He runs a $2.5M sports media company and pays himself $0 ft. Jack Settleman

Jack Settleman (0:00)

I want to be the most fun, creative brand in sports. Anything that any kid would go, that's freaking cool. I want to be doing that.

Creator Spotlight (0:10)

So you sent your brother to 33 World Cup games in 39 days. This series cost 85K.

Jack Settleman (0:16)

I'm gonna make an investment over the next two years for all the money back into the business. And when we come out of it, hopefully we're at a better place. If not, it may have been a mistake. I might have gotten it wrong.

Creator Spotlight (0:28)

You said probably gonna hit 2.5 million this year, 4 million next year. Why are you so comfortable talking about all the financials and processes in public?

Jack Settleman (0:35)

The amount of opportunities you get from just building in public. We wouldn't have accomplished 99% of what we have done without building in public. And it's only continuing to ramp up.

Creator Spotlight (0:49)

Jack, I want to start with one of your recent successes. You have worked with Underdog, which is a sports prediction and fantasy business for about half a decade. They recently sold for 1.3 billion. You took an equity stake at around $50 million valuation. I believe you were their first creator partner back in 2021 So congratulations. I understand if you can't talk in detail about this yet, but from previously published details, I know that your initial deal with them was 100K cash, 150K equity at a $50 million valuation.

I know, I think last year you said it was like it had been diluted down to 2 million. So my guess is you're netting somewhere between 1 and 2 million here from this sale. How far off base am I?

Jack Settleman (1:31)

No, you're pretty accurate there. I think we took 120 in equity, 130 in cash, but it was something along those lines split wise. Yes, it is 50 million to 1.3 billion, so almost 30X.

But like you said, with dilution, it's far from that. And the deal announcement was fairly public. So the gritty details of how much the cash stock split isn't fully out there. But my wife is quite confused why she went back to work on Monday after Underdog announced selling on that Thursday.

It is, I would say, one of the bigger success stories from a non-Alex Earl, Jake, Logan, Paul, right, where like, of course, they get huge equity. We took a big risk and Underdog took a big risk on us back in 2021 So it's cool to see how it played out. And I think the one thing from Creator versus Snapback, which may end up being the theme of this conversation, is I was in a position to take equity then. We're, I don't want to say we would never take equity again, but we got people to pay, right?

Creator Spotlight (2:51)

So to clarify, it was you, Snapback and Jack Settleman were one in the same, whereas now Jack Settleman runs Snapback, which is a business with multiple people. So that was you taking equity personally.

Jack Settleman (3:04)

Exactly, yes. And so I did have, no employees came directly to me, but I did hear some rumblings indirectly that were like, so will Jack break us off a piece? Things like that. The only way that it positively benefits the greater good of the company, I guess there's multiple ways, but one is that I don't take a salary, and so this can help extend that, where maybe I'll have some more income than I would have traditionally had.

And overall, because the blend between me and Snapback is so strong, it's a positive story. It is really good when we talk to other partners. I'm not taking full credit for Underdog becoming a $1.3 billion company, but there are certainly people from Underdog who said, we couldn't have done it without you in the early days. You definitely helped start. And so when we go meet with partners at a similar size, I think they now see the value, and it becomes an easier conversation to showcase our value.

Creator Spotlight (4:08)

Yeah. Okay. In everything you just said, there's probably the rest of the conversation contained, but one thing, you did a profile with Business Insider in 2021, which was the year you did this deal. And this was a Jack Settleman profile again, not Snapback Sports profile. Same thing at the time. But you said you were on pace to make 500K that year. You estimate after expenses, you would take on 200 to 250

You were the only employee.

And this would have been, I don't know if you're counting the equity in there, maybe, maybe not. But this would have been a big portion of that. So that was just a situate, like when you took this deal, you had a risk, but you were also doing quite good.