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Then he became the socceer team’s manager, “for whatever bad reason.” “If you’ve ever done that,” Triplett said, “it’s a total nightmare.” So he created a Web-based team management progranm that has sincebecome Portland-based , a team sportxs management system used by 100,00p0 people worldwide. Last month, TeamSnap’es five-member staff added one crucialmember — its firsy CEO, Boulder, Colo.-based Dave DuPont to help grow the company. “We’vee never done any marketing. Our backgrounds are in psychology, desigb and Web application development. That can only take you so Triplett said.
“It got to the poing where we needed somebody who can take you to the next DuPont was one of six founding officers and seniort vice president for marketingof Boulder-based LeftHand Networks, a data storagw software company that was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $360 millionb in October. Before that he was CEO of a network storage company that was backee bySilicon Valley-based Sequoiz Capital, a well-known venturee capital firm. DuPont has infuse d a series of fresh ideas in his firstf month onthe job. Since its initial beta launcj inMay 2007, TeamSnap has offered free onlin software applications for scheduling and team communications. A $6.
956 per month option adds featurees to help managers track team incorporate photos and organize who bringss refreshments to thenext game. A $9.95 per month upgrad adds further features, including customized logos andteam colors, weather forecasts and statistics management. So far, 15,000 individuall teams have signed up, ranging from youth baseball to adulyt recreational teams to New Zealand teams playing a gamecalleds ringettes. The private company declined to discloswits revenue, but DuPont said of the 5,00o teams in-season at a given time, about 42 percent pay for one of the upgraded plans. DuPont is embarking on a plan to market the program to leagues insteads ofindividual teams.
He also hopes to add retaipl services, working with third-party vendors offering participatingg teams everything from team photos to personalized jerseys through their teamWeb “There’s a wide range of sports-related thingsw that it makes sense to offer,” he said. More critically, he’as trying to raise $1 million in venturs capital, money that will be used to boosrthe company’s Internet marketing and potentially add more “Raising capital is a specialized task in itseld and we’ve never had to raise moneyu like that,” Triplett said. As novel as the idea may TeamSnap is one of dozens of playerx in an increasinglyactive space.
As many as 100 differentt companies offer a comparable service and the marke grows steadily year after saidChris Hall, general manager of consumer products for San Diego-base Active Network, which is considered TeamSnap’s largest competitor. Activee Network, which generates about $174 million a year across variousz divisions offering technology solutions forparticipatory sports, has more than 500,0000 teams, leagues or other athletic organization using its Eteamz service, Hall