Building in Early-Stage Sports Tech

Humans have been enjoying sports for multiple millennia. That said, the technology of sports has been evolving at a breakneck pace for most of the twenty-first century. Sports tech has grown in popularity because it further enhances the experience of playing and watching sports, whether through training tools, broadcast improvements, or data analytics. With everything moving faster than ever, securing early-stage funding is a crucial milestone for founders looking to bring innovative solutions to the sports technology market.

Whether you're developing performance analytics software, wearables, fan engagement platforms, or other sports technology innovations, having a strong Minimum Viable Product (MVP) can significantly improve your chances of attracting angel, pre-seed, or seed-stage investors. The key to that success is building enough to demonstrate the value of the product without over committing to anything that can’t continue to evolve as the needs of the product further come into focus. In this post, we'll walk you through the key steps to getting your SportsTech MVP off the ground, ensuring it’s compelling enough to secure early-stage investment.

Define Your Problem and Target Audience

Investors are drawn to startups that solve real and pressing problems. In order to do so, you’ll need to clearly articulate the specific pain point your product addresses and identify your primary users—athletes, teams, coaches, leagues, or fans. By conducting interviews and market research to validate your assumptions and refine your value proposition, you’ll be able to hone your focus in that area. In the earliest stages, staying lean and solving problems through non-technical facades that “fake it until you make it” can be extremely valuable to help focus the efforts without building too much.

Focus on Core Functionality

Your MVP does not need to be a fully built-out product; instead, it should showcase the core functionality that provides immediate value. For example:

• If you’re building an AI-powered scouting tool, prioritize player data collection and analysis.

• If it’s a fan engagement app, focus on interactive features that boost user retention.

Avoid feature creep as investors want to see a focused product that solves a specific problem efficiently. Instead of letting additional features in, delivering on time and quality output for the functionality that was promised is a much more valuable early milestone. This will ensure you build a reputation with your stakeholders that you can deliver as promised, and it will make the team feel the best about their work with some early wins.

Leverage No-Code or Low-Code Tools for a Quick Launch

Speed is critical in early-stage development. By utilizing no-code or low-code platforms to quickly prototype, you can test your idea without heavy upfront development costs. Especially with the expansion of Generative AI, there are many ways to deliver early prototypes with minimal technical depth. The newly coined term “vibe coding”, where instead of writing code by hand, you can interact with an AI agent or tool to generate it on your behalf can expedite the process.

If you go this route, however, you need to be honest with yourself and your team as to the long-term plan for when you reach success. At some point no-code or low-code tools can and will hit their capacity. While it’s easy to go from prototype to production, the long-term sustainability of that production environment depends on the ability for the tooling to scale at the same rates as your product demands. It is important to understand these limitations early to know how long you can stay in a low-code or no-code environment, or when you may need to transition to a more robust solution. When you reach that point you’ll have a number of potential options:

1. Replace the original implementation with a more traditional system build

2. Augment existing functionality with traditional system components

3. Work around existing limitations by reshaping or rescoping the product

While the third option is enticing, it may eventually prove unfruitful. The first option is also tempting, but can be a difficult task, especially if you have to maintain the original solution while building out the new implementation and then figure out how to cut over to the more robust implementation. Ideally, if possible, there’s a way to build new functionality using the more robust approach, and continually slice off parts of the original implementation to bring them up to the desired functionality over time. If the early implementation is well-designed and supported through tooling like automated tests, it will be easier to fit new functionality to existing interfaces and replace the original functionality over time.

Test and Iterate Rapidly

Once your MVP is live, gather user feedback aggressively. Track key engagement metrics and refine your product based on real user behavior. Investors are keen on founders who take an iterative approach and demonstrate traction through continuous improvement. This step is essential to understand how to evolve the implementation. By building the ability to deliver quality on time, that “muscle memory” evolves and it becomes much more comfortable to deliver frequently and avoid any false negatives from releasing a product without the necessary quality to evaluate it accurately.

Build Early Traction and Metrics

Traction is a key signal for investors. Even if you’re pre-revenue, showcase:

• Active users and engagement rates

• Pilot partnerships with sports teams, leagues, or influencers

• Testimonials from early adopters

Demonstrating early traction, even on a small scale, proves that there’s demand for your solution. Building a “beta tester” group early can provide essential early feedback. Especially when your product is direct-to-consumer, having users in different locations and geographies can help identify issues that are impossible to test internally with a small team. Ensuring the feedback loop is clear and ensuring these beta users are being heard builds credibility and trust to absorb any potential issues or setbacks as the product evolves and grows.

Develop a Clear Go-to-Market Strategy

Investors want to know how you plan to acquire users and grow. Define your acquisition channels, whether it’s partnerships with teams and leagues, social media, influencer marketing, or B2B sales. Having a realistic roadmap for scaling will make your pitch more compelling. To do so, you’ll need a technical solution that supports that strategy, and being prepared for increased load and demand is essential. While it is important to not over-optimize for scaling that never happens, part of understanding how to go-to-market is to be able to understand the technical challenges your product will face as more users, and different kinds of users, start to use your product.

Craft a Persuasive Pitch with a Strong Narrative

When raising funds, your storytelling matters as much as your product. Your pitch should clearly communicate:

• The problem and market opportunity

• Why your solution is unique

• Early traction and validation

• A roadmap for future growth and monetization

Early-stage investors back founders as much as they back products. Show your passion, expertise, and ability to execute. This pitch needs to be based in reality and backed with data as much as possible. While it’s not always reasonable to be able to predict the future, and past results are not always exact indicators of what’s to come, by showing that you have ability to use those measurements to tell that story is essential.

Build Relationships with Investors Early

Start engaging with angel investors, accelerators, and sports tech-focused VCs even before you officially start fundraising. Networking, attending industry events, and getting warm introductions can set the stage for a successful raise when the time is right. The Sports Business Leaders community is bustling with folks from all areas of the sports technology and business space who can provide valuable insights, connections, and feedback. Stay tuned for our regular events coming to more cities soon, and we encourage you to join our Slack community to stay connected in between those in-person events!

Conclusion

Building a sports tech MVP that attracts early-stage investment requires strategic focus, rapid iteration, and early traction. By solving a real problem, launching quickly, and demonstrating market demand, you’ll position yourself as a promising investment opportunity.

If you’re an early-stage SportsTech founder, what challenges are you facing in getting your MVP off the ground? Drop your thoughts in the comments or reach out—we’d love to hear from you!