173 - Charlie Hartley: How A Former Pro Cricketer Turned Frustration Into Fan-Tech Innovation

Charlie Hartley was living the dream. A professional cricketer who’d taken out top international players. Then, just weeks later, he was released. No warning, no time to prepare. Just a crash course in letting go of the identity he had built his life around.

In this episode, Charlie opens up about the highs of pro sport, the brutal business behind the scenes, and how getting frustrated with systems turned him into an entrepreneur with a mission.

From building tech for underfunded sports teams to writing cricket books for teachers, Charlie’s story is less about reinvention and more about remembering who you are underneath the uniform.

What You’ll Hear:

• The emotional rollercoaster of being released at your peak
• Why some athletes are better off leaving sport early
• What sport taught him and why some of it did more harm than good
• How he built Moonrise Sports to level the playing field for underdog teams
• The link between frustration and innovation in Charlie’s entrepreneurial journey
• How sport inflates egos and delays emotional honesty
• Why not every athlete should become an entrepreneur and how to know if you should
• The one piece of advice he’d give anyone leaving a team: find what you love and double down on it

Want to Go Deeper?

This episode is for every athlete who’s been blindsided by a release, left wondering if they’re the problem, and for anyone who's quietly rebuilding something better from scratch.

Visit www.2ndwind.io  to book a consultation and explore resources for career transitions.

Chapters

• 0:00 From Athlete To One-Man Startup
• 0:43 Show Intro And Guest Setup
• 2:02 Books, Coaching Resources, And Why Cricket Feels Elitist
• 4:49 Moonrise’s Origin: Fans Meeting Athletes
• 7:36 Pivoting To A White-Label Fan Portal
• 10:36 Luck, Trials, And The Brutality Of Selection
• 12:43 Confidence, Humility, And Changing Room Psychology
• 16:02 Identity, Release, And Letting Go Of The Jersey
• 19:03 Problem Solving And The Book Of Business Ideas
• 22:03 Learning Every Role In A Startup
• 26:53 Resilience, Failure, And Timing In Business
• 29:10 Proving The Product And Securing Partnerships
• 31:10 Fan Data, Social Funnels, And Monetization
• 34:53 Women’s Sport, Next-Tier Clubs, And Change
• 37:45 Athletes As Brands And A Shared Ecosystem
• 39:14 Why Moonrise: The Name And Metaphor
• 40:26 Transition Advice: Double Down On What You Love
• 42:16 Entrepreneurship Isn’t For Everyone

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

looking back at it is you're learning all those things that you're not good at. Like in when you're playing a sport, you've spent you kind of forget that you spent decades playing that sport over and over again, training religiously. So all those little things you're wanting to improve, you're improving them all the time. Working in business is no different. Like there are things I'm not very glad at all to work very hard at them when you're a one-man band to to keep on top of those various things. And I talk to C-suite execs of massive companies and they have I don't know a PA that can help them with certain things. They have uh the FD that can take on other areas where they're not so good at and and they have a team that can support in different areas. The weird thing about starting up your own business is it's almost like taking a cricket analogy.

SPEAKER_01: 0:43

It's like trying to be the keeper, the bowl of the bat of the coach Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalvus and welcome to the Second Wind Academy podcast. A show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. Each week I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story. Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athlete through a stevise of conversations. Don't worry there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty. Elite athletes are still people after sport. Let's be inspired by the stories of others Charlie Hartley thanks for joining me on the show today. Looking forward to having a great chat with you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32

Yeah awesome looking very much looking forward to it any time to connect kind of after sport is brilliant mean to kind of see where these conversations go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39

Awesome listen that well that's definitely the way that I tend to roll with these chats is let's have a conversation. Let's talk about you talk about what the career was like on and very much get into that career transition and what you're up to nowadays. So to I suppose just to kind of get us started in there, what are you up to nowadays? For those listening and watching let's just give us that pricey version of what's going on with you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:02

Yeah so I'm one of those people that likes having a few different things um going on um so I've literally just very recently launched a kids book um which I'm I'm very passionate about. I since leaving Pro Sport I wrote a cricket resource as well that teaches teachers how to coach cricket. But my kind of full-time passion and full-time job and role is the CEO and founder of Moonrise Sports which is a essentially a fan digital portal for sports teams to brand up as their own, activate through their their own sponsors, experiences, digital content, competitions Well that sounds fascinating actually that last little bit I like the the idea of Moonrise but the bit that really gets me is the book, the authoring that you've done there was was is that something that you'd always fancied doing?

SPEAKER_01: 2:48

Not really.

SPEAKER_02: 2:48

So the cricket resource was created out of frustration. So I left professional cricket and like you kind of normally do, the roots for someone that used to play professionally is go and coach privately pretty normal transition. The frustration was I wanted to help out in state schools at the time I wanted to kind of grow cricket from kind of giving it as an opportunity for everybody. And then I quickly learned the structures within the UK but also around the world don't really allow that. Money tends to follow those things and and it's it's it is a very elitist sport. There's kind of state schools couldn't afford it and the pathways to deliver it weren't kind of weren't there. So what I decided to do is uh write a resource that teaches the teachers how to coach cricket so that instead of sending in activators like myself or other people into schools to deliver cricket sessions, we just give teachers any teacher in the in the world or in the country that wants to coach cricket, is passionate about it but doesn't necessarily have the confidence or the knowledge to deliver it they can use the cricket development program to basically run any session. There's thousands of different sessions with diagrams, with written and with videos to to kind of help any teacher or parent along the way.

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

Getting into the coaching side of it but finding a way to scale it very quickly as well to scale the sport or adoption of the sport.

SPEAKER_02: 3:58

Yeah I mean if I'm honest it's been a philanthropic kind of journey. In my naive brain I thought I would write this I would then be able to go to ECB and various governing bodies and say look feedback from parents and teachers has been brilliant. Do you want to just adopt this, give it out to everyone for free and we can help the country grow? Again, as I say that was my kind of naive brain not understanding the way in which a lot of these governing bodies work the structures the work in finance how how money filters down from government to activation so I'm I'm still kind of in that transition period. I actually had a conversation this earlier today with a multi-academy trust they have 43 schools and they're looking to roll it out across a variety of their schools so as I say the feedback from direct consumer has been brilliant but I'm slowly learning that higher end of sport and how to navigate it a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01: 4:48

Yeah it's good well those they sound like good lessons to be honest because you know you even mentioned just the the CEO and founder of Moonrise Sport. So what is that?

SPEAKER_02: 4:58

So it's changed a little bit since when I first started it so during COVID I I basically created a Wix website and had a burner phone and my own phone one phone was the athlete's one phone was my own or all for fans and I connected athletes with fans. So the the simple premise of the site was giving fans the ability to book video calls or get coaching tips from elite athletes. The reason I wanted to do that twofold one I wanted to get put some more money into women's sport um my frustration about the women's sport of thing side of things is that everybody is waiting for more investment or bigger sponsors in order to pay the athletes correctly the fan base is growing people are starting to engage a lot more with the with the female side of sport which is highly positive. However the finances aren't trickling down to the people that that that need it or that are playing so my mindset around that was well if if the athletes can engage and inspire the the fans by talking to them and and pretty much like cameo but instead of birthday shout outs conversations inspirational conversations and and coaching tips that was my mindset again naive and like everyone will do when you kind of go into work didn't realise that agents want to cut of everything. So kind of the the athletes are coming to us being like this sounds great and then we go talk to their agent and they'd be like well how much am I taking and then you kind of have to work out well where's this money going and then the athlete then turns around and goes well that's not worth my time even though it's the doing 95% of the work and then the second side of that is things have slightly moved in the sports world from the rights holders' perspective and from from the teams but back especially when I was doing it teams got a little bit scared when their players were interacting with fans away from them. They feel they felt like they were losing control. People are starting to realize that players independently interacting with fans is positive for them and net positive day later on down the line um but yeah that was they were just bits we learned. So then we modified and got some more investment and we essentially have now built a white labeled fan entertainment portal for any team. So other when you look at kind of the sports pyramid right at the top with the big football teams um NFL teams uh IPL teams the the big big teams they have huge investors a lot of capital if they want to create any digital tech they can do it pretty quickly underneath that there are thousands of sports teams that don't have the capital to invest in tech but do need to activate their brands directly to their fans do need to get better fan data and do need to create more of a a holistic feel for their fans worldwide. So that's kind of essentially what we do.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

That's really good. We'll probably come back to it as we go through this story because I'm I'm interested in certainly some of the actions you had to take to actually get things started in terms of because you're quite an entrepreneurial streak. What I am already picking up is this link between you getting frustrated with something and then acting on it, recognising perhaps there was a bit of naivety which I'm not sure yet whether it's a good or bad thing but it actually you know chatting here with you it sounds like it's a good thing because it didn't hold you back. It meant you just started getting into it, getting stuck in.

SPEAKER_02: 8:00

Yeah I mean I have this conversation quite a lot with people that kind of go, well how do you come up with ideas? I mean my fiance says it all the time I'll be I don't know I'll be on a train or or wherever and I'll think of something that they could implement better or could do better. That's just kind of how I'm always thinking and I think actually being an entrepreneur isn't difficult but some people have certain creative minds some people don't and it is essentially as you rightly said it's finding a problem or something that isn't working well and then trying to find a solution for it. The question on all of it is there a commercial value to it because that's how business works without a commercial value there's no point. I think that's where coming back to kind of this conversation that's where sport did set me up and that's through boarding school all the way through to playing professionally is like all the injuries I had and I've said this openly many times I think injured athletes are probably going to be some of the most resilient people that you can hire. As we grow I will actively seek out kind of athletes that have played pro sport but maybe got injured or dipped off because they have all the benefits of mindset and growth and aspiration and commitment but they kind of they haven't been able to do it in the thing that they love.

SPEAKER_01: 9:06

Let's get into that from you let's understand a bit of that background and you touched on it there from you know of course getting into professional cricket. But what first drew you to cricket in the first place and indeed I guess what kind of kept you going in it.

SPEAKER_02: 9:20

The honest answer is I I didn't really choose cricket. Cricket chose me I loved all sports but Milfield is a sporting school in Somerset since the age of well very early but when I was at Millfield 11 um 1011 I played pretty much every sport to the highest level I wanted to or could do at that at that level sort of within the school system and I loved and adored it. I probably loved rugby more than I did cricket. And then I ended up dislocating my knee and having quite a big knee bad knee injury as I think I was 15 16 and it was at that age I was like well physically if you want to go down the rugby route there's a very big big different change you need to make to your body and there's a lot of kind of physical commitment and I wasn't quite there for that and and cricket was just the one that I was probably more naturally gifted at, found easier to compete in at a higher level.

SPEAKER_01: 10:08

And so for you when did that shift sort of occur to you where you thought I can go from a schoolboy here but actually I might have a a future in the game it's hard looking retrospectively because it's very easy for us to kind of put back in feelings of now into what we were when we were younger.

SPEAKER_02: 10:24

I always loved playing sport I always wanted to play professional sport. I remember my parents saying to me when I was at school they're kind of they're treating my schooling like sport comparative to uni. Like some people go to school to go to university and therefore their grades are the most important other people have other ambitions and mine was sport and therefore kind of if I bunked off sport which I didn't but if I if I didn't want to go to sport sessions or if I chose to do other things they would be as frustrated as if I got a D or a C in in maths and that was kind of the mindset from my parents to me and as with everything in sport I got incredibly lucky you can say you make your own luck but I my transition into professional world is I I went to Australia played out there for a little bit and then I was at the ICC champions trophy one of my old coaches Bromboro Cricket Club told me that there was a net session going on to bowl against I think it was New Zealand West Indies Sri Lanka and England and so I just thought yeah all right I'll turn up turned up started bowling and then the Sri Lankan guys were like oh you're quite good do you want to come back in the morning and bowl at us again because it's good good preparation turned up in the morning and uh two of the coaches there, one of them was Jiman DeVas who is a very good bowling coach. The other one was friends with uh the second team coach at Kent as I was driving home he called the second team coach and was like hey this guy's quite good you should reach out to him and then I ended up getting a trial and getting my contract.

SPEAKER_01: 11:45

So yeah extremely lucky you do make your own look you know you still have to rock up you still have to do it and a bit of talent but that's a nice story. I quite like that one as a way of getting started. It's just so simple.

SPEAKER_02: 11:58

Yeah I think my career I basically describe it by going I was incredibly lucky to get into professional sport and then I do consider myself quite unlucky to be pushed out of professional sport and that it kind of sums up what pro sport is I mean when I talked to people about it and my last couple of games playing professionally for the first team was against West Indies touring side where I got uh six wickets in the game they went on to play England and and beat England in the in the winter and got a few of their top names out then played against Yorkshire and got um Joe Rue and Johnny Baersto out and and um and and played quite nicely in that game and then got fired a few weeks later or fired but but released and it kind of it it sums up sport. Like you you can have the highs of the highs the lows of the lows and then before you know it something comes and and sort of makes your fate for you.

SPEAKER_01: 12:43

This conversation really is about that transition and how you manage that. You had injuries during your career even during those times did you I guess remain committed to the idea that well you'd be coming back and you'd be maintaining your career?

SPEAKER_02: 12:55

Definitely I I probably I wasn't fully to the realisation I was going to lose my career I think probably till a week before I lost my contract and because in the changing room environment when I was there I was asking senior players like what do you think what do you think? Like am I fine? And and people were at the time saying yeah yeah not a problem like everything's fine. It was a difficult time to kind of work out those things. Some would say almost better than naivety because you're not focusing on it as much. I do count myself quite privileged to have played and got out I don't necessarily think that sport is amazing for the human psychology later on in life. What do you mean by that? So I think because you have so much done for you you kind of don't end up doing a normal job. You kind of are treated in a way that inflates your ego beyond what normal life is and I personally think the humbling aspect of sport is one of the most important things you can do. Stay stay humble, stay grounded there's one key player Daniel Baldrum who is one of the best players but the nicest blokes and and no amount of fame would change him as a person and then there are other people which it takes them and I think someone like him is he's like the completely anomaly of what sport does to people. I think most of the time sport grips people and kind of changes you as a person and that's just a personal view that.

SPEAKER_01: 14:13

Well it's a personal view that I can understand and you know I speak with someone else on here previously and it was very much you kind of get caught in the current it's like you're going down a river and you go and it it gets faster and it takes you with it and your expectations and perspectives can shift and change as as you go through that. Well I guess that that leads me naturally to say during your career to what extent did you remain humble during that period?

SPEAKER_02: 14:39

Mine was difficult. This probably balances between how I was when I was playing but also how I am now in that I was a young kid from a boarding school background where kind of everybody was pals when we were playing I went into professional sport where it was quite a ruthless environment. I personally found it quite difficult to navigate the ability of showing confidence and I think that's one of the hardest things in sport is staying humble but being confident and bridging that gap between confidence and arrogance and people that don't like you will see your confidence and as arrogance people that do like you will see your confidence as confidence and the people that know you very well will just see that actually you're masking your true feelings and you're just trying to compete in professional sport and I think that's the reality of sport the amount of sports teams sports people I've spoken to that if you dig deep and you actually speak to them they're also self-conscious they they all have insecurities inside them they all have that deep normality but what coming back to my point about I don't think sport is great for people, I think it makes people hide it for a long long period of time and if you are hiding certain thoughts for two three decades it'll be very difficult for those things to come out later on in life.

SPEAKER_01: 15:50

Yes yeah that's interesting yeah if you're hiding it for that long at some point you might start to believe it's true and unwinding that that's a whole different uh a whole different podcast but unwinding is probably psychologically quite challenging for individuals as well that's um definitely something else uh to think about which then but it does make me think about you not realizing like you say until you're pretty much walking into the room to be told your contract isn't been extended given the games that you just played are probably leading the question but how crushing was that to you?

SPEAKER_02: 16:21

I can't really think back to feeling crushed. I remember feeling frustrated but at the same time like I kind of try and lead by control the controllables as much as I can more so now probably retrospectively since that those incidents but there's only so much you can do like if somebody I also kind of run by the mindset of if somebody tells you they don't want you I kind of don't want them either like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna beg for somebody to believe in me if they've already told me to my face they don't believe in me. And I think that's kind of a simple way to move on. I think the frustrating element for me more than anything was when I went and trial for Derby the next year and I was one of the best bowlers in the club at Derbyshire at that time doing very well and then there was an injury and instead of signing me as a player I won't get into the politics of it they ended up signing somebody else which was uh sort of I was a little bit frustrated about their decisions and it was basically a decision down to finances um more than anything and and how they could not pay any money and that for me was the catalyst to go hang on maybe sport isn't isn't so much fun I don't want to drag this out and try and do this any longer.

SPEAKER_01: 17:29

And so for you what was that change like? I mean you you were a professional so there would have been an identity that you ascribed to being a professional cricketer. So at that point for you recognising hold on if this isn't something that I want to be what did that mean to you from an identity perspective?

SPEAKER_02: 17:46

It's a weird one. I would say that I wouldn't describe myself as a professional sports person because I don't feel like I fitted in that model. I look at the personalities that love pro sport and there are certain people or type that love that environment love kind of semi-fake attitude of the of the changing rooms and the kind of the the camaraderie of these people being your best friends they're not I really struggled with that balance of are these people your friends are they not are they stabbing you in the back are they not who's actually rooting for you who isn't I found that quite difficult. Definitely looking back on it now with more mature mindset I found that quite a difficult thing to understand. So again I call it a blessing that I left early because I don't think it would have been good for me and that kind of comes back to my point on sport being bad for people I think to some people it's brilliant and very good for them but I do think there are a lot more people with my mindset in that sports world that kind of just keep on that train because it's we're told it's the most amazing thing we can ever do.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

I don't know how much you've thought about it then how would you describe those your traits perhaps that mean you weren't necessarily suited to that to professional sport or what was it that you feel yeah what what do you think that told you whilst you were there perhaps I'm not suited to this other than that you know you mentioned the fakeness that comarry etc was there anything else that you can think of that also helped to shape you to feel I'm meant for something different?

SPEAKER_02: 19:10

Not really. I think mo a lot of these conversations are retrospective which is where it's so difficult. Like you're I'm looking with my mindset now and what I'm doing and I feel very privileged to be where I am now and I like who I am now and I like where I am now and therefore I'm I'm looking back on those moments with this mindset which is where it's very difficult because I can't really say what I was thinking or how I was then without attaching my mindset now.

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

Absolutely right and it is interesting as we look back with that reflective mindset. You know it's a good thing to do what I recognise in what you're saying is around the value set and you can look back and think what did I value at that time and how and were you able to be yourself sort of express your values whilst being a professional athlete and it often we can't put a word on it but it's at times we feel uncomfortable. There's something that means we don't quite feel ourself but we don't know what that is and it is until we look back and like you say we mature a little bit more where we can start to put words or like I say ascribe emotions or feelings to that was that might be why I didn't feel like I could be myself because now I know I love doing X but I was almost forced to be doing Y during that time.

SPEAKER_02: 20:23

Yeah but it's also I mean put it into my and probably your life now is it's not dissimilar to go into a networking room. Like when I was younger playing sport I went into that changing room brash and happy and confident and kind of thinking that sport is fun and everyone will be friends and it will be brilliant. Take that into a networking room now you'd get a similar response in that there'll be a lot of egos there that would go screw you you're not allowed to come in here and be confident you've done nothing in the world you're not a CEO of a million dollar company how dare you show confidence get back in your lane and prove yourself and that's not dissimilar to sports it's just learning it in a different environment now do I think sporting worlds should have a better environment where by kids that show that can come in and that coaches and staff can see that and harness it and develop it in the right way yes I think that's a crucial element of a team but also do I think me turning up brash and confident was the best attitude probably not.

SPEAKER_01: 21:20

Yeah it's good yeah you've you've just got my mind working away there's a a lot for me to break down after this as well. So the career's ending these pivotal moments have happened what did you think you were going to do next did you have a plan?

SPEAKER_02: 21:32

I already had a book of like business ideas but I still have that kind of writing things that I want to do. A book of business ideas this was something you products services digital products physical products just things that I when I see things along sort of my life when I'm doing things I I've always had things there. Actually one of them I did start kind of semi-writing and doing towards the back end of my career not consciously like I wasn't thinking oh I'm coming to the end I need to do something I I was just kind of doing it in my spare time. I left Pro Sport got incredibly lucky again called up this guy who had a business that had some of the products that I needed collaborate and pitched it to him got investment on one meeting and started that business immediately with his backing with within a literally a few months again the look that you described comes in there but you had a book of ideas that you kept with you as playing as you were growing up already.

SPEAKER_01: 22:26

What inspired you to do that to have this book with you I like trying to problem solve.

SPEAKER_02: 22:31

I think that's probably the thing that I enjoy doing the most I enjoy seeing a problem and trying to solve it probably the the classic male brain of seeing a problem and not empathizing with it but just trying to fix it. Yeah I just enjoyed doing that and then as I left that kind of one of them stood out as being a very and I still think it's the best product I I kind of ever came up at came up with but it was just wrong timing, wrong base and and a bit of naivety on kind of fundraising and things that didn't make it work.

SPEAKER_01: 22:57

But you sat down and in one meeting it sounds like you got a bit of funding and you gave it a go. So outside of I guess then you had this entrepreneurial start you gave it a shot. How are you looking to set yourself up for success without being a pro cricketer as your target? What came next?

SPEAKER_02: 23:11

What was your next goal? Hard to not put my mindset now back then I don't really think I had a goal. I just knew what I liked doing and I wanted to commit to that I've never famously been somebody that likes kind of following a rule book and doing I mean I remember when I was at school the amount of times the teachers wanted me to write my UCAS form and and fill in these forms to go to uni not going. It's not like okay you are wasting my time and yours trying to make me write one of these because I will not be going to uni. That there's not a universe where I'm ever in that I would go to one so let's stop stop trying to waste my time. So I I've never been one that has always followed those routes but I just I knew that I like doing that. I think when you get confidence in other people investing in you that's a a big moment because you kind of get that validation that not only do you think there's something good there but somebody thinks there's something good and they think that you may have something good to turn that thing into something better.

SPEAKER_01: 24:04

That's right and it it sounds though as well as getting your ideas there was something in you that enabled you to network to be comfortable going out and speaking to people and meeting people which sounds like that was without an ulterior motive of they're going to help me set up a business but if anything it was and getting the sense just something you felt you you did something you enjoyed to do.

SPEAKER_02: 24:23

The other thing that looking back at it is you're learning all those things that you're not good at like in when you're playing a sport you've spent you kind of forget that you spent decades playing that sport over and over again training religiously so all those little things you're wanting to improve you're improving them all the time working in business is no different like there are things I'm not very glad at all to work very hard at them when you're a one man band to to keep on top of those various things and I talk to C-suite execs of massive companies and and they have I don't know a PA that can help them with certain things. They have uh the FD that can take on other areas where they're not so good at and they have a team that can support in different areas the weird thing about starting up your own business is almost like taking a cricket analogy it's like trying to be the keeper, the bowler, the batter, the coach, the physio and the strength missioning coach like there are many of those things I'm not good at and I'm not very good at and I won't be able to do but when you're running your own business you don't have a choice.

SPEAKER_01: 25:19

You're bowling, you're batting, you're keeping and you're doing everything else in between there are too many stories of bankruptcies, mental health issues and unfortunately does time. And so I think it's time for every year we see thousands of athletes have reach a point where they need to consider their life activity. It might be a retirement injury or they need to jump your careers between sport and a job. As a former English professional football I have somehow managed to transition from sport into facting strategy innovation and now life coach career practitioner and founder of the Second Wind Academy. So I want to help those around me find their career Second Wind find me on Insta or do my new Facebook group Secondwind Academy where I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions. So during your early entrepreneurial building up lock and learn and sort of moving forward in that regard, what did you struggle with most? In terms of You're coming out of sport you've got this problem solving sort of mindset that you you know that you want to go ahead and get things done with that first business didn't quite work out the way you wanted it to do what was what was then going through your mind about saying right well is it time for me to keep moving forward or is it time for me to do something completely different? Well that to me sounds like quite a topsy turvy time was were the moments there that were actually quite a struggle for you.

SPEAKER_02: 26:49

Yeah definitely I mean anyone that says there isn't is is simply lying. I don't believe that anybody kind of has a has an easy route and they're never stressed or worried at all. No matter where you are what what financial background you are there's always going to be times of doubt self-doubt um doubt from others uh doubt from family members doubt from business partners that's always going to be there I think one of the things as I get older I try and really hone in on is what is the reason that thing didn't work. Is it like for example if I look at my professional career it wasn't down to attitude or performance at all really like I trained just as much if not more than anyone else. I was one of the fittest in in the squad at the time I I was one of the kind of the players of the the biggest kind of engine um when when I play there are many kind of positives to my attributes when I was playing it was just a timing thing and not dissimilar to looking at business and things that have gone wrong there. Yes there are things that I did I did wrong um in inverted commas but I almost see them as learning and lessons to learn. I kind of look at those I look at my time almost as an investment as other people would look in kind of paying for training or or things like that. I've invested a year of my life to learn a lesson and learn a very good lesson other people might prefer to go to uni or or go and work in a job and learn things there. I prefer to do it this way.

SPEAKER_01: 28:09

So how you know you prefer to do it that way by I guess experiencing it and doing it but you do it in a way where it seems like you're open to learning you know you're open to recognize you're going to make mistakes how do you think your time as a cricketer shaped that or do you think you were shaped into sort of thinking that way even before cricket?

SPEAKER_02: 28:32

Good question. It's kind of the nature and nurture thing I think I have an element of me is like that whether it's my kind of slight ADHD brain whether it's sport and playing I mean cricket cricket as a sport when I played rugby I was 15 so it was constantly analysing the field and kind of trying to work out who's making a run where where the 10's going to be where they're going to kick what what areas to manage where the 14 and the 11 are going to be constantly kind of managing that and then when you're playing cricket you're constantly analysing the better what they're doing your fielders what the ball is doing what the pitch is doing there's all of that nuance within sport that at the top level I don't think many people kind of understand or the bottom level sorry people don't understand how much goes into that game play side of it and I would say that's quite similar to business you've just got to be agile enough to change but also stubborn enough to believe in what you're doing and it's difficult to find the balance how are you finding that balance then Charlie Waves I think I've got to the point now especially with with Moonrise that the proof is in the delivery so we've got the hardest bit over the line getting investment is incredibly difficult very very tough for anyone to do well coming up with a concept is difficult starting yourself is difficult getting investment is difficult building a product and working with tech teams to build some over multiple months or years is very difficult. And then getting partnerships is incredibly difficult. So we've done all those really tough things to get to where we are now it's now the kind of fun stage of Deliverables and going, well, if we can prove the product, prove the concept and growth, then that should be the fun side of it, and that's what I keep trying to rem remind myself is to enjoy it because these bits don't don't come around.

SPEAKER_01: 30:10

Yeah. Now getting into Moonrise and that I sort of want to understand a bit of birth, but I'm interested then because you mentioned about it being a team, and I want to say that I think I bought everybody who I've ever worked with in a corporate sense about it's like we're a team, and here's the role I play, here's your position, and and that's the types of stuff that we need to do. So as you've been building this business and accepting that you're not good at one aspect of it, so you need to bring in someone else. Honestly, for me, that's been a challenge, right? Because I'm like, yep, setting up a business, running the business, da-da-da, I'm not that good. Nah nah, I need to study and I need to be good at that. And it takes me a while to recognise No, I don't. That's where I need to get somebody else to come in. Is that something that as you've built out the business and sort of gone through this, where you've you know had to remind yourself or check yourself to think I don't need to be everything, I don't need to be the star performer here?

SPEAKER_02: 31:04

I think in the first business, yes. Like when again, that's naivety or coming from that sports background, again, going back to the mindset of a sportsman that I don't necessarily think is great, is that as a sport, you're taught to just almost inflate your self-beliefs so much because that's the way to perform, and you can't play sport against an international person player and not think you're better. You have to somehow in your mind believe that you're better than somebody that you know absolutely unequivocally, unequivocally, is better than you, which is not you wouldn't advise that to anyone else. You wouldn't go, you wouldn't, I don't know, uh tell someone in in the sales department that they need to go and believe they're better than the finance department. It would never happen. And that's the weird thing about sport. And so when I did the first business, I did feel like I had to do everything, and I had to do everything very well. The reality of me now is I cannot wait to employ people to do things I'm not good at because I I find it is an exciting release rather than uh a kind of an element of me losing control.

SPEAKER_01: 32:05

I was having this that same conversation, or similar conversation this morning about the first business versus second business, and I was surprised for myself the speed with which I could scale the second business compared to the first business, which was no, it's me, it's just me, it's just oh hold on. Second business, I can go and scale it as quickly as anything. So when you think then of your position in sport, your experience in sport, sorry, how did that help you or give you the I guess that unfair advantage, as we say, in starting moonrise sport?

SPEAKER_02: 32:35

Well, the simple aspect is I've been a fan and I've been professional. So I know what I felt when I went to the ground and when I saw these players, when I wanted to train like them, I wanted to play like them. I just adored and aspired to be that when I was older. I remember that feeling. I remember asking them to sign my bats, I remember sort of wanting to training sessions with them, and taking that into my professional career. Some of the things I learned the most was sitting down, chatting to players in the changing room and learning from those minds, not dissimilar to the conversations we're having today. And that's one of the big things I'm trying to help sports teams understand is that there is so much value around education, coaching, mindset, mental health, uh, menstrual help in the female game, so many other topics that actually, if people now have access to it, you can create such a deep-rooted connection between a fan and a certain team for a lifetime through using that type of content and experiences. Why do you think that's not known? If we see the elements that we're given to grow today, social media is kind of the main thing that sports teams are looking at. It's their their right to reach. Now, the issue with that is they don't get any data of any fan that watches their content, so they don't know who their fans are. They just have a following of some sort and have some metrics of what age they are and what gender they are, maybe where they live and some various other things, but it's meta and the big social companies that go and sell that data to sponsors and they make all of the money. Not dissimilar to the broadcasting structure. What I'm trying to sort of what we're trying to build is use social media for what it's bloody good for, which is being a funnel. Social media is very good for going viral, for reaching mass mass markets, it's awesome for that. It's not so good for knowing who they are and actually and sort of activating them. And that's where we want to kind of help sports teams move towards taking control of that. I think other than the big teams, there are thousands underneath that that would benefit from using us.

SPEAKER_01: 34:43

And your focus is just as much on well, perhaps on the big teams as well, but certainly on that next tier on of clubs, of associations then.

SPEAKER_02: 34:53

Yeah, that and women's sport. Again, women's sport has been a really frustrating one for me to learn because so many of them are sat under men's teams. So you're trying to sell a men's team a new model or a new way, and they don't believe there is a new way, a lot of them, because like doing it a certain way. So that's been frustrating. But also the way I look at it is the frustration always comes with excitement as well. Because if you can do something different, and then those people can come back to you later on, that satisfaction is amazing, and that's I guess what kind of drives me forward a lot of the time at the moment.

SPEAKER_01: 35:26

I think it's just great. It's gonna sound silly, but it's like the Hulk get angry, and you don't want to see them angry. With you, it's like get you frustrated, and next thing you know, the innovative ideas are that like you were saying, trying to solve it and given that push, something exciting could happen.

SPEAKER_02: 35:41

Yeah, I'll take the Hulk. Yeah, uh I think you're never gonna solve everything, but the big I just the big thing for me is I want people to try. And when there are so many issues within the way things are done, as I say, I'm at a very exciting point now where we've got some good partnerships all in different areas that are gonna hopefully shake up the world of sport in uh in various different areas. I'm super excited at the moment.

SPEAKER_01: 36:05

Yeah, me too. Uh listen, I I think from a platform perspective it sounds great, and we'll certainly include the right links and everything as this show comes out. So then how would setting you up to plug uh your business in many respects, but how does a club know that Moonrise is the right thing for it?

SPEAKER_02: 36:23

Good question. It's different for every club. The way in which we work is we try and understand what's the most important thing to clubs these days, whether it is brand activation, whether it is fan data, whether it is director to consumer commercialization. Every sports team is different. There are sports teams we're working with that have a terrible database. They don't know who their fans are at all, and they put everything on social media and they have no idea who their fans are because their ticket sales aren't great. And that with them, we're looking at working, okay, well, how can we open this up for free for everyone so that we can know who your fans are and the ones that watch you? For others, specifically within women's sport as well and the lower tiers, is we want to make them realise that if you have a load of passionate fans that can get behind you, use them as your commercial benefit and benefit them and give back. Trying to use the old commercial model of sport in a modern and tech-savvy way is how we're trying to move it along. So to answer your question, I wouldn't say there's any way a team know exactly if they need us, but I guess that the what we work with is if teams are looking for ways to innovate, looking for ways to get fan data, looking for ways to commercialise international or uh global fan bases, and looking for ways to activate your brands directly to the fans, then that's the sort of platform that we can offer.

SPEAKER_01: 37:36

I get that, and from a club perspective, and you can see how I guess social media has flipped some of that power off. So it's given a bit of a balance as well. So it's letting the the athlete themselves recognise that they are a brand and they have some, I guess they've got some skin in this game as well. Do you does Moonrise well does it work with individuals? Does it work with athletes who are looking to elevate their brand?

SPEAKER_02: 37:59

Yeah, definitely. We've got an one international cricketer creating a profile and relaunching later on in the year. And we also, there's a female rugby player that I'm targeting and really want to get on board as well. Long sort of long term, what we want to do is build out one ecosystem of fan experiences for everybody so that instead of everyone having to compete, creating their own tech, creating their own experiences, we can just be one hub where fans benefit from being in one place where they can access multiple competitions, multiple experiences, multiple sports teams, and they can benefit from doing so.

SPEAKER_01: 38:30

I think that sounds like a great, a great dream to be honest. And I know a lot of athletes and clubs, uh certainly here in Australia, but also through conversations I have like this, that could benefit from your dream being becoming a reality. And I do think that is super powerful. Another one final sort of random question before we sort of wrap up, but it is it's called Moonrise. What's the story behind the name?

SPEAKER_02: 38:51

So there's kind of two two aspects for to it. There's one aspect in terms of the a lot of people think that the moon is a star, and it's actually the sun's light on it that makes it shine so bright, hence people thinking it's a star, and that's kind of a metaphor on the influence that the sun, athletes, the actual stars, can have on the next generation and turn them into future stars, um, is kind of yeah, that's the the short version of it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:16

Short fair enough, very poetic, quite like that one. So listen, there's you know, Charlie, you've got people who are coming through sport at the moment, trying to think about well, hopefully they're thinking about their career after sport or outside of sport. So when you contemplate you know, someone coming up and asking you and saying, Hey Charlie, what advice, based on your experience, what guidance would you give to them on how to transition better into that life after the game?

SPEAKER_02: 39:44

Quite simply, it's not a one-size-fits-all. And the main bit of advice I give anyone is find something you love and double down on it, whatever that is. That was kind of the mindset of Milfield when I was there with the old headmaster that was there, a really good traditional Peter Johnson was his name, brilliant headmaster. His whole thing was I don't care what you want to be good at, just we will allow you to be good at that thing. And I think that's what people struggle with when they leave sport because sport is a thing that they were good at, and it's trying to find that next passion, that next thing that kind of ignites that fire in the belly, uh, and as I say, double down on it.

SPEAKER_01: 40:21

Yeah, and I think it sounds like uh always carry a pencil, make sure you're writing it down in a book as you go along, keep the ideas going.

SPEAKER_02: 40:28

Yeah, it's it's not for everybody. I think this is the other thing, probably not the most common mind uh sort of way to think. There's been a lot on social media these days about everybody should be entrepreneurs and everybody should do their own thing and start to be own business. I personally disagree with that. I don't think it's for everybody. I do agree that everybody should look to sort of have control of it, definitely take more control in don't lead yourself for a company that don't care about you. I I agree with that, but at the same time, entrepreneurship is brutal. As everybody knows, the stats are heavily weighed against anybody that wants to do it. So it is not an easy task for people to do. So I wouldn't promote it for everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 41:07

I'll follow you on that one as well. Isn't for everybody for some, it might be worth a try, but hey, accept. Look, Charlie, people are going to want to follow the journey, perhaps learn a lot more about Moonrise. Where can they learn more about you, Moonrise, and perhaps even get in contact?

SPEAKER_02: 41:21

Yeah, so me personally, LinkedIn, Charlie Hartley, should be relatively easy. I'm sure there'll be some uh there'll be a link or something on the video as well. But other than that, Moonrise Sports on on uh Instagram is probably the main place that we would be for any contacts or people that want to reach out. Love it.

SPEAKER_01: 41:37

Okay. Hey Charlie, I want to say thanks for sharing your journey and bringing your perspective onto the career clarity podcast. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_02: 41:44

No, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 41:48

Thank you for listening to the Second Win podcast. We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers. If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out secondwin.io for more information or to book a consultation with me. I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Book Design, Nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions, and Cerise from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together. That's all from me. Take it easy until next time.