How Hundreds of LinkedIn Applications Led to Producing Andretti Global’s Content with Alex Frick

Alex’s start in motorsports

What was the first moment you discovered racing?

I mean, growing up in Indiana, everyone always says like, “oh, it's the 500”, but I definitely didn't come from a racing family. Not plugging Andretti just because they're my employer, but I do recall watching the Indy 500 in the early to mid-2000s and hearing the Andretti name, and thinking, I don't understand how that's an American team and an American person with the name Andretti. I was like, that just doesn't make sense to me! But that's really the very early parts of being introduced to racing, and then it just evolved into a career.

What made you decide this was something you wanted to do as a career?

It fell right into my lap. I had no intentions of getting into motorsports, into racing. I had no intentions of being in sports. I had a previous job, non-content related. I worked in major league baseball, and after that, I was like, I want to go enjoy sports with my free time, I don't want sports to be my free time in my career. Andretti and motorsports fell into my lap and it's been exactly what I needed for my professional growth and also my growth as a person. So, it's been, honestly, probably the… saying it's the best thing that's ever happened to me is so overdramatic, but it's definitely up there!

Logan: What were you doing in the MLB before?

So, it was my first job out of college. I was working for the now Cleveland Guardians, but it was the Cleveland Indians back then, and they were coming right off of their World Series run. So, this was the summer of 2017, and I was working as a guest service specialist, what I think was my official title. I was working part-time, it was a glorified internship where I was making, I think like $9 or $10 an hour, part-time, and it was just nothing. I was working in a basement with, not to dog on them, but water damage and cockroaches and rats. You know, it was just, that's just where we were, and I was just answering questions where fans would call in saying, “I can't access my tickets”, and I would help.

What was that first step you made to turn this into your career?

When I was able to move to Indianapolis and figure out my life goals and what I wanted to do in life, I saw the Andretti job on LinkedIn and applied. I know a lot of other people within the content sphere, especially motorsports, will give advice on how to get to this position in their career. The best advice you can get is, start at the grassroots, get experience and work your way up. I definitely got lucky and I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity, but I went directly to the top through LinkedIn. I'm not saying there weren't some bumps along the way. I wish I would have pulled numbers prior to this, but I think I've probably applied to a couple hundred LinkedIn Easy Apply positions. You know how it is. It's so easy to just throw it out there, and the Andretti job was the only one that I've had success with. It's the only job I've gotten through LinkedIn Easy Apply, and I just took an opportunity and ran with it.

We just were expanding our team [at Andretti] and we went through the hiring process, and I can tell through the first few seconds of looking at somebody's portfolio; okay, this person's got it, and maybe this person needs a little bit more time and work on their craft, whether that's through photo, video, or even with social media.

Logan:  How did you build your portfolio then? Or, how did you build those skills if it wasn't really something you were doing professionally beforehand?

Yeah, the job before Andretti, I was working at a powersport dealership here in Indianapolis, and I'll be fully candid, fully transparent. I BS’d my way through that interview, where I probably should not have gotten the job right away. I wasn't the best candidate, but I was able to swab my way through an interview and I was like, you know, I'll figure the rest out along the way. Content creation was something I was always passionate about, especially coming out of undergrad, but I didn't quite figure it out until later in my twenties, like, okay, how can I piece this together to make a life out of it? You know, buy a home, have a career, and instead of just making TikToks of my dog or whatever it may be.

 So, I was given an opportunity and I absolutely ran with it, and along the way, about a month into that job, they hired another guy who was probably the most impactful part of my career, where he was just an incredible mentor for me, where he can take this passion and this raw clay that was me and my career of where I was, and was able to make this professional. He had experience in wildlife, hunting, and fishing. He's done work with ESPN, professional commercials, stuff like that. So, it leveled up everything from, how can I take this passion and make a career out of it?

And don't get me wrong, it comes with some learning curves. Like, it is so hard to get an IndyCar that's going 230 miles an hour in frame, get good audio, make sure your white balance, exposure, everything—it wasn't pretty at first. I'm pretty shocked that they were like, “yeah, let's just throw up this new guy's stuff on our channels”. And I was like, “Are you sure about that? It's really not that good.” But they trusted in me!

Alex’s current role

How would you describe your current role and what your day-to-day is like?

It really depends on the day, when you're at the track, whether you have a social window where you're trying to bank content and get all your planned content out, but then the rest of it is very much reactionary. What do we need to do to succeed with our channels so that our fans can understand and get the story of how the weekend is going? So, whether that's through fun reels, or maybe there's a rain delay and you're figuring something out that way messing with the crew. Whatever it may be. Or it's our INDY NXT team just pulled in and I have 15 minutes to go flip photos on socials before IndyCar qualifying. So, that's definitely been part of the learning curve, as well as how can I set myself up for the best success with presets with whatever it is, building out your projects prior to even entering the race weekend, so that when the time does come, we can be as fast as we can, so that we can fill the channels up with all the reactionary content. That's really the majority of the weekend is reactionary content, exploring the track, and also just trying to find new, unique ways to show off these awesome cars.

It’s definitely a challenge, but with experience, it does slow down a little bit, and also being able to have the bandwidth to keep hiring new people and have a team where it's like; all right, we can have multiple cameras, we can actually keep upgrading our content from where we started.

Logan: So, how does that work? Is it a group chat, and you guys are like, okay, when the session is done meet in the media room? Or is it more that you divide and conquer?

Great question. So, when we have our full team assembled for your more crown jewel, bigger events, you know, St. Pete, Arlington, whatever it may be, where it's all hands on deck, where we have a plan beforehand, we're ready to get that reactionary content of getting out of the car. Alex is going to go down there, and then our second shooter and our photographers are going to be with the #27 crew to get that content. So, we have a plan ahead of time. The plan doesn't always go to course, but that's just motorsports. With Barber, and not having all hands-on deck, I’m going to have my shooters go and be the boots on the ground, and then they are dropping raw photos and videos back to me, and I'll be editing to then get to our social team. So, we're a little bit in the trial process.

What have been the most rewarding and challenging aspects of the job?

Rewarding

Most rewarding is the fact that there are really, really crappy jobs out there. Like, as stressful as it might be, I get to make videos of race cars and I get to go to these awesome places and try new foods and whatever it may be. I get to live my dream. Like, it's really, really cool.

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Challenging

I'm very much a—how can I set myself up to succeed and be the most successful I can? And that's just not motorsports. You're never going to be able to conquer motorsports. You're always going to have to ride the wave and you're always going to have to be positive and also flexible, through a season, through all these race weekends. So, it's definitely a challenge, especially when things can get turned upside its head, but at the end of the day, it's just content. We're not doing surgery, so, you just have to try your best and be as flexible and positive as you can.

Like we had a freaking tornado hit right outside of Iowa last year. That wasn't on my bingo card! And that was already a doubleheader weekend, and you have all these partner requests and it's just like, let's just pump the brakes. Let's do what we can do, and I also think, and this is not to plug my wife, but she has taught me that the best lesson ever is, ‘no is a complete sentence.’ You don't have to explain yourself after no. However, with partners and when it's your job, it's a ‘no, but’. But you don't have to say yes to everything and you have to be able to go at your bandwidth or up to your bandwidth, and if you can't handle anything past that, it's okay to take it easy on yourself.

What are the three qualities that have helped you succeed at this role?

Positive and flexible

You have to be positive and flexible.

Always wanting to learn

I think always wanting to learn. You can kind of get stuck into a rut and stuck in a low with the IndyCar schedule, because it's a double-edged sword. You have all these iconic and also these old historic tracks that have such a strong fan base, but you've been going there for 25 years. You know, I'm looking at Mid-Ohio, where it's like, how can I keep this fresh? How can I keep trying new stuff? So that you can continue to service those really passionate fans. So, always being able to continue to push yourself and learn.

Preparated

I think it comes with time and experience, but being able to push yourself, so that your preparation is up to standard, and your preparation will help you succeed once the bullets start flying and the weekend’s really taking off.

Alex’s advice

If you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what would that be?

To definitely take it easy on yourself. In my early to mid-twenties, I really felt like I was kind of a failure, and I felt like I was also just kind of stuck in a career path that I didn't want to be in and I felt like everything else was kind of moving past me, where I didn't feel like I could do a full reset. So, I think a lot of people are figuring it out in their twenties, and especially whether that's changing careers or changing majors at college, what they want to do, but I think just taking it easy on yourself and understanding you have so much time to figure it out. And it's so cliche and everybody says this, but take your twenties to mess it up and just absolutely blow it up and figure it out. And if you're in your thirties and you're still trying to figure it out, it's like, all right, maybe we need to take it a little more seriously. And then obviously if you're in your forties… But take it easy on yourself, try new things, go out and be adventurous.

Then also, if you're wanting to work in content, if you really are passionate about this, you just have to send it and post the content. I think I had so much content in my drafts and in my camera roll, where it's just sitting there and I'm like, “oh, it's not good enough”, and you know, you're always your harshest critic. And you just have to, you'll have to post it, and you just never know who's going to see it on the other side. It's only crazy until it works, right?

What advice would you give to someone looking to be in your position?

Definitely just post your content. Like I just said, it's not doing you any good just being on your camera roll. I think people get so attached to finding your niche and only exploiting that niche, whether that's fitness or reviewing shoes. I don't know. I think not having a niche and being niche-less is the way to go. Try different things, try going for a run with your Oakley glasses and making a video off of that, when everything else has been food reviews. I don't know. I'm just throwing stuff out there. So, just trying new things, posting everything and definitely just take it easy on yourself. Like I said, at the end of the day, it's just content on social media. It's going to get buried the next day. So, it's really not that deep.

Alex’s career highlights

What has been your most memorable moment working in Motorsports?

Everybody loves the highs, but I personally love to be the fly on the wall with the lows. The moment that comes to mind is 2025, Indy 500 qualifying, Colton [Herta] crashes, and I was there to document the entire rebuild. The entire team just flipped the switch, and to be able to just see everybody just fall into a role and rebuild a car within three and a half, four hours, and then make the field was absolutely incredible. And then to be able to document it and turn it around in a timely fashion. Was it perfect? No. Do I look back at it and think, man could I have changed this? Absolutely, but I think being so timely with that is also why the post succeeded. But yeah, I mean, motorsports has so many ups and downs, especially on the team side of things, more downs than ups, to be quite frank. So, being able to document that, and also just show, hey, everybody here is human, everybody here is working hard. And also, it also just makes you come off as so much more real.

Do you have a favorite piece of content that you’ve produced during your time with Andretti?

Our season launch this year was by far my favorite piece. It's the first piece that I've written the script, executed, produced, shot, edited, sound, everything to go along with it, to really try to start a new era with Andretti. So, that was something I was really, really proud of.

And it's like… so many people look at this job or working in social media, I'm sure you feel the same thing, Logan, but it's a very, very tough job to not plateau. You might find success in a series or something, and you might be hitting numbers and KPIs, and those look great and all, but it's also yesterday's news. So, you have to figure out new ways to, not reinvent the wheel, you know, if you find that little bit of success, but how can we keep pushing and get off this plateau?

Do you have a dream driver, team, or concept that you’d love to bring to life?

That's a really good question. I haven't really thought about that. I think anytime that you could do any sort of collab with drivers across series is so, so cool. I think that's what makes Daytona, The Rolex [24], so awesome, is like it's like an all-star race, where you have your NASCAR, WEC, IMSA, IndyCar, F1 guys, whatever, come over. So, I think it would be so cool to do some sort of crossover with all of our current drivers in F1, with the Cadillac side of things, as well as IndyCar, all the way down to Walkinshaw TWG and Australian Supercars. So, I think something like that would be really cool.

Since I started working in motorsports, I've always wanted to work with Jenson Button. I think he was just so, so good. He's so steady with how he talks, but then he is just pure content and just, everything he touches is gold. Not trying to butter him up too much, but it's just, he's really good on camera, he has so many stories and experiences. And I think if you could do a round table with him and other legends… Like anything with Mario [Andretti] is also just peak. It'd be awesome to work with him one day.

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