This past summer, four seniors developed a social-networking sports app that aimed to help athletes find spots to play pickup sports. Brought to life by seniors Kyle Beerbower, Kenneth Duran, Andrew Politz and Victor Carolino, RunItBack allows people to connect with each other and create a game or tournament at a location. The app comes with multiple features allowing players to input their stats, rate other players, and vote for a game’s Most Valuable Player, according to its website. It also contains personal profiles, a monthly leaderboard, and a premium subscription.
Beerbower said, “It’s about giving every athlete the opportunity to play a recreational sport in an organized fashion.”
Duran added, “The target of RunItBack is usually marginalized communities that don’t have the opportunity to play a club or school sport.”
Beerbower described it as a platform that also combats sports inequity, the relative inactivity experienced by children in Los Angeles households with income less than $35,000, by having 10% of company profits go towards charities such as KABOOM, Good Sports and the Challenged Athletes Foundation, whose goal is to eliminate this discrepancy and allow for all kids, regardless of socioeconomic background, to participate in sports.
He also stated, “We will allocate the rest of our donations to charities and organizations that support our nation’s marginalized youth that are affected in other ways by systemic issues.”
Some of those charities include My Brother’s Keeper as well as the Common Ground Foundation.
The inspiration behind RunItBack came from two prevalent issues in today’s society. Beerbower found out about sports inequity and its correlation to a decrease in the physical activity of children. He then coupled the problem with social media and phone addiction to ultimately come up with the basic premise behind the app.
Carolino remarked that the app has received positive feedback in the i.Invest National Youth Business Competition, which awards $10,000 to the winners as well as prizes to help their app succeed. They were recently chosen as one of six finalists in the competition.
He said, “In terms of our latest marketing campaign, we’ve gotten the most views on our article that talks about the concept of our product.”
Politz said the goal of RunItBack is to connect the sports community. The group also wants to build up a local brand name in order to get users to share it with others, which is how it will grow, according to Beerbower.
Beerbower noted that the four have become more well-rounded. He said, “We don’t compartmentalize what we’re doing. A lot of the stuff we do is as a team, even though we all have specific roles. We work in a cohesive manner.”
He continued, “We learned that in the world of entrepreneurship, it takes an unwavering belief that our product will succeed and an extraordinary amount of dedication and sheer will to persevere through the obstacles along the way and execute our vision.”
The group plans to launch RunItBack in March of 2021. More information can be found on their website: https://www.runitbackapp.com/.
