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 Founders of promising new ventures to tell their story. This particular startup is taking part in the Hype Global Sport Innovation Competition In Rio De Janeiro on August 24th, 2016.
Company name: Core Interface
Founder(s): Natko Beck, MD; Raphael Bene, MD; Damir Martinko, DMD
Headquarters: Zagreb, Croatia
1. What is your elevator pitch?
Core Interface research and development company, fusion of medical doctors, engineers and sports professionals. We are creating dedicated algorithms and entertaining apps that teach athletes to reach their optimal state of mind and boost their performance with neurofeedback.Our first product is for archery.
2. Problem & Solution
Mental training is crucial for improving performance in archery. Even if you don’t know what target panic is, the name says it all. An archer suffering from target panic experiences a premature anchor, where the bow appears to become very heavy, a premature hold and a premature release.Even the best archers in the world can improve their mental readiness. Elite archers can maintain their calm and task-related focus during positioning, aiming, and shooting. We teamed up with best Croatian archers to create Hit the Gold, a neurofeedback interface developed to help archers reach their optimal state of mind, to our knowledge the first in the world.
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
Hit the Gold is intended for four target groups. The first target group are professional archers from around the world which aim to improve their shooting skills and results. We believe that this group represents our main market due to the fact that its members invest significant resources in their equipment, education and other sport related activities. Therefore, relatively small investment in HTG could bring them significant benefits compared to its financial value.
The second target group are amateur archers, also a great opportunity as majority of them are affluent individuals that invest heavily into archery activities and equipment. Third market group are definitely archery associations and clubs that could have need for HTG and want to provide it to members.The fourth group are all individuals with a bow in their hands and people who share interest in it (hunting, 3D archers and others). Also everyone else willing to boost his/her mental performance.
The team behind our new app – Hit the Gold – dedicated #archery #neurofeedback app pic.twitter.com/GBWuZ4QFKh
— Core Interface (@Core_Interface) May 19, 2016
As for the overall market, there are hundreds of thousands professional archers and more than ten thousands archery clubs around the world. The largest number of clubs are located in France, 1659 clubs followed by USA with 1145. Archery participation in USA climbed about 14% from 2012 to 2014, boosting the number of archers to 21.6 million according to study commissioned by the Archery Trade Association.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
As HTG is desktop application directly connected to server client, our aim is to approach our clients and offer them application purchase for one-time entry fee, while yearly maintenance fee would be charged in order to keep application up to date and customers satisfied. Each application customer will be given username and password to be able to authenticate himself. This will also represent control mechanism by our side in order to avoid possible unfair behaviour by some clients and protect application safety.
Regarding price range, we conducted series of interviews among top ranked professional archers in the world during World Archery Cup held in Shanghai in 2016, and also while talking to other interested partners from domestic archery association. From these interviews we received valuable feedback and got precise price range that these top professionals are willing to pay for application with these capabilities. Due to the fact that we launched our pre-order process, thea word spreadded already among archery professionals, backed by World Archery Federation’s promotion and we so far received over 400 pre-order requests. Example of Federation’s support can be checked on this link.
5. Management Team – with titles
CEO: Natko Beck, MD
CRO: Raphael Bene, MD
CTO: Ivan Fabek,Mag. Ing. Comp.
COO: Marin Mindoljevic, Coach
Project Manager:. Dino Dedic B.B.A
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
Core Interface is our life project. We are not tied to one technology. Our brainwave database is our treasure. We call it our “Brain Bank”. We are proud to have the brainwave profiles of Olympic, World and European champions in archery, shooting, karate, boxing, NBA players, MMA fighters,and Golfers. Our goal is to boost human performance and we do so by enhancing and optimizing brain-body communication as a result of targeting the right neural network for the right task. This is our core competency.