Pedro Mestriner: From Rock Climbing to Building Sports Technology (Full Transcript)

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Ronen Ainbinder 0:55

Joining today's Halftime Snack is a Brazilian man who's leading one of the most exciting digital initiatives in the sports industry. Besides being a former professional rock climber and Harvard alumni, his background is packed with experiences in coding, sales, marketing, project, and product management. He's the CEO and Co-Founder of Horizm. This company uses technology to help sports companies track, value, and monetize their digital media.

This is about a huge lesson on strategy, business development, risk management, and more! Ladies and gentlemen– Pedro Mestriner!

Pedro Mestriner 1:11

Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

Ronen Ainbinder 1:14

Welcome to the show. Pedro, how are you, man?

Pedro Mestriner 1:17

Oh, good. Oh, a good heatwave in Spain today. So we have 35 degrees here, which is 37, almost, I don't know, 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It's hot.

Ronen Ainbinder 1:29

So turn up the AC, and everybody else can turn up the volume because this halftime snack is about to be massive. Man, I want to kick it off with an icebreaker, and I want to ask you these very random questions, but I want to know what your second favorite animal is? Oh, that's a good one. I think Cheetah is definitely your second favorite enemy. The second one? Yeah. What's the number one? The number one is to rely on? Okay, okay. Is there? Is there any reason why Cheetah is your second favorite?

Pedro Mestriner 2:01

Yeah. When I went to Africa, that's a long time to make sure. I finished university and went to Africa for three months to climb. And we're going to talk about this. And I, I saw, doing the safaris but in a very more backpack away. And I saw that animal running, and my background was affected. This is running and jumping. And I said no, I'm in the wrong place. No, these animals are just fantastic in the way they move. And I literally got in love with a cheetah, and that was the reason I said that's impressive in the lie on the seesaw was a kid typical is the animal will manage the whole.

Ronen Ainbinder 2:41

King in the jungle, huh?

Pedro Mestriner 2:43

King of the Jungle. Yeah, that's why the Cheetah was. I was impressed with how they move and the speed that the whole anatomy of the way they do it is fantastic. Yeah, I got in love with that. If there is still, talk about Cheetah all the time.

Ronen Ainbinder 2:58

That's great, man. And I want to just jump straight right in. You mentioned rock climbing. It's a very key element of your background. You've been doing it professionally for a while. So I want to know exactly how you got into it. It's such a unique, let's call it profession or devotion or vocation. So how did you exactly get into it? And I also want to ask you, man, and this is because I watched. And if you watch the documentary free solo from Alex Honnold, who was like the first guy to free solo El Capitan in Yosemite. And in the man I saw, and it was like, crazy, like, risk, like, in any second, you could basically just fall and die. And it's crazy. So I want to know how it shaped your perception of risk; how'd you get into rock climbing, and just tell us if you want the story and that element of how you now perceive risk due to rock climbing?

Pedro Mestriner 3:58

And it's a great one. Well, thank you for the question. Basically, I mean, being a Brazilian guy. It's kind of tough to say that I'm a rock climber mountaineering? No, because people are associated with other sports. No, but I think I was lucky enough. Even though I was born in San Paolo, I was lucky enough to have a country house outside of San Paolo that was kind of an exploration paradise. We have the jungle around, we have the rivers, we have the lakes. So I spent my childhood basically doing kind of explorations as a kid; I was the little Rambo of the family in all the time doing this kind of things. And climbing, when I was 12, around 12 I saw a TV show the commentary or something about people climbing El Capitan precisely that I said that change it my view of climbing so I became a I want to be a climber that was the thing there was nothing else climb is not about medals in Olympics, as is more about traveling, exploring and now there's a few other elements with nature no. I started building my own crampons, and my dad was helping up source climbing hills, not mountain rocks. But in Brazil, I did my own PLN climbing trees; I was kind of, young thing. But then, of course, came the teenager area, Brazil, which didn't have any rock climbing there, basically in the Sao Paulo area. Now, if you were in Rio for sure. And I moved to other sports, so my baseline is always sports; I've been running athletics, that was a long jump as well. And then, because of the jumping I was, I was called to play volleyball as a center for an interesting theme called palmettos. In Brazil, so was a setter until I was 17. That was my, my sports background, basically, no collective team. But, four or five, seven guys, there's no real future, being a setter in Brazil, for the size of how I was no. So basically, I was that time, working as a trainee, to Pfizer pharmaceutical company, in a gaijin, literally, knew there was all into sports, say, Hey, I know some people are climbing. And that ignited the passion that I had, again, back when I was young and completely changed it. My whole perspective of life, I keep that dream to climb, El Capitan, which ended up realizing I'm going to probably explain about the movie as well. And what I have done in that route with ropes, always, that's the difference. So that was basically family exposure to nature and fishing with my dad's around the amazon area. So that's a lot of things involving not climbing, but it's always been exposure. So for the other question about risk, sometimes people think climbing is about it; it's extremely risky. No, but I think that is not totally true. The main point of climbing is first training; you train, in the case of the free soul of the movie, you train your whole life to do one thing with or without. So basically, you're spending years and years dedicated to that. So the risk assessment is pretty wide. And climbing is about analysis as well. And mental fitness is about the breach. There are a few elements that, of course, you still cannot control, basically knowing that an avalanche or rock falls. Still, everything that you control, you prepare. So every time we go on an expedition to climb a place, you prepare a lot, so there's no improvisation at all on climbing. And if you saw the movie, the guy spent, and I'll explain, I think, eight years or nine years just to do that climb, which is still, of course, there is a lot of risks, but the guy did a huge, huge training for that. And that's pretty much declining; his risk assessment is done at a very, very deep level.

Ronen Ainbinder 7:54

That's very interesting. Because you have since you started Horizm, and it's a technology company, I guess that up to a certain point, as a founder, you can assess the risk of a company. Still, like, you can know, more or less how, what's the probability that it might fail? What is the probability that you might be successful, but only to a certain degree? There's also a little bit of improvisation and pivoting on your way. We're gonna talk about that a little bit later. But I want to ask you if there's anyone or two similarities that you found in building technology companies and climbing huge, huge rocks. Is there anything you can say about what I liked a lot, such as the mental fitness element? So maybe that's one; I wonder if there are one or two waters that you can think about that are very similar between both practices, even though they're different.

Pedro Mestriner 8:54

100% related, I think the first one is that climates and business mistakes are not allowed in a certain way. So big mistakes, you are not allowed, because climbing either will kill your partner up yourself, or you'll kill the whole team. So that's the thing. So big mistakes are not allowed. So that's lesson number one. I think that number two is that climbing is not about money. You don't see climbing, talking about making money. Is it different from other sports? Climbing is about passion, a mission or legacy, or the dreams you want to make true. That is a period. And this is pretty much about setting up a company. If you think the typical model sets up a company to be rich, you start failing. It's a big problem. I think that's the main thing that probably is not, as we also said about the grid. Climbing is a sport that you will have to fail to keep growing and keep climbing. There's no way you climb something you say I'm not falling. The only way to grow into climbing, especially with sport climbing, is that you fall and learn what you make, and you do it, And you do again until you execute the No. So pretty much what you do as an entrepreneur. And basically, as a company, the only thing is that we have the time and experience in the years following. Now, literally, you avoid a lot of mistakes that you have already made. And that's the similarity being when you are in Japan, or when you are 20, or when you are 45, you have one experience that you have done a few things, you have made a lot of mistakes, and the role is trying to make new mistakes, not the old ones that you already know.

Ronen Ainbinder 10:32

Wow, that's a fascinating way of looking at it better. I'm thinking about one extra thing, and I want to share it with you because I think it's very, very interesting. Rock climbing, as you mentioned, has a certain degree of antifragility, or margin for error, that it's very, very small, that you can't make errors while you're climbing rocks. Still, you can make errors where you're at the boulder gym, try, and in the gym, you can fall there. So that could be considered as a place where you can when you can fail. So taking that into business, I would say that in a startup and especially in tech companies, try to find your boulder gym, the place where you can fail, where it's not going to affect you or your business, and then go out and in the business and execute perfectly because there's no room for error over there. So I guess that the analogy of just finding your boulder gym, in, in business. That's a nice word.

Pedro Mestriner 11:39

Absolutely. I like this. The boulder gym is probably the AB tests we are doing, right? And then you go to the market, when you go to the client, basically, you say no, I cannot make mistakes, or at least big mistakes you cannot make, no you cannot forget your water when you go down. That's a huge thing. So I think that's a great analogy. I like that the boulder and when you train and precisely this, in our case, is probably the test we're constantly doing until we have kind of a base to say, Okay, this is let's go for it.

Ronen Ainbinder 12:10

Yeah, yeah, a big one, man, I loved it. Thank you for sharing that. Man, your background is very interesting. Looking at it. You've been to Harvard, even Pfizer, you worked with Barcelona, the team. So I want to know if there are any lessons from those highlights of your background that make you perfect. There's this concept that Naval calls founder-product-market fit. So what makes you the perfect founder-product-market fit for you in Horizm? Thanks to the highlights of your background.

Pedro Mestriner 12:44

Oh, that's a good one. Let's try to make it simple. I think the first one is that they are always thinking global and big for the companies I was working at first. There's no room here to think as well. That's ambition, of course, knowing where you're stepping, but you need to go big and go international. In our case, our word today is going international and raising a company's international status from day one. In Spain, we have two clients. 95% of clients are out. I mean, that was the initial thing you needed to go out to know that. I think the second one is company culture, company culture, definitely no. That is important. I work for Hitachi, a Japanese company that I would say that definitely was, if not the best experience I had in my life; I had a very tough boss, the president of the consumer division, a sec, Mr. Sun, which is still was my mentor, I would say he was the president of the division he hired me with when he knew that I have no experience in the industry. But I have the skills. I went to the interview showing him a Japanese magazine pagato gene, in which I was featured as a climber. And they said that this guy is very whatever, gritty and he was doing these and oh, Captain, this kind of stuff. And then they hired me, I thought well, probably because of the magazine or something. Anyway, I have no experience at all and consume a lot of special electronics. No. And he was tough with me for the first two years. Literally, the Japanese culture in the company was like, it's not about the pressure, it's about the standard, you need to always deliver at 100% minimum. So 99% is not an option. There's no option for that, and the way they execute things, and also the data. It's always oriented with data; you always start the meeting with the Japanese with a billboard and some numbers and driving the past to see what the future is now. So a few years back, just to conclude, when he finished and went back to Japan as a president said, Hey, I was happy that I pressured you, and you didn't quit. I like that and that so the magazine was telling the truth. So the joke is that we're still good colleagues, he's retiring in Japan now, and I'll definitely say that one thing is about company culture, understanding why they have this. And I think the third one is definitely scalability and delivery. Now I know my experience previous on let go is one of the first Spanish unicorns no marketplace purely is like the first CTC marketplace in US huge one was a Spanish company started with one of my best friends Georgia here, they did something that I have didn't live with directly now working in startups I did as well but then incorporated the way to take a company from zero to 100. In like 24 months, what I did was impressive when I went to that environment. The speed, which is basically nothing cared about a delivery, execution, execution, execution, there was nothing else about delivering the mentality, and we apply a little bit here. And the reason is, tomorrow is not a viable option, basically, no, it's always delivery. So I think that was the missing part for me before we decided to say okay, jumping into our own process noise having this, the scalability, and the delivery mentality that sometimes incorporates they have good things. Still, as sometimes there is low and there's other politics involved in startups you need to execute every single hour, there's no room for tomorrow, basically.

Ronen Ainbinder 16:12

Wow, that's super fascinating. I wonder how it started with this Horizm solution? What was the original idea? And in what ways has it pivoted? Has it shifted along the way? It has been a little bit less than two years right now. So if you just can walk us through the roadmap of how the product came into fruition, and then how it changed it? And until what it is today?

Pedro Mestriner 16:43

No, yeah, Horizm, you started off one of my failures in my professional life; when I worked as a consultant to FC Barcelona, it was a disaster. I was hired to try to help them to build the digital assets team to sell digital-only. And it was a huge disaster. We couldn't because the organization was not ready, which is fine. It was a few years back in time, but then the market, still not ready yet. But the main point was the pricing. Now how do you measure how we have a price into your digital assets? No. So with that in mind, I was like roaming around and thinking, something, we need to do this. And then back into sports. We were called by the volleyball Federation a few couple years ago to consult them to advise on the asset valuation on digital. And we said no, again, the problem for FC Barcelona, nothing changing in the industry. So we hosted a V, the co-founder with a good friend, specialized in product and gaming's guidance did a lot of good stuff on the industry. We decided no; what now is the timing? No. So then, we decided we put a plan on the paper with kind of a funny story. We drove from Barcelona to Lausanne to deliver the project. I was sick at that time. I have a year of infection or something. I could not take a plane. So he came here to say, No, let's drive. It's an eight-hour drive from Barcelona to Luzon. So that trip was supposed to take eight hours. It took three days to arrive in the zone because we drove in my old California van that I still have as a climber. And we're stopping every two hours from painting and drawing and said that is happening. And when we arrive in Lucerne, we have a Horizm roadmap for three years in the paper. When we returned, we decided that that's less than two years; as you said, we hired the first part-time coder with the resources we have. And then we decided the approach to these will be we need to have good clients or at least a good rightsholder that we can plugin and basically understand what they do because that's the way to build. In our case, the product that serves the market is not because we thought it would be good. And we knocked on a few doors. We ended up talking to Real Madrid, which is a good client to have. And those guys saw the vision. They saw the product. And they said we want it. And again, luck in preparation came together. They decided to embed, say, the organization's solution not only as software but also how to change the way they're selling the way they're approaching their partners. And so far, I would say that we haven't had anything. Of course, we have deprioritized a few things that we thought would be cool features for the product. In the end, they are bought on the list and other things because of the group of properties. We have clients who are asking more. So we have like ticked off, for example, I know that a year ago or a year and a half ago was like yeah, maybe it could be something cool. Now it's a must-have for any sports property, so those kinds of priorities change, but the roadmap hasn't changed. We still have the three-year plan, and we are purely executing. Within this, of course, COVID came in, shook a few things, and unfortunately, not considering the disgraceful things happening. Still, in terms of business for us, it accelerated everything. COVID did the job, let's say no. Understanding the rights holders, mainly Dysport, intercommunion is that they need to go digital. Yes, or Yes, there's not a building website or an app anymore. You need to look at this carefully because that is where your future revenues are coming in.

Ronen Ainbinder 20:27

Very interesting. But I wonder if you're old all the time, you're executing. How are you exactly? Building organizational culture? Is it's not always executed? Like, how, how exactly do you take the time? Or would you like what strategies you have been using? Or? Like, what are your thoughts about building up the culture of Horizm? If you're always like, execute, execute, execute? Like, what's that? What's the plan?

Pedro Mestriner 20:56

No, I think the thing is, the reason Horizm has this huge growth in the last 12 months is basically because of the team, the product itself, it's very good, I have to say, of course. But the team is the key element for this. And the reason for the team is the culture we're trying to put here. It's very simple, there's no need to go to any super business school or buy any books, it's very simple. It's about ownership. Ownership, basically, it doesn't matter if the key account manager is the owner of the delivery, it's his shop or his car, if you made a mistake, just fix it, move on, shake and go. So it's own that's about ownership comes with trust. So it's a base of everything go single thing, we're doing life, which is very much associated to the climbing thing, at the end, when you climb with someone, that's kind of umbilical cord you have, if you're thinking that if you follow your partner will not catch you, you cannot climb at 100%. So that the trust, if you trust your partner, or someone will say no, in case of climbing, taking care of you, things will go better you can execute that 100% to them. And I think the third point is basically about the team. We are not a family here. We are a team. Basically, people are accountable for what they are doing, which is related to ownership. No, and we treat them as adults, for this is about delivery. So they figure out the best thing. Basically, our job here is to pull them together to make sure this culture exists of ownership, trust, and team execution basically, and treat people as adults. No, I think that's the best thing if we have the kind of mentality that everyone jumps on board with, like if we know we have an option to deliver a very good product or we have an option to deliver a bad product, or we have an option to deliver Okay, products. For us, the okay is already a bad product. So there is no option on this No way. And that is the base from the technical side, for the business side, for the administrative side, for the financial peace for everyone. And this is embedding because, in the end, it is about declining, going back to the client, and again, if you need to try to deliver at least 100%. No, sometimes it's not about motivation. We have good days or bad days, like any startup company, but it overcomes all the motivation issues if you have the discipline. No, it's like when you go training, or as an athlete, Sunday's a lot of days, you wake up, you say what I'm doing this, it's like six in the morning, it's raining or cold. I don't want to go out. I don't want to travel. But then comes the discipline. And that's pretty much the base of everything. No, because in our case, if we want to be the best guys here, we need to do things that our people are not willing to do. And that's no is a living thing. Basically, we're not invented, were you here or using nice boats around. But that's the way to do anything you want in life.

Ronen Ainbinder 23:59

And what is your vision for Horizm, let's say? Down the horizon? Let's say 10 years?

Pedro Mestriner 24:08

Yeah, well, that's a good one. I mean, we're a techie company; when you look like 10 years is always a tough question. No, but in terms of vision, of course, the product development thing and the industry are changing so fast. Even for us now, without this execution, the mind is changing faster than we expected, which is a great sign. So in terms of vision for us, of course, the company's expansion is always a thing. We have new products along with the roadmap delivery. Still, the mentality here is also to build a solid business that is very important. We are like sports, of course, not trying to be very precise in the way we deliver and deploy every single dollar we have. So that mentality I know that sometimes on the sport and sorry, there's a lot of money available on the tech side and especially intrapreneurship. So like having a check of $10 million in stock go crazy, you lose focus. So we don't raise more money than we don't need. Because that's dangerous. In some aspects, especially in our stage, which is a year old company operation of size, you can lose focus and start to play around with other things that he's not focused on. It's basically very simple to deliver the best product for the clients we have. That is the thing. So with that mentality, we need to keep focused on this No, so yes, solid business solid team. And keep adding layers, of course now, in terms of growth, no, but long, long term, if you think what do you want to do with this company? Well, we're gonna adapt for the market needs, definitely. And we're going to adapt to the company's needs as well. And I think that's important not only but the dream is that no, as a climber is a dreamer, is basically trying to take that dream of five years. If he can do a company, if some people say I want to take this IPO or whatever, we're not looking into that too much, to be honest. And we have that back in mind, as a company. But because the focus is on our execution and delivery, we tried to take all this stuff out of mind and, Okay, step by step. We haven't done anything. Literally, it's great good growth, good rest of clients. But we need to keep moving step by step and very solid things. And, and that's pretty much the approach.

Ronen Ainbinder 26:28

Man, it's so interesting to see how you decode things coming from a climbing and rock climbing background, man; it. You literally think about, like, what's the next step? And what's the like, one way, step by step. So it's fascinating to hear you describe that in a business special; thank you so much for sharing, man. It has been such a pleasure hosting you on the show; time has gone so fast. And I want to. I can't go big without asking you a last personal question. And then I was thinking, Okay, so this guy has a different perception of risk. Ki, he's, he's been in a couple of situations where he can, he's defying certain laws of physics and reality. So I wonder, what is this guy's biggest fear? So what would you say is your biggest fear bedroom,

Pedro Mestriner 27:23

For me, it is to stop. It's always thinking of stopping and not evolving all the time. Life, in the end, is about the learning process. It doesn't matter now if it's climbing if it's business, or whatever. And my biggest fear is that not losing, let's say, this appetite for keep exploring, Cesar was doing since I was a kid. The rest of the things are completely overcome because, in the end, it's about life as well. Now, there's a lot of obstacles all the time that you need to either round or climb on top of it to go to the other side. But I mean, the beauty of this is that we haven't seen, I think, everything. No, there are always things that you can learn about the world or yourself or a company or the market. So we know our time is very limited here. So the best thing is, let's not waste it and keep learning, keep not stopping everything you're doing, whatever it's climbing, if it's intrapreneurship, if it's fundraising, if you're deploying capital, whatever, is putting the passion on this. No, I think, and as soon as we continue to do this, that is so the fear is not stopping. And I hope that continues until the last day I have.

Ronen Ainbinder 28:39

Man, that's an amazing and amazing conclusion. And I'm amazing the way of closing out this episode. Pedro, I want to thank you so much for your time, your insights, and your kindness; man, it has been an awesome halftime snack. I've enjoyed every piece of it. And while I'm, I'm so impressed by everything that you just told this man, I can't wait to host you again in the future. But for now, thank you so much for coming to the halftime show tonight.