On this episode of The Next Next, founders Matt Wheeler and Chris Meade discuss the journey of their company, SportsRecruits, from its inception to its recent acquisition by IMG Academy. SportsRecruits helps student athletes connect with college coaches and get recruited, providing tools for athlete visibility and recruitment management. Matt and Chris share their story of understanding inefficiencies in the sports recruiting process and transitioning from filming events to developing a digital platform. They highlight the challenges of balancing growth and profitability, the transition to a SaaS model, and strategies for retaining club clients. The discussion also covers the current state of the business, their product's impact, and insights on increasing value through partnerships with clubs, event operators, and other stakeholders. The episode concludes with reflections on entrepreneurship, long-term success, and advice for aspiring founders.
In this episode of The Next Next, Jason Jacobs sits down with Matt Wheeler and Chris Meade, co-founders of SportsRecruits. The company connects millions of high school athletes with college coaches, helping them find the right fit for their athletic and academic future. Matt and Chris share their entrepreneurial journey, starting from their days at Wesleyan University where they played lacrosse, to identifying inefficiencies in the sports recruiting process, and eventually founding SportsRecruits. They discuss the initial challenges, including their early model of filming lacrosse events and transitioning to a scalable digital platform. They reveal the company's scaling through partnerships with clubs and events, leading to a significant growth in user base. Furthermore, they highlight the company's recent acquisition by IMG Academy, aiming to deliver more value in the increasingly complex recruiting landscape. Beyond business, the conversation also touches on personal experiences and philosophies concerning youth sports, player development, and parenting.
00:00 Introduction to SportsRecruits
00:40 Founders' Background and Early Challenges
01:23 Transition to Digital and Business Scaling
01:44 Recent Acquisition and Future Vision
02:03 Reconnecting and Reflecting on the Journey
02:26 Welcome to the Show: Matt and Chris
03:26 Early Career Paths and Initial Business Idea
03:52 First Steps and Initial Struggles
07:14 Breakthrough Moment and Business Model Shift
17:59 Expansion into Other Sports
22:05 The Role of Clubs in Recruiting
28:21 Challenges and Successes in Scaling
34:42 The Importance of Technology in Recruiting
35:57 Defense vs. Offense in Club Marketing
36:53 The Role of SportsRecruits in Club Success
39:29 The Impact of AI and Future Prospects
40:39 Transitioning to Software and Funding Challenges
44:51 Acquisition by IMG Academy
55:57 Balancing Parenting and Youth Sports
01:06:01 Reflections on the Journey and Final Thoughts
Jason Jacobs: , Today, on The Next Next, our guests are Matt Wheeler and Chris Meade. Co-founders of SportsRecruits, SportsRecruits fuels millions of recruiting connections every year helping student athletes get recruited and play the sport they love in college. For athletes, they help you build a recruiting presence, connect with college coaches.
And commit to your best fit school for coaches. They help you know and discover the recruits that you need so you can build winning teams, and for clubs. They help give your athletes every opportunity to be seen and get recruited, and of course, to help you as a club differentiate from other clubs.
Now, I was excited for this one, Chris and Matt actually. Went to my alma mater Wesleyan and they're a little younger. We didn't overlap, but go Wes. And they also have a fascinating story. They play lacrosse together in college and went their separate ways after graduation.
One to reinsurance and one to commercial [00:01:00] real estate, and they came back together around. This observation of inefficiencies in the sports recruiting process, and they talk in the episode about the challenging early days where it took them over 18 months of wandering in the desert to find a profitable model.
They started by filming lacrosse events one event at a time, and , which brought in some money but wasn't scalable. Then they talked about their transition by necessity. To digital. We talked about their experience working with clubs and what they learned along the way. Talked about how the business scaled and how they ultimately found their footing and raised very little capital along the way and built a healthy, impressive, profitable business.
And then of course we talked about the recent acquisition. , They announced recently that they were joining. IMG Academy and its NCSA college recruiting platform. And that together they'll deliver even more value to student athletes, families, coaches, and event operators, [00:02:00] navigating an increasingly complex recruiting process.
Now, it was interesting to me because I'm coming at it more from the player development side, just giving the players the goods, and these guys are helping the players with whatever goods they've got to navigate the recruiting process. Each of them matter. They feed each other. And if I'm gonna head into player development with athletes, I think it's important to understand what's happening on the recruiting side as well.
At any rate, great discussion. Thanks for coming on guys. Matt. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Meade: Happy to be here.
Jason Jacobs: That was in unison. , I'm psyched to do this. , I didn't know you guys, but we all went to the same undergrad. I was a little older, , and, , and I, I worked in sports. I think maybe before you guys worked in sports or, or maybe, , maybe around the same time because SportsRecruits was a long ride.
But but we didn't, we didn't cross paths back then, but now I'm making my triumphant return to to the sports tech and, and youth sports. And you guys have been in it all along. And I had the chance to connect with Matt recently. [00:03:00] And, and Matt, you've been so generous with your time and encouragement and you've been a, a river guide of sorts.
As I've come in, you, you've made me believe that, , that, that, that I'm saying and that what I'm doing is okay. , So. I appreciate that and and yeah, I mean, you, you guys are an important pillar company in the space and of course just had a recent outcome and there's a lot to talk about there.
And so I'm grateful that you're making the time to do it.
Matt Wheeler: Excited to dive in.
Jason Jacobs: Great. Well, for starters, maybe, I mean, you guys, before we recorded, you were telling me that you were co-captains of lacrosse at Wesleyan, and I think you guys started this right? Outta school, right? So is that true or not right outta school?
Matt Wheeler: We had a
Chris Meade: You wanna get, you wanna give the, uh, three, three minute.
Matt Wheeler: yeah. I mean, go back to 2005. There weren't you know, there were no tech jobs. There was no, no one was leaving Wesleyan to go work at Facebook or TikTok or, Google. It just wasn't happening. Um,
Jason Jacobs: that's true because I got outta school in 98, rode that bubble, and then that oh five was like, uh, kind of the, it was like nearing [00:04:00] the end of the dark years there.
Matt Wheeler: I mean, it was pretty much like, you know, I went into to reinsurance, uh, a company called Guy Carpenter, and Chris went into commercial real estate and, um, you know, you, the playbook back then was kind of did your two years and then you went to business school and so that was the path we were both on.
Chris found himself in salt Lake City, Utah in 2007 and got linked up with the lacrosse team and pretty much realized the recruiting process was pretty much the same as it was when we were going through it in 99. But the world had changed a lot in that, in that eight years or so. You know, you had Facebook people were using email, you had YouTube.
So there, there it, it should have been improved. And, you know, Chris learned pretty quickly working with these Utah families that, you know, they were just sending DVDs in the mail and crossing their fingers and hoping it worked out. And so, um, you know, I actually did dig up the email Chris, I've been waiting to, to really settle in and read it, but Chris wrote me this, crazy email in October of 2007 with this, um, kind of rudimentary idea.
And um,
Jason Jacobs: what? I would love to know the [00:05:00] timestamp button on email. Like, was it 4:38 AM
Matt Wheeler: I think it was like on a red eye back there, like a late flight back to Utah or something. But yeah, it was, it was a kind of a late night, you know, kind of like Jerry McGuire type, uh, type email. And um, I think I
Jason Jacobs: and the fish?
Matt Wheeler: and I just was like, yeah, let's,
Jason Jacobs: fi, the fish is leaving with me.
Matt Wheeler: And I was like, let's, let's do it. And so I was already taking the GMATs and so I was already one foot out the door.
And so, um, I mean, yeah, that was 17 years ago, so I guess the rest is history.
Chris Meade: It, it was a, uh, pure Jerry McGuire moment in that I got roped into coaching, like early days of travel club lacrosse in Utah, so hotbed area. I was paid minimum wage to take a team to a tournament up in New Hampshire. And I'm like, at this tournament and I was like, this is insanely inefficient. And yeah, was back, back on the, uh, plane, going to Salt Lake City and yeah, wrote that email.
Jason Jacobs: And, and what, what was the initial germ of [00:06:00] an idea?
Chris Meade: Really it was, I, I mean, it was a really fun time because we were kind of on that like first Facebook wave of, you know, I think Wesley might've been like the 12th or 13th school to be on Facebook. Twitter had just launched, like YouTube was starting to pick up steam and like we were in those products every day and it was like, well, why don't we just take all of this stuff that's happening on the internet right now and just like, make the recruiting process way more efficient.
So take like analog processes, digitize them, and somebody should find value in that and pay us money for it.
Matt Wheeler: And of course that's not necessarily how it worked. You know, so we, we, we launched the product and we quickly realized that. Video was really the lifeblood of our business, and we launched in lacrosse specifically, we started with lacrosse. It was called lacrosse cruise.com. And, um, no one had video.
I mean, video was, was, was, um, [00:07:00] kind of like, uh, unlike football where video was really part of the culture, you know, video in lacrosse back then, like you weren't going to tournaments and there was no film option to buy your film
Jason Jacobs: all these like, uh, fit cameras you see on stands now and stuff, none of that
Matt Wheeler: None of that existed. And so we essentially were banging our heads against the wall for the first 18 months, making close to no revenue until we went to a um, a guy who, who still know to this day and said, Hey, can we come to your, your showcase and film the event?
And they're like, why would you wanna do that? I'm like, well, we think if we bundle the film with our, the cross recruits membership and maybe we, we'll build a highlight reel as well for the kid. Like we might be cooking with gas here. And the guy said, yeah, sure, come on down. You guys are, are two lunatics.
But yeah, sure, come on down. And like, we made more money in 36 hours and we made the previous 18 months. And so then, you know, we were really kind of off to the races from there.
Jason Jacobs: So was the initial go to market like putting a camera crew at games.
Matt Wheeler: Go to market, that wasn't even a term we knew. Um, there was no, we weren't talking in [00:08:00] SaaS or go to market. It was pretty much like we built a really good product, we thought was a really good product, and we showed it to families and they said, this is incredible. Like, I can send video to coaches.
This is 2008, but I don't have any video. And so, yeah, so the next kind of five years or so was a journey of like, how do we build out the infrastructure So families have a lot of video and then when they have a lot of video, they can really get a lot of value out of our product.
Jason Jacobs: Uhhuh. And, and so how did you manage the chicken and egg in the early days of, it's like if we, if we get all the footage, then you know, the more footage we have, the more families we can get. But, but without the families and the paying, how do you justify hiring the crews to go take all the footage?
So like, how did you like. How, how did you break that cycle of doom in terms of getting, getting those first few steps?
Chris Meade: I, it, it was definitely like a lot of trial and error, but just like the basic concept of the highest in recruiting events have the most committed, highest [00:09:00] level of student athlete. And generally those families have invested the most into the process. So in those early days, it was like a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy because you had these families that were already super committed spending all of this money, and then we were just like another thing that they were spending more money on.
As long as you were positioned at those events and you were able to, communicate the value in a like easy way. Tho, like Matt said, like, you know, 2008, this one weekend, it was, I. Fall of 2008 and we're like, oh my goodness. Like we figured this out. And basically for like the next two years, we just doubled the amount of like high-end events that we partnered with.
And you just had this really targeted high-end customer base to market to. And there's a lot of growth there. So there wasn't really like much that you were missing until that third year when now like the drop off of all of those events, [00:10:00] you know, came down and now you're like, oh man, well we have to do these like six, like mid-tier events to get these two really good events.
And that's where you start to be like, oh, well they need us to have a film crew here, but this really doesn't make us much money, but we better make a lot of money in these two events. And that's where like things started to get like a little bit more complicated. And honestly, like I. The more we dealt with those problems, you were like, oh, this business is terrible.
Like we actually need a software company. And like that was probably like a pretty defining point, you know, in 2011, 2012, where like Matt and I looked at each other and we're like, we're traveling like 25, 26 weekends a year. And you're,
Matt Wheeler: I
Chris Meade: oh yeah, it was crazy. It was like six people. Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: have some, some Billy Madison visuals here, or no? Tommy boy. Tommy boy,
Matt Wheeler: Yeah. Like that, that's pretty accurate. I mean, but I think again, like reflecting [00:11:00] on, on our adventure here and like thinking of like lessons learned and how I might apply it to like a new business or whatever what we, what we could have done is we could have just sat behind our computers and tried to iterate and iterate and iterate until whatever we landed on something.
But we, that would've not worked. And so like we had to go out and film the crappy events and we had to do all this absurd stuff because that actually generated revenue. Like what we wanted people to buy all along was the platform. That remains true to this day. But like we had to do those other things as like a bridge to get people to buy the, the platform.
And obviously you, you, you know, hope as an entrepreneur that like you can actually connect the, the, the two bridges. Actually the bridge makes it to the other side. You don't get caught in the middle. But we kind of, we didn't really have any other choice, like we had to go film those events. And you know, fortunately we learned a lot and as you get more reps, you then come up with like the club product, which is what, you know, ended up being our kind of calling card, which is, [00:12:00] you know, selling into these travel teams versus just doing these events.
And, and that's what, you know, that became our bread and butter from kind of 2015 on is this, you know, kind of SaaS product selling to these travel teams. Oops.
Chris Meade: And then not to, not to like glorify it too much, but like, we spent a lot of time traveling, a lot of time in the car together, but we were forced to interact with our customers every weekend. And you were having conversations with them and like, you knew every segment, every like, demo within the like, general populate and you're like, you know, what products are gonna hit for certain, like, customers, certain levels of clubs.
And I, I really do think like that ended up being like the superpower from those like early years where like there's nobody else who spent more time on the ground in the recruiting space than like we did. And you know, we were just kind of like gluttons for punishment to get there. But like that, that was like something that really set us apart in those [00:13:00] early years.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, there is no substitute for it. And I mean, I, I wish there was because I mean, as I set out. To build now. Being a road warrior isn't really on the agenda. Yeah. But it, yeah, I mean it works. I mean, there is, there is no substitute for it. So the, before you had the software, when you're out there at the events what was the deliverable at that time?
So you record the event and you're there to pitch the product to the families After the event, what was the pitch?
Matt Wheeler: So again, going back to the, the day the product launch, June of 2008, lacrosse recruits, it's still to this day, the product has a lot of the core concepts, which is you can, you can research schools on there. You can, going back to 2008, you could communicate, you could, we had a meshing system where you could actually communicate with any college program in the country through the platform.
'cause we, we loaded in all the email addresses. So you had this [00:14:00] experience as a user where you can communicate out we always wanted people to use that, but what we were fighting was people weren't quite there was this concept, and there still remains today that like everything happens live, like coaches need to see you live and forget the internet.
Like who needs the internet? Like they need to see you live. And so we were fighting kind of this, um, uh, you know, fighting against just like kind of an un uneducated consumer, but also just, it's early. It's again, we 2008, 9, 10, 11, 12. But what the families knew they did need it. They knew they needed video of their kid playing against high quality competition.
So we. Did our best to provide the best video possible of that. And then we helped the parents understand how, now that you have this video, wouldn't it be really nice to be able to send that video out to, let's say 25 schools in about five or 10 minutes, versus you going and making 25 DVD copies again, this is what was happening, DVD copies [00:15:00] and going to the USPS and, and, and making an envelope for each of these 25 schools.
Um, and so it was really like the, once you, once they had the video, it was, it was kind of an easier conversation 'cause it's like, cool, what are you gonna do with this video? And they're like, actually, I don't know. I have the video, which I, I'm told is important. And so it was really just a journey
Jason Jacobs: with DVD.
Matt Wheeler: video was on a DVD.
Yeah. In those days, video was on a DVD.
Jason Jacobs: you guys have pictures of this.
Matt Wheeler: I mean we, we were, we were showing up to the post office at close. Sometimes it's 500 envelopes. And the people would see us walking in and they would go. Not these guys again. Like we were like, they're gonna make us work five minutes later, but we were here at 4 58.
You close at five, like you need to take all these packages in. We got a, a post office guy came up to our office and yelled at us. 'cause, 'cause our intern stuffed stuffed all the packages in like one of the blue you know, like one of the blue, uh, USPS bins. And they, they pulled it out, saw the return address, like literally marched up to our [00:16:00] office and yelled at us.
Jason Jacobs: And, and so was it a one time purchase? At that time, it was just buying the video.
Matt Wheeler: You would see us, we would see the same families at five or six different events. So to Chris's point, we had to make sure everything was the quality was good because if the quality was bad at the event in June, in July, they knew that they were gonna see our tent and they could march up and, and give it to us.
So like to Chris's point, like it was really nice. We had to keep everything as tight as possible because we knew we were gonna see those families multiple times throughout the summer in the fall. So, you know, obviously kept us accountable. But uh, but yeah, I
Jason Jacobs: you were like the high quality video guys for that tournament. So if I want high quality video and it's like, is it like highlights or is it the full video
Matt Wheeler: you would, you would take that video and, and, and we would build you a highlight reel as well. So we had a, a little video team that would make a highlight, put an ISO effect on there. And, um, I mean, Chris, I think we're having PTSD 'cause like we don't
Chris Meade: I know.
Matt Wheeler: deep on.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, sorry. I, I know, [00:17:00] I know that this, this side of you is dormant and
Chris Meade: No. Yeah, and it's funny 'cause we haven't spoken about this stuff in so long, but yeah, like it was totally insane. So that family would go to six events. They'd get like five DVDs of their five games from the six events. So they'd have 30 DVDs at their house. They would take the time codes and fill out a form.
We had a full like editing team that had all the masters in the office that, I don't know if everything was digitized at at one point, like we were going back to DVDs to like use those at masters to create the highlight reels. But like it was a totally insane like point in time.
Jason Jacobs: And, and so if I'm hearing right, the. Tournament companies expected you to have coverage at all of their events, if you wanted any of their events because they needed coverage at these events. And that puts you in a tough position because only certain events made sense. So therefore it was hard to build a profitable business.
[00:18:00] So, so explain the software transition when you, when you had an aha. Well, I get the aha of this is a crappy business, but then tell me the, tell me like where the software vision fit in and, and when you, you know, what made you think that that transition would solve it? And then what was the vision for software as you transitioned?
I.
Chris Meade: Yeah, I'll, I'll take this. So, again, like trial and error, like just being in it. Another Wesleyan connection. We get a, a random phone call from this guy, David Reff, who is like, Hey, have you ever thought about doing this lacrosse recruits thing for other sports? And we're like. like at some point we always thought we'd do other sports.
He is like, would you ever do this for volleyball? And I'm like, this is such a weird conversation. Ends up David Reff is a Wesleyan alum who's the president of USA volleyball and he saw a feature of lacrosse recruits in the alumni magazine. So we go pitch we go pitch USA volleyball, which is like insane again, like now at [00:19:00] this point.
Like, man, I, you know, we're just trying to figure it out. So we go pitch USA volleyball and they share all their numbers with us, like how many events they run, how many participants, and we're like. Oh my gosh. Like this is 12 times the size of the lacrosse market. We're gonna just do the same playbook and we are going to be so rich, like this is going to be amazing.
Um, so we go, we pitch the dream, pitch this rev share win the business. We get volleyball recruits off the ground, go out that winter with like the same concept. We're gonna sell film packages from these top events tied to USA volleyball and this is gonna just print money. What we realized in the volleyball market was it's a lot easier to capture film.
The teams are more centrally organized. So there's a one parent who is in charge of filming the games for the team, and that's still, you know, the. [00:20:00] What happens today, you know, this is 10 plus years ago. So that winter, like we did, like the full on the road hustling, event partnerships, talking to customers, all of this stuff, and we had very little traction and we were like, this is, this is a really tough business.
Oh my gosh. Like, this is totally opposite from lacrosse. But what we realized was when you went through our volleyball users, there would be, two linked parent accounts, parent a, parent B, and the same email addresses were listed. On all of those parent accounts. And we were like, oh, this is so weird.
Like, who is this person? It was the club director or recruiting coordinator at these clubs, and they were keeping spreadsheets of all of the volleyball recruits, logins for their players so they could log in as each player and see what they were doing, who they were sending messages to, and [00:21:00] who their favorite, schools were.
And that was really like the aha moment because you're like, okay, well volleyball is actually 10 years ahead of the lacrosse market. From a club organization perspective. They own facilities, they have full-time staff. Some of them run their own events, but it's a more established business. And if they're using our software in that way, like we should be building for that user because that is a better business model.
It's B2B, it's recurring. There's real value for this small business to have, this software to manage the recruiting process. And you know, we didn't launch, we didn't rebrand and launch our B2B product until 2015, but you know, like Matt and I joke, like I have the mock up still in my desk drawer from 2013 when we realized this, where we were like, oh my gosh.
Like this needs to be a like recruiting management platform to serve the [00:22:00] needs of these people because like, this is where the market's going.
Jason Jacobs: And so tell me about the, the, the why behind the club's involvement in the recruiting process. Like what's in it for the club, how, what does the family expect from the club? What's in it for the club? And then in what way does the club operate as it relates to the recruiting journeys of each of the members of that club?
Matt Wheeler: That's a, that's a very loaded question.
Chris Meade: Yeah, I mean, I, I think like very high level as,
Jason Jacobs: I come in, I come in ignorant and then. Ask a bunch of just, uh, just follow my intellectual curiosity and don't know where any of the landmines are. That's what I do.
Chris Meade: I, I guess there's like very high level as a family, like progresses through like their club journey. At the high school level. There's like, we believe there's like two guarantees. One is we're here to help your son or daughter become the best athlete they can be. And then two, we are going to [00:23:00] help them through the recruiting and college placement journey.
And our software filled that second need where we were transitioning people from like pen and paper manila folders to an online system and like we pitch it as like, hey, the same way I use Salesforce to manage our sales team, that's how these clubs are, you know, using SportsRecruits. So that's like very high level.
And then like Matt, you could probably talk about something like the different nuances in expectations around different sports or different types of families, but you see all sorts of deliverables from the club on those two promises.
Jason Jacobs: And a, so talk about that, Matt, like Chris said, but also talk about what made you like, like why that's a loaded question.
Matt Wheeler: Yeah. And so again, go back to to 20, this 2013 is when we kind of kind of realized like, wow, these clubs are really, really powerful. But you also gotta remember 2013, like they barely had functioning websites. So like we had to be careful as to [00:24:00] like, you know, coming in like as software salesmen.
So like we started talking to a lot of these volleyball club directors that we saw listed and say, Hey, you know, what's going on here? And what we heard, and this again going back a decade, was the club director was, was more stressed than ever because the, this is volleyball specifically at this point, but like volleyballs sport has been, you can look at the grass, it's been growing nicely over the last 10, 15 years.
So my club has more people in it. So I used to have one team per age group. Now I have two teams per age group, which means I had to double the number of recruited athletes, recruitable athletes uh, multiply that with parents' expectations are evolving. This is no longer, or this was less of a like. Play club sports.
This is fun. Parents are now kind of running the ROI calculator in the back of their head. Every event they go to, they're looking at the number of coaches at a specific event, and they're doing some calculation that's proprietary to their own brains as to whether this was a worthwhile event. [00:25:00] So when we start talking
Jason Jacobs: sure that's a very sophisticated algorithm.
Matt Wheeler: sophisticated.
Everyone has a different algorithm. I mean, we, we always joke that like the funniest thing is at a tournament parents crowding around the, the the board that lists all the coaches there. And what they're looking for on that board is the schools that they want their kids to go to. Which ironically, every parent has the same 12 to 15 schools in their head.
So as long as they're on that board, this event was worthwhile. Did the coaches see their kids? Don't know, don't care. But they were on this, they were here. There's 40 fields, but like, anyway, we can go
Jason Jacobs: Y You know what this makes me think about is like those startup pitch competitions where it's like, here's the VCs that will be in attendance. You know, you paid a pitch. Paid a pitch. Yeah.
Matt Wheeler: the same thing. The guy could have been in the bathroom, the guy from Sequoia could have been in the bathroom when, when you were pitching your, your idea. But anyway, so when we started talking to these clubs and, and kind of, you know, unpacking it, we were, uh, essentially coming at it from a few angles, which is, you know, one, a lot of [00:26:00] your athletes are already already doing this.
Like, what if there was a way for you to see all of your athletes in one view, would that be valuable? Yes. Um, obviously what would you be willing to pay for it? But the interesting thing on the club side is it's, it's an insurance policy in some respects against a parent that's not doing the work.
Because when you don't have SportsRecruits, you have a club of, let's say, let's say 40 recruitable athletes, they're all doing their own thing and you're a club director or recruiting coordinator trying to figure out what they're doing. They could tell you. Yeah. Um, Jason, I sent, uh, 20 messages before we went off to Baltimore to play in this event.
You have no idea whether they did that or not. What you do know is when they're a junior and the, and the parent is frustrated 'cause their kid or isn't getting recruited, you're saying, well, what have you been up to? And they, they, you don't know. No one really knows. They're like, we went to the events with you.
So it really brings a level of accountability that the club can push down, top down and, and maybe, and, and run, you know, similar to how a sales team says, make this number of calls, right. This many touches, whatever it [00:27:00] might be. So the clubs, it resonated really fast and we had a really nice growth in the, in the early years and, and through to today.
But the smart clubs, the really smart clubs realized that if they run a really tight recruiting, um, like let's call curriculum slash system. Parents are gonna talk about it and, and that's gonna pull that, it's gonna pull kids from clubs that are not running really tight recruiting processes because when, once you get to seventh, eighth grade, like that's really kind of what the prize everyone's looking at.
So the smart clubs, you know, from early on, and a lot of 'em are still with us today, they went all in and said, this is gonna be my differentiator. I'm going to run the best recruiting process. I'm gonna make sure every kid gets the attention he or she deserves. And those people can look at their businesses now versus 10 years ago, and many of 'em are like literal, literally 10 times the size as they were when they signed up with us, you know, 10 years ago.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, it's funny, I mean, some of the stuff I've been thinking about sounds similar, but are, but more focused on player development where it's like the [00:28:00] coach assigns, here's what you should be doing in the off season. And it's like in an email or it's like a PDF or something, and it's like, who's doing it?
I don't know. Like, how's their form? How seriously are they taking it? I don't know. Right. There's just no accountability at all. I see my kids peeping their heads in from the other room and I'm gonna ignore them. Cool. So, so once you were selling into clubs how did you get those first clubs on board?
What was the pricing model at the time? And, um, what did you learn? How did it go? In no particular order.
Chris Meade: Yeah, so early day clubs, I think we had the momentum from how they were using the product before we even introduced like our B2B re recruiting management tool. So they're familiar with the product. There was value, they could envision a better experience, and like we built that for them. So that was like early adopters.
And I think you [00:29:00] know, like 20 15, 20 16, we were pricing on a per team basis. So basically, you know, volleyball roster might be 10 to 12 soon. Athletes, a lacrosse roster might be 22 on the girls side, 25. On the boys side and you're coming up with like what's a fair per player rate and then applying that to a team rate.
And we did a team rate because we really felt like the club had to mandate the, the experience for every player because it wasn't going to be as valuable if they picked 42 of the 70 players and said, oh, these are the 42 who really need it. No, this needs to be a program wide thing. And I think that was like tough in the early days, but we definitely benefited from that because it really did force the club organizations to like get on board and. [00:30:00] We got lucky in that the two sports, our first two sports, lacrosse, volleyball, volleyball was like best product market fit. They were ahead of other club sports. Like I said, more organized still, like best usage comes from volleyball clubs. So we got large customers. We got customers who really valued the product, so we had good retention.
We had all those things in volleyball. Then you go into the lacrosse market, which was like our background, like everyone remembered us from like, hustling around all those events. They were like, oh my gosh, maybe these guys are actually smarter than I thought. They they have a real software product now, and then we went out to them.
Jason Jacobs: hope someone says that about me one day in youth sports. 'cause right now they're like, what? The
Chris Meade: yeah.
Jason Jacobs: that,
Chris Meade: Well, I, I hope,
Jason Jacobs: medicated and is not
Chris Meade: Yeah. Well, I hope it, I hope it takes you less than 17 [00:31:00] years like it took us, but uh, yeah, now it's all worth it in the, uh, rear view mirror. But, um, yeah, and then we went into the lacrosse market where like one, like the demographic, there's like a more affluent customer base. There was more resources at the clubs to pay for things like this.
And like lacrosse, parents tend to be like the. Some of the biggest pain in the butts for a club director. So they're like, hold on, I can buy your software, run everyone through this program, keep them accountable. And then I don't really have to deal with them when they come to me and say, Hey, you didn't do your job.
'cause I can go back and be like, well actually you didn't do anything. And they're like, yeah, that's worth $10,000 a year. And then, you know, from there, different sports have been, you know, different paths. And I think that's probably like another, like random topic you could go down, but like just the different cultures, the different structures within different sports.
We just [00:32:00] happened to start off in two sports that were like really good to be selling a B2B product. You know, and like we would've had a very different product today if we were basketball guys and we sold them to the basketball market. I.
Jason Jacobs: What's interesting to me is that you found so many clubs that are willing to invest in actually differentiating with the goods, right? Because what, what I've observed is that in some cases you see clubs, it's almost like the better the brand of the club, the more they push onto the families to.
Do that on their own. Because they can, because then the families are just grateful to be part of the club. But that a lot of the extra stuff, whether it's recruiting or development, is a la carte. Right. Either through the club or somewhere else. So, I guess it's interesting to me, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how these clubs justify an expense [00:33:00] that is an expense item and not you know, and doesn't add revenue or profit.
Chris Meade: Oh, we're, we're gonna give you the full pitch here, why it's important to retain your customers through recruiting software.
Matt Wheeler: but what's funny though, so you,
Jason Jacobs: I'm ready.
Matt Wheeler: find blog posts and, and I thought early on that,
Jason Jacobs: I just poked a bear.
Matt Wheeler: I thought, I thought
Jason Jacobs: This was friendly up until this point, guys. Yeah,
Matt Wheeler: I. I thought in 2015, like the, and you can find a blog post if you Google like SportsRecruits retention, like you can find blog posts back then where we sent.
Jason Jacobs: I'll do that after I Google Sports recruit's. DVD,
Matt Wheeler: Yes. Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah.
Matt Wheeler: yeah. You can probably find some people looking for their DVDs still from, from those years that we, we sent them a blank one.
But, uh, we, we thought early on that the pitch really was going to resonate that, hey, this is, this is actually a retention purchase. You know, this is the pain point here is you lo clubs have a horrible retention problem, but they don't track it and a lot of 'em don't care. So we, we, you know, had all these [00:34:00] great visuals of like, here's club A that has this retention.
Here's club B that has this retention, and the numbers are very close, but we showed over five years the amount of money that's being lost and the, that could not have resonated less with clubs. Like, literally they, they did not care. They're like, but I just, I just get more kids like, who cares? And you're like, wait.
But like if you kept 'em, you have one more team that's $60,000. Like they're like. But I'll just get a, I'll just get, there's always more kids. And so, we, we, we came off that I, I'd say the kind of more sophisticated, sophisticated clubs like got that, and, and, and even to this day, I think some are tracking it better.
Um, and some of these reg products are, are doing a better job of like helping clubs understand that. So it in terms of like in an expense, like how do you get them to add the expense? Like we found common ground with the clubs that pretty much the reason your business exists is because of this carrot that's being dangled at the end of the rainbow here.
And you want to be presenting to [00:35:00] the families a clear and concise plan as to how recruiting is gonna go when your kid gets to high school. And as the years go on, you can't just say, Hey, I played at Duke 20 years ago. I know all the coaches like that might've worked in 2013 or 2012. Like, that doesn't, that's not gonna work in 20 17, 20 25.
It still does work for some clubs. Um, caveat, but, um, for the most part, the parents want more, especially as they use technology in their daily lives. Like, think about just the, the million ways parents are are interacting with technology on their, on their, you know, personal device and their computer.
Like to say the recruiting process is gonna be an analog one, is like, it's gonna hold less and less water as years go on. And so, we moved away from the original kind of angle of like, this is a retention play and more of like a, this is actually a, um, kind of the right thing to do and if you do it right, you're gonna attract more kids to your clubs and, and that, that resonated.
Jason Jacobs: I, I, I mean, to me what I'm hearing is it's [00:36:00] the difference between defense and offense, right? Like defense is like, hey, like you can plug a leaky boat, right? And wait, hold on one sec. Shane, come on. I'm defense. Oh,
Matt Wheeler: This is authentic. This is an authentic pod.
Jason Jacobs: She's like doing my 10-year-old daughter's, like doing jumping jacks and waving right behind the laptop and trying to get my attention.
I'm tempted to bring her on camera, but yeah, I, yeah, I, I shouldn't say that out loud 'cause she'll come. But, uh, what was I saying? Oh yeah, defense versus offense because the defense is like, plug the leaky boat and stop the bleeding and like, like here's a life preserver, right?
Um, and, and offense is like. It is like our club is the best, look at our track record, like, look who we produce. Look at all these placements. Look at this process we have, look at this technology. We have like, go go somewhere else like and, and, and ask them if they have any of this stuff.
Matt Wheeler: Yep. A hundred percent. I mean, the, uh, the best, the best club customer is the one, and this happens to this day where. A family [00:37:00] leaves a club with SportsRecruits. They get to the new club and they say, Hey where are my SportsRecruits credentials? Like, I wanna get set up. And they go, oh, we don't use SportsRecruits.
The, the parent literally gets up, walks out the door and goes back to their old club or, or the club director picks up a phone right away and calls us and says, so this, how, how much does this cost? Because I had 10 players that essentially threatened to leave my club. If they don't get SportsRecruits, like we, the sales guys, like, do, do back flips when that happens.
Chris Meade: Yeah. And then just like quickly on like the offense side, like I think nothing is more important to a segment of the club director population than their like commits list, because that is like the marketing gold that they're able to show potential families. So like we learned that it
Jason Jacobs: like the private school
Chris Meade: right, like how many kids go to Harvard or, yeah.
Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: 60% of our kids ended up in the Ivy League or
Chris Meade: Yeah. And like I think that it was funny 'cause we came at it so much [00:38:00] from this like SaaS software, like this retention like, 'cause we were like trying to solve that problem on our own as we were growing the business and we were like, oh, our customers are just like us. They're trying to solve the same problem.
You kind of had two things. One, you realize like the offensive perspective. And then we also were living through like, and we still are living through it, but just like a massive shift towards club sports where, you know, like at that point in time, nobody was like I'm really worried about how many kids are gonna show up at my tryouts.
It was like, oh, well we had another a hundred kids at our tryouts and now instead of charging $35 for the penny Tochar like to show up. Now we're charging $75. And like, we just made all this money like it was, and
Jason Jacobs: was already picked before tryouts. How about that? Yeah.
Chris Meade: Yeah, I mean like, you know, we've also just kind of like lived through this like crazy club sports transition over the last, you know, [00:39:00] 15 years too.
And like I've got an 8-year-old and a almost 6-year-old and like I'm living it, like I see it every day and it's just like it's funny to, or it's fun to link back our story to just kind of general trends and like, you know, Matt was saying like these clubs didn't have a website. It was like website registration platform.
Then they bought SportsRecruits and like how lucky were we to be a part of that like wave. And I think kind of getting back to like your project and like the stuff we are most excited about is obviously ai. How we're using AI on a day-to-day basis, how we're building that into our product and like we are at.
The front of that wave in the sports tech space and like more people will be talking about that from a customer club perspective. And uh, I don't know, it kind of feels like we're back to this like exciting next thing in the space.[00:40:00]
Jason Jacobs: And, um, Matt, remind me, uh, kids, and yet, and if so, how old are your
Matt Wheeler: Oh, I have a, a a five and a 3-year-old, so we're we're, we're pretty early on. Nothing, no clubs, just trying to get exposure to as many, um, hand eye slash foot eye coordination exercises as possible in any form possible.
Jason Jacobs: great. We're not gonna talk about kids yet, but I've just tucked that information away on both you guys and we'll come back around to that, uh, later in the discussion. I didn't lose it. 'Cause it's actually super relevant. Given the trends that you're seeing and stuff, and then the, and, and because you guys lived it yourselves and now you're living it as entrepreneurs, like what is that gonna mean to the way you parent?
But, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll come back to that one. But um, one question I didn't have for you guys is when you switched to software, I don't believe that either of you is a software engineer. So, how did that go? And also, I don't think you raised much money along the way, and so like how did you get all this stuff built and how did you fund it?
Matt Wheeler: [00:41:00] Remember those videographer events? Remember the tents sitting under the tents that, that was how we funded it. We also started running our own recruiting events. And at one point we were, I think, running the most kids through lacrosse showcases in all of lacrosse. Um, we had a few brands specifically in lacrosse.
And so, again, we had this big lacrosse user base and so we had a lot of email addresses. And so we go to a lot of events, so we see how the events are run and, and get, got a good handle on that. And so we started in 2009, literally early on, started running our, our own event. It was called Super Soft.
It was for rising juniors, so sophomores that just finished their high school season. And we ran that brand and we added super juniors, or sorry, um, what do we call the junior brand? Chris
Chris Meade: fab Frosh we did.
Matt Wheeler: fro went down. So that was rising sophomores. We, we started DAD three lacrosse brand called D three Lacrosse [00:42:00] Showcase, which we ended up selling to Three Step, so those events, like again, I dunno for any entrepreneurs watching, like they weren't software, they weren't necessarily what we wanted to do, but they threw off a lot of cash that funded the business for, for, for many years on top of raising a little raising a little money, doing, doing some venture debt along, along the way.
But we were able to find these kind of non-sexy kind of auxiliary businesses that in many ways strengthened. And we ran, we prided ourselves in, on our events. We thought we ran them really well. Like we, we treated the parents how we would imagine we would want it to be treated if we took a, a, a family there.
And so a lot of those families, of course, then bought the, whatever the highest end package was for, for lacrosse recruits or SportsRecruits, whatever it was called at that point. So it became a nice feeder to the actual business we wanted to run as well. But, um, yeah, I mean, I don't know that, that's how I remember how we funded it.
Chris, am I missing anything? I.
Chris Meade: And I mean, there's some funny stories with that too, of like us running [00:43:00] registration for, at the time, like the most elite lacrosse showcase event. Jake Reed, Nike Blue Chip, Jake is now living in Trooper River, Florida, but he let us run the reg for the event and we were like, Hey, uh, Jake, do you want us to like reconcile on like a weekly basis?
And he's like, no, guys. Like I, I trust you guys. Just like, let's settle up at the end of the summer and then for my fall event, we'll settle up at the end of the year. Like we weren't sophisticated enough to know it, but basically he was floating us the cash to like run our business through like cash low points for like three or four years.
Like, that's just like something that like totally just randomly happened that like we lucked out. I. We hired a technical director who, like, we obviously couldn't really evaluate tech talent. We had a technical director who, like, it didn't work out with him, but he hired our first engineer Kat, who's now our CTO, [00:44:00] like total happenstance.
Like Kat has been with us since, I think 20 12, 20 13. Like, yeah, like, of all like the stars aligning things. There were like a couple of those things. We had a intern from Wesleyan, Mike Robinson, who started off as our first product hire, you know, and like worked his way up, ran our product team, you know, is our COO now.
Like you, you just kind of like. The culture probably builds those opportunities, but then we look at it where it's like the stars aligned and we were fortunate enough to have those people in those positions that really helped us build a technology company for two guys who are not technical founders.
Jason Jacobs: Well, gosh, there's, I mean, there's so much more I want to dig into on the journey, but there's some other topics I wanna make sure we hit as well. And I just looked, and we're already almost 45 minutes in, so maybe talk a bit about the, like the current snapshot of the business. So, you [00:45:00] know, maybe filling in some of the key moments from where we are to today.
And then of course, you recently were acquired, um, by IIMG Academy. So congratulations on that. It, it would also be fun to talk about you know, how, whatever you wanna share about how that came about, why that came about, and then what it means for for the business and the category looking forwards.
Chris Meade: Yeah, uh, I could just kind of like quick two minute, you know, us launching a B2B product in 2015. We built that business, a hundred percent growth year over year from like, I. 15 to 18 it, it was a great run. But what we realized was the value of what we built was really around the network and engaging college coaches, engaging event operators on top of the clubs.
Were really gonna connect the pieces to make it very tough to go and compete with us in specific [00:46:00] sports verticals. Really focused on the network, how you get those stakeholders involved. We have a product called Event Beacon that college coaches use to evaluate soon athletes onsite at events. And we really just saw a lot of growth across like the club segment, how many events we're using our event, beacon product how many college coaches are logging in on a monthly basis to proactively find new athletes.
And like those things came together. And that has been like our focus from like a product company perspective over the last couple of years. Like we feel like we have the strongest recruiting network in a bunch of sports verticals. And that really led to this opportunity with IMG Academy because, club has become more influential and like.
We really get the club market. We really get the pieces that need to be in place for this to be successful. And I think that was a unique position for us and was definitely something that was like [00:47:00] very attractive from A IMG Academy perspective.
Jason Jacobs: Matt, anything to add?
Matt Wheeler: Yeah, I mean there's also an aspect of our, our scale because of selling into clubs. When we sign up a club, you know, we get anywhere from, I don't know, a hundred to a thousand kids all at once. And so, you know, our footprint within the space was uh, wasn't quite exponential growth, but like if you go back five years, I mean, we had sub, I don't know sub a hundred thousand athletes now.
There's over 600,000 athletes on the sports groups platform. So by by, by working directly with clubs and also working directly with events that use our event Beacon product, you know, our footprint, you know, was growing. It was continuing to grow. So, uh, obviously IMG has, uh, a massive footprint as well.
And so, you know, when you start kind of thinking about what the best experience is for a student athlete. You essentially get to a place where you wanna make it as easy as possible for the college coaches. You don't want the college coaches to have to straddle multiple [00:48:00] platforms to, and many, and sometimes look at the same kids.
Like a kid might have a a, a profile over on NCSA and they might have one over on SportsRecruits, but the best experience for the college coach is gonna be on, on you know, hopefully on one platform over time. So, you know, as you start kind of just looking at, um, who has the you know, who has big footprints in the space you know, you keep the student athlete in mind and, you know, our mission statement is to empower student athletes to pursue their dreams.
And, you know, part of that is, is trying to find ways to hopefully make their lives easier. And, the best experience for a student athlete is to have their information in one place so that when a college coach wants Matt Wheeler's video and Matt Wheeler's grades, that coach knows exactly where to go.
And so, um, um, the, the kind of that vision is still, is still, um, you know, kind of still unfolding, but you know, obviously the, uh, the, the resources and the reach that IMG has will, will allow SportsRecruits to, kind of continue to, uh, to flourish.
Jason Jacobs: And I, I know that, that IMG has been [00:49:00] inquisitive before look at that fancy word. But do they have a playbook in terms of what they tend to do with the acquired companies in terms of a degree of integration, a degree of independence? Is there a set model? Is it, has it been different case by case?
And then what are the plans and expectations, um, with SportsRecruits?
Chris Meade: Yeah. You know, I, I don't wanna talk too much about their playbook because I would say, that they acquired NCSA a few years back. You know, they had some history with that company. They haven't done a ton of acquisitions like in the space. And I think when you looked at our positioning versus like what they offered, it made a lot of sense.
You know, right now we're. Operating as a subsidiary, the SportsRecruits brand, you know, still exists. You know, our partners brands still exist with women's lacrosse or men's lacrosse or Field Hockey Coaches Association. But I think the, the bigger, vision [00:50:00] and one that was like pretty easy for us to get on board with is like, I'm in my early forties.
I'm a former athlete. I've got young kids who are playing sports. I'm trying to become a better golfer. I take golf lessons. I,
Jason Jacobs: By the way, that sounds old to me, but I forget that I'm almost 50. So yeah,
Chris Meade: I know, I know, I know.
Jason Jacobs: you take golf lessons, keep going,
Chris Meade: Take, take golf lessons, like you go to the gym and you have a trainer, you have a CEO coach who's basically like a therapist. So I'm 42. I'm doing all those things and my belief is that when my 8-year-old and almost 6-year-old are going through, their sports journey, we will be more likely to look for those sort of resources for them.
And I think that IMG Academy is uniquely positioned to give a very high quality experience around [00:51:00] performance coaching, nutrition, recruiting, coaching, recruiting technology. And like that makes a lot of sense for us right now, where like the future of the product is going. So I think right now we're.
Operating as SportsRecruits or customer experience is the same, but like that is the vision that like we got on board with for the future.
Jason Jacobs: Nice. Well, it's, it's a really exciting one. I, I mean, a few different threads. It'd be great to pull on. One is everything we just talked about, about the recruiting side. What are you seeing from these clubs in terms of where this sits relative to player development? Is player development? On par with recruiting in terms of the focus, is it ahead?
Is it behind? Does it depend on the sport? I, I mean, Matt, something you said to me a few weeks ago sticks out in my head just about how different the landscape is in every different sport. And that came up today with volleyball versus [00:52:00] lacrosse. But yeah, just generally what are you seeing on the player development side in terms of providing player development outside of the formal team-based activities?
Matt Wheeler: mean. Yeah. A, a challenge in youth sports is that, we, SportsRecruits are, are really one of the only companies that have been able to thrive in multiple sports. I mean, you see a lot of products that do well in individual sports, but it's tough to make the leap from sport to sport because they're, they share that they're, they're a sport, but that's about where these similarities end.
Um, and so in terms of the, the development, I mean, it it, not only is it sports specific, it, it, it is club specific and there's certain clubs we know that really ride the athletes and they're, they're, they're trying to literally like, kind of, um, they're trying to stimulate like college level practices for these kids on Tuesday nights.
And there's others that you know, might focus on getting into the best events possible and they're maybe aren't at running as [00:53:00] rigorous of a kind of training regimen. But I, I don't, I don't think we're necessarily. As close to enough clubs to answer it as well as we just know a lot of the players at a lot of these clubs and we know they all have different philosophies as to kind of how to run this.
So I think for a family, you know, listening, if you happen to be listening an hour in, you know, it's really just a matter of finding a, a club that you think fits what, um, kind of what you might be looking at or what you think is gonna work for your student athlete. Chris is closer to that than I am 'cause he is got an 8-year-old, so we might be thinking this.
Chris Meade: Yeah look, the, the stuff that I see, just like talking with a lot of our club customers is more developed clubs will offer that coaching training on the side as an additional revenue stream to, you know, really control the experience. I live on Long Island. Lacrosse is a hotbed on Long Island.
Most kids at the high school level are doing additional training, either with their club in the off season or through a like preferred vendor [00:54:00] that is affiliated with the club that's happening. The same thing is happening on the you know, on, on the volleyball side. I think, you know, the academy structure on the soccer side, like the Susa team here on Long Island, like they're providing that training.
There's not a, there's not a great way to track stuff that's happening offsite. So what's happened is they have filled the nights with off season training, afternoon training and that's like really filled the void. But that is like this, like I. Top of the pyramid, kinda like club experience. So you know, when you get down, we haven't seen anything that's like truly organized, truly built into workflows other than pay me the money, show up at this time and I'm gonna do the training.
Jason Jacobs: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's one of the things I've been thinking about is almost like more of like a [00:55:00] Peloton like experience. It's like what are the things that you can be doing on your own time outside of the formal stuff, and could you provide more structure, accountability, fun, competitiveness, challenges, guidance, form review, like et cetera.
On your own time from, from your living room. Um, and obviously you can't do that for everything. And, and, and it depends on the sport in terms of. What things you can do, but, but you know, conditioning, mobility, hand eye coordination, film review you know, in, in hockey things like shooting and stick handling.
Um, I dunno, it's
Chris Meade: Yeah. I guess I, I would turn this question back to you, like, when in your athletic journey would you have liked these tools the most? Because I've been thinking about this from like my eight year old's perspective, like when it would be appropriate to be focusing on these things, and then like, when in my life I thought I would've been ready for these things.
Jason Jacobs: I mean that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you as a [00:56:00] dad and as a former player about, you know, the privatization of club sports and year round and the rise of professional skills instruction and burnout and overuse injuries and, youth sports as a business. And I mean, there's a lot kind of baked in there.
And that's some of the topics I've been. Pressure testing on the show, both as a dad, because I'm trying to figure out like how to be the best dad for my kids, but also as an entrepreneur who's thinking about building a platform in the space. Like, I don't wanna be part of the problem, right? Like, if I'm gonna do something here, like I actually want to do something that I'm proud of that feels like it is setting up kids and families for long term success versus just another hand in the wallet that's like, uh, feeding on insecurities and fomo and competing with the Joneses and then, and everything else, right?
So I don't necessarily have the answer, especially because I talked to a sports psychologist recently as an example who said that if you talk to the dads about whether their kid, the, the kid's motivation for doing X, Y, and Z and then you talk to the kid when the dad's not in the room, you get very different answers, right?
You know, if you look at social media, right? You [00:57:00] see little Timmy has an Instagram account from, uh, from the age of six posting all the drills they're doing at home every night, right? Is that little, little Timmy, right? Or is that the dad? How does Limi little Timmy feel about this?
Is it because little Timmy wants to play in the NHL or is it because little Timmy, you know, wants access to his phone and knows he's gonna
If he doesn't do his drills? Right. So yeah I don't, I don't necessarily have answers. Um, I think they're well, and to further complicate things, if I'm sitting in the shrink chair for a minute I grew up in a very loving house.
My parents tried to give us every opportunity, but they weren't athletes and they also were kind of hippies and yuppie clothes. Right. There wasn't a lot of pushing, there wasn't a lot of direction, there wasn't a lot of structure. There wasn't a lot of like, like driving us to reach our fullest form.
And so as a result, I had a great childhood, right. But I definitely didn't reach my fullest form. Right. Um, yeah. And so, you know, I'm trying to do it. Differently with my kids in that regard. I think the loving part and the, and the happy part is very [00:58:00] important. Right? But like, I kinda feel like I need to be whipped a little more.
Right? Um, and so, you know, I'm trying to, but then it's like, what's a, what's a healthy version and what's an un unhealthy version? And, and where's the line? And how do you know which side of it you're on? Like, ah you know,
Chris Meade: right.
Jason Jacobs: FF if I know.
Matt Wheeler: But I think the thing that, that, uh, I, I come back, I, I, I'm gonna try to use to ground myself as my kids get into it, is that yeah. One, the, if you talk to the parents, talk to the kids, separated, you're gonna get different answers as to like, why are you doing this? And so, so that's one piece.
But then when you get to college, and again, we played at Wesleyan, which is a Division III school. We were a competitive Division II school in Division ii. And even at our level, but if it's even more true if you, if talking at these D one schools that all the parents think their kids are gonna go to or think that they, the kids have to go to.
When you get to that college level, and again, I'm talking all the way through D three, the kids that are going to play on the team, they're gonna play [00:59:00] and they're gonna thrive and are gonna have leadership positions of the team. They, the motivation in college has to come from within that athlete because mom and dad are now gone and, and now you're, you know, kind of property of the, of the coach and that staff.
And so, I think the thing that is, is I don't know, kind of grounding is that like. If the kid has to, if they're real, if, again, if playing in college is the goal and playing meaning like you're gonna play and you're contribute, whatever, like all those kids that actually play on those teams, like are really into it.
Like they're doing the workouts, they're, they're, they don't need the accountability necessarily. Like they're, they're into it. And so I, I think I guess what I hear from talking to friends who have older kids is like, they can kind of go to an event and watch these kids even in high school and be like, the, those eight kids like don't care about lacrosse anymore.
Like they are, they are tapped. Like they're, and they could be, some of 'em could be talented too, but like that talent, when you get to, to, to that next level, whatever that next level is gonna be like, the kids are gonna, you're gonna get beaten out and it's gonna be over. So, I dunno, I feel like there's, like, [01:00:00] there's some aspect of all of this is like, how do you know, how do you let the kids run wild and like find that love?
And it also that, that, that flame might extinguish when they're in 10th grade and that's fine.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. And the, um, I mean, Chris co coming back to your question, I, I feel like. The older and the more serious the kid is, the easier that answer. It's like, oh, it's gotta come from the kid. Like, you know, this isn't a platform for people that don't want it. It's a platform for people that want it. I think where it gets murky is as you start going down to the younger kids, right?
Because then it's like, what role should the parent play? What role does the parent play? Like, how much do you involve the parent in the process? Right? Like, you know it 'cause, 'cause most of, maybe not all the kids, but most of the little guys that are doing the regular stuff that that structure's being put upon them.
And, and is that a good thing or a bad thing? And how do you know? Right. I mean, if you, if it's, if's, like if you're trying to drag, drag your dog out for a walk and the dog is digging his heels in, it won't want to go. Like, like maybe you shouldn't call your kid, use the analogy with your kid.
But if the kid is [01:01:00] digging their heels in and they don't want to go, like that's a tell. Right? But if the kid is wagging their tail when you're doing all this stuff right, well then it's probably okay. But like, if you weren't providing it, would the kid be asking for it? Maybe in certain exceptional cases, yes, but in, in, in, in my opinion, a high percentage of those kids that are doing all that stuff wouldn't be asking for it, even if they enjoy it while they're doing it.
Right. And so then like, how much structure should you be providing? Like, you know, how much focus should you have on a single sport? And like, that's gonna come down to family, to family, kid to kid, and I don't have answers, but for the kids that it does make sense for, which is some percentage of the kids, right?
There should be more structure and resources for those kids, right? Um, so it's like, I know there's something there and it can do good. I think the, the devil's in the details and the nuances around like the, you know, the gray areas. There's, there's black and there's white, but it's like the gray area is, um, I think where it gets just a little trickier to manage.
Chris Meade: Yeah, it, and, and again, like I, I go back to my, like personal, you know, [01:02:00] sports journey and like very much by like eighth grade I. I like loved lacrosse and I might not have been that good of an athlete, but I loved lacrosse and ended up, you know, playing division three lacrosse and then like, we're kind of like, we're not quite there with my 8-year-old.
'cause I feel like this is the spread, let's say in between like eight and 13. We're like, some of those things really develop and, know, not to go into like a, a parenting philosophy rant, which I'm like not qualified to do at all, but really all you're trying to do.
Jason Jacobs: rants Chris. But anyways, go on.
Chris Meade: like, really like all you're trying to do is like help develop like good kids that love something and for me very much it's just like, yeah, we need a new basketball hoop because I need to play basketball with my kids in the driveway.
So they like enjoy, I. Being around their dad. And then like, I'm also like, oh, so they also understand offensive and [01:03:00] defensive concepts of like help defense positioning, like all this stuff. And that's like me being a little crazy, but like that's how I'm like thinking about things. But we're like not quite there of like, oh hey Jack, who's my 8-year-old?
Like, let's go to the like batting cages so we can like work on your swing. And I think it's like tough, like where you kind of like wade into that water over the next couple of years.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, I wanna say something about that. So, to further complicate things, right, most of the kids love playing the games anytime it's competitive. Anytime they're with their buddies, immediately the fun factor doubles or triples or quin topples or whatever, right? But then it's the individual skills at home that's like flossing your teeth or going to the dentist or, like, uh, or something worse than that, right?
Like a few sickos like that, right? But like, most of 'em don't like it, right? And, and then the narrative, right, is like, oh, if they don't like it, they must not love the game, right? And it's like. Well, that's [01:04:00] not fair. It's like, what if you package it in a way that it wasn't like flossing your teeth?
What if you could introduce those competitive elements of the social elements from home remotely and digitally, the way that Peloton has for sitting on your boring exercise bike. Right. So if you're making it fun, right? Isn't that a good thing? And, and then it's like, no, they should be out doing free play.
It's like, okay, well they'll go out in the neighborhood and do free play except there is no neighborhood anymore and there is no free play because everyone's so effing over schedules. Right. Um, and it's like, look, I would less schedule my kid if everyone else wasn't overscheduled, but there's no one around, so I have to over schedule them because otherwise they're gonna torture me.
Right? And then it's like, well, they're not gonna learn how to be self-directed. It's like, okay, well let me try to have 'em learn how to be self-directed. I'll give 'em a day off. And then it's like on the day off, you get so tortured that it's like, okay, they're never gonna have another day off again. And then the cycle perpetuates, right?
So there's a little ghost of Christmas future, right? In terms of like. You know, and granted my oldest is only 13, so I'm kind of on the front end of dealing with a lot of crap. Right. But but I'm a little further along and, um, and that's what I've observed so far. [01:05:00] Yeah.
Matt Wheeler: I'm excited to watch this, uh, this app, this, this, uh, this product. We don't know. We don't know what format's gonna be. I'm not even gonna put in a box, but watch it come together because I, I saw your post about. You know, tricking your kid into going and, and, and shooting pucks and hitting pipes or what, whatever the game you were playing into, like that 100% is spot on.
If you say, Hey, let's go do some boring drill. No, I don't wanna do that. Or let's go, I'll, I'll, I'll bet you an ice cream cone that I can hit more pipes than you. And then it's like, oh, it's on. And like, yeah. Before, you know, it's two hours later and you know, you, you, you went from not wanting to go shoot pucks at all to shooting pucks for two hours.
Jason Jacobs: yeah. And that's the tricky part. It's like, isn't that a good thing? And it's like, why are you trying to get him to do it at all? Right. Um, and, and then it, it's just. You know, then it just gets back to like individual parenting philosophies and there's no right answer and depends on the kid and read your kid and it's it, it's kind of like, like it's the same, like, don't tell me how to parent.
It's like, don't tell me how to sports parent, you know? Yeah. Like everyone's just figuring it out for themselves. So [01:06:00] whatever.
Matt Wheeler: Will say is what, what kept Chris and I going all these years, 17 years was, you know, it, it was so cool to see. Obviously as our scale grew, like the, early on it was like, you know, the the single, the, the kid we knew, the family we knew 'cause we only had a hundred members. And as you grew, you know, the, the stories would get better.
But, you know, it, it is you know, it is awesome to see kids take sport and, and, you know, go from a, you know, uh, a family in, in, in some random part of the country to the Stanford to play softball. And like that those stories are happening every day on the platform. And so I think, you know, being, you know, being a part of a mission driven company was, was awesome because yes, you're worried about retention and all these like, metrics that go on some spreadsheet, but at the end of the day, these kids that really wanted it, like we talked about wanting it right, and being addicted to the sport, like these kids were out there working their tails off and the, you know, the outcome was.
You know, going, you know, going to college, for the first person in your family, you know, going and playing in national championship games. And, um, you know, [01:07:00] it's important to always see that there, there are really positive outcomes from this outside of the weirdness happening in each of our towns, from the ages of like 13 to 16 or 17 or whatever.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, I think it's about perspective too. Like, I think the whole like ROI, because this is gonna be, the ticket out to pay for school and stuff. Like, gosh, it's at least in the hockey world, that, that seems like you're better off just taking, you know, going and buying a thousand scratch tickets or something if, uh, if that's your motivation, right?
Because like the odds are, you know, the house always wins, um, in. In, in, in, in those cases. And if there's like one outlier that everyone points to that gives 'em hope, like that doesn't change the odds, right? But um, but like in our house it's like, okay, it's about structure. It's about learning discipline.
It's about good habits. It's about learning how to achieve mastery and something it's about, it's about combining passion with work ethic, right? And, um, and it's about those lessons that can then carry over to so many other aspects of life. Like, look, if my kids end up playing their games at a high level, that's great, [01:08:00] but like, we're not about to start, we making decisions as a family that are going to optimize for the short term at the expense of the long term.
And I would say, although athletics is a long career, the entire athletic career in my mind is the short term.
Matt Wheeler: Hundred percent.
Jason Jacobs: Well, great. This was awesome. What, what didn't I ask you guys? That you wish I did or, or what parting words might you have for listeners that we didn't already cover?
Chris Meade: We we're running an hour and 10 minutes, so I feel like we, we covered a lot. But you know, I think our journey like has been driven by, like Matt was saying, it's like going and playing, going to college is a life changing event. Playing team sports creates better. Like we believe it creates better people that are going to be like better humans in the general world.
And like we were able to build a [01:09:00] company around those things and that's like core to who we are as people. So like that is a very special thing. And I would say as your. Figuring out your path. You know, like mastery, like motivation, like figuring out what those like core values that you wanna instill on this like group of potential users.
That is the most motivating thing. That is like the most powerful thing that you're gonna do with your product. And I think that's why we're excited about it and to see where it goes.
Jason Jacobs: Matt.
Matt Wheeler: No, I don't think, I mean, I, I, I think the, uh, you know, one of the, the things that, uh, you know, Kris and I hang our hat on is that we, uh, you know, we're, we, we remain friends throughout this whole, uh, journey and, you know, a lot of co-founders start businesses and, and it can go sideways. I mean, we know families, brothers start businesses and it goes sideways.
And so, um, I think we were, uh, it's, it's, uh, you know, when, if you're, if you're, if you're [01:10:00] adding a co-founder, I think there's, uh. There, there's, you should try to spend a good amount of time with that co-founder before you, you start a business. And fortunately, we had a lot of reps in college running our fraternity, running the lacrosse team, you know, running the captain's practices.
So, but, uh, but I mean, I think the, the part of our story
Jason Jacobs: we already talked offline, but I, I loved your fraternity.
Matt Wheeler: of our story. Yeah. Part of our story is, uh, is, um, you know, running a business with your, with your, uh, best friend for all these years and, uh, and coming out the other side in one piece.
Jason Jacobs: Well, great point to end on, guys. Awesome story. I'm sure there's a lot of, uh, sub stories, you know, micro stories that, that didn't come out here. But really inspiring journey. Congrats on the great outcome in the beginning of a new chapter and really excited to keep the dialogue going.
And also just thanks, you know, Matt, for the help and cheerleading that you've done along the way. And then Chris big expectations from you in terms of the, um, help and cheerleading that you'll do going forward since you know now that we've, uh, broken the ice and, and Matt
Chris Meade: a hundred percent.[01:11:00]
Jason Jacobs: thanks guys.
Chris Meade: Cool. Thank you.