Tom Vechy: Connecting Fans with Sports Brands (Full Transcript)
Ronen Ainbinder
Joining us today for the Halftime Snacks is a sports-tech enthusiast and a thriving entrepreneur.
Coming to the show from Budapest is a marketing specialist who is creating new marketing and business opportunities for sports organizations by bringing IT solutions to sports events organizers.
He is the CEO & founder of Seyu. This fan engagement platform allows sports teams to collect fan data and instantly distribute user-generated content on their existing platforms.
Our guest's area of expertise lies in the intersection between marketing, sports, and technology.
It is an honor and a pleasure to host him in the Halftime Snacks;
Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Vechy!
Tom Vechy
Hi Ronen, thank you for having me.
Ronen Ainbinder
Tom is great to meet you and to host you on the halftime snacks. I want to ask you a question that may sound deep, but I want you to give us a one to three-minute answer. And I want to know when you look forward to what you aim to achieve in the decades to come. What do you want your eventual Wikipedia to say? And why
Tom Vechy
Yeah, coming from a sports, technology background, obviously, I figured the most value I can deliver to the world in this field. I decided to dedicate the first part of my life to this and bring happiness to the fans worldwide and tremendous value to the clubs we could work with. I was probably moving on from this one steel having a foot in sport, but trying to achieve different fields and goals in life would move on to renewable energy. If the world allows me, that would be great if you could contribute. I could contribute personally to finding a new way of harvesting renewable energy and have millions, if not billions of people, to improve their lives. Thanks to that,
Ronen Ainbinder
What were three to five key moments in your life that drove you into building Seyu? I mean, you can only connect the dots looking back. You can never know how the dots are going to connect in the future. So now today, December 2020. How do you look back and see the things that connected in the past three to five key moments that drove you into building Seyu?
Tom Vechy
Yeah, you're dead right about that when you have to define these moments in your past. You can only do that looking back. And yeah, one would be, I think, falling in love with football, and starting to play football and dedicate and a lot to that and becoming an underrated national team player and becoming professional. Still, life obviously had different ideas and plans for me. That gave me a crazy love for sports. What sportsmen and women representation in our society, and how many people look up to them. The second one would be buying my first Wired magazine in the UK. I opened up towards technology, and I have always been a creative guy and always been a problem solver. And I think the third, the third one would be no which have us to get to Seyu and even have the idea of creating something that involves sports and it. It was the recognition of that. Now I don't have to use the existing tools to solve a problem: the sports industry as I can come up with one and create it; they have it and technology and programming. So I think those three key moments have less to get to hear where we are today.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's fascinating. Tom, I want to know more specifically about the technology that you guys use in Seyu. What types of technology are you leveraging in the IT department to connect sports fans and brands together?
Tom Vechy
Most of the technology that we use was already existing and was out there, but how we align them in a way how it could work very smooth and reliable. Deliver the right result to everybody expecting it to be the fan be the sponsoring brand instead unique to Seyu. We are using really cutting edge photo recognition software to make sure that the content is moderated and delivered to the public surfaces. We have to make sure you're protecting the brand's protecting the club's protecting ourselves. And obviously, that goes without saying that it should not be put out there. It shouldn't be out there. So what we do we use an AI-assisted vetting programming that we created. And I think we are at the forefront of that. So if I have to highlight only one of the technologies that we use,
Ronen Ainbinder
that sounds super interesting, Tom. Of course, you're the founder and the CEO of the company. Still, I want to know, when when it just started in, you saw that that new client started to arrive, and probably more money start to arrive is when the company started to grow? How did you recruit it and attract talent? What was the hiring process? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Tom Vechy
Yeah, going through different phases of the company. Now we are a two-year-old company. So we actually grew a lot. And we have, like 17 of us working together in this project, like, little less than two years ago. That was, there were three of us in the fund, the funding team. And obviously, I'm like to pride myself in that I'm a guy trying to think ahead and walk through life with open eyes. Today I would see a talented individual out there who has the ambitions and the right knowledge to add to our goal and our project. Then I would suggest he or she comes to work with us and see how it is for her or him. But I think that one key aspect would be a loving sport, that that could there are some long hours there are some fallbacks in a startup's life. And you need that persistence that you would need on the sports field in here as well. So I think the level of sports, that is key when I'm hiring somebody,
Ronen Ainbinder
I can sense your passion for sports. And I, I guess that you wouldn't really get you to get it, you wouldn't get along with someone that isn't as passionate as you. So I feel like that's why you that's what the character you look for in people. And I appreciate that. Tom, that's fantastic. I want to ask you now a little bit about the product of Seyu, and the product development, what's the roadmap? How do you see a few steps ahead of the product development of Seyu in the next two, three years,
Tom Vechy
If we talk about Seyu, there are different fields. Fans take photos, add motivating messages to them, and post them in real-time to all digital channels in their favorite team's stadium. At the perimeter led boards, giant screens, and social media platforms of their own or the clubs. This is a process that sounds very easy, but there are different steps to take to audit. So I would say for the user experience, we are planning to enhance to not only write their own message probably just have their selfies with different images. And all AR technology would be implemented in the next year for sure. And slowly moving on to video. But for the video, we would like to introduce a new platform in the stadiums. And from the other point of view, when it comes to displaying the content, these companies are working with their own software's for the perimeter led displaying sifter system. So we are already doing good and delivering pixel perfect content for them. They can basically pull in immediately whenever they are willing to do that or set with the club and display the fan surface. But we would like to make sure it could be able to monetize. They have to immediately develop that sense of connection with our cloud-based platform, so it would be smooth. You don't need any human intervention to display the contents. It would be preset may be days or weeks before the match. And they would just fill that slot on the LED boards with the fencer face who were just sending it's like few seconds before that. These are the goals that we have to achieve for just the two main ones, but there are many, many more. As I said, they need more time for that to explain.
Ronen Ainbinder
Yeah, one thing I love about your mindset is that it really sounds like you are the new generation of up and coming founders because you're already thinking. I think you have the millennial chip that basically is thinking about how to automate things, make things more, more smooth, ease the process of which technology can be used. Most of the directors, founders, and owners of sports companies today are already in the old mindset. They think that more people will do more jobs, more money probably will mean more opportunities. But you're I like with that you're really thinking in a different mindset. And I want to switch over a little bit since you've worked a lot with data, and especially like fans, and you learned about people. So I want to know if there are any lessons that you learned through Seyu about human psychology, let's say fans motives interest, what they want, what they need. Is there anything you can tell us about that?
Tom Vechy
Our solution is not only delivering this content to the digital platforms of the stadium. We also analyze this content, not only for betting purposes but also for market intelligence that we can provide our partners with. They can learn about their target market in Asia, Africa, in South America and learn the best product or best way of communicating with them. I learned so far from this kind of data that the number one emotion that fans are looking for is belongingness. This is what we can give them on a global scale. I see them coming together in groups and taking photos in groups. 72% of photos coming through our system are family photos or friends together. And this is something that we have to look at when it comes to the sport itself, the power of sport to unite people and bring together people and bridge differences. For example, if there is a guy who is a supporter of this political party, another guy supported that with everybody. Still, at the weekend, they meet at the match, wearing the same jersey. They put that aside, and joining the sports entertainment together and rooting for their own team image is a local example. Imagine this on a global scale, when you have a guy cheering for Man United from South Korea, taking a selfie in Man United jersey, and posting it to our solution for the players to see, and there's another guy in South America. Then, they see each other in the club's joint album, proudly presenting them like, Look, these are the guys who are supporting us from millions of miles away, and then they hit off and have a conversation and, and friendship starts and Kindle. And it's just, I think it is it is a great problem for the solution. We are trying to enhance the belongingness of the fans they have on every kind of scale.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's super, super interesting. I never thought about it that way. But it makes total sense. I feel like even deeper, you're building relationships, it might be interesting looking that into a little bit more. But I want to ask you about your organization and the culture of your organization. It takes a lot of effort to set up a culture in your organization; set up the values to have a system that promotes these values daily. Especially now with corona, you can't really meet everyone. And it's actually harder to set up a culture. I want to know how you do it? What has been the most challenging part of setting your organizational culture? Your perspective on it, how you approach building culture? Tell us a little bit about that.
Tom Vechy
First of all, you have to identify these cornerstones of the culture that you are building. Finding the right people who would fit into that mindset and would represent that cause that the company has you have in the right way. And some of them would have the openness some of them would not is like when I would if I have to give you a metaphor when a coach trying to set up a team and it's the end of the season and have to sign new players. They are looking at it away like okay, but he is also a good right-winger, and he, I don't know, has 52 was his last season and scored 20 goals. They would look at that. How would they fit in with the team, how would the chemistry go, and how they would stand for the values they are representing as a team. And I think we have to look at the same thing here. And what we are trying to communicate that Seyu, it's the helping of the fans. So we are here to have, we are here to assist, it's not about us, it's about providing the fans with the tool to become part of the magic days and have that connection with the players with the club. And giving a chance to the club to recognize it is part of our motto as well because, in Seyu, we work "together for victory." And that's all I think everybody at my company, aware of that. This is our motto. And even when they are working, just today like today, they are happening each other out no matter this is my field, are you afraid? What they're working? They're not. They just happen to share? I think that's key.
Ronen Ainbinder
The fan is always right. You know how the customer is always right? Well, in your case, the fan is always right. So customer-centric, and I love that passion for sports. And I also love that it seems like Seyu is very focused on the experience. And, of course, you mentioned the belongingness of the fans. And you're basically dealing with human psychology because sports is really a place where emotion and psychology and feelings come to play. So I feel like you have that approach in that you want to help fans have the best experiences. And I love that, Tom, that's fantastic. But since we're running out of time, I want to ask you a more personal question. And that has to do with how you think about the world. What's your what's your mission in this world? What's your purpose? Suppose you could have a billboard that would be seen by millions of people. In that case, (let's say fans because you're really passionate about fans and about sports), millions of fans will look at the billboard put by you anywhere in the world that you want. What would you write on it? And why?
Tom Vechy
Don't advertise on billboards; advertise with Seyu! Haha, joking aside. It probably would be; Believe in yourself. I think it's very important for many people because sometimes society and our immediate environment could knock us down and doubt ourselves and doubt things that we can achieve in life. If you don't believe in yourself, how you expect the world to believe in you, and what you are standing for. So I will try to communicate that to the world. And even you and me talking here. Hopefully, we're going to reach a few guys and girls out there who are on the fence about thinking of starting a business. Only if we inspire them with our conversation today. That's the goal itself. I'm trying to not only focus on building a kickass company with a great solution that delivers huge value, not only for fans but also for clubs. I'm also focusing on being an example, just to show some people who doubt themself. Listen, if he could have done it, I can do it as well. And I'm no different than anybody else. I put in the work, and hard work always pays dividends. This is it. I would say; Believe in yourself.
Ronen Ainbinder
Wow, that's really inspiring. Tom, I really appreciate that. I want to thank you so much for your time, your insight, your kindness. You're a great guy. And I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of great things coming for Seyu, for both of you in the future, and I can't wait to see what comes out of Seyu in the future. But for now, thank you so much for coming to the show and snacking with me,
Tom Vechy
Tom. Thanks for having me. It was great!
Transcribed by Otter.