Mpruv Sports adds pickleball, tennis to its on-demand edtech platform, strengthens C-suite roster

Just six months after teeing off, Mpruv Sports — and its first offering, Mpruv Golf — are seeing momentum on the course and the court, shared founder and CEO Mark Lukenbill.

The peer-to-peer, on-demand sports education marketplace is expanding to include tennis and pickleball, pivoting to a progressive web app, adding corporate partnerships, and growing to 14 employees, he explained.

“It’s been a crazy ride,” he added.

Lukenbill officially launched Mpruv Golf — an application for booking coaches, caddies and tee times — in February with the goal of increasing access to the sport, he noted.

“How do we allow everybody anywhere the same access and resources to information, to education?” he said. “We want anybody — at any time — to feel comfortable to go learn or to get better or to get involved in a game or an event or anything that interests them. So we’re trying to bridge that gap between a lot of the exclusive stigmas that exist in golf and tennis — and other sports we’ll get into eventually — and allow anybody who has the desire to do it a spot to learn.”

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After the response to its beta launch, Lukenbill shared, Mpruv Sports — which received Digital Sandbox KC funding in the spring — has decided to shift to a progressive web app to make scheduling and sign ups easier.

“We ended up with like 500 users and about 26 coaches here in the Kansas City area,” he explained. “And a lot of the feedback that we got was that there were a lot of issues with the clunkiness of the app and scheduling features that weren’t as intuitive as they could be.”

Mpruv is also working to add offerings for corporate companies, Lukenbill said, to lean into the mental and physical health side of benefits and perks. The startup has brought on Jody Niemann, a former LPGA player who has worked in human resources for more than 20 years in Salt Lake City, to help craft the packages that would include options like lesson credits, team-building opportunities, on-site lessons, and employee pickleball tournaments. The team is working on building its sales strategy now and hope to start selling the benefits packages toward the end of the year.

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“I think a lot of companies are trying to find something that can get their employees engaged, create retention, create this fun atmosphere, but a lot of it doesn’t get taken advantage of,” Lukenbill said. “I think a lot of companies have a big, big push around physical and mental wellness.”

Mark Lukenbill, Mpruv Sports, talks with fellow startup community members during Startland News’ Startup Crawl at PNC Plaza; photo by Tommy Felts, Startland News

In addition to working on corporate partnerships, he continued, Mpruv Sports has also partnered with several organizations, including X-Golf Parkville and Pin High Golf to be its lesson provider and with Rapsodo to allow coaches to use its mobile launch monitor.

One partnership Lukenbill is especially excited about: collaborating with the Kansas Golf Foundation on joint marketing in a project through which a portion of the proceeds from select lessons will go to support the foundation.

“This is my home state where I grew up,” Lukenbill said. “[The Kansas Golf Foundation] has very similar value propositions around inclusion and accessibility. How do we allow anybody to get involved in the game? What can we do to get the community interested and involved?”

The startup is also planning a celebrity golf tournament next summer in Cincinnati, where the proceeds will go to the Alzheimer’s Association, another cause close to Lukenbill’s heart, he noted.

“How do we spread our value proposition, but at the same time, give back to causes that are dear to us, as well?” he asked.

Brant Watson, Mpruv Sports

To help with all the momentum, Lukenbill shared that he has brought on a new COO — Matt Doud — and CTO — Brant Watson, positioning the startup well moving into 2024.

Doud first connected to Mpruv Golf through its coaching side, he noted. After talking with Lukenbill about becoming a coach, they started chatting about the business side. Doud previously co-founded a startup in Oregon.

“I love that initial phase of a business, getting it up and running and coming alongside the founder and helping them put the flesh on it, build out the systems, and manage the team,” Doud said. “The timing was good and I like the mission and, obviously, I love golf, so it just felt like a really good fit.”

Both Lukenbill and Doud are excited about the future of Mpruv Sports, they shared, teasing the addition of a community section in the platform that will consolidate coming events and tournaments and provide a digital content library.

Lukenbill noted his interest in expanding the startup’s mission nationwide and even global.

“I love the opportunity of a challenge to bring that message outside of the city,” he explained, “knowing that the problem exists in Kansas City — where we have really good relationships with localized companies doing the same thing — and knowing that it is amplified 100 times out throughout the rest of the U.S. Then eventually, the way that we’re building the tech, it can go worldwide. It’s a global technology.”