Episode 21: Daring to Be Better

Hey listeners, welcome to SphereCast, a podcast all about technology, technology advice, technology inspiration, and how real entrepreneurs have used technology to build their businesses from the ground up.

If you're wondering how technology can support your business goals, rest assured, our guests have been there and done that.

Success always requires risk, and sometimes big change, the best change, requires the most risk. Whether it be completely rethinking a company, whether it be prepping to scale, or raising the bar on the status quo.

And sometimes if you dare to take the risk and speak into a situation, you end up with more responsibility, lots of responsibility. And sometimes you even become CEO. Hello again. Luke here with the SphereCast, and this week Xenia and I interview Tyler Childs, President and CEO at Sport-Travel.

Since 1998, the Ontario-based company has worked with thousands of sporting events and organizations around the globe to create professionally run events. Sport-Travel runs the gambit when it comes to sporting events, whether it be fully sponsoring tournaments, running events from end-to-end, or aiding in global team travel. According to Childs, his company's goal is simple: to make running events easier for everyone.

Tyler, who started in business development at Sport-Travel, saw immense growth potential for the company, which started as a family business. From his position in business development, he dared the company's founder to change his definition of success, and ultimately found himself holding the reins as CEO. As a result, the company moved into a new era and has experienced tremendous growth.

On the podcast, Tyler recaps his incredible journey and shares deep wisdom on leadership, building a team, and daring to do better. So without further ado, here's our conversation with Tyler Childs.

Hi Tyler, thanks so much for joining us today.

I'm happy to be here. Appreciate the opportunity to come on and chat. It's always fun to talk business and, you know, technologies.

Awesome. Could you tell our listeners who and what inspired you to become an entrepreneur and a founder of several successful ventures?

I mean, that's that's a long journey that starts back when I was five. You know, my dad and my family owned and operated a hotel in a small town in southwestern Ontario. So, it's kind of a unique journey for me. I grew up in business. I watched and learned and didn't really understand at the time, but picked up things along the way that that created kind of the foundation. Fast forward years later, there was a high school party that I I wanted to go to in a separate town where I went to high school. And dad threw the old ultimatum in that was, "No, you're you're working on on Saturday." And I said, "No." And he said, "Fine, you're fired." And I said, "Cool. See you."

So, funny enough, this was kind of the beginning of of the journey for me because I went and worked for McDonald's, which you know, as much as that takes flak over a lot of things, it was easily the best building block that I have in my resume, because so much corporate structure and policy and just governance of of a business that you you don't appreciate as a teenager. You know, I was kind of fast-tracked because of my like experience working as a 16-year-old. I had already spent a decade working basically. So, I got fast-tracked into the management stream and learned things that, you know, not a ton of 16- and 17-year-olds get a chance to learn.

So, did that, went to university, took on a degree in in coaching, actually a master's degree in coaching, which was kind of how I landed with with Sport-Travel. I was coaching just pure luck, the former owner of of the company's son, and he's just liked me. You know, it wasn't wasn't a qualifications thing, we just got along. And so he said, "Hey, I've got this thing." And so I show up in his office, we go through what the business does, and funny enough, it's pretty much my life's journey coming to fruition. It's sport, it's travel, it's everything that I grew to know, and so that was the beginning of of it.

So, that's inspiration I don't know's the right word, stroke of luck, and just being in the right place at the right time, I think, is more or less how I ended up where I am.

I'd also like to ask you about your current venture. Could you tell us what is Sport-Travel, and why did you create this service?

Yeah, so, you know, travel has has spent many years trying to catch up to global technologies and business strategies. It's it's a service-first business, it always has been, and and it will continue to be a service-first business. However, tech is fully taking a step in the right direction in the industry. The the pandemic's, you know, fast forwarding that in a lot of ways.

But at the end of the day, you know, it was an opportunity to join a team and and provide influence to the group and then eventually take over. And once once I took over the business, it really was about changing the culture, changing an industry, and that's a long journey. So, you know, that that really was an important piece of the puzzle. The previous owner left it in a phenomenal spot with a reputation that would have took decades to build. So, you know, it certainly gave me the opportunity to have some carte blanche in terms of what I can do with the tech side. So, we we've built our team around the future, and and we're really excited about what what that means for us.

Exciting, that is. So, let's take a little step back. So, I looked up Sport-Travel. I mean, we work with you anyway. So, Sport-Travel has been in the market since 1998, I think that's if that's correct, and you became part of the team in 2017, if I'm—

We were 2011. I took over at the end of 2016. So, I was in biz dev for a long time before. So, I was working, you know, kind of on the front lines with with our our partners and our clients and seeing the problems that they faced on a regular basis. And for those of you that aren't familiar with the event space, a 2:00 a.m. email barrage is not unfamiliar to an event owner.

You know, there's many businesses that face the middle of the night frequently, but, you know, the sweat and the tears that go into running an event and the chaos of change of of venues and just the range of vendors you have to deal with takes control away. So, you know, that's that's really where the biz dev experience for me was super vital in terms of laying out where we're going, because I got to see not just the the technological problems that they face, but more importantly, just the the people problems that they face, because that's those two things often go hand in hand when it comes to service.

Completely agree. It's very hard. It's very hard. My wife runs, you know, she's trying to open a cafe nowadays. So, she took up a massive contract, and she's struggling just to get all the people together on some days to start the project off, and stuff like that. So, doing an event, it's a it's a different scale, so I can imagine.

Herding cats, that's the we talk about it a lot of the time, you know. It's it's a lot of people with a lot of different agendas, and, you know, you have to do your your best to to bring all that together.

Yeah, my wife tells me that if if you have a job like this, you you you better have a therapist, you know, alongside to help you.

Yeah. I always tell people that's that's my golf, right? Like, I I just swing really hard, hit the golf ball as far as I can, and that's where I let it all out.

Is that is that weekly, daily?

It's weekly. Daily would be helpful and very therapeutic.

Okay. Great, great. Good to hear that. Okay, so that's bit of history about Sport-Travel.

I'd love to know, I mean, if you can share this obviously, so you you have been at Sport-Travel, let's say, now for almost a decade. So, being there in in biz dev team and now running the organization as as the President and CEO, I'd love to know like what difference do you see, you know, let's say when you were in the sales and now you are running the organization? What has changed? And and, yeah, let's if you can segment it like the maybe, you know, couple of years and all those things, how how things progressed, would love to know a little bit more.

Well, and when I first joined the team, it was it was a really interesting culture that existed. It was it was a family, right? It was it was a group of people that had worked together for a long time, and that was so cool to be a part of. It was some older ladies on on the front line of our service team, and they were phenomenal. So, they were kind of my work moms. I was young, I was I was a little bit immature, and so they kept me in line in a lot of good ways. But we had a really good rapport, and, you know, it was a lot of fun working with them.

And and, you know, for them, I kind of changed the culture a little bit from what what success meant, right? And and we had been sustainable and growing incrementally, and to me that wasn't good enough. And it was just, you know, changing that that mentality meant them working a little bit harder and sometimes smarter. And and it meant doing the model that we had had lived off of for years a little bit differently, and being a little bit more agile in the way we proposed our our opportunities to our clients.

So, that was the first real experience. And and there was obviously pushback, right? I think in any anytime there's change, you're going to face some resistance. And then there was that breakthrough where that tidal wave of growth started to happen. We really started to build up and we we doubled our team size in a couple years, and then, you know, eventually 4x the team before I took over.

And really, it was it was a combination of a lot of people, and and I got a little more in- involved in who we were hiring and and that sort of thing. So, so the progression came first the the change of of the team as a whole, how we all interacted, the the budgets and proposals we were putting together for our partners. And then eventually it started to shift into me leading the upper management a little bit in in partnership with the former owner. You know, he he had an absolute trust for me, and and we had very differing views.

And it was really a neat experience because he was on one end of this the super-safe, ready-for-retirement spectrum, and here I am, the young kid, you know, bull in a china shop, changing the way that things were done for for years, and in an in an older industry, too, right? It's not as if, you know, innovation can exist in in one of the largest segments uh in in the world from from a model perspective. Now, how you do business and how you serve your client, that's the opportunity in many service businesses.

So, that started to shift, and and eventually got to the point where it was he and I making every decision. And and it just got to the point where he was he's ready to retire. I certainly don't blame him. He he didn't want to invest into what we needed to do to to take that next step. So, just had a very frank conversation. I'm like, "Man, you got to go." And so either you get out of my way and let me just do everything and give me purse strings, or we find a different strategy, which is what we ended up doing.

So, again, we're still friends to this day. Talked to him yesterday. Really, really strong relationship. He's he's done a lot for me, and I certainly will always appreciate those steps. But, you know, that that was the change. And so that changing of the guard that had existed prior, and I just said, "Listen, we're we're going to do things different." So, we're going to move faster, that means, you know, we're going to do more. It isn't going to be the punch-clock nine-to-five that I think some of them were appreciative of.

So, I said, and they were all retirement age as well, too, because they had had worked with with the previous owner for a while. And they just retired. And no hard feelings, they were they were excited. They did it as a more of a hobby that that came with a paycheck, something to do. So, none of them were too upset. There was one holdover that was my my coffee confidante. We we had offices next to each other, and she would always bring me my coffee.

So, that that culture shifted, but outside of that original group, we got young, we got agile, and we got aggressive. And so that's really what the biggest shift was. And that meant technology, that meant a dev team, that meant different things that were moving us into the future. So, a really really fun evolution. And and changing culture, for anyone that's ever been a part of that, is not not easy, right? Because it's it's one thing for me to sit here and suggest, "Hey guys, we're going to do things different." But that there has to be buy-in from every level. And and that that kind of shift doesn't happen overnight.

And so there was there was bumps in the road, as you could expect, and, you know, people that came in and people that have left, and, you know, pre-pandemic, we were we were churning with a team that was just in love with our process. You know, obviously with the pandemic in a travel space, there's there's things we had to do a little differently. So, you know, we're we've got the right group together. It took several years to do it, but but we finally arrived with that shift of of where we want to be for for the foreseeable future.

I see. Yeah, natural attrition, I think, is the theme here. Okay, so wow, that that's that's that's quite a bit.

So, in terms of when, you know, let's say you became the President or the CEO back in end of 2016, so in in terms of what what happened to Sport-Travel then, like what was the first thing you did? Let's talk technology here. Let's not talk about, you know, people management, because that's a sensitive subject, so I'm not I'm not sure I want to go there.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the first thing was, I mean, funny enough, as much as as I give the the group some crap, there there was a West Coast in Canada here partner that we had worked with, kind of a sister agency, when we had built a a system together. And and it started on Microsoft Access, and so it was an older database that had evolved through the .com era, you know, via like through everything that went through the changes in in the industry. And and it was a Band-Aid solution through and through.

And, you know, that was the first thing I addressed with the West Coast office was, "Listen, like this has to change, right? It has to." And so we had shared a brand, and and it was a brand that was dated and didn't really align with the things we were, or the things we want to be. So, the two things that I wanted were that the brand change and and the technology change, and and that was rejected for both. So, you know, it was a mutual agreement that we just went separate ways. It was a different sense of the direction we need to be going, and and that's exactly, you know, kind of the the direction we took.

So, from that point forward, we immediately sought out the right people to start building our dev team. Now, for anyone that comes from a non-tech background like I did, you know, I'm certainly, you know, from the generation that has used tech their the entire life, but you know, starting a dev team, you don't know where to start, right? Like, it's it's an impossible first step to get right. And and I think anyone that has got the first step right needs to talk about it more, because I just don't think that that happens very often.

But at the end of the day, we we kind of outsourced an initial build for some of the changes that we wanted to to do. We under-budgeted it because the the group that had taken it on underscoped it, right? So, there was a really cool learning curve there about scope and scale that wasn't too expensive, right? Those those mistakes often come with a big bill. Fortunately, it didn't in that scenario.

And so, you know, it it worked out well because it it gave us a test product. It had something that we could put onto the market, and then from there, we just started over a little bit under the same context. So, what that allowed us to do was to take a a longer look at the roadmap, the things that we learned initially that we didn't like about the first build, customer feedback came.

You know, Reid Hoffman's a great great guy about, you know, MVP, right? And he's a LinkedIn founder, one of, and and definitely an influencer in in the tech space. But I I had been listening to some of the things he'd been saying online, and and it just kept saying, "Get it out to the public. Get it out to the public. Get it out." And and that, especially in our space, where there's so many different ways of doing business successfully, that it was essential that we got a a next build out.

So, it it gave us a chance to review the tech we wanted to build in. The timing worked really well in terms of some new libraries that came available, and and it really allowed us to make a better future-proofing decision, right? And we all know there's no such thing as full future-proofing in technologies, but, you know, it certainly gave us an edge over our competition because there was some new innovations that were starting to come up in in the cloud platforms, and in some of the the app designs that that maybe were an expectation previously.

So, you know, it was really exciting time to rethink it, and from there trying to find the right people to build around. You have people that come and go on any tech team, people that outgrow a position or, you know, may maybe want to try a new challenge, right? And and and that's that's a battle you you just face with tech team building. And and it's certainly something that I don't fully understand myself. It's not it's not my core being. But it's been it's been something that, you know, has been probably my greatest challenge is trying to uncover the pathway.

And I think we've done a good job of that in the last year or two of really starting to evolve that that direction of how we we not not only acquire talent, because I think we I'm pretty good at that, or our team is, but nurturing it and developing it and building off of that. I think that's really where we've started to succeed, and and not waste our time on the ones that that don't want to be here as much. So, that's that's an exciting thing. Because sport and tech don't always go perfectly together, right? That that culture fit isn't always a perfect fit, especially in southwestern Ontario.

I think I I'd completely agree there. There's a few very beautiful points you made there. The one I would just say, you know, when you know how to hire the right people, build the build the team, I think that's when you see real progress, and I think this is something I have seen happening over the past three or four years with me being at Sphere. So, I've seen the cycles where we have, you know, made choices that maybe could be could have been different or better, but when you have the right choice, you know, made, and you have the right people and you build around those, I think things move very fast and the progress is, when you look back, you're like, "Oh wow, we've done this in the last year," and you're like, "Okay, great, good stuff, let's carry on now." Now you know the formula. Now you know the recipe, little recipe of success, you know. Yeah, I agree.

Well, and I think especially in our space, like travel and sport are such passion projects, right? And I think that's the big learning curve that that we've had is like can we find the the people that have passion, the people that are are the ones that have that that commitment to excellence, that competitive fire, and and not are, you know, cuz there is a difference. There's a difference between a great employee and and a great team member, right? Those two things are very different things.

And I think, especially in our space, where where we're we're working with competitive people around us, that that passion has to be matched on our team. And so that's probably been my biggest takeaway that I've learned in in three and four years here.

Which ones do you prefer, great team members or great professionals?

Team members for sure. You know, like I I'm so I'm a little unorthodox myself, right? So, I think I think it's important to clarify that, that I I'm not the MBA grad. Like, I'm I'm more of a street-smarts kind of leader, right? So, for me, I I don't care as much for for the professional approach as much as I do for the open and honest one.

So, you know, I I would much rather us get in the ring and and duke it out for a couple rounds and and get to a solution quickly than do the dance of of political correctness of of how to approach your boss, right? Like, I just and I say that to people when we hire them. Like, if you can't sit in that chair and tell me that I'm an idiot, don't be on this team, right? Because that is an essential part of communication around here.

So, so yeah, I think the teammate thing for sure is first and foremost.

Culture of candor, yeah, and honesty, yeah.

Everybody everyone always thinks we're so nice, right? Like, that's that's the thing. But you know what, it's just it's transparency and honesty, and and I think that's that's the big culture that that shines through in Canada. And and that doesn't mean we always agree or that we're always saying sorry. It's, you know, it's one of those things that we address it and and we face the problem, and and maybe that's why we say sorry all the time now that I think about it out loud.

Huh, okay. Great. Good stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. And I can actually relate to that because my whole time I've been, my my whole life I've been on a swim team. And so being part of a team and, you know, with a element of transparency and, you know, open communication with your team members and just, you know, being having each other's back, I think it's very important. And it's a healthy balance between being a team member and a professional.

So, I want to dive into, we talked a little bit about the MVP. So, could you share with us what was your thought process in selecting your tech stack or technology for Sport-Travel? Did you go with the cheap and dirty MVP, or did you use high-end technology that would scale up and be future-proof?

Yeah, well like we went more for the future-proof angle, and some of the early members of our team were were dreamers, and and I love having dreamers because I'm a dreamer, too. And so, basically they they thought through some of the scale problems. We kind of sat through, you know, what are the big roadblocks that other tech stacks have faced in our industry? And and the big overwhelming one is that the tech stack crashes on high-volume scenarios.

So, that was absolutely essential when we started down picking our our stack, and, you know, Google Cloud has some things in the backend that kind of allow us to provide some value across different services while operating, you know, kind of simultaneously at scale. So, you know, one of those things that that was an early vision of of one of our leaders, and and it was one that we're we're starting to see the benefits of today, because, you know, especially in in North America, you have a lot of remote venues.

So, Wi-Fi isn't always the best of of of class there in terms of what you can have. So, having something that that was conscious of scale, volume, and and kind of that bandwidth conversation all at once was super important. So, you know, we kind of looked at, you know, some of the caching strategies and different things that could be done, you know, to kind of simplify those those scenarios for the end user and and hopefully take down the overall strain of on the tool, but also, you know, on the venue itself as many users use it in one location.

So, you know, that everyone always assumes it's the tech stack. Sometimes it is it is the wireless network, right? And so, you know, I think that's that's a battle that that takes education, but it also takes a product that can help mitigate that disaster. So, you know, that was some of the stuff that we really focused on.

You know, part of the reason we we chose the stack that we did was to try to find the middle ground of the future, right? You know, you start to see, you know, different things. You know, Google has their own direction, Facebook has theirs, and, you know, there's a million other things in between. So, we really wanted to find something that we we thought would float between all those things and and give us the greatest flexibility in in what realistically from a technology standpoint is a is a fairly uncertain, you know, time in terms of foundational coding, right? Like, there's so many things that can be done today.

And so I think that's a super awesome thing we did really, really well. And and we didn't make a mistake on it, I don't believe, and and sometimes you don't know those things for many, many years, but, you know, it's definitely something that that so far we've had a lot of success. And and what gives me a lot of hope is that I'm seeing the the technological blips that we've already faced in testing start to pop up on other platforms that I use.

And so as as I've gone from not being a tech person to now recognizing QA issues on other live products, it's kind of funny to be a part of that experience in my brain. So, it's it's definitely been interesting to watch, and it gives me a little bit of solace knowing that, you know, other large stacks are making similar decisions that that we are.

So, yeah, it it was I I always give 100% credit to the team. I get out of the way for those decisions. I say, "You make informed decisions." They present it to me, and and they had absolute conviction on it, and I get out of the way on those sort of things.

Interesting. You know, that's I loved how you've kind of made the choices based upon the business area. So, there's a lot of factors you considered. So, the question is like you you were in biz dev, how did you make yourself dangerous enough to know what to go for in decision-making process? I think you touched upon some some podcast or some some reading stuff that you go through. So, how are you doing it in this day and age? So, what would you say to somebody who's, let's say, an entrepreneur, a member of a, you know, three-people founding team, and this person is sales, but there's a CTO, how do they, you know, keep an even keel on everything just to make sure that if all three people have kind of good knowledge on the choices they're making and spending their first, you know, let's say $100,000 on something?

So, the the pandemic is is a good way for me to to answer this question. I mean, we've all seen the news stories shared that have no base to to it. So, that that takes us back a little further for me to my academic background. You know, when when I read an article that has some, you know, drastic impact on either social structures or technology, doesn't matter, first thing that I do is I look for the for the sources. Where where did they pull their data from?

And, you know, often enough, the more amateur decision-making, it happens when there's no sources attached to to claims or or theoretical outcomes. So, I I've always been a researcher. And and whether I I knew it until just recently, I don't I don't think I did, but it's something that I've always just done by default, is like, "Okay, where are these sources coming from? What is it that that they're making this decisions on?"

So, when you when you take that on to the tech side of things, like I said, I got out of the way. So, what happened is they presented ideas to me. I I took what they they presented, I did my homework, I checked the sources, it corroborated what they were saying. And for me, that that was a trust thing, right? Because, you know, we talked about trust earlier. That that cuts both ways. And so for me, you know, I I trusted that they did their homework from to do their job to the best of their ability, but I I verified it from from the things that they were saying.

And and to me, that that is, you know, it's a leadership decision, right? That do you want to be the person that dictates? And and there's paths to success with that mentality, right? There there's no questions about that. Or or do you want to empower the people on your team to take control of those decisions and and therefore not doubt the the right thing, right? And so, I think the last time you and I talked, Luke, we we mentioned the book Alchemy. And and I think they're they're talking exactly about this problem in in the book, and and going through the scenario where is it the right thing because it's it's what needs to happen, or it's because what people think needs to happen, right?

And so, you remove that doubt a little bit when you empower your team to make those decisions, because then instead of skipping over ideas that they don't think you'll consider, they bring you the best solutions. So, for me, if I'm giving advice is is get out of your own way, right? Like, that's trust smart people, hire smart people, and and don't be afraid to let them make those decisions, because if if you're not fully qualified, then odds are you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and that's okay, right?

And so, you know, that's certainly, you know, probably the best piece of advice I could give is is trust the people around you and be a fly on the wall. Ask dumb questions, right? Like, I mean, I I know Luke, in our discussions, I've sure I've asked at least several stupid questions. So, you know, that's that's how you learn, right? You have to you have to move forward by by making mistakes and asking questions that maybe maybe don't make sense for the moment.

Very wise words. I I agree. I bought the book, by the way. So, yeah, thank you for that. Good recommendation that.

Yeah, I like that one. It's a good one.

I'm sure Xenia will get that as well.

Oh, absolutely. I'm already shopping on Amazon right now. All right. Tyler, what do you feel is the biggest strength of your company right now?

It's for sure people. I mean, you know, as much as as much as tech is is at our core, we're a service industry, and so without good people that truly care about what we do and who we do it for, we're broken, right? You could have the best piece of tech in the world and it means nothing if if your people don't don't appreciate who we are as a group and and who we are as as a company. So, you know, it certainly is is the most important for sure piece of the puzzle.

And and it's been it's been years in in the making, it's that family mentality, and and frankly that's who we serve, is is families, right? Young young families and coaches, trying to create that same culture on their side. So, we we definitely want to be the leader in in terms of of how we think people should interact in our space. And and there's groups starting to align. Just yesterday, I I saw a group that had banned another group from their events because they got in a physical altercation at an event halfway across the country.

And so, like that's the kind of leadership that has been void in our space for a long time, right? Physical altercation at a at a 12-year-old's basketball game does not have a place. It just doesn't. So, you know, that's the kind of team we have is that backbone of, you know, there's there's ways to win business and then there's the ways to win the right business, and we take the latter.

And and there's certainly bumps in the road, there's certainly opportunities that we we skip over, but it's it's something I'm really proud of that our team comes to work every single day knowing who it is that we're we're truly supporting. It's the people that that are are the hard workers and the unsung heroes in sport across, you know, North America and around the world.

Awesome. Thank you for sharing. Tyler, I want to get a little bit personal here. We're coming towards the later part of our podcast here, and I want our listeners to to learn a little bit about you as a person. Could you share with us or describe your typical day?

Yeah, so part of what I love about what I do every day is that my I don't have a typical day. And you know, I've said for many many years that if I had a typical day, that I I would not make it. And so, it's just one of those things that I I have to have that variability, because it's it's what I thrive on. It's it's that uncertainty, that problem-solving, that that future-building that that I really love every second of. And it's a thing, you know, many people get into entrepreneurship for freedom or control their destiny, or be their own boss, or or, you know, whatever it is they're looking for.

I I just love the challenge. I I say it all the time, I'm an empire builder by default, not because of the money, but because I love the game. And so, you know, when it comes down to my my typical day, there isn't there isn't a thing. I'm I'm a late riser, which is, you know, untraditional in in that, you know, kind of stroke of of empire builder. Like, that's the 5:00 a.m. club, which I haven't seen the 5:00 a.m. club in years unless I'm flying somewhere.

But, you know, it's just I'm a nighthawk. So, so my days generally, I start to the office at 9:00, my team's already been in and and moving. I kind of get updates at 9:00. And and my meetings start immediately, whether that be internal at the beginning of the week trying to make sure the week's off on the right foot and and some of our management decisions are are are in tow. And then I get into biz dev in the middle of the week.

And so, you know, the afternoons are almost always customer-facing and almost always biz dev. And so, you know, we have people on our team that handle the finance, that handle the operations. My skillset is biz biz dev. If I'm not focused on our customer and building, we're not we're not succeeding to the best of our ability. So, you know, it really the mornings in in the beginning of the week are really about setting that tone for the other people that support the day-to-day infrastructure of our organization, and those afternoons are are built for outreach and and in building.

So, yeah, I mean, that's that's the easiest way I can I can structure it. It's a little little more chaotic than that, but that's just the way I like it, to be honest.

Let's sum it up in one line. So, maybe being comfortable in the uncomfortable, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly, or, you know, in the mornings mornings are definitely organized, afternoons are are where all the fun happens. So, that's that's the way I like to look at it.

All right. Can we talk a little bit about the goals? Can you share maybe your three-year goals that you have for the company right now?

Yeah, so it's funny, cuz you use the word "disrupt" in technology and that that usually means a very specific thing. I I want to disrupt an institution, and and really that's an industry-wide thing. There's this complacency that exists that there's a lack of change in innovation, and you know, a lot of people don't realize how big travel really is. Like, travel is one-tenth of the global GDP. Like, it is a significant piece of of the planet Earth, right?

And so, you know, it's one of those things that in a in a space of of that significance, it's hard to move the needle. And so, we've found a space in sport tourism and sport travel specifically where, you know, we can shift that needle, and we can do it very quickly with with some logistical and operational changes.

So, you know, there's there's three real major components to to our industry: there's the event owners, there's the vendors, and then there's the destinations, right? And and then all of the consumers kind of split their purchasing power between all of those things. So, you know, there's a really easy way to tackle all of those problems, and and what has happened is that you've seen segmentation for years and years and years, where tech stacks are built for one or a fraction of those of those groups, right?

And so, the the three-year goal is is to change that mentality, and and just to get people to realize that what's best for those consumers is that everybody's on the same page, and that everybody's sharing the the innovation and the data, instead of spending wasteless dollars three times across three different segments to service the exact same problem.

And and really, it's it's a sales funnel problem, which is where the biz dev is like in me is like, "Why do you people do this?" right? Like, that's that is the mentality that I have. And and so it's it's an obvious solution to me, but, you know, it's that's the goal, is to tackle that problem right there. And and I mean, there's there's 7 million smaller micro-goals inside of that goal, but that's the big, hairy, audacious one, if you will.

All right. We've finally come to the final part of our podcast. This is where questions can get a lot trickier. If you were able to go back in time, let's say 10 years ago, what would you tell yourself about leadership that you didn't know then?

Ooh, that's a great question. This is this this is the kind of question I ask in an interview, so kudos, this is great. I I think for me, the the big thing that I would do as a leader is is find find the right budget for the right people earlier, right? I think that's that was the biggest learning curve that I had, and it comes back to that "hire slowly, fire quickly" kind of mentality.

And and I think it it had a little bit to do with, you know, the approach that we had. It wasn't it wasn't a financial problem, it was a cultural thing for me, and and it was a scenario where as a leader, my expectation in that passion project that we've talked about a couple times, was was interacting with financial decision-making. And so, you know, you may or may not be familiar with the the tech landscape in southwestern Ontario, but, you know, the GTA has boiled over into Waterloo and Kitchener, and then now into London. So, the talent acquisition has changed significantly.

So, the the big thing that that was the calling card that I wanted us to be known for was progression, right? And and really building the passionate people from day one, as opposed to what a lot of other companies are doing with very cookie-cutter shops, like very very robotic operations, where they're just saying, "Here's an amount of money. You're number 4,302," right? And and that's you know, we're a university town, that's not the way people come out of their education. They don't want that, right?

And so, it it was a pathway. Where I think I I would go back in time is I would I would take that same approach with a certain part of the team, and I would alter my approach elsewhere. And I think I carried that mentality a little bit too far, because I wanted a team of people with a chip on their shoulder. That's that's what I wanted, I wanted to build it. I I would say I've learned, I've grown, I've developed myself. And and and like I said, I don't see it as a financial problem, cuz I really don't think that was the solution. I think it was just more or less understanding the pieces of the puzzle that that we needed were different than what I thought they were. And I think, you know, finding that budget to go out and and change that thought process earlier would have been the change.

Well, these are the lessons we we learn along the way, I guess.

You're going to make mistakes. I mean, that's a fact, right? Like, that's that's not that's not an "if," that's a "when."

Exactly.

Agreed. All right. This is kind of same category of about the leadership. So, Tyler, what are the most important attributes of successful leaders today?

Transparency for sure, without a doubt, I think is probably first and foremost. I mean, I think especially the younger generation, they they need to know everything. I mean, they've had access to data since they were they were children, right? So, I think that inherently is is a must-have. I think the ability to navigate the difficult line between what's the right information and what is too much information for the employee-management conversation, you know, I think understanding that that balance is is probably secondary to to that transparency.

And and honestly, for me, I I I think one of the more underappreciated ones is is work ethic. And and I think, you know, you hear it all the time, like, "What's the boss do? What is this person doing?" I I really believe and I and I hope that my entire team sees how hard that I work. And I and I tell every single person that joins our team, "Try and outwork me. You won't." And and it's it's a bit of a challenge to them.

And so I I think for for me, like, it it does two things: one, it shows how far I I will go for their success and our success, but secondly, it just it starts to show the passion that I have for what we're doing. And and I think that really it is should be the byproduct of that work ethic, right? And and, you know, there's so many people that work themselves into the ground and it comes out as just miserable. And and for me, it's it's designed to be passionate, and it's because, like I said, every day's different for me. I love every second of what I do. And so, you know, that's that's the byproduct that comes out of all of those things, because you can talk about it openly in your group and and they know they know what you're doing to help them, and and good employees should be returning that favor, right? To the rest of the group and being accountable to their peers, not just to their superiors.

Yeah, yeah.

I like that.

I think there's this thing about it's it's my framework I use. So, I think, you know, this is a lesson I've learned, you know. I had a pretty miserable kind of, let's say, start to a a job prior to, you know, working at Sphere. So, that job taught me a lot of lessons. And one of the lessons I learned from my Scottish guru, Jim, was that, you know, he he told me like he insulted me on on phone, you know. I'm speaking with him after a big meeting and he's like he's like, "Luke, you've you know, we've been working for the past three months and you have never managed to meet my expectations."

And I took it to my heart, you know, that day, and I kind of made my mission that I'm going to, you know, look after his expectations first. And also realized that in doing so, I also need to look after other people's expectations internally as well. And everyone I was interacting with or working with, it's all about managing those expectations for those people. So, there are I don't see things as goals now as such that, "Oh, like if you work in biz dev, that's your goal." I don't see those things. I think everyone I interact with, every stakeholder in my position, I have to manage their expectations. Am I doing that?

And this is my focus, and and what I've realized is, without focusing on numbers, quantities, et cetera, et cetera, if I am meeting all those expectations, means everything else is is you know, the byproduct is which is the results, is coming anyway. So, that's something I've learned. It took me a few insults, a few failures, you know, to learn, but I think I'm in a good position now.

I think the thing that I've always said to people is that you you don't you don't make mistakes after setting expectations. You make mistakes in setting expectations, right? And I think that's the thing that most people miss, in my opinion, is that and I say this to our leaders all the time, like it it's okay to miss a deadline. It's not okay to pretend that you're not going to miss it, right?

And and that's that's the biggest issue that I have is that, you know, you can mitigate disaster by just being up front with with your superiors, with your clients, and you can just be very realistic about the way things have went down. But if you do that in the eleventh hour when they're ready and expecting something to be delivered, that's not going to go well for you, right? So, I think that to me is is more I think a a a proactive problem that I think a lot of a lot of people face, especially younger people who are not organized, have a lot to learn about business and life in general, right?

So, yeah, it's it's such and it's a different problem for every business, every vertical, every team, right? It's it's slightly different. So, I say I say that with a grain of salt. But I mean, it's a great it's a great conversation for success, though, at the end of the day is when you can realize how to improve upon that.

Yeah. But when you start thinking of what people expect from you, I think at that point, you realize sooner or later that if something is realistic enough or not, and then that makes you think and, you know, make ends meet, or make people, you know, aware that, "Okay, we are going in the wrong direction." I think it keeps everything in check for you. So, yeah, completely agree. And I think with that particular part, we've come to the end. We are 3 minutes over, but never mind. I hope that's fine with you. So, we've come to the end of the the episode.

Tyler, we'd love to have you back on again. I think there are several things that we would love to discuss further with you. And, Xenia, do you have any closing notes before we ask Tyler for his?

I think I've asked everything that I wanted to for today's session. So, thank you so much. It was very interesting to have you with us, and I hope our listeners enjoyed listening to this as much as I did.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I I really enjoyed it. I I love talking to industry experts like yourselves and and really learn more about everybody and share our story as well while we're at it.

A special thanks to our podcast guest this week, and once again to our sponsor, Sphere Partners, for bringing this episode to life.

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