Know What Is Next What Makes a Sports Tech Business “Exitable” with Igor Ulis
What REALLY makes a business worth buying, and what should founders actually optimize for?
In this candid conversation, Dave sits down with longtime friend and former business partner Igor Ulis, partner at Hudson Technology Systems. Igor traces his path from “dumb kid in college” who thought writing code was enough to get rich in the dot-com boom, to building and scaling a global sports technology services company that ultimately sold to Infront.
Dave and Igor get into the mechanics of valuation in the real world — multiples on revenue vs. profit, the importance of cash generation, and why buyers care so much about whether the business can run without the founder in the room.
Igor also explains how services businesses live or die on utilization, pricing discipline, hiring, and the “art and science” of estimating complex projects. They dig into the tradeoffs of taking loss-leader work,why “follow your passion,” “fail fast,” and “work on the business, not in the business” are incomplete clichés, and how to avoid underpricing your value just to win logos.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why most founders misunderstand what makes a services business scalable, and the ONE metric Igor would force every operator to master
- Why “loss-leader work” is almost always a trap, and the moments at Omnigon when underpricing nearly cost them big
- The project-estimation approach Igor used to protect margins on massive sports builds
- What really changes after an acquisition: new accountability, pressure of managing up, and an unexpected “MBA-level” crash course
- The culture challenges that emerge once a service team crosses 100+ people
Resources and Links:
Connect with Igor Ulis on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Next League on our website and LinkedIn. We are leading sports organizations into the digital future.