Almost a year ago we did a q and a with Dennis Crowley, the founder of Foursquare and owner of The Kingston Stockade of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL). We talked about his disruptive style and how he came to build a volunteer army that has made the Stockade a model, even at the bottom of the US Soccer pyramid (for now), for how you can create startup within budget and build consensus and community.
Eleven months after that, Dennis has spoken to our Columbia class and had them build out a strategy to reach the Hispanic community (it will be used this spring), his club is virtually at breakeven, he has been thrust into the promotion/relegation debate in U.S. soccer, the Stockade won a title and even qualified for the U.S. Open Cup three seasons sooner than hoped for.
More importantly he has looked to make what he has done with the Stockade “Open Source Soccer,” as he has termed it; opening up his books and creating a “how to” guide for anyone with the chops and the location to try and get involved in soccer at the NPSL level. The league, with clubs of various sizes across the country, has had some big successes and some challenges, and has added some robust new teams like Monmouth and Atlantic City, New Jersey this year.
Are there similarities between the work of Foursquare as a business and a startup soccer club? In our podcast this week he mentioned four key areas of success:
Community building
Inspiring others
Delegating
Leadership
Brand storytelling
Convincing people why they should care.
Crowley also talked about the value of rallying people together for cause whether that cause be soccer or in the tech world. “We work together to find ways to make things happen. The business is no different in terms of goal; it’s all about having everyone going in the right direction.
You can listen to the full interview with Dennis Crowley, myself and Tom Richardson here. It’s less than an hour and will give you some great insight into not just building a soccer team in a rebounding community, but how Foursquare came to be what it is today.
