Sameer Ahuja of GameChanger: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Began Leading My Company

An Interview With Jerome Knyszewski

Distribution is as important as product: A good business model can overcome a mediocre product in the near-term. It’s hard to overcome the opposite if you can’t get your product in the hands of the right customers. The right customers will give you feedback, which will improve your product over time. An example of this happened to me while I was working at a fintech startup. A fledgling company built a very mediocre product, but found a way to connect with a tiny sliver of customers, the ones most likely to pay, and found a way to connect them with others in the ecosystem. They leapfrogged us and it took a while to recover.

As part of our series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Began Leading My Company”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sameer Ahuja. He leads GameChanger, a DICK’S Sporting Goods sports tech company. GameChanger’s mission is to serve youth sports communities with the highest quality game coverage. GameChanger’s beloved mobile apps are used by millions of youth sports coaches, fans, and athletes to score, stream, and watch youth sports. Sameer is responsible for the overall vision, strategy, and day-to-day management of the company.

Sameer is a long-time entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience as a Founder, CEO or COO of high-growth technology businesses, from startup to late-stage in multiple industries. He co-founded an interactive sports attraction, founded a quant hedge fund, and built a fintech company. Sameer began his career in management consulting at A.T. Kearney and banking at JPMorganChase. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Columbia University. He currently lives in Scarsdale, New York with his wife and two kids. Sameer also writes a blog, Complexity Everywhere, about unexpected events in markets, politics, and society. He actively incorporates deep learning (artificial intelligence) and complexity science in research and writing.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Having started and worked with startups most of my career, I’ve always been passionate about leveraging data and technology to help people make more human connections. I was introduced to GameChanger while coaching my daughter’s softball team several years ago and I was blown away by its potential. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to now lead the company and impact so many coaches, young athletes, and their families.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

While I didn’t found the company, I’ve been fortunate to lead GameChanger for a year and a half now. Throughout my experience, I’ve focused on one singular question: how can we leverage our product to connect more families through the power of sports? That question led to the launch of GameChanger’s live-game streaming capability last year during the height of the pandemic. I’d say that launch, and the feedback we received from customers about it, really brought home to me the fact that what we’re building is helping communities begin to feel normal again and helping kids reconnect with the sports and teams they love.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I’ve worked for very successful companies and I’ve worked for companies that have failed. These experiences have taught me the value of persistence and hard work. There is always someone out there that will try to outwork you. Don’t let them. There are many things in the world that you can’t control. But what you can control is your attitude and work ethic.

So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

You have to live and breathe your space if you want to succeed. I was lucky enough to be introduced to a product in GameChanger that I was already using and love. Now, I want to continue to improve upon that product and communicate its power of connecting families through sports to a larger audience. GameChanger is already profitable and we cover over 4 million youth sports games a year, which no other company can say.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Simply put, we’re disrupting youth sports and more broadly sports broadcasting. While ESPN and other networks broadcast one game to millions of viewers, GameChanger broadcasts millions of games to only a few local viewers. And you don’t need any fancy equipment to do it. Just a phone. We have solved the problem of tracking and watching youth sports in the digital age. The app simplifies the lives of youth coaches and helps connect parents to their kids’ teams, which has been especially important during COVID-19.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

Nothing particularly funny comes to mind, but I will say that early on in my career, my biggest mistake was thinking that I was alone in my decision making. I always had my head down working to try to solve complex problems by myself. Not only did this become stressful, but it also gives you a one-track mind that creates a bubble around yourself. Throughout my career, I’ve learned to be much more open to asking for advice and feedback. Diverse perspectives are key to innovation.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

A couple of times, I got advice to not promote our products to customers too early. I think that was wrong. The sooner you let customers know what you are working on, the sooner they will have a chance to give you feedback. I prefer to ship products and updates often and collect feedback along the way.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Persistence, stoicism, naivety. In addition to staying power (which often is a function of your personal expenses/burn), being a successful entrepreneur means never giving up, never taking anything personally, and creating something like a reality distortion field around you that makes you believe you can do something that hasn’t been done before.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

I’ve heard some tech leaders talk about blending work and personal life, as opposed to creating distinct time for each. That works for me. I try not to get stressed about making distinct time for either, I just blend them together. That way, I feel more in a flow every day.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

To be successful, you have to know when to ask for help. Sometimes that means being vulnerable. As a leader, I know that I’m not always going to have the right answer immediately. But the more that I immerse myself in a problem and the more diverse prospects I receive, I have the confidence to make the right decision.

In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?

How isolating it is. If you are the leader of the company, you most likely don’t have internal peers. It is crucial to have trusted sounding boards, such as investors, board members, advisors, friends, and mentors who you can rely on

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Began Leading My Company”? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Only do the things you are great at: In my current role leading GameChanger, I am fortunate to work with great leaders in product and engineering. I don’t come from that background. For a time, I was sensitive to that. But I quickly saw that we needed a lot of help with our strategy, roadmap, motivating our team, and establishing consensus on the value we are creating. These are things I have a lot of experience with that I leverage in my role now.
2. Distribution is as important as product: A good business model can overcome a mediocre product in the near-term. It’s hard to overcome the opposite if you can’t get your product in the hands of the right customers. The right customers will give you feedback, which will improve your product over time. An example of this happened to me while I was working at a fintech startup. A fledgling company built a very mediocre product, but found a way to connect with a tiny sliver of customers, the ones most likely to pay, and found a way to connect them with others in the ecosystem. They leapfrogged us and it took a while to recover.
3. There is always a move (quoting The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz): In my first startup, there was a day when we had $55.83 in the bank, after having raised a couple of million. We thought we were done. In that case, we needed to unwind a lease that was hindering our progress. The landlord was adamant they wouldn’t let us out. Only when they understood that we were never going to give up, did they relent. We went on to raise money against the odds and kept going.
4. Always raise more money than you need: In my first startup, we raised nearly $100M in 2006, and at the time could have “easily” raised $10-$20M. When we needed it in the Fall of 2008 during the Great Financial Crisis, we couldn’t find a single dollar.
5. Expenses are the only thing you can 100% control: Know your burn. I focus on this every single day.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I believe inequality is the primary issue facing our society today. Intelligent approaches to fixing it are needed.

How can our readers further follow you online?

You can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter where I share updates on my work supporting youth sports communities through GameChanger. You can also follow my personal blog at www.complexityeverywhere.com where I write about unexpected events in markets, politics, tech, and society.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!