Brian Verne, CEO of Phenom, former college baseball player, and native of Cleveland, Ohio. Listen as Nathan and Brian chat about life as a college athlete, and why big time athletic brands are starting to sponsor high school athletes when they once only cared about the pros.
Famous 5
Favorite Book? – The Art of Feeling
What CEO do you follow?— N/A
What is your favorite online tool?— Slack
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?—Understand how difficult it is to build a business.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:17 – Nathan’s introduction
01:35 – Welcoming Brian to the show
01:45 – What Phenom is
03:35 – How Phenom makes money
04:01 – Phenom gives young athletes the ability to connect with large brands
04:38 – Currently connected with Wilson
05:18 – The payment model between Phenom and Wilson
06:04 – Currently have 60K users
06:50 – defining an “active” user
08:49 – There’s a massive psychological connection between gear and performance
11:15 – Brian talks about supporting himself in lieu of revenue
12:32 – Right now, Brian is taking down $30K per year
13:28 – Maxing out credit cards, getting down the last penny—but it’s worth it
15:18 – Brian is 28
16:00 – Instagram is the basis of Phenom’s business
3 Key Points:
Building a business is a bitch—never forget it.
Don’t quit just because the money isn’t “there”—make whatever personal cuts you need to keep the momentum going.
Parlay life lessons into your business.
Resources Mentioned:
Edgar – Nathan uses Edgar instead of other scheduling tools for Twitter because Edgar cycles through content over and over (buffer/others you have to re-input content over and over – time consuming). In the last several months, Edgar has driven Nathan over 3728 clicks that he didn’t have to work or pay for.
Host Gator - Powerful web hosting made easy and affordable.
Slack – The online tool Brian can’t live without
The Art of Feeling – Brian’s favorite business book
Wilson – Large sporting goods company that Phenom partners with
Phenom – Brian’s company
The Top is FOR YOU if you are:
A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)
STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)
An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)
The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).
Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop