Sports clubs navigator Sport Priority on the one hand, saves sports fans' time in searching for and planning leisure activities, and on the other hand, it allows fitness clubs to automate their business processes online. In early October, Igor Samochernov, a teacher at NSTU NETI and an entrepreneur, was nominated for the "Startupper of the Year" award in the Delovoy Kvartal magazine for developing this service.
He has been developing his own fitness product under the Sport Priority brand since 2017. He chose this area because of his passion for training. “I like sports, it gives me strength. Now I regularly practice capoeira and squash. And I have been fond of table tennis and swimming for 15 years. I have been in a situation of finding and choosing places for classes many times, so I know how difficult it is to choose a sports club for myself or for a child,” says Igor Samochernov, Associate Professor at Theoretical and Applied Informatics Department, NSTU NETI and the owner of Unico Design and Sport Priority.
The Sport Priority app is free to download. IT-platform for sports fans includes automatic search of trainings through special navigation and filters: place, time, price, location or coach. In the online mode, the program allows not only searching for a proper sports club, but also paying or renewing season tickets, planning visits to the fitness classes and keeping one’s training diary.
Today, the application has more than 5,000 registered users and more than 1,000 companies connected to the platform. The service operates in Moscow and Novosibirsk.
For owners of sports clubs, the IT platform allows reducing financial costs, time and effort to promote their services on the Internet. "We have developed an entire ecosystem of software programs: CRM for working with clients; website builder created specifically for fitness clubs; online schedule management which is edited in one place and published immediately in the application, in social networks, and on the website", - specifies Igor.
The closest analogue of the product is the foreign system Mindbody, which is popular in Europe. It can be connected with the Russian club, but the subscription to the services of Sport Priority will cost about 10 times less and will be 1,000-2,000 rubles per month.
"While working with sports clubs in Moscow and Novosibirsk, we faced the fact that many companies do not have websites at all. All their activities are either in Instagram or VKontakte. But it is not always clear from the first look what kinds of services they provide or how they work. It takes too much time to find necessary information. Ideally, this should take no more than 5-10 minutes. This problem can be solved with the help of a website, and a good website costs about 100 thousand. That's where our team can help: within five days we'll launch the club's website for a fairly low subscription of 1100 rubles per month. In the app, this information is already structured, updated and sourced directly from the clubs" - says Igor Samochernov.
"Sport Priority is also a blog where we publish articles and recommendations for average users on the topic of sport, health and nutrition. The goal is to help people overcome internal barriers to regular exercise. We write that leading a healthy lifestyle is not only beneficial and interesting, but also simple. Today we have a fairly visited site, about 10,000 views per day," he added.
In the near future, the Sport Priority team plans to develop the service by introducing a chat with clubs for users, a section of reviews, real video reviews of sports clubs and the expansion into other million-person cities.
Igor Samochernov has been working in the field of IT as an entrepreneur since 2009, managing two companies: Unico Design and Sport Priority. In early October, he became a nominee for the title of "Innovator" and "Startupper of the Year", as well as "Person of the year in the field of IT" award in the Delovoy Kvartal magazine.