EPISODE 15: HUNTER SWENSSON
Hunter discusses his all of his experiences from competing as a professional eSports player to starting his company Paranoid Fan
Today’s episode kicks off our special 3-part sports-tech series, just in time for the Olympics. Leading off is Hunter Swensson, Founder and COO at Paranoid Fan.
Paranoid Fan is a social mapping app that helps fans navigate through their game-day experience, and Hunter has a super interesting journey, being a professional sports athlete where his corporate sponsors included Toyota, and he also worked for ESPN in Texas.
In the interview, we get into a lot, from the ups and downs of founding a company, getting customers at Paranoid Fan, building their company in Dallas… and you’ll find out about who “old man makowski” is.
One Key lesson to highlight: take what you learn from your successes and apply it to your future endeavors (in Hunter’s case, his halo esports dominance has helped him in his entrepreneurial journey).
Hunter is a hungry entrepreneur, it was inspiring chatting with him – Thank you to Michael Keoni DeFranco for connecting us, and please enjoy the conversation with Hunter Swensson.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Startups and Companies Mentioned
Notable People Mentioned
Venture Capital Firms Mentioned
Sports Teams Mentioned
Video Games Mentioned
SHOW NOTES
2:50 – Elevator pitch for Hunter’s company Paranoid Fan
4:18 – UI similarities between Waze and Paranoid Fan
6:07 – Hunter’s time as a professional eSports player
11:27 – Getting corporate sponsors for eSports
15:01 – Moving on from eSports to ESPN
16:37 – The inspiration behind Paranoid Fan
19:12 – The steps taken to create Paranoid Fan
23:00 – The importance of good partners
24:30 – How Hunter attracted early investors
27:21 – Hunter’s customer acquisition strategy
31:08 – How Paranoid Fan keeps users coming back
35:12 – Partnering with the Atlanta Falcons and Oregon Ducks
36:40 – Paranoid Fan’s business plan
40:35 – Paranoid Fan competitors
43:19 – How users can update information on the app
45:28 – What Hunter is most looking forward to for Paranoid Fan
49:19 – Takeaways from the Techstar program
52:15 – Rapid Fire Q&A – One thing that you would want to do in Hawaii, top tools or resources for entrepreneurs, favorite sports team, who inspires you, final tips for entrepreneurs