Virgin StartUp of the week: My Sport Scout
Our Virgin StartUp of the week is My Sport Scout, a Birmingham-based company helping football clubs and individuals assess football performance in order to improve skills, or to highlight individual players - hopefully giving talented youngsters a route into professional football, and letting teams at every level be more competitive.
We choose one Virgin StartUp company to be featured on Virginstartup.org each week. We ask our startups of the week to deliver the ultimate elevator pitch. What would they say if they had one minute in a lift with Sir Richard Branson? Please answer the questions below, keeping each answer to five sentences max.
Ground to floor 1 – Explain what your business does
We provide a football assessment service to amateur and youth football clubs to help raise their standards.
Using various techniques and tools we obtain various results measuring an aspiring footballer's technique, agility, power, speed and more. A report will then be provided to the club with all the results which they can then either use as a development tool or as resource to promote top performers. Using our social networking accounts, the top performers will have the ability to share results and videos to our partnered & linked organisations. It’s been named the TAPS assessment.
Floor 1 to 2 - Where are you based?
Birmingham.
Floor 2 to 3 – What’s the business model?
Revenue will be earned charging clubs based on the number of assessments and the number of attendees, and by offering the service to individuals at open events held in leisure centres and parks. We'll also be using a 'finder's fee' model (links to be established with professional clubs and scouts, where we would be paid a fee for referring individuals to them who they then sign up contracts). There's also the potential for merchandising, and we'd like to also offer this service to schools and colleges also.
Floor 3 to 4 – Who are your competitors?
There is no other organisation providing this specific service. A number of companies do exist that provide expensive software and equipment that clubs can purchase and use as an assessment tool, but in my experience the amateur clubs I will be targeting either cannot afford it or don’t have the time.
Floor 4 to 5 – What’s your USP?
Providing validated data to scouts and professional clubs & also offer a fairer opportunity for potential stars to be highlighted.
Floor 5 to 6 – Where did the idea come from?
- The many conversations with footballers of various ages, football coaches and scouts.
- When doing my research there was no amateur football scouting websites that provided validated data based on the registered users ability.
- The cost of some of the equipment and software is too high for football clubs at grassroots level.
- As everyone is aware there is a massive problem with the number of British footballers making into the Premier league with on average only 1% of British kids getting signed up on professional contracts.
Floor 6 to 7 – How much funding did you receive from Virgin StartUp?
£2000.
Floor 7 to 8 – How are you going to use it to grow your business?
The funding has been used to develop the website and purchase various equipment. I’ve also just been awarded a £5000 grant from Innovateuk.com to develop the new software to use at my assessments to log results and produce reports via a tablet/laptop.
Floor 8 to 9 – Who’s your Virgin StartUp Mentor?
Bernadette Hennelly, the head of marketing at Virgin Balloon Flights.
Floor 9 to 10 – What’s your workspace like?
My work-space at the moment is my lounge as I’m working from home. I’ve got an office space lined up and am waiting to launch before I move into there.
Floor 10 to 11 – where will your business be in 12 month’s time?
To have become a national service provider with a couple of franchises, and to have established links with professional clubs and scouting organisations. We'd also love to be looking into foreign markets.
Connect with My Sport Scout on Twitter and Facebook.
