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: ClubApp
Founders: Greg Coleman & Barry Nestor
Headquarters: Dublin & London
1. What is your elevator pitch?
ClubApp is a platform that provides Clubs of all sizes, live match updates, team sheets, statistics and much more. Real-time match updates are instantly shared on the Club’s match pages on ClubApp and output to their official social media channels (Twitter, Facebook). Unlike the other channels – statistics will never be lost in cluttered timelines, ClubApp collects and automatically stores key data (goals, shots, cards etc.) in a specific match timeline for each team.
We want to ensure clubs from grassroots level to non-league to top academies to leading men
& women’s teams that ClubApp can benefit their social media coverage, administration, accessibility and audience. Fans can view official match commentary and timelines in real time provided by the Clubs verified admins.
2. Problem & Solution
Many smaller clubs in the UK are essentially run by dedicated volunteers who make sure match day goes ahead. From the ticketing, providing beverages, taking charge of social media updates or handwriting the team sheets. This all done by just a handful of people. While not every fan can attend the game. The size of the club doesn’t matter, it will always have someone wanting to know the results.
Our aim at ClubApp is to provide a simple to use, but professional platform where clubs can share team sheets and live updates because the smaller clubs tend to receive little to no media coverage! Using ClubApp allows this to be done quickly and easily and gathers key player and match stats from the updates themselves,
By giving our Club Admin users a way to push content to Facebook and Twitter while populating a verified match feed on ClubApp, we are helping make life easier for the Club Admins, so they don’t have to duplicate posts to different channels. Users can also view their club’s Instagram, YouTube and website from within ClubApp. To take it a step further – we’ve just added a Match Reports feature which users can share to Facebook and Twitter.
Our features include personalised team sheets, live updates, player and staff profiles, club news and more. All updates can be shared on the club’s social media accounts with just one-click. And player statistics are automatically updated with each post, and visible on the player profile pages for easy access throughout the season and throughout the player’s career from underage right through to adult and possibly semi-pro or pro-level.
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
The short answer: Anyone who works for a Club, and anyone who follows a Club
The long answer: Our Target market is the Clubs themselves but once a Club is using ClubApp, then our audience becomes the fans, family, friends and anyone who supports or has any link to any club, be it local, county level, or national level. For example, that could be player’s best friend or parents, a manager’s family or a passionate fan. Anyone who follows their club can follow them on ClubApp for free.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
ClubApp is FREE to download from iOS App Store and Google Play store for fans. ClubApp is also available FREE to Clubs (for team sheets & fixtures/final score posting), Our Premium product comes with a full suite of features starts at £9 per month for a Club.
5. Management Team – with titles
We’ve got a small but passionate and dedicated team! Boasting backgrounds in design, business, coaching, sports broadcasting, marketing and all working hard to achieve ClubApp’s goals!
Founders: Greg Coleman (Design & Development), Barry Nestor (Sales & Support).
Tech: Pratheesh Kumar (CTO) – Pratheesh makes it work!
Design: Ciara Coleman – Ciara keeps everything looking good!
Support: John McGann – John helps people get set up and using ClubApp!
PR/Marketing: Hanisa North – Hanisa tells the world how awesome it is!
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
We are expanding our sports to include rugby, golf, gaa, and hockey. As we grow, users can download ClubApp for free across the globe from Europe to America to Australasia! We’ve got several exciting discussions happening with governing bodies, former professional athletes, coaches and well-known personalities. We are making progress on a daily basis and it’s only just the beginning.
Bonus Questions: If you were to invite any CEO to dinner who would it be and why?
I would invite Tim Cook CEO of Apple Inc. The reason for having dinner with Mr. Cook, he also serves on the board of Nike and the National Football Federation, these industries, Sport & Tech are exactly where ClubApp is immersed, I’m sure he could get us featured on the App store too that would instantly get us over 1 million downloads 
If you could go to any sporting event, what would it be and why?
Past Event ?! 
If I could go back to Turkey, and the Ataturk Stadium for that night in Istanbul that would be amazing. The reason!? Because I gave my brother my ticket that night as we didn’t have enough (another reason I didn’t get there was; myself and my now wife were in Turkey for our Wedding that week and she feared if they won I would be partying for a week and miss the wedding!) I remember the emotion of total and utter disbelief and sadness at half time when he called from inside the stadium and the complete opposite of elation but yet still an element of disbelief after the penalties and the historic comeback. That is one of the iconic stories of present day football (for Liverpool fans we still call that present day ok! :-P) that I would have loved to experience on that rollercoaster evening in 2005.