Technology
Women in Sports
Career Development
5 min read
•
Published Jul 1, 2026
Building Arena: how starting over led to a platform making meaningful connections across the sports industry.
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Adriene Bueno
Co-Founder & CGO
•
Arena
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Parul Khosla
Co-Founder & CEO
•
Arena
01
The Project
Parul Khosla and Adriene Bueno wrote the first version of Arena on a napkin at dinner. They both worked in sports. They both spent years helping people find jobs and build careers in the industry. And they both kept running into the same wall: there was nowhere for professionals to go to actually make the connections that moved careers forward.
Job boards weren’t working. Communities were valuable but slow. Referrals drove almost every hire at senior levels, and yet there was no infrastructure designed to help people build the relationships that produced those referrals. Parul came from HR and recruiting. Adriene came from content, marketing, and her own career coaching practice, Baller Careers. Their skill sets were different but their diagnosis was identical.
So they decided to build the thing that didn’t exist. A curated matchmaking platform for sports, media, and entertainment professionals, designed to connect people to each other intentionally, with accountability built in. That dinner conversation became Arena.
Hear Parul on the importance of listening to users and pivoting
CORE TEAM
3 co-founders: Parul Khosla (CEO), Adriene Bueno (CGO), Olivia (CTO)
BIGGEST CONSTRAINT
Users couldn't describe what they needed because the product didn't exist yet. There was nothing to compare it to, so the team had to launch, observe behavior, and build from what they saw.
DELIVERABLES
One custom platform connecting people working in sports and entertainment.
TIMELINE
Summer 2023 concept and planning through January 2026 public launch. Approximately 2.5 years from napkin to live product, including a full rebuild from scratch
02
Strategy & Execution
Before Parul and Adriene could build anything, they had to learn how to build a company at this scale. They started where most founders start: reading, watching, asking questions, and finding people who had already made the mistakes they were about to make.
Parul had just finished her MBA from Rutgers with a concentration in entrepreneurship, which gave her a framework for finance, forecasting, and legal basics she had never needed as a recruiter. Both founders worked through Y Combinator's startup school, a free structured series of videos that walks through building from idea to MVP. And they brought in a small advisory board early, people who filled the skill gaps they knew they had and pointed them toward resources like Andrew Chen's book on network effects, The Cold Start Problem, which ended up shaping several of their most important strategic decisions.
T
Tori
When you decided to focus on mid-to-senior professionals, was there a fear that you were leaving people out?
P
Parul
That was always the real concern. We never wanted Arena to be exclusive. But when we were trying to serve everybody, we were not serving anybody. The population was too broad to have any actual impact. A matchmaking platform only works if both sides have something meaningful in common. If you don't curate the audience, none of the matches are actually useful. The Cold Start Problem helped us get to the conclusion that we needed to master one niche first and then expand. We have plans to incorporate students and early-career professionals, other industries, people transitioning into sports. But we want to do this one community really well first.
T
Tori
How did you educate yourselves on how to start a business, and who were you connecting with to make those early decisions?
P
Parul
I also did Y Combinator startup school, which is a free series of YouTube videos structured from the very beginning, from having an idea to building an MVP and getting it to market. We didn't finish the whole thing, just the modules most relevant to where we were. But it was genuinely helpful. And then it wasn't until we found Olivia, our CTO, that we learned how to actually translate the idea into something that works. She taught us what a wireframe was. She taught us how to build technically. We needed someone like that.
T
Tori
How did you educate yourselves on how to start a business, and who were you connecting with to make those early decisions?
A
Adriene
We brought in advisors early who filled a lot of the gaps in terms of skill set and knowledge that Parul and I were lacking. That's vital for any startup, because you only know what you know. These people kept us grounded but also opened us up to information, insights, and connections we wouldn't have gotten on our own. Strong advisors are a key pillar. And then actually following through on what they share. A book I'd recommend to anyone building in tech or in anything with network effects is The Cold Start Problem. That one directly influenced our go-to-market strategy and how we approached building the MVP.
Finding their CTO took five or six months. Parul and Adriene had looked at dev shops and outsourced development, but what they really wanted was an equal co-founder, someone technically skilled who would be invested long-term. They posted an ad in Women in Sports Tech, a networking group that no longer exists. Olivia responded. They loved her immediately. She became their third co-founder and the technical backbone of everything Arena became.
The first version of Arena launched at the end of 2024. It was a completely different product. They scrapped it entirely.
The pivot wasn't painful. It was clarifying. Users couldn't articulate what they needed because nothing like the current version of Arena had ever existed. Parul and Adriene had to put something out, watch how people used it, and then build what they actually observed people needing rather than what anyone had told them to build. They rebuilt from scratch with a year of learning behind them, and that version became Arena as it exists today.
“We both spent years talking to professionals, hearing their frustrations, and seeing from the inside how people actually get hired and generate new business opportunities. It's almost always through someone they know. We needed to build the infrastructure for that.”
Parul Khosla
Three decisions defined Arena's current product:
1
Pivot from job matching to people matching
The original premise was using AI to match users to jobs. What the data and observation showed was that matching people to each other unlocked far more. A connection leads to a job, a mentor, a speaking opportunity, a business partner, a board seat. Narrowing to jobs narrowed the platform's value. Expanding to human connection expanded it in every direction.
2
Focus on mid-to-senior professionals first
The decision wasn't intentional at launch. It was data-driven. When Arena opened publicly, the community that showed up organically was majority mid-to-senior level. The team recognized that almost every career resource in sports is built for students and early-career professionals. Senior-level jobs don't get posted. Everyone hiring at that level relies on referrals. Parul and Adriene had spent years watching that dynamic from the inside and built for the people it was failing.
3
Require calendar links. Eliminate ghosting
The most tactical decision Arena made was also the one that drives their biggest metric. Every user must have a scheduling link in their profile. No link, no introductions. It forces the follow-through that most networking platforms never get. LinkedIn's DM response rate is 8%. Arena's match-to-meeting ratio is 80%.
1
Social and digital, led by Donny
Countdown content, game-day graphics, real-time social assets, and the full digital suite. Donny owned this end and managed the external agency producing assets the internal team couldn't get to.
2
Parade and championship assets, led by two designers and the creative director
Win-scenario content including parade look and feel, championship graphics, and print.
This workstream ran at the same time as digital. They couldn't afford to wait and see if
they'd need it.
3
Project management, a first day on the job
The Seahawks had hired a project manager two weeks before the Super Bowl. Her first
assignment was tracking roughly 100 deliverables across five people. It worked.
T
Tori
When you decided to focus on mid-to-senior professionals, was there a fear that you were leaving people out?
P
Parul
That was always the real concern. We never wanted Arena to be exclusive. But when we were trying to serve everybody, we were not serving anybody. The population was too broad to have any actual impact. A matchmaking platform only works if both sides have something meaningful in common. If you don't curate the audience, none of the matches are actually useful. The Cold Start Problem helped us get to the conclusion that we needed to master one niche first and then expand. We have plans to incorporate students and early-career professionals, other industries, people transitioning into sports. But we want to do this one community really well first.
T
Tori
When you decided to focus on mid-to-senior professionals, was there a fear that you were leaving people out?
P
Parul
That was always the real concern. We never wanted Arena to be exclusive. But when we were trying to serve everybody, we were not serving anybody. The population was too broad to have any actual impact. A matchmaking platform only works if both sides have something meaningful in common. If you don't curate the audience, none of the matches are actually useful. The Cold Start Problem helped us get to the conclusion that we needed to master one niche first and then expand. We have plans to incorporate students and early-career professionals, other industries, people transitioning into sports. But we want to do this one community really well first.
03
The Outcome
Arena launched publicly in January 2026. Since then, the platform has made over 10,000 introductions and is producing an 80% match-to-meeting ratio. The numbers are significant. But Parul and Adriene measure impact through the stories they hear every week, in one-on-one calls with members, in the matches that turn into friendships, board seats, consulting engagements, and partnerships that wouldn't have happened any other way.
10,000
Introductions made since public launch in January 2026
500
Paying members
80%
Match-to-meeting ratio (vs. LinkedIn's 8% DM response rate)
T
Tori
When you decided to focus on mid-to-senior professionals, was there a fear that you were leaving people out?
P
Parul
That was always the real concern. We never wanted Arena to be exclusive. But when we were trying to serve everybody, we were not serving anybody. The population was too broad to have any actual impact. A matchmaking platform only works if both sides have something meaningful in common. If you don't curate the audience, none of the matches are actually useful. The Cold Start Problem helped us get to the conclusion that we needed to master one niche first and then expand. We have plans to incorporate students and early-career professionals, other industries, people transitioning into sports. But we want to do this one community really well first.
T
Tori
What does it mean to you all to be building this as a completely women-founded organization, and how have you seen that show up in who's showing up for you?
P
Parul
It has completely impacted our business. We are always, in every design decision, every piece of marketing, every event, thinking about who is going to be in the room and whether they'll feel welcome. If you look at our networking events, the diversity is striking. That's not normal for this industry. And it reflects in who's using the platform. We have 45% women and 51% people of color, which we didn't engineer. It happened because of who we are and the networks we'd already built. People look at us and feel like they belong.
A
Adriene
We've also built inclusivity directly into the product. Members can indicate if they specifically want to connect with people from underrepresented communities. That's not a checkbox. It's something we believe in and built into the infrastructure because it matters.
Three things to carry forward
01
Build the first version to learn, not to last.
Arena's original product was scrapped completely. Parul and Adriene don't describe that as a failure. They describe it as the only way to find out what they actually needed to build. Users couldn't tell them what they needed because nothing like the final product had ever existed. Launching early, watching what happened, and rebuilding with that knowledge gave them a product that works. Waiting until it was perfect would have meant never finding out.
02
The data will tell you who your product is really for.
Parul and Adriene expected their early users to be entry-level. The data showed them mid-to-senior professionals. They listened to it and built for the audience that showed up, not the one they assumed would. That decision, shaped by evidence rather than assumptions, became Arena's strongest strategic differentiator.
03
Accountability is a feature, not a policy.
The calendar link requirement is the single operational decision most responsible for Arena's 80% match-to-meeting ratio. They didn't hope people would follow through. They built follow-through into the system. Designing for the behavior you want, rather than hoping it happens, is the difference between a platform that connects people and one that watches them ghost each other.
01
Process is the method to the madness, and it's a blind spot in sports.
Donny came up through an agency before she ever worked in the NFL. That experience gave her the habit of building strategy before touching a design file: kickoffs with data teams, alignment on voice and narrative before anything visual exists. That's what lets you build a campaign that holds up seasons later, not just one that looks good this week.
02
Build the relationships before you need them.
Donny describes herself as a seed planter. She builds relationships with teammates, freelancers, and collaborators all year, not just when a deadline appears. That's what made it possible to assemble a Super Bowl caliber production team in a matter of days. You cannot manufacture that kind of trust in the middle of a crisis.
03
You have to advocate for the vision. No one is going to hand it to you.
The Seahawks gave Donny a sandbox. But she had to decide what to build in it. That meant going to her VP and asking directly for more budget so she could push the work further. The organization's openness to creative is real, but it only activates for the people who show up with conviction and a track record to back it up.
Beyond the Highlights
Know a woman in sports with a story to share?
If you're a woman working in sports — or you know one — who has a real project story to tell, we want to hear about it. The planning, the pivots, the constraints, and what came out the other side. That's what Beyond the Highlight is built for.
Women working in sports or adjacent industries at any career stage
A real project with constraints, trade-offs, and outcomes
No polished summary required. We work with you to shape the story!
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