More than a decade ago, an enterprising Vancouverite capitalized on Canada’s robust recreational hockey market.
Jon Marus casually launched BeerStreak.com in 2012 in a friendly bid to help local teams track how many beers each player drank and whether they had paid for them or not.
Canadian hockey fervour eventually took hold—the platform gained legitimate popularity and soon, even youth teams were requesting the service.
Unfortunately for Marus, the “BeerStreak” branding wasn’t especially appropriate, prompting a rethink.
In a wise marketing move that marked a new era for his startup, Marus unveiled BenchApp: a comprehensive sports team management app that is today used by more than 400,000 players and athletes worldwide.
“10 years later, we’ve got over half a million players in the system, with about 200,000 unique users per month,” reflected Marus to Techcouver recently.
His company runs a platform similar to that of Colorado-born TeamSnap, which was acquired by Waud Capital Partners in 2021 and last year raised more than $5 million.
In contrast, BenchApp is bootstrapped, according to Marus. Another notable difference is that BenchApp has always operated with a lean team.
“We’re able to do what the bigger competitors are building with a tiny team of only four of us,” the entrepreneur observes.
BenchApp currently supports a dozen sports, and Marus says there are plans to add more this year. It’s a consistent continuation of the approach he’s taken with his company from the beginning.
“I kept adding features, and it kept growing organically,” he says. “People really love to share a tool that makes their lives easier.”
A combination of “passionate hockey players” and “seasoned developers”—all four of them—built and now continue to advance the BenchApp platform in 2023, through updates with new features as requested by users.
“We needed a solution,” BenchApp states simply on its website. “So we built one.”
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