SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
$700k Raised For App That Connects Brands to High School Athletes With Brian Verne of Phantom EP 210
30 Mar 2016
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base.
Chapter 2: What is Phenom and how does it connect brands to high school athletes?
You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top.
Chapter 3: How does Phenom generate revenue and what is its business model?
Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the 100 bucks that I give away every Monday is Kim Dust.
Chapter 4: What psychological connections exist between athletes and their gear?
She's in the entertainment industry and is currently working a full-time day job and doing her side hustle on the side. Kim, congrats. For you guys' chance to win 100 bucks every Monday, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now and then text the word Nathan to 33444 to officially enter.
Chapter 5: How does Brian support himself while building Phenom?
Again, text the word Nathan to 33444 after you've subscribed. Coming up tomorrow morning, Top Tribe, you're gonna hear from Matt Weinberg. He runs a media agency that does six million in revenue with 32 employees. Okay, Top Drive, good morning, good morning.
Chapter 6: What role does Instagram play in Phenom's business strategy?
You're going to really enjoy our guest this morning. His name is Brian Vernon. He's the CEO of Phenom, a 500 Startups Batch 16 participant. He graduated from Oberlin College in 2009. He was a former college baseball player, and he was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Brian, are you ready to take us to the top? Let's do it. So do you want to own the Indians one day?
That's what Phenom's all about, right?
Chapter 7: How does Phenom define an active user and what metrics are important?
Absolutely.
If I could own the Indians, I think my life would be complete.
Okay.
Awesome. So tell us about Phenom.
Chapter 8: What challenges do brands face in reaching high school athletes?
What's it do and how do you guys make money?
Sure, sure. So really simply put, we're building the largest community of young athletes, giving them a platform to, we say, show off their gear and show off their game. Or in other words, a place to talk about the different products that they love and share stories about their athletic experiences.
I always try to paint a picture and really make sure that people understand why this is important for young athletes. And then I think the second major piece is how does it actually become a business? So I was a former college baseball player, and at one point I was our user.
And so the whole basis behind everything is that if you are, say, a 13 to 18 year old kid and you play sports, that's the most important thing to you at that point in your life. And I think as we get a little bit older, especially when we go from being a kid to becoming an adult, we kind of lose sight of how important sports are to kids. And so kind of using that as
you know, as a basis for everything going forward, you know, we said, well, you know, what do kids really want to talk about? And we kind of, uh, I guess whittled it down to two things. And our, you know, our thesis is, is two prongs. It's that athletes care about their style. You know, there's the whole age old mantra of look good, feel good, play good.
Uh, you know, for years and years and years, um, athletes just care, you know, tremendous amount about their gear. And that's a huge part of their, uh, of their persona. And, And if I'm wearing a certain product as an athlete in my mind, I'm going to play better. And so we wanted to give young athletes a voice to talk about the different products and brands that they love.
And so how do you guys real quick, let me cut you off Brian real quick. How do you guys, so I'm on the site right now. It says Phenom show off your gear and your game with the best athletes around the world. And then it says, get it on the iPhone. Tell us real quick before you describe the business more, how do you actually make money?
So the real business opportunity is based on the changing landscape in sports. The brands and the marketers and the retailers are no longer just placing a value on pro athletes as being influencers. In fact, they absolutely crave the high school athlete segment.
But the problem that they have is reaching young athletes at a grassroots level to get product feedback and doing it in a really, really timely fashion.
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