VolleyNet - Subfinder
Year 1 (2025-26)
by Khang Nguyen
An app for sports teams to find sub players and players to find teams. You can swipe to match like Tinder, chat before giving your number away and then send meetup location over when comfortable
About This Idea
Teams have dropouts all the time, and people sometimes just want to play a sport for the night spontaneously, what if there's an app where people can find and match that meet both side's desire?
If you're a player, imagine putting in your highlights and basic stats, then hop on queue so team can send you invite, you then swipe on them (like Tinder) if you like them, then you'd be able to message the team without giving away your phone number, if they like you enough they'll send you an invite with instructions on how to show up.
If you're a team, imagine putting in your highlights and game details, then hop on queue whenever you need sub, then you swipe on compatible queued up players, chat with them and then send out meetup instructions when you're comfortable.
This will be launched for volleyball first, then all sports.
We'll focus on finding sub, but then eventually with enough people on the platform, you can find leagues/tournaments/courts to rent as players.
And as the organizations that host those, you'll have a management software where you can manage your "product". Imagine if a tournament host can easily track who all paid and who didn't, and your league being viewable to a large pool of players/teams because they've been on here for the social part of the app also.
So far, I've had interest from all major sports like basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, etc.
The product is all designed up and is currently being made, people can expect the first launch to be the end of this semester.
Where Did This Idea Spark at WMU?
I play in WMU's Men's Volleyball Club and is a practice player for the WMU's Women Volleyball. Through the people I meet at WMU, I get to play in pick ups games in front of the Heights (dorm), substitute for intramural teams, substitute for league teams at Courthouse, etc. and the idea came up because I saw that:
1. team constantly need subs
2. players want to play but sometimes just short term commitment
3. people only know who they know, but sub require skill/time/location/position compatibility in team sport which is best solved through a uber + tinder like mobile app.
I've studied computer science through WMU and use dating apps/uber/online gaming apps while I'm enrolled so I have the vision and skill to make the product as well as design it well.
Impact in Kalamazoo
Literally every adult in kalamazoo who play volleyball (and eventually every sport). Some specific examples are:
1. A person who just traveled to Kalamazoo and immediately find thing to do.
2. A person who struggle to meet other finally get to make friends because of sports.
3. An athlete in a sport wanting to try out another sport
4. There's so many other scenarios...
How Investment Helps
With funding, we now unlock the necessary money for digital marketing as well as in-person marketing by showing up to big tournaments increase the volume of players on the app. We will also be able to pay legal fees as well as get the quality of the app to be higher with investment form Kalamazoo.
What I'll Do With the Money
- 40% Digital Marketing: Sponsoring influencial tiktokers and youtubers to give our product a shoutout, making our own tiktok and youtube videos, ads creation and publishing fees on multiple platforms
- 30% In-person Marketing: Travel fees to go to densely populated tournament, hosting a table with activity with a prize, infographic for venues to hand out to players.
- 30% Software Cost: UI/UX design, Database, API costs distributed from beta to multiple milestone launches.
About the Founder
I'm Khang, I've played volleyball from highschool to college club level. I've coach my old high school and help with the WMU's team practice for some semester. I play a decent amount as a sub for leagues/tournaments and is connected to multiple organizers and venue hosts in Michigan. I've talked to a some social media influencers in Volleyball and have a referral path to get in touch with a lot more, I think I have the connection to make enough people get on the app for it to be fun to use.