Evan Kirkham: Challenging the Traditional Sports Broadcast System (Full Transcript)
Ronen Ainbinder
Joining us for a quick snack is a former lawyer who became a co-founder just two months ago of one of the most exciting apps I've seen in a long time.
Zooming from Austin, Texas to Mexico City, he is passionate about sports, technology, and business.
He's the co-founder of Colorcast, a platform that challenges the traditional sports broadcast system by innovating in the commentary side of live events.
His interests cover everything from finance, law, tech, sports, and innovation.
Buckle up for today's Halftime Snack with the one and only Evan Kirkham!
Evan Kirkham
Nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
Ronen Ainbinder
Welcome to the show, Evan. We met through Twitter! He found my newsletter, and then he reached out because he thought it was interesting! He thought we should collaborate. So I'm happy we're here collaborating. I want to start Evan by asking you a question that might sound weird because it starts from the end instead of from the beginning. But let's say we're sitting 50 years from now. What's the life story you want to tell to your grandchildren then?
Evan Kirkham
Got it? So I mean, that's a pretty deep question. So forgive me if my answers are equally deep, but look, I'd like to be able to say that my team and I built something that's, increased human interaction in a rich and constructive and, hopefully, deeply entertaining way. I'd like to be able to say that I was unafraid to pursue my dreams and kind of step out into the unknown, quitting my law job and jumping into the wild west of entrepreneurship. And all of that entails. And, and I guess, I'd like to say that I surrounded myself with a world-class team, and not just was able to surround myself and motivate that team, but that, that they found what we were building, deeply, professionally and personally rewarding. I'd like to be able to tell all of that to my grandchildren,
Ronen Ainbinder
I'm sure they're going to be able to listen to this conversation and say, oh, Grandpa, Evan, you said the same thing. 50 years ago. That's insane.
Evan Kirkham
That's right. Yeah. Well, I'll make sure that we're listening to halftime snacks in 2070.
Ronen Ainbinder
Of course, we will.
And I'm really curious to ask you, because of your background, very specific on law and litigation. And I want to know, what are three skills that you've learned throughout your career there that you can transition into running a business in general,
Evan Kirkham
I think that probably the most important skills are writing and critical thinking. So I've, I've always, and this is, my interpretation, but I've always thought I'm a good writer. But I certainly improved that throughout law school. And throughout my three years in the law, admittedly, I was writing a very different, I was writing in a very different style. I was even on multiple occasions told by the partner that I worked for that I was riding with a little too much zip or popping, a little less rigid like I should be. Still, I get to ride with as many popular punches as I want now for Colorcast, but communicating with clients communicating with the partnership helps me communicate with the team and ultimately with the end-user in strategic thinking. I think that my time in the law helped me kind of think multiple steps ahead. As a litigator, what you're trying to do is anticipate opposing counsel's move, sort of like a chess game and make a move that will track them when they move. And so I think that kind of long-term, multi-step strategic thinking is something that I developed more fully during my legal career. And then this is also just a function of being a litigator. But I've learned that I need to choose my team members and third parties that I partner with very carefully. If someone wants to pull you into court, they will. It doesn't matter if they have legal grounds to do so. I'm especially careful, my kind of consideration when I'm looking at third parties to partner with, of course, what value do we bring each other, but right next in line is, how much do I trust this person? Do I think that they're upstanding and that they're not going to try to do me wrong when things get tough? So I'd say that those are some skills I took away from my legal career.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's fascinating. I remember from an interview I saw of Steve Jobs, when he was alive, that he said that you could measure the most successful companies by their ability to attract very smart people. So I think that that skill is very underrated because it's not talked about in business. But being able to attract talent is one of the very few keys that may help a business move forward. And thank you for sharing. Evan. I am also very curious to ask you because we're in the middle of a global pandemic; what did your wife say when you told her you that you decided to transition from law to entrepreneurship in the middle of a global pandemic?
Evan Kirkham
Pandemic aside, I think she always knew that this was this moment was going to come because I've just always had that entrepreneurial itch. However, for the pandemic specific, in some way, or a lot of ways, I guess it made it much easier. I, for one, could meet remotely with my team. And we have developers in Dallas, one of the co-founders is in Austin, we have some designers in Brazil, we have a developer in Chicago. And I think that the global pandemic just kind of made remote work, both socially and culturally acceptable and regular, so I think that made it a lot easier. Also, just I had a far more flexible work schedule with the law firm. I mean, I was sitting at home all day, and certainly, with law firms, you're judged by your billable hours. So I've still kept my hours up. But it was easier for me to break away and think and commit some time to Colorcast, and then come back to the law later, when that wouldn't have been as possible, I don't think in the office, and then maybe kind of most instrumental is we can meet with investors from across the country. So Dallas, Texas, is not the most consumer tech-oriented venture hub in the world. And so it was great for us to be able to talk with investors in New York and Chicago, LA, San Francisco, on the coasts. It seemed normal because everyone was meeting over zoom. So they didn't think twice about taking the first meeting or the second meeting remotely.
Ronen Ainbinder
So your wife was okay.
Evan Kirkham
Yeah! Back to the wife's question. Yes, she was okay with it. She's incredibly supportive. She believes in me, she believes in the product, she back to back to the point you're making earlier, she knows that I've surrounded myself with people that are smarter than me. So. So I think she was, she's pretty comfortable that we're going to make it work. And if we don't show, she'll be behind me either way.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's amazing, Evan. You're a lucky guy. And I also think the podcast that I made, and it's also true that I've been able to do it mostly because of the pandemic because now it's normal to meet on zoom and have conversations, and I feel like before was going to be harder to find time for people to join calls. I've been able to call people from Australia and connect them to show you that you're in the US and I'm in Mexico. We can talk! People from London, Israel, all over the world. So I feel like the pandemic opens doors that are making things available before, and I think that you also benefit from that, which I think is great. And I want to talk a little bit about, switch over to Colorcast. I want to know the story behind it. And I want to know, specifically, when did you realize there's a blue ocean of opportunity to create Colorcast?
Evan Kirkham
Yeah, so I tell the story, just about every single investor pitch, so for any of our investors listening out there, sorry that you've heard this, but so it was last fall. I was watching a Dallas Cowboys Thursday Night Football game, and I'm a huge Cowboys fan. So I watch every game. And for the first time in, I think, my entire life. I turned off the TV because the commentary was just so awful. Mispronouncing the players' names, the commentators have to remain unbiased. Well, when I watch the Cowboys game, I want someone who's in the tank for the Cowboys. And so and I think a lot of what we're finding is many people feel The same way. So that was sort of the aha moment. I'm like, Why? Why am I listening to these guys? I should either be able to listen to someone instead of them. The ability to listen to someone other than commentators on the screen, supplementing what they're saying, commenting in and around them criticizing the players, coaches, commentators, I think that was the 'aha' moment, I will say, and for everyone out there that's listening, they should go look this up.
The other kind of second aha moment, the validation was, I saw on Twitter, a piece of what I'm now calling audio gold, and it was Snoop Dogg at a Lakers game. And he gets invited down to the booth with the commentators. And for about two and a half minutes. He commentates the game with the commentators, and Snoop Dogg is just awesome. I mean, he has all his Snoop-isms. He loves LeBron James; he loves Dwight Howard and is just fantastic to hear him supplementing the commentators. And at that moment, I thought, wow, everyone should be able to do this, not just Snoop. Although Snoop, if you're listening, we want you bad. But anybody should be able to listen and commentate. We started from that premise.
Ronen Ainbinder
I feel like sports will never be the same after you guys. I feel like there's an opportunity in so many areas in sports and outside of sports is when. But I wonder if you already found product-market-fit? Is the product ready for the market? Who is the market? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Evan Kirkham
Yeah. And maybe it'll be helpful to tell you a little bit about kind of where we are in product development. We had a what was it a four and a half, or about a four and a half week beta phase, where it was invite-only. We were inviting casters, friends, family, and other investors to listen and cast, and last week, we got on the App Store. And we're calling that our soft launch because we haven't put a single marketing dollar behind Colorcast yet. And frankly, we don't plan to do that until the momentum slows down because we're gaining more users every day, every single week, every month in terms of product-market fit. Yeah, I think we've found a product-market fit.
One of my first, one of my favorite data points that we have right now is that we have an over 90% caster retention rate. And what I mean by that is this, if someone gets on the platform, and they cast and let's just say an NFL game, there's a 90% chance that they'll do it again. And that's fantastic. Because for us, we thought, we're building a marketplace app here in a lot of ways. We need casters, and we need listeners. But we thought, let's go after the casters first. Because if there's no good content and engaging content, then we won't ever get any listeners on. So we started with the caster side of the equation. And as far as I'm concerned, we've solved it. Now, I'm not going to sleep on that assumption. We're still doing things for the casters. We're still recruiting more and more casters. But I think we built a platform that they love. And so that's the first kind of one side of the equation. The other side is the listener side. And admittedly, we're still building out features for the listeners. And we're very, very focused on the listener right now. But I will say this, our listener retention is also really, really high, especially when they've been when the listener comes to us via the caster. The caster goes out and talks to his following and says, Hey, listen to me on Colorcast. Those listeners are extras. We say sticky. They'll stay around; they'll listen to them. But beyond that, I've got users texting me messaging me, using our Instabug feature to say, Hey, we love what we hear here. Why don't you get this caster? So they like the platform, and they like the content. They want more content. So that's a good problem to have.
Ronen Ainbinder
I wonder what's the roadmap, now that you figured that users like it and the casters are creating content? What's next for your product in the next year, two years? What's the roadmap? How does it look like?
Evan Kirkham
Yeah, so one qualifier, we adjust the product roadmap. Often, we're trying to follow the data. And we're trying to listen to our users as best as possible. So the roadmap is always in flux. And then also, without giving too much of a secret sauce away. I will tell you that the two things that we're most interested in working on right now are our sinking strategy to make sure that the listener and the caster are looking at the same thing simultaneously. And then we're building out tons of we're looking to build out tons of listener features. That's everything from being able to follow a caster to and follow a friend to Be able to more, more easily interact with the caster and with their buddy who's listening to the same cast kind of these, what we're, we're calling it the, our more social features. So thinking and social are top of mind today. But again, it's kind of always in flux, and we don't want the product roadmap to be rigid. We want it to follow the users' demands.
Ronen Ainbinder
Interestingly, you mentioned the social side, mostly because I was reading this tweet in the morning about how social networks are copying each other. The meme of the Spider-Man guy pointing at Spider-Man is like; you're the same guy. So it was Twitter, and then it was Snapchat and TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, because you remember how Snapchat started with stories and then Instagram, copy it. And then now you also have stories on LinkedIn. And there's the fleet's new thing in Twitter, Instagram created reels that copy TikTok. So everyone's copying everyone. And I wonder what your take is about? How can you keep it social that you're unique? In, you're valuable, and you're maybe you're also the most engaging platform there. But you still have something that makes you unique and differentiates you from all the other platforms out there? What's the thing that will differentiate Colorcast from the rest?
Evan Kirkham
Yeah, I would say it's this social is secondary on Colorcast. Social is a way to make sure when your favorite caster is going on air. It's a way for you to see who your friends are following and listening to. Still, what's going to differentiate Colorcast, and what's already differentiating Colorcast is that we have rich, long-form audio content. I say long-form; it might not always be that way. If you're tuning into Colorcast, you're listening to a cast or for an entire half of an NFL game, or an entire NFL game. It's less about the social and more about the content that's on there. And it's very different than what you see elsewhere. One thing that I've always I've never liked about the existing social platforms is that everything is so bite-sized, right? So it's 140 characters, or it's a picture or even sees on Twitter now before you retweet an article that says, Have you read this, right, like, everything is so bite-sized, and in shallow, shallow compared to the deep content that we have. But everything's so shallow that we're trying to build something very different, more akin to a podcast. I'm a habitual podcast listener. And the reason I love podcasts is that the content is so freakin rich. I mean, that's why you have listeners to Halftime Snacks, right? They feel like it's rich content that they're not getting on any of the social platforms. And that's, that's our edge as well.
Ronen Ainbinder
I agree with you, —100%. I feel like the short, bite-sized content was a product of the decreased attention spans that millennials and even the younger generation are demanding. "I want everything in one line; I don't care about the rest." But I feel like we're going to go back to the more interesting long-form quality content because that's where that's, that's, that's where the gold is. A snack is a snack, but you can't live snacking. You do need to consume some actual food. So yeah, what do you think about that?
Evan Kirkham
I would also challenge the idea that people have short attention spans because they want these bite sized pieces of media. I think that social media companies right now are building for that because it's an easy way to get a ton of users fast. And look, if we wanted to get a ton of users fast on Colorcast, we would build a TikTok clone just like everyone else. But that's not our thesis, what we want to do, or kind of our mission. What we want to do is we want to have rich content. And if the audience isn't there, then fine, I guess the business will fail. But I think that the audience is there, and we already see that it's there. And frankly, we want social and kind of media to move that in that direction so badly that we're willing to build that product and see who comes versus bill—just scooping up all the low hanging fruit with these tiny bites of media.
Ronen Ainbinder
100% Evan, since we're running out of time here, and I want the listeners to get a sense of your spirit. And your personality as an entrepreneur, I want to ask you about one habit that you're currently working hard to fit into your life, your lifestyle, and why you choose that habit.
Evan Kirkham
Absolutely. This sounds a little strange, but I am a huge proponent of walking. I'm a big hiker. I love being outside. And I like running, but walking is better, frankly. So one cool thing about being an entrepreneur and not being tied to my desk, like I was, as a lawyer, always wordprocessing is that I can walk and work, walk outside and work. And so I would say every day I walk at least five miles. And while I'm doing that, I'm on Slack, or I'm on my email, or I'm taking calls, I'll walk for hours and hours. And again, while that sounds strange, it increases my productivity, I feel like tenfold. It helps with my creativity. And not to get to meta here. When walking, there's this moment where you're kind of the rhythm of your thoughts, heartbeat, and legs match. And in those moments, I feel like, again, I have a 10X productivity increase. And so I'm trying to fit walking into my working lifestyle because it's just all-around goodness. So I've been doing that pretty regularly and do not plan to stop.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's fantastic, Evan. I'm going to make sure I go for a walk today. And if you're listening to this right now, you better be walking. But I think that's a great place to wrap today's conversation. Evan, you're a great guy. I'm sure you're going to have lots of success with Colorcast or whatever it is that you end up doing afterward. I'm sure your grandchildren will be happy to hear the story, and we will also be very happy to hear the Halftime Snacks then. But I want to thank you so much for your time and your insights. And, of course, your kindness. You're an awesome person. And hopefully, we can meet up after the pandemic to talk about sports, tech, and everything else. Thank you so much for snacking with me, Evan.
Evan Kirkham
It was awesome to be on here. Thanks, Ronen!
Transcribed by Otter.