Verne: Phenom has raised over $700k including 500 Startups
Brian Verne · $700k Raised For App That Connects Brands to High School Athletes With Brian Verne of Phantom EP 210 · Mar 30, 2016 · at 11:56
Brian Verne, CEO and co-founder of youth sports app Phenom, discusses the company's early fundraising history and capital structure with Nathan Latka.
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“So overall, we've raised a little over 700,000 between some notes and some equity, and then, you know, now we're in 500 startups you know, batch 16 here in San Francisco, and so that, you know, that comes with you know, a small investment as well.”
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Verne: Sports brands crave high school athletes over pro influencers
“The brands and the marketers and the retailers are no longer just placing a, you know, 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 gr…”
Phenom has about 60,000 high school athlete users
“So we have about 60,000 high school athletes that are using the platform.”
Phenom peaked at over 25,000 monthly active users in early 2016
“Our general, you know, monthly actives are anywhere from, you know, in the tens of thousands all the way up to, we had, you know, over 25,000 monthly actives you know, in the last in the last quarter at one point.”
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“Our users have added over 250,000 products to their phenom profiles”
Brian Verne takes a $30k founder salary and often foregoes pay
“About 30,000 bucks a year, and there are many times where we haven't paid ourselves.”
Knowing startup difficulties early would have caused Brian Verne to quit
“I don't necessarily wish I knew this, because I think we probably would have quit, even during our first startup, but just how difficult, you know, it really is to, you know, build a business, and, you know, to grow it, and to see it scale, and, you know, to d…”