I was speaking with a friend recently and he compared the direction we’re headed at Bizyhood with Derek Jeter’s newly launched website The Players Tribune. As much as I love sports and enjoy making sports analogies, I was hard pressed to understand the connection. My friend went on to say that The Players Tribune will give athletes an authentic voice – the ability to put their story out there the way they want it to be told. It doesn’t replace or eliminate other people creating a narrative about that athlete, but now there will be a place for them to have their own voice.
This explanation made the analogy very powerful for me. We have talked to many small business owners about being authentic online, and the biggest objection we tend to get in response is they don’t want people talking negatively about them. Think about your favorite athlete – while they do have lots of fans and people showering them with love and attention, they also have a lot of people saying and writing things that would make most of us cry if somebody said about us!…
