SportSurfing: hospitality for athletes

Luciano Laudonia and Alejo Cabezas, students of the Official Master in Sport Management at the Johan Cruyff Institute, came up with the idea of an exclusive hospitality platform for athletes, called SportSurfing, which ended up being one of the winning projects of the IndesUp start-up competition

More than 40,000 people started in the London Marathon last year, of which 5,448 were foreigners and 58% were running that distance for the first time in their lives. In 2017, the Berlin Marathon, one of the fastest in the world due to its flat route, registered 22,838 runners from 127 different countries out of a total of 58,000 participants. More than 12,000 runners from outside France ran down the Champs Elysées last year wearing a Paris Marathon bib number. A total of 107 countries were represented in the Boston Marathon last April. The Machu Picchu Marathon has the honor of being one of the most intimate—only 10 runners completed the toughest race on the planet of this distance, which was won by a Frenchman, Philippe Richet. Every year thousands of people flee the big cities, even to places like Niagara Falls, to enjoy the landscape of a marathon.

These are just a few examples of the power of attraction of a sport—running—which mobilizes thousands of people around the world and are a confirmation that tourism has a very interesting market share in the sports industry. This was also what sparked Luciano Laudonia and Alejo Cabezas, students of the Official Master in Sport Management at the Johan Cruyff Institute, to develop their business idea as their final study project and present it at IndesUp!, the start-up competition of Indescat, the Catalan sports industry cluster whose objective is to identify and address new business opportunities in the sports world.

Sportsurfing turned out to be one of the three winning projects of the entrepreneurship program of IndesUp, a competition open to the final projects of master’s degrees in sport management at different sport busines centers in Catalonia, including the Johan Cruyff Institute.

Luciano and Alejo presented an exclusive accommodation platform for athletes traveling to compete. Sportsurfing offers them the chance to reduce their travel expenses and connect with other athletes who share their habits and lifestyle. Networking and connecting opportunities in its purest form.

“The project came about as a way to democratize the idea of competing in another country, far from home”, Alejo explains. “Based on our study, the cost of accommodation for athletes is much higher than what they pay to register for a marathon or tournament. As Johan Cruyff’s famous saying goes, ‘Whenever you have the chance to help, you must do it’. That idea is also aligned with our project”. To which Luciano adds another maxim of our founder: “You can’t do anything alone, you have to do it together”.

In this interview, the creators of SportSurfing explain all the details of their start-up and how they plan to get it up and running.

What is SportSurfing?

SportSurfing is a hospitality platform designed 100% for athletes. It is an idea that we developed throughout the year as our final project. The objective of this platform is to help athletes who travel to compete, offering them cheaper accommodation and a connection between athletes.

You are both from outside of Spain. Did the idea arise from your own personal experience of having to look out for yourselves during a period away from home?

Yes, I am from Argentina and Luciano is from Italy. And the project came about as a way to democratize the idea of competing away from home, in another country. I have a friend who practices BMX and, even though he’s federated, it was very difficult for him to travel; for various reasons I always had to find a friend to host him. And Luciano also has a friend who practices judo and for him to travel to compete was a great challenge. So, based on that, we decided to investigate the needs and develop this project.

Is the fact that it is a platform dedicated exclusively to athletes what differentiates it from other companies such as Airbnb or Couchsurfing?

Exactly. Through our platform, the idea is for an athlete to host another athlete. Not only can you travel and stay at the home of another athlete, but you can also connect. We want to create a network through which it will be easier to travel to compete. We did a study and accommodation prices are very expensive—it is more expensive to pay for accommodation than to register for a marathon or a tournament. Our idea is to reduce these accommodation costs to help athletes travel and compete abroad.

When you speak of ‘athletes’ that is a very broad group. Who is your target group?

Initially, we are going to start with the platform in Spain, but the idea is to expand throughout Europe. We are looking for people between 18 and 50 years old because the reality is that today people in this age group continue to travel to compete, mainly in the running world. We are focusing on ‘running’ and ‘extreme sports’. In addition, they can be federated or not, and given our business model, which is going to be based on a website and an app, we are looking for them to be tech-savvy.

How will SportSurfing work?

Through the website, athletes will find a series of blocks, in which each one represents an event. Whoever hosts the athlete chooses what type of athlete they want to host, and the athlete chooses which sporting event they want to participate in. To certify that they are an athlete, they have to provide proof of registration for the race and we will also implement a evaluation system through which the athlete will certify that their host has sporting habits.

What is your value proposal?

You asked us what differentiates us from Airbnb or Couchsurfing. There are two things: one is the networking among athletes and the other is the sport visibility that they will have because in our platform, as we develop it, each athlete will be able to have their own profile and that will not only help them meet other athletes, but it may even help them get a sponsor. If your host is an athlete, they already know the environment: gyms, training centers, nutritionists, physios … when your host is an Airbnb host, you may not have all that network. Here you know you will have it.

Your proposal fits in with Johan’s saying: “You can’t do anything alone; we have to do it together”.

Exactly. You want to travel but from the beginning you know that the cost of accommodation prevents it. But if you form a group and do the networking that we want to encourage, everything will be easier. Another saying of Johan’s is: “Whenever you have the chance to help, you must do it”. That idea is also aligned with our project. Alone we are not going anywhere.

How can being winners of IndesUp SportPitch help you to promote the project?

Indescat is a well-known company that helps many start-ups to develop their ideas. Winning this competition will give us visibility, contacts … We will need investment and that visibility will give us more possibilities to find it.

What is the next step?

They have offered us a few weeks of mentoring, sessions in which the experts will try to find some key things to be able to develop the project and to give us tools that we do not have today. An expert with much more experience than us can tell us what needs to be improved and what needs to be eliminated.

How much time do you think you will need to launch the project onto the market?

We know that a start-up is a very big challenge and this one has a high technological element, because we are going to create a website and an application. So, the first step is to look for the third member of the project team, the person who can take on these technological challenges.