Can Chuck Goldman’s Next Company Succeed at Bringing the Enterprise to Legalized Sports Gambling?
Boston based entrepreneur, Chuck Goldman, has a knack for bringing different technologies to the enterprise IT market. At Apple, he led their Education and Enterprise Professional Services Divisions responsible for executing Steve Job’s vision of one laptop per child and bringing Apple technology into the corporate world. After managing the launch of the iPhone into the enterprise, he founded Apperian to bring the smartphone market to the enterprise. Apperian, who Chuck remains active with, raised money from top east and west coast venture capital firms, has signed many of the top F1000 customers to their EASE platform, and is still one of Boston’s best growth stories.
So, what’s next?
How about bringing the enterprise to another trillion dollar industry?
Please meet the Game Sports Network, a company in NYC that Chuck has co-founded and has raised $7.5M in seed funding from seed investors in NYC and Las Vegas. I caught up with Chuck last week along with Dan Orlow (Co-Founder & CFO) and J. Morrison (Co-Founder and CTO). Their goal is to give every day consumers the chance to have a Vegas sports experience in their pocket.
Game Sports Network already launched a consumer app called HotRoster (iOS, Android, and Web), which gives you fantasy sports action on the go. A key differentiator for their app is the fact that it is going after the casual sports fan. You don’t need to be a hard core fantasy sports gamer to play HotRoster, unlike people who are playing the games on DraftKings or FanDuel. You don’t need to draft a full team and manage your team against a salary cap. Their games match up player versus player for you. For example, you could pick between Andrew Luck versus Peyton Manning or Tom Brady versus Drew Brees, even though they aren’t playing each other this week, but who is going to have the bigger game? It’s a parlay format, where the more matchups you pick…, the more you can win, but obviously… the more the odds are against you. Another bonus is that everyone has a chance to win, whereas the other games have you competing against other players.
The market is obviously getting more and more crowded by the day for fantasy sports apps. However, Game Sport Network has a unique business model that is a key differentiator and if executed properly, could make this startup a major player… and it comes back to the enterprise.
In addition to having a consumer gaming app, they are white labeling their platform for others to use. Their platform is called DANC3SE, which stands for Device Application Network — Control, Compliance, Communication Security Environment. Why does this matter? Well, the challenge that exists in the market is the fact that this is legalized gambling and it is not easy to get your app approved by the iOS and Android app stores because of security and age issues. Their platform is taking care of the complexities around compliance, payments processing, security, and age verification. They have proprietary technology that scans a license, as well as taking a industry’s most advanced Biometric facial scan, and from several top data sources, they are able to verify you as the end user without violating any privacy concerns. Since they are able to tackle these key issues, they can provide assurance to their end clients that their own apps will provide the highest level of security and protection in terms of mobile KYC (Know Your Customer), including child privacy, location, and single sign-on. Game Sports Network has worked closely with Apple and Google with DANC3SE and has made it easy for others to use it via their SDK.
The idea behind Game Sports Network comes from Dan, who spent a lot of time in the hedge fund industry and knows a lot about risk pricing. Back in 2006, fantasy sports became a form of legal gambling and after realizing that less than 1% of sports wagering was handled through Las Vegas, he saw the opportunity ahead.
He brought in people like Chuck and J., who both worked together on projects at Apple and have experience working on complex problem, but can leverage their past experiences on how to successful businesses and how to keep things simple (the Apple way) by making their platform and apps the best user experience possible.
One of the reasons why Chuck co-founded the company is the 3 C’s factor… it has 1. Community 2. Content and 3. Commerce. The community aspect comes from the sports fans, which are obviously a passionate bunch. Content is the plethora of stats, scores, analysis and media from white-label partners which they provide. And, last… commerce, the chance for people to win real money playing a fantasy sports game is super exciting. Thus, the combination of a consumer product and the opportunity to take their platform to the enterprise was the killer business model that he was looking for after spending some time in the private equity industry working for Great Hill Partners.
As part of the team, Goldman also got a chance to work with Kenny White, who is the rockstar talent at Game Sports Network who sets the matchups and is known as one of the top people in the industry. Another interesting fun fact is that Rob Riggle, who is a comedian & actor, is working as their celebrity front man — just finished a national satellite media tour. Rob is a die-hard sports fan who also appears as part of the Fox Sports’ NFL Sunday Pre-Game Show.
HotRoster is this company’s first consumer product and they have lots of great ideas and plans for others. The company currently has eighteen employees and is on a hiring spree for other positions over the next year.
Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz. You can follow him on Twitter (@kcline6) by clicking here.
Originally published at venturefizz.com.
