FanFeed co-founder Cole Rubin says a little fear, a sharp sense of his own gaps and speed help a small company compete with bigger names in ticketing.
Cole Rubin, co-founder of the fan app FanFeed, says staying a bit paranoid is a good way for a startup to survive against giants. In an interview with Entrepreneur, he said he lives by the line "Only the paranoid survive." His argument is that small companies can win by moving faster than big ones.
FanFeed describes itself as a place to see your live-event history, view content, access tickets, see which friends are going to events and engage more deeply with the things you love. Rubin, a Ravens fan, wanted to know things like how many games he had attended and what the team's record was at those games.
The company calls the platform AI-powered. It also serves the seller side. Teams, artists and universities can learn more about their fans. That gives them first-party data, meaning information they collect directly from fans, to offer more personalized experiences and offers.
Rubin says the turning point was meeting co-founder Jack Phifer, who looked at the idea from a technical angle. Phifer saw that the company could build its own technology to pull up those insights automatically.
That mattered because most people will not type in years of past events by hand. Rubin's point is that pressing one button to surface years of memories makes the idea easy to use.
Rubin calls himself a non-techy, and says he treats that as something to manage, not hide. His advice comes down to a few habits:
He says his first business, building travel packages for fans who followed their teams on the road, worked because he was the ideal customer himself. FanFeed's investors include StubHub co-founder Colin Evans. Rubin says the company sought backers with experience in technology, digital marketing, sports, music and college athletics.
On the fear of being crushed by larger rivals, Rubin says some fear is useful. Large companies have historically had layers of decision-making that slow them down. Startups can be far more agile.
He adds that an idea alone is just an idea, and execution turns it into a business. His advice is to move quickly, learn quickly and not be afraid to fail quickly. Bigger companies may eventually enter your space, he says, but there is real power in being first and executing hard while you have that lead.
The interview does not give user numbers, funding totals, pricing or launch dates for FanFeed. Rubin also says it remains to be seen how much AI changes the speed gap between small and large companies.
Know where you are weak, think like your customer and move fast, because speed is a small company's main edge over bigger rivals.
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