Once it was announced that SportTechieHQ was doing an AMA with James Yoder, I was thrilled. As someone who is just beginning their professional career, hearing that James started in a different field than what he is in now was comforting. James utilized the AMA to not only share his personal story, but also give tips and advice to those of us hungry to learn more about “The Real World” and the future of sports media.
About SportTechieHQ: SportTechieHQ is a Slack community for sports tech experts, professionals, and thought leaders in the industry. It’s a place to find a constant flow of motivation, discover new ideas, and learn new ways to improve, all at the intersection of sports and technology. To learn more about SportTechieHQ, join our community, or attend any future AMAs, visit:www.sporttechiehq.com.
About James: James is the Founder/CEO of Chat Sports, an app for sports fans that includes personalized news and scores, shared with friends. James graduated from the University of Toledo with a business degree. He previously worked for Rivals.com and Verizon before jumping into the startup business with Chat Sports. James also founded Minds Behind the Game, a sportstech thought leadership series. To learn more about Chat Sports, visit: chatsports.com
James jumped right in by going into more depth about his professional experience leading up to the founding of Chat Sports.
“I had dreams of working for a hedge fund one day, until I actually got a taste of the finance world and was bored to death. I worked for ~9 months for Rivals.com before taking a sales job with Verizon. Being a massive company, there is a lot of room for mobility in Verizon — so I took a role in Las Vegas, then Washington DC, the latter allowing me to be part of the team that brought Android to market for the nation’s largest wireless provider (when iPhone was only on AT&T). During this time, I worked along side app developers and mobile equipment manufacturers and learned enough to have the guts to start my own company.
I am a HUGE college football fan (Michigan) and I go to almost every Warriors home game.” — James
Being a huge college football fan myself, I HAD to ask how someone who grew up in Buckeye Country ended up a Michigan fan.
“My dad’s entire family is from Michigan and he raised me that way from the crib. When I was in middle and high school, Michigan dominated the OSU rivalry, so I saw my fandom of them a way to be different than all the other kids.”
When James created Chat Sports, it wasn’t originally an iOS app…
“When I started Chat Sports and launched an admittedly bad website in Oct 2012, I thought we had the chance to do something great because of a few factors: Huge addressable market, market leaders (ESPN, FOX, etc) not putting enough resources into mobile product and design, and that lack of sports media companies putting any focus on technology as a way to improve consumption and relevance of their products.
We decided web was not for us and we couldn’t build a compelling company, so in March 2014 launched on iOS and have seen a lot of success growing what we believe is the only app a sports fan needs (chatsports.com/app) Personalized news and scores, shared with friends” — James
Being that James built Chat Sports from the ground up, he utilized two strategies that helped him build an audience.
“1. A huge focus on SEO for our team pages on web
2. Built out a network of content contributors who wrote original content for the company — which then led to use building a full time content staff” — James
Now that Chat Sports is mobile, the company tries to drive the top line web and mobile web number as high as possible. Then they work to convert that traffic to downloads.
A very wise person told me early on: “The only way to guarantee a lot of app downloads, it to have a website that has a LOT of traffic” — James
James also founded Minds Behind the Game, an idea that sparked from the company size of Chat Sports.
“As a small company at the time (and still fairly small) we wanted to find ways to market our company to potential investors, business partners, and potential employees…. So, @suzi and I went to a few networking/panel events, and were fed up with them, so we decided to “do it right” and launch MBG in Dec 2014″ — James
With family in Wisconsin but currently living in Connecticut, I resonated with James’ desire to create an app that was personalized for every sports fan regardless of their proximity to their favorite teams.
“It was really my own frustration with lack of great products for sports on my Android (at the time — have moved to iOS since)
Try living in Washington DC and easily getting Michigan football news, or Browns draft updates from ESPN or Fox’s apps. Theyve improved, but still are overly focused on the top 3–4 most popular teams/players in each league” — James
We were hoping that since James works on a mobile app he would be able to help some of our members with their Snapchat struggles (Looking at you, Troy and Vasu).
“Can someone teach me how to use Snapchat? I can’t figure this thing out. I feel like the mental cutoff is 16.” — Vasu Kulkarni
Thankfully, James came to the rescue with an article I suggest you check out.
Recently, Facebook launched the Sports Stadium tool. The STHQ community had mixed feelings on the launch, and James further expanded on why he thinks the sports should be left to apps such as Chat Sports.
“The launch of Stadium was very underwhelming — the stats didn’t work, conversation was non-existent…. They have the audience to dominate, but I don’t believe they have the core understanding of the psychology of sports fans to build a compelling product.
The biggest issue w/ facebook that I saw was that ‘social’ was just posts that your FB friends had related to the game, or used a hashtag… for me, that was zero people. If they offered an ephemeral “chat room” for Stadium that didn’t live on your profile forever, I believe the social aspect would drastically improve
I wonder if someone will ever build something like that” — James
Of course, the entire AMA isn’t strictly business. We like to have some fun too! (Especially when Vasu is around)
“Last second shot. Who do you want taking it? Jerry West, Jordan, or Steph?” — Vasu
“Steph….I’m a prisoner of the moment” — James
I think Steph Curry likes your answer, James.
James emphasized the fact that though it’s challenging to raise money for a media company today, the Chat Sports team is dedicated to getting the necessary funds.
“It’s definitely challenging to raise money, and sometimes I get frustrated seeing companies in other markets with 1/10th the traction get funded. But, we have really tweaked our approach based on a couple years of feedback, and have doubled down on being a tech company — how our software has replicated and drastically outperformed what B/R needs 200 curators and 250 writers to create. That message seems to be resonating. And we cut our deck from 18 slides to 7 — simplicity is key” — James
Now that Chat Sports is primarily mobile, there are a few advantages and disadvantages that come with this transition.
“Web/mobile web is the best acquisition strategy for a mobile company, and frankly, if we didn’t have our website — there would have been no way for us to grow on mobile (too expensive to acquire users)
That being said, the “game” had been played on web and the winners have been crowned — and we see mobile as a way to take advantage of a platform shift and move faster than the web companies in building great product” — James
Another topic discussed was the growth of Virtual Reality. The VR industry has really taken off within the past few years, and James believes it could mesh with sports and social media in the future.
“I would love to have 10 family members or friends virtually “in a room” or “sitting on the 50” together for a Michigan game
The biggest challenge with VR is going to be the hardware. No matter what the tech blogs tell you, no one in middle America is going to out a huge headset on their face to watch a sporting event.
It won’t take off until it is as seamless as putting on a pair of reading glasses” — James
Being that James was previously a product manager, we were curious as to whether his prior experience has helped or hurt his current position at Chat Sports.
“Helped: Even though I’m not an engineer, I was trained well enough to “speak the language” and know exactly what we needed to build and how to do it.
Hurt: Working for a big company allows you to take a lot of things for granted — especially how “well oiled” some processes are
We wasted a lot of time in the first year building things no one ever used, much of it due to the “build it, and they will come” mindset of a major wireless tech company that I brought from Verizon” — James
James also touched on where he sees the future of sports media and Chat Sports heading.
“Sports fans are becoming less and less reliant on TV, and there are several ways that we are thinking about taking advantage of that shift:
We are hell-bent on finding a customized highlights solution for our users… I want to wake up and have a 3min clip waiting for me on our app with the Warriors highlights, Browns draft updates, and footage of the Giants v Nationals spring training game last night
Messaging — I don’t yet know what the solution is, but “Messaging is taking over the world” is a true statement, and someone (hopefully us) will nail a “chat” for sports fans (1 to 1, 1 to many, anonymous) in the near future and sending a highlight to someone via that messaging tool is the holy grail of engagement” — James
“I’d love to be able to input aspects of a game that are important to me and then have someone else find them. Or multiple highlight reels. In soccer, sometimes I just want to see goals. Other times I might just want to zero in on a specific player.” — Brandon Copeland
Can someone PLEASE get on this?!
We couldn’t end the AMA without getting some great advice from a sports app mastermind
“An important thing I’ve learned is: Taking advice from people is great, but you have to learn quickly who’s advice to implement and why. Some folks who’s advice I trusted in the first few months of the company were very smart, seasoned entrepreneurs, but knew very little about our market, and even less on mobile….
Best piece of advice I’ve received is: Don’t die (as a company) — the only way the company goes under is if the founder loses passion and lets it die. If you don’t lose the passion and believe in what you are doing, you can always find ways to get to the next level.” — James
Follow James on Twitter
He’s a much better follow on Chat Sports though.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it” –Abraham Lincoln
Don’t sit on the sideline while we continue to shape the future of sports.
