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 CEO’s of new ventures to tell their story.
Company: SidelineSwap
CEO: Brendan Candon
Headquarters: New York/Boston
1. What’s your elevator pitch? 140 character limit.
SidelineSwap is a peer-to-peer marketplace that makes it easy to buy, sell, and trade sporting goods. Think a simpler version of eBay that’s tailor made for the sports community.
2. Problem & Solution
Every athlete, or sports family, has a pile of gear somewhere in their house. It’s stuff you probably didn’t even think to sell — eBay is a nightmare to use and Craigslist is awkward. Meanwhile, second-hand sporting goods stores like Play-it-again Sports are in rapid decline, largely because they failed to shift online.
We created SidelineSwap to make it super easy for athletes and fans to buy, sell, and trade sports gear online. You can find great deals on new and used gear, as well as team-issued NCAA and professional gear. It’s free to list gear in your SidelineSwap locker. When you sell, SidelineSwap will provide a prepaid shipping label so all you need to do is put it in a box and send it on it’s way.
We also recently started working with university athletic departments to help them liquidate extra equipment at the end of each season by selling to alumni and fans. It’s an exciting new opportunity that we plan to expand significantly over the next 12 months.
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
We’re building a social marketplace for the 90 million active Americans and 190 million college sports fans who want better access to sports gear at affordable prices.
Each year, Americans buy $60 billion of sporting goods. By our estimate, there’s more than $10 billion of sports gear that’s still in good condition but is unused or underused. Our goal is to leverage the power of the sharing economy to make sports gear more affordable, especially in high-cost sports like lacrosse, hockey, skiing, golfing, tennis, and baseball.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
We charge a 12% fee on each sale. We also allow trading, which is surprisingly popular with our younger users (middle school and high school athletes). On trades we charge a $5 Swap Security fee. In the future we’ll charge for premium seller services and allow advertising.
5. Management Team – with titles
I started the company with one of my best friends, Anthony Piazza. We played a number of sports growing up, and we both ended up at Division 1 lacrosse programs. Anthony worked at Yelp after college and now handles Partnerships for us. About a year ago, Conor McDonough (who worked at Skillshare) and Nick Gantsoudes (one of Anthony’s teammates at Bucknell) joined the founding team – they handle Growth and Community, respectively.
6. What do you want the audience to know about your venture?
We’re building more than a marketplace, we’re building a community of athletes and fans. Create a locker on SidelineSwap.com to join our community of over 50,000 users. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook to keep tabs on the latest and greatest on SidelineSwap.
Bonus Question: If you were stuck on a deserted island with any three athletes, who would they be and why?
We’re a scrappy bunch at SidelineSwap and we’d need like-minded individuals to maintain a healthy rapport when the going gets tough. I’m going with NFL defensive end Jared Allen, a noted outdoorsman. He’s affable and brawny so he can provide dinner, protection, and jokes– our resident Bear Grylls, but cooler. For all of his many valuable traits, though, Jared Allen is going to hoard nutrients. With that in mind, we’ll have to balance it out with resident #2: 5’2 90 pound Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas. Gabby is known worldwide for her ability to run, jump, and scale objects. When Jared comes back empty-handed, we’re going to need fruits and plants from hard to reach places to sustain us. Lastly, I’m going with Michael Phelps. Phelps will be sent to swim for help on day 1. Hopefully he finds help before JA and GD turn on me