Career Chronicles
One Year at OneFootball ⚽️
Wrapping up 2022 with reflections on my journey with OneFootball.
It’s hard to believe it’s been (almost) a year since I moved from Los Angeles to Berlin to join the OneFootball team. A lot has happened this year–lots of success and a few learnings. Overall, I couldn’t be happier I made the move to join Lucas and the team on this exciting journey.
It was a year of transformation and change at OneFootball. From how we worked and organized ourselves to how we measured success and validated our hypotheses. The Product & Engineering team desperately needed direction, purpose, and a way forward toward autonomy, agency, and full accountability.
The year started with a concerted effort to overcome inertia to change how we work to improve the impact we’re delivering. That, in turn, led to solid results in the second half of the year and better team cohesion in general.
CHANGE IS HARD, BUT IT’S THE ONLY CONSTANT
A lot went down in the first half of this year, but three standout developments are worth calling out:
- Defining purpose and communicating it clearly to create a sense of belonging and meaning amongst the team.
- Changing our org structure to model the tribe/squad setup made popular by Spotify some years ago.
- Focusing on outcomes vs. outputs by moving toward an OKR framework that helped us communicate and measure the impact we’re delivering for the fan and the business.
#1 Defining Purpose
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” — Simon Sinek
I’ve been living and breathing the seminal words of Simon Sinek for over seven years now. Understanding why we do what we do isn’t only essential in the context of the fans we serve; it’s critical for the people on the journey with us — our employees, investors, partners, and clients.
At OneFootball, we get out of bed and come to work every day to make football accessible, safe, and enjoyable again by disrupting the status quo in collaboration with the football ecosystem. Removing the vitriol plaguing the sport to make more room for its inherent joy is an obsession of ours. That’s why we removed User Generated Content (UGC) from the product experience until further notice. We allow fans to pay for the matches they want to watch and not for all football content, no matter how irrelevant it may be to them.
All human beings seek purpose. Some do it intentionally, and some don’t even know they‘re doing it, but we’re all seeking it one way, shape, or form. Understanding that fact is the first order of business for any team of greats.
#2 Changing Our Org Structure
Conway’s Law captures most of what ails tech organizations these days. The organization design can and does, to a certain extent, influence the quality of the work delivered and its impact on the target customer.
That’s why when I first joined OneFootball, we decided to move toward a more representative org structure that comprised a cross-sectional representation of the org where tribes were responsible for solving a specific yet large fan problem.
It all goes back to the ancient parable about the blind men and the elephant, where the men argued their version of what the elephant was about without considering that the other men’s versions were also true.
Unfortunately, most organizations operate with a form of blindness called “siloes” that ultimately hinders the organization’s ability to solve problems properly. This is because the problem hasn’t been looked at from all angles to drive for a real solution.
We’ve been using the Tribe/Squad structure for ten months now. Although not perfect (no framework is), it’s made our communication and level-setting across the departments much smoother. That, in turn, translated in better value delivered to the fan.
But structure is just part of the equation. We needed talent as well. I was apprehensive about hiring talent in Europe since my entire network is US-based. I didn’t know anyone in the EU and my network was nonexistent.
So I relied heavily on referrals from folks I began to admire within OneFootball. People whose judgment I knew I could trust. Ten months later, I couldn’t have dreamt of the team I have today in the wildest of dreams. Truly class-act leaders across product, design, data, engineering, and operations. I’m forever grateful they trust me to lead them along our journey. Thank you, team 🙏🏼❤️
“Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was — and still is — the most important thing we do.” — Marc Benioff
#3 Focusing on outcomes vs. outputs
With purpose and great talent in the right roles, it was time to get us operating with target outcomes (e.g. measurable results) instead of target outputs (e.g. a work activity). Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
Examples of Outputs:
- Redesign the app’s home screen.
- Roll out 3 additional features the boss has been asking for.
Examples of Outcome:
- Improve Retention Rate by 5% by the end of December 2022.
- Reduce Error Rate to 3% or lower by the end of January 2023.
The different between outcomes and outputs is that outcomes are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-boxed) results the team is set to achieve. How to achieve those outcomes should be left to the teams to decide. It usually involves a set of hypotheses that need to be validated to move the needle on the said outcomes.
Being outcome-focused freed the teams to experiment and unshackled the organization from the plague, “but my boss said we should do this…”
It did, and still does, require a ton of consistency and training to not fall back to old habits — remember, old habits die hard. But with the right processes in place — so far, so great!
STEADY MOMENTUM AND VALUABLE LESSONS
With much of the foundational framework in place, we started to see consistent growth on top of what the company has already achieved over the years. It was a great way for the team to see the fruits of their labor manifest as an impact for the fan.
From growing the number of identified fans to double-digit millions to improving engagement by 40% across the board, the tribes have been running full steam, delivering value to our fans every sprint.
There’s so much that went down in 2022 that is worth calling out, but in the interest of time, I wanted to memorialize the following few — but very important — points:
Notable Momentum Drivers
- De-anonymizing tens of millions of users and turning them into the fans they are, and in turn, providing them with a much better, relevant, personalized, and connected experience throughout our omnichannel platform. Focusing on fan identity this year was the singular most critical foundational work we did. We still have a lot to do in that area, but the foundation we’ve built this year lends itself to scaled growth in 2023.
- Visualizing our experience vision through interactive design prototypes that rally the team around a meaningful vision for what the product will look like in +18 months as well as create a shared understanding of what that vision actually looks like. The design team — in collaboration with product, research, engineering, business, and sales — led that effort and rolling that out as we speak.
- Launching a weekly newsletter in six languages to keep our fans informed of the happenings throughout the world of football. From transfers to rumors to match day prep and game highlights, fans are kept in the loop without having to visit our products.
- Relaunching a brand new website that’s responsive and fully monetized. This helped bring the web experience much closer to our brand identity and connect the fan’s journey across devices and screens.
- Launching TV apps to enable fans to experience the joy of football in any medium they prefer. I must say, I’m so very proud of our TV apps — from the onboarding to the UX, it’s best in class across the board.
- Focusing on the Fan Funnel as follows to drive the flywheel of growth with clarity and focus:
— Attract qualified traffic into the funnel
— De-anonymize that traffic by requiring fan registration
— Create daily habits for fans based on their interests
— Monetize the experience efficiently
These callouts are by no means exhaustive. On the contrary, they’re literally the tip of the iceberg of change we’ve seen this year.
Valuable Lessons
All teams — no matter the industry or discipline — are constantly going through Tuckman’s stages of group development. Starting with the Forming and Storming stages, which are the most volatile stages of team development, and into Norming and Performing, with Performing being the optimal state all teams strive to be in.
When team members leave a team or new members join an existing team or when a brand new team is formed, the entire team resets its development progress and starts all over from the Forming stage. This means that teams are always in a precarious state of harmony.
This is important and apropos of everything in our case here at OneFootball. We spent the majority of the year Forming and Storming as teams and tribes and squads. We’ve had people leave our team and we’ve had new people join our team and we’ve formed many brand new teams within our company.
Looking back, I think there are a few callouts worth noting when it comes to ways we can make the Forming and Storming stages a lot smoother and more enjoyable for everyone involved. I think this applies to all teams out there. Here they are:
Callout #1 — “Clear is Kind; Unclear is Unkind” — Brené Brown
Clarity in communicating expectations, assumptions, risks, and aspirations is, in fact, an act of kindness. It applies to couples, families, friends, and yes, professional teams as well. If all team members air on the side of “being clear”, getting to the Performing stage would definitely be faster.
Callout #2 — “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.” — Brené Brown
This is also worth calling out because most people I meet tend to shy away from setting boundaries from the get. It’s also important to know which boundaries truly matter to you and which ones are just a preference.
The old adage, “choose your battles,” applies here, but if something bugs you, it’s better to be clear in communicating that to your teammates, spouse, friends, etc, in order for it not to fester. Because if it does fester, you’ll be looking at a lot more damage to the relationship beyond the risk of disappointment.
Callout #3 — “The best way to keep superstars happy is to challenge them and make sure they are constantly learning.” — Kim Malone Scott
Honest, direct feedback is the only way a team can truly get to the Performing stage in the team evolution, and this is why Radical Candor comes to mind as an important callout here. What matters here is how leaders learn to receive honest and candid feedback from their teams and peers. That’s what creates trust in teams.
Radical candor can be weaponized by some bad actors to assault and attack people for who they are instead of their actions. Take a look at the quadrant below so that you don’t fall into one of those undesirable states:
To gain the license to give someone candid feedback, you must — MUST — care personally about this person first. That’s why getting to know people, building rapport with them, and showing genuine interest in them as people is the only way for them to be receptive to any type of candid feedback from you.
This is especially important for new teams going through the Forming and Storming stages. At the end of the day, we’re just people with feelings, pride, egos, dreams, fears, and insecurities. Keep that in mind.
Callout #4 — “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
Never delay a decision that should be made today. Of course, thorough consideration is required and is prudent, but there comes a time when a decision is needed. That’s the time the decision needs to be made.
This applies to every single person on the team. Most decisions are reversible. Make the decision with the information you have and never look back. Share the rationale with the team (clear is kind) but make it and move on. If learnings along the way are gleaned, share them and own your mistakes. This behavior builds trust and leads to the Performing stage faster.
GRATITUDE
As I take stock of everything we’ve gone through as a team this year, I feel overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude to everyone that’s been part of my journey thus far.
I’m grateful for the generous, warm people who have taken me under their wing and made me feel instantly welcome and at home in my new setting in Berlin and Europe (you know who you are ❤️😘❤️).
I’m also forever thankful for my husband who’s been my rock and refuge through some of the most demanding mental and physical adjustments I’ve had to make in our 23 years together. As Maria would say, “somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good” to deserve him 🥰🙏🏼
There’s so much to be grateful for. Here’s to another year of growth, learning, and joy! ⚽️🚀🚀🚀
