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Problem
No affordable video software for youth athletics and extracurriculars
Every year, over 48M youth and high school sports athletes and 15M youth and high school extracurricular participants spend countless hours participating in one of their sport or extracurricular of choice—all creating video content and most without an organized place to engage with said content.
Parents, often unsuccessfully, scour every corner of the internet from YouTube to ancient email inboxes to find the single game-changing play or performance their kid achieved last year. Athletes spend countless hours sifting through footage and apps in order to create a “good enough” highlight to send to a recruiter. Coaches spend time and energy trying to muster up the funds to afford expensive and convoluted team video platforms. Performing arts participants navigate the obstacle of asking their directors to pull the footage of their lead solo performance. Leagues and schools spend huge portions of their, often meager, extracurricular budgets on complicated video solutions that cost not only too much money, but also too much time due to their complexity.
No video solution that satisfies the needs of all athletes, extracurricular members, coaches, fans, and parents at both an affordable price point, and an accessible user experience has existed until Varsity Hype.
Solution
Leveling the playing field
At Varsity Hype, we know that not all sports and extracurriculars are created equal and each one has different video and technology needs. This is why we created a robust and affordable cloud-based solution that empowers all users to create, communicate, share and analyze their video content in diverse and new ways.
Varsity Hype was built to address the pain points of the over 62M individuals and their families that participate in youth or high school athletics and extracurriculars each year.
Varsity Hype is focused on delivering a platform for the other 95% of sports and extracurriculars that most platforms completely disregard.
Product
Challenging the status quo in sports/performing & visual art video
We built our product with the mindset that the perfect sports and performing/visual arts video and analytics platform should be uncomplicated, accessible and affordable. Varsity Hype prioritizes delivering a solution to every activity a student might participate in at every level without sacrificing functionality or costing a stadium full of money. Period.
The Varsity Hype Ecosystem
Traction
~10k total users to date
In 2020, Varsity Hype was able to launch it’s new platform in mid-September and achieve revenues of $14,127 through the end of 2020. Our financial projections for the new and improved version of our product estimate revenues of $378,000 in 2021 and profitability from a monthly basis at the end of 2022. (year 2)
We launched our platform in September of 2020 and through our first 8 months of having a live tech platform we have:
Customers
Customers love Varsity Hype
Business model
Using SaaS strategic partnerships to challenge the status quo
Varsity Hype’s core business model will generate revenue primarily through its software as a service model that will provide monthly and yearly recurring revenue. Our core offerings will include, but are not limited to, individual subscriptions, team/group subscriptions, league subscriptions, and school subscriptions.
Advertising and Sponsorship Partners
We also monetize our platform by partnering with strategic companies who add value to our demographic. We have multiple ways in which these brands and companies can engage our audience. These brands pay to be an advertiser or sponsor and act through Varsity Hype’s unique tech interface. Our unique technology interface allows our advertisers and sponsors to effectively launch an advertising campaign by picking the geo-target and demographic that they would like to market to. As is with every aspect of our business, we hold accessibility as a core tenant, and this advertising/sponsoring platform is designed such that users don’t need to use Varsity Hype sales representatives.
Market
The booming market of youth sports and activities
The Varsity Hype platform has the ability to reach multiple geographical markets across the world. We have strategically chosen to stay inside the U.S. for our initial launch, focusing our energy specifically on Texas.
Houston as a Launchpad
As shown, the large Texan youth sports/extracurricular market was attractive as a launching pad for our growth. Given our strong Texan foundation, and the formidable size of the rest of the market, we are excited to use seed money to expand nationally, and have already taken steps to do so.
Targeting Forgotten Markets
We are targeting both youth sports organizations, leagues and teams, as well as youth extracurricular organizations such as dance, theater and cheer. Unlike our competitors, we are taking full advantage of the market. We focus on not only sports/extracurriculars within public and private schools, but also any group/team outside of schools. Our ultimate goal is to implement a video software in the youth sports/extracurriculars space that is activity agnostic and becomes ubiquitous with the youth sports/extracurriculars sector.
Competition
We pride ourselves on being differentiated, accessible and scalable.
We differentiate ourselves in three major ways, through our target market, our business model, and our tech.
MARKET
Although we target the youth sports market, like all of our competitors, we not only focus on the main youth sports (such as football, basketball, baseball and volleyball), but we provide our platform to all youth extracurriculars such as choir, band and dance. Specific to the extracurricular market, excluding sports, we are unopposed. Join us in providing not only the young athletes, but also the artists, the performers and the creative youth with a platform to showcase their talents and proudest moments.
BUSINESS
Firstly, our subscription model differentiates us from our competitors, and not only in a way that benefits us. Our competitors cater to those directly involved in the administration and performance of the sports. We offer not only these administrators and athletes a platform, but give this access to anyone such as recruiters, family members, fans, etc… This accessibility is made possible through the usability of our platform. Varsity Hype is easy to learn and easy to use while providing the necessary tools for every user from league managers to family members.
Secondly, our ad/sponsorship interface allows partners to strategically target our customers who fit their unique demographic without having to go through a sales representative. Our competitors do not have similar capabilities.
TECH
Our partnership with Microsoft Azure allowed us to create a proprietary way to deliver all content to our clients across Texas, and beyond, at a cheaper rate than traditionally achieved in the cloud video sector.
Our AI/Machine learning architecture allows us to scale towards what we call the “Cognification of Varsity Hype.” This AI-driven initiative will allow us to use our data to create automated solutions to hundreds of sports-related issues. For example, virtual coaching and game plan development exclusively using artificial intelligence.
Finally, we have created a developer partner network that will allow other sports developers to create apps that can connect directly to and leverage our core technology stack. This will provide our customers with unique and specific features that extend beyond our platform’s core capabilities – not to mention, this will provide us with another source of revenue.
Vision and strategy
Creating value through community
Our founding team is well equipped with knowledge about the intersection of youth sports and technology. Varsity Hype is composed of coaches, techies, athletes, youth arts parents, and sport enthusiasts looking to create value in a sector that is meaningful to us because we are a part of it. Our success in Houston motivates our excitement to launch Varsity Hype nationally!
The Future
We want to offer a product that does not exclude any sports, performing/visual arts, extracurriculars or activities even if its fan base is not defined by a catalyzed addressable market. As a group, we are fed up with products that are only tailored to the top 5% of youth activities. Our goal is to create a platform that gives a home to not only the highest achieving football teams in the country but also provides the debate teams, the choirs, etc... with everything they need to succeed. All sports. All arts. All extracurriculars. All activities. If you participate in it, we want to be a part of it. If you can get recruited for it, we want to be a part of it. If you can coach it or teach it, we want to be a part of it. We want to provide our video platform for every youth from the Little Leagues in Hawaii to the show choirs in Japan, preaching accessibility and usability for all.
Our tech is redefining sports/arts technology and will continue to do so with a couple of items we are laying the cornerstone for as we garner more of the market. The large and growing sports video content and mass adoption of our application will open the doors to interesting solutions in the AI/machine learning space. Our machine learning processes, specifically in supervised, unsupervised and reinforced learning, will enable us to develop AI-driven solutions:
Funding
Varsity Hype is supported by two main investors, and various key private investors that contribute both capital and industry expertise.
VYPE Media, the "ESPN of high school sports" offers industry specific resources to Varsity Hype, from media to market penetration.
Work America Capital is a key investor in Varsity Hype, taking an active role in defining our future.
Of course, several strategic, private investors play a crucial role in our success at all stages of our journey and we are so grateful for these paramount Houston individuals. Their industry expertise ranges from construction to private wealth.
Founders
