![](\"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/corden-wood-05.jpg\")
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It was the fourth time they ran the program for start-ups, the men of Sport eXperience. The past five weeks, the five startups came together every Tuesday. They pored over their own plans, but especially also over those of the other participants. During the last meeting, the remaining startups told E52 about what they were learning and how they\u2019re moving on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were actually six signups\u201d, says Arno Hermans, who started with an accelerator program specifically for sport startups one and a half year ago. But eventually five started. \u201cThe Irish startup, Think Biosolution, refrained from participation at the last moment. They just told us per e-mail they want to do a custom made program with us next month.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Also after the second meeting there was a dropout: Reprosports from Aalten. Their idea for a shin guard that adapts to the football player, appeared to be no viable product, after critical questioning by the coaches of Sport eXperience and the other startups. \u201cCheap failure is what I call it\u201d, says Hermans, \u201cUltimiately, such a decision saves a lot of money. It\u2019s better to find out now rather than after many investments. A courageous decision.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how some things suddenly come at the right moment.\u201dMenno Van Pelt – Deen, Swim Games<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of the remaining four, there are two that can \u201chopefully\u2019 launch the upcoming months. \u201cHopefully because there has to be someone who\u2019s willing to pay\u201d, says Menno Van Pelt \u2013 Deen, founder of Swim Games. Their product is a LED screen that stands next to the swimming pool and a camera above the water that films the swimming children and directly puts it on screen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His idea to increase the number of visitors at a swimming pool came during his promotion research five years ago. Together with students of the TU\/e and Fontys, he was looking for a way to get young people to move. \u201cGames are fun and swimming is injury free and a good match to get young people to exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For three years they explored all kinds of possibilities to make swimming more fun, says Van Pelt \u2013 Deen. \u201cThe most fun turned out to be a \u2018cannonball\u2019. And then we figured it would be very cool if you could see your own cannonball.\u201d They developed a camera with which you can watch your own cannonball in slow motion under water. They put a game element into it: the young people could decide for themselves who had made the best cannonball. \u201cBecause of this, children would jump up to 10 \u2013 15 times, \u00a0they were moving a lot without noticing it and they determined the game element themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Van Pelt \u2013 Deen thought that this would be the answer to the declining number of swimming pool visitors. \u201cDue to the game element, children want to come back.\u201d So he, Rob Tieben, with whom he did the promotion research, Mark van Kuik, game producer Lapp and Luuk Waarbroek, developer and designer of Napalmtree, decided to put it on the market. \u201cBut we needed hardware for that, a waterproof screen that could show the recordings. And those are hard to find. I remember saying on a Wednesday \u2018this is not going to work\u2019. One day later VDH called, saying they saw us two years ago at a symposium and that they had developed a waterproof screen. It\u2019s amazing how some things suddenly come at the right moment.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As an academic, Van Pelt \u2013 Deen was used to give presentations about his research, but his \u2018vague designing terms\u2019 weren\u2019t in line with the target group. \u201cSelling is clearly different from doing research. The last sessions I have learned to be concrete and clear about where our quality lies.\u201d He also shifted from municipal pools to private resorts. \u201cWe need money and the municipal pools don\u2019t have that, resorts do. And at the resorts the swimming pools are empty half of the time.\u201d Van Pelt \u2013 Deen is going to sharpen his plans with the knowledge he has gained and then he wants to launch, \u201cif there is an investor\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Also the Lithuanian startup Forts Axis, is hoping to find a partner in the next few months with which they can put their Corden<\/i> on the Dutch market. A product that\u2019s already being sold in Lithuania, especially in the yoga world. It is a sort of massage tool for the vertebral column. \u201cIf you lie down on it with your body weight, you come closer to your muscles than with a regular massage\u201d, says Andrey Popov, CIO. \u201cCorden offers all sport players the possibility to prevent or alleviate back problems. A few minutes for about 10 times a month and your problems are gone.\u201d Van Pelt \u2013 Deen, who broke his back at the age of 21, also tested the ingenuity and he confirms Popov\u2019s assertion: \u201cIt was the best and most gruesome massage ever. It is just necessary that it is put on the market here.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Popov participated in the program because they want to go into the West European market. Through Sport eXperience they came in touch with banks and entrepreneurs. Martin Stockman, coach at Sport eXperience: \u201cThem finding a partner is a matter of time. They are very modest but they receive nothing but positive reactions. Shortly, they will be signing a contract in China.\u201d Popov stayed in Eindhoven for a month and learned English. Something of which he thinks it needs improving: \u201cI want to be able to tell the message in a story.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The remaining two participants, SportAny and FreeSense Solutions are not ready to launch on short notice. Jophri Janssen from SportAny has developed a web application through which the sport players are offered the possibility to sport anywhere without a subscription. \u201cI learned that I needed to sharpen my message: less is more. This program has also helped me with financial issues and it taught me to make decisions in an early stage, such as saying goodbye to a person or to an organisation. To me, the time of making plans is over, I must take action now. I\u2019m ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For Hermans himself, it was good to see that the startups were questioning and criticizing each other constructively. \u201cBecause they\u2019re all in the sports market, they were really challenging each other. It is always exciting to see if it actually happens.\u201d Hermans is also already looking ahead: \u201cEarly next year we are going to the headquarters of Under Armour in Baltimore with a number of startups. We just discussed that in a skype conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was the fourth time they ran the program for start-ups, the men of Sport eXperience. The past five weeks, the five startups came together every Tuesday. They pored over their own plans, but especially also over those of the other participants. During the last meeting, the remaining startups told E52 about what they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1591,"featured_media":521771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[7837,2610,7839,827,829],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-91124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-arno-hermans-en","tag-sport-en","tag-sport-experience-en","tag-start-ups","tag-technology"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Corine Spaans","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/corine-spaans\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/corden-wood-05-300x188.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Arno Hermans<\/a>","sport<\/a>","Sport eXperience<\/a>","start-ups<\/a>","technology<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Arno Hermans<\/span>","sport<\/span>","Sport eXperience<\/span>","start-ups<\/span>","technology<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 14, 2017","modified":"Updated on April 14, 2017"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 14, 2017 11:35 am","modified":"Updated on April 14, 2017 11:35 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=91124"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=91124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}