Bryson Dechambeau: The Ultimate Entrepreneur
Lessons learned from the ultimate athlete/entrepreneur
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Two weeks ago I wrote about MLB teams as Angel Investors. I argued smart MLB teams invest early in their athletes and arm them with the tools to develop. They realize player development is a long term game and returns (both financial and team wins) come from improved individual performance more than cost cutting.
In a world where teams are angel investors, athletes are entrepreneurs. Both athletes and entrepreneurs have incredible work ethic, are ultra competitive, and know there are better ways to make money…and both don’t care.
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While that post was focused on sports taking a lesson from business, today is how business can learn from sports.
Last week I came across a twitter thread from David Perell, where he stated Bryson Dechambeau- the 2020 US Open Champion and current 5th ranked golfer in the world- may be the most innovative athlete on the planet.
And while I agree with David, I think it is important to add one more thing about Dechambeau: he may be the world’s most entrepreneurial athlete…not in terms of ventures outside of golf, but specifically in how he approaches his career.
Any entrepreneur can learn from how Dechambeau approaches his career and performance. Below are my three favorite lessons from Dechambeau’s player development strategy:
Know the big goal. Research how to get there. Then focus elsewhere.
Dechambeau wants to be the world’s best golfer- and he researched how to get it done. He discovered the highest correlated inputs to success were 1) driving distance and 2) putting performance.
He focused on improving these- NOT his ranking. He knew if he accomplished the details, the larger goal will follow.
For Reboot Motion: we want to be the world’s best movement analysis platform. But that goal is too big to drive daily improvements. We believe dominating baseball biomechanics is the correct first step and are focusing solely on this.
Like Dechambeau focuses on driving farther and putting better, we will focus on 1) serving our MLB clients 2) creating a great consumer app with Diamond Kinetics and 3) helping academies develop talent.
If we execute these tasks well, we will be on our way to accomplishing the larger goal.
Measure what matters.
Dechambeau not only knows what small goals will lead to his larger goals, he maniacally focuses on them. For example, to improve his driving distance, Dechambeau focuses on 1) club speed 2) launch angles and 3) weight gain.
And he tracks the data constantly.
For Reboot: We should break out our three baseball business lines and have specific metrics to evaluate our performance.
For pro baseball: we should look at team adoption. What percentage of the front office is interacting with us? What percentage of coaches are?
For academies: we should judge ourselves by the number of athletes using us “regularly” (it is too early to determine what regularly means).
For our co-developed app with Diamond Kinetics: we should use traditional metrics like DAUs or MAUs.
Never stop learning.
Dechambeau is smart, methodical, and driven…but that does not stop him from learning from others. Nor does it stop him from pushing the envelope to learn more.
For Reboot: learning from experts is part of our DNA. Whether it is learning from coaches as we pilot our hitting product, or getting software development help, we will never be so stubborn to believe we have the right answer.
The new thing we will take from Dechambeau is his desire to push the envelope. The work does not stop when you reach a goal. Rather, the milestone should be seen as an invitation to do something more ambitious. This is something all businesses should keep in mind as they grow- we sure will.
Ultimately, if there is one thing to learn from Dechambeau, it is this: in business, in sports, in anything- “overnight successes” are almost always the result of countless hours of hard work and deliberate practice compounding for years.