In this episode of the Agents of Innovation podcast, host David Knies speaks with his friend and former colleague, Jasmine Maietta. Jasmine’s career spans professional sports, education, and marketing leadership roles for leading brands Peloton, Under Armour, Hasbro and Reebok. Today, Jasmine is the founder of round21, an art-inspired sports brand that celebrates the creativity within each individual – starting with ping pong and basketball.

Jasmine shares the unique path she took to become an entrepreneur and her Superpowers of lifelong learning, creative expression and consumer connection that have been core to her success. They discuss how standing out is the new standard in sport, and how it can paradoxically create a more inclusive team culture and environment. Jasmine is motivated by knowing art is an expression of human belief and personal creativity.

Podcast Highlights

4:20 – Culture is created in sports: “As an insider, coming from sports and being in sports all my career, I’ve seen so many different places where culture is created in sports, entertainment, music, and culture.”

4:52 – Using ping pong as the origins for round21: “I’m using ping pong as an inclusive and very accessible activity as the origin sport for round21 with other sports on the horizon. And to me, that helps anybody participate in round21 because ping pong is so accessible while also providing the canvas to evolve over time through other mainstream sports. 

6:40 – We all have something unusual and uncommon: “We believe that what makes the world remarkable is the diaspora of backgrounds and the feeling that we all have something unusual and uncommon to bring to the culture that we are a part of. So we want to make it acceptable to be your own self versus making acceptance, conforming to what other people expect of you.”

13:52 – Bringing art and sports together: “The artists and the athlete that round21 brings together is going to be a societal benefit because it’s going to help artists be exposed to a new audience, and it’s going to help athletes support the arts in a way that today is available on certain canvases, again like sneakers or potentially, their headphones, but has been completely absent from the core aspect of their game.”

16:29 – Recreating your environment: “What round21 is able to do is truly manifest the word recreation. You recreate your environment. When you play, you create a sense of who you are with what you play with.”

26:56 – Peloton vs. other connected fitness products: “ Peloton has an understanding of the consumer from when they joined the brand, and they manage and nurture that relationship through every class, through every instructor experience, et cetera. Whereas other connected fitness products are a little disjointed.”