It was while holidaying in New York a few years ago that Matt Scully discovered how hard it was to find information about local sporting events and locations.
“We thought ‘how good would it be to have all that information centralised’,” he told StartupSmart.
That thought planted the seed for a website that provides information about sports wherever a traveller is going to, as well as details on merchandise, sports bars and memorabilia.
After two years of development, sportswhereiam.com was created.
“We say ‘you don’t know a city until you’ve seen the sport’,” Scully says.
He says while sports lovers will love the site, they also think it will be attractive to the ordinary traveller.
“People are looking for a more authentic experience when they travel and going to a sporting event is a more authentic way of seeing a city. You’re among locals and not around tourists.”
Scully says whenever he’s travelled he’s sought out local sports, catching ice hockey games during that trip to New York and an American football game in San Francisco.
“I find it a great way of seeing the local culture,” he says.
Scully created sportswhereiam.com with fellow director Adrian Gale, a qualified physiotherapist, and his brother Benn, a teacher.
He says he quit his job two weeks ago working with Nestle as a consultant to work full-time on the site and will spend the next six months travelling in the US and Europe promoting the business after a two week honeymoon.
Quitting corporate work to focus on the start-up wasn’t too big a wrench for Scully, who says he’s spent the last two years managing the transition.
“It’s been really smooth up to this point,” he says.
The team have funded the site themselves so far but realise the next step may be to seek out investment.
