488 Ryan Rottman

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] What if the public knew athletes, not just by stats and games, but by their people, passions, deals and stories? Ryan Rotman didn't start out building a sports tech platform. He started as an actor asking a simple question.

Why is there no IMDB for athletes?

Out of that curiosity, he co-founded AthleteAgent.com with NFL Superstar Aaron Rogers aiming to aggregate across silos, all the data deals, representation and stories behind athletes. What used to require detective work now lives in one place, verifiable, transparent and accessible to fans, brands, media, and insiders alike.

Ryan's path has been anything but conventional. From Hollywood sets to venture boardrooms, he's learned to translate storytelling into startup strategy. His platform raised millions, merged sports, business and media, and unlocked new ways for athletes to be understood [00:01:00] beyond the field.

This conversation peels back how vision meets purpose, how opportunity looks when you connect gaps, and how someone shifts from entertainer to architect of insights. 

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Sanjay, a graduate of Deep Wealth Mastery, and he says, the investment I made in the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it's a rounding error compared to the value created today and the future value I'll receive.

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Deep Wealth Nation welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast, Deep Wealth Nation. Let me ask you this, because as entrepreneurs, we find problems and we solve them. Have you ever seen a company or a service and you're thinking, why didn't I think of that? Well, that's what I thought of when I had a chance to speak with our very special guest in the House of Deep Wealth and incredible story, wonderful service that's being put out there.

And I know you're gonna love this. All kinds of lessons into how do we get branding out there, the startup world, everything else in between. But I'll put a plug in it, Ryan, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. You have an amazing story, but what's the story behind the story?

What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Ryan Rottman: I appreciate you, Jeffrey, having me on. I'm a big fan of the [00:04:00] podcast part of Deep Wealth Nation. Yeah, so my story starts in small town in Texas. Played golf throughout high school. Ended up going to Texas Tech University. Decided pretty quickly while I was there that. I was good at golf, but not, I dunno, great enough to make it a profession.

And I also wanted to really focus a little bit more on, on the business aspect of things. And while at school at Texas Tech, I started dipping my foot into acting and doing some plays. And the, the small town that I grew up in Texas didn't really have a theater department. So this was my first taste into that world.

And I did a few plays there. Really liked it. And ended up majoring in business with a minor in theater and one summer decided, Hey, you know what? I don't know anyone out there, but I'm gonna take the leap and go to an acting school, oddly enough, is called New York Film Academy in Los Angeles and ended up going out there and stayed at these apartments that in LA are famous within the active world called Oakwood. It's where everyone goes out there for audition season. And in that time [00:05:00] of being there, I got really fortunate to meet two big producers and writer.

One guy named Scott Budnick, and then another guy, Todd Phillips, who worked together. Todd Phillips, wrote and directed Old School, Starsky and Hutch. I mean, the new Batman. A ton of amazing things. Well, became friends with him. And when I left he said, why don't you come out next summer and intern for me?

I said, sure. Went back to school, kept on with my studies. Went out the following summer and interned on Star Ski and Hutch, which was Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller. My internship pretty much was playing poker with those guys, which was very fun and taught. Phillips is a extremely good poker player.

And through just being on set, hanging with those guys, I got to know a lot of people in that industry. I was then introduced to a manager who said, love to represent you as an actor, but you have to move out here. So I went back, contemplated, what do I do? Had a, a really long conversation with my parents and one of the things I love about the most is just their belief in me and, the [00:06:00] thought to tell me, you should go and do this.

You can always go back to school, but you can't always have an opportunity like this. And when, comes knocking on the door to answer it. So coming from that mindset of just, yes I did it. I moved out to LA and thankfully I did. And I've been a, an actor for 20 something years. And through that experience really led me to entrepreneurship, to diversifying, right?

As an actor, You get a job and you do really well and you can make a lot of money, but then that job ends and your next job may not be for a year. It could be not two years, three years. And that money that you just made at the time you're spending it like this is, it's forever. But not realizing that it's gonna have to last you until your next job.

So I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by people that helped me diversify that. Some bars and in the production world and have that, and again, studying business at Texas Tech, entrepreneurial mindset. And I was also very fortunate to call Aaron Rogers the quarterback for now the Pittsburgh Steelers, but the Grand Bay Packers for many, I think [00:07:00] 14 years.

A dear friend and. Through my experience as an actor and using a site called IMDB, internet Movie Database, it's the biggest database of actors, directors, key grips, anything in the entertainment industry. Every time I walked in an audition room, that was my business card, the casting director would have at my IMDB page, they'd be looking at my filmography, asking questions.

And then on the flip side of that, I did a show called 9 0 2 1 oh. The new one and a producer from the Hallmark Channel saw me in that show, went to my IMDB Pro account, which shows the contact information for everyone in the entertainment world. Saw who my manager was, reached out. And because of that, because the information was correct, I've now done around nine Hallmark films.

So had that information not been correct, I would've missed out on those films. I would've missed out on that income. And being friends with Aaron and a bunch of different athletes in the sports world, I realized how fragmented it was, and by seeing what [00:08:00] IMDB did for actors I had this thought that something like that should exist in the sports world.

And so Aaron and I were at, I'll never forget, we're out at dinner at a place, one of our favorite restaurants called Casa Vega in Studio City, California. And I just looked at him. I said I, I've been having this idea for a while. I really want to create an IMD for sports where you can, the connectivity and the, previous unattainable contact information becomes attainable.

He said, who have you told? I said, A couple buddies. He said, don't tell anyone else there's a white space for this and we're the guys to do it. Just because of our knowledge in sports and entertainment. So that's what we did. So we created essentially an IMDB for athletes. And agents and we've got one of the largest databases of that simply ev.

We've got nine sports on there currently. So N-F-L-M-L-B-N-B. M-L-S-N-H-L-P-G-A-L-P-G live, F1. And we're adding Indian Premier League, the this week. And with that, you get every athlete that's on all those teams, current athlete and then their philanthropy that they're associated with all the business [00:09:00] ventures that they've invested in, the endorsement deals they currently have, the contracts that they're signed for, and then most importantly, their contact information.

So who their agent is, their manager. Their PR team, their attorney of record, their financial Advisor, whoever it is that you'd want to be able to reach out to, to get in contact with one of these athletes. We showcase. it was a need that I had seen that, I'm to be fulfilled for me, that when Aaron and I started this, we really set out to help athletes and the agencies, right?

'cause they do a lot of outbound. We wanted to create some inbound.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Ryan, what a, an amazing story. And just before we get going onto the business side, I mean, if you look at your background, it's a perfect storm. You're in the entertainment side of things and then a big sports guy, and you started going down that path and you add into that mix being an entrepreneur and that's multi-talented.

Not everyone can do that. Some people are just terrific. In this one area you're in at least three and counting. I probably missed another few, and you're really [00:10:00] out there. So from an entrepreneur's perspective, as you look back at your journey, Ryan, how did the entertainment and acting and going down that whole path to that help in any way on the entrepreneurial side?

Ryan Rottman: A thousand percent. And it's one of the greatest things that I ever took away from my time in acting was this thick skin that it created for me. And also the ability to, well, thick skin, but to take nose. So when acting is hearing a no every single day you're not good enough or you're too tall, or you're not good looking enough, or you're too looking, or whatever it may be, you're constantly faced with rejection until you get that one.

No. And so I started finally having the mindset that every time I got a no, I would get excited. 'cause it would mean it was one step closer to a yes. And that completely. Transitioned for me into the startup world, whether it was trying to get investments or pitching the idea or whatever it may have been, to continually get nos to [00:11:00] realize that it's not personal.

That not everyone's gonna see what you're doing makes sense for them, but for every no that you get, you're that much closer to someone seeing, understanding and believing in your idea, whether it's being an Advisor, just helping out any way they can, investing in you and those nos that you get at the very beginning.

And, throughout whole process really I didn't allow, affect me, if anything it, it helped fuel me. And I think that was a big awakening for me to say that I'm glad that I went through the entertainment world for the entrepreneurship world because. Without that, I think I could have been defeated pretty easily.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Ryan, as you're talking about that, what's so interesting in my experience in the Deep Wealth nation as well, the entrepreneurial journey, and when I speak to entrepreneurs that have had massive success, one of the things that they share exactly what you're talking with us right now. Hey Jeffrey, this didn't show up in a spreadsheet or in a complicated formula.

It was my mindset. That I had a thousand nos, but I [00:12:00] just kept on going out. I learned from it, wasn't doing the same thing and kept on going until I got that one. And I just knew that one. Yes, I got the one. Yes, and then everything took off from there. And shrine, lemme circle back to something because you did something that most entrepreneurs struggle with, even entrepreneurs that have been successful and around for decades, not like you, who has new business and you're going out there and you're after the titans of business, like we're talking offline.

In the nine-step roadmap, Step 1 Big Picture. This is where, regardless whether we're a startup or we've been in business for three, four decades, we're looking at what's a blind spot or what we call an inflection point. What's a painful problem that has a large enough market that I can be world class in solving that's gonna help enough people solve their pain point so I can solve my pain point?

And so he said, Hey, I'm just gonna be the IMDB. For all things sports and love that. Love how you're describing that. Most people know IMDB, they check out their favorite show or film just to see what's going on, music, [00:13:00] everything else. How did you stumble upon that though? Did you just wake up one day and say, Hey, this is missing?

I mean, how did that come about? How did you find that inflection point and then you took action on it?

Ryan Rottman: I think a, looking at the size of. How much of the industry, the entertainment industry is involved in, IMDB, everyone from, like Tom Cruise has a subscription to his whole team, to people that have done one or two things, key grips. Every part of that industry has a profile, right? And subscribes.

So they were actually bought in 1998, I believe, for 55 million by Amazon. And now they're worth, upwards of $3 billion. So the size for me was always astounding of a, how many people subscribed to it, but also how many people just visited on top of the fact that a lot of the basic users don't know there's a pro version because, you looking up who is that guy in, Dukes of Hazard? You look it up, you don't need to see who his representation is. with 80 million registered users, someone is. Being friends with Aaron and a bunch of athletes and, seeing, when Aaron and I built [00:14:00] this, we said we didn't wanna build this for the 1%, the guys like himself. We wanted to build it for the other 99% of guys that are doing amazing things in philanthropy.

Investing, going on, not careers in finance or, whatever it may be after the sport. Guys on his offensive line that are huge in Green Bay. But their best friend from college is their manager and, has no real footprint. So how do we bring eyeballs and visibility to them? So through that process of seeing his teammates, friends, I knew in the, sports world, missing out on deal flow, missing out on brand deals just because, A, they weren't educated in it enough or their management wasn't doing enough for them.

I just had this thought of like, well, if it can do this for entertainment, why can't it do it for sports? it's almost that same concept. Has the ability picked up and put into so many different categories. And sports is actually, if you think about it globally bigger because everyone is watching Top Gun throughout the world, but not everyone in.

Chile is [00:15:00] watching, the same football that they're watching in London, or rugby or Indian Premier League. It's starting to catch on in the us but there's so many different leagues worldwide that we are going to cover. We have, like I said, we have nine sports now, but we're growing over 50 globally.

And so we want to be able to focus in on, on those. And when I, it was that moment of just saying like, man, sports is so massive. IMDB is so massive within the entertainment world, something like this is just needed. And it is one of those things, you sit on it forever. I'm like there's no way I can do this.

Someone's already have to have thought of it. Someone's already building it. You find every excuse to, to not do it because you just think, oh, how could I do it? And it was living with that idea for quite a while and then being in the right place at the right time. And fortuitously just having that dinner with Aaron and saying Hey, I had this idea.

And him having that yes for me, right? And believing in it and being on the flip side of the sports world, being like, oh my God, there's, this is so fragmented. Like this is needed to have that kind of reassurance Was [00:16:00] everything.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Ryan from the outside looking in, obviously you know the industry really well and I may be completely off base. It sounds like one of the opportunities that's going on here. When you look at sports, doesn't matter what particular type of sport, I would imagine that you have the superstars. Everyone knows these are worldwide icons, but then you have a huge void and it's everyone else, and it's a very small percentage of them to other people are just incredibly amazing, but.

Perhaps they didn't get the right kind of deal yet, but they're out there. They can do some amazing things. So was the idea or part of the idea of, hey, why don't we take these incredible athletes, have an amazing story, they're a terrific brand, we're just gonna be the matchmaker. Help 'em while they're doing what they do on their craft, playing their game, taking to the next level.

Why don't we bring the business aspect to them that they otherwise or their managers may otherwise not be able to do? Is that part of the thinking?

Ryan Rottman: Hundred percent. A hundred percent because there are some guys that are, I mean, and women. We just added LBGJ and we're adding WNBA next that are doing [00:17:00] so many amazing things outside of sport that people don't realize or recognize. We wanted to put an emphasis on that, like philanthropy, that was a big one for Aaron wanting to put on the site.

He's got nine charities, and on Instagram he can maybe put one in the tagline, but he wanted to be able to showcase those. And also it helps brands try and find someone that aligns with their philanthropy concerns. if you're looking to work with someone and they match up on philanthropy and they have no endorsement deal that's conflicting, then that might be person.

But it was finding those people that are, maybe making league minimum, but on the outskirts of that, they're also learning how to do finance and or taking that money that they're making and investing it wisely. Diversifying, like I mentioned earlier and just being a platform that.

Helps, right? That just has a place where someone can connect with them that previously wouldn't have been able to and give the validity to the agent or manager, right? That didn't have it before. And now it's oh, he was my best friend in [00:18:00] college who represents me. Well, now you can actually see that he is my representation.

Jeffrey Feldberg: In People Nation as we're talking about this, can you imagine for your business at first place you say, well, Jeffrey, yeah, we'd love to have someone in sports who could be a brand ambassador for our company, but we can't afford this name or that name. Well, with what Ryan and team are doing now, you could imagine what that can do and.

Before Ryan, I'd imagine for me to start to find out, okay, how do I get in touch with this particular sports player over here? It'd probably be difficult if I'm not in the industry. Where do I start? Who do I call that I'm not just somebody out of the blue reaching out, probably not the right email or phone number.

Now I can come straight through you. You're validated. This is the real deal. This is not a scam. And I can find, oh, look at this. This athlete is there, or this sport is here, or this team is there. Oh, here's a contact information. And off I go with that where I can now. I love what you're doing, being that matchmaker to really help all parties involved.

You're helping the public. They get excited over someone that they follow in sports. Well, hey, here's a business that this person really believes in and this athlete is [00:19:00] now supporting by being their brand ambassador. And on And on it goes because it was, fascinating and never realized they really thought about it this way.

I mean, it's right on your website. In terms of people that follow the athletes, it's over a billion people. That's a big marketplace. You have over 4,000 athletes, over 2000 agents, all kinds of agencies, and it is just growing and growing. So on the flip side, how are you getting the athletes, the teams to say, Hey, yeah let's do this.

Let's sign up with Ryan and team at athleteagent.com. What's that like?

Ryan Rottman: That's a great question. So we have a, data team that it's our moat is really that it, a lot of the lift here is manual, right? Is a lot of outreach to agency. We're fortunate now that because we're live we had the subscription up. We're at 7,000 now, but we're getting a lot more inbound where new agencies that maybe aren't listed that have, a sport that we don't cover yet.

Say, Hey, we'd love to get our athletes on there, but we're working very closely with. The agencies himself we're very fortunate to have on our [00:20:00] cap table. Scott Boris, who's the biggest agent of all time. And one of the major top agency that invested personally.

And that is because we don't take any part of the deal flow. We're just simply connectors. And a lot of these agencies commit to their athletes that, some of the bigger ones, that they'll get them a certain amount of dollars off of the court field, whatever it may be. And like I said earlier, they're doing a lot of outbound reaching.

Well, just from that process of working with them, getting their rosters, it behooves both sides to keep it updated like it does for IMDB for me, or else I would've missed out on those jobs. Because I had a conversation with an agent the other day that represented Jalen Waddle for the Dolphins.

And on his endorsement deals we had Raising Canes and we were looking at the profile and he said, actually, can you take that off? That endorsement just ended, and we don't want someone, let's say just as an example, Chick-fil-A to see that he is working with raising canes and therefore not reach out.

And so it helps all the different sides. And on that flip side too, they [00:21:00] said, we'd love to be able to see the businesses that are subscribing to your platform so we'd know who's actively looking so we can therefore reach out. Our third subscriber was Coca-Cola. We have a bunch of Fortune one hundreds, fortune five hundreds that have subscribed.

We have leagues that have subscribed. And to have that ability for them to do the outbound. But also these smaller athletes get, like you said earlier the ability to maybe not a brand coming and saying, I can't afford someone. Well now you can see their contract and say, okay, well maybe I can't afford them, but I see that Ed Barry also represents this athlete who makes far less I should shoot for that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, it's interesting. And so you're out there across the different sports with the athletes, behind the scenes with the managers. You're getting them onto the system. And so me, whether I'm coming in as an individual or as a business. I'm gonna be having some kind of a subscription. I know you have a monthly subscription, a yearly subscription, and is that the business model?

Hey, [00:22:00] pay monthly or pay by the year, and then you have access, we're gonna open up the gates and you're gonna get in and see all this information behind the scenes. Is that the business model at this point?

Ryan Rottman: A hundred percent. Yeah, so you subscribe and then any athlete that we have on the platform, you can search. See, as I mentioned earlier, all those we call 'em our differentiators, the business ventures, endorsement deals, philanthropy, contracts, and then, mainly, most importantly, the contract information, everything's on there.

You can click and copy the email address, the phone number, the address, however you wanna get in contact with him. See every agent's roster. So like I said earlier if Ed Barry represents someone that you probably can't afford, maybe while you're on the phone with him, you can see someone else that he might represent, that you could ask for.

So you, you get all that. We're actually backed by Google as well. And so, we're building a proprietary AI component on top of our. proprietary data that makes it much easier for like A CMO, right? They can come in and say, I'm looking for this demographic that makes this amount of money in their contracts, that doesn't have an energy drink deal, that has a million subscribers [00:23:00] across all their platforms.

Who should I work with? And it'll give you, go through our, a whole database, come back with say 30. Then you can continually narrow it down or out, download all. 30 of those represent those athletes, representation emails and cold email them all and see who writes back. we've had a ton of success already in, in just the six weeks that we've been live.

And it's, been great. And it's also, as an entrepreneur and starting this, you kind of have the idea of who's gonna subscribe and it's always so amazing when it's so much broader than you originally thought. We woke up, we're like, oh, this is a lot wider than we initially thought, and this is incredible.

It's not so narrow.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so as you look at where you're right now and you just shared, Hey, we're weeks old, not years old, not months old, we're just weeks old. Let's fast forward, and I know it may be hard to envision for just a moment. That said though, what is success? What does ultimate success look like for you?

Ryan Rottman: Continue growth, continue the building a moat around ourselves. Continual [00:24:00] added addition of of data, of new sports, right? Like I said earlier, building up to 50. Sports globally. And eventually like, you know, I think this fits really well under the Amazon umbrella right, of IMDB and athlete agent something a purchase like that.

And just too for, people at the nation, we've been up for six weeks, but we've been in business a while and we just did a rebrand and this rebrand from OSDB sports to Athlete Agent. Is our subscription going live and trials and as an entrepreneur doing things wrong and figuring out like, oh, look at all these people that are coming to us for actually this is what we need to focus on.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so as you look at that from your very humble beginning, still fresh, still writing the chapter as we go along with that, if you go back to the beginning though. Because the naysayer and we all have that. Well, who am I to start this company? I already have IMDB. They could easily do it. We're just gonna be a rounding error compared to them.

What was the go? [00:25:00] No go for you. Was there a specific moment that you said, okay, I got this. Yeah, I know it sounds craz or maybe even looks impossible. I'm just gonna do it.

Ryan Rottman: I think it was that, back to that dinner with Aaron having someone of his stature in sport being the highest paid NFL player of all time giving it. Go and co-founding it with me and putting up the initial check. Was that because listen, this kind of stuff isn't cheap, right?

The data collection and it being manual and marketing it's not cheap, but to have someone like him behind it and, made it really valid in my mind. Also, it didn't hurt having his name as we go out and try and raise in the future and in with press and everything like that. So that was super helpful.

But I think for me, it was always a pipe dream until having that conversation. He said, let's do this. And then I was like, oh, OO, okay. And then it was just like absorbing as much knowledge as I possibly could about how to do it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:26:00] And when you look back at your acting days, I mean, we're talking Hollywood, it's crazy industry doing these amazing things. What are some of the best practices that you've now incorporated into what you're doing on the entrepreneurial side? 

Ryan Rottman: Never giving up for sure, because Hollywood is filled with aspiring actors that are all bartenders. Pushing through resilience. Learning early on too. I think for me, the diversify, and the big ones. Know your audience. my audience has changed dramatically from doing shows on Nickelodeon and having teens be fans to now doing Hallmark and having moms and grandmas be my audience is again, know your audience and play to that.

So here, like I said earlier of doing this rebrand and figuring out who our audience was a big key. So yeah, I think the biggest one for me was just never give up. 'cause in acting, if trust me, you wanna give up all the time.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And from there, you've really now gone behind the scenes with sports on the professional side, different industries. What's it [00:27:00] been like for you? Because we see it as fans, we see it on the front end, but on the backend, the business side, you're seeing the good, perhaps the not so good, everything else in between.

Anything that you can share with us that's been perhaps a surprise for you.

Ryan Rottman: How closely they're related, but also how different they are in the sense that. I think it's starting to change now, but for a long time an athlete was seen as an athlete and that's all. And that's kind of how it is in, I'd say in Europe, about five years, I'd say behind the US and how the athlete is now becoming entrepreneurial investors.

You know, Look at Saquon Barkley, he's probably one of the best investors in the league. But also it's so close in this sense that there are, you know, you have the top 1%, you have the Tom Cruises, you have there, and Rogers. All the way down. But even, I know so many actors that are, acting and making a salary but doing so smart at what they do with their money.

And you have that in sports as well, so it's very similar in that. But on the flip side, you have it, it's very similar in the sense that, [00:28:00] because a lot of actors maybe didn't go all the way through school. And the same with athletes. You have that. financial literacy, I guess you'd say right, of not knowing, thankfully I went to business school, so I had that, but, not having that, well, I have all this money, what do I do with it? Or I'm making league minimum, what do I do with it? Because, you know, we always joke that NFL means not for long. So what do you do and how do you, foster and keep that money and make it work for you?

So they're very closely related and they're also very different where I feel like a lot, more people listen to actors than they do athletes. you also have more of an emotional tie, I guess, to an entertainment star. You see their face more regularly. But yeah it was, it is like, oh man, at the very beginning, this is so similar.

And then as you dive into it, it's like, oh, this is actually a lot more fragmented than entertainment.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And as we're talking a little earlier, you mentioned artificial intelligence, ai, and it is all the headlines and keeps going in areas [00:29:00] that we thought, hey, not possible. But it's absolutely there. So you spoke about on the backend, how as you build out your search algorithms, AI is gonna be to help me find that.

Perfect scenario of exactly what I'm looking for in the blink of an eye as opposed to who knows how long it would take. The good old fashioned way, the old school way. But that said, let's go to the front end with ai, because there's all kinds of talk now, and you always have this at the start of every industry.

I remember when the internet first came on board, I'm dating myself here somewhat. Oh yeah. These stores are no longer gonna be in existence. Internet's gonna replace all of them. And it partially happened, but it really didn't happen. And certainly, oh, they're just gonna go out because it's all gonna be done online.

But that said, where do you see AI on the front end when it comes to sports? What would we not expect? What should we expect? Where do you see that changing? And how's it gonna impact you, the industry of where things are today, if at all? Maybe nothing's gonna happen with ai. 

Ryan Rottman: We've been very fortunate that LLMs have been, right now our biggest driver of, users. [00:30:00] So if you were to say who represents Aaron Rogers, right? It would tell you their names, but it doesn't give you emails. But it'll say, according to athlete agent, they have it. You should check it out.

And they'll give a redirect. So a lot of our. Customer base is actually coming from Gemini Chat, GBT, which has been fantastic. It's even higher than SEO for us right now. And I think it's the new SEO as sports is in general, I think it's gonna make huge leaps and bounds of changes in the sense that especially, I think with the biggest parts of sports right now is gambling what it's gonna do for the, the gambling industry.

But, just like any other business. It's really helping productivity. we don't scrape. We will use it to validate some things, but we ultimately validate with the athlete, the agent or the manager. But you know, we use it as a tool and it's not the final answer, but it's something to use as a reference.

And because of that, it does make. The data collection a little more efficient.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Let's now [00:31:00] take it back to the Deep Wealth Nation who's listening to this. And for most entrepreneurs, their weak spot, their Achilles heel, if you will, it's marketing, getting new business, getting the word out there. And so knowing what you know with the visibility that you have, you're looking at the back end, the front end, what you're doing on the sports side of things.

Let's help Deep Wealth Nation imagine how you can help them of taking their business from where they are to where they want to be. Because most entrepreneurs, at least in the deep community and even outside the community, when I'm speaking to other entrepreneurs, the one common theme, Hey Jeffrey, we are the world's best kept secret.

We're incredible that what we do, but marketing is so hard now to get new people in the door, and it is noisy, it's staticky, it's really expensive. To get out there and pricing keeps on going up. Results keep on going down. Everything that I've tried that worked before is no longer working. And so@athleteagent.com Hey, deportation, this is a new avenue here that you really should consider.

So [00:32:00] what could that look like? We're just gonna do a quick thought experiment. No one's listening. Ryan, it's just you and I we're just talking here, two friends, fireside chat of, hey, what could you do for entrepreneur Jane who's out there doing her thing. What would that look like?

Ryan Rottman: Well, funny to your point, I think as soon as you become a professional, a certain part of marketing, it changes, they'll, they will change the algorithm on you or something happens and you're back to square one. we're opening a door for the ability to work with athletes that I think.

Previously was unattainable. And it's not only just, again, we thought our focus would be CMOs brands looking to find athletes to endorse their product. it's become a lot wider than that in the sense of one of our biggest, some subscribers is the financial world. Morgan Stanley's a subscriber and for them they see it as a, a Wealth of, data for new rookies.

They know they're not gonna be able to probably get in with Aaron as he's been with, you know, one of his best friends, Jeff Craigle for forever as a financial Advisor, but. Someone that's a new rookie that signed a good contract, they can get in early. And so we can help facilitate [00:33:00] that. Attorneys we have leagues, we had two guys that dropped out of the MLB.

We had two minor leagues teams, even they didn't know who represented 'em. They reached out. We put those two guys back in the, minor leagues to work their way back up to help continue furthering their career. So it like, hey, I'm a startup. I want to, A try and get an athlete to invest or try and get an athlete to be an Advisor or be the face of the company.

Come on, look up whoever you're, wanting to work with or just peruse and find some possibilities and then reach out and again, keep trying until you find the right match that believes in your product. But use case isn't just for endorsement deals.

It is it's everything, right? It's anything you, if you're, a charity, you want to see if an an athlete will sign something for your new charity auction, or they seem to be aligned with what you do, maybe they'll help come do a, a as a visit to a children's, hospital, whatever it may be.

We help bridge that gap and can be there. And we're new and we wanna be helpful in any way we can. So. [00:34:00] We get a lot of emails to us saying, Hey Hey, would you be able to help me navigate this or X, Y, or Z? And a hundred percent we will, right? We're new. We wanna make sure that this is helpful for people.

And so because of that, like anytime anyone emails us, we get back to them and yeah, we kept them. And again, something that. We have, CNBC is the subscriber and they said, we would've paid triple this, but we really wanted to be able to keep this, the subscription low. So as a startup you could still do that, right?

Or as an individual that doesn't wanna spend $10,000 a year on a subscription for, say like Zoom Info where you go on the information's not correct. Where we know all of our emails are deliverable. That we have on the site too. We have APIs, we make sure everything's very valid. But they can afford that to go on and try and make that decision because I want this to be used by everyone and that's what Aaron and I always says not only help the athlete and the agent, but also help the small businesses try and achieve maybe getting that, defensive back be the face of [00:35:00] their Pittsburgh Brewing company, whatever it may be. That's, he's a huge deal in Pittsburgh.

Maybe he's not nationwide, but he is there. we're here to help both sides.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deportation. What I love about this, what Ryan's doing with athlete agent.com, Ryan, you're democratizing access to, I'm gonna call them superstars, regardless that they may be in sports or not. Because one thing is clear, no matter how sophisticated society may get, it's built into our DNA that we don't wanna do business with strangers, we wanna do business with friends.

And we can't always do business with friends. And so if we can't do business with friends, the next closest thing is, Hey, I need some social proof from somebody that I can relate to. And if it's someone, yeah I, know that athlete, they're really good at what they do. They are famous. And if they're saying that.

Company A, B, C. Is that great? Yeah, that's all I needed. Really. It's no different than when you go onto your favorite site to buy something, you're looking at the customer reviews, oh, this product has one star, this product has 4.8 stars, same product. I'm going [00:36:00] with the 4.8 stars. We want that validation and you're now taking that to a whole new level to make it accessible for everyone of, okay.

Yeah. Maybe it's not gonna be the World Icon Superstar over there, but. I can still get someone who is very well known doing some incredible things, and we're gonna help each other. They're gonna take me out there in ways I couldn't do, but I'm also gonna take them out there in ways that they couldn't do.

And you're being that matchmaker and getting that all done in between, it is absolutely amazing.

Ryan Rottman: Thank you. We're leveling the playing field not just Coca-Cola can get these guys now and females now. It's anyone and everyone, everyone's very accepting of this because, like I said, NFL not for long. Like everyone wants to make money, everyone wants to have some equity in some business or whatever it may be.

These athletes are hungry for it. And all it takes is an email to potentially start that relationship.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And if we went back, not that long ago, I could say 50 years ago, but forget 50 years ago, even 20 years ago. 25 years ago, and we compare [00:37:00] sports back then until today. Massive difference. Starting with salaries, starting with notoriety, starting with some of the licensing agreements, and today is just on this up into the right curve where it keeps on getting vigor and out there and there's this pandemonium around these incredible athletes.

Where do you see it going?

Ryan Rottman: That's a great question. I think as I've watched, you said 20 years when we were talking like dial up my perception of is, has been that it's evolved into more of you follow an athlete as opposed to a team. For the people that didn't grow up, let's say like Avid Boston, red Sox fans or Chicago Cubs fans, Yankees fans, whatever it may be there's a lot more trades and people will follow that, athlete wherever they go.

The Dallas Cowboys changed the game when it came to, not doing deals with just whoever the NFL allotted. That was a huge change, a huge shift. And then the salaries personally, I don't know how the salaries can [00:38:00] keep going at the rate that they're going. It's unbelievable.

I mean, the value of these teams keeps, you know, 11, $12 billion. And then some of these guys are making, you know. $350 million over seven years. it's wild. And I don't know, where it stops, but I feel like it has to, at some point, start slowing down.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It'll be interesting. Time will always tell. We'll always tell, we'll see where that goes.

Ryan Rottman: It's fun watching, all these athletes make just ridiculous amounts of money and, a lot of 'em come from not much.

So it's great. Hopefully they're, they're learning how to, to keep it safe and to continually growing. A lot of the athletes always say, do you wanna be rich or wealthy? Right? You're always gonna be rich now, but what you do with your money after is determine if you're wealthy or not.

It is fun watching them make absurd amount of money and what they do with it. that's been a fun thing that I've gotten to see. It's such a great question because, 20 years ago I've been like, no one's gonna make over. I feel bad for the guys that, and the females that were playing 20 years ago [00:39:00] watching, they were top of the game making.

Top salaries then, which were like, $17 million where today they'd be making a hundred. I mean, obviously I know the, dollars can be in value and everything, but what are the guys in 20 years, what are the guys now gonna be looking at? Be like, oh my God, they're making a billion dollars.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, it is truly beyond imagination. But let me ask you this before we start going into wrap up mode. When you've had a chance to interact with these different athletes or even the teams, it's a bit of an unfair question because you could say, even before I ask a question, well, Jeffrey, you know what?

Every person is different and what works for one person might be different for another person. But generally speaking, when you meet these super successful athletes on the field and off the field, and yes, there's always these stories of, hey, they're great on the field, but not so great off the field.

We'll leave that out of it. Just these genuinely great people on and off the field who are successful, they're wealthy, they're doing some incredible things out there when it comes to their personal attributes, their characteristics, their beliefs. Is it the good old Pretto LA 80 [00:40:00] 20 Princip? Well, yeah. You know what, Jeffrey, of all these incredible athletes that I'm meeting, 80% of these incredible things that you hear is coming from 20% of the same beliefs that I'm hearing again and again, or these one or two beliefs that I'm hearing.

What I see continually with these athletes. Anything come to mind with that?

Ryan Rottman: I think drive drive to be great. And then it also comes down to just knowledge and iq, sport iq, right? Like I always say that Aaron's one of the smartest individuals I've ever met. He's got a photographic memory. You can ask him any play, any game whenever, and he could take you on down the full drive of what happened with the score.

The time you have to be like that to become a great, but also drive. him and I have had conversations about other quarterbacks in the league and he'll just say, they'll never be great 'cause I don't see the hunger, I don't see the must win mentality. And then you look at Kobe, like Kobe was like one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

And he would show up to the court [00:41:00] three hours before anyone else and it was that drive to be great. And that's that, I guess with a 10,000 hour rule law you do anything for long enough, you'll be great at it. But even being the best, a lot of people will sit back and say, okay, I've done it.

I take acting people get to a certain point and they're like, oh, I don't need to take acting classes anymore, or whatever. I just got it. Well, it's like you always have to keep learning. You can always get better. And, times are changing too, where, if you don't accept AI, you're gonna get left behind because it's the way forward.

so I think it comes down to the drive to be great.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some terrific insights there. Depa Nation is all comes to the mindset, the drive. How committed are you to doing that? Yeah. I don't have to do it, but I am going to, because I'm gonna perfect my craft. I'm gonna take it to the next level. I'm prepared to do what no one else is prepared to do, and that's gonna put me in a league of my own.

And that said, Ryan, before we do go into rapid mode, is there a question I haven't yet asked or even a theme or a message or topic that we haven't [00:42:00] covered that you wanna share with Deep Wealth Nation?

Ryan Rottman: I mean, just for my own experiences, I would just say especially in startup mode, there's been so many days that you just think it's, this is it. But back to that drive of saying it's not, if you're not having problems, you're not doing something right and if it was easy, everyone would do it.

But is just keep at it. Keep at it. 'cause especially in startup mode. One day is the greatest, and then a couple hours later, another low could hit and it's just keep and keep trucking. And that's what I've, you know, through acting and through this, is just never give up. Just keep going on as hard as it may be.

the big thing for me was to realize that to face the problems head on. don't be um, procrastinator with them. And the sooner you fix them, the sooner you get 'em done, the more faster you can move on to more important stuff.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some terrific insights. And as you're saying that, Ryan is actually a perfect segue for wrap up mode where it's a tradition. Here in the Deep Wealth Podcast. I have the privilege and honor for every guest [00:43:00] to ask the same question. It's a fun question. I'll set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time.

So Ryan, here's the fun part. It's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside, the door is opened and you're gonna hop on in. You're not gonna go to any point in your life, Ryan, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be. What would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom, or, Hey Ryan, do this, but don't do that.

What would it sound like?

Ryan Rottman: What a great movie. Where we're going. We don't need roads. Oh man, that's a great question. What would I tell myself? I think it'd be to start earlier. I had the business drive and I had the acting drive, but I think I let. A lot of it go on too long before I started taking initiative of, having this idea for this, for that long.

Obviously the pieces needed to fit and everything ended up coming to that dinner with Aaron. But starting out to [00:44:00] be more proactive with thoughts and ideas, then sitting on them and having the thought that someone else is already doing it. Because if you listen, it's not really failure. You tried.

So to try, I'd say try more often.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. Start earlier. Always be proactive.

Ryan Rottman: I was proactive and I listen to a lot of these history podcasts as well, and they always say if you could go back to any time period, would it be, they always say I wouldn't wanna go anywhere but.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah.

Ryan Rottman: But present. And that's just because of healthcare? No, medicine.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's a whole other, not episode, that can be an entire series, but Deep Wealth Nation, some terrific advice. And Ryan, for Deep Wealth Nation, before we wrap up, somebody has a question for you or they wanna work with you on the team, they wanna subscribe, or maybe they wanna get some deals going here.

Where would be the best place online to find you?

Ryan Rottman: You can go to athlete agent.com. Email us on there and just ask you any question, we will get back to you. You can find me on Instagram and X at Ryan Rotman, R-O-T-T-M-A-N. I'm always looking at dms and all that kinda stuff. And a big thing of when I was in [00:45:00] LA we would always have like entrepreneur startup round tables. Of helping each other. So ask questions and I'm happy to listen. I'm not an expert at it by any means, but if I can help through any, experiences that I've had, I'm happy to do so.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation great news for you when you go to the show notes, this is all there. It's a point and click. It doesn't get any easier. You'll learn all about what AthleteAgent.com does for you. And while you're there in the show notes, take Ryan up on his offer, get a subscription, take your business to the next level.

And if you're curious in the show notes, there's also Ryan's IMDB link and you can see what he was doing as an actor. He has quite an number of films and works that he's done. Well, Ryan, as we love to say here at Deep Wealth. Congratulations, it's official. This is a wrap. May you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have [00:46:00] you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

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So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.