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: MyLocalPitch.com
CEO: Jamie Foale
Headquarters: London
1. What is your elevator pitch?
A search and booking portal for people who want to play sport.
MyLocalPitch enables the search of over 1000 venues and leagues in London and Dublin, allowing any user to search for free and book at no extra cost.
The goal for MLP is to increase sports participation by making it easier for people to find their local venue, simplify the booking process and maximise the revenue of sports venues as a result.
There are two key parts to the MLP service. A B2B Provider of booking software and marketing services for pitch and league owners. The other part being a B2C Consumer platform to increase users’ ability to find, book and play sport.
2. Problem & Solution
Searching and booking sports venues used to be slow and fragmented.
The aggregation and booking technology exists and is widely used in the hotel, house-rental, airline and restaurant industries. Yet there is extremely limited use of this technology in the grassroots sports industry.
This is despite sports players being the most likely demographic to use technology to search and book activities online. Sports venues often lack the knowledge or resources to implement technology and market their facilities.
MyLocalPitch launched in January 2014 to enable people to search and book sports venues online. Grassroots sports participation has increased thanks to the streamlined process and ease of managing sports venues.
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
1,441 football pitches in London
42% of UK adults play sport
2.5m people playing sports once a week
15.5m Play sport in England at least once a week
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
MLP generates revenue from providing software and the generating of bookings for its clients (sports venues & league owners). We now work with 115 venues in London and Dublin, taking bookings for over 450 sports facilities.
5. Management Team – with titles
Co-Founder: Jamie Founder
Co-Founder: Sandford Loudon
Head of Business Development: Fred Culazzo
Chief Technology Officer: Mark Hibbard
Head of Marketing: Marc Agate
Communications Manager: Will Chrimes
Head of Operations: Guillaume Hammersley
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
Our absolute focus is on the product and positioning it to scale across the rest of the UK and beyond. With extensive user feedback from both venues and sports players, and a crack team of developers working towards some very exciting releases, we’ve got a full-throttle year ahead where we hope to solve the problems faced by millions of sports players once and for all. People can look forward to our new iOS and Android App, being able to join any league and have the hassle of booking sport taken out of their lives.
It’s been an unbelievable experience getting to this point but there’s so much further to go. What makes me most confident is that the team we’ve built is the best I could have hoped for to execute this roadmap.
MyLocalPitch has been shortlisted for Best Technology to Promote Participation The 2016 Sports Tech Awards.
Bonus Questions:
If you were stuck on a desert island with any three athletes, who would they be and why?
Usain Bolt; because he would always be optimistic.
Freddy Flintoff; so that we could play endless beach cricket. Not for his boating skills.
Jess Ennis-Hill; she’s a born survivor and would be the most talented and focused out of anyone – I think we’d need that with the other two!
If you could go to any sporting event, what would it be and why?
The Rio Olympics. The Olympics is perhaps more a product of grassroots development than any other major event, and one where you see the climax of an athlete’s absolute dedication to sport. Mixed with Brazilian passion, and away from the cloud of FIFA – although admittedly not without its own controversies – it promises to be as good as the last Olympics.
