Elevator Pitch is a regular feature on Lifehacker where we profile startups and new companies and pick their brains for entrepreneurial advice. This week, we’re talking with William Strange, founder and CEO of Sports Performance Tracking.
In 128 words or less, explain your business idea.
Sports Performance Tracking (SPT) is the creator of a GPS product – GameTracka – for sub-elite teams and athletes. It’s unlike anything you can buy off-the-shelf at the moment.
SPT uses advanced technology and trademark software to analyse how hard sporting players and teams are working through training or game day. The software allows coaches and the players unparalleled information on how far and fast their players are running. It also provides insight into how hard the players are working; speed zones and heatmaps help coaches to work out where team players are working their hardest.
Essentially, SPT gives teams and coaches the ability to be able to turn the subjective into objective. It allows sporting decisions to be made from a highly informed starting point.
What strategies are you using to grow and finance your idea?
Two capital raises from external investors have helped with SPT’s growth so far. We’ve raised a total capital of $2.5million over the course of two years in business.
SPT also generates revenue through sales, which allows us to be active in the market while using the capital raised to further develop sales pipelines and focus on R&D.
What’s the biggest challenge facing your business?
Human resourcing! The business has grown from one employee – me, the CEO – and it’s now reaching ten employees. Such rapid growth naturally causes managerial issues. Working out how to treat people and teams is becoming increasingly difficult.
Finding new talent fast can also be a challenge, sometimes more so than logistical staffing problems, like shifting individual business hours or dealing with individual staff issues.
How do you differentiate your business from your competitors?
One of our major differences is our ability to provide simple information. With new IoT and data technologies, a lot of companies spend copious amounts of time and money on making their product extremely sophisticated, but most of the time, customers just want the simple answers. SPT focuses a lot of energy on being simple and easy to use. We know that if we can provide enough information without our customers expending excessive effort or time to analyse it, we can find a place in the market. That and our cheap product are the key differentiators from market competitors.
What one phone, tablet or PC application could you not live without?
My Calendar. I love a neat and tidy calendar and adding alerts and reminders on my daily tasks. It integrations with my Pixel phone and tells me when to leave for meetings, when to call people and what I am doing next. Totally sorts out my life for me!
What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?
The best business advice I have every received is, “you only know what you know and you don’t know what you don’t know”.
When you are running your own business, you get caught up doing a lot of things your own way. When you step back, you can realise that other people have better or different ways to do things. But if you don’t listen to them, you will never know what could be. Understanding your knowledge is limited ensures that you seek out information to make better and more educated decisions.
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