Tonsser helps young football talents flourish

The social football network Tonsser enables football players of all levels to measure and analyse their performance.

Simply put, Tonsser is a hybrid of Football Manager and LinkedIn, where players’ performance comes to life after a game. Before Tonsser, tracking your performance at practice as well as matches was reserved for professionals. Now, football players of all ages and levels can measure and analyse their performance. Since being established in 2013, Tonsser has received three investments and has evolved in several ways.

User involvement has been essential

“We chose to involve users as early as possible. This means that we have built and are still building Tonsser in cooperation with football players, coaches and clubs. Among other initiatives we have tested some solutions with a team that plays in ‘Danmarks Serien’ – the fourth best division in Denmark. Besides staying close to reality, this provides an internal motivation in the team to e.g. meet deadlines,” says Simon Hjære Hansen, co-founder of Tonsser

Tonsser has received three investments. One of them came from co-founder Kasper Hulthin and former CTO Phillip Chambers of the project management software Podio, who encouraged the young entrepreneurs to stay  close to their users.

“Kasper Hulthin and Phil Chambers have definitely paced us to be even more focused on our users, and how we can create continuous traction – ensuring that we develop a platform that people actually want to use,” says Peter Holm co-founder and CEO of Tonsser

Displaying young talent

Young football players aged 14 – 19 in particular have taken the football platform to heart. During three months  at the end of 2014, 10,000 users created 150,000 contacts across the platform. Young football enthusiasts use the platform to find and follow each other.

“Our platform is very much a user-driven network, where players enter their own and the team’s performance in football matches. We use the data to make weekly lists and for example electing a ‘Team of the Week’, ‘Player of the Season’. This creates an extra incentive for people to improve,” explains Peter Holm.

Young players are motivated to perform better because they gain recognition and exposure at Tonsser based on their performance on the football field. And it’s worth it, Peter Holm explains, since it is not only other young football players who visit the platform.

For a young football player from Jutland, using Tonsser turned out to be a wise decision. In December 2014, a talent scout discovered his impressive track record and approached him to discuss the option of playing at a higher level.

“Stories like this one are exactly the reason why we started Tonsser. Too many talented football players’ talents is lost because they lack the right display window. Henceforth Tonsser can hopefully help even more football players get the opportunity to try their strength against higher levels and achieve their dreams,” says Simon Hjære Hansen.

More football organizations and scouts have shown interest in Tonsser’s platform.

Global football dreams

After only one month online, more than 10 percent of all Danish football clubs and 6,000 users were on the platform. Their app was downloaded more than 1,500 times in its first 6 days in the iOS App Store, making it the most downloaded free sports app, and has since remained a staple in the category of most downloaded sports apps. This occurred even before Tonsser had advertised  in the App Store.

The team behind Tonsser sees great potential in the startup. Therefore, they are using Denmark as a test market before scaling internationally. And the market is massive – according to FIFA there are 265 million footballers worldwide.