Coach’s challenge sparks Agile Sports; Raikes School provides tools and experience

A challenge in 2006 from then University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Cornhuskers Head Football Coach Bill Callahan sparked the development of Agile Sports, now a growing startup in Lincoln’s Haymarket.  Callahan wanted to improve how videos of play action are used in training. He also wanted a safer, easier way to get videos to players and coaches than distributing DVDs or copying files on coaches’ laptops.

Callahan presented the challenge in 2006 to David Graff, a student at the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at UNL working in the Husker’s media relations and sports information department.

When Graff and two other Raikes School students, John Wirtz and Brian Kaiser, showed Callahan a web-based prototype a month before spring football practice started, Callahan said he wanted it for that season.

“We couldn’t deliver on that, but that’s kind of when we woke up to ‘There’s definitely something here that could be a legitimate business,’” Graff said.

Like the founders of Allied Strategy, also Raikes School graduates, Agile Sports founders say factors including the Raikes School’s Design Studio projects and the way the school enables relationship-building played into the success of their startup.

Wirtz said the Raikes School’s Design Studio, where students get real-life software development and management experience, built leadership and communication skills that help graduates in any business setting, including entrepreneurship.

“It was a pretty incredible experience to get at age 22 or age 23, when you are managing two teams of six people, working on projects for IBM and Microsoft,” Wirtz said.

In addition, Wirtz and Graff both said time living, working and studying together at the Raikes School made starting a company together easier.

“You build up such a familiarity working with your classmates that it made the transition to the three of us starting a company a lot easier for us,” Graff said. “I mean, we had been working together for five years. We understood how one another worked. We understood what each other’s strengths and weaknesses were,” he said.

And, Allied Strategy had set a path Agile Sports could follow and build on.

Allied Strategy’s investor contributed funds to the Design Studio project for Agile Sports’ Virtual Playbook because the investor wanted to encourage Raikes School students’ entrepreneurship, said Colby Thomson, Allied Strategy’s chief executive officer.

In addition, when Graff, Wirtz, and Kaiser pooled funds for an office and to hire an intern, Agile Sports moved into the same office building where Allied Strategy was housed.

That space resulted not only in the collaborative startup atmosphere that became Turbine Flats, but also the kind of stories you tell your grandkids. The building’s tenants were hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

“Really, the breaking point was when Brian was writing code in his gloves and complaining about how tough it was to type,” Wirtz said.

While the two companies no longer share a building, their executives still meet to talk about business.

In 2006 and 2007, Graff, Agile Sports’ chief executive officer, Wirtz, chief operating officer, and Kaiser, chief technology officer, worked with UNL football coaches and staff to build out the product.

Agile Sports followed Allied Strategy’s lead winning business plan competitions as a source for funds.  Agile Sports’ list of wins includes:

• - Semifinalist, 2007 Global Moot Corp Competition; $2,000
• - Winner, second annual Nebraska Business Plan Competition (predecessor to Invest Nebraska’s East 2 West Nebraska Venture Competition) winner; $25, 000
• - Grand prize, Venture Challenge 2007 in San Diego, California; $15,000 cash and $15,000 in consulting services
• - First place, graduate division, Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship-hosted New Ventures World Competition; $15,000
• - First runner-up, Big 12 New Venture Championship; $3,000
• - First place, graduate division, eighth annual UNL Venture Plan Championship; $1,000

“So in total we won more than $60,000 in cash that allowed us to continue to bootstrap and the three of us to eat ramen, to pay our interns, and to slowly increase that intern staff,” Wirtz said.

In early 2007, Agile Sports hired its first full-time employee, now their Hudl product manager. And, they began pursuing a first round of investment funding.

Wirtz said Agile Sports signed the UNL football program as its first paying client before the funding round closed.

“We were really proud of the fact that our first beta customer was also a paying customer,” Wirtz said.

The Raikes School’s namesake, Jeff Raikes, became one of the company’s investors along with an acquaintance of his and Nebraskan angel investors. Raikes is chief executive officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, formerly a division president for Microsoft, and a Nebraska native.

“(Jeff Raikes) is not only our lead investor but also just a huge mentor for us from the beginning,” Wirtz said.

The New York Jets were the first professional team to sign up for Agile Sports’ Hudl Pro product, which works with teams’ existing high-end video systems.

In the spring of 2008, Agile Sports began adapting the Hudl Pro system so high schools could use it with only a laptop and camera.

“Our engineering team did an amazing job, and by the end of July, we had an end-to-end video capture all the way through to online video analysis system rolled out to about 11 pilot partners,” Wirtz said.

Agile Sports designed Hudl for any sport and priced it so small programs can afford it. More than 1300 programs, mostly football and basketball teams, but also a bowling and an ultimate Frisbee team, use Hudl today.

The company recently completed a second round of funding. This year, Agile Sports achieved profitability and expects seven figures in revenue, Graff said.

And, as a Lincoln Journal Star article reported, recent deals mean that Hudl Pro clients now include seven of the Bowl Championship Series conference teams. A total of 13 programs, including three professional, now use Hudl Pro.

Agile Sports has 18 full-time employees and three interns. More than 60 percent of the full-time employees were Raikes School students.

The company has not only retained Nebraskans for employment but even brought one back from Austin, Texas. However, Wirtz and Graff both said young people leaving the state for a few years is okay, and more than okay if they bring back valuable experience.

“I think one of the key success factors we want to be looking at is how many are coming back within four to five years,” Wirtz said.

Thomson of Allied Strategy said he hopes other Raikes School students see entrepreneurship as feasible.

“I think it’s sort of inherent that kids in college have dreams and ambitions and ideas,” Thomson said. “I think the thing that it takes is making them feel it’s practical,” he said.

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