From ER Rooms to Boardrooms: How Christiana Yebra Is Redefining the Sports Fan Experience Through Curiosity and Connection

Drop in the untold stories of industry leaders, influencers, and insights on future innovation. I'm John Davidson, and this is the DLC Drop Podcast. Welcome to another episode of the DLC Drop Podcast. Today, it's my pleasure to welcome Christiane Yebra, founder of Currency, an expert in marketing and working with all sorts of cool brands. You have so much cool experience from healthcare, technology, and sports. I'm excited to have you on the show today. I'm stoked to be here. What a cool spot to be too. Yeah. We're here in the Market Scale Studios. We are five hundred feet above Dallas. And so every time I come in here to record, I just take a moment just like, can I see the Fort Worth? You know? How sharp is my LASIK? How far out can I how can I see that here? No. Do people ever get nervous about heights coming here? Nobody has yet. K. But that's a good question. I love heights. Mean, I love being way up here. My son would be a little timid. I'm I'm looking forward to having him come here for a podcast episode one day. How about you? How do you with heights? I'm great with heights. I'd rather jump out of a plane than jump into the middle of a lake. Like, I don't like dark water. That's my I don't like water as much as I like I'm Heights don't bother me. But if I was gonna jump into a pool of dark water, Not for me. That's more scary. So when you're parachuting, you're aiming for the land rather than the water. Yeah. That's my goal. Good point. Well, I feel like you do such a great job of building a personal brand. You kinda came on my radar. I think I just Saw you everywhere on LinkedIn. I was like, this person The brand worked. It's working. Yeah. I was like, this person is everywhere. She's producing these events. She's interviewing incredible people on panels. You're working with all these incredible brands And you've got these cool experiences. And one thing that's funny, I was at the Dallas the DCO Magazine Launch. And I think you were there too. The The d five hundred? Yeah. Oh, nice. Okay. And so at the star in Frisco. And so I think I saw you across the room and I was like Oh, for the sports edition. The V five Okay. Yeah. City of Champions, like that edition. Okay. That's the one. You were there? Yeah. Yeah. And we didn't talk? We weren't friends yet. You were like, who is the head? I've seen her. She's kinda familiar. You know what? I was like, what I don't wanna say is we're connected on LinkedIn No. And I think I know you. So but shortly after, our good friend Jim Welch of the Dev House Agency, you helped him produce a fantastic happy hour Yeah. Telling everybody about Spark and Bolt and all the other things they're doing, and we connected there. Yeah. And so really cool to see just I think we have a lot of crossover in our careers. And I'm really excited to share all of your insights about. Where your career started, what you've learned, what you're doing next. So why don't you help our audience understand first, how'd you get started? I have the most random link speaking of LinkedIn, like if you look at my LinkedIn, it is truly an interesting story. And I think it could help people who feel like maybe they're stuck. If you wanna go look, I mean, there's several great people I feel like who had some some awesome transitions but mine literally, if you go and look, right after I graduated from college, I went to work in ER and trauma in Plano at a level one trauma center. I had my eyes like A hundred percent, I was dead set on med school. I had a deep passion for anatomy and physiology. I loved surgery. I grew up in the land of or like the the era of Grey's Anatomy. And as much as people wanna make a make fun of how many people that inspired, it inspired a whole generation of doctors, I firmly believe. It inspired me to start thinking about it. And then in school, I not a lot of things came to me super easy. I think I have always been the type, my sister and my brother are not this way. I have to work really hard for that a. If I'm gonna get an a, it's I have to work really hard. They study the night before I show up, make an a. Not me. But the one thing in college and in high school that came to me easily was the human body and physiology because I think it made sense. I could see it. I could experience it. And and then on top of that, I cared about people and and patients. So in undergrad, I was a hundred percent sure that's what I was gonna do. I had done a lot of work in the blind and deaf community, which is a pretty large population here in DFW. And I I saw a need in talking to my friends who were either just deaf or deaf and blind about the gaps between communication in in the health care space. And so I thought I to myself, well, I wanna be maybe one of the only physicians who can cater to that community that community directly versus having an interpreter versus having someone in the middle. And, you so I took a gap year between when medical school would start and an undergrad, started working ER and trauma, did some interpreting there, was a scribe, which is just really a nice way to say somebody who racks up billing points for ER physicians doing a lot of documentation. And I worked overnight for the most part because they paid so little. They're basically I think I barely covered my gas. I used to drive a big truck at the time. I was driving from Dallas to to Plano just burning gas and making like three dollars an hour it felt. And in order to survive, I had to work during the day. So overnights to get the experience and and be in the trauma center was amazing, but allowed me some time to spend directly with physicians. Especially, there's like there's like a couple hours at night which are nice, where it's like three to five in the morning where things aren't so insane. Yeah. You always have that one knee pain that they've had for ten years will come out at four o'clock. Like, is the day that I'm gonna call an ambulance for my knee pain. But besides that, it's kind of this interesting downtime. And so I got I used that time to get to know physicians, and I met one who was working on a really interesting idea to create a tech product that was a calendar based tool for physicians. And then it pivoted into, actually, let's find a way to deliver care. We're we're sitting here in the emergency room where in one room you've got, I don't know, a motorcycle accident Or a skateboarding accident. Someone has Familiar. You know, broken their their arm and the bone was busted through. So you got that. And then you've got another room where you've got how old is how old is your son? Ten. You got a ten year old who has strep throat feeling terrible. You guys are sitting in the same room as these huge traumas that are coming in and so you're deprioritized. Literally on paper, deprioritized. Right. You're like, this guy's breathing, he's okay, he doesn't have a limb threatening or life threatening injury. You're down to the bottom of the list. And so we would just see these these issues where, you know, non emergency needs filling up the emergency rooms. Like, why is that? Why is this such a problem? And when you looked at it, I mean, Dallas is is a perfect example. There's like a dock in the box on every corner. Or an urgent care or freestanding ER, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's convenient. You can pop into one, sure, but is That getting, you know, you've got one healthy kid, you've one sick kid, everyone's going in the car to the emergency room or urgent And primary care, like don't get me started, it could be weeks before you get get seen. And now this was ten years ago so things have absolutely changed with with telehealth and some of the more accessible tools but this was before I think telemedicine was even legal in the state of Texas. There was arguments around how to even access that or how to make it accessible. So anyway, we ended up launching Texas' first on demand urgent care platform where your ten year old, if he has that the strep throat or an ear infection, you get on the app, you book the time, we're there at that time, not a window. You know when you like get new internet and they're we'll be there between twelve and six o'clock. And you're like, okay. Yes. There goes my entire day. I have no idea if I could leave. Have Great. So booked on the app, very transparent. The pricing was very clear versus an emergency room like, I don't know. I could get paid I mean, I could get charged a thousand dollars for this sore throat. Don't know. And and to package it all up in an app is very much in that really rise of the on demand generation. Uber was in its absolute prime and peak. People were getting more familiar. Amazon had just rolled out like two hour delivery which was crazy at the time. Like how can I get paper towels to my house? Yes. And so anyway, we launched that platform and at the time I I didn't know that the love that I had for patient experience was actually user experience and and customer experience. I didn't know those words. I had never built an app before. I I worked in the ER. I was helping people sew up the arm that was broken from the skateboard. I wasn't I wasn't in the product world or startup world at all. And, it really took off. It was an incredible journey from launch to selling that company in in less than a year. Two children's health who we probably can see from from this window. A legacy healthcare system, hundred year old brand. And that gave the company some lift and credibility but it really taught me where I fit in in business and it was not in a hundred year old healthcare system as a twenty three year old, twenty four year old trying to tell people, hey, we've been successful with this platform. Trust me. Listen to me. I don't have a masters. I don't have a PhD. I barely rent a car. I'm you know pretty young. When on the other side startups and the the founders of that company and and other startups I'd worked with trusted that. They like trusted my instinct. They trusted my Yeah. We're elder millennials now. But at the time like we were the perfect people to test test iOS products I understand. The mobile side of things. So that was a really interesting journey that really taught me where I fit in business. It gave me some opportunities to explore how to take what I learned there and do other things. So very quickly was scooped up by another med tech company. So I left I left MEND, was the health care product. Joined a med tech product in the obesity and weight loss space, which is in a whole new level now with with medications. This was a non surgical tool. And again, took the same experience that I had from startups, which wasn't doing groundbreaking crazy expensive work. It was It was the common sense approach, which is all I really knew. I didn't have a traditional mark. I have a biology and chemistry degree with a minor in medical anthropology. Do I know about marketing? But I but I actually know a lot. The fundamentals were were really simple. And Doing that afforded me some opportunities to travel and figure out like is Dallas home? Should I be here? Is this the best place to start a business or to exist in the ecosystem for startups? And it was. I traveled so much for those few years. And what that did was allowed me to keep a pulse on what my demographic and age group was paying attention to. I launched a a networking organization where thousands of people would attend our events every year. And what that did, I mean, we're literally on stage several times several times talking That point we were like twenty four to twenty nine, thirty. We weren't, know, a lot of people were fresh out of college, moving into Dallas for the first time. And they'd always come to me and ask me two questions. One, how do I network professionally? Like, I'm in real estate. I don't know where to go. A million different companies. Everyone wants to charge me a membership. I just wanna figure things out. I just wanna meet people and make connections out of real estate actually. They were like, we don't wanna just talk to real estate people. We wanna talk to people who are out of that industry. Who couldn't buy a home. Yeah. Who wanna buy a home. Or just other people turn to sell houses. Anything. And so our group was really, really diverse. And so people would say, hi, how do I network? And then the next question was, hey, do you have any great single friends? Dating in Dallas is terrible. And that was like the two biggest questions that would come up. Kind of more, not necessarily on stage. People weren't like, hi, sorry to the Mark Cuban, but curious about dating in Dallas. That wasn't it, but it was more like people trusted me to make connections for them. And my experience in startups was connecting patients to great products. Now it was how do I connect people to products that serve them and and serve needs? And so a celebrity here in Dallas named Sean Lowe, he was on the the show, The Bachelor. He launched a dating app about a year prior and it took off. It got a lot of excitement, but then it was like, oh, hold on a second. We can't just rely on an influencer to be the face of this brand. We need structure. Need we need leadership and we need growth. And so I had a really interesting opportunity to lead a dating app. I really I'm not joking. Weeks prior was scrubbing into surgery to train train physicians on on technology in the health care space. And then two weeks later was on a stage talking about why dating needs to be more transparent and safer for specifically women online. And a huge pivot and a really shocking one I think if anybody who didn't know what I was doing in Dallas at the ground level would have been like, I have no idea what this girl's doing. But to everybody else who'd see me in those environments through the the networking organization, it made total sense to them. Like they understood. But it was incredible journey and without that company, I wouldn't have ended up in sports. And my biggest investor in that platform called me a couple years ago and said, hi. Like I remember a long time ago you mentioned to me your dream is to work in sports. He was like, I want to give you the chance to do that. And I said, well, I don't really have I'm a fan, but I don't know anybody in in sports. I don't know if I could be as helpful. And he was like, doesn't matter. I've got the connections. I just need you to help me bring them to life. And so I didn't. So end of twenty twenty one, made a transition to the sports world from the dating world and thought, yet again, oh no, like what do I know about what do I know about sports? But it really wasn't that different. In health care, my patients wanted a transparent and easy to understand experience. Daters wanted the same things. They wanted to know they weren't getting scammed or catfished or ghosted or whatever, all the crazy things that happen online. And for sports, it was kinda the same thing. It's like, hi. I wanna experience sports in a way that makes sense to me and I want it to be a little bit more personal to me and how do we do And so really not all that different but a very long way to say that the jump from surgeries and and health care to sports didn't take that long. And I've been really lucky for people to trust me along the way to to make those calls. Yeah. I think that's really interesting when, you know, a lot of times you see the beginning point, you see the end point, and it makes zero sense. Yeah. But when you say, oh, then I went this place and I learned this thing. Yeah. And then I went this place, and I had this experience, and it layered on top of this thing. And so that provided this opportunity. It's really interesting. Question for you on identifying opportunities. So I think a lot of people who are listening you know, we have so many more opportunities nowadays because of technology and everything, and we can shift around to different industries and such. But not every shiny object Is a good thing to go after. Can you help our audience understand a little bit, what do you evaluate when you're looking at a new opportunity, whether it's a company in your current industry or you're completely taking a jump to something completely new. I think Vouch, the dating app was a great example of that. And I look back now and I feel like this deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity, at the same time, I have so much more visibility into what I wish I would have asked at the time and what I would have dug into a little bit more closely for the industry. And so when that opportunity came about, it was like, I watched Sean Lowe get married on live TV. This is interesting. It caught my attention because of that. But that's not all that there's a lot of great shiny things and great people leading things but looking at the business. And what I didn't really connect with at the time is Match dot com is up the street. They own OkCupid, Hinge, Tinder, the highest grossing app on the App Store ever, are right up the right up the road. So they're outspending any small dating company by millions a month and they've got the ability to take your idea. They've got the ability to buy your idea. They've got, you know, they've got a lot of opportunity. Pay for more influencers when you have one. Yeah. I've got my I've got my Sean and Catherine Lowe who are fantastic but they also had a family. Like, there didn't need to be promoting a dating app. Like, I needed to be out there finding this opportunity so I think my advice is In in that lesson was I had enough capital because I had really crushed it in my role prior with it was part sales, part marketing, part clinical. I was able to take That jumps. And feel comfortable that, hey, no matter which way this goes, I'm okay. If anything, it's gonna allow me to reach into a new network, challenge myself from a leadership. I've never been the CEO of any any company, even my own. Raising money on my own, taking over someone else's brand. This isn't something I started. So embracing that as again, not necessarily my story but my part of my story. And so I think assessing risk is really key. Financially, can you do it? Is it an industry that you resonate with? I think that was something initially I wasn't sure if I could connect to the challenges that my friends experience on dating platforms because I hadn't been on them in a long time. But then I was like, wait. No. Of course I I can't. I I'm not gonna recommend something to my little sister who ended up marrying someone she met on Tinder years prior. But like, I wanna be able to be able to recommend it to somebody and so does it does this product and and industry resonate with me and can I literally stand on a stage and advocate for this space? And so in that case, was like, wow, this is a really interesting time. What I didn't have the experience for and I couldn't have predicted this was the impact of the pandemic on people's interest in trying something new. So at that time people and we did a lot of studies and surveys on this. It's like, hey there's this new dating app. We're promising a more positive experience. You might not be able to swipe endlessly like you can on Tinder. There are so many people on those platforms because they've been around for a could swipe for hours on Tinder through every option. Sure. But on my platform, maybe twenty five, forty five, fifty people because we were still pretty small. We weren't massive yet. And so during COVID people were like, well, I don't wanna I I have way too much time at home. I have way too much time to swipe. I'm not gonna try something new. And so the timing, I couldn't have predicted that but I I at the time, I didn't feel like maybe I had the right experience to take us out of something that challenging considering the competition was outspending me my millions every single every week, really. Right. And so looking back, I think I I think the opportunity was still so primed for where I was. Cult like my cultural relevance in Dallas and like who I made connections with and my ability to storytell. But from a leadership level, I wish I had gone into that with a little bit more knowledge of the bigger challenges to to get us out of those. And then fundraising during pandemic, I don't think anyone could have trained me on that. Incredibly brutal. People were hesitant to put any we had people who were interested and then literally April were like, woah. We're not putting money in anywhere. And Yeah. So I think that was an interesting opportunity. So assessing like timing financially, can I make this decision? Is this an industry that works for me? And then am I prepared when this doesn't go the way that I want? Of course, the dream was to have that company get acquired but Sure. They were gonna acquire numbers. They weren't gonna acquire just a brand. They weren't gonna acquire just me. Tinder or Bumble or any of those. So it was an interesting one of those where I know the lessons now and the questions I might have asked and maybe even ways I think I would have grown the company differently. But at that time, that was was a perfect fit for me and it led me to sports. So you have to assess the outcome and make the make the most of those experiences even if you're not totally set up for success. I don't think I was set up to be successful in that position for many reasons. The founding team, incredible. Great ideas. We did not have the financial backing we needed to get to where where we could go to be competitive with somebody like Hinge, like Tinder. And without having in person events in the like, Tinder went or Bumble went to every campus. Like, they were all over SMU talking. I couldn't do that during the pandemic. Couldn't even go outside without, you know, having to put on a mask and and be careful about those social interactions. They're very different. But I think there's a lot of things I learned from that and it it helps me it helps me really assess any opportunity that comes my way is what's the technical debt look like? What's the literal debt look like? Who do we owe? Who's mad at us? Who likes us? Like who's gonna advocate for us? I know those questions now. So it was a great lesson and I think at the time of my career it was a good fit for me. But now I think I I have a lot more insights on how I can Maybe make a similar opportunity a better one for me. Yeah. I think even when you don't know all the answers, if you know the questions. Yeah. You can find find the answers. That was yeah. I exactly. Like I don't think I asked I asked a lot of questions and they asked me a lot of questions but I think I didn't ask the right questions at the right time for the stage. Think I looked superficially at like the excitement of like, hey, woah. Like and at at the time, I honestly didn't even wanna be a CEO because I felt like that title was just so aggressive. I was like, can I be anything else? And where do I go from here? Yeah. From What happens now? Mirror arc standpoint. Exactly. Now that you've had the top position. Yeah. Of all time. President of the United States is still out there. You anyone can become the president these days. So I am That was my next that's my next LinkedIn ad. But yeah. No. It was like, where do I go from here? Also, when you're in the top position, who's advising you? Who's your mentor? Who do you go to help? Good point. Or go to for help? And I think at that time, I felt like they've given me this incredible title, this incredible responsibility. I felt like I had to own a lot of things and decisions myself. And then I would learn that actually CEOs are nonstop calling other people to be like, what are your thoughts? I felt like I had to have all the answers. I felt like I really had to know it. I felt insecure about that like, well, they picked me for a reason. There's a reason why why I'm here. But then I've and every company I've worked with after either full time or consulting, they're nonstop on the phone with the board. They're nonstop asking for support and I didn't at the time, I was like, oh no. I gotta get this right. I don't wanna ask for help but that was that was a mistake, Certainly. Yeah. I think especially when we're young and have less experience, we see asking questions as a sign of weakness. And I've I have some friends who represent some celebrities and stuff. You know, one of my friends, I remember him saying, yeah, this guy, he's never afraid to ask questions in a meeting. Yeah. You know, he if he doesn't understand a a certain term or a definition of this this business jargon Yeah. He's just gonna ask. And guess what? Once you ask, then you know. Yeah. And that's a huge benefit. Yeah. I am curious as, you know, you stepped in the CEO role admittedly quite early. Right? And so now in your business currency, you're working in c suite level positions at times, CMO, what have you. If you were to do that again, how would you approach it given the learnings that you have now and the experience and knowing a little bit of what you didn't know back then. To the back to the dating experience? Yeah. Like what would I would you know, I think I would have said, I don't yet have the executive experience for this but really what you guys need right now is the founding team to go raise money but you need someone to tell the story. And that's ultimately with in Venue, which was the company I would go to after. Initially, the first call I got was, would you be interested in a CEO position for Invenu? Which I knew I was smart enough at that time to be like, absolutely not. Your current CEO slash CTO is the story. She's perfect for this. She's smart. She's brilliant. She's built this. I knew you I knew that. Like, Vouch taught me that is I actually don't love Well, I love having leadership and autonomy and experience to or the ability to make decisions, But I really love the storytelling for Vouch. I leaned in on creating unique experiences during the pandemic. How do we launch a virtual dating show? How do I get people talking? And I thrived in that and I really enjoyed that with even limited resources so much more than I enjoyed being the CEO of someone else's business. Like that was Right. I took on a very founder like position because I loved it and I loved what it stood for and the brand was gorgeous and it stood for all the things that I care about. But I think I I think at the time I would have said, how do we actually position maybe some founding team to step up into that position? Let me help grow in a different way and that's through thoughtful storytelling. So that I couldn't it was hard for me to do both. Yeah. Because my brain is very marketing focused. But my heart was saying, who who's gonna lead this company at the time? Really wasn't that person. So I think looking back, I would have said, hey, how do we how do we identify a leader? Like, a true formality of a leader or CEO, but who 's responsible for really growing this business? Let that be me, but from the marketing side. Cause that's really what we needed. We needed someone who could get those numbers up, then go raise capital, take care of the technical debt, you know, lead the product design and getting it into a better shape. And it was really hard for me to to to do it Founding team was was was fantastic, but they had other things too. So it was how focused can we be? How important is this to you that it's successful? To me, it was everything. Because everyone else had other things. Know, Sean had his family. That's a good think it was I think it was still important. Everyone had skin in the game. Everyone had contributed financially. But I think I understood again, know, like the mend to children's aspect. I'm not built to be a marketing manager at a hundred year old healthcare system. One Yeah. They're not gonna trust me. Two, I don't I look different than that team. I have different ideas. And on top of that, I was marketing to the millennials, not to the parents of children. Right. So I was pushing that story. So for Vouch, it made a lot sense because I wanted to talk to the millennials. I wanted to talk to my demographic. But yeah, it it taught me where I wanted to fit in in business, and I I now in a fractional CMO role. Could I put on a CEO hat again? I think so. But is it some a place where I thrive and where I can really flex my skills and where I'm actually this is the one thing I'll tell people is like when you get an opportunity to pick your next, whether it's in entrepreneurship and you own your own things, you can make those decisions or or making decision to join a business. Like find something that not only your You're good at it, certainly. Like, do you have the skill set? But do you really enjoy doing it? Yeah. I'd for a long time would be like, I could run your Google Ad campaigns and I wanted to die every second of making managing someone's AdWords campaigns. Can I do it? Sure. I'm way better off Yeah. Providing the strategy and the decisions to make that successful versus managing it myself and I learned that the hard way after doing so many small projects like that. Was like, I can do this and I'm good at, I'm not having fun. And it's not just about having fun but I'm not looking forward to this. And I know that because I'm not looking forward to this, I'm not doing my best job. That's right. So I've loved that in the fractional opportunities that I've had is I get to decide how I wanna fit in and and then do that strategy and help them be mega successful for that versus being caught in the weeds of The tiny details of an AdWords campaign. Hundred percent. Well and with the CEO role, there's, you know, different phases of different companies require a different type of CEO. Oh, yeah. And so if you're you know, and there there are these guys and girls out there who are great at raising money or Yeah. Great at scaling the company or preparing it for acquisition or merger or all of these things. And so it's it's really cool that you stepped into that fearlessly, learned a lot as you did it. Yeah. And then also, I can Sure. As well as just having jobs where once I found out what the day to day is, Like, oh, no. No. No. I like the idea of this. Yeah. The day to day of this is not what I wanted at all. Yeah. I wanna do this thing. I do think it's pretty clear you have a great marketing mind and real natural marketing mind. Even when you're at the the ER place, it's just you understand consumer behavior and Yeah. You know, what people are looking for. It seems to I'm curious your advice to college students and younger people about what to go after. Because I talked to a lot of college students, and I'm always telling them, observe your own consumer behavior. Because as millennials and younger, you are a group of people that everybody wants to engage, but nobody understands why you do what you do or what you do. And it's because marketers who are in their fifties and older are no longer marketing to themselves. Yeah. And because of our technology and all the different things that we have that they didn't, it's just very very different. When I went from skateboarding and then into esports and gaming, what I found is that gamers were highly skeptical of brands. And all of these marketers were like, we can't figure this out. Like, they hate us. You know, typical, like, marketing isn't working. And what I realized is if if there's one group that's more skeptical of brands than gamers, it's skateboarders. Interesting. And so, just because I've been a hater my whole life. Yeah. Yeah. Distracts. Yeah. If you're not skater owned and operated in skateboarding, it is extremely challenging as I wear Nike SB shoes, but that's another episode. But so what I would I came into gaming. It wasn't because I was some I have a marketing degree, but I wasn't some, like, genius marketer or anything. It's because I just organically understood how I engage these people. And it sounds like that has been similar for you Yeah. Both with connecting with people, the user experience, what have you. Long long question short, What advice would you give younger people in helping them realize the power, the knowledge, and the experience that they true have that they may be overlooking. I think that I'm I'm incredibly passionate about the STEM fields for a reason. I think they offer opportunities for anybody to get into industries through tech as an example. I grew up as a sports fan. Never in a million years did I understand what it takes to put on Game broadcast. Yeah. Or the incredible amount of data that comes from the field or the racetrack or the court. I thought to myself, well I'm not an athlete. I can't really work in sports. That's all as a kid. I was like, well I didn't understand the businesses that were behind that. And when I looked into it, I was oh, you don't have to be a quarterback to be in football. You could be the tech guy who manages the data. You could be Yeah. The creative who designs all the incredible graphics and bugs you see on screen. You could be a designer who designs jerseys. You can do anything. Like, I think what I challenge I have a little brother who's much younger than I am. And I'm always like, Joey, bro. Find something, a category or an industry that you like that you naturally gravitate to and then look at the business around it. Yes. Understand the infrastructure and then become really good at something in that infrastructure that you can do on your own. Video editing, learning how to utilize the tools that are available, becoming real there's a reason why HubSpot and like there's certifications. I have people reach out to me all the time like I'm a HubSpot expert. Why? Because HubSpot and Salesforce and those tools have become so robust. I don't wanna spend the time. Of course, I'll pay for somebody to come help me do this. I don't wanna have to deal with it. Right. So looking at those certifications and the different avenues to get involved, I think that if I were a student today, I know I have my biology degree and it's gotten me to interesting places. But I think I could have taken maybe a couple of easier strides through the journey to get to where ultimately where I wanted which is solving problems for the fan. Why not think of when I was a kid like how to experience the YES network was new for the Yankees like And feeling like, wow, this is so incredible. Not even understanding the decisions and the work and the money and the contracts and insurance it takes to even start a new network or host a world series, whatever it is. I wish I could have explored that because I had always had a deep interest in sports but I didn't think I could ever work there. Same thing with the entertainment space. I think that there's a lot of there's a lot of kids that say and maybe this came up in the the podcast that we were both on where you know the kids wanna be YouTubers now. I'm like Yes. I don't think we should discourage them from finding their own voice. That's what YouTube offers kids is a place to put their voice. But have them also consider what that means financially or the business behind influencers. It's not just cool getting free cool stuff. Like there are people, representatives or accountants who have to manage these things. There's partnerships and brand deals. You don't have to be the face to be part of the story. I think that that's where I wish for really any I know I'm mentioning a lot of sports and more of the creative side, but any industry. Mean Yeah. This building, this room itself has a lot of people who've had to come in with different skill sets to contribute. I'll also tell people that I think going to college treats you, it it chains you on a lot of things. It's more the accountability for your yourself the way Yeah. High school was very different so it provides you some of that structure and it provides you the resources. But I also think things have absolutely changed over the last ten years when it comes to education. And I, as somebody who hires and has been hired, I absolutely look a lot less these days on someone's traditional education pathway. And I look a lot more at what you've been doing and how you've been executing on the skills that you've learned. Right. A lot I mean, what they're teaching in school is already outdated. One thing I did with millennial clubs, was like maybe one of my smartest things I did, is we were in the younger We were a younger age group, but I brought in kids from TCU to come sit on a panel and tell me what they were learning in their classes because what we were learning was already outdated by years. What they're learning is getting closer but I still wanna know like there's a disconnect there. And so like that Yeah. I I think that there's a lot of opportunities for students to again, like, study their own user behavior and how they operate. But to look a little bit more holistically at the opportunities within the industries they care about, I think there's some cool things that could be done there. Yeah. It's funny. Like, as you're saying all these things, these are things that I think about and I talk about at times and very similar in that regard. One thing I always share with young people is if if you just want unless you're very specialized. Unless you like, especially for the medical field, yeah, there's a path that you wanna go down there for But You don't get to skip med school, unfortunately, to be a doctor. But there's That's right. Yeah. That's all the ways. Yeah. But if you get a background in business, if you get a business degree, it provides so much opportunity for you. And one thing that it did for me is it helped me understand what makes money to go after and what doesn't make money. I remember when I graduated from college, all my friends were, oh, John, you're gonna start a skate shop or something? And Yeah. It's like, no. Skate shops don't make any money. Like, I would love to have so much money that I can afford losing money Yeah. Owning a skate shop one day. Maybe that's the dream. But But to your point too about all of these different industries, you know, I grew up where there was no business. It was just farms and orchards and stuff. So I learned about all this way later in life, And I was shocked to see that, yeah, like, around a sports Game. How many different businesses are integrated from the partners To on-site, to the broadcasting, to the data analytics, to the coaches and the trainers, etcetera. And so I think it's just it's great for young people to experience If I'm not the talent on the field, if I'm not in front of the camera, There's not a lot of positions in front of the camera. Yeah. There's a lot of positions that are long term behind the camera. There are a lot of them. One good example that that I learned in real time, like I had no idea is when I was at a venue, we got a call from the MLB network. Was like, hey. We have someone who wants to talk to you. We can't tell you who it is. I was like, this doesn't help me at all. Like, could you put live data on screen for a broadcast by opening day? It's three weeks before opening day at this point. Like Like what kind of deal? Yeah. What what do we need? Who is it? I can't tell you. But they have the exclusive rights for baseball on Friday night so I'm just very quickly, I'm like, okay. Apple. Apple has exclusive rights for Friday night baseball. And so I'm like, oh, Apple wants our content on screen. And you would not believe the amount of people that it took to put this small graphics, literally a one line of text that says the reach based probability is twenty five percent for Aaron Judge or whoever it is. It's a little low for Aaron. But there's this tiny little bug And the amount of people, the amount of paperwork, the amount of signatures, decisions, calls, design approval that had to be done. Tim Cook had to say, great job. Then at that point, the amount of people who touched that small little baby bug our graphic, It Really like It wasn't my first time putting something on TV but it just showed me that, oh my gosh, you can fit in anywhere in this process and there's money to be made there's opportunity and there's teamwork and yeah, you're right. There are way more seats behind the camera than there are in front and I think it offers some longevity too because you could you could circulate and do different things you know, through a broadcast as an example. Production behind sports is absolutely wild. And don't get me started on the in actual venue experience. Like, went to a Rangers game the other day. It'd been a long time since I'd had sat in a stadium and really just like got to enjoy it like non work related. And was like, oh my gosh. There are so many people here right now who are not here for fun that are behind the scenes making this stuff work. And Yeah. I forget about that sometimes. You take it for granted how many people are behind the Well, and there's a number of jobs too that now you can apply to different industries. Yeah. I used to work at when COVID hit, I worked at the world's largest live event production company Sick. PRG. Yeah. I was like Great. All our business started stopped overnight. A number of those guys, they just do rigging. And so if you're not rigging massive LED panels in a huge stadium. Yeah. These guys don't have the skills to do anything else. Yeah. And you do need people who are specialized, but also, you know, Your your career is a great example of, you know, your understanding of marketing, your understanding of technology and how whether that's healthcare, sports Other things. Your skill sets are applicable because they go across all of these things. Yeah. So I wanna take you into kind of personal brand story and get some of your insights on how to grow there. So it's been great to follow your career here up until where where were you the CMO again? In Venue. In Venue. Right. Yeah. Right. And then, so you branch off on your own. And tell me about that decision and also how you established yourself as doing your own thing. Because one one thing I've experienced is sometimes people will have a lot of success working for a big company. And you're like, my social media is growing. Everybody's adding me on LinkedIn. Like, you know, I'm getting asked to speak and all these things and we forget, is it the name on the front of the jersey or the name on the back? You know? Is it John Davidson or is it because under that is head of partnerships at GameStop Yeah. That people wanna talk to me? Yeah. And sometimes people leave those situations and all of a sudden no one's calling. Yeah. Cause it was GameStop. Yeah. And you happen to work there, you know? Yeah. So kinda take me through that experience and what you learned through that. Well, I've never had the luxury of having a big name associated with me. I have always worked in startups who have had success but on a global scale, Someone isn't gonna see mend and be like, that was the Dallas based urgent care company delivered to you wherever you live, work and play. They're not gonna get that. And any company that I've worked with has not had, at ESPN and NBC Sports and Apple. You know, I've not worked for those companies directly so it was very important for me to build a brand that didn't depend on that so that no matter where I went, whether it was another small startup that no one's ever heard of, which I do a lot of, or I go and work for a big company, no one is confused. Everyone's like, this makes makes sense but they're I'm not dependent upon that. I don't wanna have that problem where people only talk to me because I have, I don't know, f one is my job which is my dream but like I want to get that job because I've built a name for myself. I'm credible in my space. People trust me. I'm a good resource. And I've driven credibility on my own. I'm not depending on a brand. I know a lot of people who've had incredible cool consulting jobs at the biggest names And firms who flounder in a startup experience because they're like, I'm not used to a lack of structure. I thrive on that. Thrive on the independence and the autonomy you get in a startup. I thrive on the like, are we gonna make it or are we not? Like that is something that keeps me really really on top of things And there's a level of accept I don't join companies and I'm like, this is doomed to fail. I'm not gonna do that. But I do like the idea that a million businesses are started a day and only a handful of them make it. And for the in the startup space, like that's been really interesting for me to have literal equity in a company but equity in decision making. And that's something that I've always wanted to to have. I learned that through children's. I was like, I don't get to make the calls anymore. And that's okay. That's okay for somebody else. For me, I feel like I'm too close to this company to not make the decision so it's my time to to move on to other things. But yeah, in terms of like a personal brand, LinkedIn has been one of my favorite places to grow a reach, especially when we weren't at networking events. And sports, it's so different. Like Dallas has a sports, It's a sports city. We're the city of champions at that event. Right? We have all these things, but there is not really a super tight knit sports community. Right. So that was that's one thing. The other thing is that the company and venue where I was at had a global way. We were trying to do global things. I don't wanna be well known for my work in live data in Dallas. Sure. It was I need to wow people in Malta. Yeah. I need to wow people in the UK. I have know, there's it needed to be global. So in order to do that, LinkedIn I mean, afforded us the opportunity to reach out into networks we had no business being in, geographic locations. And that's I think the beauty of social media when you use it the right way is truly the network effect of LinkedIn is great. I kind of love that it's gotten a little bit better, which I feel like is limiting in some ways. But before LinkedIn used to be so uncontrolled where you would like, if you liked a photo Yeah. That photo would then come to me and I'd be like, this is interesting. Like the the true like virality effect was so out of control that it it was incredible. Like you could really get wherever you wanted to go through that and exposure to things. So I use LinkedIn in a couple of ways. When I joined this sports company in Venue for the first time, I was like, I have zero connections to this. Yeah. How do I drive CY as a brand in the sports world when not a single person knows me? I started posting the content that I was reading on a daily basis anyway because I love sports and I started sharing it. And I started saying, hi, I'm considerate. I'm not the one writing the news but I'm I'm finding things that are interesting. I'm on top of the daily chatter in business around sports. I'm gonna start to share it. Very quickly, I think people started to look to my page like, she gonna say next? What is she interested in? Even though I'm not the decision maker, you know, again, who's creating that content. I was just simply sharing things and it was really cool to look back, especially the last couple of years and see some of the things I felt like I kinda called first. Like the shift in formula one for the American fan, the rise of streaming platforms. ESPN is gonna have their new d to c app soon, know, like talking about how these big companies are making a shift into tech. And no one would be surprised if I continue to share that content. But no one also would be surprised if I said, hey, I love sports but I'm also I've got a passion for people. I'm gonna go pivot and do this thing. Because I've built up a a brand that I think no matter what industry I'm in, I I try to drive thought leadership. I I would say tactic sounds Like a a weird approach but wanna become a thought leader in every space. It takes time. I know I'll never forget when Gary is Gary Vee still fun? Like, do people still listen to him? I mean, he's still around. Yeah. Don't Do people still like him? I don't I don't know. Like, I have not I have not followed him. But remember when he would just be like, just shut your mouth for ten years. Don't say anything until you know something. And I've always been like, that's not me. I'm gonna start speaking out as soon as I can because I wanna get feedback. I wanna put information out there. I wanna learn. I wanna also be wrong a couple of times so that I can Sure. Have those lessons. I always I just I don't know. Something about that was like, very relaxed. But yeah, think personal branding can make it truly anything you want. I think being thoughtful about it, where you post things or where you host. I I did a lot of video when LinkedIn really served up video a lot more. It's made The algorithm changes from time to time. It changes kinda hard to keep But it also like hasn't changed at all if you think about it. When you look at it, when I look at LinkedIn today versus where it was, I don't know, eight years ago, I'm like, it's still kind of the same. It it's still kind of same a lot the same. I find it interesting, like, you know when they're trying to incentivize Yeah. The carousel versus the video Yeah. Versus the like, oh, I better not link out to anything because my post is going dead. Don't do a hashtag. Like Right. Yeah. And so it's interesting to keep your your finger on the pulse of those things. I've had a a ton of fun building my brand. And one one thing when I started out, it hit me, wait a minute. I've done this before. I've just done this as an employee Yeah. Or working with clients under another company. But Yeah. The power is you get to decide everything you wanna do. Yeah. My brother, he gave me this great advice. We've been best friends our whole lives. Wait. What's the age difference? Who's older? Who's younger? He's three years older. Okay. And I saw him a couple weeks ago in Portland. We we only see each other once every year or two because we're busy with stuff. But, yeah, we've been best friends our whole lives. He has a a mid century furniture company where he restores it, resells it. Nice. Very Portland specific places. He said, John, let me tell you the good news and the bad news of entrepreneurship. When your own your own boss, you can't get fired. Yeah. That's the good news. The bad news is you probably should be. And so I found that it's a lot of fun to be creative and figure out what is my visual brand? What is my mission? What's my goal? I'm interested in all these things, but how do I stay focused enough Yeah. So it doesn't look like I'm too scattered and, You know, jack of all trades, master of none. Right. Where do I focus in to really hone the craft that's gonna pay me? Yeah. Right? But at the same time, what if I do it wrong? Yeah. You know? And you really have to, I just have a level of confidence too that your insights are worth sharing. Yeah. I one of the reasons why I have this podcast is I love sharing knowledge. But I wanna share knowledge and posts that aren't about me. Yeah. And when I started this podcast years ago, I found like, oh, have a natural mechanism where I can I have a minimum three posts a week? Yeah. And it's not about me. It's about this amazing person. And so people are coming to me as a source of knowledge. Yeah. I'm curious from a different social platform standpoint with your brand, how you found to utilize others. I I pretty much just utilize LinkedIn. Instagram is DLC branded for me, but it's kind of friends and business sort of a thing. Twitter, I'm just looking up memes and not posting at all. So and then we have clips on YouTube, of course. But I'm curious how how you've done that and how it has benefited you in certain ways. I think you get a different version of it's kinda like with a brand. Right? You don't post the same content on on LinkedIn as you do to It might be similar. The style might be different. The tone might be different. I don't do you do you follow Wendy's on Twitter when they were like absolutely in their I remember that. Yeah. Worked at an agency so it was behavior. Yeah. But when you walk into a restaurant, you're like, it's very calm here. It's very nice. It's it's, you know It's not a comedian. Yeah. It wasn't like I was getting roasted the second I walked into Wendy's. But like that experience wow. What a time that was. I don't know what if they're still like that. But you see brands speaking up now, think, in in fun ways. They started that trend for sure. But yeah, I think you get a different view of what I'm up to. I do a lot more of my own fun content especially for sports where I'm the voice of a show or I give my take on not just the stats and the and the and the, you know, a recap. But I give my, like, kind of unfiltered view. Is LinkedIn the place to do that? I've occasionally cross posted things especially when I'm talking about business like my take on ESPN's transformation or Right. You know, some news around sports betting. But on but on Instagram, it's a little bit more fun, it's a little bit more colorful, it's a little more candid. Maybe a little bit less safe for work sometimes because I'm giving my raw emotions about the Dallas Stars not winning Stanley Cup yet again, know? And so I've I've learned a balance of it but I think especially if you have private or public accounts rather, really important to be mindful how the two work together. And LinkedIn's been great. I I feel like the I get some interesting crossover from people from LinkedIn to Instagram. So be mindful of that. Like those are still people I wanna do business with. So I've got a public page, it's growing. But it's more fun. You see a little bit more of my personal life. It's me and my rescue dogs. It's you know, but it's still professional and I'm mindful of that because there are also people who look to me for guidance on marketing. So if my brand isn't buttoned up across my platforms, that's a problem. Right. YouTube I think has been really fun to host a show on and and see how shorts have really distributed content differently. That's been a really fun thing to do. But you know, it just really varies and I think if anyone's watching and they're like, I work in finance but I wanna get into another industry. I don't care if you're a student or you're twenty five years into whatever industry, you can start to precede that content or that brand for yourself way ahead of a transition. And that way it's not like, I've never seen her talk about Formula One before. How dare she go work in, you know, motorsports. I think you can see those ideas. I've gotten probably multiple calls a week where someone's like, hey, I have an opportunity to do something with f one. You're the only person I know who works in f one. I'm like, you're gonna be shocked to hear this. I don't work for Formula One. And they're like, wait, what? And I think it's because I just am so passionate about the industry, the teams, the finances behind it, the economics, the partnerships. I post about it. I talk about it. It's like become part of my brand, But I don't work for Formula One. I got a call a couple of years ago, someone's, hey, wanna bring a Formula E race to Dallas. You're the person we wanna talk to. And I was like, how? Why? How did you get this number? And they're like, well, you're the only person we see talking about Formula E in Texas, online, anywhere, at any time. Interesting. So hell yeah, I'll help you bring a Formula E race to Dallas. But you know, I think you can see those ideas and tease future goals for yourself and opportunities for yourself. No matter if I told my little brother, I was like, I don't care if there's three things on there. Create a LinkedIn. Start creating content. Start learning. Even if no one ever sees it, if you have zero connections, you've got this foundation and you're practicing your skills. So I don't care if you're a student or you're trying to make a massive transition. I think there's so much you can do to start that story before you've ever made that, you know, massive leap to wherever wherever you wanna go. Right. And I think with the Formula E thing too, which is cool. So you're you're attaching your personal interest as a fan. But you as a business professional also have skills that can benefit that space as well. Yeah. And so I love the term preceding because I know That you're a Formula One fan because of your content. Everyone does. Right? Because you talk about it all the time. Yeah. And I saw in a racing suit as soon as soon as I walked into the studio. Was like, hey, excuse me. Yeah. Tell me about this. Yeah. And so, because you're so open about your passion, people know about it. You also have these other skills That enables you that once you get that opportunity, once you get that person's attention, you can say, hey. How can I help in these ways? Yeah. Right? I think the I think something I've learned and I would I would tell anybody this, again, no matter where you are in your career is start to become a little bit more prescriptive about your ask. Because, know, people wanna make transitions all the time from And some that have never utilized social, never done, you know, public speaking. They've never, you know, whatever it is. They've never taken a big risk like that. And they'll say, well, I wanna do something new. I'm like, what do we wanna do? Like, well, I wanna be in marketing. Like, Okay. What do do you wanna do in marketing? If you can't articulate to somebody what it is that you want, this goes back to my idea of like, you wanna build a career for yourself doing something not only that you're good at but you actually like to do, you gotta be really crisp with the ask. My ask to everyone and everyone knows it is, if ever an opportunity for me to help tell better stories for fans in Formula one, I wanna be your first call. Is it gonna happen tomorrow? Maybe not. I don't know. But at least I'm very I mean, maybe too much into telling people how much I like Formula One. But if I don't, who will? And Yeah. And so being really prescriptive prescriptive about your ask especially when you're not sure is is doing that research because somebody can't help you if they if they can't, you know, direct you in a in a meaningful direction. I one of my biggest pet peeves is taking It's not a pet peeve, I love being connected to people, but with like zero context where someone will just put you in an email and like, you guys take it from here. And I'm like. Right. Where do we where do we take it from here? What is it? Where's the ask? Like, I'm not helpful in that way. If someone says to me, hi, I've got somebody who wants to do a massive activation for the World Cup And they don't know where to start, amazing. They wanna tap into the arts. Whatever whatever it is, like, having a more specific ask, I can't tell you how far it goes, but you guys take it from here. I'm like, I'm not taking it anywhere because I don't know where to go. I don't know I don't know where to drive this bus. Yeah. Hundred percent. Yep. Well, wanna writing up this episode, I wanna get some of your insights and your views on actually improving the fan experience and how this happened with technology and sport. I've had a little bit of a view into it just, you know, being associated with some startups and some accelerators and stuff. Yeah. And it's really cool, one, to see how what a black hole of data live sports was. Yeah. Still is at times. But yeah. I love your perspective on just, like, how do we utilize technology to improve that fan experience? What are some of the big moves that are being made right now? So there's so many, and the shift has started years ago. I think there's a lot of buzz around machine learning and AI, but now, but I think it's just because it's become a little bit more accessible to a consumer. But these things have been in in the works for for so long and data has been so powerful for so long. Like, we just use the example of of racing, I'll I'll pivot from Formula One to NASCAR for guys. Thank It makes it for my NASCAR fans out there. The telemetry on those cars is absolutely unreal and they've had access to that data for for years and years. So the next gen car is even more equipped with with data trillions of data points come from these cars per race. What do you do with that? A human can't sort it. So Years, there's been machine learning and AI used in sports to manage data from the court or a track or field or wherever you are for years. Think now it's becoming used in more fun ways. Like there's more marketing data or marketing applications of data that we're seeing a little bit more of. The example of Apple TV putting probabilities on screen. That's an example. Or AWS showing the likelihood of a touchdown here or someone's gonna score on this drive using their next gen stats. Like that's all powered by tech. I really love the introduction of data that has been happening behind the scenes and making it a little bit more visible to the consumer, more to the fan. Because I think it makes us feel like we're kinda part of it. There's like a fun part, you know. There was this game when it was like one of the first games we ever put live data on screen and we said there was a one percent chance of a home run and I'll be damned if that guy didn't hit Of course. A home run. Yeah. And people were like, wow, you're wrong. I'm like, hold on. I didn't say it was a zero percent chance. Right. And the likelihood of a home run-in general, a league average is sub three percent. This guy just did something that went against the odds but that's why we watch live sports. That's right. I don't wanna tune in for no home runs. Like, that's what I miss I miss It's called a movie. I miss the nineties. I miss the nineties baseball where it's nonstop home runs. But yeah. I think I think it gives us just something cool to to hook onto, especially if you're not a better. I think sports betting has been something that I think people have assumed has actually been legal for a long time, but it hasn't. Twenty eighteen passovers were repealed which allowed the states to decide whether they wanted to participate in sports betting or or gambling. And it really changed things for technology. The demand was there, but it was like legally, woah, we can't do this in Texas. We can't do this in other places. Still can in Texas is coming, I'm sure. So utilizing data to make better decisions for sports betters for broadcast. I think right now with one of the companies I'm working with called Vocal, they wanna personalize the fan experience on the content side. I asked this question the other day. I'll ask it to you because I think it's a good it's a good It really draws together why tech is is is valuable in sports is if you had to pick I don't know where you watch TV or how you watch sports, but I have YouTube TV. I get to pick my four screen grid. And if I could choose, if seasons didn't exist, I'm gonna have Formula One on one screen. I'm gonna have the nineteen ninety nine, two thousand seasons from the Yankees. That was just such a fun time. There's nostalgia there. I'm gonna have WNBA games on repeat or nonstop on loop on one, and then the Dallas Stars when we're in the playoffs. But Dallas Stars games in the other. Is that four or five? I think I did five. Did I do four or five? Want five. That's what I'm talking about customization. I want five for me. Anyway, I want my teams in the sports I care about. What are yours? What are what's your four screen? So I would do NFL football. I would do college football. I would do street league skateboarding if we're doing competitive. Skateboarding's not inherently competitive. It's a whole thing. And I would do billiards. I love love to shoot pool. Yeah. I had a pool table in my house previously and just absolutely love that. I'm trying to think. So that'd be four. Throw a bonus one because I think I did that. Throw your bonus throw your bonus five in there. Go ahead. I'm gonna go with The Dan Patrick Show. The one thing I watch every single day Yeah. Are the u the interviews he does. He does two or three Yeah. A day on YouTube. And so when I take a break from work, I'm watching those interviews. So the point there is that I have no interest in billiards. I don't know anything about skateboarding. But if we both want to go consume content on SportsCenter as an example, we're kind of like waiting for our sport. Right? We're like waiting to see maybe that one flashback to f one. They like I'm always looking for the racing content. There's not as much WNBA as I wanna see. But we both have different preferences. But the content that we see is very much similar in a lot of ways. And what Vocals doing is they're gonna allow you and I to get our daily reports on the sports that we care about utilizing AI. It's gonna scrub and crawl all of the content that we think is interesting and what it knows about us. And the way I get my five top five things I need to know from CNN, I'm gonna get the top five things CY needs to know for my sports recap versus what what you're interested in. And tech tech does that. Audio does that. Audio unlocks some interesting ways like the way we used to listen to sports before there was TV was audio and being plugged into the you know, like sitting up next to the radio listening before our time of course. But but I am really excited about the use cases for content creation and the speed and the scale that it can be done, but really the personalization aspect. What what fans want is gonna continue to evolve. But the way we deliver to them, I think, has been really very similar. We've been trained. Know people have thoughts about TikTok and reels and those. But I've like, I've now been trained as a consumer to expect something to be a little bit more personal to me, my feed. Right. Which is like Dogs, food, and Formula One is my TikTok feed. But I'm kind of looking that for that experience pretty much anywhere I go now. I'm kind of trained to like Look for something a little bit more custom to me. I think that that leads to better fan engagement which everyone wants. Right? Like my first job in sports tech was how do we do we drive fan engagement for the teams and leagues? Right. Everyone says that means different things to different people. Most people are really saying how do we drive ticket sales and revenue? Yes. Some are saying how do we drive social media engagement. But tech enables us to do that. I think another way that I've enjoyed the progression in tech is also to protect fans. I think there's a lot especially on the sports betting side. Tech has introduced new ways for us to monitor behavior and to identify maybe issues or problems. And I think that's there's a million use cases but I think I'm very passionate about this. I could talk about it all day. When I talk about the need for diversity in the workplace I'm not just talking about gender. I'm not just talking about ages. I'm talking about diversity in experience as well. Yes. I think sports has been positively impacted by the introduction of people who know tech really well. Right. And maybe even people who know healthcare really well or people who know other other industries. And I think we really benefit from the cross pollination between the two. And Venue was built by a machine learning engineer from Hewlett Packard. Like, That has an impact on global data in the sports betting world. Yeah. Same thing with with Vocal. The founder came from Hollywood. Like he's got a really good take on how fans experience or movie watchers and people who go to the theaters or watch shows, consumers, how do they experience a show or a movie? So he's thinking about that for the fan. Think diversity in in sports is is key. And I think tech has been a really important element of that. That's an interesting perspective how that has brought in a new group of people with different insights and backgrounds in typical sports. Yeah. Thing I get most excited about, because I love brands and partnerships, is how brands can then engage in that technology Yeah. To provide an enhanced experience to fans. Right. Because we're seeing, it's not just gamers. It's young people across the board just demand more from brands now. Yeah. And so Now this technology that is improving the fan experience, if I can brand that with AT and T or Coca Cola or whatever Yeah. Now you're getting that value by By having enhanced experience at the game. Yeah. Oh, thanks. I'm gonna get a Coca Cola instead of a Pepsi. I The same type of thing. Spot on. Yeah. I think data as an example offers up a new sponsorable asset like AWS Next Gen Stats brought to you by you know, like I think that those offer up some creative real estate. Audio I'm particularly interested in because I think especially like with with vocal, it's like this untapped digital real estate that that yes, sponsoring a podcast in long form. Great. But this is short form content that can be brought to you in in quick bites. I always think that like one of the most creative things or maybe I don't know if he's the most creative but one of my favorite use cases for a sponsored moment are like how hockey I think the Cowboys do a good job with this too, but like the power play brought to you by TXU Energy at American Like what? This is perfect. But what if I could what if I could bet or at least predict is Jamie Ben gonna score on this power play or not? And if I'm right, give me some sort of incentive to go hang out with TXT or take a coupon or whatever. Exactly. So that's a great like fun moment. Everyone's excited. But if in that moment I could bet or play along or predict and and win something or not or have at least something to to talk to my my buddy about if we're sitting together. Like, I think data and and tech are gonna unlock new ways for fans to tap in. Because really, at at the end of the day, I think the true fan, I'm not just talking about the sharps and the betters who use this as a as a career. It's a job for them. But true fans who go to to sporting events or watch sporting events for entertainment are exactly what you're saying. They're demanding a little bit more from the experience, and they're looking for things that are more personalized and customized to them. Yeah. Well, I have one more question for you, which we ask every guest. And feel free to take this however you want. But the question is, throughout your career, to date, what is the most important lesson that you've learned? I I a couple of approaches to this question but I'm gonna I'm gonna draw from a personal, the last ten years, I'm gonna draw from an experience. Okay. And my recommendation and and advice that I think I've learned is take the vacation. Take the vacation. In startup world or in business world, it is so easy to always expect something's gonna happen and and be afraid afraid of change and afraid of losing momentum. Yeah. And I found that in multiple phases of my career, I've been the one who's like nonstop. I can't turn it down. I've gotta be there. I don't wanna take time off. What if what if the data comes off the screen on Apple? What if the NBA is mad at us about a prep? Like, I I have always been so on And I realized that no matter it's healthcare or in sports, it's funny, I left healthcare to like have a break and then start sports just like sports just like never stop. Is I found that the times where I come, that I'm the most excited, innovative, creative is when I'm rested and I've had time to recharge. And I'm just so over the hustle mentality of don't eat, don't sleep till you get it right. I think that's healthy. Think that's totally changed and I think that the fan and the customer are better served when we offer up things that are well thought out and intentional. And so for years I didn't take the vacation. I'm still kind of admittedly right in the middle of that right now. I'm planning for it. I think that we, especially if you're starting your own business or you want to really being protective of your time and your energy. Can't emphasize enough. Think we get really lost in the tactical how to's of business when we forget about how important it is to you to find one again something you enjoy and that you like to do but something that's sustainable and I think that It is not sustainable to be on all the time even if you are in sports, even if you're watching the twenty four hours of Le Mans, those guys are sleeping too. You have to you have to turn it off every now and then. And then my my other thing is like sports as an example. I I like to have fun And I'm I absolutely could go back to health care. I love helping people. But I've really enjoyed the the the aspects of sports that are not a nine one one dire emergency. And it's more about creating really fun experiences for the fan. In fact, I brought you I brought you some things. You did. I'm a big fan of taking a break in vacations. No. I'm a big fan of having fun with things and I think there's such a fun part That was a plane ticket to You're going on a vacation. I love old baseball cards. I've got football in here. I think I've got hockey. I think one of my favorite things is like the unexpected experiences in sports. So I want you you don't have to it now because we're out of time here. But to rip a pack and find something cool. Alright. We'll do we'll do one. Here. One. See what we have here. Got a little time. I love the nostalgia of of sports. I don't ask me how. Actually, ask Jim one day how I came into ownership of literally one million different sports cards. Wow. I've sold most of them, but it's been so fun to just tear what do we have? Nineteen eighty nine? Were you born then? Yeah. I was born in eighty three. There you go. So I wasn't born yet, but let's see what we have. I'll go ahead and open it see you got anything in there. So This leads into a great study story with my son. So more recently, he started well, he loves Pokemon cards. Yes. And so Pokemon cards have gotten a little bit more into trading cards. And in fact, there's a in McKinney, not too far from where we live, there's a store there that Yeah. Called Hometown Hits and newly acquired by a new owner. He has two sons, my son's age, and they're like, doing these things together. It's fast. So great. So his ten year old birthday It's coming up. Well, one of my good friends is the VP of marketing for Panini America. Nice. Jason Howarth. Yeah. Also a guest on the program previously. And he's got the coolest job in the world. Well, years ago, we're talking about when I was at GameStop, should we do like Fortnite cards? Yeah. How many do need to do like Fortnite cards or whatever? So he talked through all that. Well, He gave me cases and cases of cards, like, eight years ago. Oh my god. And I just had them I used to collect cards when I was a little kid, but, you know, haven't done it in a while. Yeah. So I just had them in a closet. Well, my son's ten year old birthday is coming up. And so I was like The variety of things I'm gonna get him. What what is he like? What's easy? What's low cost when when that works out? I was like, oh, I've got that backpack somewhere. So we so I chose a box for him and it's NBA cards. And one of the ones he pulls out, Shay Gilgis Alexander signed rookie card. Oh. It was worth three thousand when we opened it. Now it's worth, I think, seven or eight. Yeah. That because that was before he won the MVP Yeah. The finals And the final MVP. Safe to say we have a great fan. I don't know if we're gonna have any any five thousand dollar cards here. However, in that in that collection of cards that I had, I pulled Derek Jeter's like one of my all time favorites. I pulled some rookie Jeter's. I had some really fun like old Shacks, magic shacks. Had God, I had so many really fun ones. I pulled like a bunch from the rangers. I had like an old school Nolan Ryan. Some Dionne Sanders, I had that. Really, had Patrick Mahomes' dad Oh wow. Was in there. So many interesting ones. But it's just fun. It's like a fun, I I think it's a fun experience. But it it my whole point of of having these and bringing these sometimes is really like at the core of what I wanna do is bring people back to why they watch sports in general, which is to have fun. So I try to do that in in business and whether that's tech and really serious applications of technology or or fun applications for engagement. I think really we're all just trying to find our MVP in a nineteen eighty nine pack. That actually had I think that had gum with it, but it was so rock solid that I think I Yeah. I think I I think I retired those for you. We're stuck to the the card here to go. The reason I chose this one is I was actually talking to my son the other day. Oh my god. That is I didn't realize it was inside of there too. That is disgusting. And there it's there's no wrapper around it. No. I just I don't know. Literally this weekend, I was were in a a card store with Johnny and I was telling them how gum came in the pack. It wasn't wrapped. It broke like a cracker. Yeah. And you can just imagine that I popped that in my mouth. Yeah. Here. So let's see we've got here. Yes. I hope you have something fun. So we've got Dawn August. I just love their the photos are like so Oh, yeah. Classic too. Yeah. Especially when you compare them to current day where the it's it's all action and it's also fun to see, like, the different, like, What what you know, the trends recycle. We're seeing some blood of mustaches. Yep. You know, we got some Paul Skeens vibes on the Yeah. On this card. Oh. Cal Ripken Senior. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. That's rare, I feel. I think I've seen him in a in a couple of box. Unfortunately, there's not a gum stain on it like that first card. Yikes. These are awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing these. Oh my gosh. You'll find some fun ones. Give your give your son old school pack of balloons. Oh, got Ted Williams. There you go. Mugly enthused. I like the old uniforms too. Seeing some of the the OGs over there. That is fantastic. Love that. Well, yeah. Enjoy. Tell me if you if you find like a million dollar in card in there, then I will just take Ten percent. Twenty percent. You know? I was I was gonna say twenty, but no. We'll stick with ten. I don't know. Ten works. Ninety percent. I think I appreciate it. Thanks for thanks for having me. This has been so much fun. Absolutely. No, I appreciate everything that you shared. One thing I wanted to add on to what you were sharing about this hustle and grind culture Yeah. Is when I started my business, I started working with an executive coach who helped encourage me to do it and helped me through the start phase. What she helped me understand because I used to be that hustle and grind guy. Yeah. And as we get older too, like like, you just don't have that same energy as when you're twenty five. The knee your knees aren't as good. Yeah. It's a whole thing. And so what what she helped me understand is everybody has their own way of resting, their own way of working. Yeah. Some people can just sleep four hours a night. Yeah. Some people need eight. Yeah. Yeah. It's important that if you need eight, that you don't try to be the four hour guy. Yeah. You know? And so, like, yes, you wanna work hard. You wanna maximize your time. You wanna be productive and effective. But give yourself permission to understand that you need rest, you need other things so that when you are on, you're at your best. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Take vacation. Even if it even if it means just an afternoon for yourself, I think like I I'm not the type. I can't as many of you probably can tell, like I'm not gonna go take two weeks off to do something. Sure. Sports change. Things in sports change so fast. But Yeah. I I tried for a really long time to convince myself that I was the four hour person but I was like, I'm a nine hour girly and I need my I need rest in order to do good work and if I'm doing good work then I'm letting everyone down so. Right. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insights, your expertise, your career path today on the DLC drop podcast. Love it. Thank you so much.