Qualify
Research suitable community clubs and identify permission-based ways to reach relevant businesses.
Where the idea comes from
From Arsenal in North London to the SF Bay Area: a Gooner’s dream, turned into a growth-hacking idea.
North LondonAli at the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal
Map data: Natural Earth
SF Bay AreaWhere the local pilot would run
01The opportunity
Global story. Local conversations.
Arsenal gives Deel a global football connection. Smaller clubs already connect community leaders and business sponsors. What if Deel tested whether these relationships could produce qualified business conversations rather than buying more passive visibility?
The real audience isn't every player or fan. It's local employers who have a genuine Deel use case: international contractors, distributed teams, cross-border hiring, or growing people-operations complexity.
World stageLocal XI test
Global awareness→Local B2B conversations
Every fan→Employers with a real Deel use case
Impressions→Sales-accepted meetings
Clubs as audience→Clubs as community gateways
02The pilot
One Bay Area club. Six weeks. One clear scorecard.
Design
With an approved club partner, plan a compact founders / HR / operations event connected to a game or five-a-side tournament.
Activate
Invite well-matched businesses; launch a handful of local social assets, targeted event invitations and human-reviewed follow-ups. Offer a Deel product conversation only when relevant.
Decide
Evaluate meeting quality, economics, opt-in interest, and qualified pipeline. Repeat, change, or stop based on evidence.
Example clubs to explore (not partners): San Francisco Glens SC and San Francisco City FC. Both have published sponsorship / business-partner information; no agreement or contact is assumed.
03Where AI actually helps
AI makes the research and execution faster. Humans decide.
Step 1
Find
Public business signals
Enrich a small account shortlist from lawful public business information; look for real Deel-fit signals.
Step 2
Filter
Human-reviewed fit
Transparent scoring for customer fit, with manual review before outreach.
Human checkpointStep 3
Create
Personalized creative + activation
AI-assisted message variations, event content, short videos and follow-up drafts.
Step 4
Measure
Qualified meeting / pipeline measurement
Simple reporting for opt-ins, qualified meetings and attributable opportunities, not vanity reach alone.
04Pilot scorecard
Small enough to test. Clear enough to judge.
Hypothesis / planning inputIllustrative target
| Club partner | 1 |
| Fit-screened target businesses | 50 |
| Sales-accepted qualified meetings | 5–8 |
| Initial cash budget concept | $3K–$5K |
| Test duration | 6 weeks |
Illustrative assumptions. These numbers are proposed test assumptions, not promised outcomes, club quotes, or measured results. Budget is a placeholder and excludes unconfirmed internal labor.
North-star KPI
All-in cost per sales-accepted qualified meeting
= total attributable cost ÷ sales-accepted qualified meetingsGuardrails
- Business relevance
- Opt-in communication
- Quality over quantity
- No outreach to youth participants
- No sponsorship unless the economics and club terms check out
05Why I could help run it
A growth marketer who can also build the tools.
I'm Ali Raza, a Bay Area product-minded marketer and MS Business Analytics graduate student. I've worked on consumer campaigns at OPPO and Garena, built B2B customer segmentation and marketing automation for a US services business, and shipped software/AI projects myself.
78 → 4 playbooks
Blue Ocean · prior work
High-value customers segmented into 4 targeted playbooks — ~$396K existing historical customer LTV (not revenue generated).
800+ records
Blue Ocean · prior work
B2B prospect records cleaned and organized — lead preparation, not customer conversions.
60M+ · 118M
OPPO · Garena · prior work
OPPO campaigns: 60M+ impressions, 1.5M+ engagements. Garena: 118M users reached, 18M engagements.
Built & shipped
Automation · CrediClip
Built marketing automation and launched CrediClip, a working AI-enabled product MVP.
I put this together because I enjoy football, growth marketing, and building things that can actually be tested. I'd love to help try a small version.