Jason Bergman: Democratizing the Sponsorships Marketplace (Full Transcript)
Ronen Ainbinder
Joining us for today's Halftime Snack is a former sales manager who founded a fantastic sponsorship business this year.
Joining the show from New York City is an entrepreneur who's passionate about sports, sponsorships, and problem-solving.
He's the founder of MarketPryce, a platform that will revolutionize the way athletes and brands connect for potential marketing deals. MarketPryce works pretty much like a dating app for brands and athletes.
This man accepted my invitation to the show with zero hesitation, and I'm sure we're all going to learn so much from him!
Buckle up for today's Halftime Snack with the one and only Jason Bergman!
Jason Bergman
I just got chills, man, that was awesome. I'm so happy to be here. I want to record and play that before I walk into any room for the rest of my life. That was epic!
Ronen Ainbinder
I'm happy to host you on the halftime snacks. I'm also very, very happy to meet you. We already had a small chat before. But I can already see that you're a great guy. And I'm so excited to have you on the show. And I want to start our little chat with I want to be able to super crazy superposition. I want to invite you to suppose that you're right now, Morgan Freeman. For the next three minutes, you're going to be Morgan Freeman, and you don't need to imitate the voice because Morgan Freeman has the voice of God. So probably it's hard to imitate. But let's say you have your Morgan Freeman, and you have to narrate the introduction of the movie of Jason Bergman's life. How would it sound like, give us the two to three-minute intro?
Jason Bergman
I can give you the script how it sounds, I'm not going even to attempt to do a Morgan Freeman voice. And yeah, I could keep it specific to a little bit MarketPryce too, because that's what we're here to talk about. for me, I graduated out of college, and I got right into sales. I've always been in sales. And I've always been pitching, whether at a corporate company like Yelp or a small startup. That's something that I've been passionate about, and communicating with people working in teams, working in groups solve problems for the clients I'm working with that I'm passionate about, and sales are one storytelling that we could do a good job here today telling the story of MarketPryce. Still, problem-solving figuring out what a client is struggling with and providing a solution for it. And that's one thing that is the reason I created MarketPryce. And to give you a quick background, what I did is I started at a sports marketing company where I was consulting brands. And as big as Anheuser Busch and vitamin Shoppe and really big companies down to maybe even one or two-person startups, helping them connect with athletes, and I'm a huge sports nerd. We're talking about sports before we got on. And it's something where I, I take it in a good way. I was fortunate. I know a lot about sports. And I always wanted a career in sports. And I was working with these brands because they didn't know how to connect with athletes. They didn't know which athletes to connect with, and they didn't know how to measure the return or do anything like a marketing campaign. So it made me think of this idea on MarketPryce of how can I make it easier for brands to discover new athlete ambassadors, and we'll get to the logistics of how it works. But that was the big problem. But I was never a pro athlete myself. I was never an agent. I was never on the other side of the table. So what I did was like I said, You call me mountain man because that's what Bergman means in German. So I love it. But I'm five, six, I'm not near a pro athlete. I'm not Leo Messi. But one thing I did was the next best thing. I started my sports marketing agency. So I probably on Instagram I directly messaged close to 1000 athletes, mostly in the NFL in the NBA, just because I know a lot about the NFL in the NBA. I'm a big fan. And I ended up recruiting 12 professional athletes. And I said I don't want anything exclusive. I have a history of space and marketing. I'll bring you marketing deals. Just say yes or no. And we could talk through deals, and I did that for about a year and a half. And I saw how hard it was again, I envisioned that it would be hard for athletes and agents to close deals, but I never experienced it firsthand. So I was able to see how painful it was to be cold-calling brands and cold emailing brands and Instagram and messaging brands, and for the chance that they wanted to work with athletes. Even if they did want to work with athletes, do they want to work with my guys who were at the end of the roster? It was so inefficient. And even if a deal closed, it took months, and it was maybe like $500 are something really small, where I was just like demand, this process needs to be easier. So what I did was to create MarketPryce, the marketplace for athlete marketing, where athletes and agents can sign up in two clicks and apply to whichever company they want to work with, and see brands, on the other side, that signed up because they specifically want to work with athletes. That's why they're there. So it's a marketplace connecting to parties who want to meet and who can connect as easily as two clicks. Wow,
Ronen Ainbinder
That's a great introduction, Morgan Freeman. If you're listening to this, you must be narrating the introduction to Jason Bergman's life. That's amazing. Jason, thank you so much for sharing. And I wonder what did your wife say when you left your job in the middle of a global pandemic to start MarketPryce? What was that conversation?
Jason Bergman
I recently got married; I got married last November. And that's something where I mean, talk about timing, it was probably the last weddings that we had because, in March, everything's sort of closed down. And it's something not to get in a podcast, which I would be happy to do. I know she's not going to listen to this, though, of just like, being able to be there for each other. And she knew, because, again, it's not like I just was driving in a car one day, and I thought about this idea. Like, that's how Netflix started. It was Reed Hastings and Mark Randolph in a car. And they're like, why don't we ship DVDs and like they just started the day after. This is a career that I've been in for the last four years. So this is something where she's seen every day, and I've done the I come back from work, and I complain about x, y, and z, I'm like, this should be easier, this should be easier. She's a partner in my life where she understood the problem because this is something we've been living for the last four years. So when I presented the problem, that's something where she saw that, and again, I was lucky enough. And I, it's hard to be lucky and COVID. But we were able to work from home in March. So I was able to work on this on the side nights, weekends without being worn out from working eight hour days, and my full-time job. I just quit my job a couple of months ago, and to take MarketPryce on full time. So I was able to do so much being able to work from home. That again, I mean, supportive is to put it lightly of what kind of she comments it but again, where we're trying to make the most out of the situation. And we've been doing that so far.
Ronen Ainbinder
Yeah, I think that one key element is when you decrease the number of things you're doing, you can increase the quality of the output of each of the things you do. Instead of doing three things, or four things, or two things on probably on a 70% 80% capacity, you go and do one on 100% capacity, and then move it faster. So I think that timing is a key element in your story. Probably also lock is another key element in your story. And would you say there's any other thing that you kind of looking backward to this year was a very critical point that changed the whole perspective, it was maybe a meeting you had or something you heard about someone? That was any point this year? Well, the puck is going to be out until 2021. But we're still in 2020 when we're recording this. So is there something in 2020 that you kind of remember as it is a critical point in your year?
Jason Bergman
Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, I think there's a little bit of luck to everything. And the fact that I had this idea before even COVID hit is something we're now with COVID gave me extra time to work on it. Suppose I had to point to one thing and not be the corniest founder of all time. But one thing that helped me was just going out and taking that step. And again, I man, I'm so passionate about listening to all this stuff, and I hear it on every podcast, and it's like, oh, yeah, enough of it already. I know, just do it. But this is the opportunity to do it too if you want to take a risk. So for me, my business model, and I'm sure we can get into it. But on MarketPryce, athletes and agents pay a monthly membership to access all the awesome brands that sign up to MarketPryce. And I did that for a few reasons. One, they're able to see the return that they're getting you to pay $49 a month you close one deal for $500, you just made ten times the amount of money you spent. Not many companies can put more money in your pocket than you're spending. But for me, I was like, if I'm going to charge athletes and agents, I need to make sure that this is something I would pay for, because if I'm selling something that I wouldn't use, then this whole product is shot like why are we even starting this? Why am I spending all this time? So I was like, Okay, how can I start to be an athlete? That thought went over quickly in my head. I was like, Alright, next best thing. How can I start being an agent? Should I just interview many agents, but it's not as valuable as me being an agent. I was like, Alright, Instagram is amazing. And Gary Vaynerchuk was always like, Instagram is the best because you can reach out to anyone who you want in literally two clicks into dm. And that's how we met on Twitter. It's amazing. So I just damned like, I mean, it was about 40 athletes a day, because they blocked you at some point of like, you're sending too many unsolicited messages. But anyway is like every single day like you have two minutes spans of the day where I just send out copy and paste a message, hey, I would love to meet, hey, I would love to meet Hey, I would love to meet you take enough stabs at it. And enough bites of the apple. I ended up recruiting athletes who are unbelievable to work with; I still work with them to this day, but just taking the shot and sending a cold Instagram dm to a professional athlete and then have phone calls with them. I think that's the thing where, again, if you're like, What's the best thing that could have happened is me experiencing being a sports agent? Because now when I'm pitching sports agents, I could say, and it's invaluable in sales. I've been in your shoes. I know how hard this is. And this is one thing I struggled with, and is this something you see now like Yes, of course? Cool. I created a solution to help me do this better. And I think you'll see value in it as well. And that's been received incredibly, incredibly well.
Ronen Ainbinder
I love it. Jason, I want to talk a little bit about MarketPryce. And I'm very curious since you've been working with sponsorships and the whole market between broking between athletes brands, and what have you. I want to know if you discovered two to three myths and sponsorships or in the marketplace of sponsorships that you discovered. And why do you think they're myths? Why do you think they're important? Why do you think the listeners should know about them? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Jason Bergman
Yeah, of course. And I can go on both sides of the marketplace. So for brands, we could start there. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions I saw firsthand was, and it's kind of twofold. One Oh, yeah. I don't sell workout shoes. So athletes wouldn't want to work with me. And like that's one brand thing that brands think. And it's just insane to think that because athletes are normal people too. They just have many more followers on social media and a lot more weight when they talk about things. But for example, one of the early brands who have signed up to MarketPryce, Scholastic, Scholastic books, I bet you asked 100 people: can scholastic work with athletes? They'll all be like, no, that's silly. Just work with parents and kids, athletes or parents do athletes have kids? So if you're able to, and the funny thing is, there's one athlete with who I've worked in the past, Eric Decker. He was a former NFL player. And like, 70% of his followers are female moms in the ages of 30 to 50. And it was cool to see it's also because his wife, Jesse Decker, was on some reality show. Whatever the reason is, he has many followers, who are people that I'm sure Scholastic would love to reach those moms with children—so being able to find athletes who can authentically use your product. And it doesn't even need to be in sports. Like right now. The player empowerment era has been, so I don't want to say, overused, but it's becoming more prevalent with athletes starting their venture firms. Athletes start their product lines and take a stronghold on their marketing and take marketing into their own hands. You're able to connect with brands on MarketPryce in two clicks with companies that you can authentically work with, whether it's Scholastic books, a mattress company because athletes need better sleep. Even cool clothes, because athletes like NBA players, there was a friggin award at the NBA show a couple of years ago, the most fashionable athlete with nothing to do with the NBA. So it's just cool to see athletes off the field and the court. It was able to partner with brands that, again, can promote it authentically, as long as it's authentic. And again, we could talk all day about that. But that's that's crucial. I know that's a big one. And then I mean, even on the brand side to that athlete, marketing is so expensive. And if I'm a brand, it's like, oh, well, I don't have six figures to spend on LeBron James. And it's like, yeah, I'm sure you don't. But there's every other person on the Lakers or any other athlete you could work with, and I've been a part of deals where it's even just free product where brands send a nice watch for an athlete for social media shout out. And it's cool to see that brands can work with athletes and still see a big return, whether it's a free product or a few $100, especially with the new NFL laws changing where college athletes will be able to start closing more marketing deals. That's something where if you're not Trevor Lawrence, you're probably doing deals for a few $100 here and there. And that's something that can change a business for the better and validate a product and validate the business model. So the fact that Oh, athletes aren't for me, and they're too expensive anyway, is just, I mean, you say myth like those are the two things that come to my head, which is insane. And then a bonus point, athletes, you can't connect with brands if you don't have an agent. That's just silly. That's why I created MarketPryce. We had an athlete two days ago, she's a track and field athlete. She signed up for an account, created a profile on MarketPryce applied to seven different companies. And I checked the timestamps because I went to the bathroom, and I came back. And she did all that. It was four minutes. And she did all that in four minutes. And the fact that athletes, again, it's four minutes, it's like not even a commercial break. Like it's crazy. So now, with MarketPryce, you're able to connect with again, whichever company you want to in, in just a matter of clicks. So those are the couple minutes that I'm sure we'll talk about myths all day. But those are the three big ones that come to mind.
Ronen Ainbinder
Wow, that's fascinating. Jason, if any athletes are listening that want to be sponsored by the Halftime Snacks podcast, you guys can reach out to me through MarketPryce. We would be very happy to partner up with some big athletes. But I want to ask if you can tell us the different benefits that MarketPryce breaks for athletes and brands? And if you could maybe mention if there's any disadvantage for them for using your platform, or maybe not as a disadvantage, but what would they be letting go of, people might probably think that in the short term is negative, but it might benefit the long term. So are there any disadvantages that you see that athletes or brands could consider through your platform? Can you tell us a little bit about that as well?
Jason Bergman
Yeah, of course, I mean, I'm a I'm an optimist, obviously, as a founder to be a pessimistic founder. So I'll start with the advantages, which are, which are pretty clear. With athletes and agents, both if you want to be able to close marketing deals with brands. I saw this firsthand, which companies are you reaching out to, which companies are out there that you can work with, who's the right person within that company that handles athlete marketing deals, marketing deals, or social media deals? And how do you get in touch with them? And then the timing of it all? Are they trying to work with athletes now, and are they trying to work with the athletes that you represent, or you specifically as an athlete? That's just such a time suck, especially for athletes who are training and competing. Just being an athlete every day, they don't have time to go on a website and try to scrape an email address, send them a cold email, and follow up four different times like an agent would. I don't even know if they'd want to do that. So it's like, and then just for the chance to get like a 5% response rate, which I was used to in any salesperson is email 100 people, you get five responses, four of them are the nose, one of them wants to talk. And it's like all of that effort for really a minimal return. If you're an athlete, you want to take marketing into your own hands. You can sign up for an account on MarketPryce, and you're able to— like Lavanya, she was the track and field athlete— you can apply to seven campaigns and in a couple of clicks and follow up with them directly. You're talking to the right company because you're the one who's swiped right on it like a dating app, so you're interested, you can message them directly the right person because that's the person who created the campaign. And again, it's the right time. That's why they have a campaign running today. So that's for an athlete for an agent again, like, I mean, I've spoken with a few big agencies, one being CAA. One being Rosenhaus, who's already a client. And they're like, man, we have to get deals for hundreds of clients. And we have to pitch all of our clients some are going to get more often than others just because some bring in more money than others. But how can I be able to give all of my athletes a fair share? You add all of your athletes to MarketPryce, and you can apply all of them to these campaigns. In a couple of clicks, you're saving so much time, even if you have a sales team dedicated to it. And then for brands, the advantages are, I mean, we'll go back to Scholastic, or we'll go back to any company that wants to work with any athlete, for Mark price, it's free to sign up, you can use us for free, you can close deals for free. It's always time for free. Always, always for free. You can sign up for the halftime snacks podcast and try to find an ambassador, man, that would be awesome. And like cool, full circle, but you sign up for free. And you put a billboard on our website. Hey, we're open to working with athletes. Come to apply if you're interested. So let's say you're again, a mattress company, and athletes are like, I like sleeping on the floor, I have my mattress or whatever it is like you don't want to hear from them. But if there's an athlete who's moving and need a new mattress, and it's a perfect time because the mattress companies create a campaign today, they're able to apply and find each other, which is cool. When you mentioned the disadvantages, I'm the most biased person literally in the world to talk about MarketPryce, like starting the entire thing. I don't see any like. I genuinely cannot find any reason if you're an athlete or an agent. You always want more marketing deals. it's not like the industry. I compare it to a lot is the dating app, right? So Tinder and hinge, and that's something where if you're married if I'm married and I go back on Tinder hinge, you could get in a lot of trouble. But if you're an athlete, and you do a deal with a headphone company, and you do a deal with a water bottle company. Still, you stay on MarketPryce, you can find other companies to work within different industries, and always keep yourself relevant. So unless you're not interested in doing marketing deals are not interested in, in again, like finding a new brand partner, then you don't use it. But again, I mean, I've worked with 10s of 1000s of athletes and agents, and all of them want to make more money and more brand partnerships. Yeah, that those are the advantages and I'm sorry, I can give you any disadvantages, but you're asking the wrong person I think.
Ronen Ainbinder
Jason and I wonder if it is only limited to athletes? Or are you planning on introducing influencers and celebrities in the future on the athlete or personalities?
Jason Bergman
Yeah, so it's a 100% Yes, we're looking to expand it's funny are starting the name of a company is so freaking hard. And our first name, I loved it, and now looking back, I'm like, that is horrible. And the name of it was sport Fluence sports and influence. And then I'm like, but we want to expand outside athletes one day, we can't be sport Fluence and have hip hop artists sign up, right? That just doesn't make sense. We ended up on market price because we help you find the market price when applying to brands. But one thing that again, I've read and read and read.
As a first time founder, you are going to make a lot of mistakes. You're going to chip on things that you didn't see ahead of you because this is your first time doing it. The best thing I could do is just listen to everything I can read every single article I can on successful businesses. So whether it's Snapchat or Disney, or Pixar, or the list goes on Netflix, what have these founders learned in their path because people love writing books about themselves and blog posts and podcasts an immense amount of content. Now it's just about going and finding that content and learning as much as I can. One big lesson I learned is don't stretch yourself too thin too early, especially in a marketplace. So we're trying to enter a market that we know. And I know specifically, and I have a ton of contacts. And for the last four years, let's be the big fish in the small pond, let's dominate this market, let's grow a great brand. And then let's expand outside of that. So that's one thing that I'm passionate about, and again, like our campaigns right now, if you're an athlete, and I spoke with an agent this morning, who was like I represent a few international athletes, do you have international campaigns? And I said, I don't right now we have national campaigns, we have a couple of global ones, but we want to be able to deliver there's enough brand athletes in the US.
There are enough brands in the US to close a ton of deals and make a big mark in the space. And then we could expand outside of that. Because again, it's a no brainer for musicians, for actors, for actresses. My little brother's an actor out in LA. And I'm like, "dude, get a big TikTok following and then sign up in a couple of years when we expand to actors." It's a no brainer. But yes, that was the long answer to your question. But 100%, we want to expand outside athletes one day!
Ronen Ainbinder
I went over the athletes' list now that you have signed up for your platform and a few names. Well, a lot of names popped up. Aaron Jones, the running back for the Green Bay Packers Nyheim Hines from the Colts. I'm a Colts fan. So I was excited to see that. I'm also a Nuggets fan. I saw Monta Morris over there. So I wonder what's the chicken and the egg dilemma? What do you grow first; the athletes or the brands? What's more important, and who's looking for who at the end of the day? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Jason Bergman
Yeah, but you're You said you're a nugget and the Colts fan. That makes sense. Maybe for another conversation, but that's uh, that's interesting. I love it. Do you have a quick answer to that to defend yourself? I've never heard that before.
Ronen Ainbinder
The quickest answer is Allen Iverson and Peyton Manning. When I started watching sports, those guys attracted my interest in sports, but yeah, that's the short answer.
Jason Bergman
That's awesome. Man. I love it. I'm a big Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia Eagles fan. So people say that to me all the time. So it's fun to dish back out if I can. I love Steve Nash growing up, and I was the short white guy with long hair who loves to pass. So that made sense. And I always thought I was Brian Westbrook playing pickup football, hence the Eagles fan. But anyway, to get back to your question, the chicken and egg problem. I read in insane amounts going back early and COVID. I remember just reading a ton of books and podcasts, and one podcast that there are two that I really like one is the 20 minute VC by Harry Stebbings. And he is a he's just like a super young VC, and he has really smart people on his podcast all the time. And then masters of scale by Reed Hoffman to the amazing podcast if you're looking for just advice, but I knew that this would be an issue and something that we needed to attack. Also, Lenny's newsletter. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it's it's amazing that he's had a huge threat on this and one thing I thought. I knew that 100% the way we would solve that is getting brands on the platform, and I compare it to a dating app. So if you are, I don't know, your dating situation, we didn't get into this. I know I'm married. But let's say you're dating and you want,
Ronen Ainbinder
I'm single. If there's any ladies out there, feel free to reach out.
Jason Bergman
Awesome. So I'm sure you've had your fair share of time on Tinder and hinge and whatever Mexico City used to find dates on an app where you know how it works. Let's say you go on Tinder, and there's two girls. You swipe around on both of them. And then that's it. There's no more girls on the app, and you're going to be like, screw this, this sucks, right? Like and delete the app and never go on it again because you want hundreds of options, even though you only find one to find one person. So I knew that I wanted to make brands, those, let's say theoretical, in that example, girls, I wanted to get as many cool brands signing up again, it's free to sign up. So it's the easiest pitch of my entire life, or are you interested in even seeing which athletes want to work with you. So you post a campaign on MarketPryce. And I mean, it's been a week and a half. And we already have over 30 companies signed up. Some are CBS Sports. One is bet rivers to really big companies.
Scholastic is a massive company. We also have some cool supplement companies and watch companies and, as I said, mattress companies and just cool companies. We have a company that's offering its custom bobbleheads for athletes. And I'm like, Man, that's awesome. I would want my custom bobblehead. No one would buy it. But the point is if I'm an athlete, like what companies are out there, and if I was reaching out to athletes and agents, and we had no company signed up already, again, it doesn't matter how sexy the Tinder marketing is, you need to know that there's girls on the platform. So that's the biggest thing for me of I've gotten a lot of brands signed up early. And now, with athletes and agents, they're able to on day one, like, again, I'll go back to Lavonne plot of seven campaigns in four minutes like you need to have those companies on there. So athletes and agents are going to pay for that. And then they're able to close deals so they can make their money back and then some and just really stick with us for the long haul.
Ronen Ainbinder
Yeah, and I also think that brands have nothing really to lose you at the end of the day, you're just, you're just putting yourself out there to see if there's an opportunity for you. So, of course, if you are listening and have a brand, go right now to MarketPryce and sign up as a brand. Your next sponsorship might be just around the corner.
Jason Bergman
Nice. I'm going to take that I'm writing that down. I like that. Thank you, buddy.
Ronen Ainbinder
Since we're running out of time on this amazing Halftime Snack, packed with so many amazing snacks, I want to ask you for a last and personal question. And that is, what was the greatest day of your life? And why do you remember that day to be the greatest day of your life?
Jason Bergman
Okay, so that's an amazing question. And I'm just, so I don't get in trouble. I'm going to give you three answers. And I know that's breaking the rules, but mute me if you want. But I want to give you three answers. So one 100% my, the most exciting day of my life was up until like a few months ago, was the Eagles winning a Super Bowl. And that I'll never forget that full day of just like it is the first Super Bowl that we want ever as an Eagles fan. I'm a huge Eagles fan. And I was with all my best friends watching. And I almost like spilled red wine all over my friend who hosted us carpet when Brandon Graham sack Tom Brady and it was amazing. And my wife is always like. Well, what about when we got engaged? And what about when we got married, and it was like, I knew that was going to happen. Like, I knew that we were getting married, I knew I would propose you didn't. But the Eagles winning a Super Bowl, I had no idea. So that shock value is still like, I mean, I'm getting chills just thinking about it. And this year has not gone to plan. But we'll be back next year in 2021. I'm positive about it. So the Eagles one I have to say my wedding because obviously, that was unbelievable last November. That was just an unbelievable day and just with all my best friends and the fact that we could get married before all of this COVID madness happened. And I have a lot of best friends who are now planning a wedding right now. And if anyone's listening planning a wedding, I'm sure they know how big of a headache it is rescheduling and getting everything together in a COVID world. But then also, as of recently, like when you know launching MarketPryce is great. And it was unbelievable. And we have an amazing core team working with us. But when we signed our first client, I just got an email about it from the stripe. And it was like the $99 payment went through from this guy that I was talking with, and I just was going nuts in my apartment, and it was unbelievable. Like it was such a good feeling. I can't even explain it. It was something that when you start a business, and you think in your head, it's going to work, and it's going to work, it's going to work, it's going to work and then when you have someone pay you for something and get started on it. It's a feeling I can't even begin to describe. So that was like a great 30 minutes or so before. I just got so tired and more down after celebrating, but I know we have such a long way ahead of us. But those are the three options that come to mind when you say the best day.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's a complete answer. Next time we're going to ask for three days. So just to keep that in mind. And I think that's a great place to wrap today's conversation. Jason, I want to thank you so much for your time for your insights, for your analysis on sponsorships, the marketplace, MarketPryce, everything that you just told us. There's so many things to learn from you. If you want to learn more, you could reach out to Jason, and the links will be in the description. Yeah, man, thank you so much for coming. It was great. It was fun. And you're a great guy, and I appreciate it, man.