Professional Rugby Player, Global Team Lead of an Incubator/Accelerator Agency, Start Up Director & Father Lucas Caneda joins Bram Bains on this episode of The Rise Above Podcast. Lucas talks about his Journey with overcoming obstacles in his sports career, wanting more from life, managing a high performing team, explains the value his team brings to startups, and shares insights about the process of taking startups from seed to IPO. Follow us on Instagram @TheRiseAbovePodcast for bonus content - Be sure to pay it forward and share it with a friend! ************************************************************ Interview Transcript [00:35] Bram: Welcome everybody to the rise above podcast. This is episode number seven. I'm being joined by a special guest today. I've got Lucas Caneda. Lucas is a professional rugby player. Lucas is a global team lead of unicorn. Unicorn is a rural tech incubator accelerator. Lucas is also a director of one of its startups, challenger X. Challenger X is a SAS and B2B company, who is turning Davids into Goliath through digital and traditional marketing. It offers radical improvement of the revenues and profitability of amateur sports clubs throughout Europe and around the world. Lucas is also a father. Welcome to the show. Lucas, how are you doing today? [01:24] Lucas: Hey Bram, thank you for having me on your show, especially being here doing fine, looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, just let's get into it. [01:37] Bram: Let's get into it. Okay. Tell us a little bit about your story. You wear many hats there. You know, being a professional athlete. I believe that's pretty demanding with training and playing and recovery and rest and whatnot, but yet you're also a leader there of a team and a father. How do you balance everything? What do your days look like? [02:00] Lucas: They look pretty busy to be honest, but I do enjoy it. I do think there's more to gain about doing all this stuff and I'm pretty happy to be doing it. Of course, it requires effort, but everything does. If you're not willing to do what it takes, you're probably not getting far. I've managed to join my passions, I would say, which is usually not something easy to do. When I was young, I was, I always wanted to become a professional rugby player. I come from Argentina; I'm currently living in France. Why? Because I knew when I was back home, if I wanted to fulfill my dream, I had to go somewhere else because there were no professional teams backing Argentina. I knew I had to go elsewhere. I looked for my opportunity. I worked very hard for that opportunity. Even the things blocking, things not going as expected, but eventually five or six years ago, I actually managed to get an opportunity and I didn't hesitate. I flew right away. That's when my professional career in rugby started. I've done that for like say one year, just focusing on that. But after that, I started also studying while I was the professional player. Two years ago, I decided that was, I would say, not enough, that I wanted other things too. I also started working while I played. That's how I came to unicorn. How I started at unicorn and how I managed to mix things up between business and sports. I think there's great connections and a lot of added value in doing both things at the same time. Especially at the start-up world that we live in. There's lots of things that go hand by hand. You need to be able to say, roll up your sleeves and put yourself to work. You need to be able to learn how to take a hit and stand back up. That happens a lot in rugby, and it happens a lot in the start-ups. You need to know that it's not an easy trip. It's not an easy journey, but the journey itself, it's actually a great experience. There's a lot of synergies between businesses, sports that can actually be of good added value to both sides of the coin. [04:55] Bram: Okay, awesome. You mentioned the journey there. That's a perfect segue. That's something I really wanted to explore with you and what your journey looked like, your personal journey, growing up and falling in love with rugby and pursuing that passion. Then, it is bringing you here to where you are today. What's your story look like from the beginning? I know there was a little bit of adversity in there. You were told by the majority ofpeople that you're too small to play rugby at 5'7. I know you had an injury in your career as well, that was fairly major and potentially career ending. I'd love to hear about that from your perspective. [05:36] Lucas: Yeah, sure. I mean when it comes to being too small to play rugby, I was told many times that, if I wanted to become a professional day, I should have been a couple inches taller. I said, okay, that's not something I can change. But I can do a lot more that you guys think I can. Of course, you need to work to get there. You need to do what it takes. Sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes you want to stop, but as long as ...
続きを読む
一部表示
2024/07/0311 分
2021/06/291 時間 3 分