Office Hours: Digital Accessibility, Do I Need to Be Wealthy to Invest in Sports Teams? and How to Cultivate Your Personal Brand

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1:14Welcome to the Prop G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at profgmedia.com. First question. Hey, Scott. My name is Matthew, and I'm from New York City. Over the past 20 years, I've been deeply involved in the tech entrepreneur space, and the inspiration for my latest company traces back to when I was 18 and received the news that my father was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease which would cause him to lose his sight.

1:54This personal experience opened my eyes to the significance of accessibility and the needs of the nearly 61 million Americans who identify as disabled. In today's rapidly advancing technological era, we witness miraculous innovations, while at the same time, over 90 % of these advancements in web and mobile are inaccessible to a person with a disability, leaving them excluded from these valuable tools and services we all rely on. Even this month, which marks the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Meta launches its largest product, Threads, with an app largely inaccessible to the disabled community.

2:42As an entrepreneur who started a business focused on helping brands close the accessibility gap and create inclusive digital experiences, my question to you is, how can we convince more companies to prioritize integrating accessibility into their core strategies and ensuring more inclusiveness across the digital landscape? type. Scott, lastly, I want to take this moment to let you know how much you inspired me to be a better business owner, husband, father, and son. Thank you for everything you do. No, Matthew, thank you. I met with a friend of mine, a guy named Daniel Lubetzky, who started PeaceWorks and then Kind Bars.

3:26And Daniel had this vision for bringing Palestinians and Israelis together through commerce. And he would start businesses where they would hire people from both regions. And his whole idea is how do we bring people together? How do we solve conflict in innovative ways? And Daniel just wakes up thinking, how can the world be a better place? And there's some people who are like that. They just start from how do they make the world a better place? I'm not one of those people. I wake up every morning and think, how can I make my life more awesome? And as I've gotten older, some of the, you know, how I want to make the world a better place has crept in, but that's probably fear of death.

4:02But you're like Daniel Matthew. I mean, that story is moving. And the fact that you're, I mean, thank God there's people like you that can thread a needle between capitalism and compassion. So a lot of companies want a virtue signal, and that's a good thing. I'm actually a fan of virtue signaling. If people get reward out of talking about something they're doing that is noble or good or philanthropic and other people see it as noble. I think it creates a virtuous upward cycle that impacts behavior. I think it's an opportunity. I think some companies would like to be able to say that their app is ADA-enabled, or whatever you'd want to call it.

4:41But anyways, let's look at some data here. According to research conducted by Diamond, a digital agency that builds accessible products for its clients, only 29 % of the top 100 Alexa websites have fully accessible registrations and logins. 43 % of sites are completely inaccessible. 28 % are somewhat accessible. A study led by researchers at the University of Washington found that 23 % of apps fail to provide accessibility metadata, known as content description. It's also good for business when apps are accessible. For example, in 2020, the UK spending power of disabled people, their caretakers and families, was estimated to get this a quarter of a trillion dollars,$274 billion.

5:20There are several ways companies can better serve users with disabilities. Alternative text features, alt text, which help blind and low vision users access visual content on sites. Blue Sky, for example, offers a setting that blocks a user from sending a post until alt text is included. Custom captioning options for videos, desktop versions of apps for third-party access, which allows users to access desktop-specific accessibility features, plugins, or mobility devices. There's a bunch of stuff. And some of it is just awareness, because I think these companies, A, there's a lot of good people in these companies.

5:55A lot of people in these companies have someone in their life who's disabled and see the opportunity. Hopefully, a lot of these people see and hear content like this and think, well, why aren't we doing this? And there's great entrepreneurs such as yourself trying to make this, you know, trying to figure out a way to leverage capitalism to integrate this into other apps and products. At the end of the day, though, at the end of the day, this requires, in my view, government regulation. And the ADA or the American Disabilities Act, which I think Bob Dole was a pioneer around. Bob Dole, what an incredible American.

6:27You don't recognize how wonderful America is until you leave it. And I'm in London and I'm absolutely loving it. But I also recognize how wonderful America is. And I had one of these moments. I took my father, who is now, he's turning 93, but when he was about 87, me and my sister took him to his favorite place, Cabo San Lucas. And we stayed at a place, I think it was called the Esperanza, a lovely hotel. But it was so obvious that the American Disabilities Act was not in place in Mexico because everywhere we went was a fucking obstacle course for an 87-year-old and his daughter and son trying to figure out how to get him up the stairs, how to get him to his seat at the restaurant where there's all sorts of uneven surfaces and weird stairs everywhere and no handrails and no guardrails.

7:15And it was literally like, okay, this is where my father slips, breaks his hip, ends up in a bad hospital, gets pneumonia and dies. And it just struck me that whenever you're in America, restaurants, common spaces, wherever you are, public parks, they have to be ADA compliant. but hotels have to have a certain number of rooms that are ADA compliant. This is a wonderful thing. And the question is, would these companies have done this on their own? Some might have, but most would not because it's expensive. So at the end of the day, I think entrepreneurs such as yourself add value, bringing awareness to the issue adds value, the opportunity to start your hat white from a corporate social responsibility adds value.

7:58But what we need, what we need across technology is what we don't have. And that is something resembling regulation. We have never had an industry of this power, of this economic might, of this usage that has this little regulation, specifically none. So while there's probably other regulation that needs to happen first, there's no reason we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. So I'm a big fan of the notion or hoping that someone says we need an ADA, American Disabilities Act, across digital properties. I think that's a great idea. And let me finish where I started. America is so fortunate to have people such as yourself that wake up and are inspired by tragedy or inspired by setbacks and say, okay, what am I going to do?

8:44I'm going to use this setback in my family to try and help other people. I think that is, you know, I'm not that person. And so I just want to acknowledge, Thank God there are people like you. I appreciate your good work, Matthew, and appreciate your question. Best of luck to you and yours. Question number two. Hey, Prof G. I was looking at one of those visual capitalist infographics. I love them. This time it was about the valuation of international football clubs in Europe and the UK, you know, with Manchester United, Man City worth one point something billion, et cetera, et cetera. And I was thinking that US clubs are seriously undervalued and would represent an amazing opportunity.

9:32In fact, I was thinking, wouldn't someone like Scott Galloway and some of his mates, wouldn't they like to do a kind of Ryan Reynolds and put together a bid for something like that and make a very good investment? My real question isn't about football. It's, you know, how do ordinary people see an opportunity like that and get access to an asset class? Because they clearly don't have, you know, a billion dollars. But how do they participate in these sorts of assets that seem to only be available to, you know, big players with deep pockets? That's a great question. And we talk a lot about this.

10:12I'm fascinated by it because I'm fascinated by asset classes. I'm fascinated by markets. and recently I'm fascinated by football, not because I have a love for football, but because I'm, you know, dads think that they're, at least I thought my kids were going to have a fascination built into their DNA around World War II movies and CrossFit that we'd want to like work out and then go watch Dunkirk. And what you find is your kids develop their own passions. And if you want to be a great dad, it's your job not to expect them to inherit your passions, but your job is to adopt and develop theirs. And so my kids are football mad.

10:47Both of them love it. And so we have become football mad as a family. The market for sports teams is the perfect storm of asset value explosion. Markets are a function of supply and demand. And here you have total asymmetry of supply and demand. All of the leagues are regulated monopolies. If you and I decided we wanted to start a second football team in Green Bay, we couldn't. They wouldn't allow us and it wouldn't succeed. And Donald Trump, one of his many failures, was trying to start another football league. Live was able to do it. They were able to come in with so much capital, they could start a competitive league.

11:22And they've essentially executed a creeping takeover of what is a Western sport, golf, another talk show. You have limited, highly limited supply. That's the national or the global sports industry. Two, let's look at the demand side. You have to be wealthy to buy these teams. And the deepest pocket in the world, the golf, has decided that sports teams are an incredible branding opportunity. It makes them seem more likable. It builds awareness. So you're right. It's unbelievable. It's got a mismatch and asymmetry of demand versus supply, which has sent the value of these things skyrocketing. Also, the value or the revenue they produce is going up.

12:00Most of it ends up in players' pockets. These are assets that don't grow cash flow because you spend all your money on players, but the terminal value goes up. But the revenues are going up mostly because of TV, because live sports are one of the few content sectors or some of the only content that people will actually endure ads. So the TV contracts keep getting bigger and bigger. In sum, your instincts are right on. Research conducted by the investment bank, Saxo, revealed that Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney's initial$2.5 million purchase of the Welsh club has tripled in value. According to The Ringer, over the past 40 years, all major sports teams in the U.S.

12:36have exponentially increased in value, far outpacing inflation and the S &P 500. Forbes reported that NBA teams on average increased in value by, get this, 387%. That's up five-fold from 2012 to 2021. Very few things other than Apple and Amazon went up five-fold from 2012 to 2021, while NHL teams went up in value, get this, 1 ,100 % since 1996. You buy a goddamn hockey team in 1996 and it goes up 12-fold? What was I doing not buying a hockey team? For those who can't fulfill the dream of owning a sports franchise, however, there are opportunities for fractional ownership of sports teams by investing in the corporate parents who own them.

13:19I think the next sector in sports that's going to really explode value is minor league teams because they're still fairly inexpensive. And if you have the right ownership group, specifically Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, you can take a$2.5 million investment and I think turn it into$50 or$100 million. By the way, those guys have a pretty hot hand right now. I also had toyed with the idea. So I've had a couple exits in the last few years. I'm really blessed. I have some capital. And I toyed with the idea of doing some sort of convertible note or investment into Rangers, the football team in Glasgow.

13:53And Rangers for me has sort of an emotional pull. My father talks or tells stories about how he used to go to Rangers games. So I thought pretty seriously about reaching out to Rangers and saying, what if I did some sort of convertible note or investment into the business. I don't want control. I don't even want input. I just want to be able to take my sons to a game. And I had this dream of taking my father to a game, but he's now too old. He can't travel that far. But I have thought about investing in a team. I've been approached by several groups to invest in their team. And here's sort of what got in the way of it.

14:27One, unless you're the owner, it's debt equity. What do I mean by that? You have no control around when to sell. And most owners are sort of in it for the fear of death. They're in it for, you know, I want to be an interesting guy. I like sports. I made a bunch of money. Why not? And they get to decide when to sell. And they're probably never going to sell. It's going to be their heirs they're going to sell. So you have, it's a highly illiquid investment if you're a guy like me that's only going to be investing millions, not tens of millions or hundreds of millions or billions. In addition, I didn't get to know Todd Boley, but I got introduced him, the new owner of Chelsea.

15:01And I see how poorly the fans treat him. And especially in the UK, there, I guess, is a justifiable suspicion of American owners. But I thought, my God, if this guy shows up, spends four and a half or five and a half billion dollars for a team, and then does his best to bring in new players, granted, he spent a lot of money, the team has not done this well, but he gets that sort of animosity, just that lack of respect. I thought, maybe I shouldn't be part of an owner group. Maybe this isn't a great deal. I'm probably not a big enough fish to get involved here in a meaningful way. So instead, I'm just going to take advantage of all of this capital going into the sport.

15:38And I'm going to take my boys to amazing Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Rangers games, and hopefully go to the World Cup again. And soon enough, we're going to enter Miami. My son, you'll love this, and this is where I'll finish my story. I took my sons to LA last weekend, and we were at the Century City Mall. My youngest is obsessed with malls. So in every city, we have to go to the one, two or three best malls. So in LA, that's the Grove and Century City. And we're at Century City and he saw everyone wearing pink because of the Barbie movie. And he's like, oh my God, can you get over this? I knew Messi was popular, but I had no idea that everyone would be wearing inter-Miami jerseys.

16:14He thought everyone was wearing inter-Miami jerseys. Anyways, little glimpse into the mind of a 12-year-old who sees people wearing pink. Thanks so much for the question. I love looking at the stuff, the asset class, but expect sports team franchises to continue to explode in value. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

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17:39Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at Odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

18:22Welcome back. Question number three. Hey, Scott, this is Kenny Soto calling in from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Quick question regarding career advice. I see now on LinkedIn specifically, as well as Twitter, that people are trying to cultivate their personal brands, especially in the tech field. I'm a marketer myself, and I'm just trying to figure out over time, how do I cultivate a personal brand that's meaningful and it actually attracts attention from recruiters and potential employers? Would love your thoughts. I'm trying to figure out how to, quote unquote, evolve my resume and any advice that you can share would be greatly appreciated.

19:06Thank you. Kenny from Tulsa, Oklahoma, thanks for the question. You're thinking the right way. there's so many people who go into the world of brand management and can tell you everything about managing a brand of Kleenex or, you know, an apparel brand, but they don't think about managing their own brand. And the most popular session in my brand strategy course is called The Brand Is You. And that's how to think about and be strategic about managing your own brand. Because when you think about it, whether you want a brand or not, you're going to have one. When people see in their peripheral vision, an image of you, or they hear your name, they hear your brand, they're going to have a set of associations that are going to form whether you want it or not.

19:41And the question is, what are those associations? Which ones are aspirational and can help you get a job, make friends, find mates, whatever it might be, and then reinforce those associations similar to a brand? What investments are you going to make? And what I would say is try and figure out what are the two or three things you want your personal brand to be known for. Some of those are personal attributes. As it relates to professional, you want to pick a content area and you want to engage in thought leadership. What do I mean by that? So I decided that brand strategy was going to be my domain in the 90s.

20:13And I had learned a lot about it. And slowly but surely, incrementally, you wake up one day and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm almost an expert in this. And I would write a lot about it. I would do op-eds, do thought pieces, and then social media showed up on the scene and presented a huge opportunity. And so slowly but surely over time, I switched my content area to disruption, how technology disrupts traditional industry. And I started writing about it, tweeting about it, and doing videos on it. And what I challenge every student or every kid in my class to do at the beginning of the class is to pick a platform and to get in the top 10 % by the end of the class.

20:46So if you're on LinkedIn, you can look up a certain number of followers, puts you in the top 10%. But you not only need content, you need a platform, right? If you just have content, you're just an expert, but you're only just speaking to people about it, you're going to be a tree falling in the forest. No one's going to hear it. And it's hard and it takes discipline. I started, I had a summer house in the Hamptons like in 2008. And I thought, I'm going to build an audience on Twitter. And it was literally 15 years ago. And I started a follower campaign where I would follow 300 people every night and 100 would follow me back.

21:18And I started tweeting about brand strategy. And then I started writing up little things and articles on brand strategy. And I would post it on LinkedIn. in. Then when I started L2 and I started talking about disruption at the hands of technology, I would do videos and I'd post them on YouTube. And when a video did well on YouTube, I'd put 100, 500, 1 ,000 bucks behind that video and it would get 20, 30, 50, 100 ,000 views. And slowly but surely over time, the blast zone of my awareness and my domain expertise around brand and technology grew bigger and bigger and bigger. And then what happened?

21:56CNBC and MSNBC and And CNN started calling me and said, hey, can you come on and talk about this brand issue or this technology issue? And my blast zone and my brand awareness got bigger and bigger, which resulted in more opportunities for more writing, more speaking gigs, a book contract, and so on and so on and so on. So where are you? You need to find a domain that you have an interest in, some expertise in, and then start putting out content across emerging platforms. And to be clear, it's hand-to-hand combat. It's hard. It's doing good videos. It's production quality. It's writing something that's thoughtful.

22:36It's figuring out a way to turn good data into a chart. It's being crisp. It means not getting emotional and back in people's faces when some jerk says something really snarky or mean about your content. You just ignore that shit. But over time, you get known as Kenny from Tulsa, who talks about the oil industry, the oil and gas industry, or talks about what it's like to live in Tulsa, whatever. You become the Tulsa guy that understands the best restaurants in Tulsa, whatever it might be. Ideally, it foots to something you want to develop professionally that you can get paid for. I personally think the biggest opportunity right now around platforms is TikTok.

23:12It's not easy to do good video, but if you can do it, there's just so many people on it and they'll find you if you get known for a specific domain. The specific crowds out the general, Kenny, we're going to find a specific domain. We're going to put out content, if not every day, three or four times a week. And your blast zone of awareness is going to expand every day. Thanks for the question, Kenny. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at propgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at propgmedia.com.

23:57This episode was produced by Caroline Chagrin, Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.