Cheerleading Is a Sport: How To Build a Billion-Dollar Category From Scratch With Jeff Webb

Jeff Webb is the Founder and President of the International Cheer Union (ICU), the world governing body for cheerleading. Under his leadership, the ICU has grown to represent over 116 national federations and achieved recognition by the International Olympic Committee. Jeff also founded the Universal Cheerleading Association and Varsity Brands (formerly Varsity Spirit), where he elevated cheerleading into a global sport before selling the company for $2.5 billion.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:26] How Jeff Webb founded Varsity Spirit after running cheerleading camps and how he created new opportunities for the sport
[15:30] The origins of cheerleading competitions and how TV exposure fueled growth
[19:10] Why Jeff introduced new stunts to cheerleading
[21:35] Jeff talks about creating a culture of continuous improvement
[25:29] How Jeff balances innovation with operations
[29:00] Growing the cheerleading category versus expanding into other sports
[33:21] The moments Jeff is most proud of, including launching the first World Championship
[35:36] Jeff’s approach to hiring and building culture
[41:41] How Jeff sold Varsity Spirit for $2.5 billion
[43:57] Advice to young entrepreneurs on value creation and differentiation
[47:27] Jeff talks about growing up in Dallas

In this episode…

Cheerleading has become a widely recognized global sport, but scaling it into a multibillion-dollar category was no easy feat. From undercapitalization to supplier failures and resistance from industry leaders, it required resilience, creativity, and bold leadership. How did the king of cheerleading transform his niche passion into a worldwide movement recognized by the Olympic Committee?

Modern cheerleading pioneer Jeff Webb reinvented team uniforms to match athletic performance and created competitions that captured TV audiences. He emphasizes the importance of staying close to the field, practicing continuous improvement, and cultivating a strong culture through rigorous hiring and leadership standards. By treating cheerleading like other popular global sports, Jeff scaled it into a distinct category.

Join William Harris in today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as he chats with Jeff Webb, Founder and President of the International Cheer Union (ICU), about how he built cheerleading into a global sport. Jeff discusses how he created a new market through innovation and shares leadership philosophies and hiring practices.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“When the wind is at your back, run, because it's not going to always be.”
“Most true entrepreneurs who build lasting companies don’t start out with the end fully envisioned.”
“The key is to do more good things than mistakes, and correct mistakes honestly and quickly.”
“Everybody says you have to attract good people. Duh, right? The question is how?”
“Be kind. That’s the most important leadership trait, more than all the others together.”

Action Steps

Stay close to your customers: Spending time in the field provides unfiltered feedback and sparks innovative ideas. Jeff Webb credited his success to being present, observing needs firsthand, and adapting quickly.
Build culture through high expectations: Set a standard where excellence is the norm and peers hold each other accountable. Expecting a lot attracts top performers and sustains long-term growth.
Practice continuous improvement: After every event or initiative, review what worked and what didn’t, then implement changes. This mindset of constant refinement helps prevent stagnation and fuels sustainable success.
Capitalize on new problems you create: Solving one challenge often generates fresh opportunities to innovate and expand. Uniforms and competitions grew directly from issues caused by new cheerleading techniques.
Celebrate achievements along the way: Taking time to recognize wins energizes teams and keeps morale high. Jeff admits he wishes he celebrated more, as it reinforces progress and strengthens commitment.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:16

Hey everyone, I'm William Harris. I'm the Founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 to 100 million and way beyond, as you up arrow your business and your personal life, today's guest built an empire from something most people never saw coming when Jeff Webb founded Varsity Spirit, there was no blueprint, no billion dollar market, just an idea that something powerful was happening in cheerleading, and that if you treated it with the respect and structure of a sport, you could build something transformative. Fast forward, Jeff didn't just build a company. He built a category. Cheerleading is now a globally recognized sport on its way to the Olympics and Varsity Spirit, the company he started from his apartment, became a juggernaut that he sold for 2.5 billion. But what makes Jeff remarkable isn't just the numbers, it's the way he did it. He didn't start with capital. He didn't even start with a business plan. He started with purpose to do something meaningful that added value to people's lives. And along the way, he pioneered how to scale a niche, how to grow movement, and how to lead with vision, even when everyone else is focused on the short term. Today, Jeff is the president of the International Cheer Union and a mentor to the next generation of leaders and founders. Jeff Webb, welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast.

Jeff Webb 1:27

Thank you. Great to be here with you. Thank you for that great introduction. Yeah, very

William Harris 1:31

excited to talk to you, because this is a very interesting concept, where a lot of times I've got, you know, these different growth hacks here or there, and a lot of them center on marketing, but I haven't talked to somebody who's like, hey, let's actually just make this into a complete national competition and turn this around. So this is going to be a fun one. I do want to give a shout out to Jacob Berkowitz, over at Rubenstein PR, for putting us in touch. So Jacob, thank you very much. Excited to bring this out to you. Everybody. Last interruption before we get into the good stuff. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that IPO Ed. You can learn more on our website, at Elumynt.com, which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, n, t.com, okay, Jeff, let's start at the beginning. How did Varsity Spirit start? And more specifically, what problem were you solving in the beginning?

Jeff Webb 2:26

Well, the predecessor to Varsity Spirit was a company I called Universal Sports Camps, but it was, you know, it was designed just to conduct these instructional camps for college and high school cheerleaders. And while I was in college, my summer job was working for a gentleman and his company that really kind of started the idea of doing cheerleading camps. His name was Lawrence Herkimer, and he had been a cheerleader SMU in Dallas, and was a had been a former gymnast, and it done some tumbling when they came onto the field, things that people see all the time now. And became a physical education teacher after that. And then he got these he got inquiries for people to go and help their cheerleaders kind of be better anyway. So he created these camps, and I was working for him and almost at the University of Oklahoma, and as I was about to graduate, he graduated, he I got a call from him. I was getting ready to go to law school, and he was in Dallas his office, and he asked if he could come up and buy me lunch. And so sure, so he did. And you know, he asked me if I would take a year off of college, between college and law school, and come to work in his office. And he was doing these one day clinics around the country, and could I help him do some of that? But he had seen me running some of his camps, and really thought that I could have a lot, and he offered to pay me what's what seemed like a lot of money for the time, I can say that. And I'd pretty much been dirt poor for four years at college, trying to work my way through and two or three jobs and other, yeah, have a little money in my pocket when I go to law school. Might not be a bad thing. So I went to I moved to move to Dallas, which is where I was originally from, and I moved back and went to work for him. He had four or five other people working in his office older than me, and so I just started helping him, and I would go to camps and clinics and and just kind of kind of carry the torch. And eventually, after a year and a half, came to me and said, You know, I've been waiting 25 years for you to come along and made me General Manager the company, which shows, Wow, here I am, 23 years old, General Manager this company, right? And that was great with me, but not so great with the people that had been there 10 years. Sure, some kid comes in from college anyway. So I, you know, kind of started trying to do some things. I had no idea I was real as an entrepreneur. And, you know, I've been, I wanted to kind of change things and modernize things that they've been done the same way, literally, for, for 20 years. And had a hard time getting that done. A lot of resistance, you know, it's classical story, resistance from the people who, you know, were older and thought that things were going great, and why? Why should we how we doing? Yeah, yeah. So eventually it just kind of wasn't worth it. So I resigned, and I was went on through the summer and did his camps, but when I came back thinking about, you know, what I could do, and some of my friends who were also instructors of camps I had started doing, like, just kind of some experimentation with some acrobatic stuff. And you know, the things you see on the sideline now, the predecessors to those. And you know, I had some people that were close friends. Just encourage me to take what I've learned and some of my new ideas and see if I could make up, make a go of it. And that was really, that was about how complicated the decision was. There wasn't a big market study or or anything like that. And so I raised a little bit of money from friends and family. And again, the idea just to do, do these, these summer camps, we want to capitalize a company with $100,000 this is 1974 we thought that'd be more money than we ever needed. That was, of course, that was totally wrong. But so we didn't get quite that far. I think we ended up with 85 and in those days, that was really before LLCs and S corps and people, when they invested in companies, if they didn't want to have liability, witness C Corp, it was a limited partnership, and that's we created. And the partnership units were $5,000 each, and I had put all my life savings at that point, which was $10,000 bought two units. My father bought a couple of units. And, you know, with a friend from a Midland Texas, Klein Boyd and his dad was in the oil business as well. And so we were able to sell those units to, mostly to our parents friends and moved. Decided to set up the the the operation in Memphis, Tennessee, because it was kind of in the middle of the area where I had my most contacts. I'd done most of my teaching. And again, that was about how that was, about how complicated the or sophisticated that decision was. So I set up the first World Headquarters, what became Varsity, which was the second bedroom of my apartment, and started doing free clinics around the South introducing these new acrobatic tricks and stunts and pyramids, and teaching teams how to do them and how to use them. The idea was, if they came to this clinic, then they would possibly come back and actually pay money to come to camp in the summer. We went through all the money by the time we got to the start of the summer. I mean, literally out of money. And then we started getting registrations, and we're able to make it go. We had 4000 people in our camps that summer, pretty successful. We actually made a profit the first year, I think it was about $1 and a half, something like that. And, but we're kind of off and running and and it worked pretty well. People loved what they were, what they were doing. We got a great return rate, which is kind of how we built the franchise. And the problem again was I kept right. I kept going through all the money. If we were growing and we'd made money, then whatever additional money we'd made, I spent up to the next summer. So we eventually, we did our first kind of LBO. And, yeah, leverage buy out, and we're able to, I was time to, it was time to buy out the partners. That was 89 I think time to buy out the people who had invested, and they were all getting, all getting older, and they pretty much invested and said, you know, didn't expect to get anything sure, you know, good luck. You know, we did a good job helping this young guy get started. And when I called him to tell him we were cash demand, it was for each unit $5,000 unit was $300,000 Wow. So, you know, there was, there was some pretty good enthusiasm at that. We, we, we eventually, as our camps continued to grow and we expanded across the country, those camps were done on college campuses, and we would, in effect, rent or lease facilities that the colleges weren't using in the summer, athletic facilities, extra dorms, food service and so on. So it was good for them. And they were able to kind of leverage the infrastructure that we had, and we would get kind of, you know, good prices. Put it like that. So we eventually then added uniforms. What we found was that with the kind of the new brand, the new style, with all the athleticism that the existing uniforms that two or three companies have been around for a while were making didn't really allow there was no performance. Fabric and uniforms are boring. The footwear had a soul. On the bottom didn't work. So we really went into the uniform business. Again, not much of a plan, but because our customers wanted us to and nobody was providing the kind of uniforms to allow them to be able to do what we were teaching. And so we we found a contractor that was back when there was a lot of cut and sew work that was done in this country, South the southern US, and we designed our first catalog. We used the kind of fabric I was talking about, and put out our catalog to all of our camp customers. They started ordering uniforms, and nothing went out the back door from our contractor. And, you know, I called after, after a few weeks, I started calling and asking him what the delay is. And of course, I got we're having some inventory issues, but it'll be solved next week, or this went on and on for about a month, and he called me now. Keep in mind, we had invested everything we'd saved from our camps into this new part of our company. And he called me and said, it's a Sunday afternoon. Said, Well, get some bad news. You know, we're going into bankruptcy. So, so we had that. We had a reputation on the line. We had our new kind of venture on the line. And there we were, customers are already sent their money in, and we'd sent the money in. Yeah. So I was fortunate enough to find someone in North Carolina through a mutual friend who was had been in the cut and sew business. He was managing a sweater factory, and I went and met with him and told him what our problem was, and could he help? And he pretty much said, Well, you know, I've always wanted to have my own company, and I get a pretty big basement in my house. So I bought him a few sewing machines and a cutter, and we got fabric, and he got the uniforms out, and so that was our second near death experience. So

William Harris 12:34

like, there's like, three hours worth of podcast material we can go into just in this section alone, there's a couple of pieces that I want to lean into, though one of them that you talked about is you, you started this because there was something that you saw more of, like a need in and so you're solving a problem because you're in this industry, and you're like, I want to be able to do this. And I think there's a better way to do this. But what a lot of entrepreneurs, I think, don't realize is that they are as much problem creators as they are problem solvers. And so what's interesting is you created a problem, but the problem you created was we are introducing these moves that people need to do, and the problem that we've created is they don't have the uniforms and the care to be able to do this. Therefore, now we're going to solve this next problem. So a lot of people, I think, they go about solving the first problem, if all you're doing is just solving one problem that becomes very small in its initial scope. And what's interesting is you don't necessarily even know all the problems you're going to create, but being aware of, okay, we've solved this problem, what additional problems have we created by solving this problem? That's where your next opportunity is. And I feel like that's what you're kind of getting at.

Jeff Webb 13:41

That's, that's pretty way of putting it, actually, you know, I I tell people when I speak to hear young entrepreneurs, you know, I say, listen, because you've got, you think, I've just got this one idea, it's not going to be big enough, you know, it's like most, really. I think the word entrepreneur is overused now, by the way, but most true entrepreneurs who build these lasting companies that you know, that are that are into a lot of different things, most of them don't start out with the with the end, you know, they they've got, they get an idea like you're talking about, they get into that, whether they create a problem or they see another opportunity along The way to bolt it on to what they've already done, then that's how they build their enterprise, and that's pretty much what happened to us. Same thing after we did the uniforms we ended up getting into, came up with the idea of having cheerleaders compete. Nobody had done that before. Why? And because, because we wanted to get on television, and because we didn't have any money still, and so by being on television, people would pay us to come to them, and that's we hoped. And it worked out pretty well. We created a competition,

William Harris 14:52

and this is really what I want to dig into, like, like, the bulk of what I want to get into for this is because we talk about a lot of different growth ideas that. People can have. And we'll talk about the advertising things they can do, and the influencer stuff they can do, the affiliates. There's a lot of other ways. But the most unique thing that I think, that you did from an approach to growth here was you lodged a competition for it. And I want to know, I want you to take me back to if you can, in your mind, what was going through in your head made you say, This is it. This is the idea, like, continue to run out of money, but this is the one that I want to put some money into. This is going to turn our business around. Like, what was going on?

Jeff Webb 15:30

Well, again, we never envision competition as a is a real like, you know, profit center, revenue generator, significant. The idea was create the competition to let use that competition through television to showcase what this new style was, because people, not everybody, can see it. Now, we were having tremendous success in the area we were in, and we knew that, that we really had something, right? And, you know, one of my sayings in business is when the wind is at your back, run, because it's not going to always be at your back. And we had the wind at our back, we had to find a way to make it work. And so we thought about television, and then we said, well, you know, we're doing these camps. That's not going to be a very exciting television show. What can we do? And so our instructional team at our camps have been doing some demonstrations where we did cheerleading to music that hadn't been really done. And so he said, Why don't we take those kind of routines and let these, these teams develop that, and that's how we'll judge it. So that's what we did, and the we signed it, we were lucky enough, through a friend of mine to get a to an introduction to a sports syndication company that was before cable was even very ubiquitous. And we got it on TV. It got great ratings. People saw us, they saw the style, and they paid us to come to them. So it worked, and we eventually the TV, the gentleman who had the company, the television company, left that and went to an upstart cable company in Bristol, Connecticut called ESPN. Yeah. So we went with him. I think ESPN was in 4 million homes when we went with him. I think they had, like, billiards, alligator wrestling and cheerleading or something like that. So, yeah. So we kind of grew up with ESPN. So is he, and that's the perfect example that I plan that when we're going to build this franchise, and then we're going to connect with this up and coming cable concept, and then it's going to blow us up? No, you know, we didn't. It was kind of one step at a time. But I tell, I tell people, and I think you were, you're referring to this really, is that, you know, when you're building a company, you have to, you have to have your antenna up, you know, you want to focus on doing what you do well, but then you also have to have the kind of curiosity and the ambition, I guess, to go, Okay, what else is out there? How can I do this better? What can add to what I'm doing? What kind of value can be added here? And is this something we can pursue, and can we do it? So that's kind of how we that's kind of we built it between the camps, the uniforms and the competitions and cross marketing. Between those three, we built Varsity Spirit.

William Harris 18:32

Vision is always so good in 2020 right? When you look backwards, I can see how where it's like, okay, you do these camps, you're introducing these new moves. As a result of introducing new moves, there are a couple of problems that show up. One was the uniforms that they don't have the gear for. Another one is, we're doing these really cool moves. We're actually kind of taking some big risks here. We get injured. What's it for if we can't show off a little bit, right? Like we want to show off? And so Okay, let's create this way, this competition. But what?

Jeff Webb 19:02

Why? Why? Let's

William Harris 19:04

I want to go back to the very, very first one. Like, why introduce these moves into Chile? Like, what was the goal?

Jeff Webb 19:10

You know, it was when we started out. Was just fun to me, to tell you the truth, it's so fun, by the way, ask the people who participate. It was fun. And then when we did, it was like, Wow, this can be used during a kickoff or, whoa, we could, this could be used to really get the crowd to do this, or, you know, so this could be used during our fight song, and it just added athleticism and entertainment to it. And that was pretty much it, you know, and that that's kind of the genesis. Then, of course, it became, we were able to develop the techniques. People see all these, all these pyramids and all these, you know, these acrobatic stunts. What they don't realize is, you don't just hop up in there. You know, they're actual techniques that you use. They're different than true the. Acrobat sheets, by the way. But anyways, there are ways that you get into these. There's ways that you connect them. There's ways that you dismount. All those kind of techniques we were developed, able to develop those through experimentation and just focus and you know, some would say talent. We were able to to develop these techniques so that we could teach them quickly to teams, and if you could get them in an environment. So Okay, today we're going to learn this and this. And they're like, there's no way we can do that, right? Well, but in 30 minutes later, voila, there they are. And the when it when it happens, they're just kind of this, boom. They're like, my god, I can't believe we can do this. Look at this. We can, we can use this in front of our crowd. So it kind of became this, this phenomenon that people, they like doing it, it had a big impact when they got back to the schools and just kind of built on itself.

William Harris 20:56

So I have two questions then about this, and I'm going to ask them both, but I want to start with one, but I just want to ask them both so I don't forget them. One is, how did you keep your antenna up? Like you mentioned, as you're solving this problem, you know, was this? Was this customer feedback? Were you? Were you soliciting customer feedback? Or whether it was unsolicited, they're just giving to you. They're saying, we need gear to do this. We can't do that. You're like, Okay, you can't do it. I'll do this. Were you asking, like, hey, what problems do you have? Or when you get to the competition, same things that are you just out there scouting and seeing what people are doing in other industries, and say, oh, somebody else is doing this over here. What if I bring that over here? Like, how are you keeping your 10 up? And I want to start with that one, but I'm going to ask the other one so I don't forget it. I already forgot it. Let's start with

Jeff Webb 21:35

that one. Okay, okay, yeah. So you know when I, when I started the company. I was 24 years old, and I hired the top 20 college cheerleading college cheerleaders and drilling instructors. They became my summer teaching staff. Was a summer job, right? And so I wasn't that much older than they were, right? Right. There we were really a bunch of bunch of kids, sure, and traveling all over the country and teaching all them, and it was a lot of fun. And but there was kind of, I mean, I was the boss. There was no doubt I was paying their paycheck, but I was, I was the boss, but it was a real kind of egalitarian approach. We're all friends and so that, and that wasn't something was done consciously when, like, we're going to have this egalitarian culture. It just, it just worked and but that, that part of it remained, and I was actually in the field. I didn't like set up the camps and say, go out there and send the money back. I mean, I was out there with them, right? I was teaching. I was I was there running the staff meetings, signing the staff and and teaching the the teams and that kind of I mean, I stayed involved till the very end in the field, and it was partially because I just felt like I could contribute something. That was what I was getting back but, but secondly, the the other benefit is that you're there, you're watching. You don't have to do a survey, you know, you don't have to go dig in and, you know, do and go to school on another company. You're there. You see it, you hear it. And we also, again, being a small company, when we started, we, you know, we had to, we had this kind of concept, which is called continuous improvement today. Of course, it's got its it's got a name, but it was all we have to do better every time. How can we be better in every single thing that we do? And we did that ongoing. We did it at the end of a camp where we'd sit down and go, Okay, what went right? What can we do better? How are we going to do it? And so some of those early concepts from being a very small, young company, we're able to become a part of our culture. So I think that that, you know, being in the field, I mean, I called the have called it kind of the over and under approach for me, as when I talk to people who are actually building companies. So for me, the the over, that's the top, that's where you're at, the customer, and that's the you gotta be there. You gotta hear what's going on. And, you know, that's part of the that's the strategy. It's kind of come up with the vision. How do we do it? And then the under, really is one on one, you're there. The middle is going to be things like accounting and technology and all the things that are important, but they're commodities right, or commodities, but contact with the customer, right, strategy, vision. Those are the things that I think that the true entrepreneur. It normally brings to the party. I

William Harris 25:02

remembered my second question, which is, how did you prioritize some of these new things? Because it can be a very easy sometimes, as an entrepreneur, as a founder, somebody who's running a business, and you're you're generating income, you've got bills to pay. To say we're doing this. This is doing well. We've already got, you know, the gear. Let's just stay focused on our lane. And you'll hear this from VCs, and it's good advice, stay focused, right? But how do you look at this and say, Yeah, but, you know, how do you prioritize some of these other Yeah, buts,

Jeff Webb 25:29

well, look, can you walk and chew gum at the same time? I mean, you know, it's like, yeah, sometimes, yeah, right, right. But I guess what I'm saying is, if you've got a good organization, yes, you want to be focused on doing what you do well, but did you then you want to be looking at, how do we do it better, and how do we add more value? And it's not like we're just trying to build a company. We're just trying to do more, we're trying to do more of what we do, and we're trying to do it better, and we're trying to build the enterprise for the enterprise sake. I think when you just try to build the enterprise for money, yeah, you got about a 5050, shot there when you're really trying to build it and add value, if you just use discipline, you make some mistakes. But, you know, I think that enhances the your chance for success.

William Harris 26:20

Yeah, you talked about making mistakes. What's a mistake that you made along the way?

Jeff Webb 26:25

You don't have enough time.

William Harris 26:28

How about one? Where? Where do I begin? Right?

Jeff Webb 26:32

Oh, God, you know, first of all, as I said, I was under capitalized. Now, having said that, I tried to raise as much as I could, probably didn't make any difference. But, you know, it was even thinking that $100,000 would be enough. But to be honest, there was no way I knew it was going to take off like it was going to right. So you can, can give me some slack on that one, right? The other one was, again, when I got into the uniform business, real, I went and picked this contractor. It was a, it was a, it was a company in eastern Tennessee, they made all kinds of athletic uniforms. You know, I was familiar with the brand of the phone. This is a great company. I, you know, I should have asked to see their balance sheet. I didn't. I didn't know enough to right? I should have, I should have seen their P and L. I should have been a little bit should have had more skepticism. Let's put it like that. But I do think you know again, if you're, if you do things long enough, it's just like, it's like everything, everything in life, right? You're gonna, you're gonna do some things, well, you're gonna make some mistakes, and the key is to do more good things than make mistakes, and then when you make the mistakes, try to correct it and and be honest about it. And that's pretty much the way we were able to do it, thankfully. Yeah,

William Harris 27:51

when I think about a lot of the businesses that we work with, they're they're growing, and this is a really good spot for them. They're getting to that 10 million, maybe 2030, $40 million range. And they sometimes find this plateau. They're a little bit stuck, right? And one of the things usually find a plateau, yeah? Well, exactly. You usually go to find a plateau there. And so we talked about a lot of ways to break out of that plow and that plateau. And some of the ways we just talked about last week here with Rishabh Jain was, you know, you can reach into new audiences. That's a great way to break out of it. Another way is you can launch new products, right? And so, like you had all those opportunities at Farsi spirit, too, or the way you didn't talk was, you can create the category and make the category bigger. How? How can people think about that from a perspective of how to make their category bigger when to know whether that should be their focus, versus just adding a new audience. You could have said, Hey, we want to do, you know, sports competition apparel now for a pickleball, for whatever, that wasn't a thing, tennis whatever, right? Like, start expanding that way. What made you say, we want to go and build this category bigger, rather than saying, hey, our cam is too small. I want to make our tam bigger.

Jeff Webb 29:00

Yeah, doing it more vertically, rather than horizontal, right? So, yeah, so I wasn't smart enough do the other I think you know, because we were creating it really, as I look back on it, and it was, it just took. In most cases, it really just had a take and because we were able to, you know, again, I look back, like the uniform business that wasn't, we didn't start out going, I think we had uniforms. This is going to be a great yeah, it's going to be the biggest part of our company. You know, it was like, we got to do these uniforms. People want them. Our customers need them. It will help more people do this, right? Yeah, well, it's kind of incremental, the same on the same on competition. We tried a few times. You know, we, at one point, my, my kids are really into soccer, and I was younger and and we actually got in the soccer business. We brought, we bought the USL, which. Is the minor leagues of soccer. We owned it, and we also bought the on the field license for Umbro, which was really Yeah, and neither one of them went very well. We were, we were lucky enough to be able to sell the Umbro license back to a British private equity firm for more money than we would have taken and and it's just, you know, we answer. We also got into doing, creating events, conventions, learning, learning conferences and competitions for dance studios, you know, it worked, okay? We thought, you know, look, we know how to do. We know how to teach. We know how to do technique. We know how to hire staff. We know how to run an event. We know how to create, you know, the production that helps make a successful event. What we didn't count on was that there were already a number of people doing that, and they were doing a pretty good job. And that also that in that particular market, different than cheerleading. The teams want to try something different every year. For us, it was like, we're going to be so great. When they come to us, they want to go they won't go anywhere else. That that was just the difference in culture, and we weren't from that dance culture. We should have known better. It was a mistake. And yeah, we didn't really lose money, but it didn't, it didn't really take so, you know, we did. We did do some things like, you know, when we expanded, we expanded internationally. That was a big, a big step for us, but, but you're right, we eventually, and then with the company, you know, we merged with Riddell, the football company. We sold Riddell, wow, you could say, did that work? I don't know. It was a good idea. When we did it, something changed. Liability became my product liability became a little more important in our society, and that was, we were a public company then, and the idea of having a company where people could have head injuries. Even though it was under control, it just kind of suppressed the stock. So we got out of that. So I don't know, I think either one works. We just knew the cheer space, and we because we created it. But we kept creating it. We kept adding to it. He kept adding different things, different pieces, different events. When we started in television, that first competition was for high school teams, and it was an invitation the top 20 teams that we knew it was pretty contrived. Eventually we added regional qualifying tournaments, we added a college championship, we had a dance team championship. So it was just kind of bolt on, sort of components that that we were building around the core. And the core was still teaching camps, the actually teaching teams to be effective when they go back to school as a longer answer than you wanted.

William Harris 32:56

No, that's great when you when we think about cheerleading as it is today. I hesitate to say it this, but like, I feel like this is true. It is what it is today because of the work that you and your team have done. You know, like, like it literally. You guys created cheerleading what it is today. What's one of the moments you're the most proud of when you look back at all of that?

Jeff Webb 33:21

Who you know, I always love the I always love the team. You know, I love team sports, and it was always so gratifying, you know, with a team to come up with an idea or to do a camp or a competition. And you know, one of the great things about both camps and competitions, especially if you've got a short attention span, is that there's a start and there's an end, right? And the camp is like four days, competition two days. But you you you plan it, you promote it, you execute it, and then it's over. And you know, if you've done it enough, when it's over, if you did a good job or not, you'll know if it was a success, whether you and your team were able to pull it off. And there's a lot to be said for that. You know, to be able to get that kind of feedback, it gives you motivation to to to keep going. So, I mean, I had so many of those moments where we have, maybe we have our biggest competition, or, you know, the first time we had our World Championship, and we're able to pull that off with all these different countries, those are all I feel very, very fortunate and blessed to have to be able to have those great moments where, you know, like a professional athlete after the Super Bowl, it's like, wow, worked really hard for that, and we did it together. You know, this was our idea, and we did something that was great. We did something that was valuable, where people want to be a part of it, where they got something out of it. It, hopefully they had a good time.

William Harris 35:03

You don't get to be able to launch, like, let's just say, like, three different businesses and then some now, without having really good hiring practices, right? Because there's going to be a lot of scale that needs to happen. You're gonna have to rely on a lot of people. You've hired 1000s of people, I'd imagine in your course. What's some advice that you would have for people that are really trying to breakthrough $10 million mark, and maybe from a hiring perspective, it's like this is likely where you're getting stuck, and you need to think about this when you're hiring. Yeah,

Jeff Webb 35:36

we were really lucky in that for a long time. I mean, probably still today. You know, we started with those we started with the camps, and those were the people that came into those camps that were teaching were kind of the best of the best college cheerleaders, eventually college coaches, and they would come in, and typically, they'd work during the summer. They worked from the first of June till the end of August. They do a number of camps. They had to get up every day. They had to do their best job. They had to work on a team, they had to represent the company. They had to they had to execute, right? It's a lot to ask of a 19 year old kid, but for sure, right? And but from the very beginning, when they got to their first training session, we talked. We talked a lot. Not only we worked a lot, not only on how they were all talent. It was how to teach how to make sure that you how to treat Junior and high school kids, how, what they're interested, how you how you take a four day session and make it a production, is where it's got ups and downs emotionally, where it's meaningful, and the long and short. And not everybody makes it, you know. Somebody may work for one summer, somebody may work for two, you know, but you eventually end up with the very best by the time they've been doing it three or four years. And those are usually people who are leaders on their campus. You know, they're good students, they're responsible, they've, you know, they're they're personable. So we had, at one time, we had nearly 2000 instructors out there in the summer, and all those people, I think most of them would tell you they had that that experience for them was one of the best of their lives, and for many of them, had a tremendous impact on where they ended up. I'm not I'm not bragging. I'm just quoting here, okay, and so I guess what I'm saying is we really had an incredible pipeline for hiring people and great young people that we could bring into the company. We knew what their work ethic was. We knew if they were honest or not, because they've been around collecting money and selling merchandise and all this stuff. We knew how responsible they were, and so we kind of get our pick, and we are able to keep so many of those people, sorry about that, to keep so many of those people for their entire careers. I mean, we we couldn't run them off with a stick, right? I mean, they were there, and so many of them were able to to grow with the company. It's like someone said to me, Well, you know, most entrepreneurs flame out at 10 million or not, not that they flame out there. They just hit a wall, and it's hard to get over that home. And there are several those humps, you know, I was lucky to get to a couple of billion home, but it was like everybody growing together. But I do believe that the key to all of that is everybody says you have to attract good people, duh, right? The question is, who, how do you identify them, how do you get them, and how do you keep them, and then, how do you get the most out of and it's a lifelong process, but I think culture makes a difference. When we talked about those camps and the instructors and you know, when you're telling a 19 year old kid you have to get up every day and do your very best. I don't care how you feel, you're going to be on your feet from eight o'clock till nine o'clock, eight in the morning to nine at night. It's going to be hot. They're going to work hard. You're in effect on all the time you know you have to do that if you don't want to do that, this is not the place for you. That builds a kind of, I call it professional snobbery, that they all expect that from each other, and by God, if I'm giving it and you're not, you're not fitting in. So we were just really lucky to have that kind of, that kind of pipeline, you know, people that don't, I think it's a, I think it's, you're right, it's probably the biggest challenge. It is, as far as building a company over the long term, you know, it's the biggest challenge. But I think the important thing, and if. You can look at their backgrounds, but I think the important thing is telling them very early on what you expect, and that needs to be a lot. If you're running a company where you don't expect much, good luck with that long term, you have to expect a lot. You have to you have to support them. You have to give them as much as they're giving you, but they have to, they have to know that you expect their best, and, most importantly, their peers have to expect that from them.

William Harris 40:30

I'm far behind you in the hiring process there that said we're growing, and I've learned my fair share of things. And if I could take what you said and say what I'm hearing saying that you expect a lot. One of the things I almost try to talk people out of the job that I'm interviewing, right? It's like, here's I'm going to tell you all the reasons why this job is going to be very hard. Are you still interested? And if you say that, that I know that I've laid it out there on the table, and so you're choosing that. And what's interesting is, those A players, they want you to expect a lot. They don't want to be in an environment where not much is expected

Jeff Webb 41:02

of them. They want to be with other A players too. Yes, yeah, yeah.

William Harris 41:07

And so thankfully, we are at the point now where I feel like it's been fun to see my team create their own culture that holds themselves accountable, and I don't have to be the one that does that. They want to hold each other accountable. And I think to your point, if you can build that from the very beginning that allows for a lot more acceleration. You're right. Agree, Agree. You are able to sell then for couple billion, for a life changing amount. How has that changed and shaped what you find important in life? It hasn't. Yeah,

Jeff Webb 41:41

this is pretty simple. First of all, I didn't get all that money, you know, equity partners, but I don't know, you know, I, I don't think, you know, I just from a kind of a personal lifestyle hasn't really changed, you know, it's had a really good friend. When we had with Riddell, the football company, we had, we put two companies together and and one of my, one of the guys from the other side, they were New York based guys, and they were older, a little older. And, you know, our, our side of the board, we are all these young southern boys, you know. So it was quite the board meeting, as you can imagine. But sure, one of these guys, they had a lot of money. And I was this one guy became very good friends with, and he was older and and we are out in New York sometime, and he was talking about the, I don't think it was the price of the meal or something like, there's a really wealthy guy. And I started giving him crap about it, and he said, he said, he said, I can't help it. He said, It's my peasant upbringing. And so I've used that line a lot. It's like, you know, when you, when you go, when you grow up in a middle class family or lower middle class family, and you got to be at least aware of, you know, what things cost. You just gonna be but, but I think that, that it, the one thing it's done, I think, is put me in a position where, where I think people could seek out my my counsel, or my support, or or whatever, which I'm happy to do. You know, it's put me in a position to be able to help people more. And I don't mean just contribute and want to do some of that, but, but, you know, I help people get companies started. May invest a little here and there, and, you know, help them. And so that's It's put me in a position to that which I which is meaningful to me,

William Harris 43:37

yeah, yeah. And you do a lot of that now, which is a really cool thing. What is, if you're gonna say, like, what is the biggest, most recurring piece of advice that you find yourself giving to, like Gen Z, who's trying to get started on doing something, or entrepreneurs, and you're saying, this seems to be the thing that I need to reiterate the most.

Jeff Webb 43:57

What are you just I asked, What when they usually, they've got a whole idea what they want to do. They're bringing it to me, right? It's not in the, it's not in the very early stage, but it's like, they're trying to put it together. They've got some kind of little in a rudimentary deck or something, right? Which is fine, you know? It's like, you know, I kind of almost go through this, like, try to understand what they're doing and then why they think it'll work, right? And then, then I get into the things like, well, you know, what? What value do you see this creating? Why? Who's this going to be value? How's it going to help somebody's life? What's it going to what value is going to do? And then I always ask, because a lot of them aren't new ideas and new products. They're not. Maybe they got a little different take on an existing industry. It's like, what differentiates this from anybody, anything that's out there? What's your brand differentiation? What is it? People get stuck on that one, you know? Oh, you know, it's this, but I think, and then, and then the other. Thing is, as they start to get bigger, you know, we talk about culture, and I think culture, again, is another one of those words that's overused out there. Sure. I mean, I've heard these big companies talk about their culture. They have no idea what the hell they're talking about. They don't have a culture. Their culture is, how do I make some money, or how do I get how do I get myself up the ladder, blah, blah, that's what it is. How do I sell more? And they got some mission statement on the wall. They think that's their culture. You know, the culture being the thing. When that gives you, I think it gives you just the extra juice, and it gives you the extra stability, because people want to be a part of it, and that culture needs to be built around what you and I've talked about so far. It's like, it's like doing your best, expecting your best every day, all the time, supporting each other, putting the customer in a position where they're getting value. I'm not one of the people go, Well, where are we customer driven? No, you know, we're not customer driven. We serve the customer. You know, I'm kind of a Steve Jobs guy, you know, the customer doesn't know what they want till we show it to him. So it's like, if we are out there with all of our customers all over the country, because we have a national market, we're going to hear from them all the time, and we're going to see what's working and not working. So I don't know there's just so much to it, as you know, and I think it just, I think, really kind of create that culture and realize that you're going to be working your ass off, right, and you're never going to

William Harris 46:40

leave it, yeah, well, and, you know, I've heard a lot of people talk about, it's like, if you, if you worked non stop for something you're passionate about, it's exciting, versus if you work for something that you're not passionate about, it's stress, right? But it's like, there's a difference.

Jeff Webb 46:52

There is now people say, Well, is this something you enjoy, define and joy, you know, it's like, is it something that I've committed to and that I feel strongly about and that I think I can contribute? Yes, that's that's what drives me.

William Harris 47:11

That's it. That's nuanced, but important. Thank you. Um, I want to talk about who is Jeff Webb. I think it's fun to get to know the human being, the person. How has your childhood shaped you to be the person who is able to see these things and create this

Jeff Webb 47:27

so as I mentioned, I grew up in a of course, everybody says this right. Grew up in a middle class family, fortunate enough, there was kind of a had a mom and a dad, brother, sister, Dallas, Texas. My dad was in the oil business, although he just worked for an oil company when a tycoon or anything. My mother was a kindergarten teacher, right? And, you know, is that that day, you know, we played sports, and we, you know, outside most of the time. And you know, I went to public school. I mean, the public schools were really good then, I think I just my childhood, you know, I was busy, I did things that I wanted to do, that mostly sports, but just the the encouragement that I got from my parents, you know, it was, it wasn't fake. It was like, especially my mother, my mother been the Dallas city tennis champion. She was a female athlete before it was cool. That's cool. And, you know, it was always like, you can do anything you want to do. When I started to come up with the idea to start the company, trying to decide whether I go back to law school or not, that was the question. And she was like, do the company? Ah, Mom, it might not work. I don't know. You know, the fear of failure, by the way, drives a lot of entrepreneurs. And I said, might not work. And she said, so what? So it doesn't work. You do something else? So what I gonna kill you? Do it, try it. And it was always that, go for it. And that sort of thing, sort of thing is sticks, I think, and just knowing that your parents were there and your family's there, no matter what it think, that was the key for

William Harris 49:17

me, that's huge. Yeah, that is something that I think can't be taken for granted. You told me before that you are a curious perfectionist. How do these how do these men? I'm

Jeff Webb 49:31

not sure either one of those is good, by the way, but keep going. Well, okay, let's

William Harris 49:34

just say all traits have positives and negatives, right? They are all our superpowers and our kryptonite. But like, in what ways have those been let's just say, In what ways have those been superpowers for you? And in what ways have those been kryptonite?

Jeff Webb 49:48

I think the curiosity, you know, the curiosity, I think, puts you out there, puts the antenna up that we talked about earlier. So. Uh, I think sometimes that the Curiosity can get you can wander off the path, which I've done a couple times my life. I think that the perfectionism, I think can help. I go back to the continuous improvement concept, which I'm a total believer in. It's amazing how many companies don't really have that. It's amazing talk about it. They don't really have it. The perfectionist part of that. I remember one point I had a friend who who is a psychiatrist, and we were, we were actually, we were having a beer and talking about stuff. And he was, we were talking about my company and things like that. And he said, Would you he think, would you consider yourself a perfectionist? Well, yes, you know, I thought that was really big compliment, right? You know, yeah. I mean, of course, you know, I'm always trying to do things better and never really satisfied with it. He said, Well, yeah, but you know that might make you a lot of money, but it's demonic. What do you mean? He said, You're never happy. You're never really happy. You got to be really careful with that, because you don't want that to come across to the people that work with you and think that you're not happy with them just because you're trying to do it better, make sure that they buy into it, that they don't think they're never good enough for you. So I've tried to keep that in mind. It's hard not to be the perfectionist. It has its has its advantages, but when it comes to my friends and families and colleagues, I try to temper it. Let's put it like that.

William Harris 51:41

I can resonate with that. My mom had a sign on her door. My mom was a band director that said, practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect. Practice makes perfect. And it's a really good it's fair to a point, because there are a lot of people that can practice something the wrong way and not getting better than they're just practicing how to do it incorrectly, right? It's like no, no. Practice it the right way on purpose. And so it's like the sense behind it is beautiful. It is, but I will say it's tough too. How have you figured out a way to balance that, both for your own mental psyche as well as for those around you? Because I will say that I can see this in myself. I can see this sometimes in my kids. I can see this in others that I know that are entrepreneurs who are driven in that way, the way that you talk to somebody else is not the way that you talk to yourself. You talk to yourself sometimes in a very negative way, right? We're just like you should have done better that. Sure, that's fine if somebody else you could have done better. How have you learned to grow through that?

Jeff Webb 52:40

Yeah, well, you know, I think that. I think it's easier for us sometimes people like us to be a lot more accepting of others than ourselves. And I'm not saying expect less from them, but we're, I think, usually, more willing to accept their humanity. And, you know, I've tried to, you know, one of the things I have a talk that I give about what it takes to be, you know, to have a to have a to be a great leader, to be of a use its manager, or what depends on the situation, and we go through things like, you know, a passion to do your best, and, you know, an awareness. So, you know this some of the things that we can talk about. But the very last one that I say is that here's the last one, the most important one, more than all the others together, be kind. So I think that has to be a part of your culture as well. Has to be a part of your personality. And you know, you can expect a lot. You can push hard, you can do the kind of things, but you know, you can also do it and be kind.

William Harris 53:54

There's a Bible verse that talks about love others the way you love yourself. And I oftentimes try to remind myself of that verse, When I'm maybe expecting too much of myself in a certain situation, it's like, if I actually loved otherwise, say that I'm loving myself right now, I'd be embarrassed, because I couldn't say those things to somebody else, right? And so sometimes just recognizing that, and it's like, you know, why don't I speak that way? We were at a the Washington County Fair here, and I saw a Down Syndrome kid throwing this baseball at, you know, one of those little things to check the speed and the way everybody was cheering for him was absolutely beautiful. And I was like, why don't we cheer more for the people in our lives, the way that, you know, everybody's cheering right now. Why don't we cheer for ourselves in that way, where it's like, you did a great job celebrate that. Continue to want to change right? Continue to want to there's nothing wrong with that great those good things too.

Jeff Webb 54:49

It's you know, and it's a real it's a real issue for people like us. And it's like, you know, and I find this whole you know, without being too heavy about it, you'll find as you. Get older too. You look you you look up and you go home. Wish I would have taken a little more time to celebrate, you know, and to really, because we always look ahead, right? We're always looking ahead, and that's fine to look ahead, but it's important for you and for those around you, to celebrate when something goes really well. It's hard work. It is.

William Harris 55:23

I see that you've got a bunch of instruments on the back. There are those real instruments. Are you musician?

Jeff Webb 55:31

It's play the guitar a little bit. I've got one of my later things in life. You guys a little band called The Thunderbolts and nice. So those are pictures. My assistant is a great photographer, wonderful, and so she took some of those at practice and some things like that. So, yeah, yeah, electric

William Harris 55:52

guitar, acoustic, guitar, acoustic for me, yeah, yeah. Who's your

Jeff Webb 55:56

I wouldn't say I'm the greatest, you know, but I got some really good friends who are great,

William Harris 56:00

yeah. Who's your inspiration? What's your musical

Jeff Webb 56:04

you know, like, I love, listen, I go all the way back, believe it or not, our band does things from, you know, I would say, if you had to choose, it's kind of a little more kind of modern country. But let me go back and do some other things. We do a couple of Beach Boys songs, if you can believe that. I love it, yeah, yeah. It's the whole harmony thing is kind of what we do, yeah? So we get some great we got a couple of really good professional musicians, then a couple of amateurs, like me. We've got it. We got a couple of ringers my my fiddle player, I know that either Kenny che Well, Kenny Chesney was be stealing her from me, I think. But anyway, yeah, we have a lot of fun.

William Harris 56:42

Yeah, is that something that you've always done, or is that more of a recent

Jeff Webb 56:46

passion? You know, played some growing up, and then I put it away after my kids. I used to play, play with my kids when they were little bitty, and sing with them, you know. Then once I started getting older, I kind of put it away. And then about a few years ago, is some fun. You know, people said, hey, you know what you're missing. They went and they brought it up. And I said, yeah, they go. It was a hard it was hard to start over. I'll tell you that, sure, but yeah, it's fun. What do you play? Yeah,

William Harris 57:14

well, I play a little bit of all of that. Probably not again, not as well as there's definitely a lot better players, but acoustic is my main instrument. But I played the bass guitar, and I played that for about eight years. I played drums, I played trumpet, was my main band instrument. So again, my mom was a band director. My dad was in a semi pro, professional country band, and so, wow, just kind of a lifeblood of ours as well. And so little bit of a lot of different things, and I don't play it as much anymore, so it's kind of similar to you. It's like I got kids now, and so I'm really supporting my oldest daughter in her music right now. So she's been taking a lot of, you know, voice lessons, and she just bought her first Taylor guitar by herself, about the Sweetwater with her grandpa, picked it out, saved up her money, bought it. And so that's amazing. It's fun to see them in their progress. And now I just play around a little bit for fun. How old are your How old are your kids? Yeah, 1512, and nine. Oh, wow. Wild stage.

Jeff Webb 58:12

Good for you, but good luck for the next five years.

William Harris 58:15

Yes, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Go Well, Jeff, it has been a lot of fun talking to you, getting to know you, learning from you. If there's, you know, any way for people that wanted to work with you or follow you, what's the best way for them to do

Jeff Webb 58:30

that? You know? So, you know I meant, I meant International Cheer Union is what I'm running. Is our International Federation can get they can get me through there. Is why? The easiest thing to do, okay, yeah, I'm around. That's good, pedaling as fast as I can still.

William Harris 58:49

Yeah, no, that's good. You got to have a passion again. It's been a lot of fun learning for me. I appreciate you sharing your time and your wisdom with us. Is there any other information or anything else that you'd like to share with people?

Jeff Webb 59:02

No, I think, I think you've hit on the things, and I appreciate the chance to talk about not only my experience, but the things that I think are important. And hopefully, there'll be some people out there that are either starting a business or leading an organization of any kind, that that think that some of these leadership tips will help. I hope so.

William Harris 59:22

I'm sure they will. Thank you again, and thank you everyone for listening. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Outro 59:27

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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