Two Ottawa founders are hoping their new app scores big when the FIFA World Cup kicks off next week. Siblings Olivia and Tony Chen grew up watching and playing soccer and the sport became a source of many of their childhood memories.\u00a0 But with 10 years between them, life took them in different directions as [\u2026]<\/p>\n
Two Ottawa founders are hoping their new app scores big when the FIFA World Cup kicks off next week.<\/p>\n
Siblings Olivia and Tony Chen grew up watching and playing soccer and the sport became a source of many of their childhood memories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But with 10 years between them, life took them in different directions as Tony completed a computer science degree at McGill University and went to work for tech companies in Vancouver and San Francisco, while Olivia continued her education.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In November, the Chen siblings found themselves reunited at their parents\u2019 Barrhaven home as Olivia took a gap year before starting college and Tony was on a work break. With the FIFA World Cup approaching, they were excited about the upcoming matches, but noticed that there was not a centralized hub to discuss games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to produce a platform that would be at the intersection of tech and sports, but particularly tech and soccer. It\u2019s always been at the back of my mind,\u201d Olivia told OBJ this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realized that there\u2019s not really a good centralized space to remember these memories. Soccer fans are scattered all around the internet to discuss soccer. Some are on Twitter (X), others on Reddit. So that\u2019s why we got the idea to build something like Letterboxd or Goodreads. Cinephiles have a centralized hub where they can remember the movies they\u2019ve watched and the emotions they experienced and likewise for book-lovers with Goodreads,\u201d Olivia explained.<\/p>\n
So, in March, the pair launched Bookd, a soccer-focused social media platform that allows users to leave reviews on soccer matches going back 20 years, enter discussions during live games and create lists of their favourite moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fans can also upload photos and videos of games they\u2019ve attended, which Tony said may encourage community-building within the app.<\/p>\n
There are approximately 100,000 games in the app\u2019s catalogue, from the sport\u2019s biggest leagues and teams to Olympic teams to the newly formed Northern Super League.<\/p>\n
In a classic tech founder story, the Chen siblings built Bookd in their parents\u2019 basement, where Tony showed his sister the ins and outs of software development. Looking to fill the gap they had identified, they started conducting market research at the beginning of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reached out to different communities in the soccer space. We tried to hear their opinions and feedback to learn what kinds of problems to work on and help them solve them,\u201d Tony said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As they conducted their research, they identified that their core audience would be passionate soccer fans, but they also wanted to capture the more casual fans whose interest in soccer may be piqued by the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe World Cup is just around the corner and it being in Canada makes it feel so real,\u201d Olivia said.<\/p>\n
Identifying the tournament as the chance for their big break, the Chen siblings made sure the app would be ready for soccer fans eager to share in all of the highs and lows. To seal the deal, Tony added that he and his sister will be travelling to different cities across Canada and the U.S. over the course of the tournament to maximize their in-person marketing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marketing and access to capital have been two of their biggest challenges in building the app, Olivia said. They looked into joining incubator and accelerator programs to remedy the problem, but have not had any luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at some accelerator programs, because there was one for high school and college students \u2026 but (it) was looking for pre-idea founders and I already had a good idea of what I wanted to build. There was also this funding opportunity for Ottawa business owners, but their cohort was closed for this summer. But we\u2019re definitely going to be looking at them in the future,\u201d Olivia explained.<\/p>\n
Still, in the few months since the launch in March, Tony said Bookd is already seeing good metrics for success, with about 6,000 users having downloaded the app and 25,000 reviews.<\/p>\n
The app currently doesn\u2019t generate revenue, Tony said, but as it grows, Bookd may add a subscription model and advertising, as well as reaching out to investors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re focused on just getting as many users as we can,\u201d Tony said. \u201cWe\u2019re a free-to-use app and I think we want to keep it that way as long as we can. We don\u2019t want to take away any of the currently free-to-use features. A subscription might provide additional premium features, maybe an ad-free experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soccer is a community-driven sport, Tony added, and they wouldn\u2019t want to discourage fans from sharing in the community of the app by charging to be a part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Banking on big wins \u2013 on the field and with the app \u2013 during the World Cup, Tony said the growth plan includes forming partnerships with local teams, growing its catalogue of leagues and teams and increasing the number of users.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely want to support more leagues, because there\u2019s already so much demand for it. Right now, we\u2019re getting a lot of engagement from some of the bigger leagues, but we really want to push and expand the high-engagement activity to smaller leagues,\u201d Tony added.<\/p>\n
As soccer continues to explode locally, he said they would love to partner with Atl\u00e9tico Ottawa and Ottawa Rapid FC to grow their audience. \u201cThose teams might also be interested in getting the thoughts and metrics our business provides.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Ottawa founders are hoping their new app scores big when the FIFA World Cup kicks off next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-713039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}