Heroes in Business - Jeff Webb Founder of Varsity Spirit $2Billion Company, Founder and President International Cheer Union

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

We Lead with Heart... Jeff Webb Founder of Varsity Spirit $2Billion Company, Founder and President International Cheer Union is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and host of the Eliances Heroes Show. Broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio and online syndication.    

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. All right, well, it's a great day. I mean, we just had on Mark Victor Hanson, the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul series, selling over 500 million copies. And thank you for the feedback we continue to have when I head on the Olympic swimmer, Jason Lezak. So remember, go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. All right. I want all our listeners and viewers to give a great big cheer, a cheer for our next hero.

That's right. Jeff Webb, the founder and CEO of, are you ready for this? Varsity Spirit. And you can reach him at varsity.com. All right, Jeff, you are the founder and you have grown this company to over $2 billion. Can you believe it? Well, it was a labor of love. It took a long time. I had started Varsity when I was 24 years old, which was a long time ago. And I was fortunate enough along the way to build a pretty great organization with the help of a lot of people. Actually left the company full time December 31st and involved in some things still in the cheerleading world, but also politically.

So it's been it's been a great ride, a great run. And again, with the help of a lot of fantastic people. with the help of a lot of fantastic people. So, Jeff, when you started this company, did you have any idea or vision that it would be as big as it is now? Yeah. Well, I had the exact vision from when, no, I didn't at all. You know, again, it was a long period of time.

I was 24 years old. I came up with the idea of trying to make cheerleading, which was a student leadership activity and something that was very athletic and entertaining. Started out doing some summer camps, ran the business out of my apartment for the first few years, and was lucky enough along the way to expand it into uniforms. And we started doing the television shows that many people are familiar with on ESPN a long time ago. And, you know, got into some other things in the sports and school business to build varsity. But no, I did not envision at the very beginning. I had a concept, had a vision. And to be honest,

I was just trying to survive for those first few years. And starting at a 24 years old, how did you know, though, at the point of, I've got a real business here, like this isn't a hobby, this is something that I'm going to pursue? Yeah, well, I've been a cheerleader at the University of Oklahoma, and I went to work for a gentleman in Dallas who ran some camps and did some things, so I had a couple of years of business kind of exposure experience, if you will. But then I had a kind of a different vision from where they were going or where he was going. And so when I started it, I mean, it was as a business. I raised the original capital from friends and family. It was only $85,000, more money than I thought I would ever need, which

turned out to be wrong, of course. But, you know, I had to take a business approach from the very beginning. Even though it was something that I really enjoyed and I had a passion for that I wanted to do, to be able to do that, we had to have a real company with financial discipline and, you know, everything that goes into making a sound business. How did you secure the incredible domain name varsity.com? Well, you know, it was early on when domain names were being acquired and we were fortunate enough to do it. We got it. So, yeah, it's been great. The original name of the company was Universal Sports Camps. And then as we evolved, we changed it to vars, and we're able to get the domain name.

And you're listening, watching David Kogan, host of the E-Liances Hero Show. And our domain name is E-Liances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com, because we have with us Jeff Webb, founder and CEO of Varsity Spirit, over $2 billion. And you can reach him at Varsity Spirit, over $2 billion, and you can reach them at varsity.com. So Jeff, it's amazing, again, you've really kind of created this niche and you've built it into such a large company. If there were two factors that you would say that was the magic of being able to build it and the skills, what are those? Well, you know, again, I think first it's just having a vision of what you want to do. And for me, it was key because it was something I enjoyed. And so I didn't really consider it getting up and going to work every day. That's number one. And then I think number two is being able to attract the right people, but to create a culture that sustains itself.

And that culture that we built at Varsity was based on being competitive, certainly from a business standpoint, but also having a big heart for our employees and our customers and trying to do the right thing, to try to give them an opportunity to pursue their own dreams and to do it in a really kind way. And we're very, I'm very proud of the culture and what it became and what it's become. And frankly, the fact that it has been sustained for so long. And how do you build a culture and a solid culture, especially when you're in the industry of it's a cheer, a rah-rah, like when people come to work, are they like cheering coming? Well, no, it's not like that. I mean, when they come to work, they come to work.

It is a kind of environment, though, where people are happy, generally. It's very collegial. It's, I think, one of the secrets to a great culture that, again, can be sustained over a long period of time. For us, anyway, it was about being more egalitarian. That, you know, because I started out, you know, doing all the things that my employees did, we had like three employees and 10, then 20 and so on. You know, I pretty much did everything. And we, as far as just some of the manual labor, even putting out mats on the production set. But we try to keep that throughout the development of the company where everybody, yes, we had an infrastructure.

We had a hierarchy. We had people with certain levels of responsibility. But nobody was too big or too good to get their hands dirty. And having that as part of your culture, I think it creates something where you don't have to worry about hypocrisy, where everybody looks at everybody else with respect, no matter what the job you're doing, it's important. And recognizing that, respecting it, and frankly, celebrating it, it's been very important. Jeff, I want to do some snooping right now. I think we might be in your office or something like that. You've got a few different awards now. What's something that's unique or something that you kind of your prize in your office, something you look at? picture of our first staff of cheerleading instructors from the very first summer, which was 1975. And I was the oldest one in the company at 24. These were mostly college students

and they helped me start what has become Varsity, something I will never forget. We were just a bunch of kids. There was already a cheerleading industry. It was competitive. We were the small company. We were the rebels fighting because we felt like we had something different and something better. And that I can look at that picture still today and realize where the fight came from, where the where the push and where the culture actually began. So that's probably my prized possession. That's probably my prized possession. What kind of advice do you have, too, for, you know, parents out there that want to instill the positive thing, make people, you know, their children to make an impact like you have? I mean, you've you dominate the industry of it. And you've been very successful.

You employ a lot of people. What kind of maybe advice or secrets can you share with parents out there to raise their children and ingrain it in them to be able to find their best like you have? Yeah. Well, you know, I grew up in very much a middle-class family, but with a very supportive family. My mother and father were always supportive with three of us, three kids. They always supported us. They always told us we could do anything that we wanted to do, sometimes when we didn't even believe it. But having that kind of support and letting your children know that they should try to do things that they aspire to do, even if they may fail, try to do those things and give them encouragement and give them recognition, but to be, to be determined and to

realize that, you know, you can do, you can do great things and maybe tough, but you can do great things if you just keep at it. I think that's really important. Jeff, when you've watched all of these cheers going on, like, does anything just inside of you just want you to like run out there and just start doing it with them? Well, you know, until a year or two ago, I actually did still go to some of the camps and run the camps and help out, speak to the students and direct the staff. So it's a lot of fun. I love our events. I love our camps. It's really how we built our organization. And as I've always told all the employees that where you meet the customer in person, deliver the product or service is where the magic happens. And at that point, we have to all be about making their experience as great as it can possibly be.

Well, Jeff, you know, you've created a company that brings together the teams behind the teams, supporting and encouraging athletes and fans alike. That's a hero. Jeff Webb, founder, Varsity Spirit, can be reached at varsityspirit.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Thanks, David.