Operations at League Side served as a catch-all for different functions before transitioning to specialized departments based on the system breaking and indicating the need for focused ownership and expertise.
League Side focused on improving the UI/UX of operations by simplifying complex systems, avoiding reliance on institutional knowledge, and ensuring internal users could easily understand and navigate the operations workflow.
Deep dives
Evolution of Operations at League Side
Operations at League Side initially served as a catch-all for different functions within the company. It was responsible for STR, people ops, marketing, and more. Over time, they began to specialize and build specific departments around the general skills of the ops team. The transition from generalist to specialist usually happened when the system started breaking, indicating the need for more focused ownership and expertise.
UI/UX of Operations
League Side focused on improving the UI/UX of operations internally by abstracting the processes and creating user-friendly interfaces. They aimed to simplify the complex systems, avoid relying on institutional knowledge, and ensure that internal users could easily understand and navigate the operations workflow. The goal was to make operations more efficient and accessible for everyone.
Building Systems with Software Principles
Zubin's experience working in engineering influenced his approach to building systems in operations. He applied software principles such as 'keep it simple,' the 'single responsibility principle,' and 'don't repeat yourself' to improve the functionality and maintainability of their systems. By breaking down complex processes into manageable steps and reusing code and systems where possible, League Side created an extendable, reusable, and easy-to-understand system for their operations.
We can get caught up sometimes in what the most ideal and advanced versions of an Operations team can look like.
It can be easy to forget the early days of start-ups when an Operations team can be responsible for just about anything and everything that doesn’t yet have a home.
That’s exactly what happened with our guest, Zubin Teherani. Zubin is the Co-Founder and COO of LeagueSide, a company that makes youth sports sponsorships easy by bringing together over 16,000 youth sports leagues with big brands.
Zubin and his team have used Operations as an incubator for every core function in the company. In our conversation, we explore how and why they used Ops as a catch all, we talk about the UI/UX of Operations, and why Zubin’s stint outside of Operations was what unlocked a whole new way of doing things inside Operations.
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