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 recuiting agency, long before there were online high school recuriting or scouting agency's. Without a clue how business works, the internet, contacts or money. However, 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, lot's of cold calls on that big yellow clunky phone that hung on the kitchen wall, we figured out the price colleges where willing to pay, their sales cycles, and out cash flow but not without making a ton of mistakes!
Luckily we learned from those mistakes, quickly adjusted and scaled in year two. 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 dreamed up and built from that tiny hand-me-down kitchen table, was the launch of a 28+ year sports marketing, media and entreprenuer 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 recuiting agency, long before there were online high school recuriting or scouting agency's. Without a clue how business works, the internet, contacts or money. However, 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, lot's of cold calls on that big yellow clunky phone that hung on the kitchen wall, we figured out the price colleges where willing to pay, their sales cycles, and out cash flow but not without making a ton of mistakes!
Luckily we learned from those mistakes, quickly adjusted and scaled in year two. 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 dreamed up and built from that tiny hand-me-down kitchen table, was the launch of a 28+ year sports marketing, media and entreprenuer 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.