Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to TONY Azevedo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

TONY, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Currently we train on the West side of Long Beach. There are zero programs introducing aquatics into these communities until we decided to start an 8 week league helping 7th and 8th graders learn what water polo is and how being comfortable in the water can change your life.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

After retiring from my 5th olympic games I realized the need to help kids acheive their dreams. So many athletes wanted to to be great but they didn’t have to resources to actually accomplish that dream. Now after starting our 6-8 academy we are seeing kids acheiving their dreams which has made everything we do fullfilling. We believe in Water Polo and by investing into the technology and the youth we are seeing a change that will change the sport forever

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I run a big winter clinic every year. One year I happened to invite Maggie Steffens (3 time gold medalist) to the clinic and during her lunch speech I over heard her talking about earning your number! That is now the slogan for our company and 6 her number and 8 my number hopes to inspire many more to earn their number

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

In a small sport like water polo there is a lot of competition. Maggie and I are lucky enough to have had great careers to build our reputation around but by far the number 1 thing that separates us and grows our clientele is in person events. By seeing and meeting us you understand immediately what our agenda is. Not a quick camp to make money but an opportunity to try and inspire an athlete. Traveling around the world for these events is not easy but it has been to best way to promote who we are

Contact Info:

• Website: tonyazevedo.com, 6-8sports.com
• Instagram: tonyazevedo
• Linkedin: tonyazevedo
• Twitter: waterpolotony