Amid the changing dynamics of college athletics recruiting, Richmond-based STAC is offering a unique chance to connect.
STAC is an online recruiting tool that connects high school athletes with college coaches, essentially a “LinkedIn for athletic recruiting," as co-founder and CEO Robert de Wolff described it.
"There's a huge void in today's industry for both sides of the market,” de Wolff told Inno. “For athletes and coaches, there’s a lack of a centralized scouting platform. We bridge those gaps around education, communication and discovery by providing an all-inclusive platform for athletes and coaches."
STAC is free to use for athletes and charges colleges a fee to access the player database. Once an athlete creates a public profile, coaches can search for them based upon sport-specific criteria and location - a functionality de Wolff compared to searching for a home on Zillow - and communicate with players within the platform.
“We virtualized the beginning part of the recruitment process, from discovery to education and communication," he said.
Post launch, STAC plans to implement features to enhance the athlete recruiting experience.
“We want the athlete to really be in control of his or her recruitment process so we're building out the best tool for them and while doing that we build out our database of players,” de Wolff said. “In order for college coaches to want to subscribe to the database there has to be a critical mass of athletes within the platform.”
STAC is the product of a collaboration between co-founders de Wolff, CTO Peter Hanneman and CMO Bryant Drayton. The company raised $595,000 from mostly Richmond-based angel investors prior to launch.
Just this week, STAC officially launched its platform after five months of a heavy social media marketing campaign.
Currently, the STAC team is made up of four full-time employees, including three former college athletes. de Wolff said the plan is to host ten interns this summer, including eight former or current Division I athletes. Additionally, they are currently hiring senior-level frontend and backend engineer positions.
As the company finds its footing in the industry, they intend to target the DMV area. STAC has already established partnerships with top tier athletic associations and governance bodies at the public and private high school level in Virginia. These partnerships, he said, have allowed the company to establish a community presence pre-launch by participating in events, conferences and focus groups.
Before now, the recruiting process often went through third-party recruiting services that charged athletes a fee. This new model, de Wolff said, has no direct competition and is unique in that it is free for verified high school athletes to use.
And given the current university closures and athletics cancellations in light of Covid-19, the app is full of opportunity.
“Recruiting, in general, includes a lot of uncertainty for athletes, especially in times like Covid,” de Wolff said. "The fact that right now, athletes are not able to meet with coaches one-on-one, and sports are done for the year, means athletes and coaches can solely focus on recruitment.
"Since we virtualize that process, it is a huge opportunity. We are looking to capitalize on that as much as possible.”
