willing to pay a fee to scout, evaluate, and recommend talent.
With my experience as a high school and college football coach, I knew there was a massive market, and there were not many- or any, at the time- offering this service. With the help from my wife, lots of cold calls on that big yellow clunky phone that hung on the kitchen wall, we figured out the price colleges were willing to pay, their sales cycles, and out-cash flow- but not without making a ton of mistakes! Luckily, we learned from those mistakes, then quickly adjusted and scaled in our second year; we sold the business a few years later to a bigger agency.
Looking back, an experienced business mentor would have helped save a massive amount of wasted time, money, and connected us to the right people earlier on in the startup process. Our bootstrapped startup we dreamt up and built from that tiny hand-me-down kitchen table was the launch of a 28+ year sports marketing, media, and entrepreneur journey with the NFL, The Walt Disney Company, and my last M&A: North American Sports Group.
As the saying goes, "It's not how or where you start, it's how and where you finish."