Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brian Zwerner. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Brian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I spent the last five years making 25 venture capital investments in entertainment and fitness startups through my athlete-led group called Beyond The Game Network. I met with thousands of founders here in Atlanta and around the world. I came to realize that Atlanta has a truly unique tech ecosystem, one that features diverse founders who reflect the city we live in. However, many of these diverse founders did not attend traditional startup schools like Stanford or Harvard, and they didn’t often start their careers at tech giants like Apple or Google. These founders did not have the types of friends and family who could fund the early stage of the development of their startup dreams.

The 30 athletes in Beyond The Game Network are all Black or women or both, so we have deep connections in the diverse tech scene in Atlanta. Over the last half decade, we’ve launched several programs to support diverse founders, helping dozens reach new investors and providing mentorship or advice. I wanted to find a way to formalize this work and make a bigger impact by zeroing in on the top problem I saw these founders dealing with – how to raise their first round of funding.

This led to the launch of W3 Studio, a 501c3 nonprofit that supports diverse founders in Atlanta building emerging technology startups. I recruited a Board of Directors who are passionate about our mission, and the company was born in Q4 2022. Since that time, we have raised funding, hosted several community events, mentored dozens of founders, and made numerous investor introductions. We will be launching our core studio funding program in the next month. The future for W3 Studio is bright as we work to help 50 diverse founders in Atlanta reach liftoff over the next ten years.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I spent the first 20 years of my career in investment banking. I worked with the biggest banks, asset managers, and hedge funds around the world. It was a high pressure and rewarding experience. In 2014, I caught the startup bug and joined with a friend to launch a FinTech-enabled healthcare small business lending startup called Aquina Health. We grew the business and sold a controlling interest to a larger financial services company three years later. I then launched my second startup called Sportal, a high school sports media and tech company. It was a ton of fun, but it turned out to be a terrible business. We pivoted several times but never found a scalable model. I shut the business down in late 2018, but it wasn’t a total loss. I met Andre Fluellen, an 8-year NFL veteran, through my work at Sportal. Andre had the idea for Beyond The Game Network, our athlete group to invest and partner with entertainment and fitness startups. This has been my focus for the last five years. We continue to invest at Beyond The Game, and I now split my time between that effort and my nonprofit W3 Studio.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

When I was running Sportal, my high school sports startup, we had a product called SportalSpace. This was a website for youth coaches to find gyms and fields for practice and training. There are nearly 10,000 travel sports teams here in the state of Georgia, and all need to find somewhere to play. We started out by visiting fitness centers, rec parks, churches, and schools to try to get them listed on our Airbnb style platform.

Our first sales effort was centered around helping these facilities make extra cash by renting out their gyms and fields at times when they would otherwise sit empty. We told the facility managers that they could easily earn an extra $1-2K monthly by making their location available to coaches. Our sales pitch was met with a collective “no thanks” from dozens of facility managers. They were not properly incentivized to do the extra work required to rent out their locations, especially at nonprofit organizations.

We racked our brains to find a new approach, and we came up with the “Cheetos and Xbox” pitch. We went back to the people at those fitness centers, rec parks, churches, and schools and told them about all the kids in their area sitting at home with a bag of Cheetos in one hand and an Xbox controller in the other. We would say, “Wouldn’t you rather have those kids in your gym getting exercise and support from positive adult role models?” This approach got a resounding “Yes!” response. We went from 10 locations to over 100 gyms and fields in a few short months. The takeaway is to understand what is most important to the decision makers at your target customers and tailor your sales approach to meet those areas.

Have you ever had to pivot?

After 20 years in investment banking, I had grown frustrated with the level of bureaucracy working at huge companies. I was always the person focusing on launching new business in each of my roles. I loved identifying new market opportunities, and I worked hard within these big organizations to break into them. This involved marshalling the necessary resources and running through tons of obstacles to get approval to launch a new product. However, two decades of this left me banged up.

I had a strong desire to break free of this large corporate environment and work somewhere more dynamic. I had an entrepreneurial itch, and it was time to scratch it. I left behind my steady paycheck and joined a friend to launch my first startup. It was jarring to go from managing a big team to coming to an office with just me and Margaret working full-time on the opportunity. There were lots of challenges, but the experience was rewarding in so many ways. I’m very glad I made this career pivot and have found the past ten years as a founder exciting. I’m looking forward to what my second decade in the space will bring.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://w3studio.us/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/w3studioatl
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-zwerner/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianZwerner
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bzwerner/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@brianzwerner