NBA golden boy Stephen Curry has followed in the footsteps of now-media mogul and fellow baller LeBron James and launched his own startup aimed at helping athletes optimise their social media interactions.
Called Slyce, the startup will not only seek to improve the way athletes and influencers engage with their fans on social media but help to make the process more organised and more efficient, removing the ‘noise’ that usually accompanies an athlete’s experience on various social media platforms.
Based in California’s bay area, the same region as the team Curry plays for, the Golden State Warriors, the point guard has teamed up with former Nike employees and friends Bryant Barr and Jason Mayden to launch the start-up. The platform is designed to act as an intermediary between athletes and fans but also works with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. It helps the athletes sift through inbound traffic while also allowing them to push out relevant content.
In addition to streamlining the whole process of interacting with fans online, it’s set to optimise the efficiency when conducting fan engagement practices like Q&As.
Bryant Barr, who is the CEO of the startup in partnership with Curry said that the idea came to him when he noted that Curry’s social media activity decreased after hitting a particular number of followers.
“We started talking about why, and he said it was mostly just a pain in the butt. It was too much of a hassle and there were too many pain points to make it worth his time to actually engage with fans in unique and authentic ways,” he said
Recently, the startup conducted a Q&A with Curry answering questions from fans and the technology went through over 1000 questions submitted via social media and filtered them down to the best 35, using what the basketball player valued most as the filter conditions.
“We are providing the athlete with the most contextually-relevant and appropriate questions,” Barr said.
With athletes consistently striving to improve their one-on-one engagement with fans, it’s far too soon to know whether the technology will be successful. But with the likes of Unscriptd and The Players Tribune very successful in facilitating fan engagement, the tech is definitely heading in the right direction.
