Latest / The Faceoff Podcast | Youth Sports Business / Episode 6: Alex Laird & Sporting Founders — Five Stakeholders, Five Conversations
Transcript
- Paul Variano: Welcome in, this is the Coach's Board, the playbook for modern youth sports. I'm Paul Variano, and every episode we sit down with someone who actually runs this game. My guest today is Alex Laird, based out of London, the founder of Sporting Founders, one of the fastest growing global founder communities in sports. What started as a handful of personal conversations has grown into a private, free network of 150 founders across 43 countries, building everything from performance and data analytics to sponsorships, broadcasting, and youth sports. Alex built it because he believes there's never been a better time to build in sport, one of the most exciting, fastest growing industries out there. But it comes with unique challenges, different buyers, longer sales cycles, and a web of gatekeepers, from leagues to federations to broadcasters. Founders navigating all of that, he says, deserve a real community of people who've lived it. Before this, Alex spent the last year building his own company in the sports industry, which is exactly why he understands how valuable it is to have the right people around you. Alex Laird, welcome to the Coach's Board. Alex Laird: Thank you very much, Paul. It's great to be on. It's my first ever podcast, so I'm really excited and it's an incredibly exciting time to be not just building a company, but building a company in sport. Hence why it's such a great time to be running Sporting Founders. I'm incredibly grateful for you and for everyone that showed that attention recently. Thanks for having me. Paul Variano: Well, we're excited for you coming on, Alex. Why is a youth sports show spending an episode on a network of startup founders? Because the tools your clubs run on, registration, scheduling, video, the team app your manager picked, every one of them was built by a founder. And most of those founders hit the same wall. They build something good, then find out a youth sports club doesn't buy like a company does. The person who loves the product isn't the person who signs. The budget gets set before the season, not when you pitch. And somewhere above the club, there's a league or an association that has to be on board. Alex's network spans 43 countries, and his own bio names those exact walls. Some of those founders are building for our world. So today I want to find out what they're learning and what those of us on the other side of the table should know. So Alex, Sporting Founders started as a handful of personal conversations. Who were the first ones with, and what did you keep hearing that made you think this needed to exist? Alex Laird: Sporting Founders is essentially the byproduct of me, building my own company in sport this past year. I was fortunate enough to be accepted onto an accelerator program at my university, received a grant, and was able to travel to multiple sports conferences in New York, in Europe, and London, and kept meeting amazing founders building amazing companies, but without anywhere to meet with that entrepreneurial founder focus. There are lots of communities out there focused on executives and high-level business professionals. But I think what's so important and what's so promising now is founders and entrepreneurship and startups will really drive impact in that sporting world for the next generation. So I thought, if there's not something that exists, why not go and build it myself? I had that initial conversation with six of our founding players that we have on at the moment. So the people that I met over this past year and had them on board to deliver some credibility for the organization before I announced it a few weeks ago on LinkedIn. When I opened up the application form to the world essentially, and then luckily enough, we had a lot of attention come out of those posts. We had over 70,000 impressions on a LinkedIn post, over 300 applications come in, and we managed to nail it down to 150 in our initial cohort, over 43 countries, which is amazing. We've essentially hit now the start line where we have to go and now deliver value for these members. That is my priority and that is our priority as a community, and it's an incredibly busy but exciting time. Paul Variano: Note to the audience, I'm a member, as I should say, player of the community and have been able to get access to a plethora of resources as well as a community of other entrepreneurs and founders globally, and been able to connect with them virtually. why are members called players? Alex Laird: It's a funny one. Not only is it just to call them by a sports-related term, so we have our players in our groups, which are the current active founders, we have prospects, the aspiring founders, anyone that's just interested in the intersection of sport and entrepreneurship or aspiring to build their own company in sport one day. And then we've also released our coaches category. Again, obviously sports-related, so those are our mentors that can advise our founders, but we really just wanted it to feel catchy and fun and modern and interesting. And players, obviously, they're in the game, they're on the field, they're fighting all the time. I feel like that has a lot of relevance with the business of building a startup. You're in the fight every single day and so just making it relevant and exciting to be a part of really. Paul Variano: It's been exciting to be a part of it and just seeing what the journey has been as being a player of Sporting Founders. When someone applies, they get an email and you're officially a player. What does that mean? What are the resources available? What can you expect? Alex Laird: Immediately, they'll see their email. Congratulations, they'll be sent their Sporting Founders profile, which has been dotting around LinkedIn over the past couple of weeks, and then they'll be added into WhatsApp group chats. We have a players group chat, a group chat for the whole community, and then by subgroup. So we find out what niche within sport that they're building in and then add them into that sub- community as well. I think that's the most valuable group that they could be in, that really tight community where they can ask relevant questions and speak to people who may be building similar startups or operating in a very similar space. At the end of the day, that's where you're going to see the most value out of a community like Sporting Founders: speaking to entrepreneurs that have been there and done that and doing what you are doing and maybe overcome the challenges that you have at the moment. We have that WhatsApp, and then they'll have access to our member platform where they can book meetings with our coaches, so our mentors, and access our partners as well. We're currently building partnerships with law firms, accounting firms, branding consultants, AI advisors, PR firms, you name it. We're just trying to give access to these founders to really, really help them drive their business forward. It's the WhatsApp, it's the platform, and then it's the general credibility and visibility of being a part of the fastest growing founder community in sport. Paul Variano: I'm a member of the youth sports subgroup. Can you walk us through a little bit about your thinking? What are the different subgroups? How did you go about categorizing them? Alex Laird: It was an interesting story. When I announced the Sporting Founders Network on LinkedIn, I originally had an application form on the website which unfortunately broke. Then after receiving that amount of attention, after a slight panic, I realized I actually had to just go and speak to every single one of these founders on LinkedIn by messaging or on the phone. And so it was really just speaking to them, listening to them, and hearing their feedback on what would be most valuable to them and what subgroups we should have. That came down to our seven subgroups. We've got data and analytics, sponsorships and partnerships, youth sports, broadcasting and media, et cetera. It's just, again, those valuable subspaces for founders to reach out, ask questions, and learn. In terms of examples, there are so many to choose from. I think what has interested me is not just the founders and the companies and what they're building, but it's where they're building from. With the most international community of sports entrepreneurs in that industry. It's amazing to see that there are companies coming out of Brazil, India, Australia, China. Obviously, the US and the UK have real strong participation, but just seeing that global landscape of sport entrepreneurship is just the most awesome thing that I was able to see. Paul Variano: You've talked about a lot of the different founders and companies that have made their way into Sporting Founders. What makes you say no to an application? What types of founders or companies are you not looking to have? Alex Laird: What we're really looking for is just the right passion and energy. So not only passion in terms of the community and actively giving back and contributing to the community instead of receiving and benefiting from it, but then passion in what you're building, being the best founder you can be is something that becomes clear to us and evident to us. That's something really important, as it'll inspire the other members in our group to also be the best founders they can be. Having that passion, having that energy, having that drive to not only build a successful company, but to give back to other founders in the industry and as a byproduct be the best founder, best entrepreneur that they can be. Paul Variano: I love that. When you think about the partners that you've lined up, the coaches, whether it's legal or finance, they want to work with founders who have that passion, that motivation as well. And those are resources that most founders starting off who don't have that established network, they don't get on their own. What have you found, whether legal or finance, of these resources that an average founder starting their first company in the sporting world might not be able to have access to or utilize? Alex Laird: Speaking of lawyers and accountants, these partners are really the most crucial areas of expertise that a founder can access. Decisions around law and accounting are incredibly important. These days everyone will go straight to the ChatGPTs, Claudes, or Geminis. But to make big decisions for your company, you need to speak to real industry expertise and a real person at the end of the day. Having that access to law, to accounting, is really important, and us being able to give that to our founders complimentary, completely free of charge. Hopefully the lawyers and the accountants will have a busy, busy couple of months with calls from our Sporting Founders group. Paul Variano: I think about the youth sports world that I operate in and it's important to have a good lawyer on hand for any businesses related to kids. I would love to dive in a little bit deeper into the youth sports subgroup that you have within Sporting Founders. Roughly how many players are in it, what are they building and what's the most interesting thing that somebody in that group is building right now? Alex Laird: We have about twenty members in that youth sports subgroup building across coaching tools, player development, club management, recruiting, safety, data analytics for sports academies, fundraising. It's such a massive market. I think the global youth sports market hit $38 billion this year, of which the US accounts for almost $28 billion of that, which is a massive proportion, but you can see it's an incredibly large industry now and it's only growing exponentially. There are so many opportunities and you can see there are so many niches within youth sports as a subgroup that makes it such an exciting group to be a part of. I'd say I can't choose just one startup. There are so many exciting companies that are being built by founders who have really lived the pains of youth sports. I'm sure you've come across a lot of the issues and challenges and bottlenecks associated with the industry, and they have lived it themselves, and so they're really taking that initiative and building the companies just to drive change, to drive positive outcomes for youth sports. I don't think it's the flashiest of industries at all. So these founders are really trying to make change, trying to do better for the industry, which is what's so exciting. They're just trying to give back and improve how youth sports operates and as we've seen with the size of the market, there are a lot of opportunities. Paul Variano: I couldn't agree more, and myself, connecting and chatting with some of the other founders. You have certainly a couple here in the United States doing stuff around coaching or data analytics, digital marketing. We'll be having a later podcast with one of the founders. I don't want to give it away. Someone who started the largest youth soccer organization in the country of Nigeria and has seen incredible scale and growth and to hear his story that he shared with me so far, and he'll be sharing more about it, the trials and tribulations that he went through. I'd love to dive a little bit more into youth sports as it relates to the founders, the leagues, broadcasting, data analytics. From a business case scenario, out of the different segments of youth sports, where do you feel that founders are addressing those different cohorts the most? Are they building more for coaches? Are they building more for parents? Are they building more for the club level? Alex Laird: It's a great question. I think it's what makes youth sports such an interesting industry to be building in because there are so many stakeholders. The coach cares about this type of decision. The director of sport may decide this decision, but then the school board has to approve of that decision, and then the parent may ultimately pay for the athlete to eventually benefit. So there are five different stakeholders or more that you have to navigate as a founder and those are five different conversations and relationships that you need to maintain. There's such an interesting variety of people to always be thinking about. I'd say a lot of opportunities come from the infrastructure level of youth sports. So it's how do we make the people who run youth sports, how do we make their lives easier? So it's coaches like yourself. I know you're a coach. It's the coaches, it's the directors of sports. It's probably less so the parents and the athletes, because they will be the byproducts; they will receive the benefit as a result of a cleaner, more efficient youth sports operation. And so it's how can we make coaches' lives easier, better? How can we really improve the lives of the directors of sport? And as a result, the athletes, the kids and the parents will benefit, as hopefully the kids will be able to play more sport, better sports, receive better feedback, more analysis on the game. It kind of stems I think from the top, from the coaches and directors, which will inevitably trickle down to the kids that are playing the sport all the time. Paul Variano: I couldn't agree more. It really is the top of the funnel and it trickles down from there. Is there anything that you're seeing about American youth sports that surprises founders coming in from abroad? Alex Laird: Other than the scale, nothing comes to mind. It's crazy to say that the youth sports market in the US is $28 billion out of the $38 billion global market. There are 13 million kids in the US playing youth sports, and an average family spends around $883 a year per kid, which, from a UK and European perspective, is just bonkers. There is so much attention and so much love for youth sports and for kids playing sport in the US, which makes it such a glamorous industry, but also such a challenging one, with the number of stakeholders and the number of kids that could be impacted, it makes it challenging. Exciting, but very, very challenging, that scale. Paul Variano: I think there's a lot of data available out there that's able to help you scale. I think data is so important to any founder. It's how you make your decisions. When you think about data, especially children's data, it's very sensitive. I know you're across the pond right now and there's GDPR. When you're thinking about founders and youth data, how should they think about holding on to it? How long can they hold on to it? What's your view as it relates to technology capturing this youth child data? Alex Laird: First things first, data privacy is a non-negotiable when dealing with youth sports, dealing with kids. Parents and safeguarding officers are watching, but you've got to get it right and it has to be a priority whether you care more about GDPR like we do in the European space or in the US. Data privacy is a non-negotiable. I would say the perspective and the mindset of founders, therefore, can still change and it can still work to your advantage by leaning into these stakeholders, trying not to see them as a bottleneck. They are definitely not a bottleneck. They are potential for collaboration and partnership. I think these stakeholders at the end of the day, they are looking for that same positive outcome as the founder is with their company. So it's just leaning into those partnerships, building those good relationships, maintaining those relationships more importantly, and seeing how you could work together effectively with an organization, with a coach, with a sports director to really benefit that young athlete's experience. While data privacy is that non-negotiable, you have to get it right immediately. There are plenty of opportunities and plenty of ways that you can easily manage that decision and that process by working with the youth sports organization that has probably dealt with that issue before. It's leaning into that mindset and thinking, hang on, these are not bottlenecks, these are opportunities for partnerships and collaborations. Paul Variano: When you think about partnerships and collaborations, it tends to be at least what I've seen on this side of the Atlantic with the professional sporting teams now are starting to see private equity ownership come into play. How has youth sports traditionally been promoted? In Europe, in the UK, how has technology made its way across to youth sports? Alex Laird: Unfortunately, it's definitely slower. The US has that real appetite and has that scale and that existing market already, but then they take risks, they have more of a risk appetite to develop and integrate new technology, new product, new businesses. I think that's something that the UK and Europe really needs to learn from the US. I think it's the South Asian youth sports market that's actually the fastest growing youth sports industry at 12% a year or something like that. So the UK and Europe are behind in this, inevitably. My advice to not only the founders but the directors and the coaches in Europe and the UK would just be open to opportunity. As I've mentioned, these founders are looking to make a positive change to improve the industry. They are not out there money grabbing. It really is a case of being open to opportunity and maybe taking risks you may not have taken previously because the founders want a positive outcome and you want a positive outcome because we all want a positive outcome for youth sports and for our young athletes. While we're definitely behind, I think Sporting Founders unraveled the global landscape of startups is getting better and better all the time, specifically in sport. And so there will be opportunities there, there will be founders there with the right company for your specific issue. If you're a football coach in the UK or a padel coach in Spain, there will likely be a solution out there. It's being proactive and making a name for yourself to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there and then being open to those opportunities. Taking on the American energy and initiative. Paul Variano: I think the idea of communities is going to grow, especially in Europe and Southeast Asia. I mean, hockey itself, I see coming out of South Korea and Japan the growth numbers. It sounds like there's going to be a lot of founders that are going to need communities as well. I think about Sporting Founders. Right now, it's a free membership. Is free the strategy? Is it setting the stage for something? Where is Sporting Founders a year from now? Alex Laird: Good question. It is completely free. And I think as a sporting founder myself, building my own company in sport, I would never charge a founder. So they'll have free access to our communities, to our partners and mentors and platforms. But in a year from now, it may look very different. The dream would be to run in-person, online events. It will always be free for founders and for those members in our network. That's a non-negotiable and it's also the way that we can differentiate ourselves and be unique. There are lots of communities out there today that have thousands of members and charge a lot of money, and so we're really trying to drive down on that angle of being free but private as well. Maintaining that exclusivity and quality while not charging our founders. In a year's time, I'd love to be running events. Again, in person or online. It's all about creating that value, offering value for those founders to create as loyal a network as possible. A lot of people are asking me how are you going to monetize this? How are you making money? It's not the issue at the moment. That is not a problem. I think once you create that loyal network and community and have people benefiting, receiving value from the work that we are doing at Sporting Founders, the rest will take care of itself. That is my priority and that is the work that I've got to do now over the next six months is how can I best support the founders in our network and then we'll go from there. Paul Variano: A lot of great bits of advice and a vision as well for Sporting Founders, and I'm excited to be a part of it. Hope it stays free. An investor is listening to this podcast right now and thinking about investing in youth sports, US or globally, what piece of advice you would give them, as well as a piece of advice you would give to the founders? Alex Laird: The piece of advice can work for both the investor and the founder, and it really is to just trust the process. Sports and youth sports is an incredibly exciting but challenging industry. There are so many stakeholders to navigate. The sales cycles are long and can be confusing with different sports. And so it's really trust the process, both from the investor point of view, to trust the founder that they are working hard to make a genuine impact in the industry. From the founder perspective, it's trust the process and build those relationships and gain credibility and case studies and more and more experience, which will help you learn, receive feedback and grow. It is incredibly exciting and it's incredibly glamorous, but trust that process, get your head down and work because as we call it at players, it is that fight. You are on the field, you are fighting day in, day out to make a difference. It's not easy, that's for sure. It's really just trust yourself, trust that you are making a positive difference in the industry. What we are doing as Sporting Founders, with offering value over the next three to six months, trust that process and the rest of the benefits will come in the future. We are essentially an early stage startup ourselves as an organization supporting founders. And so we are doing the same thing. We are trusting that process, we are committing to providing the best that we can possibly do for our customers, which are our members, and we know that we will reap the rewards in the future, but we're not worried about that now because we have to prioritize that value. Going back to the investors and founders, trust that process, stay committed, stay dedicated, and there's a lot that can happen. Paul Variano: Trust that process, stay committed. I love it, Alex. Before we let you go, as we do with every other guest interview podcast, five quick questions, rapid fire, first thing that comes to mind. You ready? Alex Laird: Let's do it. I'm ready. Paul Variano: The team you'll never stop supporting. Alex Laird: Chelsea FC. Paul Variano: I like Chelsea too. The sport you played growing up and your position. Alex Laird: Hockey and centre midfielder. Field hockey that is, sorry to say. Paul Variano: A sports business you wish you started. Alex Laird: Strava comes immediately to mind. A global movement and a community that they built. They built an amazing brand, recently IPO'd. That scale and that relevance is just an awesome business. Paul Variano: Last one, one word for the players group on a Monday morning. Alex Laird: Persevere. Linking back to the trust the process and stay dedicated. It really is just to persevere. Keep your feet on the ground, stay in that fight, work hard, work hard, work hard, and you'll reap the rewards. Paul Variano: Alex Laird, founder of Sporting Founders. Where should people find you? And if you're a founder building in sport, how do you apply? Alex Laird: You can find me easily on LinkedIn. My name is Alex Laird. Find me there on Instagram with Sporting Founders. And then on our website, www.sportingfounders.com. You can register your interest via our form on that website. And then we'll be looking to open the next intake of founders in approximately six months' time, aiming to be March 2027. Keep an eye out for those announcements. In the meantime, there'll be plenty of opportunities to benefit from the wider community, with resources and introductions. But stay tuned, there are lots of exciting announcements to come. Thank you so much, Paul, for having me. And thanks everyone for the interest in Sporting Founders. It's a really exciting time in sport and in the entrepreneurship world. So we're ready to get to work and we're really excited for it. Paul Variano: Alex, thank you. This was a great one. If you're building for youth sports or you're the one getting pitched, I want to hear what you're running into. Thecoachsboard.com, pull up a chair at the board. That's it for today's podcast. Thank you for listening and watching. If you enjoyed today's guest interview with Alex Laird from Sporting Founders, be sure to hit that subscribe or follow button. Every Thursday we sit down with a founder or leader in the youth sports space and get to hear their story, their journey, their success, and their failures. Honest conversations with honest people. Be sure to tune in next week as we guest interview a player in Sporting Founders, our second international guest and first from Africa, who will share his experience in starting and scaling the fastest growing youth soccer organization in Africa. You're not going to want to miss it. Ciao from now from the Coach's Board. See you next week.