Searching for volleyball is dreadful, we make it fun by bringing dating apps time-saving experience to find compatible players.
At 14, I moved from Vietnam to the US without my parents. Volleyball was how I belong, but every game around me lived in Facebook groups I needed to know someone to find. The ticket to playing was cold reachouts until I found someone who played, then hours of scrolling to find a post fit my schedule. Everyone going from youth to adult sports hits that same wall, and with adult schedules, most just stop playing. ~600,000 students play high school volleyball per year, the second biggest girls’ sport and the fastest growing boys’ sports, and every year students graduate into nothing.
So I built VolleyNet, where the ticket into your local volleyball scene is just a profile. Enter your position, level, availability, shared equipment, and highlights once, and the game comes to you: urgent sub invites when a team is about to forfeit. Dating apps proved people would rather be found than search; we apply it here. Since launch on app stores, 100+ players in Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids (1 in 10 of the metro’s active players) have organized 21 games through the app.
Players play for free; the businesses around them are who we charge. Registrations, court rentals, and gear move through Venmo, spreadsheets, and Facebook chaos. Management software exists (LeagueApps, CourtReserve), but none dominates because none comes with players: they assume you already have a team. We’re the only tool where a player can sign up alone, get paired, and land on a roster, which make sure tournaments don’t leave revenue at the door. That’s our first paid product: premium posting and registration for local leagues and tournaments, for a percentage of entry fees.
Volleyball first is the strategy, not the limit. Roster sports are fragile: one no-show kills a 6v6 game. The playbook transfers to every roster-based sport. We earn it by winning volleyball in Michigan first.