Considering the widespread expansion of the sports industry, catering to the need of talented people in the business becomes inevitably essential. Recruiting sports management enthusiasts the traditional way, is laden with barriers when it comes to recruitment outreach for an organization and as for the candidates, discovery of the right employer.
To precisely tackle this shortcoming, a radical vision is under construction; A vision of building a social recruitment platform for the sport business industry. An idea called SportIn Global, which was the brainchild of Ole Martin Vebenstad, the founder and CEO.
In an interview with Insights Success, Mr. Vebenstad shares with us, his opinions over the current industry scenario and how SportIn Global aims to evidently revolutionize the way how recruitment and sports socializing is done.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
- With regards to your organization’s profound industry experience, how do you think the sports-tech market has evolved and what can be expected in the forthcoming years?
The sport industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, considering the increasing amount of revenue, resources and business opportunities. This has led to a massive push and opened several doors for startups within the field of sports-tech.
In the forthcoming years, we expect a further increase in business solutions, continuous growth of the Esport market, and changes in approaching fan behavior, as it is one of the areas that will always develop. From our industry expertise, we forecast a smarter and more efficient way of recruiting and more specialized education within the sport industry.
- What benefits are your services directed towards?
We at SportIn Global are on a relentless pursuit of providing the best possible jobs, the most valuable information and have the largest network on a single platform within the world of sports.
Through our upcoming platform, our users will have a digital meeting place where they can build authentic relationships, gain inside information and find relevant opportunities at a global scale. By fulfilling a missing link in the market between the academic and professional industry, we are helping:
- Students get a career in sports.
- Universities get new students.
- Sport organizations find the best people.
- Considering the necessity of adapting to the volatile technological disruptions and/or development of cutting-edge solutions, how does your company sustain its competency in the Sports-tech market?
As a startup, there will always be a level of innovation and excitement that will bring something new and different to the industry. From our side, this meant solving the industry challenges in the best possible way. Throughout our journey, we spoke with several key leaders in their field, both from the sport and tech industry. During these conversations, we had the pleasure of coming across an AI-expert; which is how we started looking into how Artificial Intelligence could make our solution even better.
There are several key elements for making AI valuable, however not every solution will work for every business. This is where market research and the right development team, comes into play. From a user standpoint, it is more valuable to understand how this innovation would benefit them, rather than the technology itself, which is why our primary focus is on the value proposition we are solving for our partners and users.
- What obstacles and/or limitation does your organization face while growing, sustaining or retaining its clientele?
With a small team, there will always be challenges with the amount of time accessible and a stricter list of priorities. Every customer is important and has different needs. At the stage we are today, we are focused on finding the right partners to be a part of our journey and together create great value that will benefit our current and future partners.
The partners we choose come down to their values, level of innovation and their commitment of being part of a journey together. We are extremely proud and blessed to have several key partners at this early stage and we are positive they will get the value for their contribution.
As any startup, the major challenges in the early stage will be time and money. Our focus is to make sure we make the best possible decisions, test and verify key playmakers, and utilizing our resources in the most efficient way. Our job is to make sure we are taking the necessary steps to limit these challenges. Along the way, we will make mistakes, but we will do our best to make sure the mistakes we do are less costly; as we can’t afford to make many costly mistakes.
- What does the future hold for your organization in terms of internal as well as holistic development?
It is hard, as a startup, to give any clear guidelines on what the future might hold for us. What we can do, is to make the most out of the progress we are making, in order to reach that sustainable business, we are all grasping towards.
What drives us every day is the progress we are making, and the new partnerships along the way. It means that we are on the right path towards changing the world of recruiting in sports and making an impact.
Internally, we are creating a company culture that we can be proud of and that fits into the sport industry. Externally, we are making an impact by solving industry problems unlike any other current solution in the market. For us, we have a goal of changing the world of recruitment in sports, and we will do our part to make sure it happens.
About the Leader
A solid education background through a BA and an MA in Sport Management from Molde University College and University of San Francisco, gave Mr. Vebenstad a concrete academic foundation and understanding of the industry, while fine-tuning his professional career through relevant experience in sports.
From Norway, he has gained hands-on experience through being a part of the Norwegian football Association and has also worked closely with major events in the football industry. During his trip overseas, he emphasized his journey towards a business development angle, leading his path to work for sports startups and major sport events, including Super Bowl 50 and Copa America.
He believes that the organization’s journey separates itself from many startups. By singlehandedly building a team and a strong board of advisors from scratch, Mr. Vebenstad proved through a relentless dedication and commitment, that one can achieve anything they put their mind and effort into. “Every day we are getting closer on this journey, and that’s what keeps pushing us forward and will be a key stone for our future success,” Mr. Vebenstad expresses.
