GMDY’s Harris is Empowering Athletes to Monetize and Measure Brand Value Through Personalized Fan Experiences
Danny Harris is the Founder and CEO of GMDY and has spent over 20 years in the startup world in Silicon Valley, spending most of his time operationally focused in the ecommerce industry.
Thank you so much for joining us!
What motivated you to launch your startup?
We have all been in the situation as a fan of an athlete or a team and, when we saw something that they were using and we wanted to know more about it, and maybe, if it was easy to find, you’d buy it before your next distraction.
This is where we are now. For me, I was sitting on my couch watching the Golden State Warriors vs the San Antonio Spurs celebrating Chinese Heritage night, wearing a red warm up to celebrate the evening. I spent hours looking for that warmup and still don’t own it. I spent the last 10 years of my career in ecommerce and with my passion for sports, I knew there was a better way for fans like me to effectively find exactly what we see, when we see it and to feel more connected with the athletes we care most about. While the vision for fans remains, it has become clear that athletes stand to benefit greatly from the GMDY platform as well.
What is it that excites you about what you’re building?
There are a couple things that excite me about building on the GMDY platform:
- Helping bring fans and athletes together in a new way — creating a truly new realtime fan experience that gives direct access into what makes an athlete who they are; professionally, personally and socially.
- And now, the most exciting part of GMDY is how athletes, and more importantly, underrepresented athletes are able to take advantage of the GMDY platform to build and monetize their brand all while leveraging the illusive, consumer influence data that has never been available to them before. It is this data that will empower so many underrepresented athletes to change ALL business conversations moving forward.
What has been your biggest challenge when growing your startup?
Narrowing this down to a single biggest challenge is virtually impossible. I would say that connecting with the right early-adopters on the athlete/athlete agency front is challenging to gain buy-in and true commitment to a new digital branding strategy like GMDY. To date, we’ve not had anyone on the business side of sports say, “that is a dumb idea” or, “that will never work for my brand.” So, we continue to find those that want to create the right change.
The other natural fundraising challenge is connecting with the right angel investors that believe in the GMDY mission and want to go for the ride!
What are your future plans for your startup?
GMDY will be THE real time consumer and analytics engine that will influence all fan consumer activity. We are in the development phase now of creating the connectors to bring the GMDY experience upstream and power the discovery and real time commerce wherever entertainment is consumed. Through this broad distribution of the GMDY platform, fan’s gain a closer connection with their favorite athletes and athletes gain greater brand market value awareness that now proves value vs. speculates value.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
Valuable words of wisdom for all future founders would be to surround yourself with people that will be honest and truthful with you but supportive at the same time. Also, the sooner you understand what you are NOT good at, the better off you will be!
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I can be reached at danny@gmdy.co or on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannyharris314/. Please also also follow GMDY at:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmdy.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gmdy_apparel/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GMDY_Apparel
- iOS App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gmdy/id1397249172
- Android Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.gmdy.theapp
This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
