Max Brie ’18 wants to play matchmaker.
Actually, his new app called Dalorum is designed to do that for college athletes in search of the right companies to maximize their earning potential through Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals.
Dalorum launches this summer and Max already has more than 450 athletes signed up, including some Olympians.
The concept was inspired by Max’s own frustrations with NIL as a lacrosse player for St. Bonaventure University. He, too, was initially hopeful when the NCAA first cleared the way for its more than 500,000 athletes to get paid in July 2021.
“People thought these massive deals were going to flood in, and they did for the top 1 percent. Meanwhile, everyone else was getting things like a free t-shirt or 15 percent off their beverage,” Max said.
“There are lots of misconceptions out there. There’s definitely a lot of money to be made, but there’s a massive gap at the bottom, too. It felt like something needed to be done.”
“Empowering the 99 percent” is the mission statement for Dalorum, which partners athletes with relative brands using an innovative pool marketing technique based on the app’s proprietary algorithm.
“It’s not that these athletes have had a bad social media presence or that they don’t have an agent,” Max said.
“It’s the way we market athletes. We get to know these athletes on a more personal level and the questions we ask give us a good idea of who we are working with. We pool athletes and create meaningful connections, matching them with the best brands and culture for them.”
Max graduated from St. Bonaventure with a Finance degree and will be returning to pursue an MBA. In between his studies, he’s enjoying every aspect of being Dalorum’s CEO – putting himself out there, taking chances, and watching an idea come to life. Max is essentially a one-man company with some help from a programming team in Pakistan and arts company in Germany.
“Ever since I took an entrepreneurship class at Christ School, I’ve really thrown myself into this world,” Max said.
“There were a lot of late nights in my dorm room and chances to hang out with friends that I missed. To see an idea get this far and meet so many amazing people has been so rewarding. Now our No. 1 priority is to get this app out and showcase our athletes. A big part of this company is just bringing technology into the NIL world and trying to change the landscape.”