FULL INTERVIEW: Jon Romm of Venuetize uses an "every day is game day" approach to leadership

All right, here with John Rahm of VenueTies, a very interesting company that has not only a great platform and a value proposition, but also in— as of the last year, because they were in the business of serving teams and other live event, um, you know, organizations, they have quite an interesting story about how they reacted to that given pandemic shutdowns and things like that. So hey John, how you doing?

Bob, how are you?

I'm doing well, thank you.

Always nice to see you.

Yeah. Yeah, same. So just give, give people an idea of what Venutize is all about, please.

We're, we're a technology company that focuses really on deep-level integrations, personalization, contextual awareness, and mobile platform, uh, commerce platform. So we believe in actually, you know, the mobile-first technology, second, third screen utilization for all sorts of technologies that historically people have not used it for.

I alluded to it. Who buys from you and what's the ROI or what's the reason, the value proposition that they are buying from you?

Yeah, so we sell into two specific vertical markets, one of which is the sports and entertainment vertical, and then the second of which is the gaming and casino vertical. And then of course today it's in vogue because you're seeing the crossover on day-of betting and the fan engagement lean-forward experience around gamification. So that's why we service those two markets. Historically, You know, our value proposition was around, you know, how to go to events in such a way that historically have been lean-back kind of entertainment experiences, whereas the mobile-first technology gives you the opportunity to engage your client a little differently.

I see on your website Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA, TD Garden, which is of course where the Bruins and the Celtics play, Maryland Live Casino, which is huge here where, where we are. Can you talk about any of those in detail?

Well, let me just use all three because, you know, you've already, you know, broke the ice, if you don't mind. So I'll just stay with those. By all means. I think it makes sense. Right. But if you take the Memphis Grizzlies and if you look at it on the surface, you say, well, that's an NBA team and they have a single venue and this is what they do. Actually, the Grizzlies do a great job there. They become a media company and they actually have a significant amount of content that they're constantly distributing for their fan base. Engaging and supporting, and we're part of that process. So, you know, content's part of my background. I'm a true believer that the mobile handset— you know, if you take a look, the television set globally does about 110 million subscribers, you know, and it's fairly static. There's 7 billion handsets. So if you're one of those people who's playing for the addressable market, okay, you don't have to be a mathematician to recognize the mobile handset makes sense. But if you look at the use case of it, how do I follow my specific player? How do I engage that to my fantasy league or to, you know, my day of betting or even just my gamification, free-to-play gaming and that lean-forward experience? That's the engagement there. If you take a look at TD Garden, one of the things that we love about them as a customer partner is that's a whole built-out district, and we feel like our technology really suits you know, these multi-building, you know, downtown smart city IoT kind of microcosms. So it's not only servicing TD Garden, it's servicing Star Market, it serves the metro system, it serves, you know, hospitality down there. And—

oh, is that why it says The Hub? Is that the name of that?

Yes. Yeah, very cool. And so, so for that, we, we feel like we're really well suited, and we love those partnerships. For Maryland Live, this is a relationship that really has started off for a long period of time. It's a personal relationship for me because I know the Cordish family. They've been very good to us, and they came to me with an idea a few years back where they said, look, we're going to do 8 to 10 casinos-ish over the next, you know, 5 years, and we don't believe what's in marketplace today really services what we're trying to do. We want Intense loyalty. We want that loyalty attached to our hospitality. We want it focused on what we're not only doing in our casino space, but we have, you know, several downtown districts which happen to marry themselves off with sports and entertainment. So you have Texas Live with the Texas Rangers, you have LA Live where LAFC plays, you know, etc., etc. So you can see that coordination and the importance to us as a business and what we can do for them on a technological side. And so we really value that relationship and follow them around, to be honest.

That's fantastic. When you first started hearing the rumbles about the pandemic, what goes through a CEO founder's head? Raise money, you've got to make it happen. Did you, did you immediately view it in a negative way? Like this is going to be a problem. Take me through that.

Look, to be honest with you, I'm not sure how anybody, you know, when they're first introduced to this can have a positive reaction. Right, right. There's really no precedence for it. And, you know, if I'm speaking out to the community of CEOs, you know, we love precedence because precedence gives us guidance, and then we can decide how to put our own spin. When there's zero precedence, you know, it's hard. In the same regard, you know, challenges are what we're all here for. And so if there's no precedence and you get the opportunity to really think through it and say, how are we going to manage it? What are we going to do? You know, those are challenges that You know, really, no matter what your schooling is, how many companies you run, you know, you got to think outside the box.

They don't teach pandemic, uh, startup management in business school.

I think in this specific situation that you're asking about, we had an opportunity during these, you know, the time frames of COVID where there were no live events. We could internalize all of our technology and what was being developed and take a look at how to take back out to marketplace that touchless journey that was going to help teams, leagues, you know, franchisees put people back in venues sooner. And that's what we did.

That's very cool. So this notion that some have said, maybe it was the CEO of Microsoft who said the pandemic kind of forced industries to go through 2 years of digital transformation in 2 weeks kind of thing. Is that what helped you guys? Is it come under digital transformation, or is that just too much of a buzzword?

No, I think that's what exactly— I mean, I want to find out who said that now, and I want to go give him a hug.

I think it was Satya Nadella from Microsoft.

Yeah, he's right. I mean, you know, all the things that we have been developing and we have been working on, you know, I think our customers for a period of time, they were viewing it as, hey, that's kind of neat, that would be nice to have. And I think from VenuTi's perspective, we move from a nice-to-have proposition to a mission-critical, need-to-have proposition. I need you in-house and we got to get people back in our venues, we got to get them back in our casinos. And so yeah, I think there was an enormous accelerator put to technology that is sensible and logical and aids and abets getting people back into places.

So one way that I might think about it is before it was the cool convenience of being digital and, you know, everything's done by the fan on their phone. Which is kind of the vitamin, but now it's penicillin. They need that touchless journey because of concerns about health and safety. Is that a way to think about it?

Yeah, that is as good an analogy as any. I mean, what I would tell you is, you know, I used to go— when I used to go raise money, as you brought it up, because it's obviously a big part of the jobs we all do, I'd sit around the room and, you know, I would always laugh a little bit because half the people in the room still had flip phones. And I was thinking to myself, how are you going to make a decision that mobile-first of course technology is the right answer. But you know, we talk about really, because how many people are going to really download that mobile application? And is that really that? And it's probably for the younger generations, but it's really not here yet. Now we're in the world where the only way you can gain access to your tickets is through your mobile wallet. The only way you're transacting through, you know, your point of sale that's in place is through your mobile wallet. You're getting push notifications when your food is ready so that it's done in a safe and available way. Gamification is an immersive experience so that people know where they're sitting, how they're social distanced, what the heat mapping is, what area they should go to, when they shouldn't. If it used to take 25 minutes to get through turnstiles, we now get them through turnstiles in 5 minutes. All of those things have a safety wellness aspect to it, but it's really a better user experience. And it's always been there. People just hadn't prioritized it then.

I'm looking at your website. You've got phenomenal logos there in terms of organizations that are, you know, big sports and sports management teams. Teams and organizations that they're thinking, well, people are going to come— we're a monopoly, we're a branded monopoly in our town. People are going to come see us regardless. If they have to wait 25 minutes, that's, that's not a horrible thing for— it doesn't really hurt us. But, but then when people start deciding where to open up their wallets in the future, they are going to base it on the user experience.

If somebody would normally wait in line for food and beverage for a minute and 20-some-odd seconds, but using technology, mobile wallet, you know, faster point-of-sale services gets them through that line in 34 seconds, Why should we not deploy that? And if the psychology of buying is such that when you touch your cash, on average you're going to spend $16 an evening, but if our data and analytics say if you use mobile wallet, you're more inclined to spend $36.

Yeah.

Oh, and I could keep going through it. We're data-driven, but there's loads of that information that says this seems to be a better experience.

And that's so cool.

And, and take it from the concert perspective, right? If If you're the entertainer, there's only so many— there's a subset of your people that can come to your events. Okay, why would you not use your mobile-first technology that's following Jack White, that says our people for a low subscription rate can follow my concerts, they can follow my music, they can track what I'm doing, they can buy memorabilia online? So we, we have to stop thinking of mobile technology as only a service that's being held in the venue while it's going on. All of the different professional teams, the minor league teams, gaming casinos, entertainment people. There is an opportunity to reach out to your fan base consistently, and that's not through the television, it's through the mobile handset.

This is such a cool story, but I also think people really can learn from it. And so I appreciate that. If you're in a room of your peers, folks that are really involved in, in the startup, you know, venture fundraising community, technology, et cetera. Do you have any go-to advice for them on the critical things you need to know about building a business, surviving, thriving, anything like that?

I guess what I would say is, you know, this is my second time around, very differently than the first time. This one we've, we've addressed, uh, the market differently. So what I'd say is, you know, there's no such cookie-cutter approach. Don't get stuck in a certain methodology. You know, you can do things where you raise huge amounts of money and, you know, go at it really, you know, big or go home. You can do it bootstrappy and be very specific and stay focused. I think for me, you know, who you surround yourself with, meaning who's your money and who's on your board and what's there is really important because you're going to need You're going to need them consistently as you walk through it in different ways, shape, or form. And the other thing I would remind people, just because we're on the subject matter, is there's a difference between money in the door and governance of the company. Okay? And so, you know, you gotta— you, you have to be very selective in regards to what you do with governance, even more so selective than you are in regards to the money that you bring in the door. And that would be one of the things that I learned better the second time around than I did the first time. And then my last statement would be, which I think is a good lesson for all of us in life, is you gotta be thick-skinned. You know, you gotta be willing to, you know, wake up every day and sort of go to battle. And, you know, each day is not gonna be perfect and each day is not gonna be the worst day of your life, but you're definitely gonna go through some ups and downs and ebbs and flows, but just kind of soldier on. You'll get there. It's hard, but it's not nearly as hard as people like to make you feel like it is because people, they make themselves feel better when they said it's really hard, guys. You know, that makes them feel better. And I'm not one of those people. I think there's, there's plenty of competent people out there that have really good ideas that really should bring them to the forefront and can have success.

I don't know if you call that persistence or resilience. Uh, you said have a thick skin. I mean, I think that that is so important, especially for younger generations coming up through, and you've been involved with sports at a very competitive level. Um, you know, that sports is part of that, you know, you gotta have resilience. It's not always going to go your way. That is probably the number one thing that I think folks need to hear at any stage, but in particular at those formative times where in the world that we inhabit, where the things are not so hard for kids all the time because parents want to make it easier for them, that that is the, you know, sort of the antithesis of what they really need is they need to fall down and they need to skin their knee and they need to know that they can get back up. So I love what you said.

But the one thing I would say to you is for those, you know, who in different ways, shapes, and forms have competed in their life. You know, I think every day is game day, right? And if you can wake up that way and you can sort of go through your, you know, whatever process gets you ready to go out and compete on a day-to-day basis—

I'm ready to run through a wall now.

Yeah, I love that.

You know, every day is game day. I love that.

I love that.

It doesn't feel like a cliché when you say it. Well, that's a great place to, to wrap it up. So I really appreciate you taking time to do it, and we'll talk again soon, I hope.

I hope so. All the best.

Thanks again.

Take care.