Lesson #379: Business Lessons from Curt Cignetti and the Indiana Hoosiers

By now, we have all learned there is a “new sheriff” in the world of college football.  No, not my beloved alma mater, Michigan.  Not other “blue bloods” like Alabama, Georgia, Texas or Ohio State.  It is the team that up until two years ago had more losses than any other program in history: the Indiana Hoosiers.  In just two years since the hiring of their head coach, Curt Cignetti, they sit alone atop college football as the 16-0 national champion this year, including three wins over teams ranked in the top five (tripling such top-five ranked wins in their entire 138-year history).  How was this even possible?  This worst-to-first story will go down as one of the greatest stories in college football history. Let’s dissect this further, as there are a lot of valuable business lessons to be gleaned here for your businesses.

To summarize how this amazing turnaround happened for Indiana, it came down to the following things: (i) market conditions changed to their benefit; (ii) ownership embraced the desire to win at football; (iii) they hired a smart leader; (iv) the leader had a clear vision of the type of team he wanted to recruit; and (v) they all bought into the vision, believing the impossible was actually possible, and put in the hard work to make it happen.  Let’s dig into each of these points.

Market Conditions Changed in College Football

Two things happened in college football in the last couple years that forever changed the sport: (i) the NCAA allowed players to get paid, through name-image-and-likeness deals; and (ii) the NCAA allowed players to freely transfer between teams through the transfer portal.  Paying the players meant that the schools with large alumni bases (Indiana is the largest) and wealthy alumni (like Mark Cuban at Indiana) could amass large sums of money, to put them on a more even footing with the historical “blue blood” programs.  And the transfer portal enabled players to move between teams if they didn’t feel they were getting enough playing time or didn’t like their coaches, which meant the historically second and third string players at the “blue blood” programs were now starting at the other schools that were willing to pay for their services.  These changes became the big equalizer in college football.

I don’t like a lot of these changes, as it feels like the Wild West right now with limited guard rails being imposed by the NCAA.  But these changes were earth shattering for the sport.  Instead of a season ending with 4-to-5 teams that were capable of winning a playoff and the championship, now there were 15-20 teams that were good enough to go on a run and win a championship.  This created more parity than ever before.

As we apply this to our businesses, think of what artificial intelligence is doing in the workplace; it is the great equalizer putting both big companies and small startups on a more equal footing.  Your startup’s market conditions have materially changed in the last couple years; how are you going to capitalize on that?

Ownership Embraced The Desire to Win

Indiana never really was considered a “football school”.  On the other hand, with their success under coaches like Bobby Knight and players like Isiah Thomas and Steve Alford, they were always considered a “basketball school”.  But basketball isn’t where the lion’s share of athletic revenues are generated—they come from football.  And Indiana was never going to truly maximize their athletic revenues until they set a clear goal of being successful in football.  University President, Pamela Whitten, and Athletic Director, Scott Dolson, made that a priority, and began to invest accordingly.

What is the “North Star” vision for your business, and are you making the appropriate investments to enable you to hit that target?  If not, you will never get there.

They Hired a Smart Leader

Not many college football fans had heard of Curt Cignetti prior to his time at Indiana.  His name was never mentioned in the list of college football’s great coaches, like Kirby Smart at Georgia, Ryan Day at Ohio State or Dabo Sweeney at Clemson.  But when Indiana’s leadership started to research him, it was clear he was a winner wherever he went. 

In 2009, he was on Nick Saban’s coaching staff at Alabama that won a national championship (and who better to learn from than college football’s greatest coach of all time).  Between 2011-16, he turned around a struggling IUP program into a perennial conference champion.  In 2019, he lead James Madison to the FCS (Division II) national championship.  When Curt Cignetti famously told the media, “I win.  Google me!”, he wasn’t kidding.

The business lesson here is to hire smartly.  It isn’t always the person with the biggest brand logos on their resume, or the most attention, that will be the best hires.  Do your homework, peel back the layers of the onion, and you may find your own “diamond in the rough”.

They Recruited The Right Type of Players

Most college football recruiting classes are ranked in order of how many “5-Star” high school recruits a team has.  Indiana didn’t have a single 5-Star recruit on their roster that won the national championship.  Cignetti did three smart things in this regard: (i) he brought around 15 players with him when he moved from James Madison to Indiana (experienced players that had won a national championship and who could lay a good foundation for instilling that same mindset with his new team at Indiana); (ii) he biased the transfer portal over high school recruiting (take a proven winner at the college level than an unproven recruit from high school); and (iii) he looked for players that had the same “chip on their shoulders” that he did (the under-loved, under-recruited, under-appreciated players that wanted to prove themselves, like quarterback Fernando Mendoza that went on to win the Heisman Trophy and beat the team in his home town (Miami) that didn’t think he was good enough to even walk-on to their team).  What a recipe for success this turned out to be!

The same holds true for your business—people really matter.  Find the experienced staff member, perhaps from your competitors, wanting to prove they can succeed at the next level.

They All Bought Into the Vision and Put In The Work

Bo Schembechler, the famous Michigan football coach once said, “What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. And those who stay, will be champions.”  Curt Cignetti must have said the same thing to his team.  If you think of Indiana as all-time biggest losers, that is where we will stay.  But if you actually believe you are on an equal footing with the greats like Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon and Miami, you can actually beat them (which they did in four consecutive games).  But more than believing, they had to put in the work, winning in the weight room, practices, coaching sessions, film watching and game planning, as well.    That “chip on their shoulder” was particularly helpful here to get them to put in that needed work.  Big picture: winning is a mindset and to get there, it requires discipline, which Indiana had in spades.

Are you clearly communicating your vision to your staff?  Have they bought into that vision?  Are they putting in the hard work which will be required to win (e.g., gain market share and exceed  your goals)?  If not, back to the drawing board, as without that vision, a clear strategy and communication, religious management and hard work, you will never get there.

Closing Thoughts

When Indiana went 11-2 in 2024, Cignetti’s first year, I thought it was a fluke, catching better teams by surprise.  But when Indiana was the first team ever to go 16-0 to win the national championship in 2025, beating top-ranked teams by large margins of victory, I knew Indiana was no longer a “basketball school” and their football success was here to stay.  Which is bad news for my Michigan Wolverines and everyone else in the Big Ten. 

In the last two years, Northwestern has now passed Indiana as the team with the most all-time losses in college football.  Maybe Dave Braun and his coaching staff will be the next team to achieve the “impossible”, winning a national championship in the coming years.  Indiana has certainly given them and ever other team in football that winning playbook, which everyone is trying to copy in hopes of “catching lightning in the bottle” for their programs.  Expect to see more “historical underdogs” hoisting the championship trophy in years to come, thanks to Indiana and Curt Cignetti paving the way, proving what is actually possible with a well-conceived vision, strategy, team and execution.  Which “blue blood” will your business beat for your “national championship”?

    

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] Is Entrepreneurship Learned or Wired Into Your DNA?

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about whether entrepreneurship can be learned or if it is wired into a person's DNA.  This video will help you learn the 7 skillsets needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and whether they fall into the learned or DNA category.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you to see if you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #378: Artificial Intelligence Can Do Everything Now--Good News For Owners, Bad News for Staff

 Artificial intelligence (AI) has been more than a buzzword for the last couple years; it is literally taking over every single aspect of how businesses are run.  Big corporations have even started hiring Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers to ensure their organizations are getting the most out of AI tools, largely to replace slow/expensive human-driven tasks with fast/inexpensive technology-driven tasks.  The applications are literally endless, but this post should help inspire you to rethink everything you are doing in your business, as there is probably a technology out there that can do it faster and cheaper.

I did a little researching on Google to see what AI tools I could stumble upon, and I was amazed at the breadth and depth of AI tools I found:

Need a business plan?

Need market research?

Need competitor analysis?

Need products designed?

Need marketing help?

Need customer service support?

Need technology coded?

Need financial reporting?

Need fund raising?

Need to recruit staff?

Great, there are now AI tools out there that can quickly and easily do all of these tasks.  Yes, you can get a lot of these same topics addressed from the main AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude and Google, but the businesses linked about are mastering their craft in each of these specific verticals.  So, as we are all experimenting with these main AI engines, we should also be experimenting with some of these niche solution providers we have never heard of before, as maybe they have a better “mousetrap” (at least for now).

Why do I share this?  For three reasons.  Firstly, an “old timer” like myself (aged 56) would have done what I normally would have done for these topics: hire people or consultants that produce the work product needed.  Because that is how I have always done it.  I didn’t even know there were other technology driven options out there that could help me move faster and cheaper.  And I am guessing there are a lot of other people out there that would have done the same thing.  So, I encourage you to take a pause, see what technology options are available to you and see if they can help you save time and money versus the “old ways” of doing business.

Secondly, if these new technologies prove effective, it is going to dramatically decrease the amount of capital that will be required to get new startup businesses launched and operating in the market.  Which means the speed at which your business faces new competition will be much faster.  So, you no longer have the benefit of “resting on your laurels” or coasting based on your past successes.  It won’t take long for some smart AI coder to launch a better product, making your business obsolete.  So, you need to protect your turf and go on the offensive:  figure out how AI can help you with your product development roadmap and innovation efforts.  If you don’t, someone else will!

Thirdly, all human workers out there should be “shaking in their boots”, in terms of thinking about their job security.  Yes, companies like Amazon or Google say AI will help reduce their future hiring needs, letting them grow more efficiently while keeping all of their current staff.  But lets not fool ourselves; companies are driven by their shareholders that are seeking higher valuations, typically from higher profits.  And what is the best way to increase profits?  Replace a $60,000 a year salaried person with a near-free technology!  Yes, I am talking to all you graphic designers, technology developers and customer service agents!

While that may sound great for that specific company’s bottom line, if all companies out there are employing this same logic, this could mean massive layoffs in the years to come, with no replacement jobs that will enable them a “soft landing”.  It wouldn’t surprise me if a majority of Americans were living on welfare in the next decade or two, which is a pretty bleak forecast.  The stock market may do great, with all the accelerating corporate profits as technologies replace people.  But the average American and their consumer spending power is going to be materially impacted for the worse.

Yes, all of these new technologies are very cool.  Who doesn’t want to move faster and cheaper on their growth plans?  But when you think about the long term implications of these AI technology advancements, it doesn’t paint a very rosy picture for the future of most average Americans.  So, if you are worried about getting potentially disintermediated by technology (which should be most of you!), start putting your “defense plans” in place now.  Start training yourself up with new skills that won’t get cut by profit-hungry management teams.  Who knows, maybe you can use the AI technologies to your advantage, in launching the next really great startup that everyone will be using.

It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out in the coming years.  At a minimum,  you all need to be learning how AI technologies can help your businesses and or your specific roles.  If not, you may not have a profitable business or a defendable job for much longer.  Sorry to be “doom and gloom” here, just calling it like I see it.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

 

[VIDEO] The Investor Playbook for Startup Capital

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about how investors assess startups before they invest.  This video will help you learn about the "Four M's" that investors are looking for:  the market, the model, the management and the momentum of the business.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you to make sure fund raising efforts prove successful. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

What Will Happen to Your Business if You Die

I was recently engaged by the estate of a founder to assist in finding a new owner for their business after the founder died. There were a lot of valuable business lessons that came out of this process that I wanted to share with you. Not for your estate survivors after you die, but instead for you before you die, so you don’t repeat the same mistakes of this other entrepreneur who failed to properly lay out a clear legacy plan in the event of his death, leaving the survivors scrambling looking for answers in the wake of his death.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #377: What to Expect After a Change in Control of Your Business

Congratulations, you just sold your business!  But don’t expect things to remain the same under the new ownership.  Oftentimes, new owners have a different vision of what to do with your business to help achieve their needs, and they may have different ideas on how best to do certain things inside of the organization, resulting in a ripple effect of chaos for the transitioning staff in its wake.  This post will help you figure out what to expect after a change in control, so the expectations of you and your team are properly managed ahead of time.

Every Single Aspect of Your Business Can Change

Even if the buyer says nothing will change post-sale during their “romance” period of getting you to agree to a sale, that is rarely the case, as a buyer starts to put their own fingerprints all over your business.  This could be things like changing your product mix or website to better bias their products or other preferred vendors.  Or, changing all the various systems your business uses for accounting, marketing or operations, that will be a learning curve for the legacy staff.  Or, the other specifics of your business, like the details of your sales and marketing plan, or the details of your sales commission plans, as the Buyer may have experience in doing these things in other ways that better syncs with their current business.  So, the point here is to get ready for a lot of change.

Get Ready for Potential Layoffs

Even if a buyer says they plan on keeping everyone post sale, that doesn’t mean they will.  There are high odds that overlapping positions, especially in the management ranks, are likely candidates for the buyer to want to remove.  And a buyer will be a lot less willing to carry any struggling staff members, that you were more forgiving with.  If a salesperson is not hitting their sale quota, or the sales organization has too much excess capacity in relation to the leads coming in, those staff members will be a risk.  So, prepare for this during your negotiation period, to make sure any severance packages are pre-negotiated for any layoffs in the first year, to protect your staff members.

Get Ready for a Lot of Paper-Pushing Busy Work

Everything is going to change post sale.  Your legal entity’s name, your bank accounts, your credit cards, your sales tax filing systems, your government contracts, your social media profiles, your about us pages, etc.  Prepare to backburner your normal work for a while, as all this minutia gets sorted out, setting everything up for the new owner and communicating such changes to all of your staff, customers, vendors, partners, etc.  And your finance team is most likely going to be doing lots of post-sale report building and auditing for any working capital adjustments or other post-closing monies that are moving around between the parties.  The first few months post a sale will not be your most efficient work months!

You Need to Prepare to Let Go of Your Baby

Your “baby” is grown up now and post-sale is somebody else’s “teenager” to worry about, not yours.  Psychologically, this can be a very difficult time for the founders to transition through as the new owner starts to implement their vision and desired solutions, which most likely is different to how you were doing those same things before.  That is okay; let go of any “sacred cows”, be flexible to the new owner’s needs and don’t have any opinions that are “set in stone”.  If you think they are screwing something up, that is their lesson to learn, even if you communicating your past learnings on such topics are falling on their “deaf ears”. 

You May Need to Find a New Passion

Nobody loves a business as much as its founder does.  And that founder invests a lot of blood, sweat and tears in helping that business grow and succeed.  But once you cash out, and you no longer have the economic upside you once had, your emotional ties to the business will start to fade over time.  When you feel that passionate flame starting to burn out, most likely within a few months of closing your transaction, that may be a good time to start looking for your next “baby” to raise, where you can get that passion back from your next venture.  It is very hard to simply be an “employee” in the buyer’s organization, after you have had been “steering the ship” for all the years prior.

Closing Thoughts

I have been the CEO of three businesses that were scaled and sold to a new buyer.  The themes discussed in this post come from firsthand experience of what happened in the wake of each of those changes in control.  So, before you sign your name to your pending sale agreement, make sure you can deal with the above issues raised, practically and psychologically.  If you can’t, maybe you shouldn’t sell?  But, if you can, make sure you go into the sale process “eyes wide open”, and for anything that you feel could become post-sale issues you want to protect against, make sure you get it pre-negotiated in your sale agreement before you sign on the dotted line.  Good luck!

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.