Accelerate Your Game: Unlocking Success in SportsTech with Mischa Zverev

1. Rise of Sports Technology
2. Navigating the challenges of the startup world
3. Key takeaways from other experts
4. Innovation in sports performance
5. Fan engagement - the next frontier
6. Investment opportunities in Sports Tech
7. Conclusion

Athletes are now seen teaming up with engineers and founders to bring innovation to their sports. As we delve into their experiences, let’s also have a look at the statistics that showcase the remarkable growth of the sports technology industry.

The global sports-tech market was valued at $15.2 billion in 2022 and it is poised to grow from $18.35 billion in 2023 to $79.43 billion by 2031. 

Sports-tech has become a diverse field comprising many verticals namely athlete development, digital assets, smart stadiums, media and broadcasting, health and fitness, e-sports, and fan engagement. Each of these verticals has the potential to expand significantly in its domain.

A lot of data is being collected on athletes, and that data is analyzed to enhance the user experience for fans watching sports. There is a significant potential to monetize this capability.

However, such growth doesn’t come without challenges.

9 out of 10 startups fail. 30% of those already fail in the first year. Only 1% reaches the €1 million revenue mark.

At the ISPO Brandnew Webinar, Alexander Will, CEO of AR/VR startup IMPROVR, which aims to improve athletes’ performance by enhancing their mental abilities through AR/AR headsets, shares recommendations for entrepreneurs starting up based on some of the biggest challenges they faced.

1. Set a flexible financing model: Alexander recommends making use of all the below three financial pathways simultaneously:

• Generating revenue: To stay in the game, it’s important to generate revenue through channels that are aligned with business strategy from the beginning.
• Grants: There are so many grants – national, and international. Avail them.
• Investors: Always have the funnel for investors full, just like a typical sales funnel. Starting from seed investors to series A and afterward.

2. Reduce unnecessary overhead costs, right from the start: This can be done by using shared services and also by reducing employee costs.

3. Cash flow: At all times, have at least 15-18 months of cash flow. This helps to have a solid and stress-free workflow and that’s why it is important.

We had other experts also share their viewpoints on startup growth and sports tech.

Mischa Zverev, a former Tennis star and now an investor, shares how certain things are common in both sports and startups, e.g. in both sectors winners take all the revenue and that’s 1% of all the people chasing the success.

And that’s why it is important to keep a few things in mind.

1. One needs to build a strong team. A strong team comprises people

• whom you can trust
• whom you can rely on
• And are honest with you.

2. It is important to surround oneself with the smartest people possible. Building a successful company is a long journey. We need to have people around us to get the best insights, and knowledge of how to raise money, how to improve the experience of the users, the go-to-market strategy, and likewise many such things. 

3. In a start-up setting, the usual 9 to 5 work approach doesn’t work. Mischa says, “You work until you are tired!”. 

4. In sports tech, many of them are just doing similar things. However, the one who genuinely cares about improving the experience and life of someone else would emerge as the true winner and can monetize the outcome.

5. Cultural differences exist for real and it has an impact on the adoption tendency of sports-tech – e.g. Americans are way different than Germans. Both speak and live differently. The way they spend their weekdays and weekends is different. Therefore, while pitching it is important to approach them differently. He adds, “Sometimes the product is good, but the person marketing it does a poor job. So, it’s important to get the right person - someone who understands the audience, speaks their language, and knows the right way to get the job done.”

When asked about the future of sports tech, experts also shared their belief about the huge scope of innovation in sports performance.

As compared to the percentage of usage of our strengths, bones, and ligaments, we use a very small percentage of our brain’s capabilities. We don’t fully understand how the brain works. 

Tapping into those potentials is super important and is unexplored. Mischa reflects on the idea of how we can make our brains work better, more efficient, and faster. He encourages entrepreneurs to think of how we can reach a point where we can upgrade the brain in a manner just like we upgrade software and it works better.

There’s a lot of data that is collected these days. But that data alone is not of much use. 

In sports, while striving to improve the athlete’s performance, we need to watch how we structure the data that we provide to the athletes. For eg: if we can bind the laws of physics and mechanics along with the mental stress that a player experiences on the court and bundle the data and give it to the athlete, then that innovation is worth monetizing.

Experts also believe that the next best thing to innovate would be fan engagement.

The way people experience sports is the next biggest innovation and investment opportunity, according to Mischa.

People sitting at home are curious. If we can elevate their experience by leveraging data or by any other means, we move a notch toward making them a confident fan who believes that they are watching something they can trust. With this, we can bring them a holistic experience, and such endeavors can be monetized.

As an investor, Mischa points out two segments he sees as good investment opportunities under sports tech.

1. Something for the professional athletes,
   a. How is it that we can improve their performance using AR/VR or brain-based training?
   b. How do we improve the recovery of athletes from injury?
    
2. Something for the fans: Fan engagement.
   Mischa says, “If I were to invest, I would go to the US and invest in fan experience. Because Americans like to spend money. To them sports is everything. The way they look at sports, and the way they treat athletes is totally different from any other nation. That would be the biggest trend to me.”

Besides, entrepreneurs who are looking for investors in sports technology must look out for people who can relate to the problem they are solving. 

For eg: If you are solving for tennis, go to the tennis club and talk to them. Such people are the best people who would be ready to invest because people like to relate.