Catapult CEO on COVID-19 Tracking Devices

clientele world shutting down because of the pandemic. Having said that, the stock is on quite a tear this year, let's talk about this year and what's to come. Joining us as Will Lopes, CEO of the publicly held Catapult based in Australia. He's former chief revenue officer of Amazon's Audible subsidiary. Long time with that company. But we're joining us on this Wednesday on the phone in New York. Hey, Well, nice to have you here. Hey, Carol, thank you for

having me. How are you So? What has your world been like since March? And how has it changed since March and April? God, it's it's it feels like, you know, like I one year anniversary with Catapult talk about timing five years. That's right, that's right. You know, the sports the sports world has changed quite quite drastically and very rapidly. But you know, luckily for us, it's starting to bounce back quite well. I think they've managed to find ways to return to play um and so I think we've

been quite lucky on that front. But you know, I could tell you that from March to about June, I think we're all sweating trying to figure out, you know, where where where things were going. But it's it's actually turned out to be just fine. Yeah, I feel like in anything, it's funny. We knew things were getting really serious when all of the sports world started shut down. That's when we all started looking each other. We're like, okay, this is It's like, it's unbelievable. But that that was

our metrics. Um. It just it just kind of took it to a whole other level because you know, right, there's a lot of money. It's it's the teams, it's the franchises, it's the statements, the stadiums, it's you know, um and it's the broadcast rights. I mean, it was just a lot involved. But it's interesting the sports world has really out like in many ways, especially look at

what the NBA did, really figured out how to do it. Yeah, I think you know what what you know, what was interesting for us from an industry perspective was that, you know, the shutdown was globally and all at once, right, and so unlike other industries where I think that you know, it's felt regionally for different parts. Um. For us, it

really happened globally. UM. But I think you know what we saw from our clients was you know a lot of them reached out almost immediately and they right up right from the start, I wanted to have plans about how to return to play, how to use our technology in terms of training you know, their athletes at home because they got concerned about you know, getting stale from a from a from an athletic performance perspective, how do they review tapes from home? How do they start to

view video and the like? Um? And what really changed UM. And I think you know what we're seeing in the industry quite rapidly is that you know, even with things like the NBA where they had a bubble, um, there was you know, a core set of people who were still working from home, UM, and so a lot of the activities that we did in stadium or in training centers really went to the house, which was was quite an unusual thing for us to kind of prepare ourselves for.

I don't think we've thought about that. So tell tell us a little bit more about that, what you were doing. So there were a lot of athletes that were using your equipment at home and you guys were trying Just tell us about that. That's fascinating. So so so the core problems we have. You know, we have a lot of solutions that help teams perform and do their best.

But you know, we have really two core solutions. One is a wearable device that athletes were on their torso and we're using that to measure all kinds of data points, really trying to help them, you know, stay healthy and return to play and kind of bp performance during their training sessions. And then we have a video solution that is utilized by hundreds of teams here in the US UM where they use that to analyze basically, you know,

their past game or their next opponent's game. UM. And so from a wearables perspective, typically that's utilized in the training center, so they you know, athletes come into more in their trainers hand them out, they look at the data that you know that's coming in from from the athletes,

and then they're modifying the training session based on that. UM. So we had to modify that so that all of these pods when individually to everyone's home and they could train at home, then upload their data and have the trainer basically modify their training sessions from from their own house. UM. So that was a very different workflow for us. And

then in the video front, UM. You know, typically you have you know, coaches are are reviewing tape UM where they have athletes near them and they're doing illustration live and they're talking about you know, you know you should have done this differently or here's something that you know you should think about in the next game. UM. And all of a sudden, that workflow had to be you know, uh remote workflow, just like we're all the only with

from you know, from a zoom perspective, right, UM. And so the illustrations needed to be you know remote, They needed to kind of adapt so that they could use video conferencing. UM. So we had to modify our software quite a bit. For that for dealing with this situation. I'm also curious, well, how did I'm also tracking the virus specifically be part of this. I'm assuming that that was added to the platform. If not, Yeah, it was,

it was. It was actually you know, European Soccer was the first group of professional athletes that came back to play UM, and they had quite a high bar in terms of what they are allowed to do during training sessions. Uh. And so they could come in, they had to come in with you know, a certain number of people given times, and they had to ensure that they were keeping six

foot distance during training UM. And so what they were using our hardware for it was actually to monitor that to say, you know, here's a training session that allows us to do it and keep social distancing. UM. They also wanted to make sure that they tracked it and send it back to the league office to say, look, you know, we're following the rules. UM. So they utilize our software from a contract tracing perspective, uh, you know,

very widely at this point. Yeah, it's really fascinating. It sounds like the pivot was fairly just got about thirty seconds and then we'll do some news and come back. But in thirty seconds. It sounds like the pit of it was fairly easy for you guys in terms especially, you know, doing more tracking of athletes at home and

so on. Yeah. Well, in hindsight everything that's so true, it's not when you're in the middle of it, right in the thick of it doesn't feel so I think what, you know, what was great was that, you know, we were able to act so quickly, But in hindsight, you know, if you look at at the time, it was actually quite a monumental task for our team. Well, what's your outlook for I don't know, maybe what are you hearing

from your sports client? Tell in your customers about what looks like because I think people are starting to get optimistic. I keep hearing about people thinking, Okay, maybe we'll have this conference, or maybe we'll have this event. You know, they're just kind of waiting to get a little bit

better of a better feel. What are you hearing What are you anticipating for next yearly supporting the supporting world, You're you're definitely seeing some optimism in terms of you know, I think people feel that probably by the springtime that you know, things will be fairly back to normal. Maybe stadiums will be full yet with with fans, but it will be starting to get close to it. So there is optimism you're seeing in the industry. We're definitely seeing

a pick up in terms of conversations in sales. You know, kind of we're put in hold while people waited for some level of certainty. Is a conversation, So it's conversations, maybe not actual sales, but your people are talking about it more. Yeah. I think, you know, we had a period where it was kind of, you know, our existing clients stayed with us because they knew exactly what you know,

they had and how they were using it. But new clients I think just kind of said, look, you know, we're all just gonna wait everything back in play, and those those those potential clients are now coming back and saying, okay, we're ready to talk. Um. It also took a little bit of time, I think for the industry as a whole to accept that, you know, you didn't have to be in person to have a conversation about, you know,

a new technology. I think everybody's now is starting to get to this point of yeah, I can understand that, you know, we could do this via a video conferencing. UM, so we're definitely seen a bit optimism and and that's been very fortunate for us. Well that's good. Okay, So

where do you guys go from here? And I'm curious about what we were talking about the wearable markets and I'm thinking about you know, so many I've talked to a lot of CEOs and they just said there were certain plan strategies that we had in place, but they got accelerated because we hadn't moved much more quickly on them because of the pandemic. There are other strategies that we're not going to pursue anymore because we can just

see the world is changing. Um. How has this world and this year maybe impacted some of the strategies that you guys are doing at your company? Yeah, you know, for for the most part, I think one of the core strategy that we have is to actually centralize a lot of the data points that you know, these teams and athletes are having access. So UM, that really hasn't changed.

And so you know, technology has become really prolific in sports. Um, you know, they measured just about everything at this stage, whether that's nutrition or sleep or performance in the field and training and the video and trying to connect all of those things and actually make cohesive sense of it is really that's in the industry and that's been core of our strategy or a catapult. UM. So luckily for us,

I think that that continues. What I would say, you know that that the element that really is changing for us is the expectation of that technology is accessible and available everywhere. UM. And so you know, sort of the connectivity component of I could do this in the training session, UM, I could look at my laptop, but I also may want to look at my phone now with the pandemic is you know, I realized I could do a lot of stuff from home. I could do a lot of

stuff when I'm on the road. UM. And so the ability to kind of have those uh you know, access at any at any point, UM is something that I think is accelerating for us. We knew it was coming, UM, but I think now it's really accelerated for us. UM. And I'd say the third thing, UM that maybe this is I think you know, perhaps with with everybody being home, UM, the one thing that is changing a little bit is that you know the line between sfessional and amateur athletes

starting to blo um. And so I think you're seeing a lot of the amateur athletes you know who were at home who now have been you know, maybe have a pent up designer to exercise and go out and work out. They're all looking out and saying, you know, what are the technologies that are out there too? Not just get me back in shape or you know, getting to improve my technique, but really improve you know, my physique and how do I do that from a professional standpoint?

And and a lot of the products we have, I think are you know, eventually will be simplified enough that you know, anyone whether they're a high school student, you know, a you know, early college entry or a professional athlete could use Wow, that sounds like a kind of a potential tremendous revenue stream for you guys eventually. Right, that's

a big mass market there, really is. I think that you know that that we we've we've been very lucky because we're the leaders in the professional side of the house and there's about fifteen thousand professional teams across the globe and we do very well there. But you know, when you think about you know, sort of semi professionals

or non professional teams. Just in the US there's about three hundred and fifty thousand high school teams, and when you get below of that, there's you know, millions of amateur athletes and they all have the same desires. How do I improve, how do I stay healthy? How do I avoid injury? Um? And how do I get feel that I'm doing better and then I'm not just doing

the same thing? And and the fact that we have access to these professional data, how we could use that data and turn it into a you know, an AI type of engine that really helps high school and youth academies and then consumers, um, you know, sort of improving their performance. I think is is a mass market, uh for sure to be continued. Let us know how things are going, especially when we get on the other side

of this. UM. Well, good to check in with you willop see CEO of Catapult joining us on the phone from New York City on this Wednesday. Really interesting to hear again a very similar story that we've heard that I think initially folks were you know, really irbis certainly obviously when the pandemic first hit. But then you know, as things start to unwine and we figured out how to kind of get through even the sports industry, um, you know, able to maintain at least some level of demand.

They are so really fascinating,