On this episode of Bootstrapped, we spoke with former NFL Cornerback and former NFL Players Association President Domonique Foxworth. After seven years in the NFL, two of which he served as NFLPA President, Foxworth pursued his MBA at Harvard Business School. While enrolled at Havard Business School, Foxworth discusses how he went from investing in bonds to investing in startups. When evaluating whether to invest in an entrepreneur, he cites soft skills as key to the decision-making process. Understanding an industry and coming up with a viable idea is the easy part, according to Foxworth. Your level of self-awareness, coachability, and motives can make the difference between a venture’s success or failure.

On this episode of Bootstrapped, we talk football with Grip Boost founders Matt Furstenburg and Chanda Arya. As a former NFL player, Matt was familiar with the shortcomings of football gloves. After receiving half a million dollars in seed funding through organizations such as TEDCO and VOLT, the founders iterated for almost 2 years. With NFL's enormous budget, they appeared the segment to target. Instead, Matt focused on the less famous segment of sports teams—high school athletics, which makes up 95% of the market. Five years later, Grip Boost is sold in 70 stores across the US, selling apparel for football, baseball and golf. 

In this episode of Bootstrapped, we interviewed Ursula Mead, founder of InHerSight.com. The website easily appealed to users eager to rate their experience as a female employee. Unlike other job sites, InHerSight.com gathers data on the female perspective and became a prime location for companies looking to recruit women. Ursula monetized her company by selling data insights back to the companies rated on her site. Now three years old, InHerSight.com has over 170,000 users and 30,000 companies on the website.