Fund me, KC: MatchOn serves up virtual tennis club

Startland News is continuing its segment to highlight area entrepreneurs’ efforts to accelerate their businesses. This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs — like MatchOn founder Garrett Gates — to share their stories to gain a little help from their supporters. Back MatchOn’s Indiegogo campaign here.

Garrett Gates

Who are you?

Garrett Gates, founder and CEO of MatchOn.

What does MatchOn do?

We make arranging a tennis match or getting a sub easy, while helping you to centralize and grow your tennis network. MatchOn is largely about expanding on some of the things I’ve seen work here in Kansas City and begin to automate them for all tennis players around the world.

How’s it work?

MatchOn is a mobile tennis club, which is changing the traditional manual tennis processes of brick-and-mortar clubs, and finding and arranging games. We enable players to easily invite others to matches. The app also automatically keeps track of the people it’s previously matched players with, which helps centralize tennis contacts in one place.

If you need a sub, the app will help you find a new player at a similar skill level to play with. MatchOn even works on the go, because your virtual tennis club is not confined to just one club location. The app can help you arrange a match and get a sub no matter where you are in the US.

How much do you hope to raise?

$38,000

What do you plan to use the funds for?

Right now we have designed and specced out the application. But the app is not yet downloadable in the iOS or Android stores. We are using the funds to bring our prototype application to life. These funds will allow us to provide a much-needed service to all tennis players.

How are you differentiating your campaign or bringing attention to it?

Both my parents are entrepreneurs in the Kansas City tennis space, so I grew up around the sport.

My dad, Kirkland Gates, was the founder of the Tencap Rating System, which is a golf-like handicap for tennis with 150,000 rated players internationally. My mom, Kathy Gates, created the largest tennis league in Kansas City that uses that rating system.

I plan to leverage our family’s tennis connections to help get the word out and ensure a successful campaign.

Is there anything quirky about your campaign?

We think we’ve got a pretty cool campaign video!

Any advice for launching a crowdfunding campaign?

The number one thing I can say is do as much promoting as you can before and during the campaign. The first few days are critical to the campaigns success. No one will want to donate to a campaign that has been around for 10 days and hasn’t raised any money. It will take you at least one to two months to get ready to launch your crowdfunding campaign.

If you or your startup is running a crowdfunding campaign, let us know by contacting news@startlandnews.com.