welcome to another episode of Glide chat my name is Michael Lombardo with me is Bob Lynch CEO of sponsor United Bob how are you I'm good I'm great nice to do in real life uh stuff here how was the ride up uh there's a lot a lot more traffic than it is expected yeah man traffic is just another thing I don't do very often no Drive long distances everywhere I never leave my my uh my property cave yeah that's like I got a dog collar I can't leave it so Bob thanks for joining um I I had the honor and pleasure of of uh being one of the investors in your company uh for like series b or series a or series a series a wow that's that's awesome and so why don't you tell us a little bit what is sponsor United it's a a data platform that essentially tracks and maps all the sponsorship deals and sports and entertainment so endorsement deals with Lady Gaga to what the Boston Celtics do who they work with yeah the marketing assets they buy who the key decision makers are it's kind of like a Google Maps for all the deals we take all that information and then license it to anybody buying selling or collaborating in the sports and entertainment space it's unbelievable because you mentioned the Celtics and we went to a Celtics game that was pretty awesome pretty awesome but you set a high bar though because like how are you gonna ever follow up kid can't top that can't talk but um it is funny because all I could think about was like us sitting together and just all the different advertisements and you know they're all cataloged in your in your application right in your platform so it's it's uh it's pretty amazing yeah when I uh when I when I started selling advertising in Boston which was like Boston Celtics Radio and Red Sox radio and whatnot they taught us to Prospect and so you would just listen to like news talk stations all day long writing down every single ad and I used to go to the wow the Boston Public Library and this is like really dating myself look at the microfiche of the newspapers from like the year before oh yeah yeah literally like write down all the advertisements back when newspaper was big so I kind of grew up in that world doing that and then when I started working for professional sports teams you know you can't go on the Boston Globe to see all the ads you have to be in a stadium and you start looking around and paying attention you realize like there are so many different brands that were tied to Deals yeah yeah because if you think about it like when you're explaining it to me you know you really don't think about unless you're in that world but like you know what are what is even possible for advertisements right like you you help companies even or other leagues and teams basically like identify even sponsorship like real estate right like you know different sponsorship even opportunities not not just Brands like who's who's buying advertising spots but also where like where and how they're doing those advertisements right like different yeah yeah different uh initiatives right yeah and you know in the media space it's it's pretty binary it's like 30 60 second spots yeah billboard you know mansion and things like that and uh it was something that I struggled with when I went down to work for the Miami Dolphins I was like well what can you sell and they're like knock a wall down and call the club yeah put aside like there was it was totally abstract in what you could do community event you know I mean it was it was endless yeah and um it's both good and bad because you can get extremely creative with working with a brand um but it also can be really really intimidating if you don't understand what can be bought and sold yeah and so that became a big barrier of entry for a lot of Brands to be like what does this mean like what can we do um and so the idea was that well if we kind of track everything in every different place and share this information with everybody because our idea was like democratize access let's everybody should know about what's going on that um it just saves a lot of time and understanding like hey what is available what can be done what trends are happening in the space how is this industry shifting is there ever any like blowback or Brands get upset for you like capturing this information and cataloging it or no not not really um I I won't say the the the company yeah um not on the brand side of selling sponsorships um and they're they're a client of ours now but not at the time I met with a pretty senior person and showed them like what we had on them and they're pretty big com a pretty big organization and uh I mean the guy almost like said like are you using hackers to get this information he was almost like this is like how did you get this yeah and uh yeah uh so that was you know that was probably the biggest uh blowback I got was almost like it's public information right I mean it's it's publicly advertised things you're just it's just taking a picture of it and it's typically offline you can't snap it on the end nobody nobody's ever thought I can't believe no one's ever thought of this and and uh uh you're just like light years ahead of anybody right there's there's nothing else like this I mean not not to this degree no um and you know we were able to fortunately like scale fast to track more information and more different uh environments um and I think that's what attracted me most was that people thought it couldn't be done yeah and uh I'm a big like proof heater zero to one like really lean into things that people think can't be done exactly yeah and the problems are just as hard to solve as the easy problems and so I just spent a lot of time figuring out like in theory how could you get all this information and um you know it was able to sort of figure out a way to get that initial Traction in doing that that's awesome so first of all like when I heard about your company and I was like oh my God this is like I love the idea and everything and just the platform but but what I really liked about you personally was I kinda looked at you as like almost like an alternate universe or parallel universe of me where you know I grew up in the I.T space I grew up in the servicenow space you grew up in the in the advertising space in the marketing space and and you saw a real Gap in in in the whole industry and you your idea was to fill that and that's kind of like what I was in my world right I'm so I looked at you as a master of your craft just like I'm a master of my craft and that's like when starting a company I feel like you have to have a great leader you have to have the right Market uh and you have to have the right product you know or you're not going to get anywhere and you know you definitely you you have all all three of those so um that's why I was like I was in I didn't I remember meeting you the first time I was like I don't even need like that I started off like I'm in just tell me how much I wish they were all that easy I know I know um and I think yeah and I I remember talking to you about just our early sort of shared entrepreneurialism yeah early on where I'd be selling sodas to my classmates in like sixth and seventh grade and magazine ads and things like that and I think the uh the hardest thing for me in my early part of my career is I wanted to I always knew I wanted to start something yeah but I didn't know what and so it was like I was trying to find a problem yeah and for me at least you know I had to have a bit of a career in these different places to actually identify the inefficiencies yeah and I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't sort of you know I didn't start my my company until I was 37. wow so did you did you start any other companies before that not while I was a professional no no yeah I I mean I didn't have the guts I mean to walk away and just it's a bit of golden handcuffs they I love the line there's two great addictions in life alcohol and a steady paycheck it's kind of true and you know the older you get and then I had kids that inertia because it's in order to make that lead and just say hey I'm gonna go for it I know because I mean I started these other things but they were never like they never made any money they weren't like a and it's not like I had to quit a job to do it I always like had a full-time job or several and I was always trying other things on the side to your point like I always wanted a business I I always wanted to be a leader I always wanted to help others and you know help others earn earn um but I just never knew what it was and I just didn't it's just hard how do you plan you can't plan for you know hey I'm you know what I think I'm gonna do is I'm going to end up you know creating this platform that catalogs all these advertising you can't show map you don't know what it's going to be yeah you just but you have to be you have to have your antennas open for it I I did try actually now that I think about it I did try to start like three companies really okay um but not like burn the boats yeah yeah um what was one of them uh one of them it's so funny when you're like young you don't even know how to start a company so trust me one of them was a video company that would go to trade shows okay and essentially film all the booths yeah and then be able to put it online so people who couldn't go to the trade shows would like just go online like kind of eventually seeing uh an event yeah they do that now with like the AR stuff which yeah and and in some ways it's kind of similar to what we do where we like we're at CES and we have tracked every single booth and activation I don't think I did it in the way I was thinking about it now yeah yeah back then but still that was one there was something around advertising um back in my New York media days where I I didn't know what it was what the vision was and I I think I didn't have a clear understanding of the problem I was trying to solve either yeah that was the I think that was the biggest issue to your point about the problem what's the biggest problem that sponsor United solves well the one that was immediately obvious to me was and again I came from media and went into sponsorship yeah after half my career was that there was just no information accessible on what these Brands were doing and what these deals looked like and so both sides the buyers and the sellers only had a limited access to data and information either through their networks I'm going to call a guy at another team and how does this deal work how much did you pay for it or if I'm an NFL team maybe I talked to the league and they have some data and then the brands maybe from their agency or maybe from their experience in negotiating other deals and so but it was really limited and I just thought like that's like the rest of the advertising world was just there were some reams of data and information that you know through Google and Facebook Etc that was making advertising much more you know data driven and in this space it was growing but with like actually less and less information because these deals were getting more complex not like in the 1970s like the brand bought a you know a cigarette brand would buy like a sign yeah and maybe an ad in the print guy yeah now these seals are very like there's so many moving parts of that yeah and so it was actually like getting that much harder to understand it and so that was the biggest immediate problem that I was trying to solve it's like everybody wants access to more information that's not being skewed by an agency or somebody positioning it it's like hey we're just the data you make do with it what you like yep no that that's amazing and I think about my business and like knowledge is power you know we pay for you know systems that have contact information I mean we like but if we if we if we could pay for you know actual numbers that customers are paying for other servicenow vendors or other you know even like servicenow if they knew exactly how much customers were spending it with Salesforce with workday or other SAS platforms I mean they they'd pay whatever for it right so I mean data is gold you know and uh so and it's just crazy that there's just like nothing else out there and like I said I think you just like light years ahead of the competition and and um you made the Inc 5000 this past year we did two we're a little bit a little bit behind you though I think you've done okay yeah this is this was our third year yeah but uh you were like in the top hundred right yeah I believe we were one 145 145 that's a that's amazing that's amazing I mean that's that's like hockey stick growth uh yeah I mean it's uh you know fortunate to be in that position and um uh you know a lot of things have to go right you have to be so lucky yeah um but you know going back to your point I kind of looked at Bloomberg and the Bloomberg terminal as our inspiration that like 30 years ago or whatever Michael Bloomberg Bill built those those terminals is like taking all this data and information and putting it in one place for people that can make Financial buying decisions exactly and so to your point it's like hey why can't we do that in in this particular environment and provide that information so um you know fortunately you have to have the technology in place to do it yeah so we're a fully distributed remote company so we needed slack and zoom to actually be around yeah to operate a company because we physically have to be in all these different cities yeah and you know so there's a lot of luck and factors outside of your own control create your own luck to it you create your own luck to call it like buying lotto tickets like you know you could literally win on the first one or you could buy a thousand and never you just have bad luck you never win but obviously the the work is the amount a lot of tickets you can buy exactly that hopefully hit let's talk about work tell me tell me how hard you work like what does it take to be successful I think that look there's inertia whenever you start a company in general so you know you have to have an amazing work ethic in my opinion um you know but I have a family too I have three kids and you know that can be really challenging um and I want to be around for my kids and family as well and so for me the onus is on me on the discipline of work it's not just like the number of hours it's like how do I plan my day yeah and when I do it's kind of like a workout program if you're an elite athlete it's like when I went in there like myself exactly you're my inspiration but it's you know you've got to be so disciplined in how you plan your day and your time and work I put up 285 the other day I'm pretty excited I don't think I could do that yeah I broke an elbow okay yeah no you're jogging to my off my remote office by the way yes no way yeah yeah my my short long story short my father put a uh a tent up in my backyard and he you know spiked it with the uh you know whatever the things that keep it in line and yeah and I'm jogging to my office oh no my house to my tripped over and I literally ran over it on the asphalt Head Over Heels landed broke my elbow never broke a bone playing football in college or anything and then I broke my elbow wow uh so it's dangerous working remotely sometimes it is I told you should get an office I told you you got to get the office you gotta get gotta get the HQ yeah HQ I know so yeah because you know a lot of people you know tell me like I sometimes I post on LinkedIn I post on LinkedIn a lot occasion you know um but I I post a lot about like working hard and you know being committed and everything and people always you know there's always like one or two people it's like you gotta work smart not hard and I think I think that's kind of what maybe they're trying to say is like you got to do both you gotta you gotta it's both it's both I'm not saying listen run around like a dog chasing your tail for doing nothing but it it just it takes effort it's not gonna come to you like it's it's not to your point about the lotto tickets it's not like you just you're not just buying the ticket like you're creating your own luck like you're putting yourself in the position to be successful and yes timing has to be right A lot of these other factors have to come in you have to surround yourself with awesome the right people and hard workers as well but you know I I think like that and you know you've probably like hustled and worked hard your whole life and so it's kind of like uh being an athlete in that you know when you're around real elite athletes that are in shape yeah they're they're warm-up is your work yeah so if you instill a work ethic what's hard work to others like they don't realize like what real hard work is sometimes unless you've really done it for an extended period of time yeah um but to the point of like making the company successful like take all those other factors out yeah you have to work incredibly hard I mean I I can't even I can't even count the number of times I've just literally worked through the night or the next day um or falling asleep with a computer literally in my lap like I mean endless days years I mean I bring a laptop with me if I'm with my kids I know and if one of them falls asleep in the car yeah while my wife goes in shopping with like two others gotta pull that laptop out because I'm like I'm not you know I'm not taking my time away from them but yeah I'm Gonna Knock Out some words you have to have those hacks and do everything you can and your team needs you you know what I mean like that's that's what like keeps me going and I think always had like I've always been the person that I'll work harder if somebody's counting on me than just me it's like to the point about working out like when my trainer's there I'm I'm working harder you know because like I don't know why it's weird I'm like he's relying on me to to do you know but if he's not there I mean am I gonna do those extra sets you know probably not you know absolutely so like you know having a team relying on you and knowing that they're working hard for you motivates me to do more you know and and uh it almost like it it makes like I have to do I have to put this work and I have to help others be successful um and and in turn it's good for all of us there's a a four-part series I think or a three-part series on Arnold Schwarzenegger oh my God I loved it and what was really interesting is you actually saw it from his students in Austria too yeah um Muscle Beach or whatever they call where he would surround himself yeah with the other bodybuilders basically creating this community of people that would like Challenge and push each other but also learn from each other yeah you know if you if you want to be elite like you're not going to know the perfect system with all these things and so there's other people that you might learn from to be better at working or pushing yourself harder yeah uh versus doing it like in a silo still sharp and still right is that what they're saying yeah accountability accountability too and I I love that um that that series by the way um so what what kind of advice would you give others out there you know obviously not everyone's gonna start a company not everyone but just like career-wise in general you know you have an interesting you know story because you were like really committed to Sports in the beginning and you know and I think that you use a lot of that drive to to drive your career and stuff but like what advice would you give people in their career trying to trying to get to the next level well I mean I was committed to sports when I played Sports when I got out of college though I didn't even know Sports was a career no I had no idea you could like I started Sports media but I had no idea that was even a thing yeah I had no idea you could even work for a team so um I I it wasn't on my mind at the time and I actually think that was good because um I think the the best thing you can do is just be naturally curious like learn like I'm a big believer and when I got out of school and I didn't have any experience coming out of college like literally my resume I'd put it up against anybody's just like the weakest resume you can ever meet to go GPA right on too low I also I work hard I didn't I didn't graduate so but if you created a resume though you probably have a lot more work experience than I had I worked at a cemetery cutting grass or something okay yep maybe and I bounce in a bar so that was my like work experience okay um but you know I kind of looked at that as an opportunity to just learn and immerse myself in all these like really advertising because even my first job was selling new stock advertising yeah and so learning from that was actually learning about like cost per points and ratings and you know uh the what am and FM mean and like radio frequencies and things like that so I just kind of learn about all those things and um it's not that I wanted to make a career in it but I found it really fascinating and so I think just in general like you know if you want to be interesting you know be interested in things yeah and then like keep up to date on what's going on in the world like just go into a totally different area or meet people that you can learn from that are in different environments yeah because you never know like what idea could get sparked from there and are you saying like on like almost like like underestimation kind of are you saying like because you didn't have that amazing resume you were just like kind of like oh I'm just you know I'm here to learn like I'm here to learn no I I kind of looked at it and said all right I don't know anything about business now this is where the like the athlete side was helpful for me because I said well I'm just gonna go all in on like learning all these things okay well and my mentality was you know people spent 18 years going to school and they keep moving up and then when they graduate like it starts to flatten yeah they're learning they don't have to you know take eight subjects a year anymore and my thinking was while they're all slowing down I'm gonna start accelerating my learning and just it just really dive in and almost like from a competitive standpoint yeah I am going to keep learning and reading and the more I read the more it led to other things you know it's kind of like going down a rabbit hole and uh to this day like you know I try to read like a book a week and I'm always like wanting to learn from other people so I guess it's hum it's humble in that you know especially once you read a little bit you know you don't know everything yeah yeah yeah you know there's a bigger world out there with some like really smart people yeah and I think that's important yeah to always be thinking like there's always somebody that knows something else there's always something to learn um and really seek that out and so that's that's what I tried to do and I think I think to this day that's helpful to me um I mean even in my my ride up here today I was talking to somebody I never met before and he threw one thing out that uh and I didn't expect it coming out of the call and it led to a whole Cascade of like other calls I made on on this one thing that you know will go down and it could be turned out to be great it could turn out to be nothing but I learned something new from that so that's the best yeah it's funny because I'm I'm thinking about like myself right in like my story it's like I think I just gotta I I was fortunate that I got the Head Start that I got because you know while all my other friends were in college you know going down the four years of college route I didn't really have anything else I was working you know I started working full time at like 16 uh when I was 17 when I dropped out of high school and then I was fortunate I got into a tech program that gave me an internship at 19 in the corporate world so the people I was working with were in their 40s 50s and 60s you know like uh entry-level job you know answering phones help desk technical support but by the time my friends graduated from college I was on my second you know professional job and you know still borderline entry level but I had like experience and I was able to you know at 22 23 you know get to that next next job you know the next level in my career and uh I think that that was a that was a fortunate thing for me but um so I by the way I I think like two opposite things can be correct so you did that and you got that momentum early on I stayed back my freshman year of high school and transferred to another high school so that I could get a scholarship for college football my dad was a coach like you definitely yeah I was a 19 year old senior yeah then I had that I was the only freshman that could drive himself to high school it was great um and then I had the five years because I had a red shirt year in college for football and then so I was 24 when I graduated wow again I had no work experience at 24. my first job I was 25 years old wow and so I I was like the opposite I'm like a lady with no experience yeah and so I think you know you you can benefit from both ways definitely really and sometimes coming in late and it is like athletes sometimes people like you know start early and and they're amazing and then sometimes people hit their stride later on in their careers it's crazy and it's crazy how but that that probably wouldn't have worked for me in my way probably when worked for you it's just and that this is a great point for our audience you have to do what's right for you people will look at others and say oh wow that's what that person did that's what I you know I should do I should you you have to do what's right for you have to be who you are you know 100 you have and that's what you know I try to teach my kids I try to anytime mentor and listen even even when I'm mentoring somebody right I say listen listen to my advice but you have to believe in yourself you know you have to you know don't just shut me out don't just shut people out but you have to do what you believe and what in how you feel because at the end of the day you have to live with those decisions and you have you know you know we don't have to live in in that person's world so I know and yeah having three kids and seeing they live in the same household they have the same parents and yet they're wired differently oh isn't it crazy you know we all have our different paths and uh yeah I think you know the problem today is that people are so pressured I'm like you have to go down this like one path and and then they're like I was talking to a young person last week and they're so nervous coming out of school yeah and you know they're 20 years old graduating and I'm like you don't oh such you know don't don't worry and I know it's so hard I'm like I've been 20. you haven't been 45 yeah yeah so I had the advantage of knowing what you're going through yeah um but you know that stuff of like yeah you everybody has their own path yeah you know it should be unique and different exactly exactly that's what makes life interesting right yeah and and special so let's get back to a little bit sponsor United and we're man we're we're getting a podcast in today this might be a little actually a long one so I know we were talking about some of the features coming on I know we can't release you know all of them but uh like what's something you're really excited about the future of sponsor United which may be like a game-changing addition that you're adding what's something that you're really excited about yeah I think that um big picture um as we continue to layer in more and more information yeah more context around everything that's happening with these deals and Partnerships taking all that information and making it really easy for people to get and and sort of understand that information so um the whole user experience where you know how do you ultimately make it like you're talking to another person that's helping you with the deals yeah so that you know we have some some real aspirational ways we want to make the experience for uh everybody in the industry yeah um and we want to keep pulling in more other information essentially that um essentially supplies them with everything they need to really create successful Partnerships that's amazing I know that's very Broad and no no but that's yeah I like that that that you know because that's what I think everybody's starting to see like the AI stuff pop up and it's like okay they wanted I think a lot of people want to integrate it in all their lives work you know home everything it's starting to seem like it's it's getting there you know we definitely want to make people's lives easier yeah so that people who are um you know marketers sales people Etc they can take their time and focus on higher level yeah things yeah tasks you know versus like manual research and trying to sort of pull information together they can be armed with the right information at the right time so that they can then take that and do what they do best yep first of all Bob thanks for coming to the podcast but I also want to um uh ask you two questions okay one what do you think of the Celtics this year and two what do you think of the Patriots this year please I need I need your expert what I want of the Celtics is is different than we eat the championship as a can you please forgot we share that same like love oh God the Celtics uh growing up this has got to be the year um I'm hoping that after sort of last year you know sort of new coaching and everything that there's some like settling and yeah uh that they'll hit their stride I don't know I think missoul is still one he's good uh I don't know I'm done uh things in the space wait what was the second question and then Patriots oh um if Mac Jones can sync up with uh the coaching staff yeah you don't think zappy uh I don't know you know he sat next to him so you live in Massachusetts so like having Connecticut that's a student yeah Switzerland like the news stops yeah it is Switzerland Connecticut that is good it is a good uh the Patriots news doesn't I think the airwaves are blocked or something do you know we sat next to zappy at the Celtics game we had no idea it was him oh really he's like right next to him like making jokes with him and everything and like at the towards the end of the game someone's like what's up what are you gonna start we're like wait you're zappy he's like no I'm not and just like left yes we had we had like a great time he's young he's really young he like he's young yeah do you know how old he is he looks like yeah 22. like he looks like in his Now That I'm Older everybody looks yeah that's true I know I know but it's weird when it's like professional athletes you know what I mean oh I know because like they're so much bigger than you tell with Tom Brady retiring because he's like a month or two younger than me so once he retired from the NFL there was nobody like I could only say like Hey listen guys my age are still playing so this is a very sad uh year for me that's it it's finally ended um hang it up hang up the Jersey yeah exactly all right Bob thanks for joining me on episode of Glide chat make sure you guys like And subscribe good [Music] foreign [Music]