Community & MediaComing to The Faceoff

Sporting Founders

A room full of people building in sports.

Alex Laird

Founder

Founder: Alex Laird
Members: 150 in 43 countries, by the community's own count
Inside: Players, Prospects and Coaches; a Youth Sports group of its own
Model: Free, curated, admitted by cohort
Website: sportingfounders.com

What it is

A private community for founders building in sport, free to join and vetted member by member. Alex Laird started it after a year of building his own company in the sports industry, on the idea that founders facing sport's different buyers, longer sales cycles and gatekeepers, from leagues to federations to broadcasters, deserve a room of people who've lived it. Members come in two groups, Players already building a company in sport and Prospects still shaping an idea, with experienced operators on hand as Coaches. Membership brings warm introductions to founders, investors and operators, a weekly newsletter and a partner network, and inside there's a members-wide WhatsApp group with smaller groups by sector, Youth Sports among them. The site puts it at 150 members in 43 countries, and its first cohort is in. Getting in starts with one short interest form, and it's curated, so not everyone gets a place. Applications open by cohort; between cohorts, the form puts you on the waitlist and the newsletter, and you're first to hear when the next one opens.

Why it earns the pick

If you're building something for youth sports, whether an app, a facility, a league or a product, the hard part is rarely the product. It's the buyer: the club board, the state association, the league office and a sales cycle that runs longer than a season. Sporting Founders puts you in a room with people working the same problems, it has a Youth Sports group of its own, and it costs you one short form.

Free to join — every member is vetted