Online Sports and Apps

Sanzar Adnan Alam grew up in a business family and always aspired to do something of his own. He completed a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and a Master’s in Cyber Security and worked as a mobile app developer up until he decided to focus on a sports app startup.

Sanzar had developed a sports app that had failed in the past, but that didn’t stop him. He believed that was all due to having the wrong timing. Sanzar had played in fantasy sports leagues since high school and he was “hooked from day one.” So, he wanted to develop a fantasy sports app, but he had to find the perfect timing. “Waiting for the perfect time to launch, I started planning and developing a local fantasy sports platform… but decided against it and rather just publish an android predictive quiz app focusing on the Soccer World Cup… to test the market. We did no marketing and had around a thousand users. We took it as a small win.” From there, he built a development team, and they launched a free fantasy sports app. “With the user feedback and experience gained,” they then launched Team Plan, a fantasy sports platform with paid contests.

Sanzar attributes the growth of their app to being a sports fan himself. “Being a sports fanatic and avid fantasy sports player myself helped me a lot to understand the needs of our current users along with ways to attract them into our platform.” Sanzar’s advice to those who want to follow in his footsteps is to “take the plunge and persist. Anything is possible if you persevere!”

Read more about Sanzar’s story here

Read about a sports fan who wanted to be able to see all the relevant information about his team in one place, and it led to his own software development company for sports apps:

Mark Allan was a Manchester United fan, but he failed to find an app that “brought [the team information] all together and made me feel properly in touch with my own club.” So, he decided to “learn the development ropes” by building an app for himself. Friends started asking him for it, so he put it in the Windows Phone Store and “it snowballed from there.” It quickly scaled up from a handful of users to 200,000 hits an hour. He now has a software development company that is “well on its way to developing a Windows Phone app for nearly every single professional club in Britain.”

Mark’s app is differentiated because it’s built by a fan for the fans. “The point is that they’re built from a fans’ point of view and provide something of value even when clubs have an official app of their own… I’m sure you could develop a sports app without being a fan, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea. For example, I could write apps for American football teams, but since I don’t follow the sport I wouldn’t have a proper feel for what the fans were after and probably wouldn’t have the dedication needed to curate and maintain the data. It would end up as just another cookie-cutter data feed app.”

Read more about Mark’s story here