Startup Spotlight #14: Athlane

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I got the chance to speak with Michael Ivkov and Faisal Younus, co-founders of Athlane, about what they are working on at their startup, and any advice they have for emerging entrepreneurs.

Athlane is where streamers collaborate with brands and build fan communities to make gaming their career. The company offers two products: Terminal for brands and Pro for streamers. Terminal empowers brands to discover, engage, and convert esports fans at scale with its analytics, sponsorship, and streamer-to-consumer (STC) eCommerce platform. Pro gives streamers an AI-powered “business brain” for personalized insights to enhance their content and cultivate their fanbase.

Startup Spotlight: Athlane

Problem: Most streamers struggle to make gaming their career. Brands cannot collaborate with streamers at scale to access the esports & gaming audience.

Market: Athlane Terminal is a powerful tool for brands that leverage sponsorships, influencers/affiliates, and paid social media - an approximately $10B market. Similarly, Athlane Pro is built for a market of over 7 Million monthly-active streamers.

Solution: Athlane Terminal lets brands collaborate with streamers who sell the brand's products to their fans. Athlane Pro helps streamers make gaming their career through personalized insights & AI-generated tips to improve their content, engage with their audience, and generate earnings through brand partnerships.

Team: Product-oriented Founders from Harvard College who graduated YC's S19 batch, with teammates composed of experienced engineers for companies like Microsoft, Twitch, and Instagram.

Recent Success:

Younus & Ivkov: Athlane has helped several companies with high-level marketing strategies convert these "ideas" into real campaigns. Not only have these brands, including Reebok, launched esports-focused marketing departments powered by Terminal, but they have done so rapidly - and at scale. By enabling brands to rapidly access their personalized set of opportunities, Athlane lets them focus on building authentic creative to reach new audiences, instead of worrying about manual tasks like performance tracking and compliance. Consequently, these brands drive ROI, adding net-new fans and buyers to their customer base.

Recent Struggle:

Younus & Ivkov: Striking the perfect balance between a data-first product and one that is gamified, delivering the best experience for streamers. We're laser-focused on building a simple, fun platform that's easy to use for streamers. We take complicated analytics and package all of that into a really simple product to help streamers hit the gas on what makes their fans love them. Credit Karma is an inspiring example of an actionable yet accessible product; it's seeing the fruits of that labor.

Founder Advice:

Younus & Ivkov: Don't take advice from different people and "average" out all of their tips. Early on, we've learned it is best to optimize for customers and potential users, as well as those who have tried building similar solutions in the past. It's fine to seek advice from experts, but shopping for advice can be indecisive and pointless, ultimately slowing you down. Relying on feedback from someone lacking necessary context or product empathy (i.e. they are not a potential user) can prove harmful. You shouldn't take everyone's advice and run with it - It's fine to filter some out.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Younus & Ivkov: Here are three founders you should check out next!

• Andy Dinh, Founder of Team Solo Mid (TSM): Team SoloMid (TSM) is a professional esports organization based in the United States, founded in September 2009.
• Jay Rosenkrantz, Founder of Figments: Figments is building the next version of the WWE, for esports.
• Matthew Haag, Founder of 100 Thieves: 100 Thieves is a lifestyle brand focused on gaming content, esports, and apparel.

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Want news on the hottest startups delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to my mailing list, Founder to Founder (F2F): f2f.substack.com. Check out my latest F2F stories: 

• Startup Spotlight #82: HYP
• Case Study: Learn How Fluent Understood User Emotions To Guide Their Product-Market Fit Journey