Entrepreneurship - Force Your Dream Into Reality

Growing up as a sports fan in Fargo, North Dakota, you have to accept that your state has no major professional sports teams to support. But watching on TV will never be able to capture the excitement of the live sports experience. This is why my dad immediately began taking my family to Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks games when they came to town. I will always think of their stadium as the place where I was introduced to sunflower seeds, trying to catch foul balls, and, of course, the thrill of live pro baseball.

The most exciting moment I had as a young fan, when I was about 9 years old, was when I was selected to go up to the press box and announce the next RedHawks’ player coming up to bat. I had never been so nervous and excited, for a few seconds everyone in the stadium would be listening to me. I felt like I was part of the team and connected with every other fan in attendance. After, when the “real announcer” told me I did a great job and he joked that I may replace him one day, I was certain I had a future career in being an announcer.

I am sure many people can relate to this sort of childhood memory. That event is why I have always loved fan engagement at sporting events. Sports teams put a lot of work into engaging with fans, what better way to create a lifelong fan than to attach your team to a nostalgic and exciting memory? Whether it is having a young kid announce the next batter, being put on the kiss-cam, or having your ticket called to meet the players after the game, fan engagement by sports teams makes the live experience so much deeper than simply watching the game. It is an emotionally involving community event.

It has been years since I have lived in North Dakota. Now, in St. Louis, I am following a different baseball team with a red bird as their mascot. However, my memory of that moment as a kid feeling connected to the team and other fans has clearly influenced my career decisions. I have been working with a small team to develop a mobile app for fan engagement at sporting events, called Homefield. The app allows for fans at live games and fans watching from home to socially interact during games.

My work as an entrepreneur has allowed me to see something come into existence that I personally believe should be a part of the live sports experience. No other career is available where you can take your vision and spend all of your time and effort seeing it become a reality. For all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, the payoff of “making your dreams come true” (actually it should be “forcing your dreams to come true without proper funding or resources, ignoring people who think you’re crazy, and constantly being on the clock”) is worth every minute.

I had one of those big payoffs this past August, when we launched our fan engagement mobile app with, of all teams, the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. I could not have predicted one of my favorite childhood memories foreshadowing my professional career in such an obvious, clichéd, and awesome way. As the business guy for my startup, I reached out to the RedHawks to see if they would give us a shot. As a team open to new ideas and happy to work with one of their fans, they were excited to welcome me back to Fargo and introduce Homefield to the world (well, at least to the 5,000 or so people in attendance that night).

After making the 12 hour drive to Fargo, I sat at the game monitoring activity on the app as I saw my company’s logo being promoted on the video board throughout the game with the announcer asking fans to download the app that lets you “share comments and photos with other fans at the game and the home team.”

In the middle of the game they had their junior announcers come up to the press box and, like when I was a kid, these young fans had their chance to announce the next batter up. I sat in my seat and wondered if this moment would be as precious of a memory for them as it has been for me. The whole experience made me very grateful for the two things that allowed for this to all come full circle: the team I cheered for growing up, inspiring me and giving me the chance to come back and debut my product; and my choice to pursue entrepreneurship so I can “force my dream into becoming reality.”

To share any similar positive experiences about fan engagement or to learn more about Homefield send an email to [email protected] and follow @Homefield_Sport on Twitter. 

This blog was originally posted at https://www.homefield.me/blog/post/4?