Framework
Athletes as marketing vehicles: turn unbranded moments into branded ones
Shaan's framework for recovery/sports products: athletes are the greatest marketing vehicle, and what matters is native placement (LeBron actually using a device, not a paid ad). Walk a locker room, find the unbranded pregame/postgame moments, and turn them into branded ones, as Beats by Dre did with headphones before it sold to Apple for $3B.
“The framework is athletes are one of the greatest marketing vehicles of all time. Go look at the shoe companies if you want proof of that. Uh, go look at Gatorade, go look at who McDonald's and Coke will sponsor. It's the top athletes. Even though they're obviously not eating McDonald's and drinking Coke in order to perform their best. But they're the best marketing vehicle, and the native placement is what matters.”
Steal thisFind the unbranded things athletes do pregame/postgame and make a higher-quality branded version they'll use on camera.
Idea
Athletes minting their own cards to own the IP and upside
Shaan's big insight on LaMelo Ball's NFT: traditional cards are licensed to Panini/Topps and the individual player gets no cut of a $200k LeBron card sale, so no incentive to promote. By minting his own card, LaMelo owns the upside and will push it to his millions of followers.
“LeBron doesn't get a cut of that transaction because he didn't issue it.”
Steal thisHelp talent issue and own their own collectibles so promotion and upside finally align.
Idea
Rebrand Warheads with rotating celebrity-flavor packs
Shaan pitches buying a nostalgic extreme-sour brand like Warheads and licensing a rotating roster of athletes and influencers, each becoming a limited-edition flavor whose head is the packaging. Season one is NBA stars via Klutch Sports; season two is Jake Paul and the Team 10 crew.
“I would go to Klutch Sports and I'd be like, hey LeBron, uh, we need like 15 NBA athletes. You're each going to get your own Warhead flavor. LeBron, you're the, you're the black Warhead, you're the craziest, most sour one. And then we're going to go get, you know, Anthony Davis and Giannis and the other guys to be the other flavors. And then I would go to Jake Paul for the next season.”
Steal thisLicense a rotating cast of athletes/influencers as limited-edition product variants, using each face as the packaging to drive collectibility and built-in reach.
Story
A startup raised $8M copying the org-chart idea from the show
After Shaan and guest Daniel Gross brainstormed a public, crowdsourced org-chart tool on the pod, a stealth startup called The Org launched doing exactly that and raised $8M from Sequoia and Founders Fund.
“There's actually a startup that came out of Stealth that is doing this after we talked about it. Clearly stole our idea. It's called The Org. They raised $8 million from Sequoia and Founders Fund, and it looks like they're doing exactly this.”