Nine years ago, I made a social post for the NFL that ended up changing my career and eventually led me to start a tech company. But I almost blew it.
At the time, I was managing international content and marketing for the league. We brought Odell Beckham Jr. to Germany at the peak of his stardom for a promotional and content capture trip (dream job, I know). One of the stops was an autograph signing at a local New Era store. We thought it would be lowkey. Instead, it turned into chaos.
Thousands of screaming fans packed the street, chanting "OBJ!" It felt like Beatlemania. The NFL was more popular in Germany than we realized. We were completely unprepared for the crowd that flooded this little side street in Munich.
We had to end the signing early because it was too chaotic. As Odell made his way to the car, a sea of fans swarmed him. I stood by the vehicle, stunned. Then I did what any social manager would do. I pulled out my phone and started filming. As he approached the car to escape the mob, he did something totally unexpected. Instead of getting in, he jumped on the roof, grabbed my phone, and filmed a selfie video with the crowd behind him cheering.
It was gold. Completely unplanned, totally viral. But I almost utterly f*cked it up. I knew I had to post it immediately before some fan or media outlet beat us to it. This had to be our moment to own on NFL’s channels and I was scrambling.
There I was, wedged in the back of a moving car, trying to edit raw footage on my iPhone. No proper tools. NFL brand guidelines to include. Teammates across the Atlantic waiting for feedback. I frantically downloaded whatever apps I could find (this was 2016, remember) to stitch the clips for Instagram (only square videos in feed back then!), clean the audio, and slap on some kind of branding for NFL Germany. I ended up using three different apps. All while firing off texts and WhatsApps to the US team.
The process was a mess. Clunky, stressful, and unnecessarily complicated.
After an hour of mobile editing gymnastics, we finally got the post live. It blew up immediately. Media outlets picked it up everywhere. Suddenly “NFL Germany” was on the map in a way it hadn’t been before.
The content was a win. The process was a nightmare.
This wasn't just a one-off frustration. It revealed a bigger gap in the social media ecosystem. Brands had sophisticated tools for scheduling, reporting, and listening. But for creating content, the most important and time-consuming part of our job, there was nothing. We were expected to create consistently high performing content that represented the brand while using the same tools as casual consumers, or else learn pro software like Premiere and Photoshop.
For the next five years at the NFL, I kept running into the same problem. I was constantly switching between a hodgepodge of tools, learning the basics of Adobe and Figma, hacking things together as best I could.
New consumer editing apps made phone editing easier, but they still missed the mark for brand social teams like mine. They were built for individuals, not teams and that was clear. I’d watch my mom make birthday cards on Canva and my sister edit TikToks on CapCut then realize I was using those exact same apps to create content for the NFL.
It was absurd.
Where was the brand customization? The workflow flexibility for teams managing multiple accounts and creating content across all social formats? Why was everything about stock graphics, trending songs I couldn’t legally use, and lo-fi video designs from random users? Why couldn’t I control my own brand’s templates, fonts, lower thirds, etc and stay on-brand while creating authentic social content at scale?
Crucial features for social teams were always an afterthought if they existed at all.
The turning point came when my former 49ers social team colleague, Michael Horton, called me. He was running a consumer app startup when a major beauty brand reached out with a surprising request:
“Can we customize fonts on your platform for our Instagram Stories? We're tired of being limited to Instagram's default fonts instead of our brand-approved ones.”
That conversation crystallized everything.
Social teams were so desperate for proper tools that they were begging consumer apps for basic brand functionality. I felt their pain.
So we teamed up to build Slate, a content creation platform made specifically for social teams. Fast, collaborative, brand-first, and now powered by AI that actually understands how social teams work. It helps social media professionals move quickly without sacrificing quality or brand control. Exactly what I needed back in that car in Germany.
Because social teams shouldn't have to cobble together consumer tools to do the most important part of their job. And they deserve platforms built by people who've actually been in their shoes.
If you've ever found yourself in a hotel room, airport gate, or backseat frantically trying to edit a post before the moment passes this space is for you.
