We last covered Streamline Athletes in February. Since then, the world has been hit by a pandemic and we’ve seen all our lives grind to a halt. However, Streamline Athletes has been making admirable strides in their progress, so we’re happy to highlight their company once again.
Streamline Athletes
Streamline Athletes has a clear and admirable goal – to increase the chances of athletes succeeding academically, athletically and personally at their school of choice.
Imagine shopping for a used car by going door to door, without any signs to tell you which cars are for sale or how much they cost – this is what athletes currently have to do if they want to compete at the collegiate level. There are over a thousand college teams and no way for aspiring student-athletes to find their best fit. The problem is also the same for the college teams looking to recruit these athletes.
Streamline Athletes’ solution is a platform that delivers a more efficient recruitment experience by centralizing all of the information on post-secondary athletics programs in North America. The platform includes tools to filter programs based on geographic, athletic, academic, and other important factors. For coaches, Streamline Athletes’ platform saves time and money by only initiating contact with student-athletes who meet their team’s athletic and academic criteria and who have expressed genuine interest in joining their team.
Traction
Streamline Athletes has made great progress in developing their platform and establishing the links and relationships within Canada they need to ensure their success. To date, they have:
- Launched applications for athletes and parents, and are set to release their first collegiate program app before the end of 2020
- Established partnerships with all provincial/territorial track and field governing organizations in Canada
- Secured paid recruiting partnerships with 18 college/university clients
- Expanded their team from two to 20+ employees
- Attracted 4400+ followers on Instagram
- Onboarded 1000+ athlete users
- Listed 1711 collegiate track and field teams (including all three NCAA divisions, Canada’s U SPORTS, and eight other associations), which are now deployed on their platform
One of Streamline Athletes’ collegiate clients has this to say about his experience using the product and service:
Streamline Athletes really understands our program and how we recruit. During the outreach phase, they understand who could truly be a fit, which takes away a ton of steps in the info gathering phase. It takes a recruiting conversation from a cold call to something deeper right off the bat. [They’ve] been able to help us secure some outstanding athletes and I was surprised by how quickly [they] made it happen. After using [the] service for a short period of time, we trust that the value already being provided will only grow.
Matt Morris
Head Men’s & Women’s Track & Field/Cross Country Coach
Colorado State University-Pueblo
The hurdle they face now is accomplishing continued growth in the more complex, dense, and diverse American marketplace. Overcoming this hurdle will require guidance from leaders in the space who have achieved previous success, partnerships with key organizations, successful relationships with early adopters, ruthless commitment, and trust in their market research and unique model for solving the problems they have identified.
Team
Alexandre Pare, Founder & Co-CEO – From 2010-2016, Alex was a middle distance runner competing for the Simon Fraser University varsity track and field and cross-country teams while pursuing his Bachelor of Arts degree and a Business Administration minor. His passion for giving back to his community grew post-collegiately as he pursued his coaching certifications from Athletics Canada and the Coaching Association of Canada, and was a Project Manager for the Fondation Christian Vachon. In 2019, his business partner and himself were awarded the SFU Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection Alumni Founder of the Year award for the founding of Streamline Athletes.
Brett Montrose, Founder & Co-CEO – From 2009-2014, Brett was a sprinter competing for Simon Fraser University’s track and field team while pursuing his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication. He further developed his communication skills through positions as a copywriter, marketing coordinator, and marketing specialist at Teach Away and its sister company Skooli Online Tutoring from 2015-2018. These experiences allowed him to improve his content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, branding, and other business communication skills and competencies while working in a startup environment and reporting directly to the CEO. Brett was awarded the SFU Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection Alumni Founder of the Year award along with Alexandre.
Keir Forster, Co-Founder & Head of Technology – From 2008-2013, Keir was a middle distance runner competing for Simon Fraser University’s track and field and cross country teams (captain in his final year), while pursuing his Bachelor of Arts degree in Health Sciences. He switched his career trajectory in 2016 by pursuing a Diploma in Computer Systems Technology at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He then worked as a software engineer intern at Black Duck Software and as a lab assistant at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Through his education and professional experience, he has developed computer architecture, algorithm analysis and design, object oriented programming and other software development skills.
Sophie Dodd, Head of Operations & Product – From 2014-2019, Sophie was a middle-distance runner for the Simon Fraser University track and field team while pursuing an honours Bachelor of Business Administration Joint Major in Sustainable Business, a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development and the Charles Change Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. From 2018-2019, she was the Chair of Embark Sustainability Society demonstrating her leadership, facilitation and time management skills. In her senior year at Simon Fraser University, she was awarded the Bill DeVries Senior All-Around Athlete of the Year award and was nominated for the 2019 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
Rachael Thompson, Marketing Manager – Rachael has a professional background in digital marketing in the education and recruitment space. She embraces a challenge, understanding that oftentimes success does not come without first enduring some setbacks. As a team member, she balances a creative and analytical mindset when approaching strategy, execution, and leadership.
Maximilian Trummer, Sales Manager – Max has a genuine passion for people, sports and hospitality. He has sales experience in the professional sports and digital marketing industries and was the track & field team captain at his alma mater, the University of British Columbia. To Max, successful selling is about communication and honesty, and most importantly, delivering on what you promise.
Funding
Streamline Athletes has, so far, raised $77,500 through a friends & family round, $50,000 through founder investment, and ~$900,000 in non-dilutive funding since early 2019.
They used that funding to hire staff, develop their products with IP that differentiates them from competitors and provide more value to their customers, and to attract more athletes and increase their conversion rate.
Streamline Athletes is currently in the midst of a second friends and family round of funding, in which they’ve raised $200,000 of their $250,000 goal. They aim to raise a ~$1 million Seed round in 2021 to expand to new sports markets and become the market leader for recruitment in track and field.
Revenue Model
The majority of Streamline Athletes’ revenue comes from programs, not athletes. Their competitors charge athletes CAD$1500-5000 for their services. Streamline Athletes want to provide equality in the recruitment process and limit barriers to accessing recruitment resources.
Currently, their business model has two components.
- Their first market (B2C) consists of prospective student-athletes who want to pursue their individual sport at the post-secondary level and require recruiting support. There are over one million individuals in this market. Currently, the revenue model for athletes is a freemium system, whereby athletes can choose to engage with a free service or a premium service.
- Their second market (B2B) consists of collegiate programs that are financially supported by their institution or the athletic association and require recruiting support. There are over 5,000 programs in this market. As their athlete database grows and as they develop value for these programs, Streamline Athletes are offering introductory products and services in the range of $600-18,000/year. Once this service is validated, it is anticipated that the range of prices for programs will grow to be $1,000-35,000/year. This market will account for the majority of the company’s revenue in the long term.
The expansion strategy is to enter markets with a sport-specific solution, starting with track & field because this is where their team has the most experience and connections. Streamline Athletes intends to be the place for track & field recruiting. Having said that, they have purposefully built the product to adapt to other sports. Instead of servicing multiple sports through the same platform, like most of their competitors, Streamline Athletes will tailor each of their services directly to the needs of each sport. They are actively monitoring 28 individual data-driven sports for potential expansion opportunities and have swimming & diving, golf, tennis, wrestling, and gymnastics in the expansion pipeline.
