Dave Benson didn’t like “super quick questions.”
It was a phrase he ran into often during his three-year stint at IBM. Benson came out of 20-plus years in the news business (working for the BBC, CBS Radio and Bleacher Report). His experience existed on hard deadlines and short timetables. The questions were often lead-ins to elaborate conversations, and they were anything but super quick.
“That was the original idea,” Benson said. “It was business efficiency because I talk fast, and I’m somewhat patient. That was the thing.” He’d start a timer on his watch and get straight to the heart of the interaction.
Call it the kindling for his startup idea, or a way to own those frustrating corporate interactions more, but Benson is now four years into a startup venture called SuperQuickQuestion, a fan engagement platform that turns an hour of an athlete’s time into deeply connective moments that yield significant first-party data opportunities.
Three questions with Dave Benson
What is something you have to do at the start of your day? “I do the Times puzzles that everybody does, Wordle and the Spelling Bee. I compete with my dad, and then I try to have a smoothie.”
How would past Dave have reacted to the fact you’re a startup founder now?
“Shocked, for sure. But when I tell people about the core concept — that it’s around brevity and getting a bunch of words in one minute — people laugh, and they go, ‘Well, that’s exactly right.’ That’s always been me.”
What’s the sporting event you’re most excited about over the next few years? “Well, I’m excited that the Mets look like they’re not going to suck. I usually try and go to 10 or so games a year with my sons. I’m very excited for their next Little League season, the last one that I’m going to coach before they get too old for me. And then the World Cup’s going to be awesome.”
SQQ has activated with major brands like Verizon — its biggest customer, with the long-term NFL league sponsor deploying with 20 teams in January and February — and Pepsi. The company also has team-level relationships with Pacers Sports & Entertainment, the Colts and Italian giant Juventus.
The sponsorship angle has been a recent emergence, ramping up SQQ’s potential in sports. “You can take a sport that’s global and make it feel more local,” said Encore Sports & Entertainment CEO Nick Kelly. “That’s really where the value is.”
How the platform works
Benson, who is based in New York City, created SQQ with a pair of key assumptions: One, that a minute was more than enough time for a fan to ask a question, get an answer and then speak with an athlete; and two, that the lack of anonymity would keep virtual attendees from doing something negative.
Turns out, he was right about both. “We’ve done over 5,000 of these, and nobody’s misbehaved so far,” said Benson, as he superstitiously knocked his knuckles on his desk.
SQQ, a two-person crew with Benson and CTO Brian Weissler, acts as a one-on-one private interaction space between the subject of the call and the fans who’ve been selected as participants. Prompts for the event generate quick first-party data entries for fans (name, email and their question, if picked) and are whittled down to 40 or 50 by a mix of AI and screening from SQQ and the athlete and/or their representatives.
The Colts were one of the first team clients for SQQ, a connection made through the startup’s 2024 Techstars Sports Accelerator experience in Indianapolis. The team rolled out a pilot at the end of that year with injured rookie cornerback Julius Brents as a perk for season-ticket holders. Charlie Shin, the Colts’ vice president of analytics and digital innovation, said the engagement was easy to gauge by the reaction of those Colts faithful to getting the time.
“Just the excitement that we’ve seen from all these fans of having that one-to-one opportunity and conversation was just great,” Shin said. “And they were bringing their kids into the conversations and meeting them and taking photos at the end.”
The business-changing shift
While teams were the initial focus for SQQ, a dramatic shift in the business came from advice through the company’s Verizon connection. The relationship formed thanks to a chance meeting of Benson and Katie Ward, Verizon’s associate director/regional partner activation, who sat with each other randomly at a conference. That led to collaboration with Kelly, then the VP of partnerships at Verizon. As Benson ran through a pitch deck with Kelly ahead of SQQ’s fundraising efforts, Kelly stopped him. SQQ could solve one of Kelly’s biggest problems: getting use of all the player appearances in sponsorship deals.
“We always struggled — and this is where it kind of clicked for him — to do these physical appearances, especially with bigger names,” said Kelly, who is now an adviser for SQQ. “Because their schedule sucks. And then the overall cost starts to compound: I’ve got to get security, I’ve got to get a brand activation team, I’ve got to get an athlete there.”
That goes out the window with SQQ, which can pull those appearances out of fixed, physical locations and allows athletes to do them from anywhere. A recent Verizon activation with former Manchester City striker Sergio Agüero took place during the soccer great’s vacation in the Caribbean. SQQ gets paid per activation, with the long-term business model goal of developing retainer relationships with teams and/or brands as a fan engagement tool of choice.
SQQ has been deployed across the entertainment industry and also used as a way for children on the spectrum or with mental wellness struggles to talk to Santa Claus. It’s part of an impact, and a life, that Benson could’ve never imagined when he put his former co-workers on timers.
“My last job was supposed to be my last job,” Benson said. “But then I came up with the idea and then suddenly had some people who believed in me writing checks to me to build it, and then we built it and then I quit my job.”
How would past Dave have reacted to the fact you’re a startup founder now?
“Shocked, for sure. But when I tell people about the core concept — that it’s around brevity and getting a bunch of words in one minute — people laugh, and they go, ‘Well, that’s exactly right.’ That’s always been me.”
What’s the sporting event you’re most excited about over the next few years?
“Well, I’m excited that the Mets look like they’re not going to suck. I usually try and go to 10 or so games a year with my sons. I’m very excited for their next Little League season, the last one that I’m going to coach before they get too old for me. And then the World Cup’s going to be awesome.”
