(*INFLCR is a Proud Partner of Front Office Sports.)
Standing out in today’s collegiate athletic landscape can be tough. With competition for consumer attention at an all-time high, finding creative ways to get more eyeballs on your content is paramount.
To do that, over the course of the last few years, college programs across the country have been investing in different tech solutions.
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A year old as of last week, one of these solutions is INFLCR. The Birmingham-based SaaS company has been working with programs in conferences such as the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Conference USA, and the Sun Belt.
Getting programs to make the plunge on new tech can be hard, but as DeWayne Peevy, deputy director of athletics for the University of Kentucky, points out, something that adds value for the student-athletes is worth the expenditure.
“You can’t fool today’s generation. You will know quickly if something works or not with our young people. They immediately wanted additional access and content which expanded our thoughts.”
As one of INFLCR’s first clients, Peevy is excited to see what the next few years bring for the company, especially given the fact that the athletic department is using the tool to help educate their student-athletes.
“The teaching elements are the most intriguing to me. Our student-athletes will continue to be engaged with new technology but using the same platforms to educate them on how and when to use social media is invaluable.”
SEE MORE: University of Miami Turns to Tech to Help Student-Athletes Deliver on Social Media
Like any new business, INFLCR has had its growing pains. Jim Cavale, the company’s CEO, pointed to the hardest challenges being making sure the people they had in place were the right ones and that their product fit the market.
After all, to run a successful company, both of those variables need to be working together.
“I had a vision for the product based on what I thought the market needed, but what I think and what my team thinks is never going to be the same as the client,” said Cavale. “That’s why you’ve got to find clients who will pay you to use your product because you’re solving a problem that’s painful enough that already exists.”
Once the product was in use, being able to refine the offering to better suit the needs of their clients became easier, allowing Cavale and his team to bring more value as new features were added.
“Once they use the product, you can gather their feedback, track their usage through subjective data like feedback and surveys, and objective data like the path of their clicks on your product. Once you have that data, you make the product better every quarter, developing a product that fits the market even better.”
The changes were welcomed as the company was able to add 15 clients to their portfolio in one year with a 100 percent renewal rate, a number that Cavale credits to the company being focused on making sure the product was a “must-have product.”
“I think we’ve learned to make that the number-one goal in our office. As a team, we care more about our product being what we call it, ‘a must-have product’, meaning that if our product disappeared tomorrow, our clients would panic because they missed it so much. We care more about that than we care about revenue.”
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As the company heads into year two of operation as one of the five finalists for Stadia Ventures’ Fall 2018 cohort, Cavale is most excited about taking the service beyond just college sports.
“I think esports and high school sports are going to be places where we will grow the quickest. After that, we will turn our attention to pro sports, but our product works best when we get athletes to use it at the beginning of their life cycle of being an athlete.”
(*INFLCR is a Proud Partner of Front Office Sports.)
