As the dad of four in a sporty household, Colin Deering has attended hundreds of his children’s matches over the years.
On many occasions, however, there was no official scoreboard which made keeping up with who was ahead a bit of a guessing game.
“I was also a volunteer coach at my local club and had seen first-hand the challenges of keeping track of match scores and communicating the updates to parents and fans. That’s how the idea for Anyscor, a simple to use scoring app for fans, was born,” Deering says.
“Most other live score platforms are aimed at professional sports. Anyscor caters solely for grassroots amateur sports. What platforms are out there for amateur sports are mainly fan facing apps, so they don’t allow the clubs to record and communicate match updates whereas the Anyscor app does,” Deering adds.
There are two sides to the Anyscor solution: a scoring app which is aimed at the backroom team and a free to use fan app that sends followers live data from their club’s matches.
A designated person from the club inputs match information as the game progresses and records the names of those who scored as well as incidents such as who got a yellow or red card.
“Anyscor is aimed at all types of amateur sports and designed to empower coaches by giving them accurate information about the game while providing fans with the kind of up to date information they want. In addition, it will allow clubs to generate income via sponsorship or advertising on the fan facing app,” Deering says.
“Having been the Dad who wasn’t always at away games but still wanted to keep in touch with the score, I know the live updates will really appeal to parents and fans. It will also help bring fans’ engagement with their clubs to a new level which, in turn, will help clubs to market the resources they have more effectively.”
Deering is no stranger to running his own business, having been self-employed for most of his working life. He comes originally from a sales and marketing background and admits that knowing what lay ahead in terms of the hard graft required to get a start-up out of the blocks had made him pause for thought before he took the plunge and went full-time into Anyscor last year.
“I had been thinking about the idea for a year or more and running it by different people. If I had encountered any real resistance, I think I’d probably have dropped it but the response was overwhelmingly positive. This gave me confidence that the idea had potential and my kids provided the final push by encouraging me to go for it,” he says.
“I’ve experienced both success and failure in my business life, so I am very aware of the harsh realities and of just how important it is to gather a good team around you. We launched in October with the Energia All-Ireland League in amateur rugby and are in discussion with another large sporting body with a view to rolling out the platform with them.
“Anyscor will work for all sports anywhere so we very much see this as a business with global reach.”
Initial investment in Anyscor has been €75,000 which includes funding from an angel investor and backing from Fingal LEO. Deering was also a recent participant in Enterprise Ireland’s New Frontiers programme at TU Tallaght which comes with a small stipend.
“We are now at the point of taking outside investment and are looking for around €500,000 to move things to the next level,” says Deering who adds that the company will make its money through partnerships with sponsors, annual SaaS fees from clubs and taking a small commission on ads/sponsorships on the fan app.
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