Bryan Finnerty: Investing in Sports Technology (Full Transcript)

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Ronen Ainbinder 1:04

Today's episode features a very unique and talented guest. He's an experienced real estate investor and entrepreneur. In addition, he has had a very active role in the sports industry throughout the years. Today, he is the CEO of V1 Sports – the world leader in video swing analysis software to improve the performance of golfers. V1 is used by more than 17K PGA golf professionals, and their app has over 2 million downloads.

Our guest also runs Opportunity Seed Capital – an entity that invests in sports and technology, offers consulting services, and takes an active role in society as a foundation that strives to help different communities. It is an honor and a pleasure to host such a legend in today's Halftime Snack. Ladies and gentlemen,

Bryan Finnerty!

Bryan Finnerty 1:18

Wow, you could be a stadium announcer, Ronen. That's pretty good. Appreciate it.

Ronen Ainbinder 1:49

Thank you, Bryan. How are you?

Bryan Finnerty 1:51

I'm doing fantastic, man. How about you?

Ronen Ainbinder 1:53

I'm doing awesome. Man. My icebreaker for you today is that I want to ask you what superpower you wish you had?

Bryan Finnerty 2:03

Oh, boy, what's superpower wish? I'm gonna say probably unlimited strength. Because as a past professional soccer player and goalkeeper, I always wish to add a little more strength. So probably Superman, like strength would be, I could make every save, kick the ball from one end of the field to the other, or in golf, I'd be able to hit as far as I want. So yeah, probably, I'm limited strength would be my thing.

Ronen Ainbinder 2:37

That's awesome. Man. I think that with that strength, you'd be able to swing a golf ball from here to Europe. So that was pretty awesome. Anyways, Bryan, welcome to the halftime snacks. It's a pleasure to host you. It's a pleasure to have you here. I've seen some of your episodes in some of your interviews before, and all of them are great. And when I saw that you tell you your story, you tell the story of the companies you've built and the companies they've sold. So I was thinking while I was preparing for this interview, how can I make this different? How can I get something different out of Bryan? And so the way I thought about it is that I'm going to try and decode whatever's inside your brain, whatever how you were made, what you're made of. So let's see how that goes. I haven't tried that yet. But let's start off by talking about habits. I want to know. What is one habit that is making you or making you smarter? I want to know one habit that makes you healthier and one habit that makes you wealthier. So let's start off with the habit that makes you smarter. What is one habit that you've developed over the years that you found to be successful in making you smarter, and how or why and how do you come up with it?

Bryan Finnerty 4:03

I think if it's truly about being smarter, it's got to be reading. As you can see from my bookcase behind me, this is one of three that I've got. I've got a big one downstairs, another big one in my office. So this is my home office right now. I won't say I love reading for the fact that I'm just doing the reading part. So I don't read a lot of fiction. But I do love learning. And so to me, school is great. That's awesome. I think you get a foundation for education there. But I'm 53 years old. And I have not stopped learning. And I can tell you, I not only feel smarter but a lot wiser in these years because as I read, I get to apply it. And I sometimes think in college, students are told that it's all about the grade they get in the book that they read for that class. But to me, if you can't go apply that knowledge that you've just gained by reading or researching or whatever it might be. To me, it's kind of a missed opportunity. So yeah, I think reading for me would be number one.

Ronen Ainbinder 5:01

That's awesome. And how much do you read? Or how frequently? Or what's your strategy? Do you like to read multiple books? At the same time? Or is it that you pick one and you finish it? And like, what's How do you approach it?

Bryan Finnerty 5:14

Good question. So I am not smart enough to run through two or three books at one time. So it is picking a book, get through the book. And my strategy kind of varies. I like to do it when I'm fresh. I do not do it at the end of the day because I find that I fall asleep either when I read it. When I read, I get stimulated and thought, and then it's hard to go to sleep. So I like to read in the morning, first thing, or if I have a break during the day, I might, if I get a half-hour hour break, I've also added the last probably, through COVID, doing a book on tape, you're audible. So that's been kind of fun; right now, I have the physical copy of the book. And if I'm in the car, taking my dog for a walk, I just listen. And then I come back, and I make notes in my book. So I just tried to commit every day to read a portion, right, just little steps at a time versus sitting down for five hours on a Sunday, which I typically don't have. I'm trying to play golf somewhere. So yeah, there are little chunks at a time. And I'm always looking to apply the little pieces that I read. I think that's another difference when I've talked to other guys and gals about this, that I don't wait until I'm done to start looking for an application to apply for it. So I might be only in the second or third chapter. But if I see ways to talk to my staff or introduce a concept, I'll get it going right away. It kind of keeps me engaged in the book, whatever I'm reading, at any point in time,

Ronen Ainbinder 6:34

And what books do you pick? Is it based on recommendations? Is it based off? A similar book that you read before? Like, how do you pick a new book?

Bryan Finnerty 6:45

Wow, another good question. Yeah, probably all those things, right. So I follow many authors on Twitter, John Gordon's, I'm a big fan of John Gordon. And he can recommend certain books, say, this one is similar to that one. I spend a lot of time with peers, both in the sports industry and in the philanthropic industry. And as you'd imagine, as minds think alike, right? Someone says, oh, I just read this great book, or I heard you had this challenge with your development team. Read this book. Right. So it is a little bit of a recommendation and who I follow. I think that's how most of us do it. I'm not a New York Times bestseller's follower. I'm typically more what I'm in the mood for and kind of what people recommend.

Ronen Ainbinder 7:31

Great, man, that's great. What about one habit that is making you healthier? How did you adapt it to your life? I guess you're a busy man. So trying to find ways in which you can either exercise or eat healthier or just stay fit. Makes it a little bit challenging. So how, how did you implement one habit that is making you healthier day by day?

Bryan Finnerty 8:01

Well, I know we have limited time, but I'll say it has been broken down into three things. You have physical, mental, and spiritual. And so I know that doesn't apply to everybody. But if I look at the physical side, for me, this isn't rocket science; it's moderation. My wife is a fantastic cook. She loves cooking healthy food. I don't always love eating the healthiest food. But when she's making it, I'm eating it. And I know that when I go out for a burger, or pizza or beer, it's just in moderation, right? If I'm going to have the burger, I probably don't get the extra order of fries. If I'm going to have pizza, try to limit the number of slices. I still enjoy all those foods, I enjoy ice cream, but it's moderate. And with that moderation is also eating healthy. So I think that's on the physical side. That does come with being active. So much like reading, I try to be active every day; I dedicate two days a week to working out hard. And the other days of the week, I'll ride a bike, walk the golf course, take my dog for a walk, nothing crazy. I wouldn't say I'm in the greatest shape. But I can hold my own, which is pretty good. And then spiritually, again, it sounds pretty simple. But prayer in the morning seems to be good. And then I just picked one passage during the day to try to focus on and see what, what, what the Bible has to say for me on that day. And it's not groundbreaking. I'm not going through and memorizing 1516 different things. It's just these little chunks. And then I journal right so to kind of funnel all those things together. If I'm going to be healthy, I've got to have a place for my brain, which is moving a lot to have a place just to park ideas, right, which might be at the end of the day when I'm tired. It could be what I want to work on in this next month or this next quarter. And a journal works well for me to look back and, number one, be grateful. Often we look back if we do journal, whether we're praying for something, asking for some help, just reading open questions like why am I so stuck here, and then you can read back three or four months. And say, Wow, it's amazing that I could find that answer or that I did this podcast and maybe think of something that I ran into this one person that I would have never met. And they gave me this one idea. And when you start to look back on that, you realize that I realize how thankful I am and how much gratitude there are great people in my life. I'm surrounded by people that love me. And I think that's all part of being healthy. Right. So I know that's a long answer to a short question. But it's important, I think, as we break that down to say, are we filling up all those buckets? And it's not easy. But yeah, that's kind of my secret sauce, so to speak.

Ronen Ainbinder 10:36

I love it, Bryan. And I'm very curious because I asked you. After all, I've been trying to; I've been thinking about getting into the journaling side; I just wonder how it is that you do it? Do you like to push yourself to at least write one thing every day? Or do you just write whenever you have some good thoughts? Like how exactly do you do it? So I just wonder because I also want to get into doing it. So I just want to know-how.

Bryan Finnerty 11:02

Yeah, it's a habit. So I've got a lot of years on you, I will tell you in the beginning, I didn't enjoy it. It was more because playing pro soccer was a way for me to decompress. After a game, I would write notes, this guy scored against me, this guy made a good move. And it was easy to go back then compare that with video, and compare notes. So that part was it was forced, but it had an outcome. Today, I would tell you, it's a place for me to daydream. So that's fun. And there are some times when I sort of feel mentally stuck, and I just don't feel like I have much energy to reach for my journal. And I know that's a place where I can look back again and get some gratitude that often lifts us up when you kind of feel like, wow, I'm doing better than I thought. Or just the right ideas, right? Just to be free, right? So it isn't like I wake up at 530 every morning, and I journal from 530 to six. It's not like that. But it is kind of making sure that I continue to journey through the journal. And there are times when I look back at it, and I haven't written anything in a week and a half. Okay, that hurts a little bit, right? Because now I don't have a week and a half to look back. And history is the best teacher for us. I think if you look at that and say, whether you study some of the great stoics back in time, or you go back into the biblical days, or whatever, whatever lights your fire, when you look back in history, you can learn a lot in history. And so the same goes for us when we journal; we are making a good note of our own history. And that's motivating to me. So I'd say to anybody who's kind of stuck, or like, gosh, where do I start? It starts with the first page of just a crazy free-write idea. And the journey of your history is starting there. So that's empowering for me to know that every time I write, part of my history is going in a book, right? So that makes it easier for me to write, but I'm not a book writer. I'm barely a blog writer, once a quarter. But journaling does give me a place to kind of memorialize that stuff. Hopefully, that helps a little bit.

Ronen Ainbinder 13:03

Yeah, that I think that that gives, he gives me a little bit more of mental freedom, because I think that we're scared though of the big thing, like, Oh, I have a journal, everything. But it usually just starts off by just starting. It's just about, Yeah, writing the first page, and seeing how you feel, and just just just keeping up being consistent as well. So I agree with you, it's what I also like. I'm also a blogger, so I know what you mean when it comes through, like sometimes feeling it is a hassle. But doing it and sitting down and putting in a little time and effort to do it. And that's, that's, it gives you a little bit of a feeling that you've accomplished something at least. Let's go over and

Bryan Finnerty 13:54

Sorry, one last thing I'd say again, just an easy sort of a teaser for getting a journal on any day, whether it's starting a journal in general or just a day of your stuff. I use the word gratitude. If you just started with or, or if anybody's watching us, just start with, what are you thankful for that happened yesterday. And just right? It could be as simple as I've got a roof over my head, and I can jump on a bus or take a car to work. I'm thankful that I have a job in COVID times. There are a lot of people that don't have work to go to. I'm thankful that everybody in my family is healthy right now. I'm thankful right now in Michigan that it's sunny and not snowing, right? And then you sound funny, but when you start to write them down, it's amazing how much your brain unlocks this, like openness, right? So I think if you just started with the things you're grateful for, I have twin boys that are 20. And they're I remember being 20. They're not excited about journaling. So we call it a gratitude journal. But when they write the things they're grateful for, it starts to become awfully hard to complain, right. So that's one word,

Ronen Ainbinder 14:58

love and then Let's jump over to the third and last habit, the one that is making you wealthier. You've started a few companies, jumped into a few ones and seen a few other ones, super interesting, entrepreneur. So, I mean, what is the habit that you've developed that kind of like you figured out that this can also make money for you? And while you enjoy doing it, and just tell us your thoughts, your thoughts around that?

Bryan Finnerty 15:31

Well, as with most of my answers, they've got a little context. So I am a people pleaser by nature. And so I want to say yes to everybody. I don't like to let people down. I like to make people happy. And so when doing that, you can imagine when you say yes to everything, you don't do anything. So my habit is to learn to say no; sometimes it's no because hey, my family comes first. I would love to do that. But this weekend I'm spending it with my family. Others that could be No, I'd love to look at that business venture. But I am focused on sports tech. And that often leads to holding and why. And that's the second part of my answer here is, I have learned from my great failures in doing things that I'm not that passionate about, where I've failed. When I do the things that I'm passionate about, very seldom do I fail. And when I fail, I'm eager to learn, right, because I love sports. And I love technology. I also love being part of our community; that's part of our foundation. So when I work at those things, I don't feel like I'm working. And I know, everybody says this is true, but I can tell you I'm living it, it is true. When you do what you love, the money will follow. And it isn't about whether you have a big yacht and a private jet. And those things if that's what you're going after, then you better make sure that you're following something that makes you billions of dollars, right? For me, it's not about how much money. It's that I can make money doing what I love. And I was spoiled to play professional soccer for 11 years. I don't know if there's a better job in the world. You show up to play soccer every day. And every Friday, you get a paycheck. And if you win some games, you get bonuses. That's pretty awesome. So I did learn at an early age that when you do what you love, you show up to work with a smile every day. And people get attracted to that right, as John Gordon would say, it's like being on the energy bus. The Money Follows. It does. And I know that we could spend another whole podcast on that. But I will tell you, my habit has been to learn to say no to the things that are not absolutely core to who I am and where I want to go. And then when I say yes to those things, I know I have all the energy all the time, all the focus, it becomes a lot easier. That's for sure.

Ronen Ainbinder 17:42

I would also add to that answer, Bryan; I think it's a great answer. But I would also add to that answer that judgment comes with time, meaning that maybe early in your career, you have to say yes to everything. Because you don't know what's going to work and what's not. So you probably go out and take any job, or you probably start any venture that you come up with because you just want to figure out if that works no that I think that judgment that you say that you that side of learning how to say no is something that you learn well. At the same time, you see that things don't work, or they don't make you happy or make you any, giving you any satisfaction at the end. So I guess that judgment comes with time? And the learning to say no is a key essential part of that judgment?

Bryan Finnerty 18:35

Yes, I think it is. My pause here is a little bit that. I also believe that if you know who you are, right, what makes you happy, what makes you tick, then it's a lot easier to say no to some things that in your gut just don't make sense. in your gut that I could go to work here every day. And I might be making $10 more an hour. But every day, I'm going to dread waking up, and I can't wait to get home. So that's a pretty quick indication that you may want to start looking somewhere else, right? Now, if you're like me, I'm not sure yet. And I'm pretty excited about this job. I don't know what it fully entails; dive in and see what happens. But I'd say the moments that you start to dread what you're doing. Not because you have a bad boss, not because the work environment is tough. Those things are going to be with every, I mean at V1, our work environment. As you can imagine, we're in sports tech, it moves very, very fast. It is not for everybody. Some people want to show up at 9:01 and leave at 4:59. This is not the job for them. We are thinking about our work all the time. But for the people, that's their DNA. They can't wait to get in and talk about it right. They can't wait to do some of those things. So yes, it's a little bit of kicking the tires, a little bit of experimenting, but I would say there are also times where it is true; you just got to know and trust your gut.

Ronen Ainbinder 20:02

Wow, what an amazing answer. Bryan, we're gonna talk a little bit more about V1 sports, because it's a fascinating company. And I understand that you came up later, you didn't found the company, you came up later, and you acquired a majority stake. And now you're the CEO. So, I mean, I guess it's, it's a, it's a big company. And I want to know, what is your mindset in terms of strategy? What is your strategy to develop and grow such a big company like V1 sports? And I always say, and I think about this as instead of taking the company from zero to one, you're basically taking it from one to two. So what is your strategy for that one to two?

Bryan Finnerty 20:49

Yeah, good question. So it's the strategy that I use with my investment company opportunities seed. So thankfully, again, I'm sticking to what I know works. I know what works well. The one is a 25-year-old company, and when I invested, it was just about 18-19 years old. I look for companies that are doing well but need to do great. I'm looking for companies with good leadership that are open to building great leadership, that have good cash flow but want to make more money, right? So if I can find a company that's in that space, and it's in sports tech, right, so we could be talking about medical knee replacement, I would have no interest, and I would bring no value, no passion. But when I can find those three things, and that's where V1 was, it was an industry leader with 70% market share, totally flat revenues, and pretty good management. When I came in as an investor, I spent the first three years working with the CEO. We like to call it PPF. Right? So what are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? And ultimately, what are your financial goals? And what I found working with the founder and the CEO was, he didn't want to be here long term. He wanted to make more money being a creator of more software. That is not what V1 needed. So we built an exit plan for him. He's still a shareholder in the company. And as I was writing the job description for the new CEO, my partners and our board of directors said, that kind of sounds like you. So why did he take the job? Like an idiot? I said, Yes. I did not learn to say no, in that case. But the truth is, I'm pretty well suited for it. I love building high-performing teams. We had to rebuild the culture of the company. So I think if you take that strata of good cash flow, go into great, good culture go into great and good management go into great. I'd say that that wakes me up every morning. And we went from 35 employees down to about 12. Right. And because the right people wanted to stay on the bus, and those that said, Hey, we're going to go a lot faster, and we're going to get more creative. Many people said, Thank you for the opportunity, just not for me. We rebuilt the team, and we've almost done 30% growth year over year since I've taken over, which is about our team and our culture. Right, the products are still good. Moving to great. We've got a lot of runways, but those are things that I look for. And when I came into V1, I think we had the perfect opportunity to go from our Collinses mentality, right? How do you go from good to great? Well, you got to come in, and you got to rebuild some foundation. And it's been awesome.

Ronen Ainbinder 23:23

Going back to the foundation in the basic thing like culture is, I think one of the key elements that drive that distance is mentioned. I think I agree with you in terms of how it's all about thinking from from from the basic stuff. It doesn't mean because, yeah, the company may have 2 million downloads. It may be used by 17,000 PGA golfers, but how do you like to take that next step. And sometimes taking that next step is taking a step back. And reassessing, regrouping your troops, and then preparing for greater battles. So I think that's a great answer. Bryan, and, man, you mentioned opportunity seed capital, and I'm a big fan of it. Because of the things that you do. I'm also a big fan of sports technology. And that's also what this podcast is about. So let's talk about that. How do you want to shape the future with Opportunity Seed Capital? What is the plan long-term? How, like, let's say we were thinking forward in like 30 years, how Opportunity Seed Capital developed the space? What was going on at that time? Thanks to Opportunity Seed Capital. Just give us your thoughts around what your plan is for the long term with it?

Bryan Finnerty 24:51

Yeah, it'll probably be a little unique, right? So my goal is not to build a $1 billion fund. We're a small fund that is built off of Denise and me. It's our balance sheet. And our whole goal is to invest in sports tech and in different companies with one idea that no matter what the market that they are in, whoever we invest in, that they would take a percentage of their profits, whether it's a cash flow every year, or if they were lucky enough to sell the company like we've done a few times, to take a percentage of that money from the sale, and make it not about themselves, to reinvest it in their community. Ours happens to be the belief that sport is a life changer. And that doesn't mean it has to be soccer or football for you guys. It doesn't have to be baseball. It could be being in the marching band, being on robotics, and being on the esports team. We believe that being part of an organization in sport does make a difference in someone's life. And not everyone can afford it. So that last part is important. So we would look at opportunity seed, we're making sure that we can make an investment for others who cannot afford the sport, whether that's a school, an organization, families, whatever that might be, my hope in 30 years is that through opportunities, seed capital, we've touched hundreds of business owners and businesses that are doing the same thing that we're doing maybe even at greater scale. And I think then we'd have more than a billion dollars of influence in the community, not just about creating more wealth for the owners, right, and I'm one of them. I'm an owner. And our job is to make sure that we create wealth. We're fortunate, Denise Nye, that we can take the proceeds of every sale that we have and put 100% back into the foundation. So when I say to other owners, I didn't start there. We started with giving 10%. And then that went to 20% of the next sale. Well, now that we're at a point, we're at 100%, it comes over time. So even for a person who says, Well, thank you for investing in my company, Bryan, where do I start? I'd say start where you want, but decide now before you sell it, because if you wait until the end, you never give as much as you think you will. Suppose you decide now, even if it's 10%, and you sell that company for a million dollars. In that case, that's $100,000, that's going to go into your community and do great stuff. But my guess is if somebody gave you a million dollars, in the end, you'd probably say 20 or 25,000. Feels good enough, right? So we try to get people to commit early and have a bigger impact. And I think over 30 years, you're gonna see more and more and more grow with that, right? When you plant the seed, more grows, and so on and so forth.

Ronen Ainbinder 27:26

Is that a model that you came up with? Or you figured it out from somebody else? Or you learn it from a book or something?

Bryan Finnerty 27:33

No, that was. I mean, I'm sure there are other very similar ideas. But that was one that Denise and I started, honestly, a long time ago. So we still own a sports facility, an indoor sports facility, about 220,000 square feet, that serves many families, right. It's not a YMCA. We make money. It's for profit. And we're very specific to say we are a for-profit company. We have a nonprofit arm, but we still run it as a for-profit because you can't give any money away if you don't make money. So if you're a nonprofit, that's breakeven. You give away nothing. If you're a for-profit, that makes a million dollars a year, and you want to give 10% of that away. That's a pretty civic organization. So what I've just found over time is when we commit to that early. We just build it into the business plan. We know that we will give X percent away every week, every month, every quarter, every year. Well, you can imagine it's much easier for me to hire people that want to be on a team like that. It's also easier for people to say no, I don't. It feels a little too warm and fuzzy. Over time we hire the right people. I mean, we do what's called mission 321 at our companies. So we give 3% of our profit off the top as a corporation. In addition to whatever we do individually, we give every employee 2% of their time back to reinvest in their families in their community. So in 2000, our work here, they get 40 hours a week, or 40 hours that's paid to do community trash cleanup, to volunteer at their local YMCA to take ballet lessons with their daughter, whatever it might be, that is their time. And then 1% we give locally, literally in the community that we serve. That is all designated by only the people in our company, not by the executive team. So the executives cannot touch that pool of money. And every quarter, we decide where we're going to give. So it might be to a local animal shelter. It might be to a community that was hit by a flood or a tornado. It could be anything. a separate group of people decides that. So we've just learned these over time. And as we put these into what we call our playbook. We just find that we hire the right people again. We invest in the right companies, as you'd imagine if you had a company. I was giving you these ideas that I'd say if I invest, I'd like us to talk more about this. If it resonated with you, you'd say, man, I want to spend more time talking about that perfect. If you said Look, I just want to make as much money as I can to have a bigger house, a bigger boat, a bigger jet, a bigger whatever. We're probably not talking about the same thing. None of that is bad. Warren Buffett is a billionaire and gives hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. Every year. He has a private jet. He's got a big boat. He does all those things. So it doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that we need to find like-minded people.

Ronen Ainbinder 30:20

Wow, man, that's a great strategy to find people that share the same values as you and that you're able to invest in their stuff. While you also make an impact in the community. I think that speaks greatly about you, Bryan. And I gotta say that I can't believe that time has gone by. In this halftime snack, man, I'm having so much fun. I'm learning so much about you. I don't want it to end. But, sadly, it's all about the halftime snack. You can't, you can't, the game's already starting. So we gotta wrap it up. But I want to before we leave, I just want to ask you one last personal question. That is, let's suppose that you just suddenly become president of the US overnight? What is the first thing that you do and why?

Bryan Finnerty 31:15

I'm going to keep it super simple because it is who I am. I think we can use sports and activities. And I know that sounds corny. But I think we could use sport and activity to unify people. I think if you talk across social sectors, geographic sectors, socio-economic sectors, from the inner cities of Detroit to the most wealthy suburbs in Aptos, California, there are kids and people that love to play sport, not because they're getting paid for it but because they love to play sport. And I think if we said what's the unifying thing that we have in our country, sport is unifying. We've seen around the world every time the World Cup happens, wars have stopped, people come together, we link arms. So again, history is a great teacher of that. We're not going to solve it with more religion. We're not going to solve it with a different political party. We're not going to solve it by making each other wealthy. If we look at sport and say, What are the commonalities that make us competitors, for sure as a country, we're competitive. We've gotten away from that, right. As a country, we're very, very combined. We've gotten away from that. So again, we could spend another halftime talk before the post-game talk talking about that. I would literally look into every sporting opportunity in our country and say, What are the foundations? And how do we build a better country through that?

Ronen Ainbinder 32:39

I love it. I love it. Bryan. Man, I want to thank you so much for coming to the Halftime Snacks and spending a little bit of your time with us. It's been such a fun time. I've learned so much about you. I think I've decided your brain to learn how you think, how you work out, how you think about habits, how you go about your life. I think that speaks Greek greatly about who you are and what you stand for. And I appreciate that, Bryan. I wish nothing but the best for you, and I can't wait to have another half, then snack, or possibly a post-game snack with you in the future, Bryan. So anyway, thank you so much.