ATHLYTIC

The first screen an athlete sees had to answer “what's happening with my account?” at a glance. Available to earn, active deals and total earned sit across the top. Below them are follower counts and engagement rates for Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, so athletes see their audience next to what it's worth. The schedule and activity feed run down the right, so a deliverable due Thursday is always in view, and a reward shows up as its own moment rather than a line in a list.

Managed campaigns were run by people, so the tools had to keep the brand, the athletes and our staff in sync without a spreadsheet on the side. One dashboard showed live deliverables, schedules, activity and what each participant had earned so far, and all three groups used it, so status questions were answered by the screen instead of a message to our team. Campaign analytics tracked performance over time, and an event ROI view compared what an event cost with the lift in sales.

Brands could search for athletes by sport and school, or use a map to find athletes by where their audience lives. Search results show each athlete's price range up front.

Neither side would act on a promise, so we gave each of them evidence. Every brand in the directory was verified and came with a profile and audience-overlap insight. Athletes got a public profile a brand could actually evaluate: audience and engagement for each network, pricing and past work, with booking in a sticky footer so a brand can start a deal from anywhere on the page.

Hiring one athlete starts from a template. The brand picks the deliverables, sets usage rights and terms, pays, and sends the offer. The athlete can counter, the brand reviews it, and the contract is signed. From there the deal moves to tracking deliverables, and every deal sits on one board.

A challenge is a brief posted to the whole network and paid out on views. The brand creates it, keeps it as a draft until it's ready, then approves which athletes can join. Once it's live, entries come in on a leaderboard, the brand can ask for changes to a post, and rewards go out to the winners at the end.

Athletes wanted to pitch brands themselves instead of waiting for a challenge to appear, which also meant the supply side could create its own demand. My Hive gave them the verified brand directory, audience-overlap insight to support the pitch, and a Quick Send email template that filled in their own analytics and linked their media kit. Replies landed in a thread inside the app. Cold pitches got a reply 5–10% of the time.

Athletic departments got their own dashboard, shown here for Michigan State, and athletes got a contract analyzer that summarises a deal in plain English, flags risky terms and suggests questions to ask before signing.