Rocky Collis 0:01 

Make sure everybody's aligned on the mission. When you have alignment on mission. People give you more. They know why they're doing what they're doing. They're going to do it more specifically, and they're going to do it better.

David Novak 0:21 

Welcome to how leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple, you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, leadership is not easy. But there's one magic ingredient that can make it a little easier, especially if you're an entrepreneur. It's the power of going all in on your mission. And my guest today is an incredible example of what that looks like. Rocky Kahless is the CEO of mustard. Now, if you aren't familiar with mustard, it's a fantastic sports coaching app that's backed by people like Drew Brees, Justin Rose and Mia Hamm. Just to name a few. As you'll hear today is Rocky's relentless focus on mustards mission that has helped him and his team, set clear priorities, attract top talent, and get these a list investors on board. And it can help you do the same for your organization. Plus, if you're a golfer, you're going to get a sneak peek at something that could absolutely transform your whole game. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, rocky Kahless.

Well, this is gonna be fun for everybody, because we get to learn about a company that not a lot of people have heard about, because it's a startup that you've initiated, and it's called mustard. Give us a snapshot of the business that you're leading today. Mustard

Rocky Collis 2:07 

is all about democratizing the world's best coaching. So what we do is we create products, where people at home or at their local field can get the experience of being coached by the best coach in their sport, take a simple video of yourself performing whatever your sport is, get back within about 30 seconds really simple report card, designed by the best coach in your sport, showing you what you're doing well, what you could be doing better, and then automatically get drills and exercises recommended for you. And then on top of that we host in depth classes with many of the best athletes, many of the best coaches in the world.

David Novak 2:41 

And you know, when you start up a company like this, you really have to do everything from scratch, you know, you just basically described the mission that you have, which is the democratize coaching, which I love that, you know, how important was it for you and your co founders, Tom house and Jason Goldsmith to have a noble cause for what you do.

Rocky Collis 3:02 

I think the noble cause the mission is the thing for a startup and probably really, for any company, you know, but I think, for us, we're in a really exciting place as a startup company, we've done great and many of the most important ways and I think it's all attributable the fact that we've got a mission that people feel strongly about. I really think the reason for somebody to become an entrepreneur, is what I call wins above replacement is this is kind of my philosophy for picking a career wins above replacement is a famous baseball metric, where you can evaluate a player's success based on their statistics above and beyond what their replacement would do, right? When I think about entrepreneurship, it's an opportunity to change the way the world works. It's an opportunity to not just be a cog in somebody else's wheel, but to really kind of design what do you want the world to look like, and then work backwards from there. So for us and muster, we saw this problem where most kids quit playing sports. And even in kind of what we call forever sports like golf, most people hit a roadblock where they stopped progressing. And often they that leads them to quit. And we felt like we could attack this problem, we could really level the playing field, we could we could provide a platform where kids could keep progressing in their sport, get all the personal development that comes from being an athlete and, and working with a teammate and working with a coach. We think that's an important change to make in the world. So when you kind of hone in on a concept like that a mission as you described it, I think that's what attracts people to your company. It attracts all the people that that want to be a part of it. They want to build the product, they want to market it for us. We've had to attract a lot of famous athletes, a lot of great investors to this company. It's the mission that does that and making sure everybody's on the same page about what that mission is. You

David Novak 4:49 

have to obviously have some major strategies to get mustered up and running. How would you describe your top three strategies?

Rocky Collis 4:58 

Mission is number one I mean, it's just, you know, may not hear that often as a strategy. But for us, we didn't do anything until all the key stakeholders were in the room, even some early investors in that room with us, and defining very specifically what the mission was, until you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, I don't think you can build anything else. For us, we're then you know, get into more strategies and tactics. We're a tech company. So there needs to be some sort of tech moat and tech advantage. And for us, again, really being keyed in on what the mission was, and wanting our products to be usable by the most number of people possible. We created tech advantages that are about mobility and scalability. Okay, so as opposed to about detailing every possible piece of capture to the to, you know, one degree of accuracy, our technology is about usability, making it super easy for people to use, and then actionable for them use of mobility and scalability. And then on a brand side, for us, we're about coaching. So it was critically important to us from day one, that we have the best coaches in the world involved and the best athletes in the world involved. Again, that kind of relates back to Mission, we're only pulling those people in because they wanted to be a part of what we're building. But if I'm picking three things, it's those three things is mission, mobility, scalability, the tech and then having the best people in the world on board. And

David Novak 6:17 

then you gotta get structured to go after this, you got to build the team from scratch. I mean, tell us how you really went about that.

Rocky Collis 6:24 

Building the team, the internal team from scratch, I think in early, early startup, like day one, before we've even met an investor is a little bit about luck. I mean, that we were initially were just researching this concept. And can we build technology that would accomplish what we're interested in, and having 1000 phone calls around that. And just out of stupid luck, early on, we met these computer vision engineers who happen to be the best in the world at what they do. And it was just a conversation to find out whether this was even possible. And they were like, not only is it possible, but we can show you a prototype in a week. And so you know, a little bit of secret destiny, we called it to get to that point. And then I think team building, again, you got to recruit the best people in the world, in every vertical, your company, right in every department. So it's really making sure that you've, you've fired people up about the mission, explain why this company can be important can be impactful and be a big deal and why they ought to want to be a part of it. And so it's being really specific about the type of person you want in a startup company. It's takes a specific personality. And then it's constantly selling, right? Because you're trying to get people that could work at any company in the world. And really, as a startup company, you're recruiting people that can make a lot bigger salary somewhere else, they got to believe in the upside of your company, they got to believe in the mission, and they got to want to be a part of it.

David Novak 7:44 

What kind of personality do you look for? You've mentioned that, we

Rocky Collis 7:48 

talked about the difference between startup personalities and big company personalities, and not that one's better than the other. But for us, we need people that are comfortable being in a startup, I think people with us that are looking to be told exactly what to do, and have a checklist of things to do every day and get those done and turn into a report. It can be very effective in some companies, but it's probably not enough. In ours, we're looking for people to really, you know, lead departments have creative ideas, to be proactive, to look for other ways to be helpful to almost find problems that I didn't, wasn't even aware of yet. And then come to senior leadership in the company with Hey, I found a problem you guys haven't even noticed. And here's the solution to it. So I think in a startup world, there's a level of proactiveness that it's not just a nice to have, it's a necessity. Not everything's gonna get done, if everybody's just kind of waiting to be told what to do. Yeah, startup versus big company personalities. That's the way we describe it. You

David Novak 8:42 

know, it's interesting, you said you got lucky getting these tech gurus at the very beginning. That's like you to say that because I know you're a humble guy. But you have to convince these guys who are the best in the world at what they do to come to the startup, as a leader. How did you gear yourself up to do that? And how did you land these two people?

Rocky Collis 9:06 

It's natural, David, I know that's not what you're looking for. But for me, this mission is like something I've lived and I'm born of right. And so I think that's the other thing about mission is it can't be forced, it can't be something you just kind of came up with to fit the company that you want to build. And you think it's a way to make money. Of course, we think we're gonna make a lot of money during the startup. But there's other ways to make money. And this mission for me is something that I've been working on my whole life, whether it was the startup or not. And so there's a naturalness. I think when I talk about the mission that people believe in, it has to be a way that you want to change the world. And I think for great engineers are great lawyers are great accountants are great product people. People want to have an impact, they want to be important to the cause. Well, that means there's got to be a cause. And so I think for the people we've recruited, is our cause the one they already had in mind and they would have gone off to work on on their own No, but they were looking for a cause to attach to and a cause to have a real impact on and when they hear you know, me and Tom and Jason and my brother Lou Talk about our founding mission, it resonates, they understand we can have a bunch of wins above replacement, we can change the world and impactful way, and they want to be a part of it.

David Novak 10:09 

How do you go about defining the culture that you wanted to have as a new company? Or? Or did you even do that?

Rocky Collis 10:16 

We did. We've tried a few different things, if I'm honest, you know, kind of structurally over time to really have the culture that we want to have, like we were a company, we started in earnest, as you may recall, in January 2020. In some ways, not the ideal time to start a new company, right? Especially if you're thinking about culture, building, culture building is sort of nice to be in person with people. We hired people, I didn't meet them in person for a year and a half, you know, of working together. So we were doing a lot of different things, we still are as a basically a remote first company to try to impact the culture. We host a bunch of different silly competitions internally over slack, and different things, you got to go out in the world and do to compete for points, different ways, we encourage people to interact with each other. But I think the biggest thing for us we use a system called EOS entrepreneurial operational system, it's written about a lot in a book called Traction has become popular with startup companies. At its core, I would say it's about giving people ownership over an area of the company responsibility and ownership, and being really clear about the results you expect from their ownership. And from that part of the company. And then having really clear expectations and a really clear structure around the cadence of meetings and the cadence of reporting back. I think for us that has really helped create this culture of proactivity. And recognition. Those are two headlines I would put on our culture. We also do you know, regularly a review of the mission with the entire company, every full company meeting, I start talking about the mission, we've done a lot of work on company values and trying to make sure that the the words we use for our values are not just, we want them to be meaningful, number one, be a great teammate. Number two, be a great coach to yourself and others that might sound familiar from the title of a book he might be. But for us, that's really what we're looking for in the company, we want people to be great teammate is a lot about being proactive, right? Not just waiting for the things you're told to do. And just doing those, but looking for ways to help your teammate out. That's what being a sports team is all about. That's what we hope for people from our company, being a great coach to yourself and others, that encapsulates a bunch of things. We want people to constantly strive for self improvement, we call that Kaizen, that's about coaching yourself, and then also coaching others, not just the people below you, but the people above you, too. How can you help everybody around you and the company improve? So culture wise, I think not just feeding those values to people, but letting them buy in on those values, be a part of the conversation, and feel strongly about those values. And that mission. I think that's been critical for us too.

David Novak 12:57 

I want to dig deeper into how you lead and how you've gotten mustered up and running like you have so successfully. But first of all, I got to ask you what I'm sure everybody's might be wondering is how in the world you come up with the name mustard,

Rocky Collis 13:10 

thought that's what you're gonna ask. First, I'm ashamed to admit it was because of initially lack of creativity on the founding team where we couldn't come up with their own name, we hired an agency to come up with a list of names. So that was step number one, we had a very corporate sounding name, which we knew wasn't the brand we wanted to go to market

David Novak 13:27 

with. What was that just for historical purposes, is still our corporate name.

Rocky Collis 13:32 

It's qualia, OS. And quality as a meaningful word comes from Deepak Chopra, who has been a mentor Jason and we've learned a lot from and it sort of has to do with total awareness of the present moment that feeds into Jason Goldsmith's mental performance teachings. And we think it's a really important word, but nobody knows what it means. So it's not a brand that we really wanted to go to market with. Mustard was on a list with a bunch of names. And we wanted something that was playful, because we want to attract a lot of kids to the company. And we want it to be this place that you're not just working to improve in sports, but it's a fun place to be in sports are supposed to be a game after all. We wanted it to feel very accessible. We didn't want to scare people off sports and AI and computer vision in the name. We got down to two names. One was mustard. And one was swivel. And swivel I thought was interesting. And some people in the founding team really liked it. It's actually one of the physical mechanical variables we look for in some sports. It's something Jason teaches from the mental side, if you have something negative that happens on the golf course, you got to swivel mentally and find a good focal point. And we proposed the two names on a big team called everybody and asked for a vote. And Jason Goldsmith, your friend called in a little bit late and he was in the car with Justin Rose, who's an investor and advisor to the company, former world number one golfer I didn't know Rosie very well at the time, but I asked him I said hey, you know, these are the two names. What do you think and without quoting him on your show, he informed us that swivel was a very bad word in England. And it was something used as as kind of like a vile insult to people. So we decided that was not an appropriate name for the company. And on the flip side, he said mustard in England is like what the kids are saying for what's cool, like that's the that's the mustard right now. So his quote was, his good quote was, I can really see asking kids to download the mustard app. So that was the end of the conversation.

David Novak 15:28 

Makes a lot of sense. You've mentioned one of your co founders, Jason Goldsmith, who's a mental coach, one of the best in the world. Another is Tom house renowned coach is taught people like Tom Brady Drew Brees, you know, all the throwing mechanics, former major league baseball player, how'd you get connected with these two

Rocky Collis 15:49 

through my brother, who's the fourth co founder. So my brother Luke, Carlos was a great baseball pitcher in high school, was also a great quarterback. So played quarterback at the University of Nevada, then Occidental College, and then he played professionally for seven years, won a few championships. But you know, the unique thing about Tom house so you mentioned is he's really the, you know, the Father, we say, of modern baseball pitching mechanics, who was Nolan Ryan's pitching coach back in the day with Nolan really invented pitching mechanics, but then became even more of a football coach. I mean, as you said, Tom Brady Drew Brees, at one point in time was coaching most of the quarterbacks in the NFL. So my brother was lucky enough he was training with Tom. They used to this is years ago now. But I'm in LA. And Tom used to train all these athletes on the baseball field at USC. So it was open, you could walk in there, and there'd be Drew Brees and Tom Brady and Tim Tebow. And if you caught it just the right time of year, they'd be on the same field at the same time as Major League Baseball players. Sometimes it'd be professional golfers, their other rotational athletes working with Tom, very bizarre training environment. And my brother was there. So it was actually on my way, I was an attorney at the time. And I used to drive by the field on the way to the office and I would stop, I would go early, and I would stop and I would just listen to Tom's chalk talks in the morning. So he gives a specific lecture every day of the week. And I found even though he'd be talking about something very specific to baseball or football, I found his coaching style, so effective at getting people in the zone, getting people focused, that it helped me as a lawyer, I mean it he has a magical way about him. And so that's how I got to know those guys is I would stop in and listen to the chalk talks for half an hour, a couple days a week, just because I thought they were so cool.

David Novak 17:42 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Rocky Collis in just a moment. As you've heard us talk about Tom house is a legendary coach and a co founder of mustard. And when Tom joined me here on the podcast, we talked about the importance of learning from the best no matter who you are,

Tom House 18:01 

every night when you're hitting your sack, or brushing your teeth. Ask yourself, What did I do today to make myself better. And we're not looking for huge 20% gains, we're looking for small gains. And small gains are more easily achieved. If you can identify the actual problem or what needs to be fixed. I remember the phrase problem identification is half your solution. So if it's a mechanical issue, we have measurements and protocols to fix that. If it's a functional strength issue, we have measurements and protocols to fix that. The same with mental emotional, the same with nutrition and sleep. So pick something to get better at. And I have athletes write down three things. And they don't always get all three things done. But if they just do one thing better tomorrow, that contributes 1%. And those are the ones that have long term success.

David Novak 19:04 

Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Tom, Episode 74 here on how leaders lead.

And you were a lawyer, obviously, you know it was helping you think through how you could be even better at that career. When did you guys have this idea? How did the idea itself come together? With the four of you?

Rocky Collis 19:33 

It was really Jason Goldsmith if one person had the idea it was Jason. So I was a lawyer and I was I was very focused in my personal career on shifting to be an entrepreneur. Again, this is kind of my wins above replacement philosophy. I just felt like as a lawyer, I was able to do had some cases that I felt very passionately about that were good. But I felt like as an entrepreneur, you can really change the way the world works and that's what I was interested in. I was really fortunate to start a company with another former set of clients of mine, for members of the US women's soccer team that companies rethink, which has done great honor to be a part of that. And kind of on the heels of starting that my brothers said to me one day, you know, Jason would love to chat with you about some business ideas he has. And just get your thoughts and advice. I was thrilled to do that. And honestly, David, I remember the first time I talked to Jason on the phone about this. I've heard a lot of business ideas over the years, and I've heard a lot of good ones. But when Jason told me his ideas for what became mustered, my head exploded, I couldn't think about anything else for weeks, the way he painted, it was so beautiful. And it was really around this concept of Tom house is pointed out that probably every year, there's 10,000 kids that quit, that could it turned into something like a Nolan Ryan, and they have no idea. They quit by the time they're 14 because they feel like they're not good enough to compete anymore. And nobody's encouraged them. Nobody's given them any information on how to progress. Can we create technology that fills that gap? And so when I heard it that way, there was just we had to do at least the research to figure out if it was possible to build something to fix that.

David Novak 21:17 

That's great. And then how do you divvy up the initial roles and responsibilities between the founders to to officially launch the business? For

Rocky Collis 21:26 

a while I was just advising and trying to make introductions to investors, as a friend, I was just trying to be be helpful, probably after nine months or a year, where we had some real tech prototypes built just as the company registered, but we hadn't raised any money yet. And we had some institutional committed investors, the investors were saying somebody has to be full time CEO. And it can't be somebody who's doing it part time and doing other things. And so at that point, I was like, It's logical candidate to do that. And folks kind of kindly asked me if I'd be interested in doing that, of course, I was, my brother was actually just finishing his professional football career. So it was, it was kind of lucky timing. There were, it was something we could start doing both full time together. And we divided that up where EOS calls it one person being the visionary, one person being the implementer. We kind of do it that way. I sometimes call it I'm more external and looks more internal looks a quarterback. So he's great at running internal teams, and he's a great process implementer personality. So he does that. And I do a lot of the external stuff, investor relations, significant partnerships, those kinds of things. And then again, we're at heart, we're a coaching company. So to be founded, by I think, the two greatest coaches in America, maybe in the history of America. It's a huge advantage. And I think it's a lot of vision and coach and substance setting from Tom and from Jason. You've

David Novak 22:56 

mentioned Tom house, and he clearly is an icon in the coaching space, with clients like Nolan Ryan and Brady and Brees. How have you created a business model to scale Tom's genius as a coach,

Rocky Collis 23:09 

starting from the perspective of scaling a great coach, rather than starting from the perspective of creating great technology is a big part of the difference for us from other companies that are sort of around the space to take specific sports as an example in baseball, for pitchers. And for quarterbacks in football. We start with scaling Tom house easily the most successful coach in the history of the world in those sports. What would he look for in a pitcher or a quarterback at various ages. And then you can easily program that into technology so that any kid when they upload a video, they're getting the computer vision system to report back to them exactly what Tom house would say to them. That's I would say step number one. They're very simple report cards that are actionable. Tom doesn't just measure things to measure them. He measures the things that he knows he can change, and that will be impactful to change. So those are the things that go into our app, the things that we know, we can give somebody drills or exercises that will actually improve their performance. And then I think there's a second step to scaling those coaches. And this gets more into Jason's world too. But beyond the report cards, there's always more interaction people want with the great coaches. What we've found is once people have information on how their body works to have that personalized information, then we can do what we call one to many classes. So rather than now you haven't have a direct one on one conversation with Tom house, which obviously doesn't scale. What we do is we just host a weekly zoom class, where he lectures on something it's similar to the lectures I used to go to and watch in person all the time. But any of our subscribers can join these classes. They can watch and listen. They can apply Tom's teachings directly to them because they understand what's happening with their body and their mechanics. But they can also ask questions of Tom at the end, and get more personalized information that way we do the same thing on the mental side with with Jason. So

David Novak 25:09 

you do high touch and high tech, you're basically you're giving people access to the greatest coaches in the world. What are other coaches? Think about this? Are they in fear of losing out? What kind of response? You get people hearing about this?

Rocky Collis 25:22 

It's a great question. I mean, I think that initially, there is a lot of fear about that. And that's something we've had to work through and overcome. But the reality is that we do not take business from coaches, we're such a lower price point. People that want to work directly with, you know, one on one with a great coach are still going to do that. Tom house uses our technology when he coaches athletes, because you think about that, he's coaching professional athletes, he's using the mustard app to make sure his eyes are seeing the right thing. If the technology is useful for Tom House, who is the least likely person on earth to need this type of technology, then I can guarantee it's also useful for every other coach and a given sport. So that's where we found coaches that give it a chance, which is an increasing number increasing percentage of coaches in our sports, it really elevates their practice, you said, you know, high tech and high touch, I think over time, there's a model for us, that's even higher touch, where we're referring to people, to coaches in our network that we trust around the country. But we see our app as being kind of level one coaching, that we want any amateur athlete to have to make sure they have the information they need to progress. Our classes are level two coaching, where you can get some more in depth information. And then there's a level three, where you're working in person, one on one with a coach, but still using the mustard technology.

David Novak 26:40 

You know, I know Tom has been working with 3d motional analysis and sensors for years, what's been the biggest challenge for you Rocky, to get that same technology into an app.

Rocky Collis 26:55 

It was super easy. I just you know, pick other guys do it. And I just sat back and watched no luck. I mean, you're developing new technology like that, you have to be ready to go through 1000 iterations and the first many not to work and you need to buy time and you need to have beta testers and you need to work through things. I still will say we got lucky early on to a very quickly met the people that I think are the best in the world of this type of technology. And the fact that we got them to buy in and, and join us was a big deal. It's just the scalability, the tech that I would say is maybe not the most difficult but the most important to nail, if it takes 15 minutes to get a report card, if you got to be at a very specific camera angle and have a bunch of setup instructions. It's not something a lot of people want to use, right? It's got to you know, ours works like you can put the phone up against a water bottle, you can put the phone up against a wall, 30 seconds for the report card to come back. Initially, we were forcing people to upload new video through the application. Even that was a hindrance for a lot of people. So now, okay, we've set it up so that you can upload video that you've already taken on your phone. I don't know that I could put my finger on one specific thing in the tech stack, David, but I just think new technology, you have to be ready to iterate you have to be ready to try try try again, and not get discouraged about it on the first second or third iteration.

David Novak 28:18 

So you really want to make this app easy to use, and you want to have it at a good value. And you know, basically, you want the personal coaching of a Tom house, you'd spend a weekend with him probably cost you 1000s of dollars, and how have you thought through just the economic model for the consumer? What's the cost, and how's the business model going to work in your mind.

Rocky Collis 28:42 

In baseball, and football, most of the app is free, right now. People can upload videos, they can get a report card without cost to them. And that was by design. We want kids to use it. We want them to get the feedback. We funnel people into classes that are behind a subscription, depending on which level classes you subscribe to. It's either $8 a month, or $25 a month. And I think that works well in those sports. We have some huge distribution partnerships working on those sports where I think those models will be very successful for us were in the free version. We're still collecting a lot of data that we plan on monetizing we think it'd be very valuable both from a advertising perspective, but also from a scouting perspective. But in other sports, we'll talk about we're planning to get into golf, we will have a affordable monthly subscription for the base technology in the application. And the classes will be actually more like free content that we're doing for promotional purposes. So the business model has to be I think tweaked in a given sport because the markets are so different across some of our sports, and so we have to just be cognizant of that. But at its core, we're a freemium application where we're charging monthly or annual subscriptions for some of the technology and for some instructional content

Koula Callahan 30:01 

Hey everyone, it's Kula from three more questions and listening to this episode with Rocky and hearing all about how his team at mustard is getting the greatest coaching in the world into the hands of athletes everywhere has been thinking a lot about the how leaders lead app. If you haven't downloaded the how leaders lead app, head to the App Store, download, it's totally free. And when you do that, you'll get immediate access to 1000s of two minute leadership insights that will help you become a better leader and help your team thrive. It's like having a leadership coach and your pocket. So while we're not going to be telling you how to throw the ball better, or how to fix your golf swing, we are going to tell you how to be a better leader. So download the app today. It's called how leaders lead again, it's totally free. And you'll have a go to leadership coach in your pocket. It's amazing. I know you're gonna love it download the app for free in the App Store. It's called how leaders lead.

David Novak 31:03 

You've got Tom working on the biomechanics and the technology part of the equation then you have Jason, who's a mental performance coach, how do you see scaling Jason? Or is that part of the plan?

Rocky Collis 31:15 

It's definitely part of the plan. And Jason's Jason's coaching will be a big part of the application when we launch it for golf. Right now, he hosts a weekly mental performance class for all of our subscribers for baseball and football, which people have found to be super impactful. I personally think Jason's teachings coaching is, is the most important part of the company from a user impact perspective. I think if you're really looking to change somebody's life, and even if you're looking to make the biggest leap in their athletic performance, the quickest way to do that is through Jason's coaching, I think he's the most impactful mental performance coach in the world. And I think mental performance coaching typically makes a huge jump for people. I know you and I have both experienced that with him. I think from a business perspective, you have to hook people with the physical. Justin Rose said to me, as we were thinking about golf plans, he said, All golfers are swing geeks. And I think that's right, any of us that play golf, we're constantly tweaking, we're constantly researching how to move a little bit better. We're constantly trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with our swing. And we're very rarely on our own boiling it down to what's going on up here in the dome, we're thinking it's, it's something in the body. So for us from a business perspective, I think the easiest thing, the best thing is to hook people with physical coaching, offer technology that's going to give them the information that we're looking for on the physical side. But then once they're pulled into our community, I think we changed their lives with the mental coaching. And that's all directed by Jason.

David Novak 32:48 

And you mentioned that Jason has had a big impact on your, your leadership, you know, how has he helped you up your game,

Rocky Collis 32:55 

so many ways, I mean, I have a weekly call with him, but I probably talked to him three times a week, just to make sure that I'm picking up all the things I need. If I had to pick one thing from Jason, I think it's the value of a personal routine and sticking to that and making sure that there's enough time in there to do the things I need to perform at my best. Obviously, Jason is really into meditation. And it's helped me a lot develop a meditation practice. But I think even beyond that, it's figuring out what other things can I do throughout the day, that makes sure I'm in the proper mental state. It's not just about making sure you know, I have time to meditate. It's what are the other elements of a personal routine that are right for me, something I get from Jason, but frankly, I got a lot from you, too, is the annual process of going through resolutions. I've got my card here on my desk, my my three by five cards, my screensaver on my computer. This is something I got from you. We've never talked about it. But I know you keep your three by five card with your resolutions in your in your pocket. And so I work on that with Jason every year, my card, what did I look like in the past year? What do I want to look like next year. And then therefore, based on what I want to look like next year, or five or 10 years from now even we've done it that way too? What are the elements I have to build into my daily routine. So I'll give you a more specific example that I got. This is something I got from Jason I wanted to work on in the last year, just being more kind to everybody I interacted with on a daily basis. And you know, sometimes I think for all of us, but I know at least it's true for me, you get so caught up in what you're doing workwise and the things that are feel important to you that you can skip over some of the familiar interactions or interactions with people, you're just you're just meeting on a daily basis and you can maybe not mind your manners enough or not be as nice as you could be. And so I was talking to Jason about the fact that I was feeling badly about that and feeling like I didn't do better at some of that stuff, especially with some specific people and he suggested Well, you know, rather doesn't have a goal to be nicer is that you kind of lose track of that. What are you building a routine of giving yourself a kindness score, and every time you have an interaction with one of those people that you're trying to do a little better with? Just think to yourself, What kind of score do you give yourself on a scale from one to 10, don't punish yourself, it's if it's a bad score, it's going to be a bad score. Sometimes, you're just observing that score. And by nature, the fact that you've made it a routine to give yourself a kind of score after every one of those interactions, you're going to naturally improve it over time. So that's one small example. But the point is Jason Goldsmith, I'm talking to every week and I'm getting something like that every week. For him. That's important, not just from a company leadership perspective, but a life perspective.

David Novak 35:42 

I love the idea of having a kindness score or tracking your daily performance on something that you want to change or get better. And I think that's fantastic. As a leader, you've got to keep growing this business and you brought in all kinds of sports. Celebrities just just rattle off a few real quick for everybody.

Rocky Collis 36:02 

Sure, yeah. I mean, look, we've been really lucky to work with a bunch of incredible people in this company. I mean it further so I mentioned Justin Rose, who's are kind of lead golf and investor and advisor. It's been a treat to get to work with him in football, Drew Brees, a big investor and advisor of ours and drew I learned a ton from as well I mean, somebody who we talk about personal routines, you ought to have him on the show some time. I mean, I think he on a personal routine is one of the top few people on on Earth in terms of what what he's created for himself. Also in football, Ronnie, lots of investor of ours really impactful for us. Ron is incredible. In baseball, we're lucky to work with Clayton Kershaw, who I'm just I'm a huge fan of, I'm getting used to dealing with these athletes a little bit. But still, when I deal with Clayton, I'm enough of a fanboy, that I'm a little bit nervous, if I'm honest, says that we've been lucky to work with and we've got a bunch of baseball players we work with, in part through the Major League Baseball Players Association. Nolan Ryan, who I was a fan of when I was a little boy is an investor and advisor. So that's been ridiculous for us to get to work with him. And soccer, Mia hams and advisor number one person on earth, we would have dreamed of dreamed of working with their Cindy Parlow. Cone President, US soccer's an advisor to us, super, super lucky to work with her have mentioned Fred Whitfield as an advisor, particularly in basketball as president of the Hornets, Fred has been very impactful for us.

David Novak 37:27 

You're probably afraid you're gonna leave somebody out. So if you're out there, wondering when he's gonna mention you, it's I just cut them off. Okay, you know, we got a bunch more. Yeah. You've got these celebrities. And as a leader, I was really curious, since I thought about this, you'd said you gotta be careful not being a fanboy. I mean, how do you work with them and motivate them? Is there any difference?

Rocky Collis 37:50 

I hate to be a broken record on a pit. It's just mission. I just think entrepreneurs ask me all the time. Well, how did you get all these people involved? What can I do to get people like that involved? I don't think I have anything that I'm good at. Like that. It's not like I pitched them really well, or they liked me so much. And we're buddies or something like that. It's not that for many of these people, I probably pitched them really awkwardly. You know, I was nervous, and I just did my best. But there was a mission that resonated. So that's what it is. I mean, you gotta have you talking about people that have already wanted life. Most of them made a lot of money, of course, they'd like to make more money, but there's lots of things they can do to make money. So why are they doing this, then they're not going to do it, because they like you so much, they're not going to do it, because you paid them a little bit more you as a startup company, you're not going to be able to afford to pay him enough cash to get them to move. Equity. Okay. But there's got to be like a mission assault to that they actually want to change the world in the same way you do. You know, you can't force that that just is or it isn't.

David Novak 38:47 

And you're you're really looking at broadening mustered moving into other sports. And I know golf is something that you're excited about, you know, with Justin Rose, helping you there. And I understand you've just really signed up an extremely exciting deal with Golf Digest. Tell us about that, and how you made that happen as a team.

Rocky Collis 39:09 

Like we're honored to work with Golf Digest, as a startup company to be able to partner with the brand that has been around for 60 years, and is really known for instruction in this space. And for me, you know, I learned to golf as an adult, reading Golf Digest articles. And so now to get to work with them on this product. It's a huge deal for us. Also, as a startup company, you can win on product, you can win on people. But if you don't have the distribution, then you know, you still haven't won. And so it's this constant thought process of what's going to be your go to market advantage in addition to all your other advantages. We think Golf Digest and golf space is the ultimate unfair distribution advantage for us. How do we make it happen? We did meet them sort of just out of luck, Justin Rose played a practice round with the editor in chief Golf Digest. And so that's how we started talking with them. That was right, the week Rosie won at Pebble Beach. So that was nice that Rosie did us a favor, and one that week to got some good buzz gone. It's a partnership that we couldn't have forced, we have to be able to do something that helps them, they're not doing it to be nice to us. And I think from both perspectives, this partnership can be really impactful. I think for them, they have been around for a long time, their brand is really well known. And I think they've got a bunch of incredibly smart business people there that are constantly looking to innovate and evolve. And I think in our space there, they recognize that innovation for them probably works best through a partnership, that they're not going to go out and hire 15, computer vision experts and developers to build something like we have. So partnering in an important way is the best thing. They're basically, you know, in the coaching democratization business, they are instruction at scale in the golf business today. But they realize that what kind of holds people back from getting the best out of the Golf Digest coaching, is the lack of a diagnostic. So you can read Golf Digest articles right now, but not understand which articles are applicable to you, basically. And in partnership with mustard, we can actually show people which Golf Digest content is most impactful, most applicable to them, we can be the diagnostic tool that I think Golf Digest is felt as lacking. So again, I don't think we got that partnership done. Because we did something so brilliant. I think it was really about honing in on how can we actually be helpful to them, not just asking them for the favor of partnering with us. But thinking through, you know, how can we help their business get to where they already want to take it to? I

David Novak 41:42 

want to shift gears for a second and take you way back? Can you share a story from your childhood days that really impacted the kind of leader you are today?

Rocky Collis 41:51 

Great question. Look, I was a baseball player myself. Baseball was my was my world. I was sure I was going to be a professional baseball player. And that was going to be my, my first career, let's say, Yeah, I went to good schools, I did find a school. But I always say like, you know, in college, my major was baseball. So I have a lot of athletic stories that really impacted the leader I am. In fact, I would say a big premise of our company is that most people in this company, we got our personal development from sports, and we want kids to be able to have that same experience.

Tom House 42:26 

I remember

Rocky Collis 42:28 

the worst start I ever had in my baseball career. My sophomore year in college. So I pitched at Cornell, not a baseball powerhouse, as much as I loved it there in part because you know, the weather's not too good, as many people know. And you take a spring trip every year. So you know, come March, we get on the road, we fly somewhere. And we play some team that's already played 3040 games, and it's our first game of the year. And so my sophomore year, we flew out to UCSB, and I'm from LA. So this is a big deal for me, I was gonna start getting one. And I had a ton of family come in, I had my old coaches come in, I had, you know, high school and younger friends come in to watch me pitch. And I was sure I was gonna throw a complete game shutout. And I gave up nine runs in two innings. I remember that. I think four home runs, you know, loud, awful homeruns I mean, I can still feel them in my in my bones. And I remember thinking after the game, what was I thinking? Why did I think I was gonna be good? Why? Why did I think I was good at this? Why did I think this is my future. My whole life is in shambles here. And without making the long story too long. I've just said my next start, I had my best start in my college career after a lot of great coaching in between. And so from that one experience within a week's time, I would say I learned the value of you just gotta be okay getting hit around sometimes and coming back. Persistence. And I learned the value of great coaching and some of the advice that I got from my parents and also my coaches in between those two starts. was life changing. Well,

David Novak 44:05 

you did pretty well, Rocky, because you're drafted by the Seattle Mariners. And that's not bad. Not many people get drafted the end of the major leagues. You know, there's been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this?

Rocky Collis 44:18 

Great, let's do it. Yeah.

David Novak 44:19 

What are three words that best describe you?

Rocky Collis 44:22 

I think persistent, thoughtful and committed.

David Novak 44:27 

You should say kind now, since you've made that an objective. Maybe next year, maybe next, who would play you in a movie? Historically,

Rocky Collis 44:34 

if we could go back and maybe get a young version? I know all my friends would say Tom Selleck. If you see pictures of me with a mustache, it's pretty Tom Selleck. So or Tony Danza. A young Tony Danza look a lot like

David Novak 44:48 

I see both of those. If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?

Rocky Collis 44:53 

I'll take Tom house for what we're doing as a company that would be really interesting to see the world through his eyes. But I also just think he's somebody who, again is coaching is just magical, and impacts people in a unique way. I love to see the world

David Novak 45:07 

through his eyes, your biggest pet peeve.

Rocky Collis 45:10 

I think, as a company, it goes back to this notion that we are constantly looking for proactiveness. And so my biggest pet peeve is when we're working with outside partners or anybody else who it feels like it's trying to do the bare minimum that that gets to me.

David Novak 45:28 

Do you have any hidden talents?

Rocky Collis 45:33 

I fancy myself a decent singer, but nobody else agrees.

David Novak 45:38 

If you if you had four at bats against Clayton Kershaw this afternoon, how many hits would you have?

Rocky Collis 45:46 

Definitely zero. By the way, that's true for anybody listening to this unless unless you have an actual Major League Baseball player listening to this, nobody at home should think I've stood there in the bullpen, while Clayton's throwing no average person is getting within two feet of the wall.

David Novak 46:03 

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear

Rocky Collis 46:06 

cheesy pop music, you got cheesy pop music and country music and there's nothing in

David Novak 46:12 

between? What's something about you few people would know, I

Rocky Collis 46:16 

think for me, just the fact that it's it's family first. And obviously I'm doing working really hard on our company. And I'm spending a ton of time on that. But for me, my wife and our son and our daughters on the ways is number one,

David Novak 46:29 

we're at the end of the lightning round. So when you're in a startup mode, and is 24/7, how do you balance the professional with the personal, it

Rocky Collis 46:39 

is 24/7. Especially, you know, mentally You're right about that. And it's something Jason's helped me with a lot. It's realizing that to be the most effective version of myself, as a startup leader, founder, I gotta also take care of myself and taking care of myself means making sure I'm focused with my family, when I'm with them. That gives me energy, making sure I get my sleep, making sure I get my workouts in. And when I don't do those things, I'm just not the best version of me. So a little bit, you have to relate it back to that. And then I think, you know, my, my wife works in advertising. And she always has this phrase, she says, strategies sacrifice. And part of what I take from that is, you know, we have to be really clear about priorities. And sometimes it's hard to say, well, something's number two, and something else is number one. But for me, it's just being clear that families number one, I

David Novak 47:37 

love that strategy is sacrifice. That's great. I wish I would have come up with that one. That's, that's terrific. I love that idea. Because it's so true. You know, I got to ask you this one. What drew you into the legal profession? And when did it hit you that, hey, I've got to do something more. So

Rocky Collis 47:57 

look, I played minor league baseball, as you mentioned, that ran its course through no choice of my own. And so a little bit of was what was an X, both my parents are attorneys. My mom was a judge for a long time. But my dad didn't practice. But he went, he went to law school. It felt natural for me to go to law school, I was really interested in using a law degree to do good in the world. I was interested in politics, I was interested in in a bunch of areas of practice that I thought could have a huge impact. I loved law school, I felt like law school really taught me how to look at issues from multiple angles and do sort of in depth analysis of things and frame arguments in a really impactful way, which I see as applicable to a lot of different professions. I get to work at great law firms. You know, at the time, I think, you know, some of the best law firms in the world. There were cases I enjoyed. But overall, I didn't enjoy being an attorney, because I felt like I wasn't having any wins above replacement. I felt like they could have plugged anybody from any good law school into my job. And they would have basically been as effective and the cases would have turned out the same and it didn't really matter that I was there. I thought I was really going to like the competitiveness of it. You know, I need wins and losses in my life. I get a lot of I get a lot of drive out of that. But I just didn't feel like I was really impacting the winner last set as a junior attorney at a big law firm. So for me, it just came down to it again, if I'm ranking my priorities, you know, how much do I care about making money? How much do I care about work life balance? How much do I care about? Number one for me was impact. I want to leave a mark, I want to change the world in meaningful ways. And I just feel like I continue to feel like as an entrepreneur, you can have the most wins above replacement. You can most directly change the world in the ways you want to change it. You know, within a few years, I decided I want to shift from being an attorney to be an entrepreneur.

David Novak 49:46 

What do you learn with rank your first startup that you've really tried to take into the mustard launch? Number

Rocky Collis 49:53 

one, the value of building a brand around people. Okay, so this is a sequoia tree Same thing as well. But we really saw the importance of this in launching rank. When you're trying to launch a direct to consumer brand, you're trying to give that brand personality you're trying to give them meaning. The average consumer has to be able to look at that brand and understand what it means what it stands for. The quickest way to do that is to build a brand around an actual person that gives the brand personality. So at rank, you know, I'm honored to be a part of it, but the brand is co founded by Megan Rapinoe, Kristen press, Tobin Heath, and Meghan Klingenberg, for icons of the US Women's National Team. So for people that follow those players, and are fans of them, Rieng has this massive starting point that most consumer facing brands can only can only dream of, it's got a devoted following out of the gate, maybe more importantly, it's gotten meaning out of the gate. So we've tried to replicate that in a you know, a parallel but much different way. We've tried to replicate that with with muster. We've talked a lot about Tom house and Jason Goldsmith building brands around them. Two of the greatest coaches of all time, building brands around you know, Drew Brees, Clayton Kershaw, me, and Justin Rose list goes on with our athletes, Kerri Walsh, James Blake, you give the brand meaning, and you let people understand what they're coming to get. It's not just a technology company where you're not sure about the data they're giving you. You're coming to get coached by our people who you know, already. You know, speaking

David Novak 51:24 

of impact, you're on the board of the Hollywood Community Housing Corporation. What's the project you're working on there that you're really excited about?

Rocky Collis 51:33 

We've got a project in Venice, that is become a bit contentious in LA for a variety reasons. I mean, the thing about affordable housing is everybody realizes their cities need it. But a lot of times we hope, it gets built, you know, somewhere that's not in our neighborhood. And so there's been a lot of talk in LA about this project we're working on in Venice, that I think would be really important for the community will house a lot of people that need the housing, but it's taken a good bit of work from the great folks at Hollywood community housing to make sure that project goes forward. Well,

David Novak 52:04 

it's good that you're volunteering on that front. And last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd want to give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? Can I give to you can fire away,

Rocky Collis 52:17 

number one, make sure everybody's aligned on the mission, when you have alignment on mission, people give you more, they want to make a bigger impact within your organization. They know why they're doing what they're doing. They're going to do it more specifically, and they're going to do it better. So I think alignment on mission is number one. Number two, the value of persistence. People asked me a lot as a startup founder, how did you raise the money? And, you know, how do you continue to raise money? And my answer is always nothing that I do so well, is just being willing to get told no. Being willing to get punched in the face 1000 times, and just keep trying your best. So alignment on mission and persistence. For me, those are the two North Stars.

David Novak 52:59 

Well, Rocky, you're very focused on your mission. And it's contagious in terms of how you present it to the world and the success that you're having so quickly as you build a startup, which is not easy to do. And you are definitely persistent. There's no doubt about that, even though he got rocked it. That one out in college, you came back and you got drafted, you know, Major League Baseball potential. I mean, not many people have that and then go on and be a lawyer and then a great entrepreneur. So thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today, Rocky? Well,

Rocky Collis 53:35 

David, I've learned so much from you. So honestly, it's just just an honor to be with you. I really appreciate you having me on.

David Novak 53:50 

Now, rocky says that when you have alignment on a mission, the people around you, they just give you more. And boy, he's absolutely spot on. People want to know how they're making a difference. That's the power of a clear mission. But listen, you can't just assume people know what that mission is. You've got to be all in on it yourself. You've got to talk about it. shout it from the mountaintop, strategize around it and believe in it with all your heart. This week, consider how much you talk about the mission of what you lead. Ask what you need to do to embrace it more fully. When you do, you'll have the kind of noble cause that helps you build a great team and win together. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders go all in on their mission. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Charlie Scharf, the CEO and President of Wells Fargo.

Charlie Scharf 54:50 

Ultimately, our culture is going to be defined by the way people view us whether it's our customers, whether it's people who work there, whether it's people in our communities, that's going to define what the company is not what's on our sheet of paper. You want those two things to agree, but you have to live it every single day.

David Novak 55:07 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in. While I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader that you can be