New technology from startup ventures is transforming the sports industry. The mission of this series is to introduce startup companies in the sports technology space to a broader audience and allow CEO’s of new ventures to tell their story.
Company: MYagonism
CEO: Paolo Raineri
Headquarters: Brescia, Italy
1. Elevator Pitch?
Innovative coaching basketball analytic
2. Problem and solution
Across all levels, 80% of basketball coaches in the world are using pen & paper to track their team’s stats. As a result it is not easy for a coach to find the “Michael Jordan” of his team, and that’s true for two main reasons:
– Economics. Professional sports analytics tools are expensive, and it is expensive to hire data scientists)
– Lack of know-how. The majority of coaches doesn’t have the skills to analyze data in the way they deserve, it’s not their job.
There isn’t a unique platform with a standardized world-wide Data Base of high-quality data so it’s really difficult to set up a real Big Data project for professional use.
MYagonism created our services to simplify data logging, analyze data with a proprietary algorithm and showcase player performance. We are also the first sport startup in Europe to track the players in a 3D mode.
Around our proprietary algorithm we created our services:
Our app for assistant coaches tracks stats during the game and saves data on a cloud base.
Our wearable hardware tracks speed, acceleration, moves and so on. A small chip on the players shorts can track everything with less than 11 inches error and more than 50 times per second:
Our analytics social platform (think of it as a LinkedIn for sport) stores and showcases all the recorded data coming from the app or from the wearable. Coaches, Recruiters and Players can analyze data without doing any effort.
We partnered MYagonism’s second screen app with TOK.tv to give every club a second screen app for fan engagement. With it fans can talk with their friends while watching the game and see live stats and wearable data in real-time for free.
We also have a strength conditioning app that let’s the trainer of a team schedule games and trainings and see players’ physical data to analyze them and make a smart decision “for the next steps” in order to hopefully prevent some injuries.
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
MYagonism is the analytics service for 900 basketball clubs in US and in more than 40 countries in the world. The global basketball market is worth $11B and is growing fast. MYagonism aims to make a coach’s life better, so every smart coach in trouble with staff dimensions or limited budget is on our radar. Also, we started with basketball but we’ll scale to other sports as fast as the market demands it.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
MYagonism’s core business is based on Big Data. We can provide data and services to every actor of the “Network Market” of the sport. Our first revenue stream is generated from affordable freemium-premium subscription of coaches and players but, since the beginning, we didn’t want to ask for money from clubs and players. We sell data and services to broadcasting media, recruiters, fantasy sports, betting company, advertisers.
5. Management Team
Paolo Raineri – CEO
Bachelor in Marine Biology (University of Pavia, ITA). Rich experience in PR, marketing, sales, and strong scientific background. Three startups as founder. 10+ years of working experience. Ex-basketball professional.
Lorenzo Lanzieri – PM
Master in Sport science (University of Milan, ITA). Strong experience in coaching, training, team management. Ex-sportive professional, basketball D series.
Tullio Facchinetti – CTO
Phd in computer engineering (University of Pavia, ITA). Professor at UniPv. Guru of the “C language” and expert software engineer. Responsible of many large hardware/software projects.
Andrea Facchi – COO
Graduated in Law (Bocconi Law school, Milan, ITA). Experience in management. First startup but second business started as a founder. 10+ years of working experience. Ex-sportive professional.
Gaetano Passaro – Investor and network developer
Graduated in Economy (Bocconi university, Milan, ITA). Serial entrepreneur with an exit in the brand loytly area.
Nicola Lamberti – Investor and Board member
Graduated in Physics (University of Pavia, ITA), then graduated in the Palo Alto business school program in Milan and at the Harvard business school executive education (Boston, MA, USA). Serial entrepreneur with two exit “on the logbook”.
6. What do you want the audience to know at this moment about your venture?
The name, my agonism, comes from the italian word “agonismo” that means sportive competition. I’m a marine biologyst and an ex-basketball profesisonal. I’m proud to have a team with experienced persons who share the passion for sports competition, for the “agonismo” and science.
Bonus Question – If you were to invite any CEO to dinner who would it be and why?
Well, if I have to chose a answer for an “hypothetical question” I want to answer in an “hypothetical time ago”. If I have to choose CEOs to have a dinner with, I will certainly go back in time to have two dinners: one around 1930 with Mr. Henry Ford and one around 1950 with Mr. Adriano Olivetti.