← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Fan Favorite: ScoutDay’s Unique Approach to Success | StartUp Theory
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- [00:00]
Jake Stauch
Jake.
- [00:00]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm Jake Stauch, co founder and CEO of Cervel. We built Servl to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications. My laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Cerval, it becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run it. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four week pilot. Go to cervel.com tickets that's S-E-R-V-A L.com tickets. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. Excellent. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode. Remember that we are in the beta phase here, but this is Startup Theory. I am joined today by Scout Day and Alex Tuccio over there, he's going to walk us through what we're doing. What is up, Alex? I'm good, man. You ready for this? Nice, man. Well, you guys are blowing up on Instagram. Congratulations on that. Some pretty rapid growth. You guys have had some big posts. I was digging through your feed and yeah, man, there's some really cool stuff going on over there. So obviously nobody at home knows or I'll say very few people probably know about your company. So why don't you give us a quick synopsis about what you guys are up to?
- [02:37]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah, absolutely. So what we're working on at Scout Day, we're basically building an online Recruiting platform. Right now we're just focused on baseball. That's my background, played four years of D1 baseball. And what we're really looking to do is just use technology to improve athletics overall, starting with the recruiting process and starting with baseball. And so what our platform does is we expose high school players to access MLB scouts. So basically, high school players submit their highlight tapes or other video footage. We have a team of scouts that watch the footage, give the players some feedback, score the players, and then we have a certain criteria that the scouts set that basically verify if a player is a verifiable college prospect or not. And so what we're looking to do with our evaluation process is really two things, is one, give as much value to the player as possible in terms of the access and the feedback from the scout. And two, is really create a network and a platform that coaches can trust to really level the playing field for college recruiting and specifically baseball.
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Tom Bilyeu
Okay. All right, cool, man. So I've got a few questions. So the first one is you're using MLB scouts. Is there a reason you're not using college scouts?
- [03:54]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah. So MLB scouts, they're at the pinnacle of talent evaluation. You know, that's what they're paid to do for a living. They're, they watch baseball all year round. They're in charge of selecting the players that we watch on tv. So there's no one more qualified to basically say, you know, look, this player is going to be a great player, an average player, or not so great player. That's really why.
- [04:15]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, so, but walk me through what the. In fact, let me really fast explain to the audience. So obviously I'm getting these companies, I don't know anything about baseball, but I understand how to work backwards on a business and figure out, you know, obviously where the value is, what the mission is, and then how we reverse engineer that, that and get to the most streamlined process. So, Alex, one of the things when I was going through what you guys submitted to us was your value proposition takes like a 90 degree turn in the middle of explaining what your business is. And I, I have four, what I would say are viable business opportunities. Given the setup of what you're doing. I don't know which one you want to pursue. I think they're all viable. So we'll go through those one by one. But first I want to understand, like every company needs a mission. And the reason you need a mission is it becomes the filter. What? Say yes to what? Say no to how to structure your business. So give me In a, in a tight sentence, not with a lot of commas and, you know, run ons. But what's the mission of Scout Day?
- [05:20]
Alex Tuccio
To give as many players the opportunity to play at the college level and get an education.
- [05:24]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, perfect. So for those watching at home, I think you'll see how some of the things that they submitted to us, they don't align with that. And so I want to go through why you've chosen that, whether you think that's the biggest business opportunity, given some of the things you've already put on your own map, including AI and big data and some of the deep learning techniques that I think you guys are going to get into later. Because if your goal really. And in the presentation that you gave to us, it really seemed like the thing that was driving you was education. And you just said it there in your mission statement. Part of this is to get an education. And I just want to know, like, if I can call bullshit on that. And so is that really the driver or is the driver to help people play baseball?
- [06:19]
Alex Tuccio
I mean, baseball is a huge driver of driving student athletes to college. There are many athletes who wouldn't be able to get accepted to college without baseball. So I'm just a huge advocate that sports is a huge driver to success in the classroom and in life. There's so many parallels. So that, that really is at the core of our mission. Baseball is a huge part of it. Neither, it's not a 50, 50 split, it's not a 90, 10 split. They're just both. It's just a happy marriage between using athletics and not letting athletics use you. So that's really where the mission comes into play. It's not literally all focused on the baseball piece, are all focused on the education piece. It's. It's connected. You can't really have one without the other. And for many players, that's really the case. You know, using baseball to get to the pro level or to get to the college level to get that degree. Sports are super important. It's not just what happens on the field. It's, you know, what you really learn while you're on the field, but also off the field as well.
- [07:16]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so if, if that is a major driver for you, help me understand then. So if my goal is to get these, not necessarily to get them into the mlb, but the goal is to get them into a college so that they can get educated, why don't you work closely with colleges instead of working closely with the mlb? Because if I understand your mission correctly, then it doesn't matter if they ever get to the mlb, but it matters very, very much if they get into college. Right.
- [07:45]
Alex Tuccio
So you mentioned kind of the direction that we're looking to go using AI and different machine learning algorithms. That's really where you'll see the education piece come to fruition. It's all about matching players with the right schools. And the right schools isn't necessarily just based on their athletic profile. So I think it's more a much bigger piece of our much bigger mission. Being in beta right now, it's definitely difficult to portray all different aspects of our vision right now. It is very baseball focused, but on a much bigger scale in terms of a big business opportunity. That's more the direction that we're looking to go is using sports, using the technology to make sure that players are having the most success at the schools that they go to and, you know, when our technology is ready, expanding into the lower market of the youth market and also into the professional market as well.
- [08:37]
Tom Bilyeu
Would you consider it a failure if a scout was watching one of the players that you had in your app? They fell in love, they thought they were amazing, they took them directly onto the Yankees. They play for the Yankees for 18 years, they retire rich, they're in the hall of Fame, but they never go to college. Would that be a failure?
- [09:00]
Alex Tuccio
That's not really up to me. That's really up to the athlete and the player. And if that player's happy with that career, I think that's all that really matters. I don't necessarily think sports or education really drive happiness. So that's the path that the player chose to stick to.
- [09:17]
Tom Bilyeu
So. Right. So I'm obviously trying to trap you. And, and the, the reason that I want to know if that's a failure and I, I am going to force you to take a stand on that, is because it's going to determine what you do from a business perspective. So I don't think that one is better than the other. Clearly you don't think that one is better than the other, but one is going to inform your business model and one is not. And so if the me that sounds like a resounding success and that to me, like, just from my perspective, and you know, honestly my perspective in, in this is totally irrelevant. But to give you, like, if, if this were my business to run, my mission would be, let's say, just for argument's sake, I don't care about college. Right. Because I don't think it's a predictor of success. And I'M ultimately interested in turning that human into the most elite human being that they can be, as I define it, which is that they acquire as many skills that have utility and they put that utility to the test and service of something larger than themselves. So understanding how being able to use their athletic prowess to play at an elite level, to garner the attention of the world, to have that celebrity through their accomplishments, and knowing that usually an athletic window is very, very small, I would say, okay, my goal is to get them into the mlb. Now, if part of what they need to get into the MLB is to go through the college program, then I would love to place them into college. And I would, you know, say, okay, there's two paths before me. There's the traditional stair step approach where they're going to go to college, they're going to play hopefully for a D1 team, and then they're going to get drafted. But there's also playing for a smaller college and then going to the farm leagues and then, you know, getting bumped up. And maybe that's a trajectory that we follow people on as well. And so I would know how to build my, my business model out because I'm trying to turn them into a pro athlete, right? And. But there's clarity in that, right? So there's clarity in saying, I don't care about education rather than bifurcating it and saying, well, I care about this and I care about that and it's really up to them about what they want. It's like, I'm gonna feel that in your business model, I'm gonna feel because, like, think about me as an MLB person. You're gonna come. And I know that you already have relationships with people. With the American Express Platinum card, I can unlock experiences like no other. Since I'm always booking my next trip. I love that I can earn points on travel. Plus I get a resi benefit. So, you know, I'm hitting the rest everyone's talking about. And you can find out your welcome offer after you apply, which could be as high as 175,000 points. For experiences like no other, there's nothing like platinum. Learn more@americanexpress.com Explore Platinum Terms apply
- [11:57]
Jake Stauch
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [12:27]
Tom Bilyeu
But you're going to come to me and you're going to say, hey, do MLB Scout, I want you to put a lot of time and attention and energy on this. But, but here's why. And it's going to become the greatest resource to MLB recruiters ever. And we're going to help you get just an unbelievable crop of talent into Major League Baseball. Help us make that happen. And, you know, so here the, the stair step approach. But I'm going to guess the MLB recruiter also doesn't really care. I mean, look, if they're testifying before Congress, of course they're going to say that they care about education, but at the end of the day, do they really? Right. Like, didn't Ken Griffey Jr. Who was huge when I was a kid, didn't he go right into the major leagues? I think so. Sure. So if you had to pick and for the sake of this show, you have to pick education or professional?
- [13:17]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah, I mean, I think professional. Like I said, me personally, you know, you just voiced obviously your personal mission and your thoughts. You know, me personally, like I said, I'm a huge advocate for sports. I think sports is bigger than just a bat and a ball in a football. There's just so much to be learned where, you know, you're not necessarily going to learn those skills in a classroom from a textbook. And, you know, everyone's different. This is just my opinion. And I'm just, I just believe from my own experience that, you know, I know what sports can teach you about being a person and being a good part of society. And so I think that's, that's honestly bigger than just getting a diploma or getting several diplomas, like some people do these days. And if I have to pick, that's. That's what I would pick.
- [14:05]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so I'm a big fan of binaries. So we're going to say that educate, we don't care about education. So officially, Scout day is anti education. Is that correct? I'm obviously kidding. But just, just to like, be binary the model that you want to pursue for, we'll just say for the sake of today, for clarity is going to be to get into the MLBs. Okay, perfect. And the reason that I belabor that point, dear people watching at home, is the clarity of your mission is, is like step number one. Like, you just have got to know exactly what you're trying to make. Come True, because the moment that you have any fuzziness on that, the moment that you don't know exactly what you're trying to make come true, you're not going to know what systems to build into place. And the whole idea behind a mission is not only that it be something that's in you, that you're passionate about, that's going to get you up and get you going when things get hard, which they inevitably will, but it's knowing what to say yes to and what to say no to. So the thing that kills business isn't usually a lack of opportunity. It's oftentimes too much opportunity and people not knowing what to prioritize and what to say yes to. So lesson number one, because, look, obviously, Alex, the vast majority of people at home, the businesses that they're going to run, have nothing to do with baseball, but there are core principles that are going to apply to everything. I would say that is one of them, like, really, really knowing what your mission is. So, all right, our mission is to get people into the mlb. Now more things in your pitch actually make sense. The one thing to me that was sort of like I, you know, I didn't understand it because it didn't line up with everything, especially not the AI, was the education component. Because, you know, if you really follow this to its natural extreme, if you guys really, 10 years from now, whatever, you have this AI unit running, it's able to diagnose and assess people. People are going using it younger and younger, right? And you're going to have the parents that really want to see their kid turn into something, and they're using it when their kid's like six, right? And I'm not saying that's bad at all. Look at Tiger Woods. Look at the. There were chess champions where literally the, the, the guy, he was a. I can't remember if he was into chess. But anyway, he says to his wife, we're going to have two kids and I'm going to turn them both into chess grandmasters. They ended up being women. And he did. He turned them both into chess grand masters because he just started teaching them from such a. An obscenely young age. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but just will be that will be the natural outcome of this tool, Right? If you make it so understanding that that's where people want to take it, then, you know, we've got. We've got something going. So I'm being told to look at the cameras more, so you'll forgive me, Alex, I Promise. I'm not ignoring you, but okay, so if we're going to try to get people into the mlb, I. I broke it down. I think that there are four potential business opportunities for you. So number one. Hi. Number one is a social platform that connects high school players to MLB scouts. Number two would be a curated cadre of talented players that scouts can turn to to pick from. So not necessarily worried about any social aspect. Number three is the artificial intelligence player that identifies top players and helps them improve their game. So the one we were just talking about where, you know, people are filming their six year old and uploading it into your machinery. And then number four, an artificial intelligence play that identifies. Identifies top players and farms the leads to MLB scouts, so not trying to usurp them. So the difference between three and four is in number three, the MLB scouts are going to hate you and in number four, the MLB scouts are going to work with you. Does. Have you guys thought through those four? Do you know which one of those is going to be your path to revenue?
- [17:59]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah, it's definitely going to be the AI component. I just believe that if you don't have an AI strategy, you know, it's going to be pretty tough in, you know, 2018, 2019. That's not the only reason why I want to use AI. I think that it's totally ripe for the recruiting industry and athletics in general. In terms of those options, I think number four is probably the most feasible, mainly because while AI is great, no matter how great our machine is, there's going to be things that a machine can't measure, like heart and character and things like that that won't be able to ever really be measured. If it does, let's uncover this video and say how wrong I was. But I think the marriage between MLB scouts and technology baseball seen it with Sabremetrics. It's worked out not to the extent that maybe a lot of people thought it could. So I think keeping the humanistic involvement is going to be super important to our success.
- [18:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay. And so if we're doing that, and just to be clear for everybody watching at home and our Facebook audience has disappeared, the. The AI component that he's talking about would help identify top players and then would feed them into the MLB scouts. So basically you guys are a resource specifically for MLB scouts. Yeah. Now what becomes your path to revenue?
- [19:25]
Alex Tuccio
I mean, we're mainly looking at the subscription model.
- [19:27]
Tom Bilyeu
With a platform like ours and who's paying the subscription?
- [19:31]
Alex Tuccio
It would be the player. Especially if we get our AI to the point that we're looking to get it, it really becomes an all inclusive player development platform where you can basically train yourself, get deep analytics into where you are, where you could be.
- [19:47]
Tom Bilyeu
And I would upload video to your site. I would upload video to your site and then your AI would analyze my movements and that kind of thing. Okay. And then it would give me feedback on my performance.
- [20:04]
Alex Tuccio
Right. But with the, with the data that, you know, we can pull together, it would be more predictive in nature. So we could look at historical data of, you know, let's say players who are in the MLB right now and be able to predict out, you know, potential outcomes based on historical data.
- [20:22]
Tom Bilyeu
Because you've loaded all that footage into the machine. You've loaded that footage into the machine. Sure. Okay. And walk me through what's the, what year do you think that the AI component takes over? Because it's going to be very different business models now with MLB scouts versus when it's AI?
- [20:44]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah, I think how we implement it is really going to be everything because it's consumer facing. So the UX UI and things like that are still, I mean, UX UI is going to be most important, more important than the AI because if we build a product that's uglier, doesn't work right. Or consumers hate, you know, no one's going to use it anyways, no matter how good the algorithms are. So in terms of what year, I mean, it's just all dependent on how quickly we can gather the data and figure out the right ways to manipulate it.
- [21:13]
Tom Bilyeu
So one of the things that you guys are going to want to really be thinking about is where the curve of technology is going versus the business that you're building. That's really, really important. And when the people who made Siri before it got purchased by Apple, they were asking themselves a question, how long will it take us to develop our platform? They thought it would take about two to three years. And then they said, okay, I don't care where the technology is today, I want to know where the technology is going to be two to three years from now. And let's build our application for that. So we're not going to build application for what would work on a phone of, you know, that year. We're going to build an application that will work using Moore's law, which predicts the rate at which technology will come down in cost and size. So we're going to predict it for what we believe is going to be, or we're going to build it for what we predict is going to be the reality of technology in two to three years, which with tech it's relatively predictable. So I would really encourage you guys to map that out, to be talking to experts about where they think this is going to be so that, you know, you know, where is machine learning going to be, where are neural networks, network's going to be, where is the technology to actually trace the movements and analyze that going to be, you know, however long you think that it's going to take you to be ready for it. So if that's two years, if that's five years, so that you have the, the technology being built to hit that part of the wave. And then also because I think if you do that, if your real bet is AI man, my sort of layman's guess about where you probably going to need about five years. That means you've got a five year gap to bridge with your business model. And so what I want to understand is how you guys plan to use the mechanical turk, which we're back on Facebook. Excellent. Welcome back, Facebook. It's good to see you. Just to bring you guys up to speed, first of all, this is startup theory. We're still in beta and we are here today with Alex Tuccio of Scout, which is an application that is trying to help young athletes. I, I, right now they're starting in baseball, but I have a gut feel that eventually they will transcend baseball and be covering all sports. Their goal is to ultimately use AI and deep learning to be able to feed video footage into, into their machine learning and get automated critique of that person's performance to tell them what to do. In the meantime, they're working. They already have some relationships with Major League Baseball scouts and they're trying to become the ultimate resource to those scouts. And even when they go to the AI model, they want to avoid scaring off the MLB scouts by saying, we're going to take your job from you. And they want to become the resource to the MLB scouts to basically do what no human being can do, which is see everybody out there. So anybody that can upload footage, they would be scanning and looking for based on predictive algorithms that are based on having uploaded lots of other historical data. They have not done this yet, but that would be their ultimate plan to then build that resource out so that they can predict who's really the next crop of talent. So every year they're delivering to these MLB scouts. All right, so the question that I have that we're really trying to pin down is how do you cross that chasm? My layman's guess about how long it will take AI and deep learning to get to that point where it can actually assess video footage movements is five years total. Layman's guess. I want everybody to understand that while I consider myself a junior futurist, I think we're a little heavy on the junior. But no matter what it is, right, we've got that chasm. So Alex was about to tell us from just a pure business model revenue generation standpoint, how they plan to use their, what's called a mechanical turk model, which is where they're using the humans, the real live MLB scouts, to build the business model.
- [24:59]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah, so our revenue model is pretty simple. So the player pays for the evaluation after he submits his video, the scout does the evaluation.
- [25:06]
Tom Bilyeu
And do you cut the scout in on that?
- [25:09]
Alex Tuccio
Yes, that's exactly how the economics of that work out.
- [25:11]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay.
- [25:12]
Alex Tuccio
And then the next, the next step of the revenue model. Right now there's no revenue model for the college coaches for their membership just because, you know, their engagement on the platform is super important. We're also only in beta, but once we finish up our mobile product and launch it to the app store, it will be all subscription based for the player and then eventually the coaches for having access to the app and certain features that we're working on. Their top secret.
- [25:41]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, fair enough. And do like, how many MLB scouts are there? Like what, what number do you max out at?
- [25:51]
Alex Tuccio
I mean, it's tough to say because so our target MLB scout is at the associate level, which is basically part time. And the reason being is one, avoiding any potential contract issues for, you know, scouting supervisors and scouts like that. Two, they're more available to do these evaluations. So the exact number, I'm not really sure just because the network is so deep. But there's definitely a good number.
- [26:19]
Tom Bilyeu
Ballpark me. Is it a thousand? Is it 100 million?
- [26:23]
Alex Tuccio
No, it's not 100 million. 30 MLB teams. Let's say each team has scouts.
- [26:30]
Tom Bilyeu
3,000, 3,000. So, okay, so one thing that would be obviously really interesting is for you guys to run the economics. So there's going to be so many. And this is really important for anybody watching along is you want to run a scenario where let's say if I were to capture 80% of the market, what does that look like? And the reason that I think that's important is you're going to quickly see whether that's an interesting number or whether it's a number that's a Like, okay, well, even If I get 80% of the market, which is virtually impossible, I mean, even if you're doing this by yourself and no one else ever enters the space, getting 80% of people to do anything is just. I mean, it's, it's virtually impossible. So if at 80, the numbers aren't interesting, then pick it another business model. And I have no idea. I don't know what your metrics are, but I would run those numbers and say, okay, there's 3,000. What's 80% of that? If we got all of them and they were on a monthly subscription, I guess it's the players who are on a monthly subscription.
- [27:26]
Jake Stauch
But when you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAIN-GRANGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [27:56]
Tom Bilyeu
The reason that the math is important on the scouts is that it'll work backwards. So every scout can handle how many players? Is it 10? Is it 100? Is it thousand? Whatever that number is, like every live associate MLB scout can handle, let's say it's a hundred. And so I've got my 3,000 times 80%, times a hundred. That gives me the raw number that I'm dealing with and then times my monthly fee. Now if that's an interesting number, great. We have a business. If it's not an interesting number, then we either find an alternate revenue model, which, I mean, you could create scouts, you could branch and. And when I say create scouts, I mean that could be a whole nother revenue model where you go through a certification process and you certify associate scouts and so MLB teams are turning to you to certify their scouts because you can give them, you know, so many hours of watching video and having, you know, amalgamated all of the information from the other scouts that you have. So, you know, I mean, whatever, I'm making this stuff up on the spot, but you could do something like that. Alternately, you can go into other sports and, you know, if we sat here and brainstormed for 10 minutes, I'm sure we could come up with three or four other viable revenue models.
- [29:02]
Alex Tuccio
But.
- [29:02]
Tom Bilyeu
So run the math. Run the math. Run the math. That's my take home message. To you guys. All right, so we talked about the value, we talked about AI and connecting. What do the. So how many ballpark me. How many associate people do you have signed up right now? Okay.
- [29:24]
Alex Tuccio
It's all that we need. Being in beta, it's more. More than enough. So.
- [29:28]
Tom Bilyeu
Sure. And what's. I was just gonna say, what's your method for acquiring more? So if we're aiming at 3,000, we have eight. We have a lot of Runway, which is awesome. But what's your plan to attract.
- [29:43]
Alex Tuccio
Yeah, it's mainly word of mouth. I mean, it's. It's pretty similar to what Looper does with drivers. You know, people are driving around, so Uber gave them a platform to make money while they drive, and baseball scouts are scouting, so basically giving them a platform where they can baseball scout. So, you know, once we get to at least some sort of commercialized product in the app store, you know, at that point I'll definitely be more aggressive kind of with the me personally or scout data company, you know, targeting the scouts. But right now it's just word of mouth.
- [30:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, cool. So I have a bunch more questions, but I know that you have 10 questions. How much time do we have? So I know where we're at. All right, well, you guys love it when we do questions. Rapid fire.
- [30:25]
Alex Tuccio
So.
- [30:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. So one. I'm just a huge believer in teamwork. And like anything and like a marriage, the most important part of selection or the most important part of any relationship is selection. So you have to make sure that you're selecting people that think like you think. They need to share your vision for the mission. They need to be as passionate as you are. And then from there, it's really defining terms and values and so making sure that everybody understands, here's our mission, here's how we view the world. Here are our priorities. Like me forcing you to choose between education and, you know, a successful major league career, like, that's critical. And that's going to help you determine who to bring on. So you can imagine if you brought on a founder, a co founder, and you're leaning towards. I really want to help these guys be professional. And I think education is a really powerful path to that, but it's not the only path, and the other person's only interested in that. Now you just have a fundamental disagreement about values, and so that's going to be a nightmare. So defining that stuff on the way in is super critical. When something flares up, there's the easy way and the hard way. And so I'll give you an example of what we did here at at Impact Theory. I told everybody, look, I'm interested in being a part of a team, but I want to be really clear, if we can all agree on something, it's easy. If we disagree, my decision is final and that's it. And so everybody coming in new, like, hey, when we hit logger, like I want to know what people think. And I think that these people are here because they're incredibly smart, they're incredibly driven, that nine times out of ten their idea is better than mine. And that's the joy, right? Like you want people that have great ideas, but at the end of the day I'm the ultimate filter system. And so you've got to believe in my vision, you've got to understand my vision, I've got to over communicate that. And then having laid the the ground rules on the way in makes it a lot easier then if you're in a conflict and you've laid the ground rules, then you go back to the ground rules, right? And you say, well remember we said that this was while education was awesome path, it's not the only path. And when in doubt, we were always going to err on the side of helping these guys get into the major leagues. So that's going to influence our decisions. Obviously I can get more specific if there's like a specific thing. Like here's what we're fighting about. But those are the general ideas.
- [32:50]
Alex Tuccio
Got it? No, Perfect. So my next question, just describe the challenges behind creating a new market. Kind of like what you do with Quest. You know, I feel like the protein and protein bar market wasn't where it was. I feel like you guys kind of pioneered that space. So like how'd you break through those barriers that I can imagine were there?
- [33:09]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, it's interesting. So we didn't pioneer the space and where are what Peter Tio calls a zero to one was pretty interesting because we came into a really crowded market and there were 1600 other protein bar company flavors on the market when we came in. And our whole thing was, yes, this is a well established market. Yes, it's actually declining. It's even though it's overcrowded, it's been going down for several years. But what we've done is make the first bar that tastes like it has sugar but doesn't actually have sugar in it. So you can, I think you may actually be really defining a new industry which is taking technology to scouts. And so it really does become a 0 to 1. Especially when you get into AI and so I think you're going to have slightly different obstacles. So for us, it was convincing people that, like, imagine if your problem was people said, I don't scout. Scouting is total bs, right? That's where we were. And so we had to convince people because people were telling us, I don't eat protein bars. So we had to go convince people. No, no. All the other protein bars are this way. But if you try this one. Hi. I'm supposed to remember to look at you guys. Poor Alex, you greedy bastards. That if you try our protein bar, you'll see that it's very different. And that became the hurdle for us was to really just get people to try it. Right? So. But you're not in that situation. You're in a situation where your value proposition is very different. I think it's very exciting, which is you've got all these players. Remember, he's trying to monetize the players. So you've got all these players, they are so hungry and so desperate to break into the MLBs. Anybody that can provide real value, like if you can actually streamline that process and put them in contact with either coaches that'll get them into college or scouts that are going to get them into the major leagues, like, that's the fantasy land, right? So I really think you have something super powerful because you're tapping into behavior that already exists. And that's what at Quest, we're trying to remind ourselves. And that's what we're doing here at Impact Theory. We want to leverage behavior. We don't want to try to change behaviors. So it scares me a little bit with the scouts because the scouts are going to be resistant to change, but the, the players, I think, are really going to be super excited about what you have to offer. So that really, like you said, it becomes about getting the word out. And the way that you're going to do that is with influencers. And man, you go get like, I mean, let's just get ridiculous for a second. If you go get a rod to say, dude, if this had existed when I was a high school player, I'd be even more successful than I am now, right? You get a few people like that to say something which is way more valuable, by the way, than the scouts because they just don't have name brand recognition. But if you go out and get some influencers, and obviously I'm kidding, I'm not kidding about a rod, that would work phenomenally well. But the likelihood of getting him to do that without Some major cash component is virtually zero. But if you go out to all the influencers that have 5,000 to 50,000, you know, relatively small people, but they'll be super excited to work with you if there's any kind of rev share or anything, or if you can gamify, the system could also be really cool. So that the. I mean, imagine that you have a leaderboard for the number of people. You get a certain number of points for getting somebody into a college. You get even more points if they go into the mlb, right? And that there's a leaderboard. And so it's like, hey, all these associates who've gotten somebody into college or to the majors, like, you can go look at. Oh, man. Like, I really want to get a hold of that scout. And so you can use those guys that are, that all these players are listening to on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter to say, like, hey, there's this new thing I'm a part of. Go check it out. Upload your footage. I think you grow very, very quick.
- [36:36]
Alex Tuccio
Awesome. All right, so my next question is, what's the right balance between selling the execution of today and versus selling division for tomorrow? Like, in a conversation like ours, or you know, for a lot of startups, investors or advisors, like, what's the right balance of like, the small picture versus the big picture?
- [36:56]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, any. Oh, God, any investor in my mind worth their salt is going to want to see what you're doing today. I really want to believe that we live in a world where people remember the dot boom and bust, and they know that just buying stuff, pie in the sky is ridiculous. But nonetheless, people still do it. So know your audience. Know if they've invested heavily in the future before or if they're like a meat and potatoes fundamentals and they want to see, like, where your business is. But I will promise you this. If you're profitable, you can stay in business no matter what anybody thinks. If you're not profitable, then now you're beholden to your ability to tell a grand story about the future. And I just want everybody to understand, no matter how much VC money you get eventually, if you're not profitable, you go out of business. We all clear on that? Like that. Like, that's crazy to me that we've lived in this weird world of technology where companies that never, ever become profitable will stay in business for like 10 years before anything real happens. Which is why, like, people were making fun of the guy at, at Instagram for selling for a billion dollars. First of all, I'm going to punch you in the mouth if you ever make fun of somebody for sell billion dollars. That's crazy. Like, that's so much money. You, whatever you want to do in life, you can do at that point. And then also he had no revenue. He sold something pre revenue for a billion dollars. It's crazy. So anyway, that's like a 1 in 500 million chance. Focus on the fundamentals. Convince people about what you're doing right now. Your job is to get influencers and other MLB scouts and players to believe in what you're doing, and they want to be helped today. Right? So if your mission. You didn't tell me your mission was to get rich. You told me your mission was to help people get into the majors and that the power of athletics is something you really believe in. To see people optimize their life and live like this really powerful existence where somebody helps them really become great at something. And I think that's awesome and I think that's admirable. And so if that's real and that's really what you want to do, then focus on today, man. Focus on actually helping those kids get good at baseball and to feel good about themselves and really manifest their destiny. Yeah, right. There we go. If I had. If I can't drop the mic's held. Otherwise I drop it. Yeah.
- [39:17]
Alex Tuccio
All right, so my next question. So we talked a lot about mission at the beginning of the show, but how do you really involve the mission from a branding perspective? Like you mentioned our Instagram page. What I'm really trying to do right now is brand. Considering we're a technology company in beta, there's not much to sell. So how do you really involve that mission and branding? Is it through content or like.
- [39:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, so it's definitely going to be largely through content. And I think that we're living in an era where somebody like yourself should really be stepping out out front. You should be creating content. So if you guys look at their page, by the way, it's scout day. Is it scout underscore day on Instagram? Don't worry about it. So scout day on Instagram, Check them out. They're really growing rapidly. It's really great. You guys are using contests. Well, I see people really, really respond when you give away swag. But right now your page looks. It doesn't have like, I don't see you. You know what I mean? There's no sense of the people behind it. And since you have a mission, you want to lead with that mission. So the reason, like, At Quest, I used to be invisible. I wanted to be invisible. And they were bugging me from, like, the first, first eight months of being a company. They wanted me to start creating content, stepping up front. I was super uncomfortable with that. And. And I lied about my birthday on Facebook. I think to this day it's. It's a fake birthday because I was so freaked out about social media. Like, I understood it as a business tool, but I did not jive with it as a personal tool. And it really, really took me a long time to embrace it. Now, obviously, I've gone full tilt in the other direction and I literally, I'm, you know, filming stuff all the time, and we're releasing content daily. So I think you step out front. I think you tell people about the mission, I think you preach the mission. I. You really help some kids improve their game. Get some testimonials. Let people see that you actually believe in what you're doing. Let people see that you're really delivering people value to people's lives, and then use those testimonials to get more people. Because if you can give away the product and build a business, you've really got something. And if you're actually helping people's game improve, if the scouts are like, holy hell, like, you're really helping me scale my efforts. And I could never touch this many people when I was having to fly everywhere. And now you're allowing people to submit to me and I can look at these videos and I can really tell what's going, going on. And you streamline that, simplify it. Give me an awesome UI UX for me to interact with the footage. And now my efforts are scaled three, five times, like, whoa, they're loving you. They're doing testimonials to get other associate people into the scout side. The players are like, oh, my God, I'm getting real feedback from an MLB scout. That's crazy. I actually know this guy and he was the one that got so and so, you know, into the Mets or whatever. And now they're like, I can't believe I'm getting feedback from this. And it's real value. Then people are just going to go crazy. We've had people submit rap videos that they did about our company. We get people offering us equity in their company routinely because we're putting out this content. We're telling people how we want to help the world. We're doing it all for free. And so people can see, like, this is real, like, we actually want to do this and we actually Want to help people and it really works. And if it really works, people are going to come. All right, we've probably got about two minutes left at this point. One, one more question. All right, pick a doozy.
- [42:31]
Alex Tuccio
This is probably a good one for the audience. I'm sure a lot of other entrepreneurs feel the same. But so as a founder, how do you overcome moments of self doubt?
- [42:40]
Tom Bilyeu
So to me, this is like it, it is exactly like getting great at baseball, right? If you want to be a good pitcher, you need to be pitching a lot. You want to be good at batting, you need to bat a lot, you want to be good at fielding, you got to take a lot of ground balls. So that is the same about self doubt. Like it is a process of getting control of your mind and getting control of your emotion and understanding what practicing that. Look, mantras are maybe a little silly, but they are incredibly powerful and your mind will wire around the things that you obsess over the most. And so if you think about your doubt and start getting panicky and nervous, then your mind is going to wire for that. If you catch that moment of self doubt and you say a mantra even if you don't believe in it, like if you say I'm the kind of person that will learn whatever I need to learn from this, like let's say that before we started doing this today that you were, you were feeling anxious and if you said, look, I'm the kind of person, I'm going to learn from this no matter what, what you're going to notice your anxiety levels drop. Just from saying that, just from saying like, I'm going to learn from this no matter what, you're going to begin to wire your brain and your identity, which for me is everything. You're going to create that identity about being the learner. You're going to reinforce that in your mind. And then because you said that to yourself right before you came on and we started talking, you now put yourself in the frame of mind of learning. It makes it feel more like practice instead of performance. And you're going to get the gyrations of the mind working around that. You're going to focus on the improvement, you're going to focus on the learning and then that doubt, doubt is reduced because what are you going to doubt? Your ability to learn. Right? So it's just reframing the situation, focusing on practice and, and grinding it out for the win. Basically I was just giving you real ones, so those are mine, right? So I, I switched my self esteem from being Right being smart to identifying the right answer faster than anyone else and always being a learner. And in, in shifting that and thinking about life as practice instead of performance and thinking about learn instead of what I can get out of, you know, any given interaction, it, it just changed everything and, and lowered my anxiety levels, lowered self doubt. Because my thing is there's, there's only something to doubt. Like if you're trying to be great in that moment, if you're trying to look at yourself right now, today is the pinnacle of your evolution instead of like a, a point on a very long timeline that extends long beyond where you are today. So I don't look at myself as, as the end of anything. Right? So I'm in the middle of a process of learning. And so if I suck today, that's okay because I can get great tomorrow. And all of that just really helps me overcome doubt. Cool. Well guys, if you haven't already during this feed, taken a look at scout day, go check them out. It's really interesting. And ask yourself how the fundamentals that we've talked about today, once abstracted from the specifics of their business, how could it apply to yours? I'm always trying to keep this universal, so don't get lost in the specific words. All the things if able to bring value to something that is a business that I don't know anything about, it's because it's a universal principle. Also, Alex, I think the questions that you asked were fantastic because they really were very universal for people and so I'm grateful for that and hopefully that really helped you guys out. And guys go support what they're up to. It is really, really interesting and love supporting the people that have submitted here to Startup Theory. And by the way, if you guys would like to submit to Startup theory, go to impact theory.com and you'll see the submission form there. Where will they see the submission form exactly? Contact page. So, and you can also write us@connectpact theory.com and that deep soothing voice that you heard off is the one that will be replying to you, that is Agent Smith. And then of course the ever amazing Cindy will also be there to support. So submit it in guys and we will do whatever we can to help make your business a success. So thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Startup Theory. We are in beta, so let us know what you think that we could be doing better. We are very, very eager to get your guys's feedback. And everybody thanks to Alex Tuccio for joining us today and for his company. Yeah, buddy, we're really excited for you, man. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. All right, guys, that's it for now. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. This is a weekly show. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.
- [47:00]
Alex Tuccio
Peace out, everybody.
- [47:02]
Tom Bilyeu
Thank you so much for listening. And if this content is delivering value to you, please go to itunes, go to Stitcher rate and review us. That helps us build this community. And that is what we are all about right now. Building this community as big as we can to help as many people as we can deliver as much value as possible. And you guys rating and reviewing really helps with that. Alright, guys, thank you again so much. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.