The Rise Above Podcast EP 7: Lucas Caneda

Professional Rugby Player, Global Team Lead of an Incubator/Accelerator Agency, Start Up Director & Father Lucas Caneda joins Bram Bains on this episode of The Rise Above Podcast.

Lucas talks about his Journey with overcoming obstacles in his sports career, wanting more from life, managing a high performing team, explains the value his team brings to startups, and shares insights about the process of taking startups from seed to IPO. 

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Interview Transcript

[00:35] Bram: Welcome everybody to the rise above podcast. This is episode number seven. I'm being joined by a special guest today. I've got Lucas Caneda. Lucas is a professional rugby player. Lucas is a global team lead of unicorn. Unicorn is a rural tech incubator accelerator. Lucas is also a director of one of its startups, challenger X. Challenger X is a SAS and B2B company, who is turning Davids into Goliath through digital and traditional marketing. It offers radical improvement of the revenues and profitability of amateur sports clubs throughout Europe and around the world. Lucas is also a father. Welcome to the show. Lucas, how are you doing today? 

[01:24] Lucas: Hey Bram, thank you for having me on your show, especially being here doing fine, looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, just let's get into it. 

[01:37] Bram: Let's get into it. Okay. Tell us a little bit about your story. You wear many hats there. You know, being a professional athlete. I believe that's pretty demanding with training and playing and recovery and rest and whatnot, but yet you're also a leader there of a team and a father. How do you balance everything? What do your days look like? 

[02:00] Lucas: They look pretty busy to be honest, but I do enjoy it. I do think there's more to gain about doing all this stuff and I'm pretty happy to be doing it. Of course, it requires effort, but everything does. If you're not willing to do what it takes, you're probably not getting far. I've managed to join my passions, I would say, which is usually not something easy to do. When I was young, I was, I always wanted to become a professional rugby player. I come from Argentina; I'm currently living in France. Why? Because I knew when I was back home, if I wanted to fulfill my dream, I had to go somewhere else because there were no professional teams backing Argentina. I knew I had to go elsewhere. I looked for my opportunity. I worked very hard for that opportunity. Even the things blocking, things not going as expected, but eventually five or six years ago, I actually managed to get an opportunity and I didn't hesitate. 

I flew right away. That's when my professional career in rugby started. I've done that for like say one year, just focusing on that. But after that, I started also studying while I was the professional player. Two years ago, I decided that was, I would say, not enough, that I wanted other things too. I also started working while I played. That's how I came to unicorn. How I started at unicorn and how I managed to mix things up between business and sports. I think there's great connections and a lot of added value in doing both things at the same time. Especially at the start-up world that we live in. There's lots of things that go hand by hand. You need to be able to say, roll up your sleeves and put yourself to work. 

You need to be able to learn how to take a hit and stand back up. That happens a lot in rugby, and it happens a lot in the start-ups. You need to know that it's not an easy trip. It's not an easy journey, but the journey itself, it's actually a great experience. There's a lot of synergies between businesses, sports that can actually be of good added value to both sides of the coin. 

[04:55] Bram: Okay, awesome. You mentioned the journey there. That's a perfect segue. That's something I really wanted to explore with you and what your journey looked like, your personal journey, growing up and falling in love with rugby and pursuing that passion. Then, it is bringing you here to where you are today. What's your story look like from the beginning? I know there was a little bit of adversity in there. You were told by the majority ofpeople that you're too small to play rugby at 5'7. I know you had an injury in your career as well, that was fairly major and potentially career ending. I'd love to hear about that from your perspective.

[05:36] Lucas: Yeah, sure. I mean when it comes to being too small to play rugby, I was told many times that, if I wanted to become a professional day, I should have been a couple inches taller. I said, okay, that's not something I can change. But I can do a lot more that you guys think I can. Of course, you need to work to get there. You need to do what it takes. Sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes you want to stop, but as long as you have something in mind, I do think you should follow your dreams and do what it takes to get there. I don't like to sound, egocentric or whatnot, but it can be done if you do what it takes. If you actually put the effort into it, you can actually get where you want to be. 

In my case, that was becoming a professional rugby player. It took a long while. I finally came to France when I was 25 years old. I had that in mind for the last three or four, I think. It doesn't come quickly or at least not always. But you need to keep going till you actually get where you want to be. If you want to speak about my I would say serious injury. I think on one side that happens. I mean, in every sport, in every everything that you do, you will have problems or obstacles to face, some things to overcome. In my case, I had a big knee injury, broke my ligaments. Some people said it might have been a career ending injury.

After a couple of days. I mean of course you feel a bit bad about what happened, but then quickly turn your mind into positive thinking and start thinking ahead, what's coming next. How do I recover from this? I mean, a couple of things that happened when I was at the game, the game I got injured, our doctor at my team, he was, those kinds of guys that tell you every time that tells you, yeah, keep going, keep going. This is nothing. I got to hit unto the floor, tried to stand up, then my knee started like feeling weird I fell down and called the doctor. I said, hey, strap my knee up. Something's wrong, strap it up so I can keep going. He started checking. He said to me, look straight to me in the eye and said, not this time. 

How come not this time? Strap it up. I need to keep going. He said, this time I cannot do this. When he said that, I mean, I knew something was wrong. He never does. He's always the one pushing to keep going. So, I knew it was serious. Then I had a couple of, I would say pointers that helped me recover. Pretty much. One of them was my injury was kind of at the end of the season, there were still some games left, but I knew it was a six-to-eight-monthinjury. I set myself an objective. I checked for the next season, what was our first game. Actually, it was one of the best teams in Argentina. I said to myself, I need to be at this game. I went to my coach, which I appreciate very much. I have an excellent relationship with him.

A great coach. Asked him, hey I know we played this game first game of the season. I need to get ready before the first game you always have, like, we call it friendly games. I know you guys call it in different way. Exhibition. Yeah. It's like tests, you do usually have three games before the actual start of the season. I started doing some math’s and the first exhibition game was five months and one week after my surgery. I tell the coach, hey, I know I need to play at least some exhibition game for you to put me on the team for the first game. But how many do you need me to play? Because first game it's like five months away. I probably won't be there in time. He looked at me and he said, you need to play all three.

I was like, dude, I mean, that's physically impossible. I mean, that gives me five months to recover, fully recover from an injury. Usually, it takes between six and eight. I mean, I can try and push for six, but he said, if you don't play all three, you won't be in the first game. I need to do something. I was so focused on getting to the first game. I remember my surgeon, he said to me okay these are the exercises that you need to do as soon as you can, after you get operated. Couple of very basic things that you need to do. I remember after my surgery; the room was not ready yet. I was on my bed laying on a hallway before going to the actual room, feeling dizzy because of the anesthetics and everything that you, that you take for this surgery. 

I started doing the exercises. I mean, I knew I had no time to lose. Then when I told my, my surgeon that I started like an hour after the surgery, he looked to and said, are you nuts? I mean, dude, you said as quickly as you can. I should wait a bit, no time to do this. I don't know if that helped or what did, but the good thing about this story is that five months, one week later, I was playing the first game. Everything went well, I played 10 minutes. Not more just to try it out. But it was more than enough. Second exhibition game, I played like 63rd or game. Then first season game, which was very important. I managed to play the whole game. The beauty of the story is that I don't know, again, if you do what it takes, if you actually invest yourself, the results are usually a lot better than if you don't do as much.

[13:33] Bram: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it sounds like you're definitely on a mission there to suit up and be ready for that game. That's I think that's important to set those targets and put in the work exactly what you said. I think that's a great story being that you're a competitor, you're an athlete. I know you're wired differently. What does it feel like when there's all that pain and adrenaline going through your body and the surgeon is telling you not this time? At the same time, in what other ways have you been told not this time that you've still been able to prove people wrong.

The feeling was pretty weird because it took him, I think three or four times to convince me that this was not that time, not this time. I was like, come on, strap it up. I mean, get it going no time to lose. With the adrenaline, when you got your head in the game, you sometimes lose perspective of what's happening. I do think those are the best moments in sports. When the only thing that matters, it was happening on the pitch. You don't even listen to what happens on the outside. Your head's really on the game. That's where you perform the most. It happens in business too. 

Again, it's a great connection between both things that I do right now and what I like, which I really enjoy, right. That you can put into work one side on the other. In terms of business, when our funder [inaudible 15:30] funded unicorn here in Sarlat, which is a very small town in the Southwest of France, people told him this is not possible. We actually had a conversation with someone explaining what we wanted to do for like 20, 30 minutes. That one moment she said, stop, I'm sorry to tell you, but this is never going to be possible.

I mean, our reaction was, excuse me lady, but I'm sorry to tell you that I've already done it. Her face like just completely turned around. What do you mean that you've already done it? Yeah, we are already here. We were around 10 people, 12 months ago. We are over 55 right now from 27 different nationalities. We've created a team. We've crafted a team of different people, different cultures, different knowledge. A very powerful team that allows us to perform, even if we are in a rural area, which is very small. it's one of the things that we try to prove is that you don't need to be in London or in Paris to actually have a business of your own. You can be in a detached area like ours still have the power to do what it takes.

[17:13] Bram: Nice. Okay. Your story in transitioning from, well, at the same time, you're still a professional athlete, but now you're also in the business world. How did that opportunity come about for you to join unicorn? 

[17:30] Lucas: Well, for the last two years, I knew I wanted something else. Professional rugby was not enough for me. I'm always looking for more, I would say. It's kind of a part of my winning mentality I think, which some people think it's not a very good idea, but I tried to prove them wrong. I mean, I hate losing. I'm kind of, I would say proud of that attitude. It drives me nuts to lose at whatever I do. No matter the level I'm super competitive, but I think that actually takes you further down the route instead of pushing you down. I think it gets the opposite, at least in my case. I think it just drives me to keep going to keep going forward. Keep looking for more and that's how I decided to look for something else, not just playing rugby, but also finding a job.

What I do like is that you need to be passionate about what you do. I think it's crucial to success. That's why I did what I did for rugby, because I'm passionate about it. That's what I do at unicorn is for me too. I've found my passion on the business world too. That's what keeps me going, keeps me looking for more. The story is quite, I don't know if I'd say interesting, but when the club called me we are a very small club. Sarlat Rugby is a small club fifth division in France. rugby wise, I was not pretty thrilled, I would say, but I decided to take a first step and told the guys I would like to meet you, before I decided to actually commit myself into playing with Sarlat Rugby, I would like to meet you guys, see who you are. I drove with my wife,she was eight months pregnant. We drove like, eight hours in one day to come meet them. 

That's what changed everything. Cause I've met Dom, the founder of unicorn. He goes like 200 miles an hour, is always on the run for business. Unicorn actually incubateand accelerate Sarlat Rugby. We consider the club being one of our clients in that sense. That's how everything came together. It's all part of the same ecosystem that we're building. Yeah, that's how it became a reality. 

[20:58] Bram: Wow. Okay, so the common denominator there being the rugby, because Sarlat Rugby being one of the clients there of unicorn. That was the connection that kind of brought everything together. You're brave you and your wife at eight months pregnant, you drove that far. 

[21:22] Lucas: Not me my wife. I was driving, but I mean, it's hard to convince eight months pregnant woman to drive for five hours. But she said, I mean, if we are moving to that place, I'd like to meet them, okay? Let's go.

[21:38] Bram: Good stuff. That's amazing. She's like a business partner of yours then too. I think that's an important relationship right there. 

[21:54] Lucas: Hands down. Yeah. You do need that support. It's the only way I can see the relationship to work, support each other. 

[22:03] Bram: Yeah. Happy Father’s Day, by the way, we just celebrated father's day, two days ago. I don't know if it's international. So earlier we were talking, you mentioned your daughter is nine months at this point. How do you do it? Like there's probably so much demands for your time. How do you keep everybody happy? What's the secret? How do you do that? 

[22:30] Lucas: Well, I don't know if it's a secret what I do. Hard to say, but I don't really think about what others think, but I like myself to be happy and the people around me, my family or the people are my friends. I tend to focus about that first because I know if I'm happy, I'm going to perform a lot better. That's why I do think that you need to find your passions and work on those passions because it doesn't become a burden, it's all the opposite. If you love what you do, it's not a problem. Also, we come back to the family support that you mentioned before. 

I mean, my wife understands when I come back at nine instead of five, because I had three meetings in a row. Of course, I tried to spend time whenever I can with them to my best. I don't know for lunch I go back home, try to spend some time. Little things. I think don't need to do big, great things, but just the little details that can actually takeyou to where you want to be and always know what you want to achieve, what you want to do. Because it's a lot easier when you like what you do than anything else.

[24:27] Lucas: Absolutely. Yeah. You got to, do what makes you happy because when you're happy, it reflects on everybody else that's around you, so you can be the best version of yourself. That's a good answer. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about what you do and the kind of team that you lead a unicorn. I'm really interested to learn more about what it is that an incubator accelerator does. Like how do you work with companies and from a marketing standpoint, what is it that you guys really do to help the companies grow? Then also we'll look to explore your role as a leader. How that looks, how do you lead a team like that and so forth? 

[25:13] Lucas: Sure. We take the startups the American way. We ask for three main questions, first do you have proof of concept. Second, do you have a couple of clients, third, were you able to convince at least someone on your family that what you're doing is actually bringing a solution to a problem and not just creating a new problem. Why do we ask ourselves this third question is because if you're not able to come in as your family, how are you going to convince first and foremost ourselves, unicorn to be working with you? Then if we present you to potential investors, how are you going to convince them? Once those three questions are, I would say replied, which already becomes a big filter, would say at least half the people that contact us, don't get to that filter. 

We ask ourselves one key question. What is it that we are going to do to add value to what you are doing and how quick? Then it becomes a bit of our understanding of the project. Cause we don't do I would say models. We actually do specific work for specific clients. It's not that we take in everyone, and we just do the same for each client. That usually doesn't work for many reasons. But first being that start-ups are all at different stages, so their needs are very much different, one from the other. Then their objectives are usually different. Their needs differ from one another.

You need to be able to identify and prioritize what do they need the most, what are they able to I would say afford and where is it that you're going to really create the most impact? If we are running marketing campaigns in different markets and we are just starting, we'd like to say the lower hanging fruit, I'm not going to be searching for tons of time ahead, but actually grasping what I can grab very quickly to get us some traction to move forward. Then with that traction keep going. It becomes a negotiation between the client and ourselves where we can, we usually just jump into a call and understand what they are looking for. Come up with very specific ideas or marketing campaigns or actions that will bring them a couple of steps further. 

We do measure everything that we do. That's one of the key points in our business, the digital marketing side of what we do, we measure and we do KPIs for everything that we set up that allows us two things. First, to actually show the results to our clients, but also internally, it allows us to identify the things that are working the most, keep doing it to keep doing those and not to the rest. It's I would say a filter to grow up into the pyramid and keep pushing. Just as some information, thanks to these filters. We actually say no nine out of 10 times. It's not because we play hard to get, but actually, because we think there's no connection or no synergy in what we guys are doing. because we hate losing time, wasting time on both sides. I don't want you to waste time, but I don't want us to waste time either. I'd rather be honest and say, no, I'm sorry, but this is not good for any of us, for these reasons and let's hop into the next.

[30:10] Bram: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, in my line of work too, it's something that I speak about a lot with my team and the people that I work with, is pick the right spots to be in and put all your time into that. It's like 20% - at least in our world, - 20% of our partners bring in 80% of the revenue. You really want to focus in and give more of your time to that 20% that are bringing in numbers. It's interesting to hear from your perspective, too, in how you're filtering the people that you work with based on the fit. It's got to be a win-win for both parties. You got to have that synergy to one another. What does your team look like over there at unicorn? In terms of an incubation and helping start-ups, what kind of value do you guys bring to a company? I know you said that it can be different company to company in terms of what you offer, but just as a general overview, as a start-up, if I'm coming to you as a start-up, and I'm saying, I need some help, I need you guys to help me grow this thing, what services and tools and resources do you guys provide to the start-ups? 

[31:32] Lucas: Great question. We are a digital marketing agency first and foremost. We do article syndication, SEO, ASO. We currently own more than 5,000 keywords in the Google play app store ranked number one today in 17 different languages. Those are some of the things we can bring to the table pretty quick. I would say that's the first point, like a departure point in anything that we do. Then we bring a mixture of things. For instance, we are hosting the start-up Supercup in here in Sarlat, 1, 2, 3 October. What are we doing? We are bringing investors and start-ups from all over the world to meet each other. It's an event that's specifically designed to make start-ups meet the capital that they need to thrive.

Everything will happen in a concentrated area. People will have meetings between each others that they can set up in advance to actually find that potential lead that they need. We are changing a bit the ratio that everyone does at these kind of events, we are having eight investors for each start-up. That means that the chances of actually getting the funds that you need are much higher. Those are some of the things that we bring to the table, to our start-ups. We bring the opportunity to participate in this kind of events. Also, we are very picky about the people that we bring. It comes again to our business model that we pick our clients. The same thing. The investors that are actually coming to the event are not people just like to travel. They are actual investors coming here yes, because they like to meet us. 

They liked to meet the region get to know the place, drink some wine eat some cheese. But the main reason that they are coming is that they're here for business. They're here to find their next investment. We always ask for proof of investment in the past 12 months, for instance, that's one of the requisites for being allowed to participate at the event. We're not bringing anyone; we're bringing in actual investors to the game to meet the start-up that they are looking for. Then I'd say, that's the support we bring to the table. One of the things we do best, and we've run lots of campaigns for many different clients in the customer acquisition.

That's another key point that we bring to the table for start-ups. But again, it depends a lot on what stage are they into, but we would like to consider ourselves once you've replied to the first three questions, we become like A to C incubator accelerator. We can take the whole process. For instance, one of our start-ups, we took from scratch like 14 months ago. In the next couple of weeks, that start-up is going to be floating out Canadian stocks and Germany. We took it from scratch into public markets. I would say that's pretty much whole thing. Evaluation's going to be around a hundred times higher in 14 months, nothing to complain about that. 

[35:27] Bram: Nothing at all. That's awesome. You pre-select these companies, you have the expertise there to help them grow their customer base, bring in that revenue. Then you guys also host events where you connect them to investors to add more value and capital and funding behind it. Eventually, I guess the goal is to take this thing to the markets and go IPO and make a lot of people very wealthy in the process I bet too. It's a great business.

[36:03] Lucas: It's a very interesting experience also to take a company public. Some people think it's impossible. Well, it's not. But it's certainly not an easy thing, especially if you don't have the support behind you that has done the process a hundred times and we have the people inside the house to get that done for the companies that are actually on that process. 

[36:31] Bram: Good stuff. Okay. What does that process look like? I bet there's a lot of regulations and securities and whatnot to go through. At the same time that you're helping these partners of yours grow their business, at the same time, there's actually a business element to it as well that you have to satisfy all of these requirements to go public. What does your team look like in terms of the kind of staff and the kind of expertise that you have in house? It's got to be the entire thing then from at least what I'm trying to understand from this, you guys actually arebuilding these businesses, not just growing the customer base, but you're actually doing a lot of the business work as well.

[37:24] Lucas: Yeah. I mean, it's two sides of the story, I would say. You need to have the internal people that work with you that have done this for a long period of time. We've got those people in. We have two CFOs internally. One that focus on the US Canada markets and UK, and one for the Europe. Also, you need to have the external help, the relationships with the people that have done this already, because you need the brokers, you need everything. You need the contacts with the securities, you need to know the process and how to go through the process. We know that those kinds of guys too, becausewe've worked with them over the past years. 

I mean, that's the interesting thing about it. In fact, we are currently listing one of our companies challenger X that you can find at challengerx.io. We are trying to beat the records in terms of speed for listing. We've funded the company; I would say two weeks ago and two or three weeks ago. The, the objective is to be listing in the acquiesce exchange in London and also in Germany in I say eight weeks total, which is pretty insane. 

[39:02] Bram: From seed to the listing in eight weeks total. You're such a competitor. I can feel that. That's awesome. Yeah, that's the idea. That's one of the, I would say the biggest projects we have right now. Challenger X is taking sports and clubs to a whole different level. We usually try to test things first, do the things internally, before we actually tell someone else to do it. It comes back to the same business model. That's why we ask for a proof of concept, whenever we decide to work with the client. That's why, whatever we do, we do it first. We try it and then we put it into work. We believe Sarlat Rugby is our proof of concept. 

What we are doing with Challenger X is that we are rebranding clubs, so small clubs, amateur and semi-professional clubs, and take them to a whole different level, make them look and work as professional clubs. If you go to one of the website, you shouldn't be able to notice the difference. This is why we say we are turning David’s into Goliaths. We are turning the small ones into the big ones. This is a process that we've done already, that we've showed that it works through our rugby club. Right now, for instance, we took a social media nine months ago, we had roughly 1,500 followers on Facebook alone.

Now we are over 130k. I mean, that's one of the things we are bringing in, to the table. People told us sponsoring could not be done or could be done just to a certain level that we're reworking all that. We've signed sponsorships all around. We'd like to show other clubs how to do it. We've also signed 62 broadcast agreements all around the world. We currently have on our power, the ability to show the world what we're doing with this broadcast agreements. TV station included. Today we have 90 million household thresholds. We are going to reach out to at least 19 million people through this broadcast TV streaming agreements. That's something we also want to leverage into the thing. 

What I like to call the cherry on the top is that today we are in a position that we can mint a token, a social token. It takes us between 10 and 15 minutes to actually mint a token, for any club that we want.

We've done it already with Sarlat Rugby. It's called Sarlat. We have not yet promoted, but we own it. The idea is to provide this tokenization opportunity to the clubs through Challenger X and the beauty about it is that you can actually do whatever you want with it. Being a social token, it allows you to create different groups. Let's say you love one of the players and you like to have a conversation with him. If you own certain amount of tokens, you can actually have a one-on-one meeting with him. You can actually buy a Jersey with a token on our online store, or you can help the team grow, but by sharing Facebook posts, and you can actually earn a token by doing that.

The world is very big in terms of tokenization and the things that you can actually do with them. That's the beauty about it. That's what we like. That's why we think it's a crucial point of Challenger X to have these tokens minted for a specific clubs that participate with us. Also,what we've identified, the problems that we've seen to overcome in every club are the same. We've identified all of them through Sarlat Rugby. We managed to create a know-how, what to do for every club, no matter what sport they're playing, no matter where in the world, they are. The problems are always the same. So, we know how to face them. First and foremost, it's an image branding. It needs to have a complete rework. That was the first thing that we did. We took our logo. We pushed it to the next level. We made something that you can actually identify, your brand. We're not just creating [audio cuts out 44:27] but we are creating a brand.

That's something you need to have in mind. People need to be identified with what you're doing with your brand and wherever you see it, they need to need to know, okay, this is Sarlat Rugby, because that's the connection that you need to bring. We had our merchandise problem. They were only selling jerseys three years old, something you need to fix. You tell the good providers that we bring to the table to the two new clubs for a competitive price. You need to have a product base. We started with zero, was nothing. It's easy to start. We currently have over 20 different products that you can buy. Merchandise that you could actually buy from the club.

There were no selling points of those products before we came in. The only way to buy stuff was at home games, which happens once or twice a month during eight months, nine months. It's very hard. What did we do? We created an online store, an e-store on a website, which is pretty amazing. We encountered over 20 different shops around town that are selling our stuff at their place. Sarlat has a very big market, which is very well known. In fact, we are the seventh most visited town in France with over 2.5 million tourists a year. 

We are having a market stand during the summer. Another thing that needs to be done. Things of that sort, you need to put into practice sponsoring before we came in they thought the sponsoring was an ordination. They were going to people and asking for money. They had nothing in return. For me that helps, but that's just a simple donation, which people are free to do, but I'm actually going to offer you a sponsoring agreement where you can get a benefit for sponsoring the club. As you said before, this needs to be a win-win situation where you can actually providevalue both sides. If you are buying a sponsorship with the team, you need to be able to get something in return that at least equals the value. 

We always try to give more than that. But that's just us probably our mentality. Yes, this is what you get. We usually try to perform a lot better and give you more. Cause that brings a long-term relationship that you can actually nurture and grow together. All those things fall down into the monetization process. Every small pub has the same problem. How do we monetize? How do we grow our communities? How do we actually benefit from growing those communities? Because at the end of the day, that's what takes you further down the line, because it allows you to have a better stadium, a better infrastructure, a better team, better players.

I mean, it's a circle story where if you get that, then you can actually invest more. You can keep growing, you can keep going up. That's the objective we have. Actually, wewant to go into pro division that second division in France in the next five to seven years.

[48:29] Bram: All with the brand day, the power of the brand. So, you guys come in and you have elements of a design from there as well, that you'll come in and you'll redesign. The business model there. I like it. I think that's really smart. You guys figured it out. Sarlat is your social proof that you can show the results to all the other clubs that you're approaching. 

[48:58] Lucas: Yes. In fact, what happened is quite the opposite. We didn't do any outreach and the clubs are contacting us. How did you do this? How can we do it too? That's where Challenger X comes in handy. Equity deals I guess, with these clubs, or are they paying you guys for your services? We are doing a very small fee for the SAS model. Then all the rest is, could call it affiliates, but it's not, it's like commissions. If we provide X amount in value, we get a percentage of what we do, which becomes very interesting because teams have nothing to lose. Their investment is very small, but their potential gains are so big that why would someone say no to such potential deal? 

In our case, it also makes us invest ourselves a lot more because we depend on the results that we bring to the table. In every relationship that's always beneficial because you don't just expect me to be working with you, but I need to work side-by-side with you for us both to succeed at the same time.

[50:24] Bram: Mutually beneficial relationships. It's, win-win, it's always gotta be win situation. There's a lot of depth there then behind the scenes, like you guys have got the entire infrastructure figured out. That's the offering I guess really is you're bringing in that infrastructure and that expertise. You're putting gasoline on these things to help these companies, these start-ups, per se, to accelerate their own growth and bring in more revenue to them. Wow. That's interesting. I like that. You mentioned that there's tokens as well. You're talking about leveraging blockchain at this point, is that right? 

[51:07] Lucas: Exactly. We are currently minting tokens that are correlated to [inaudible 51:13] at the end of the day, they become your money. The club always owns a piece of the tokens and that's how they will for starters, give their fan base, their community, the added value or becoming, and to be a part supporting their club, which is crucial for success. Giving them benefits and utility on those tokens, because if the token has no utility, then it's that token and it doesn't fulfill the purpose. That's what we are building too for the teams.

Creating these utility and this becomes a means to do something. It's not just a token to own a token. That's why it's different from a security token. It's called a social token. Cause you can actually do stuff. What I love is that you can do whatever you want. Your dream has always been to do the kickoff of a game. Well, own certain amount of tokens and participate on a raffle to become the next kickoff person invited fully paid by a Sarlat. That's something you can do. 

[52:53] Bram: It's so creative. I like that. The utility of it. I think I'm starting to make those connections in my mind there. It's interesting. It's a very great business model. Yeah. I've got one additional question that I wanted to ask you in terms of about leadership being a player and essentially coming in now being a team leader, you're essentially now a coach, so a player in the sports world and then a coach in the business world. What are some of the parallels and what have you learned as being a player and how has that influenced your leadership style, and what are the similarities in terms of a high performing sports team versus a high-performing business team? 

[53:48] Lucas: Well, I think the connection is right there. I would say in my eyes it's obvious, but I do like the question. In terms of leadership. I've always liked to be, I would say have one focus in mind is motivation. I think, motivated people to extra work outperform. There's a couple of different things that I usually try to achieve when I'm thinking about that. One of them would be creating a good atmosphere, working atmosphere. I'd like people to be happy, come to work, which is usually not the case, sad but true. If you manage to have a nice time when you are working, you would probably invest yourself a lot more into the job would outperform.

You will do more than required, if you are just there because you need to be, you would probably do only the basic, you will never do extra. I think I've learned that through rugby too, when you actually feel part of a team,you're willing to do more for that team. That's what we also create internally. We create different teams for different projects that they work together. Even the sales teams inside our house, it works team. It's not just each of them separately, but we actually work as team. I think that's very important into creating a work ethics and a team spirit that can actually take you further down the line. To being more efficient. But also, I do firm believer that there's always people that are more capable than me for instance, into specific tasks.

I'd rather have those people doing them instead of me, cause they'll do the much better, but you need to be able to identify and you need to be able to accept that there are people that outperform you, at least in a specific task, you need to be able to say, hey, this is where you are much better than anyone else take care of this. That brings the team to a whole new different level. Also, you mentioned the connection to sports and whatnot. Again, when it comes to motivation, I always speak about leadership through example. I think it's one of the stronger sources of motivation and of leadership. I can see that the connection to a rugby game, I would say all blacks are very, very strong in this. They are the best team in the world past 10 to 15 years. But one of the things I love about them is that maybe they're having a game, which is quite monotonous. They're not doing well. There's always 1, 2, 3, guys that start doing something. But they're not telling the people around them, they are doing it. One of them does a positive tackle, smashes someone in front of them and the whole team starts to get excited. 

This guy has just saved us from that action with a 40-meter run. I need to be doing the same as him. I need to be investing myself at least to that level. That tends to put the line up and incrementally, push the line further and gets the momentum. I usually call it the snowball effect. It keeps turning and it keeps adding more people and then unstoppable. 

[58:20] Bram: Okay, and just a follow up question there. When you have momentum and synergy going and you're integrating new people into that team, how do you get them, like, when you're merging on a highway and you have that lane where you have to catch up to speed and then merge and you're running at the same speed at that point, how do you with a high-performing team, which it sounds like, based on your style and your background, it seems like you run a high performing team. How do you integrate new people and get them on that same level?

[58:56] Lucas: Usually we just throw them to the wolves, but not because we are mean, but I do think that you learn a lot by just being there, by experience. Also, because I put you inside a team that's performing at a certain level. Of course, I don't expect you to be performing at that level at the beginning, but you yourself are going to be looking at the people around you. Oh, this dude is doing a hundred. This dude is doing 110. I'm at 50. I need to be doing much more to get to that level. I mean, fear steps in but also this winning mentality that I always look for, if it was me, I would say to myself, he's doing 100 I need to do 150. I need to get there. If I don't just push you in there, it's going to take a lot more time. Why not? I mean, I'm pushing you in there, but I'm also supporting you, giving you the tools to do it and not just, hey this is said to it no I'm actually giving you the tools explaining hundred times if I need to, but supporting you in that sense.

But yeah, I usually try to do just that. Because I do think competition helps you overcome difficulties. 

[1:00:48] Bram: Absolutely. Yeah. being a rugby player, you can identify that in other people. Then your kind of just coach to that and provide to that, to build people up. Like you said earlier, it seems like you're very self-aware. You know the strengths and weaknesses of others and how they can, compliment and help the project then overall bring value to the team. Always team first before the individual, for success. Awesome. Well, Lucas, I mean, again, I don't want to keep you too long. I love talking to athletes. I love talking to competitors. I love talking to business people, because you see the world differently, being an athlete and being a competitor.

I love that. I really appreciate your time, Lucas. If anybody is out there listening and they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to contact you? 

[1:01:40] Lucas: I would say the best way is through LinkedIn. just Lucas Caneda. Drop me a message. I'll be happy to reply. In any case Bram, thank you for this opportunity the pleasure was mine having this conversation with you and with your audience, complete pleasure being here. Thank you. 

[1:02:04] Bram: Thank you so much, Lucas. This was episode number seven of the rise above podcast. Be sure to subscribe, share this with a friend who you think it may benefit. For anybody wanting to connect there with Lucas, check Lucas out on LinkedIn. Feel free to send him a message until next time, have yourselves a great day.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the rise above podcast. Make sure to subscribe for future episodes, leave a review and share with a friend who would love to hear this episode. This was the rise above podcast.