Robert Leonard (02:38):

You being a D 1 athlete, did you have the opportunity to go professional for lacrosse? And did you just pursue entrepreneurship instead? And we’ll get into dropping out of college and it’s…just a second, but I’m curious, did you have the opportunity to go pro or was that not really on the table for you?

Dan Soviero (02:53):

I would love to say that I did. I would say that there were a lot of guys that were a lot better than me, maybe I could have gone in like the B leagues for the pros, but that just was never something that was a goal of mine. I was always super passionate about business and knew that that was the field I wanted to be playing on.

Robert Leonard (03:13):

Did the salary have any impact on your thoughts of potentially going pro? As I was preparing for this, I was doing a little bit of research and I saw that major league or just major professional lacrosse players don’t make much money. So I’m wondering if that made any impact?

Dan Soviero (03:28):

No, it really didn’t. For me, it was more about my dad. He’s not a religious man, but he used to say a prayer every single night that me and my brother would have a positive impact on the world. And that’s always been a guiding North star for me. And I saw the ability for me to have the biggest impact really in business, developing leaders on our own team. And then also the impact we can have making the sport more accessible and getting more kids the opportunity to have the same experiences that we were fortunate enough to have through sports growing up. So I was really drawn to that more than the money. I think that in business financials are the best measuring stick and being a former athlete I’m super goal-oriented. So we use finance as a metric for goals and KPIs, but it really isn’t the thing that gets me up in the morning and never really has been.

Robert Leonard (04:24):

Yeah, it’s interesting because for me, I had a similar type of situation. When I first got into podcasting, I didn’t want to be a podcast or for the money, but up until then, all I cared about was like business ventures that made money. I didn’t really care about the impact. And then I started doing this podcast and a ton of people reached out to me all the time about how what we’re talking about on the show is changing their lives and how I’ve had such a big impact. And that to me has meant so, so much. And I always thought that the people that said they do it for the impact, not for the money we’re just totally putting on a front, but now that I’ve actually done it myself, I totally agree with exactly what you’re saying.

Dan Soviero (05:00):

Yeah. Once you feel it for the first time, it’s probably one of the most addictive feelings in the world, just helping others is so fulfilling.

Robert Leonard (05:09):

Yeah. It’s one of those things I really didn’t believe it until I actually did it myself and it’s so true.

Dan Soviero (05:15):

I think that’s our generation as a whole. I think that the big thing, that the more people feel it and the more people get a chance to use their passion or their skill to actually have a bigger impact, I think it’s really a beautiful thing.

Robert Leonard (05:29):

It’s hard to grasp too. I mean, you can hear people talk about it all you want. I heard people say it all the time and I just didn’t fully grasp it until it actually happened.

Dan Soviero (05:37):

Yeah. And for me, the first business I ever started besides stealing mangoes off the neighbor’s tree and setting up the stand, and selling them back to all the neighbors with my brother. But the first business was really private lessons with kids. So in high school, when south Florida wasn’t a big area for lacrosse. So me and a couple other buddies were some of the first to get a Division 1 scholarship. So we set up private lessons and started poaching kids one-on-one and the impact that you have coaching a kid, one-on-one not just their skill in the sport, but also just the connection that you build. “What’s your favorite class? Why is it your favorite class? How are you doing in school? How are you doing with the girls?” All those different conversations, then you can see it really changes a kid’s life. And there are kids I coached actually eight years ago now that I just saw last week and he’s going to play college lacrosse. I started coaching him when he was probably eight or nine years old.

Robert Leonard (06:38):

Yeah. That’s such an awesome feeling. I have people that tell me that they listen to the first couple of episodes of this podcast, and now they’re buying their own rental properties. And it’s the same thing, right? Fast forward a couple of years, they’re buying rental properties, your people are going to play college Lacrosse, it’s an awesome feeling. So the first thing I really want to dive into was your decision to drop out of college. And funny enough, you actually attended what was at the time, my dream school. And for those who don’t know, that is the University of Tampa. Based on my math, I’m assuming you dropped out around your junior year. What made you decide to drop out?

Dan Soviero (07:12):

Yeah, so I was originally recruited to play lacrosse up at St. John’s in Queens and after my freshman year, when they brought out the snowplow to clear the field so we could practice, I realized I’m probably in the wrong place. So everyone on the team always talked about University of Tampa and this program and how awesome it is. And I had never heard of it. Growing up in Florida on the East Coast in Jupiter, you never really heard about Tampa. I don’t know why, but nobody ever talked about it. So the first time I heard about it was actually when I was up at St. John’s in New York. And as soon as I made the decision that I wanted to transfer and play Division 2 lacrosse so I could have more time to focus on the business, I knew I wanted to either be in California or Florida in the warm weather again.

Dan Soviero (07:59):

And so I ended up transferring to Tampa. And within about six months, we were doing over a half a million a year in sales. It started to become a very real conversation that I was having with myself, “Is this the right move for me? Do I want to keep going to school and playing lacrosse or do I want to drop out and focus on the business?” And it was one of the harder decisions I ever made because I was so passionate about playing. And I knew that I could have a real impact on the field, but I hadn’t really had a chance to do that yet. So I really struggled with it and then I had a meeting with a mentor of mine, Jamie Agassi who’s been a mentor now for four years or so.

Dan Soviero (08:44):

Amazing guy and in a 30-minute conversation I learned more than I did in an entire semester taking a full course load. And so that was the point where I realized, “This isn’t that hard of a decision. I’m going to drop out. I’m going to focus on business and I’m going to surround myself with mentors that I can just accelerate my learning tenfold.”

Robert Leonard (09:06):

When you first said it was a hard decision, was it hard because you put pressure on yourself and you weren’t sure what the right path was, or did you not have the support of your friends and family? How did that dynamic play out?

Dan Soviero (09:18):

I’m a pretty independent guy. So I like to make decisions pretty independently. It was just really a personal struggle for me. Yeah. I guess there was to some degree wanting to make mom proud and have the diploma on the refrigerator. But once I realized that I can make mom proud by having an impact on the world through business, it became very easy. And what is school really for? This was a conversation I had with my father, actually, what is college really for? It’s to help you find what you’re passionate about and then give you the education to pursue it. I found what I was passionate about growing businesses. And you don’t learn how to grow businesses in college. You learn how to grow businesses by growing businesses and making mistakes and failing and learning from it. And so once I really realized that that was my path and that was what I was passionate about, it really did become a pretty easy decision.

Robert Leonard (10:13):

Was my math correct? Were you a junior when you dropped out?

Dan Soviero (10:17):

I probably should have been, but I was probably a sophomore in credits.

Robert Leonard (10:21):

So being halfway done or somewhere along those lines, did you not see value in just finishing and then working on the business? Did you feel that there was an urgency to really get going on the business now?

Dan Soviero (10:35):

Yeah, definitely. Like I said, what school was for me, what college was for me was a vehicle to find what I was passionate about and then to educate me around that passion so I could pursue it. And I realized education in college isn’t going to help me build businesses. I needed to get the real life practical experience and learn from people who have been doing it their whole lives. And the faster I get started, the more progress I’ll make and we’re only on this earth for so long, I’d rather spend all the time I can doing what I’m most passionate about.

Robert Leonard (11:10):

What advice do you have for someone listening to the show today that is currently in college and considering dropping out, or is just now going into college and they’re not sure if that’s the right path for them?

Dan Soviero (11:24):

I think it’s really a very personal decision. I think there’s a lot of room to improve the education system in general. I think kids coming out of high school now are more fortunate than every generation before them because of what’s available online, YouTube, podcasts like this. You can just learn everything that you want to learn online. And it just really depends on the person and where you are in your life and whether you know what you’re passionate about and know what you want to pursue for the rest of your life. And it can make you enough of an income that you can live and take care of your family or whether you’re still figuring it out, which a lot of people are. And if you’re still figuring it out, I’d say go to college, experience it, broaden your mind and try as many things as you possibly can and you’ll find what you want to do.

Robert Leonard (12:17):

You talked about how you didn’t necessarily gain a ton of tactical education that really helped you build a business in college. And I completely agree with that, but one of the pieces I’m curious about is did you build a lot of relationships in college that have helped with the business? Was the networking piece important?

Dan Soviero (12:34):

I’d say network is probably one of the most important things in building a business. Did I build a good network in college? Probably, but post-college, my network has grown much more substantially and much more accurately, I guess you could say with what I want to do and where I want to go. And one of the big radars that I use and that my wife uses is we try to put ourselves around people that we want to be more like when we’re older. And we say that all the time, and we’ll say that when we’re 90 years old, we just want to surround ourselves with people who we aspire to be more like. And I think that’s a really important part of networking and especially deciding who you want as a mentor. Growing up, I had coaches that were life-changing and completely moved the needle in my life. I also had coaches that were not that great and not somebody that I wanted to be like when I was older. And the same goes for mentors, you should really be selective with who you aspire to be more like.

Robert Leonard (13:37):

My next question is partially a selfish one because I’m an athlete myself and I’m interested in learning more about this, but I think it’s also important to get some context for the audience before we go into our next few questions after that. So explain to us what the NLL is and how it’s different from the MLL and the PLL, which based on my research seems like has just merged.

Dan Soviero (13:59):

Yeah. So the NLL is the National Lacrosse League. It’s the largest and longest-standing professional lacrosse league. It’s for indoor lacrosse, as opposed to the MLL and the PLL, which is outdoor lacrosse field lacrosse, we call it. So in indoor lacrosse, you’re playing actually in an ice rink, the floors are turfed and it’s five on five. So it’s a lot higher speed. There are a lot more touches, there are a lot less rules. It’s a lot more physical of a game. It’s very, very big in Canada, which…actually lacrosse is the official sport of Canada. A lot of people know that. So it’s the North American Pro League. There are teams in Canada and there are teams in the US. And they actually just expanded again, it’s the 15th team in the league now. They average around 11,000 fans a game. They compete with some of the hockey teams that they’re in the same stadium with. It’s really an exciting league and we’re really happy to be part of it.

Robert Leonard (15:06):

I want to talk a bit about how you’re part of the NLL and some of the other professional leagues at your company, Signature Athletics has partnered with. How were you able to form a relationship with such a big league, like the NLL and the other professional leagues to become the official ball of those leagues.

Dan Soviero (15:24):

Networking, just not being afraid to pick up the phone and reach out. And we had a great start to the business. We created the first higher quality, longer-lasting safer ball. So the first premium lacrosse ball, which created an entirely new category in the sport. And so a lot of the leagues recognized that we were doing something different and we were fortunate enough to actually get approached by some, and then the others we approached. And with the NLL, we realized pretty early on that what we had built with this premium lacrosse ball really wasn’t a patentable idea. If we did patent it, we’d basically be giving away the formula. And so we decided, “Okay, well, how can we create some defensibility? If we get a first right of refusal, exclusive agreement with the pro league, we can grow with them as time goes on and become the Wilson Basketball of lacrosse.”

Dan Soviero (16:19):

And so that was the idea. And then I was fortunate to get introduced to Nick Sakiewicz, the Commissioner of the NLL who’s one of the eight founders of Major League Soccer, and we just hit it off. He’s a really great guy. And so he joined our advisory board and that was really instrumental in our strategic planning process and really helped me to identify a much bigger problem that our company can solve and then really have the confidence to pursue it and give up an exclusive, very focused approach to building problem-solving lacrosse products, and actually broaden that to building a problem-solving software and supply chain solution that can help youth lacrosse programs travel across programs and actually all sports programs. All youth sports programs, get custom fan gear and custom uniforms on demand. And this model that we created, it saves program directors anywhere from 50 to a 100 hours a year, it makes their business substantially more profitable right out of the gates so they can reinvest in scholarships to help more kids experience the sport.

Dan Soviero (17:36):

And so it really aligns with our vision as a company and with our mission. And it’s kind of crazy how in your entrepreneurial journey, there’s so many twists and there’s so many turns and there’s ups and there’s downs. And sometimes it’s one conversation and one idea that ends up just pivoting the business and really taking you to the next level. And I’m very grateful to have Nick involved and to have his mentorship.

Robert Leonard (18:03):

Inventing a new ball seems like a massive hurdle to me. And I think becoming the official ball of any professional sports league is difficult by itself, but trying to implement a brand new ball just seems like it’s massively difficult. I compare it to someone replacing a baseball or a football in the MLB or the NFL. I can’t imagine that baseball ever-changing at least in my lifetime. And I think there’s a lot of people listening that have business ideas that seem like they’re massive hurdles like this. How did you overcome such a massive hurdle?

Dan Soviero (18:38):

I think if you just look at history, it’s bound to repeat itself. Funny enough, the football, one of our attorneys, Jay, he actually was the one who got the NCAA to adopt four-panel football. So he had had experience getting that pushed through to the NFL and the NCAA and was really helpful and just sharing his journey with me for us. I think it was a little bit easier because if you just look at the history of the lacrosse ball, it has changed over the years and it definitely needs to change. And the reason is if you draw a football on a piece of paper, if you draw a soccer ball, if you draw a baseball, you know what it is. A volleyball, you know what it is right away. If you draw a lacrosse ball on a piece of paper, it’s a circle. Nobody knows what it is.

Dan Soviero (19:30):

If you see a lacrosse ball and you’ve never heard of the sport, you might say that’s a big bouncy ball. Lacrosse needs just from a macro branding perspective, a ball that the sport and the athletes can identify with. And if you look at golf, they used to use a ball very similar to lacrosse, completely round no technology in it. And it sucked compared to what they’re using now. And so a lacrosse ball, there’s so much opportunity to increase performance, increase safety, increase the macro branding of the sport by making it uniquely identified within the sport. And then if you just think about the color, women use yellow, men use white, I still don’t know why that is. And nobody’s really had an answer for that. And neither of those colors is designed for digital visibility. And as we all know, that’s where everything is now, you’re watching most highlights on your phone.

Dan Soviero (20:29):

You’re watching a lot of games on your phone and a lacrosse ball is like a hockey puck. It’s small, it’s moving really fast, it’s hard to see. And so we were able to take actually the Pantone from tennis, who did millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of studies, and apply that to this new Pro S1 ball that we created. And so it’s significantly more digitally visible. And that ball was actually adopted by major league lacrosse right before the merger last year. So they used it in the 2020 championship games on ESPN. And we had had our balls on ESPN for the FI World Games back in 2018. And they actually used our orange ball and just comparing the film from the orange ball to this new Pro S1, we call it Hyper Yellow color. It’s night and day difference, a night and day difference.

Dan Soviero (21:26):

So there’s really four main things that we wanted to solve. One, digital visibility, two, performance. So on the performance side, we took the same technology that they’re using in golf. We created divots around the ball, which creates less drag as the ball is going through the air and less drag means that it’s going to stay on the plane for longer. So the ball actually has a truer flight pattern and it’s actually going to go faster. So very similar to golf. So we tackled the digital visibility, we tackled the performance safety because of those divots, the ball is going to compress more on impact so there are less pounds per square inch of force transfer. And then the last, the fourth bucket for us was giving players something that they could identify with, in this sport, something that they could identify with. And if you look at our Pro S1 ball, it’s unique. There isn’t anything like it. And it’s something that players in the sport can truly identify with.

Robert Leonard (22:27):

As sports fans, we see ads all the time that say, companies are the exclusive provider for XYZ for various different sports leagues. It could be the MLB, NBA, NFL. I mean it could be any sports league, but we see these types of ads all the time. As a business person, I’ve always wondered what those types of relationships look like. So from a business perspective, what does it mean to be the exclusive provider of an official ball for a sports league? Are you having to give balls away for free? Are you having to give huge discounts for buying such large quantities? Is it not really a strategy for profits, but rather just building your company’s brand? What is your strategy and goal with a relationship like this?

Dan Soviero (23:10):

Yeah, it’s really a brand and for us, the relationship really was all about, “Let’s make the future of lacrosse balls together.” We’re the largest pro-league, the pinnacle of the sport. If it’s good enough for the pros, it’s good enough for everybody else. And so the thought was this relationship will really help us evolve the ball for the entire sport and allow us to really leave our mark on the game and have had that impact of the Pro S1 ball being the official ball of lacrosse. As far as how relationships work, it’s an agreement. It always comes down to just the negotiation. It’s got to be a win-win for both sides in any agreement. So we were fortunate, this is I think year five for us with the NLL. So we’ve gone through a couple of different versions of our agreement. It’s evolved over time, but it’s got to be a win-win for both sides.

Robert Leonard (24:07):

I certainly don’t know all of the big lacrosse brands, but I’m familiar with some of them like Warrior and SPX. How does your company compete in a competitive industry? How have you used your company’s problem-solving nature to evolve into a company that’s solving the age-old problem of ordering uniforms and custom fan gear?

Dan Soviero (24:27):

Yeah, so we really consider ourselves in competition with ourselves and we’ve always kind of taken that approach. So our model we built like we’re playing a very different game than our competition. We’re using a B2B2C. So I should backtrack and kind of give the overview of how it really happened. So after we developed this Premium Ball and we realized, “Okay, we have a pretty good company culture of identifying a problem in the market, solving it, and we can build on that. So what’s another problem in the market?” I was coaching at the time, I still am and I was restringing 29 out of 30 kids’ sticks. I coach U-10, so a lot of times it’s the first year these kids are coming out to the fields and we knew the junior sticks are a big problem. So we spent a lot of time back and forth in Asia, teaching the factory how to pass, how to catch.

Dan Soviero (25:23):

We developed this insane stringing manual, this quality control process so that we could have pro strong game-ready sticks right off the shelf. And so once we solved that second problem, we realized, “Okay, what’s another problem?” Stringing in net to a gold frame sucks, takes two hours. Ours, you screw it right in, it takes five minutes. And so in our strategic planning meeting that I referenced earlier with Nick around 2018, we had been working on this concept to actually digitally create team stores for youth programs and travel programs. And those team stores come with 40 fully custom fan gear items, the program’s uniform sets for the season, and all of the products can be ordered with no minimum order quantity on demand. They get produced and shipped within three weeks of ordering it. So the idea really came from watching my wife, who was a youth sports program director, spend over 100 hours ordering uniforms and fan gear for the families in our program.

Dan Soviero (26:29):

And that was everything from collecting checks and sizes and numbers from the parents to placing the order with a sales rep, receiving a big box of uniforms, sorting through it, bagging uniforms up to hand out at the fields only to find the factory screwed up sizes and numbers for over 10% of the kids forcing her to put in a replacement order that wouldn’t be delivered until the season was over. And so we set out to really build a solution to that problem. And we took a holistic approach, we realized this is really as much a supply chain issue as it is the software issue. And so we first tried Pakistan, China, Taiwan, and then we realized, “Okay, this isn’t going to work. We’re going to have to go to the Dominican Republic.” And we realized even the DR really wasn’t going to work because of the turnaround times. And so we domesticated the manufacturing to the US and then we automated the transmission of the order information directly from the parent who’s placing the order on the front end of the site. So no longer the program director filling out order forms. Now the parent’s putting in the information directly, we’re pushing it through an API to the factory, and then the factory is producing it on demand and shipping it out.

Dan Soviero (27:44):

And so it’s really a seamless process. And this cut the lead times from the traditional eight to 10 weeks down to a standard 21 days. And we even have a rush seven-day option. So it allowed us to lower the 10% error rate down to under 1%. And we were able to cut five of the eight people out of the value chain. So unlike traditional team stores, ours is open 24/7, 365. There are no minimums, there’s no two-week order window and there’s really no headache for the program director. So yeah, it’s really been a game-changer for us. And it’s been a game-changer for our clients. We launched it in quarter four of last year after an initial seed round, we were planning on signing 30 programs by the end of this year. And we just signed program number 70 this week. So the product-market fit has been through the roof.

Robert Leonard (28:42):

Since your company is in the sports industry, do you typically hire mostly athletes and ex-athletes as your employees?

Dan Soviero (28:49):

We hire the best people for the job. So we don’t have a particular disposition to athletes. Whoever’s the best for the role male, female color doesn’t matter. Nothing matters to us other than who’s the best fit for the role.

Robert Leonard (29:06):

I know many successful business people have discussed that running their business like a sports team has helped lead to success. Do you lead Signature Athletics like you would a sports team and if so, how?

Dan Soviero (29:18):

That’s a good question. I’d say one, my leadership style is definitely leadership and not management first. And I think that’s probably a result of being on a team and just understanding that management isn’t motivating, leadership is really motivating. And I’d say the focus on company culture is probably derivative of my experience in sports. Yeah. I never really thought about that though. That’s a good question.

Robert Leonard (29:48):

As I was doing my research for this interview, I noticed that you and your company raised money for Signature Athletics through an equity crowdfunding platform called StartEngine. I actually had the founder and CEO of StartEngine Howard Marks on this podcast a few months back on episode 85. So we all got to learn about equity crowdfunding from his perspective, but now I want to learn about it from the company who actually raised the money. What made you choose equity crowdfunding as your source of capital for your raise?

Dan Soviero (30:19):

Yeah, that’s cool. Howard’s a really great guy. And what he’s built with CEO of StartEngine Howard marks is really disruptive to how companies are going to raise capital in the future. I think that it’s really innovative. It’s really founder-friendly and it just makes a lot of sense. And so the decision for us to use equity crowdfunding as a means for raising that initial seed round really came down to, we have over 30,000 clients that have come through our website over the last five years. And we take a lot of pride in what we call signature service and just going over and above to really make sure that we’re solving problems for our clients the same way we’re trying to solve problems with the products we made. And so we’ve done things as crazy as like somebody needed a case of balls for a tournament. They called us on a Friday, they needed it Saturday morning, they’re in upstate New York. We called the competitor of ours, who we were trying to win their business, a retailer. We had an Uber driver pick up a case of balls an hour away, drive it down to the program director in the middle of the night, drop it off at his hotel so that he had a case of balls for the tournament.

Dan Soviero (31:27):

And so just knowing that we had built that out of her relationship with so many clients, it made a lot of sense to have an opportunity for all those people to participate in the growth of our company and the upside of our company. And so we really did it as a way of furthering for the players, by the players, ethos and giving all of our clients and all the players and all the coaches and program directors we work with an opportunity to be part of it.

Dan Soviero (31:54):

It was a great experience. We learned a lot, I would say, keep an eye out because we might be back for our follow on rounds. We are currently raising a $2 million round we’re about 25% subscribed on it. Last year’s round was a seed round, this is like a series A, follow on to the seed round. The growth that we’ve seen, we were projecting to add 30 programs, two three-year contracts for this team store model by the end of this year, we’re at 70 already. So we already doubled our projections in quarter one of this year. And we’re on pace to beat those doubled projections by the end of this quarter. This round is really to help drive more of that growth. StartEngine is something that’s definitely been on our radar as a possibility to go back there. But we are working with a ton of angel groups and a lot of private investors. And if we can close the round with less people, we probably will.

Robert Leonard (32:50):

When you consider legal fees and other upfront costs. What was the total amount you had to pay to raise money through equity crowdfunding?

Dan Soviero (32:57):

I think it ended up being around 10% of the capital.

Robert Leonard (33:02):

And so was that paid afterwards?

Dan Soviero (33:06):

A combination, some paid upfront. StartEngine does a great job of really helping to take their feed as the money comes in. But you do have the upfront legal expenses, the accounting expenses to do a formal financial review. And those are substantial anywhere from like 20 to 50 grand when it’s all said and done.

Robert Leonard (33:25):

And that has to be done before you raise the money, correct?

Dan Soviero (33:29):

Correct.

Robert Leonard (33:31):

Was the process of getting people to actually invest in the company difficult? Was it harder than you expected?

Dan Soviero (33:38):

I would say it was easier than I expected if anything, but it really comes down to just tenacity and grit and just making calls and finding the people who are passionate about the vision and believe in the team and believe in what we’re building and getting the right people in and not just the easiest person who’s ready to cut a check, but wants to change the direction of the whole company.

Robert Leonard (34:04):

When you raise money through a platform like StartEngine, did they do the majority of the advertising and bring the most of the investors to you or did you actually go out and bring most of those investors to the platform yourself?

Dan Soviero (34:15):

I would say that we brought most of them. We did do this a year ago almost now. And the platform has continued to grow pretty significantly. So it’s probably becoming more a combination of the two, but our experience was, “we’re doing the majority of the legwork here.”

Robert Leonard (34:34):

How has raising around the funding through equity crowdfunding different than you expected going into it?

Dan Soviero (34:40):

I would say that we were expecting the majority of investors to come from the platform itself and the existing traffic on the platform. And when you really get into it, you realize there are 100 companies on the platform doing this and StartEngine has to be very fair with how they promote the companies. And so it really puts more of the onus on the brand to do the work. And that’s totally okay. It just wasn’t what we were expecting going into it. And I think the second time around, if we were to go back, we would have a much better grasp on what to expect.

Robert Leonard (35:17):

I know that StartEngine offers secondary trading for some of the companies that have raised money on their platform. Full disclosure, I actually invested in StartEngine through their platform. They also raised money through their own platform for their company specifically, and I actually invested in them through there. So for full disclosure, but I’m curious, are you guys open to trading on the secondary market? And I want to learn a little bit more about that process. Have you been approached for that? What are your considerations for that?

Dan Soviero (35:46):

We’ve been approached by StartEngine about doing that. It’s not something that we’re spending any time on right now. Our focus is really on scale and on growing this and we have so much work on our plates right now. We can’t really spend any time on the liquidity of the shares and our investors knew that coming in and know that now they’re in it for the long haul. We have an incredible opportunity in front of us and it’s all comes down to execution and speed of execution. So we’re pretty laser-focused on finishing up this follow on round and scaling the business.

Robert Leonard (36:23):

One of the big issues investors have with equity crowdfunding is the fact that the shares are often illiquid. And so that’s why I really liked the secondary market is because it provides some liquidity for those companies that have traditionally been illiquid. For the investors that have invested in your company that know it’s going to be illiquid for a while, what is your plan for providing them liquidity? What is their expected exit? Is it going to be a sale to a bigger company? Is there going to be plans of potentially making this a public company someday? How do they end up getting paid back as investors?

Dan Soviero (36:54):

Yeah, so we are operating right now on a five-year plan and our five-year plan gets us to 50 million in annual revenues dropping 20 to 25 points to the bottom line. At that point, we will either look at an exit to a private equity fund or a bigger competitor in the space, or we’ll look at the opportunity to get to a couple of 100 million in annual revenue and either through an IPO or through some other form of an event so that investors can realize their investment and a return on their investment. But that decision will come when we’re at that point. So right now the plan is to exit at 50 million, which would, based on comps in the market, give us the ability to deliver about a 10X return to our investors over a five-year period. But if the shot’s clear, our team’s probably going to take it. We’re in this for the long haul.

Robert Leonard (37:57):

How has raising money through equity crowdfunding changed how you approach the business? Now you have, I think I saw you had about 150 or so investors. So these are individual people that put up money to back your company. Does that change how you approach business? Do you think about, “Hey, I have 150 people that gave me their hard-earned money and they’re expecting me to be a steward of their capital.” Does that impact how you think about business and your decisions?

Dan Soviero (38:21):

I would say, no, it really hasn’t. Everybody on our team, we have 10 full-time team members. Everybody’s taking a pay cut to be a part of this and to grow this business. And so we’ve always looked at that as really a key for us is really just getting everybody to salary levels that are commensurate with the work that they’re putting in. We have an incredible team. We’ve been really, really fortunate, and that’s really, what’s going to determine our success or failure. It’s not outside capital, it’s really our team and our ability to execute. And so the outside capital and the investors, we’re incredibly grateful. We’re really appreciative to have that backing. And we’re really, really focused on growing the business to that exit, realizing a return for investors and really realizing a return for all of our teammates who have put in blood, sweat, and tears to make this business possible. And to have the impact that we’re looking to have on sports.

Robert Leonard (39:21):

Which habits or principles have you incorporated into your life personally, that you think have helped lead to your success in business that not enough people do but should?

Dan Soviero (39:32):

Prioritizing my relationship with my wife over and above the business is a big thing. We go to breakfast every Sunday and we have kind of a ritual that we go through. That’s been incredible going through this journey and ups and downs and twists and turns. And she runs her own business too, so she gets it and she’s going through a lot of the same stuff. That’s been really huge. We do Friday nights date night, we always do that. We’re religious about it. And then just waking up every morning and just being reminded that I’m just the luckiest guy in the world and I’m with this beautiful, beautiful woman who’s so smart and so nice and kind, and it really just puts things in perspective that even on the worst days on the journey, I know I’ve already won because I have just an incredible family and an incredible life.

Dan Soviero (40:21):

I’d say that’s probably the biggest one. Other than that, I’d say reading. Reading is something that I did not value as a kid. And it’s something that has been instrumental. So I read every morning as a way of opening up my mind to have a learner’s mindset before the day starts, before I look at my phone, my email, anything and then I try and read it at the night before I go to bed. And that’s been awesome.

Robert Leonard (40:45):

Dan, thanks for joining me on the podcast. For those listening that want to connect with you after the show, where’s the best place for them to go?

Dan Soviero (40:53):

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. Dan Soviero. S-O-V like Victor, I-E-R-O. Our company Signaturelacrosse.com. Check out the site, would love any feedback. Dan, thanks for having me. It’s been awesome.

Robert Leonard (41:11):

Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. I’ll put a link to your LinkedIn, your website, some of your contact info in the show notes below for anybody that’s interested in reaching out after the show. Dan, thanks for joining me.

Dan Soviero (41:23):

Beautiful. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Robert Leonard (41:26):

All right guys. That’s all I had for this week’s episode of Millennial Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro (41:32):

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