Building What’s Next

OpportunityPersonal information is fragmented across applications, records, digital files, and paper. Individuals have no comprehensive system for managing it, while organizations repeatedly collect and store copies through costly, inefficient processes.

BuiltCollect'd uses AI to help individuals assemble, organize, and maintain their personal information as a continuously updated Living Record. When an individual needs to complete a task, AI determines what is required, organizes what is available, identifies what is missing, and prepares it for use. Permissioned infrastructure allows that information and authorized AI agents to move between the individual and an organization with the individual's consent.

Initial marketThe U.S. military, focused on reducing administrative burden, modernizing personnel management, and improving readiness.

ResultThree issued U.S. patents and two government contracts awarded. In two years, I went from knowing virtually nothing about the military to building relationships and advocacy at its highest levels. Today, we are in active discussions about piloting and scaling Collect'd across the U.S. Air Force. That work is ongoing.

CapitalMore than $5 million raised from two seed funds and more than 26 individual investors. Many previously invested in, served on the boards of, worked with, or partnered with me in earlier companies.

ProblemTeams, venues, and producers faced a persistent yield-management problem: how to fill more seats and maximize revenue when demand varied by event, opponent, date, and seat location. Much of the industry's revenue came from season tickets priced months before an event, limiting its ability to respond to changing demand. Direct discounting could undermine season-ticket economics, pricing integrity, distribution relationships, and existing customers.

BuiltAn opaque, dynamically priced marketplace. Consumers named the price they were willing to pay within a disclosed section without seeing the specific seat or a publicly displayed discounted price. Suppliers could move distressed inventory, fill seats, and generate incremental revenue without disrupting the established business model.

ReachAt its peak, ScoreBig worked with more than one-third of U.S. professional sports teams, along with Ticketmaster, AEG, concert promoters, theaters, and other live-entertainment businesses.

ResultSubject of a Harvard Business School case study. Acquired by TicketNetwork in 2016.

MandateRecruited by Scott O'Neil in 2004 to help build the NBA's Team Marketing & Business Operations group, then asked to join the league full-time to establish its CRM, database-marketing, and analytics capabilities.

BuiltExpanded the league's consumer database and built the analytics, segmentation, and targeting capabilities around it. Hired the team responsible for the function. Through Team Marketing & Business Operations, I also worked with team presidents and their staffs on CRM and relationship-marketing initiatives in their individual markets.

ScopeWorked with league leadership, including David Stern and Adam Silver, along with team presidents, operating staffs, ticketing companies, and other industry partners.

ResultThe function and team remained in place after my departure in 2009. A yield-management problem I encountered at the NBA—how to fill more seats while maximizing revenue and protecting the existing ticketing model—became the basis for ScoreBig.

OpportunitySports Loyalty Group demonstrated the value of a known fan database. The question was whether regional sports content could create a direct consumer relationship and first-party fan database without relying on a financial product.

BuiltCity of Champions: The Best of Boston Sports assembled more than 500 of Boston's greatest professional, college, and amateur sports moments, set to music from Aerosmith, AC/DC, and the Beatles. The plan was to repeat the model across the ten largest regional sports markets.

Key relationshipsMajor professional leagues · Boston teams · MLB Advanced Media · Warner Bros. · BMG

ResultReleased in Boston and well received. We chose not to expand the model to other markets.

OpportunityMBNA had more than eight million sports-affinity credit-card holders. The objective was to create value from that portfolio beyond the underlying credit-card economics.

BuiltFounded with the Kraft Group, Kessler Financial Services, and MBNA. The business was built from inside the New England Patriots organization, using the Patriots as the initial market before expanding across the NFL and MLB.

PartnersThe Kraft Group · Kessler Financial Services · MBNA. Bob and Jonathan Kraft served on the board.

ResultNFL Extra Points and MLB Extra Bases, the first league-wide credit-card rewards programs for the NFL and MLB. Both continued well beyond my involvement.

OpportunityBrands wanted relationships with consumers while preferences and loyalties were still forming. Students wanted access to products at meaningful student-only prices. Neither side had a way to reach the other at scale, and no one could verify who was actually a student.

BuiltA verified student marketplace that allowed brands to sell directly to college students without making the same pricing available to the broader market.

InvestorsMayfield Fund · HarbourVest Partners · General Catalyst

ResultRaised $34 million. Declined an $80 million acquisition offer in the first year. Sold to Student Advantage during the dot-com downturn in 2001.