Former Seattle Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin standing out as tech CEO – Seattle Seahawks Weblog

RENTON, Wash. — Doug Baldwin is a businessman now, however his physique nonetheless thinks he is a soccer participant.

The previous Seattle Seahawks extensive receiver is greater than three-and-a-half years faraway from his final NFL snap and practically as far into his new profession within the tech and funding fields. As is the case with many former retired gamers, the passage of time has executed little to reset an inside clock that, as coaching camp approaches each summer time, tells him it is go time.

“My physique’s been conditioned to do that for over 24 years,” Baldwin, 33, informed ESPN. “Your physique simply would not cease whenever you say cease. It isn’t simply the bodily a part of it. It is the psychological and emotional a part of it.”

With out soccer to expend that rigidity, Baldwin struggled when his eight-year NFL profession ended following the 2018 season. It did not assist that his physique was a wreck, requiring 4 surgical procedures after he performed via a number of accidents in his remaining 12 months. He wrestled with the retirement choice and even tried to remain in form after his surgical procedures, simply in case.

Baldwin made a reputation for himself as a Tremendous Bowl champion, a two-time Professional Bowler and the third-leading receiver in franchise historical past, as he caught 493 passes for six,563 yards and 49 touchdowns. And he made his cash — roughly $40 million in gross on-field earnings, per Spotrac. He had additionally simply grow to be a father, with the primary of his three kids arriving that spring.

Retiring was the best choice, nevertheless it was laborious.

“I am not a physician, however I’d say for the primary eight months after retiring, I used to be in a medical melancholy,” Baldwin mentioned. “I do know I used to be. You’ll be able to’t inform me in any other case. I used to be hurting.”

He is in a significantly better place now. And a a lot completely different one.

Baldwin is the founder and CEO of a enterprise capital agency referred to as Vault 89 Ventures. The funding automobile has a nod to Baldwin’s jersey quantity in its title and a mouthful of a mission assertion that, in his phrases, boils all the way down to this: “Cash isn’t the aim for us. We imagine that if we do issues from an empathic lens and we do it to affect folks’s lives for the higher, the monetary a part of it is going to come.”

Baldwin can be the CEO of Ventrk, a Bellevue, Washington, startup targeted on well being and health. Its main providing is TheraCentric, a bodily remedy app designed to streamline house train applications and maximize affected person engagement. TheraCentric has grown to greater than 1,000 energetic customers, largely from native bodily remedy clinics. Earlier this summer time, Ventrk spun out of Mental Ventures, a personal fairness agency that had been incubating it with mentorship and funding.

It’s no coincidence Baldwin’s present position has one thing in frequent with one other mission he has supported since earlier than his retirement: a neighborhood/well being middle for underserved youth that, after delays in development because of COVID-19, is slated to be accomplished in March. A masked-up Baldwin additionally appeared in a 2021 PSA for Washington Listens, a assist program for these coping with pandemic-related psychological well being points.

“I am not going to do one thing if I do not imagine in it, if I am not obsessed with it,” he mentioned. “This stuff appear to all the time align in that house as a result of basically what I am attempting to do, I am attempting to create a greater well being and well-being mindset in society. Nevertheless it’s birthed out of me attempting to be as wholesome as I probably can popping out of the NFL.”

VENTRK’S NEW OFFICE in downtown Renton is a brief drive from Seahawks headquarters and The Household First Group Middle. It is a second-story house shared by roughly two dozen staff, together with the Ventrk staff and a number of other different corporations related to Vault 89. It is straight above the flagship retailer of an area Black-owned espresso chain referred to as Boona Boona, Vault’s first funding.

The workplace vibe is vibrant however laid again, with informal apparel and a noticeable lack of company touches. Baldwin’s apparel sooner or later in July throughout a morning assembly consisted of a hooded sweatshirt, athletic shorts and Jordans.

CBO Jarid Adams and CTO Sam Bender are each from Seattle however by no means adopted the Seahawks, so the Ventrk co-founders had no thought who Baldwin was when Mental Ventures introduced him on board. It led to a complicated second at a team-building dinner, when Adams could not work out why different diners had been staring and why restaurant staff saved giving their desk particular consideration.

“I feel that is actually helped us have disagreements and agree on issues,” Adams mentioned, “simply because I see him as an on a regular basis individual that’s working throughout the firm.”

Adams appreciates Baldwin’s open-mindedness and level-headedness and guesses the latter comes from years of dealing with strain on the professional soccer stage.

“If one thing’s occurring and we’re form of freaking out internally, he simply has a really calm perspective about all of it,” Adams mentioned. “He is like, ‘We’ll determine it out. Preserve going.’ Whereas Sam and I are like, ‘What the hell? There is a fireplace, how are we going to deal with it?’ He is very calm relating to that. My greatest factor relating to management is supporting folks and trusting them of their space of experience, and I feel he does a very good job of that.”

Throughout his Seahawks days, Baldwin was the offense’s counterweight to the Legion of Increase’s ruthlessness, an intense competitor who would recurrently spar in apply with cornerback Richard Sherman — his finest pal courting to their days collectively at Stanford.

The enterprise world now offers him his aggressive repair.

“I do know what a championship-winning tradition appears like; it is folks all participating with one another,” he mentioned. “… We butt heads always. Nevertheless it’s a very good relationship as a result of it is not about being proper … or proving the opposite particular person fallacious. It is like, ‘How will we constructed the very best empathetic platform for these sufferers and for these PTs?’ We disagree on issues, nevertheless it will get us nearer to that reply, and that is the tradition I am attempting to construct.

“It’s the identical factor when the DBs and receivers had been going at one another on a regular basis. It isn’t that we hated one another. It is like, ‘Nah, I am making you higher’ and I liked that, and I’ve missed that. However I am additionally aggressive … I do not give a f— about something however profitable. So if I can take that and put it in a service automobile and a enterprise that offers me the panorama to compete in, it is a win-win for me. In order that’s why I am right here.”

IN A WAY, Baldwin has come full circle.

Shortly earlier than turning into the primary undrafted rookie for the reason that 1970 merger to steer his staff in receiving, Baldwin was exploring one other profession. With signings disallowed in the course of the 2011 NFL lockout that summer time, Baldwin interviewed with Dropbox and different Bay Space corporations, making ready for a life within the enterprise world.

When he retired, it got here calling.

Jerome Hewlett, previously a part of the management staff at Mental Ventures, was not a Seahawks fan however grew to become a Baldwin supporter late in his profession. Watching him on the sector and in postgame interviews, Hewlett noticed a sensible participant with a team-first perspective — and possibly the potential to steer an organization.

The recruitment effort started shortly. Hewlett reached out to a mutual acquaintance with the Seahawks, invited the just lately retired receiver to spend a while with him within the discipline after which started laying what Baldwin now calls “a year-and-a-half lure.”

Hewlett was serving as Ventrk’s interim CEO and needed Baldwin to take over the position however knew he could not ask him immediately. Baldwin needed to construct the boldness in himself, Hewlett figured, and had to make certain Hewlett wasn’t attempting to capitalize on his fame and use him as a fundraising figurehead. So he introduced Baldwin on as an advisor and had him sit in on each choice and transfer the corporate made.

“And because the months progressed,” Hewlett mentioned, “I’d be making much less and fewer choices and he can be making increasingly more suggestions, to the purpose it was like, ‘You realize, you must actually be CEO as a result of I’m not so good as you.'”

It took some cajoling earlier than Baldwin grew to become Ventrk’s CEO in September 2021. He was reluctant when Hewlett lastly proposed it.

“You say you need folks to acknowledge you as a enterprise particular person, as a human, not simply as a soccer participant — however but you are going to stroll away from this chance?” he requested Baldwin. “I performed to his ego, however not the sports activities ego. It’s the enterprise ego.”

VENTRK’S SPINOUT from Mental Ventures offers Baldwin, Bender and Adams extra decision-making freedom. Nevertheless it additionally meant Baldwin needed to safe a lead investor — and take care of rejection till he discovered one. Getting a gathering was one factor, however getting cash wasn’t as simple.

“That was actually laborious for me,” he mentioned, “getting all these nos.”

Baldwin took it as one other problem, overhauling an preliminary gross sales pitch that Hewlett jokingly calls “s—” as a result of it was too stiff. Just a few months later, Baldwin obtained his first chunk.

Then got here the large one. Earlier this week, HBSI Capital introduced the finalization of a $1 million funding in Ventrk.

“The trade sees him as a enterprise particular person,” Hewlett mentioned of Baldwin, “or else they would not have given him the cash.”