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| Daniele Galiffa |
When
DANIELE GALIFFA created GoalShouter in ’13, his plan was to provide a platform for non-professional football clubs in Italy to share their match content with supporters. “A lot of football clubs, like 99 percent, are not broadcasting their games on TV,” said Galiffa, who is the app’s co-founder and CEO. A web professional with more than 10 years of experience working in the sport technology industry, Galiffa decided to create a mobile app that would give smaller clubs the opportunity to monetize their audience. The free app, which has had more than 60,000 downloads, is used by press officers and communications managers of non-professional clubs throughout Italy to aggregate and distribute match information in real time to a club's website and social media outlets. Galiffa spoke with SBD Global about generating revenue, competition and his future plans for GoalShouter.
On generating revenue …
Daniele Galiffa: We have found three options to generate revenue. At the moment we tested just two of them. The first one is selling yearly subscriptions to football clubs. It’s a really cheap one. The second one is selling a wide label version of the platform to media and professional clubs. We are with some of the biggest clubs in Italy and with some of the biggest sports media in Italy. The third one, something that we are going to test in October of this year, is about generating revenues by advertising inside the mobile app.
On the app’s benefits for clubs …
Galiffa: Since the broadcaster is the club that is actually playing the game, the data is quite accurate. At the same time, we also provide data quality checks on our platforms so that all data collected are written in the right form. This led to having engaged fans following the games every week. And of course, it reduces the workload on the people who are already manually providing some updates about the games but are wasting a lot of time inserting these comments as a free text on Facebook. We help them save time, make actual data and engage supporters.
On usage …
Galiffa: What is really significant is not just the downloading of the app, but the usage of the app at this point. From the second of September when we launched a new version, we saw an increase in terms of time spent in the app which is something like four times the previous app. People spend around 10 minutes in the app, on average.
On in-app advertising …
Galiffa: We believe, because of our demographic, that the main brands that would value engaging with our users are the ones that are already investing in the sport industry. Maybe the ones that want to get attention in the crowded and expensive world of soccer, using another level language. So anyone involved in automotive, creative and finance, in the beverage and food industry and any brands willing to talk with the 25-35 age range and interested in sport and innovation and technology. … So Mastercard, Visa, Sony, Hyundai, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and so on.
On competitors …
Galiffa: Unfortunately there are a lot of competitors out there. Most of them are in the U.S., luckily. Most of them are not focusing yet on soccer, so it’s O.K. All of them are different business models. We don’t have direct competitors, but we have competition from every stage of the business or every type of feature we try to provide to the customers.
On the future of GoalShouter …
Galiffa: Our next step, in terms of business, is to improve the way we can grow organically without spending money on marketing. At the moment, we didn’t spend any money on marketing. All we have now is just word of mouth and product-related activities. So, first of all we need to increase the organic growth. Second, we need to validate the advertising business model inside the app and we want to provide more engaging content like live videos and short videos in the app. So those will be the main goals we have to achieve before November.
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