New technology from startup ventures is transforming the sports industry. The mission of this series will be to introduce startup companies in the sports technology space to a broader audience and allow Founders of promising new ventures to tell their story. Feel free to contact us if you know of a startup that should be considered for this series.
Company name: TeamPro
CEO: Ryk Waters
Headquarters: Brighton, UK
1. What is your elevator pitch?
TeamPro is a free online service that provides intuitive tools to sports team managers, meaning they have more time to nurture and encourage their players.
Also features for the players that let them feel like their sporting heroes. For example, Sky Sports style video team sheets and a dedicated rolling news channel just for their club.
We’re TeamPro, and we give amateur teams the professional treatment.
2. Problem & Solution
There are problems in two areas of grassroots sport:
Sports Team Managers
- Often volunteers
- Don’t have enough time to organise their teams
- Don’t have access to good organisation tools
- Send out lots of details for training and matches
- Receive responses via a number of different channels (phone, text, email, verbally)
- Sometimes don’t receive responses at all
Players
- Often have lots of competing interests in life
- The numbers of young people engaged in organised team sports is declining
- It’s easier to get 100 ‘likes’ for a photo of their coffee on Instagram than a pat on the back after weeks of training in the rain
- Sport is suffering from ‘Instant Gratification’ & ‘Selfie’ culture
Our solution:
- Let people get that instant gratification through their sports organisation
- Our team sheets let people live out their sporting fantasies
- Our management tools make organising training and matches easy
- This leads to more engagement (more responses to the manager)
- Players (especially younger ones) are motivated to train harder, just so they can be on the team sheet!
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
The initial target market is Digitally engaged football players in the UK. But we have also added Rugby, Cricket, Netball & more to our portfolio. And have teams across the world.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
As mentioned above, TeamPro is FREE for managers and players. These people often don’t have enough spare money to pay for these types of services. At the same time we have many sports brands that would love to have direct engagement with ‘grassroots sports’ players.
We offer sponsorship opportunities to sports brands, either on our team sheets, or interacting with our players on their live news channel.
Note though, this isn’t ‘advertising’, we only choose brands and interactions that will improve the experience of our users, not simply pasting banners wherever we can.
5. Management Team – with titles
Ryk Waters – CEO
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
We’re in this for the love of Sport, not the money. So please just share our message far and wide. And, it’s all free, so please sign up and have a play!