SportsDo History

Two guys on a mountain

It's 1995 and Jonathan Greensted and Nick Francis are gliding slowly upwards into the clear skies of Val d'Isere. As they wait for the chairlift to reach the top of the slope they revisit an old argument – how fast do we ski? And who's faster?

They've been debating this for ten years. (They talk about other stuff too. They're not fixated. Oh, all right – they're fixated.)

They've had a bunch of ideas for working out their skiing speed. How about clusters of motion-sensitive lasers? Or maybe little measuring wheels trailing from the skis... Hey – barometric hats!

They've always known what they'd call their product too: Skido. All they need is a workable technology.

Now a workable technology has come along. And it's time to bring this dream alive. They throw their imaginary barometric hats into the air with joy.

And a few minutes later, they argue about who just skied faster down the mountain. But the argument doesn't last long – because they've got a product to build.

SportsDo is born

GPS technology – the satellite global positioning system – used to be expensive to own and run, but like all good electronic products, prices were tumbling. Devices were becoming smaller, lighter, more reliable and easier to use. Low-cost, pocketable GPS receivers equipped with Bluetooth could now talk to PDAs – or mobile phones.

Jonathan and Nick began to build their dream application, targeting Microsoft's upcoming Windows Mobile 5 platform.

They quickly extended the idea to other sports, and launched a family of five products on June 15, 2005.

Rundo was previewed at Microsoft’s launch of Windows Mobile 5 in Las Vegas, featuring in Bill Gates keynote address and garnering excited reviews.

Soon enthusiastic early adopters were downloading the products from the SportsDo website and sharing their experiences. Suddenly everyone wanted to know how fast they were skiing or running. They wanted to know how far they'd cycled. And they wanted it on their phone. SportsDo had hit a nerve.

“We thought we couldn't be the only people on the planet who wanted to know this stuff,” says Jonathan Greensted. “We were blown away by people's appreciation for what we'd done and the speed with which we got it out there. But even more important than that, we got lots of great feedback on how we should take SportsDo forward.”

SportsDo evolves

Users of the products were enthusiastic, but they also pointed out that they usually did more than one sport. Each member of the SportsDo family shared a common set of features. Why have separate applications?

Others pointed out that while the SportsDo apps ran really well on Windows Mobile, it would make sense to cover the other major smartphone platform, making SportsDo available on Java phones too.

“What brought it home to me was a guy in Colorado saying that when the snow comes, he stows his mountain bike in the garage and breaks out his skis,” says Jonathan. “We don't want to make him change his SportsDo application too. Also, we don't want to exclude people just because they get a new phone and it's a different platform.”

In January 2006 Jonathan and Nick decided to focus around a single product that would serve all sports – even sports they couldn't imagine.

The new unified SportsDo would fit right in to any sporting lifestyle and run contentedly on the widest possible range of modern mobile phones. It would also extend the software's role, making it not just a personal performance tool but also the route to a worldwide community of sports enthusiasts.

SportsDo 2.0

July 31, 2006 marked the release of SportsDo 2.0. SportsDo's new identity and website were also launched, alongside the SportsDo Portal – the new community site that allows 'Doers to plan, analyse and share their sporting achievements.

SportsDo is just over one year old. It's grown immensely in that time. Of course, its creators have been nurturing the dream for much, much longer. But now they're seeing people all around the world taking SportsDo into their sporting lives, getting more fun from their activities and adding to their relationships with others. They're sharing the dream.

Now everyone can see how fast they're running, riding, cycling, paddling, skating, flying, swimming – even skiing. And the two guys behind it all (who still, incidentally, relish a good argument) are delighted to be adding a little extra to the sporting experience.