WTF Happened?
For most of you who don’t follow European futbol 🇪🇺 ⚽, let alone soccer ⚽, or maybe not even sports in general 🏅 - there was likely the quickest collapse of a billion $$+ idea to ever grace our world 😲…even quicker than WeWork! It really was epically disastrous. Morning Brew, WSJ, Axios, etc. have all written about it.
66% of the Unfold Weekly writers follow soccer and we haven’t seen this much American coverage since the Obama administration arrested FIFA members in 2015)
Essentially, 12 really rich soccer clubs — some with billionaire foreign owners (some of whom are pretty shady), but all of whom are wealthy, power hungry, corrupt 🍑🤡s, decided to communicate their plan for a break away league. Of course with some financial wizardry through good ol’ boy JP Morgan, would make a lot of f*cking money. Well that was Sunday — then in the next 2 days, 💩 really hit the proverbial fan!
We’re not going to bore you with a long explanation that the spirit of European Football consists of promotion and relegation that is absolutely fundamental, and a big, hairy point of this league was to shield these massively over-resourced clubs from that notion, and that REALLY REALLY REALLY pissed people off: fans, players, pundits, other clubs - literally everyone. By Tuesday - the league was over, some people resigned or were fired. 🎉🙌
Our favorite quote by Real Madrid President, who won an “election 🗳️,” unopposed a week ago, "We don’t want the rich to be richer and the poor poorer. We have to save football. Everything I do is for the good of football, which is in a critical moment.”
Haha, yeah right. Believing, the rich, powerful and corrupt doing stuff only for the people, not out of their own interest… just a bit out of touch in present day.
Are we really surprised...
… that billionaires that have no connection to their teams, fans or sport are out of touch? This is has been rumored for a few years now but that fact that the teams came out with their plan so brazenly caught everyone off guard.
Nevertheless, it’s still surprising! 48 hours from a brand new plan, billions of dollars in new revenue to *whelp* complete 180. Maybe they should have done some market research, you know, talk to a focus group, test a bit, get fans behind them, then figure out the plan forward.
This is really reminiscent of Quibi. Another utter and complete failure where experienced, rich and connected came out with a “revolutionary” product.
Actually, best of nothing. It didn’t help that a once in a generation pandemic stopped mostly everyone from commuting - poor timing 🕰️. But they executed poorly. Instead of building an MVP, getting it out to market, having users try it, iterating and experimenting and then growing, they raised 9 figures and kept it inside their walls. Then the big launch — why not they’re Hollywood. An extravagant and expensive commercial followed (only $5M for 30 secs). Long story short - April launch, October shutdown. It also doesn’t help that Gen Z’s favorite pastime is using their phones while they watch videos…forcing you to watch on your phone eliminates this “multitasking” opportunity.
According to Katzenberg and Whitman (co-founders), per the WSJ
there were “one or two reasons” for Quibi’s failure: The idea behind Quibi either “wasn’t strong enough to justify a stand-alone streaming service” or the service’s launch in the middle of a pandemic was particularly ill-timed
“Unfortunately, we will never know, but we suspect it’s been a combination of the two,” they said.
Pretty much 💯
And the lesson is??
Customers/fans/people who use your product or service, ACTUALLY MATTER. In other words, if no one buys what you sell, it’s not going to work. Entrepreneurs, Product Managers, Sales reps, hell even MBAs know this. You need to gauge demand of what you’re selling to know if you should serve.
*Tangent. If you’re interested in a side hustle or starting something new - here is are few tips from entrepreneur, Neil Patel, on gauging demand BEFORE you start. https://neilpatel.com/blog/do-these-4-things/
So we’ve (re)-learned 2 things:
Rich, connected, smart, successful people can be very disconnected from the real world 🌎
Connected consumers have real power ⛓️
Advice: Having a customer mindset matters. Don’t forget, you’re always selling. It’s everyone’s job to do it. Also, you want to know the truth of your product and company, have a candid conversation with some your account execs. The good ones cut through bullshit (on both sides), and have a real understanding of product strengths and weaknesses.
**2nd tangent. We found this website - failory.com. It’s exactly what it sounds like, created by what it looks like a 15-year old (actually 19-year old from Argentina). Respect to this “kid”. Hustlin’! Check out these articles:
How about you, readers…any failures that have help shaped your next move? Let us know!