I created http:///www.teamgametime.com to meet my needs and my teammates’ needs. I chose simple functionality (see all of my games for all my teams and respond to any game at anytime) and design because I found that the majority of users ask for stats and messageboards and few consistently use them. The yield was not there for the work and db space.

As for league adoption being the way to go, that’s a toss up. I chose teams only because I would rather get one team using it than waiting for a league to decide it will work for all of their teams.

Will someone get rich off this? Who knows. It seems like the best tools offer a solid service and don’t charge or get a lot of funding.

Either way, there are plenty of tools that do this, but it appears not a lot of folks know about them.

Wish all of you the best,
Randy Ramirez

In response to Drama 2.0, there really is no comparison between MySpace and TeamSnap. The business models are completely different. They have different goals, functions and verticals. I think you are missing that.

As a customer looking for a service like this, there are a few things I am going to look at. Ease-of-use, features, and price. I think this is what will help TeamSnap stand out.

As for the Web 2.0 look helping the site? Of course it will. If this was not the case, there would be no style guides/tools out there for designers to use. Web 2.0 is not just about the technology, but design and interface also play an important role.

If anybody out there would like to try Sportsvite, it would be my pleasure to help you get started and answer any of your questions. Feel free to send me a note at brian (at) sportsvite.com.

Here are a few links..
My profile — http://sportsvi...ayer/littyhoops
My public team profile — http://www.spor...am/Softballteam
My baseball card widget — http://sportsvi...gets/playercard

Enjoy,
Brian

I would look at this much like you’d look at a 37signals product: its mission is not necessarily to grab 80% of the market and hope to make it all back in advertising. It’s mission is provide a useful service *worth paying for* to a substantial amount of people. As soon as you cover your costs, you have a business. I can easily imagine a world where 5000 are paying $5 a month for this (conservative on both numbers). That’s $25,000 a month… not bad for a few employees, a few servers, and some bandwidth.

Ian: I think that this is a little bit naive. As we’ve seen in the social networking space, for instance, lots of startups have launched slick social networking platforms that put MySpace to shame, but for all the new “competition”, MySpace is still going strong and few of these slick newcomers have gained any notable traction. A nice design alone is typically never enough to compel a user to switch from one product to another, especially once the user’s investment in the current product exceeds a certain threshold (i.e. the team’s data is already imported into one system, all the parents are used to one system, the team’s service is paid through the end of the year, etc.).

“There might be a good deal of competition in this space, but there’s no one who is executing well.”

hash: how do you define “execution”? Active.com counts Little League, NFL Youth Football, Dixie Baseball and Major League Soccer Camps as clients and they report nearly 3 million registered teams on eTeamz. If they have a poor product, they at least can sell it very well.

Active.com also has a very diverse business and is an Inc. 500 and Fast 500 company. Backers include ESPN, IAC and Lance Armstrong (so they have backing from synergetic entities within the industry they’re serving, not just top-tier VCs). Given the information they provide on their corporate site, I’d be surprised if they weren’t profitable and would guess that they’re likely headed towards some sort of liquidity event in the future.

All that said, I’m not personally impressed with their products, especially eTeamz, but that doesn’t matter. They’ve successfully executed the development of market-leading company, and if I had any idea of starting an online sports management service and making it more than a decent small business, I’d be concerned about Active.com’s dominance (and all the other companies who are trying to be the next Active.com).

Bottom line: developing a nice, pretty product is only one part of the execution equation and it’s not the most important part. It seems that a lot of startups in Web 2.0 focus on building a nice product (or in many cases nice features/functionality) and don’t pay any attention to how these things will actually get “sold” to the target market. There are a substantial number of inferior products that are more successful than their superior competitors simply because the people behind them have a better strategy, more knowledge/skill, the right relationships or a combination of these things. In the case of a company like Sparkplug, which apparently developed this as a side project, I think the best that could be hoped for is this to grow into a small business or potentially to get bought out by a company that is already dedicated to this market. The latter is probably less likely given the number of similar products out there, since it indicates that the technology itself is a commodity; the challenge seems to be sales.

As a side note, it’s disappointing that the quality of reporting at TechCrunch has slipped to the point where a new startup in about as saturated a market as can be found is said to be in a “substantial niche with few if any competitors.” Just as an investor is likely to call BS when a business plan says “we have no competition,” if you’ve found a substantial niche, chances are somebody is already out there at least *attempting* to serve it. If Web 2.0 is getting so dull that TechCrunch has no choice but to profile companies that aren’t really doing anything innovative or don’t have any traction, at least make sure statements about the market they serve are fairly accurate.

The design is refreshingly clean and not cluttered with stuff I don’t want and would not use. I am a developer and have been looking for a solution to this problem for years to no avail.

I had not heard of some of the products mentioned above and, after looking at each, none addresses the functions I need. TeamSnap apparently does. The “mile wide, inch deep” comment had me thinking that maybe I wouldn’t drown in a river of software bloat.

With sports management its not really your standard ‘web market’, the approach companies are taking really come down to how you can fit the needs of the state , and conferences.

There might be a good deal of competition in this space, but there’s no one who is executing well – that’s where TeamSnap can win.

I dig snapteam’s ui… seems really clean compared with active.com’s, which I agree with most, is truly horrible… hope snap shows active what happens when neglect your product

This site is a syndicated and brandable solution so it will get wider distribution over smaller, less capable competitors. Plus, it’s very easy to use.