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Entrepreneur Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm partnered with Entrepreneur Media that is dedicated to backing passionate and innovative founders as early as day one. In this series, we are profiling the amazing entrepreneurs Entrepreneur Ventures is working with to share their insights on building and growing a thriving business.
Ryan Rottman spent more than two decades as an actor and producer, appearing on shows like 90210 and starring in nearly a dozen Hallmark films. Sean O’Brien invented a portable beach chair in his 20s that led to an eight-figure exit, then went on to co-found Autio, an audio-storytelling app, with actor Kevin Costner. Together, alongside quarterback Aaron Rodgers as co-founder, they built Athlete Agent — a database connecting brands directly to more than 30,000 athletes across 20 leagues — with its eye on 280 more across the globe. Their client list already includes Coca-Cola, Netflix and Goldman Sachs, and they built it almost entirely without spending a penny on marketing budget. I spoke with Rottman and O’Brien to talk about how it happened.
Dan Bova: So where did the idea for Athlete Agent even come from?
Ryan Rottman: As an actor, IMDb was my business card. Every time I walked into an audition room, casting directors were asking about my filmography — past, present, future projects. Producers from Hallmark saw me on “90210,” looked at my IMDb Pro account, where they list your representation information, saw who my agent was, and reached out. Because that information was correct, I’ve since done around eight Hallmark films. Had it not been correct, they would’ve gone down the next guy on the list. I’ve also been fortunate to call Aaron Rodgers a good friend for over 17 years. We went to dinner in LA, and I said, “I’m so confused. I know all the athletes through you — why is there not an IMDb for athletes?” He said, “Who have you told?” I said, “A couple buddies.” He said, “Don’t tell anyone else. There’s white space for this. Let’s do it.”
How did you first hook up with Aaron?
Ryan Rottman: We played in a golf tournament, and that’s one of the things I love about golf — where else can you just spend four hours with someone, sitting in a cart, understanding who they are as a person? Do they get angry when they hit the ball out of bounds? How do they handle adversity? It was such an amazing time, and we bonded over “The Big Lebowski,” one of our favorite movies. We just forged a friendship after that.
Sean, how did you end up joining as CEO?
Sean O’Brien: My whole career started with an invention — my friends and I built a portable chair for the beach, we got a cover story in Entrepreneur magazine, and someone from Swimways Corp read it and approached us. We sold the company for eight figures shortly after — that was my liquidity event at age 27. More recently, I co-founded Autio, an audio-storytelling app, with Kevin Costner — we raised $20 million and were on “Shark Tank.” I was going to retire after that, and then this came across my desk. The first thing I did was buy an IMDb Pro subscription and look up Costner’s team, and I thought, “This is crazy that sports doesn’t have this.” That’s why I joined — started as CTO and got bumped up to CEO.
How do you actually gather and fact-check all this data?
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