As Seen in: Authority Magazine

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The Future of Sports: Jacob Rothman of Perch On The New Emerging Technologies That Are Disrupting The World Of Sports

Cambridge, MA – June 04, 2023

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Hardware is hard: If you told me how hard it was to build a hardware company, I probably still would’ve started Perch, but boy, I would’ve buckled up. Building a hardware makes everything in our business more complicated, finance, operations, software, and of course hardware all grow in complexity when you are building and shipping a product.

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Jacob Rothman was an MIT varsity athlete when he herniated a disc in his back during a routine workout. While recovering from his injury, he started to brainstorm ideas for a device that could help athletes better quantify workouts in the weight room to prevent injury and improve overall performance. He teamed up with two other athletes on campus and they came up with the idea for Perch, an AI-backed platform that uses a combination of 3D cameras and machine learning to monitor movements during exercise and enhance an athlete’s motivation, safety, and performance in the weight room.‍

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Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?‍

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I was an MIT undergrad and member of the school’s baseball team when I suffered a herniated disc while doing a warm-up set of squats in the weight room during the summer after my freshman year. The doctors couldn’t pinpoint exactly what caused the injury, but I was clearly not training in the right way. It could have been my form, that my body was overworked or that I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Anyone’s guess was as good as mine.

While recovering from my injury, I started to brainstorm ideas for a device that could help athletes better quantify workouts in the weight room to prevent injury and improve overall performance. Soon after, I teamed up with my co-founder — Jordan Lucier — and we came up with the idea for Perch. Over the next couple of years, we spent entire nights in MIT’s machine shops building, designing, and testing different prototypes.

Today, Perch devices are popping up in more and more weight rooms across the NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, NBA, and NCAA. Some of the more prominent teams using the technology to help their players train smarter and reduce the risk of injury include the Pittsburgh Steelers, Miami Heat, Toronto Maple Leafs and Georgia Bulldogs Football, among numerous others.

Perch’s ease-of-install — roughly three minutes — has also allowed for the device’s adoption well beyond sports. Devices have been installed at various military bases, fitness and performance facilities, and a growing number of high schools and home gyms across the country.

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Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?‍

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In early 2019, we were looking for that one client, that one opportunity to show a big-time program our potentially game-changing idea. So, we started cold calling various Power Five schools and universities and professional teams, hoping someone would take a chance. LSU’s strength and conditioning coach at the time, Tommy Moffitt, was the first coach to respond. He was a little incredulous of our claims but intrigued enough to have me fly down to LSU and demo the technology for him and the LSU staff. In September of that year, just in time for the start of the college football season, Perch devices were installed on all 22 weight racks in LSU’s weight room.

A few months later, LSU won its fourth national college football title in school history, and we got the proof of concept that an upstart company like Perch dreams about.‍

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Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?‍

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I have too many life lesson quotes and I often pull on the ones that I most need in the moment. The one that comes to mind now is, you need to be “comfortable being uncomfortable.” Starting a company is very difficult, and there will be times when you don’t know what you’re doing, when you need to challenge yourself, or when you’re in uncomfortable situations. For example, I’m an introvert from MIT, but now find myself selling products to professional strength coaches, fundraising from professional athletes, and giving pitches in front of hundreds of people. I could only get to where I am today if I leaned into that discomfort and forced myself to grow and learn.‍

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None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?‍

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Too many to count, but to be honest, my dad and my wife have been extremely helpful throughout my journey.

My dad was a VP of sales his entire career, and truly helped me grow as a salesperson and leader. It’s very rare that you can find an adviser or mentor that understands the issues you are facing while also caring so deeply that they’ll sit on the phone with you for hours, regardless of time of day, to help you think through a problem.

Starting and leading a company is a lonely proposition. There’s a lot of weight on your shoulders and there are many problems that you really can’t talk to anyone else about. My wife is always there to listen and encourage me. She’s absolutely selfless.

It’s important to find mentors and people in your life that truly care about you, your well-being, and your growth; People who care deeply enough to listen and tell you what you need to hear.‍

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Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?‍

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Recently, I read the book Crucial Conversations and it has made a significant impact on me. As our team has grown, I’ve had to grow as a manager. I can no longer individually execute on sales, fundraising, product, etc. I’ve had to hire great people to lead those functions. As the team grows, you need to communicate effectively, and you need to be able to have hard conversations. Crucial Conversations gives an incredible framework for having these conversations and I immediately started implementing them. It’s one of a handful of books that have truly made a noticeable impact on me and my career.‍

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You are a successful business leader. Which 3 character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?‍

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I have a lot of good character traits and many that I need to work on! The three that come to mind are:

1. Resilient: This is about accepting failure, learning from it, and continuing on your journey to accomplish your mission. I’ve failed too many times to count. I’ve probably talked to / pitched over 400 investors during my time at Perch. While we’ve successfully raised over $7M to date, that is a lot of rejections, a lot of people telling you that your idea will never work, that the market is too small, that you are not experienced enough. I had the resilience to accept that feedback without judgement, learn from it, and remain confident in my path.
2. Growth-oriented (maybe a bit obsessive): I was a mechanical engineer at MIT. I knew absolutely nothing about starting a company, sales, fundraising, legal, etc. But I love to learn. Nothing bothers me more than not knowing something and I’ll do everything I can to continue to learn and grow. I remember a time when I was pitching a customer to win a six-figure contract. The pitch did not go well for a variety of reasons. I stewed on that call for days, trying to learn everything I could from it, so that when I had an opportunity like that again or was in a similarly difficult conversation, I’d not let the opportunity slip.
3. Caring: I care deeply about what I do, the people that work for me, and the clients to whom we deliver our product. Nothing makes me happier than watching people succeed and playing a small role in that success.

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How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?‍

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We hope that our product can make the world a stronger place. That’s our mission. We want to change the way the world lifts weights and help more and more people realize the positive health benefits of lifting.

I’ve also had the opportunity to be a mentor for Youth Cities, an organization mentoring middle school kids and Techstars.‍

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Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about the sports technologies that most excite you at the moment? Can you explain why you are passionate about it?‍

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The world of sport has always looked to technology to enhance the matchday experience. With each passing year, however, artificial intelligence (AI) is taking it to a whole new level and transforming the sports world as we know it.

From improving training techniques to analyzing player performance, one of the most remarkable applications of AI in sports is its potential application in aggregating data and using predictive analytics. By collecting and analyzing vast amounts of data, AI can accurately predict the outcome of a game, helping coaches make better decisions on everything from player selection to in-game strategy. As is the case with our Perch technology, AI is also being used to improve players’ health and fitness by tracking their movements and helping to make recommendations.‍

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How do you think this might change the world of sports?‍

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AI is changing the way sports are played and officiated, and these changes are leading to more efficient game strategy, more accurate calls, and better player safety, just to name a few of the benefits.

There’s no doubt that AI is becoming an essential part of the sports world and will continue to have a significant impact in the future. In fact, its ubiquity in the sports industry has many believing the segment will reach a value of $19.2 billion by 2030.‍

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Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?‍

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AI is a black box and those that use it should not trust it blindly. We need to do our best to understand why it’s making the conclusions it is and try to use it as a tool to augment coaching and decision making, rather than let it make the decisions for us.‍

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What are the 3 things that concern you about the sports industry today? Can you explain? What can be done to address or correct those concerns?

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1. Health and safety: The safety and well-being of athletes has become a growing concern in the sports industry. With increasing awareness of the long-term health risks associated with sports-related injuries, such as concussions, there is a need for better injury prevention and management protocols.
2. The unequal treatment and representation of athletes from different genders, races, and ethnicities. Women and athletes from minority backgrounds are often underrepresented, underpaid, and can face discrimination in the sports industry.
3. NIL: I’m educated enough to have strong opinions here, but the college sports landscape has changed drastically over the last few years due to NIL and the transfer portal. The best collegiate athletes now have incredible and life changing opportunities before going pro, but it’ll be interesting to see how it changes collegiate sports.

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Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

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1. It’s only a job: As a young startup founder, it’s very easy for your job to become your identity. It’s your life’s work. It can consume you. However, this pressure can turn a passion into an obsession, and make starting a company more difficult than it needs to be. A stoic principle which has stuck with me (which sounds depressing), is that no matter how successful you or your company is, most present day and future people will not know about you. It’s a depressing, but also a liberating thought. It’s important to not let your work consume you but instead realize that it’s only a job.
2. Enjoy the journey: I’ve realized over the years that things will only get harder. I’ve spent many years thinking “if only I can raise that money, close that deal, hire that person, my problems will be solved.” But new problems will just take their place. As a founder, every day is new, every day is a challenge, and you’ll never face the exact same problem again. You need to appreciate the ups and downs, the learnings, and their wins as they come.
3. Don’t be scared to have hard conversations: I’m still working very hard to grow as a manager. One thing that I did poorly early on was not have hard conversations. I was scared to have them and bad at it, so they often ended poorly. However, what’s worse is letting problems fester or resentment build. Relationships in my life have been significantly hurt because of this.
4. Ask good questions, be curious, seek to understand: As I’m growing as a leader, I’m realizing that I need to grow my people. I need to multiply them so that they can continue to grow within their roles at the company, and they can do the same for the people that report to them. The best way to coach and grow your people is to not solve their problems for them, but instead to guide by asking good questions. The same holds true for sales. The best salespeople ask the best questions, they seek to truly understand the problem so that they can craft a solution that solves the problem of a prospect.
5. Hardware is hard: If you told me how hard it was to build a hardware company, I probably still would’ve started Perch, but boy, I would’ve buckled up. Building a hardware makes everything in our business more complicated, finance, operations, software, and of course hardware all grow in complexity when you are building and shipping a product.

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You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)‍

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Obesity is becoming a huge problem in the United States and globally. According to the CDC, in 2020, over 42% of people in the US were considered obese. I want to help more people move and find joy in exercise. It has changed my life, both physically and mentally, and I’ve built a career around making it more accessible.‍

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We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the U.S. with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)‍

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That is a tough one, probably Phil Knight. I loved his memoir Shoe Dog and have always admired him for the following reasons:

• Resolve in the face of adversity — Phil’s story has many ups and downs and challenges to count. From cash flow, to competition, to legal issues.
• Trust in my employees — Phil hired great people and trusted them to execute. As we scale, I need to learn to give up control.
• Work-life balance / family first — Phil started Nike around the same time I started Perch. He grew his company while growing his family. He’s been a supportive father and married to the same woman his entire life.

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How can our readers further follow your work online?‍

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Follow me on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/jacobrothman) and follow Perch on Instagram (@perch.fit), Twitter (@perchFit), and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/perchfitness/).‍

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Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

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