Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech, & Live Events
Lessons learned on others stealing your tech, how to stand up for myself when I'm not the expert, and why Scott Galloway is wrong
Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech, & Live Events:
1. They really will steal from you.
In the early days of TicketManager we’d get calls from “Strategics” looking to “learn more” or “invest.” They’ll say things like they “have sincere interest” to get you to let your guard down.
Everyone around us told us this was normal. Don’t be too guarded. Just build and trust they won’t steal from you. They almost shamed us for being so arrogant as to think others would take their time to steal from us.
They were wrong.
They all stole from us.
GMR feigned interest and even attended our customer conference. They hit the market with a copycat just over a year later
MSG took us to the contract phase - even assigning a project manager - then built a cheap copy which looks exactly like our tech the UI is so similar.
A private equity software currently for sale told us, after we rebuked their interest following two months of diligence, they were going to build a competing product. I respect they did.
Vivid Seats spent months in diligence with us then, in the StubHub case six years later, tried to testify they didn’t have “any real interest” in doing the deal and their IOI was “just preliminary.” (On the bright side, they were a star witness for us. They tried to bury us and it was so gross it backfired.)
And StubHub spent two months feigning interest in us before deliberately trying to crush our business leading to four years in court and a $16m judgement.
Investors and bankers are wrong. Interested parties will steal from you. So don’t share anything you think differentiates you. Guard it all and protect yourself.
Yes, some sell and that’s the process, but others are just phishing. Protect your fish as best you can.
2. "I don’t give blow jobs but I know when it's being done wrong"- Bill Maher.
Starting a business, or becoming a new leader, brings so much pressure to let your team do their job and to trust the experts around you. And that's great advice - most all of the time. But….there will be times those teammates or advisors have bad ideas. And you know they're bad ideas.
When that happened, I found it hard to stand up for myself. But we have to.
An example: Back in 2013, right before we signed our largest customer, two of our advisors were adamant we sell the business for $10m and "find something more scalable." They spent an entire drive to dinner trying to convince us it was the right course of action and leaning on their vast experiences. I'm glad we didn't listen.
3. Scott Galloway is wrong: Part one million
Walking through baggage claim on Wednesday returning from the All-Star Game I mentioned to my wife I'd be working long hours the next few days as I'd been out of the office Monday and Tuesday.
Her response: "Tony, I didn't see you. You were at work events from the minute we landed"
Ignore the cynics. They only know their own path.
Do what you love and you won't work a day in your life.