Why Inked Sports Knows College Athletes Are The Future of Influencer Marketing - Tyler Shooshani - Inked Sports

Mar 16, 2023

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Gritdaily Startup, hosted by the influential Sebastian Rusk, recently hosted Tyler Shooshani, the founder and CEO of NAL, an innovative influencer marketing and creative platform specifically designed for college athletes. Listeners were given an energizing insight into Tyler's innovative business, as well as the marketing industry as a whole. Tyler explained how he ventured into this new industry and the challenges he faced, particularly in the need to find a core group of committed individuals to work with him. Tyler discussed how he is motivated to disrupt the influence of the marketing industry and provide opportunities for students to succeed, as well as how he takes pleasure in being able to be creative in his business. He finished off the conversation by explaining that for him, the most difficult part was securing the organization's first customer. So, tune into Gritdaily Startup to give yourself an edge in the marketing industry, with Tyler's unique insights and Sebastian Rusk’s expert interviews of the top influencers, entrepreneurs, and marketers in the business.

Blog Post

Had passed that allowed NCAA athletes to financially benefit from their name and likeness when I heard about this. That's when my mind was.

Blog Post #1:

The world of startups is what we like to call ‘the gritty’, and Tyler Shoshani has quite the experience to bring to the table. Tyler is a recent graduate from USC and studied business and entrepreneurship. During his time at USC he worked as the student manager for the football team and found his passion for working with college athletes. In a digital marketing class, he began to research the influencer industry and saw potential for disruption within it. With new legislation passing in the summer of 2021 that allowed college athletes to benefit from their name or likeness, Tyler’s experience and research started to take shape.

The Gritdaily Startup is excited to feature guest Tyler Shoshani and hear all about his journey in the world of startup. We want to provide an inside look at what it’s really like to bring an innovative idea to the world and Tyler has plenty of tips to share. Listen to the podcast to hear Tyler’s inspiring story and learn some industry advice. Here are three tips to get you started:

1. Leverage your unique skills and experiences to create something innovative

2. Conduct customer discovery to overcome industry oversaturation.

3. Adapt to new legal changes to maximize your potential

As Tyler said, “I really don't go deep into influence of marketing and when I started to do customer discovery, I was doing, like, unintentional customer discovery when I was doing this research, but I discovered that influence and marketing has begun to become overly saturated with non-distinguishable creators.” Tune in to the Grid Daily Startup Show to learn more about Tyler’s journey and gain some industry wisdom.

Blog Post #2:

On the Grid Daily Startup Show, excitement is in the air to bring on guest Tyler Shoshani and hear his inspiring story. Tyler is a graduate of USC and studied business and entrepreneurship. He worked as a student manager for the USF football team, which gave him knowledge of the sports world. Tyler used his digital marketing course to take an in-depth look at the influencer industry and noticed an opportunity for disruption. After the summer of 2021 legislation passed which allowed college athletes to benefit from their name or likeness, Tyler had the knowledge to put his ideas into motion.

Gritdaily Startup is thrilled to feature Tyler and the immense wealth of wisdom he can share with everyone. Listen to the podcast to learn about Tyler’s journey and get some industry tips. Here are three pieces of advice to get you started:

1. Research the industry to discover potential opportunities

2. Take advantage of newly legalized changes

3. Additionally, leverage your skills and experiences for a unique approach

As Tyler said, “I kind of saw an opportunity that influencer marketing was prime for disruption and innovation within the industry.” Tune into the Gritdaily Startup Show to get inside Tyler’s experience with the world of startups and what it takes to get an innovative project off the ground.

Best Quotes

[00:01:53] "So I kind of saw an opportunity that influencer marketing was prime for disruption and innovation within the industry."

[Unknown] "In the summer of 2021, new legislation was passed that allowed college athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness."

[00:02:52] "I kind of pissed me off a little bit. I was like, you know what? I want to create a way to help these underserved athletes. The board will call them the 98 percent or the 480000 every year that unfortunately don't receive professional help. To an extent from these, from universities, from outside people because everyone's so focused on football and basketball."

[00:05:31] "We've never quite seen a new supply of these influences in this way where they're just college students, so they're not full-time influencers, so they're not going to be able to command the same rates as a full-time influencer."

All Quotes

[00:01:53] "So I kind of saw an opportunity that influencer marketing was prime for disruption and innovation within the industry."

[00:01:53] "I kind of saw an opportunity to bridge the gap between the sports world and the influencer marketing world."

[00:03:31] "So an influencer is literally anyone that has an audience on social media that they can reach. Influencers tend to post in return for either product or for cash. What we're seeing with these college athletes is mostly just product for post, and it's 1 of the best ways and most engaging ways to reach an effective audience and receive that high engagement from any other marketing channel that exists."

[00:02:08] "paved the way for all college athletes to profit from their name image and likeness as we continue to see the market kind of settle in for this new NAL space. We saw that there was a strong intersection between college athletics and influence and marketing. As 90 percent of all of these NIO, we'll call it deals have been centered around these social media promotions."

[00:04:02] "I don't have quite the numbers in front of me right now, but that's kind of the general understanding of what influence the

[00:05:28] "It's a very secretive and expensive industry."

[00:05:31] "We've never quite seen a new entry of supply of these influences in this way where they're just college students, so they're not full-time influencers, so they're not going to be asking for full time rates."

[00:05:57] "And it's just a matter of continuing to have conversations and just educate brands that, like, influence of marketing can be awesome, and it can be budget friendly. You just have to find the right people."

[00:05:01] "And have recently hit our 15000 dollars' worth of deal value for our athlete's milestone, which is super exciting."

[00:06:29] "The hardest part is really finding that core group of founders that everyone, like, 100 percent is all in."

[00:06:53] "But that's not to say that you can't still succeed as a solo founder and you can't succeed at, you know, creating that vision that you've always had for the company."

[00:07:59] "The best part really is just like, I love I'm a huge creative guy, and I and I hate being kind of tunnel visioned into 1 aspect of a business."

[00:08:14] "I'm like, look, like, just because your role says you're 1 thing, doesn't mean you can't bring ideas or you can't think about other ways or doing other things to help the start up as a whole. I really just love providing a creative space for not just myself, but for all of everyone ending sports because I really."

Topics

Influencer Marketing and NAL Platform with Tyler Shoshani

The Influence of College Athletes on the Marketing Industry.

Getting Your First Customer

Episode Links

Connect with Sebastian Rusk:

Connect with Tyler Shooshani

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