Sport can unite people worldwide in a way that nothing else can. Still, only a tiny percentage of the superstars and sports brands get the attention they deserve. This fact can discourage some athletes from pursuing a career in sport.

Fortunately, the two former colleagues – Jason Bergman and Shehryar Khan – took notes and decided to change the situation for good when they created MarketPryce in 2021.

MarketPryce is a virtual marketplace connecting athletes, soon-to-be athletes, and agents with prominent brands for endorsement deals. The founders describe the platform as a ‘dating app for athletes,’ enabling them to choose and enter marketing campaigns.

Today, MarketPryce boasts more than a million-dollar revenue and has already helped thousands of athletes on their path to success. If you feel inspired to learn about their idea and mission to expand the star-studded sports community, keep reading this one-of-kind story!

A Vision With a Purpose

Jason was born in Long Island, New York. When he was a child, his father motivated him to be a positive person that always reached for the stars. Jason followed his dad's advice and gained a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Florida in 2015.

After graduation, Jason kickstarted his career as an Account Executive and Sales Manager. He didn’t waste any time and constantly set new goals for himself. He has been in sales his entire career, preoccupied with finding the ideal solutions for customers.

Eventually, Jason’s sales skills prompted him to assist prospective athletes in securing lucrative business deals. On the way to reach his life goals, Jason met Shehryar Khan.

Shehryar is from New York, too. He also likes solving problems and helping people, so his entire life, Shehryar has been helping people in need. At one point, he volunteered at Franklin Center for Rehabilitation and Nursery. Shehryar holds a B.A. Computer Science from Hunter College and is a real internet guru.

Hard Work Pays Off

Jason's broad experience as a salesperson motivated him to help improve the sports business. In February 2020, he contacted Shehryar, a former colleague at the email marketing company Robly, to reveal his brilliant idea.

Shehryar and Jason have always been incredibly entrepreneurial. Shehryar is good at starting businesses, dealing with real estate, and is an out-of-the-box thinker.

The phone call between Jason and Shehryar turned out to be so productive that Shehryar quit his job and joined Jason on the path to success. They made a plan and started a small business company that later blew up.

Jason and Shehryar launched MarketPryce at the beginning of 2021. They founded the company to democratize sports marketing and simplify the procedure for brands to get in touch with athletes and their agents for lucrative marketing campaigns.

Silent Start Leads to Huge Impact

The beginning was hard, and MarketPryce didn’t have a lot of customers mainly because most sport-related people aren't aware of the value of the athlete-brand connection.

That obstacle motivated Jason and his team to educate both brands and athletes on why they must connect and form meaningful relationships. MarketPryce didn’t have a spectacular start and had some traction among sports professionals. However, everything changed on July 1, thanks to the NIL legislation.

Soon, the company counted over 1,300 athletes, and 300 companies joined them. Jason and Shehryar were proud of their website as it has facilitated over 2,000 total promotional marketing deals.

Jason has attracted a lot of new companies because they didn't have to pay a dime for joining MarketPryce or pay the athletes for appearances or promotions. The point is that Jason and Shehryar created a functional system where MarketPryce doesn’t get anything for processing simple product transactions but gets a 5% from the paid deals.

Shehryar, as an experienced internet marketing guru, set a competitive sign-up fee for professional athletes and college students and an attractive monthly fee for athletes’ advisers and agents. The initial hook was that anyone who would sign up for a yearly membership would receive a 50% discount.

Motivation as a Force

Jason noted that a considerable number of deals involved college athletes getting free clothes, food, and other products. In addition, about half of these college deals have involved girls in sports like soccer and volleyball. He was satisfied with what they had achieved so far, which motivated them to continue.

Although the company started during the Covid-19 pandemic, it didn’t make any particular changes to the initial plans Jason and his partner had. Interestingly enough, they always planned to do the work online from the comfort of their homes.

While their competitors saw the pandemic as a threat, for Jason, it was a motivation to launch this company and put the necessary effort and time into it. Both Sherhyar and Jason could spend more time developing and improving their business plan and building an influential team.

Path to Success

Time is invaluable for MarketPryce, and this company belongs to the group of marketplaces whose target is to reach over 450,000 college athletes interested in making a profit and getting similar benefits from their NIL.

The company wants to capitalize on expected growth, focusing on deals via its marketplace. They plan to take advantage of the school football season and other sports and motivate students to focus more on competitive games.

Although MarketPryce has a unique concept, there are still a few companies that compete with them. Here we can mention Icon Source, OpenSponsorship, Let’s Do This, and StockX.

The one thing that sets MarketPryce apart from its rivals is the transparency it provides. Jason is not one to profit off of hidden fees, and together with his team, he empowers his customers to connect and find the perfect match with each other. MarketPryce users can do that by sending emails, texting, and making phone calls.

Shehryar and Jason often laugh when their users compare MarketPryce to a dating app, and they absolutely agree with them. These prosperous business owners sincerely want to help their users start from the bottom and amount to something huge with the help of MarketPryce.

MarketPryce IPO

MarketPryce has had two rounds so far. The first one, Pre Seed Round, which took place on 15 November 2020, raised 262K for the company. The second one, Seed Round, which happened in September 2021, was way more successful and brought in $3.1 million.

The Seed Round took place about two months after the NCAA let college athletes make a profit from their likeness, image, and name. This enormous change led to a significant increase in traffic as well as deal-locking on the MarketPryce platform.

The Chief Executive and co-founder of MarketPryce, Jason, didn’t reveal the names of the investors, pointing out that it is their private information. He refers to the investors as a “private institutional investor group.”

MarketPryce Future Plans

MarketPryce is a great platform, and Jason has attractive future plans for this brand, including opening a new headquarters.

The company intends to use a percentage of its funds to employ new people. The goal is to expand the software development team and find more individuals to fill marketing and sales roles.

Jason also plans to upgrade the MarketPryce app and website to make it more user-friendly. With that, he’ll open doors to more opportunities for both current and future users.

With over 4,000 visits monthly and users from the USA and the UK, MarketPryce will become a global sensation soon enough. And despite the growing competition, there is no better platform for connecting people and companies in the name of the sport!