Andrew Collins shares the Winning Formula Behind Mailman's Success

Andrew Collins is the Founder and CEO of Mailman, a company started in Shanghai that provides services to the top sports leagues and teams in the world to improve the fans' experience and grow their revenue. Mailman was fully acquired by global agency WME.

In this episode, Andrew also recounts his experiences building a startup in college, acquiring Mailman, and developing it into a platform that sports organizations can use to better connect with their fans and grow their companies all the way through to exit

Key Takeaways:
•Li Na is one of the greatest Chinese female tennis players and a two-time Grand Slam champion.
•Instagram was an exclusive Apple feature before.
•James Wolfensohn was an Australian who built an investment bank that serves the world’s billionaires and became the president of the World Bank.
•Initially, Mailman was a postcard advertising channel.
•American Airlines signed a $150,000-dollar deal with Mailman
•Instagram was originally known as BRBN, and it functioned similarly to Foursquare.
•2010–2015 was Mailman’s revival period.
•In 2014, Mailman decided to be involved in the sports industry, and their first client was the AFL.
•Mailman acquired $20 million from local investors in China.
•In 2016, President Xi Jinping stated that he wants sports to be a part of their culture.


Best Moments:
• Andrew shares his funny moment with Li Na, who was nervous to meet Kobe Bryant.
o Anyway, he's in the building, and I go to the exec floor to meet Li Na. I'll get there 15 minutes early, but she's already there sitting at just a table waiting with her manager, Kathy. And so I go up: "Oh, hey, Li Na, how you doing? You know, I'm Andrew, blah, blah, blah. Hěn gāoxìng rènshí nǐ." And then I had a chat with her. And she was like, "uber nervous" to meet him, and I was like, "Oh, you're nervous?" I said, "I think he's actually a little nervous to meet you too. He's like, you know, huge fan of yours." And she was telling me how nervous she was and I was, like, "Oh, this is actually quite funny because there's absolutely no reason for you to be nervous." (00:05:48.9-00:06:20.3)

• Rich recalls a time when he MCed at TechCrunch Singapore in 2014.
o I remember one thing from there, which was there was a woman who was selling or, you know, pitching her company that was doing fashion, right? So she was like, you know, and all the judges were guys, because it was still before they figured out like, "Yeah, maybe we, you know, since 15% of the world is female, we should really have 50%."And she's like, "You know what? When your wife asks you, how does my butt look in these pants?" And everybody was like, looking around, and I and fortunately it was like, "Oh, time is up." And you could see all the guys like, "Oh, thank Christ, that's so great. We gotta to dodge that." But then I said, "By the way, everybody, the answer to that question is 'amazing.' It's always amazing." (00:08:42.4-00:09:22.1)

• Andrew shares how he takes girls out and gives them perfume as part of his business.
o And it was sort of a cash business. It was actually a great little business. I always had cash on me. And I'd take girls out for a date and I'd always give them a bottle of like, J'adore for a date. And they're like, "You didn't need to go and spend 70 bucks. And I'm like, I spent 15." But, it was a great one. (00:13:40.4-00:13:55.3)

• Andrew shares a scene in which Liverpool's Robbie Fowler signs a contract in Chinese.
o He gets a Chinese document in front of him for a signing, and they ask him to sign and he looks at me and goes, "Do I sign?"

Post-production, transcript, and show notes by XCD Virtual Assistants