5 Lessons Your Startup Can Learn From Leicester City Winning the Premier League
One of the biggest upsets in sports history was just confirmed. Tiny soccer/football club Leicester City won the Premier League, against all odds. And I mean all odds. At the start of the season, British bookers offered a 5000/1 odds for the club to win the league. Notably, that’s a probability about the same as Christmas Day being the warmest day of the year in England and about two times less likely than Hugh Hefner admitting he’s a virgin. Simon Cowell to become then next Prime Minister of the UK seems like a complete given in comparison to Leicester City winning the league: odds are reportedly 500 to 1.
As a startup founder, I feel a strange relationship to these numbers. Startups have about as big a chance to succeed in the market as does a minor club with little to no budget has to win the Premier League. Estimates say that of all the companies applying to Y Combinator, about 0.4% see some level of success. More optimistic calculations put the chance of succeeding at a shockingly high 10–20%, but either way you look at it, odds are against you as an entrepreneur.
However, if Leicester City can beat their odds, then so can your startup. Here are five things that Leicester City did to win and that your startup can do too.
1. Keep a tight budget and find the right players for your team
Just like a fresh startup entering the market, Leicester didn’t have much money when the season started. They spent only £25M (about $36.7M) on new players, compared to Manchester City’s £150M ($220M). The total value of the squad is estimated to £70.07M ($102M), compared to Chelsea’s £379.75M ($557M).
What Leicester did do, was to be smart about how they used the little money they had. Instead of spending big on high profile players, they invested in scouting out players like Mahrez and Kante that the other clubs missed.
As a startup, you have to look beyond good looking resumes to find your team. Utilize your network to “scout” for talents. Allow for recruitment processes to take time. Look for real talents, not just good names. It pays off.
2. Nurture the team culture
“So every day before a game now, whether it’s in the week or at the weekend, it’s always apple crumble and custard. That tradition has stuck for 18 seasons.” — Gary Payne, Head Chef at Leicester City (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/leicester-city/12021870/Leicester-Citys-Premier-League-miracle-the-inside-story.html)
Leicester is an old club, founded 132 years ago. This means there are old customs and habits deeply rooted in the club. When the new manager, Claudio Ranieri, arrived at the beginning of this season, he made sure to cherish these cultural markers and use them as a knitting bond for everyone involved in the club.
He also kept the core of last season’s squad and built the new season’s team around it. Long time team ambassadors like Alan “Birch” Birchenall have stayed on for decades, evangelizing for the club no matter the position on the league table.
With the strong culture bonding players and staff together, Ranieri was able to connect with the team and have everyone “staying out doing extra work”.
Just like Leicester City, your startup probably can’t pay hefty salaries to keep people on. But you can invest your time and energy in forging a culture that brings and keeps people together and encourages everyone to walk the extra mile for the same goal. Team spirit can’t be bought for money, so your fat wallet competitors won’t have any edge there.
3. Keep it simple and move fast on the counter-attack
Leicester City doesn’t have the type of players that let them control a game, passing the ball within the team and slowly looking for openings to attack. Leicester’s passing statistics is actually among the worst in the top flight of the league table.
Instead, the opted for a classic 4–4–2 tactic, allowing for a more straight and simple style of play. This tactic though does require players willing to work hard for each other, with little partnerships between key pairs of players, like the right-back and the right-midfielder. The team spirit needs to be converted to team work, with every player doing their heavy-lifting for both themselves and their peers on the pitch.
Ranieri also realized that what his team lacked in technique, they could make up for with speed.
“Leicester are quick. Really quick. Jamie Vardy has shown more than one Premier League defender a clean pair of heels this season whether that be running past them or playing on the shoulder and getting in behind.” — http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/leicester-city-good-season-what-10548702)
While the big clubs played their possession style of football, slowly passing the ball around, Leicester utilized their chances to snatch back the ball and quickly run for the counter-attack. Speed was the secret ingredient in everything they did.
Not big and strong enough to control the competitor? Moving fast and break things? Sounds familiar? Startups too can’t expect to dominate the market from the get-go. They have to keep things simple, leveraging the small size of their team that allows for easy communication and team work. They may not have the size of the team or the experience of the players that allow for nitty-gritty detailed “possession game”, but they can move fast. As for Leicester City, speed is the only way with which they can beat the big guys.
4. Have an owner who believes in the long-haul
In 2010, Thai businessman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha bought Leicester City in what looked like yet another wealthy foreigner taking over a British Club. While this has previously proven to mean flipping managers from one month to another and chasing quick results with little to no patience (ask the many recent managers of Chelsea and Manchester City), Srivaddhanaprabha turned out to be of another breed.
The manager, Nigel Pearson, who led the team when Srivaddhanaprabha came on board, was allowed to not only stay on but to continue to lead the team for four full seasons — an eternity in British football. Even when Leicester just barely managed to avoid regulation at the end of the 14/15 season, the owner showed trust in his manager and let him stay on his job. Not until after a massive scandal emerged during the post-season tour in 2015, involving Pearson’s own son’s racist behaviors, Pearson was sacked.
Srivaddhanaprabha placed before-mentioned Claudio Ranieri, a seasoned but not overly successful manager, on the job. Evidently, this proved to be not only a brave but an amazingly rewarding decision.
Startups are, like British football teams, entities of ups and downs. Sometimes the stars are aligned and you have a great ten win streak. Sometimes… well sometimes, things just don’t work out the way you hoped. If you don’t have owners who believe in you and what you’re doing, and who are willing to let you do mistakes “on the field” to come back stronger next time, you’re set for trouble when the inevitable downturn or road bump happens. Startup owners, and football club owners alike, need to follow renowned business advisor Kenny Rogers’ words:
Know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done
5. Leverage “market opportunities”
Ok, so of all the above long shots (no pun intended) in drawing parallells between football and startups, here’s the last and maybe longest one. But bear with me, it might make sense.
The 15/16 Premier League season was not just a season of Leicester City’s hard work and remarkable results. It was also a season where many of the big clubs failed, and failed miserably. Past season’s winner Chelsea struggled in the bottom half for the most part of the season. Former power house Manchester United will have a hard time making it to the Champions League for the first time since the league started. And just about everyone seem to have their players more on the injury list than in the starting eleven, forcing line-up changes that disrupt the patterns of play.
This should not take credit away from Leicester City’s accomplishments. When the big teams have struggled, low morale in the teams and external pressure from fans and media has followed. Leicester’s leadership and style of play allowed them to keep it simple and steer away from unnecessary distractions, leveraging on the fact that their competitors were busy with their internal problems.
Startups can do this too. Markets, like league tables, are not solid, eternal entities. They change and they change more rapidly when the market leaders are being shaken up by internal and external forces. These window of opportunities are where startups can thrive and quickly rush their competitors.
—
I am not a total sport jock, but I do enjoy sports for the entertainment. And lately also for the apparent similarities between building successful sports teams and building successful startup teams. What do you think? Are there other similarities I have missed? Or ones here that just don’t make any sense? Let me know in the comments or tell me on Twitter.
Thanks for reading, please share if you liked it!
/ Oskar Kalmaru, Co-founder and CMO at Narrative. Tonight I’m going to Oracle Arena to watch Golden Gate Warriors beat Portland in their second game of the semifinals.
