How soccer prepares you for working at a startup

At my company we have a lot of athletic supporters… err… sports fans. My favorite soccer team, the Seattle Sounders FC, recently kicked off its 2015 Major League Soccer season, and it got me thinking about the similarities between my time at various startups over the years and my years of being a soccer player. I find myself constantly applying lessons learned from my soccer years while writing code, designing systems and managing team members and projects.

With this in mind, I thought I’d share the four biggest startup lessons I’ve learned through soccer.

Adapt as a Team

Any team sport will teach you about teamwork, but soccer changes the conversation a bit. The game itself is very fluid, and while each player has their own role and area to fill, they often find themselves in another part of the field or filling in for another player. Successful teams have a game plan and general strategy at the beginning, but also quickly react and adapt to how the other team is playing. They work together on the fly, making split-second decisions without instruction from coaches. The end goal never changes throughout the game — get the ball in the net — but how the team gets there is constantly evolving.

Startups are no different, with a team in place working together to meet an end goal. Finding yourself doing things you have never done before and adapting your skillset to them, often on the fly, is critical to success at a startup. Problems, roadblocks and new findings arise along the way and the team must adapt its plans and roadmaps to account for these… but the end goal always stays the same.

Don’t Watch the Ball

As a soccer defender you have to be aware of where the ball is at all times, yet are taught to not watch the ball directly. By focusing on the ball, you’re putting too much of your focus on the “now.” Successful soccer defenders anticipate the next actions, not just react to them. Is the opponent going to pass the ball? To whom? Can I get there first to intercept it? Defenders are constantly playing through these scenarios in an effort to anticipate the opponent’s next move and win the ball back. If you’re only focusing on where the ball is rather than where it’s going to be, you’ll end up on the wrong side of the scoreline.

Anticipating and focusing on solving the next problem is key in a startup. Of course, you must be conscious of and fully understand your customers’ current needs, but more importantly you must anticipate what they’re going to need. If you only focus on their current problems, then by the time you’re ready to deliver a solution they may have already moved on to something — or someone — else.

Pace Yourself

Soccer is one of the most grueling team sports around. Imagine 90-plus minutes of running, jumping, kicking, falling, sliding, elbowing and heading with no timeouts or commercial breaks. With this level of intensity, it’s important to not expend all your energy in the first 10 minutes, otherwise there won’t be any left by the time the 80th minute rolls around. The other team is kicking and knocking you down and you have to endure these rough patches without giving up a goal.

Startups are also hard. They take a lot of proverbial blood, sweat and tears, and commercial breaks certainly don’t exist. The day-to-day activities are crucial, but the larger goal is what’s most important. Just like on the soccer field, making the best decision you can at the time and moving on is usually the right choice. Throughout the “game” there will be a lot of little — or big — failures, but you can always recover from them given enough time and determination.

Score Goals

Success is very clearly defined in soccer: Win games. How do you win games? Score goals. Pretty passing, fancy footwork, cool uniforms and a funny mascot may be fun or entertaining, but they don’t mean anything if you don’t get the ball in the net. Goals change the course of the game, lifting the collective spirits of the scoring team and dropping those of the opposing team. The value of a goal is never more obvious than when a player scores one — the crowd instantly erupts with noise, the scorer sprints around the field while the rest of the team tries to catch up to offer congratulations. Once the celebration’s complete, both teams line back up ready to start the process all over again.

Often times at a startup, the journey is so long that you can lose direction and begin to stray away from your original end goal. Instead, break the larger problems down into manageable, smaller “goals” that can be completed and delivered. Make sure to take the time to celebrate the completion of these smaller problems as victories because they’re significant milestones in the startup journey. And once the celebration is over, use the excitement and motivation to start attacking the next problem in your way.

Originally published in Upstart Business Journal.