Lyle Stevens is the CEO of Mavrck, which is a platform meant to help out businesses with their influencer marketing. Very recently, it was revealed that the company has raised $120 million in funding from Summit Partners. A sum that will be used to continue improving on Mavrck’s operations.
1. Went to Northeastern University
Education-wise, Stevens went to Northeastern University, which is a private school that can be found in Boston, MA. There, he studied a number of subjects including management information systems, entrepreneurship, and computer science. Both entrepreneurship and computer science see a lot of use in a wide range of contexts, so interested individuals should be familiar with those. As for management information systems, those refer to systems used to control, coordinate, and otherwise interact with data for the purpose of assisting in decision-making.
2. Has Called Himself a Data Geek
Given that, it is perhaps unsurprising to learn that Stevens has called himself a data geek. Information has always been an important concern for businesses. After all, a business without information is much the same as a person without sensory input, meaning that it can’t be expected to make good decisions because it has no way of knowing what is happening around it. However, the modern age is a good one for data geeks because modern computers enable organizations to not just collect more information than ever before but also derive more insights from that collected information than ever before.
3. Got Involved in Management ASAP
It is common for entrepreneurs to pick up some management experience before becoming entrepreneurs. After all, start-ups can’t succeed without good leadership, meaning that it tends to be a good idea for interested individuals to develop good leadership skills beforehand rather than learn on the job. In Stevens’s case, he seems to have gotten involved in management as soon as possible. To name an example, he was a project manager with serious responsibilities in a $1.2 million program from July of 2007 to July of 2009. For context, Stevens graduated from university in 2009.
4. Spent Some Time Working at Raytheon
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Stevens spent some time working at Raytheon. Generally speaking, people will know said company because of its involvement in aerospace and defense. However, it is important to remember that information security is extremely important in an age in which information has so much value, meaning that Raytheon is involved in that sector as well. Stevens led a team of engineers who worked on identity services while he was at Raytheon.
5. Co-Founder of Mavrck
By this point, chances are good that interested individuals can guess that Stevens is one of the co-founders of Mavrck. Besides him, Sean Naegeli is another co-founder on the company’s leadership team. Stevens is the CEO, meaning that he is responsible for the overall direction of Mavrck. Meanwhile, Naegeli is the Chief Influencer Officer, which is presumably a very important position for a company that is focused on influencer marketing.
6. Leads a Company Focused on Influencer Marketing
Stevens leads a company focused on influencer marketing. For those who are unfamiliar, influencer marketing means promoting products and services through the use of influencers, meaning people and even organizations on social media that are believed to possess considerable expertise and experience in their chosen fields. They are useful because they have a high degree of trust with their followers. Essentially, most people are cautious of business marketing because they know that businesses have strong incentives to present their own products and services in the best light. However, influencers have a much easier time marketing to them because influencers are already trusted by them. As such, it isn’t hard to see why a wide range of businesses have been making so much use of influencer marketing.
7. Leads a Company that Bridges the Gap Between Businesses and Influencers
Of course, influencer marketing has challenges of its own. Stevens’s company offers a platform that is meant to bridge the gap between businesses and influencers. Said platform is meant to cover the entire process from start to finish, ranging from finding suitable influencers to seeing whether the influencers are performing as expected or not. Something that offers a lot of convenience and thus a lot of value for interested parties.
8. Believes in the Importance of Measuring Marketing Campaigns
Naturally, Stevens believes in the importance of measuring marketing campaigns. As far as he is concerned, better measurement makes for better-performing marketing, which to be fair, makes a lot of sense. This ties back to a business’s fundamental reliance on information. If it can’t measure the performance of a marketing campaign, it has no way of telling whether the marketing campaign is doing well or not. Something that makes it extremely difficult to adjust the marketing campaign for better performance. Never mind determining whether it should be continued or not.
9. His Own Company Has a Lot of Use for Information
Speaking of which, Stevens’s own company has a lot of use for information. To name an example, its platform makes recommendations for businesses that are looking for suitable influencers. Those recommendations are not made by humans but rather by machines, which are capable of handling a lot more clients than what their flesh-and-blood counterparts can handle. The issue is that those machines need to be capable of making the right recommendations even without a human’s sense of judgment. Something for which good data is absolutely necessary.
10. Has Noted Benefits for Influencers As Well
Stevens has commented on his company benefiting from a rising tide when it comes to influencer marketing. The practice is becoming more and more popular, with the result that two-thirds of brands are now estimated to be using some kind of influencer marketing. However, it is interesting to note that Stevens has commented on his company’s potential benefit for influencers as well by making it easier to connect them to potentially interested clients. This could mean benefiting more and more people in the future, seeing as how more and more people are becoming interested in content creation as either a secondary or even a primary source of income.
