🏆 The Startup Fixing Talent’s Most Expensive Blind Spot

Before Duffle Inc. existed, its foundations were formed inside the world’s largest talent agency. For more than a decade, co-founders Maya Nelson and Darren Gee worked at Creative Artists Agency across sports, entertainment, and partnerships. "Together, inside one of the most respected agencies in the world, they saw an opportunity to build something the industry needed.

They saw a common challenge emerge across the industry as brand partnerships expanded across sports and the influencer and creator economy accelerated. The business behind talent grew larger, more global, and significantly more complex but the systems supporting it failed to evolve. “The expectations changed,” say co-founders Maya Nelson and Darren Gee. “Speed, visibility, and professionalism became the baseline, but the infrastructure behind sports and talent representation didn’t keep pace.”

While modern technology and AI were rapidly transforming other industries, the infrastructure supporting athletes, creators, and their brand partnerships remained fragmented and manual. “Teams were spending more time managing fragmented information than driving strategy,” they explain. “Valuable data lived across inboxes, PDFs, and spreadsheets, with no way to capture or use it proactively.” The result was increasingly reactive work, creating risk not only for agencies, but for talent and brands operating at scale. “Duffle was created to close that gap,” they add, “and bring purpose-built infrastructure to an industry that had outgrown its tools.”

When the Problem Isn’t Talent, It’s Infrastructure

From the outside, it might look like an operational challenge. From the inside, Maya and Darren knew it ran deeper. The talent and expertise were always there. The infrastructure to support it just hadn't been built yet." Agencies were operating multi million dollar businesses on fragmented systems that were never designed for the realities of modern talent representation. Contracts lived in one place, deliverable obligations in another, payment tracking somewhere else; and critical context nowhere at all.

“The challenge went beyond individual systems,” they add. “It was how disconnected information shaped day-to-day work.” When data isn’t centralized or connected, visibility disappears. That lack of visibility leads to time-consuming administrative work, operational inefficiencies, and teams spending more energy managing information than creating value. Over time, the drag compounds.

Why Duffle, Why Now

Plenty of people notice inefficiencies. Very few decide to build the solution. For Maya and Darren, the timing mattered. “Three things converged,” they explain. First, the talent economy exploded. More creators, more athletes, more brand partnerships, and far more complexity per client.

Second, expectations shifted. Talent and brands now expect real-time visibility, professionalism, and accountability. But the real inflection point was technological. “AI reached a point where it could finally make dense, unstructured data like contracts and deal terms usable in real time,” they say. “Suddenly, you could turn documents into intelligence.” That shift made something clear. “This felt like the moment where building Duffle wasn’t just possible,” they add. “It was necessary.”

The Real Unlock

At its core, Duffle isn’t trying to replace people. It’s trying to give them leverage. “Agencies didn’t need more assistants or more spreadsheets. They needed clarity. When data is centralized and structured, teams can instantly see what’s been signed, what’s owed, what’s outstanding, and what’s at risk, without chasing information across systems. “Once that visibility exists,” they say, “better decisions follow naturally.” That belief sits at the center of Duffle’s product philosophy. “Data clarity creates leverage,” they explain.

The Principle of Trust

Handling contracts, financial terms, and client relationships means trust isn’t optional, it’s foundational. “Trust shaped every early decision,” the founders say. From day one, Duffle was designed as a fully independent, neutral platform with no allegiance to any agency, roster, or network. “That neutrality is essential when you’re handling the most sensitive information in the business,” they explain.

Each company operates within its own secure environment. Information is never shared, pooled, or leveraged outside its intended use. Ownership, control, and visibility remain entirely with the client. “Security, permissions, and auditability were never treated as add-ons,” they say. “They are foundational.” Just as important, the product mirrors how agencies actually operate. “Trust isn’t just technical,” they add. “It’s behavioral.”

From Chaos to Strategy

When contracts, deliverables, and payment timelines live in one place, the work changes. “The day-to-day shifts from reactive to strategic,” they explain. Instead of asking where a contract is, teams start asking how to structure the next deal better.

Managers can see which partnerships are approaching expiration, maintain a full view of detailed client profiles, and quickly identify where opportunities exist to renew, renegotiate, or expand relationships. “The work becomes less about chasing details,” they say, “and more about building long-term value.

The Long View

Five to ten years from now, success for Duffle means becoming the foundational operating layer behind modern talent representation. “We want teams to move faster, operate with confidence, and make decisions based on insight, not guesswork,” Maya and Darren say.

Ultimately, Duffle is designed to fade into the background. “It should free managers to focus on advocating and negotiating, give talent clear visibility into their business, and allow the industry to move with greater professionalism and alignment,” they explain. “The system quietly handles the complexity, so everyone can operate at a higher level.