Social sports app, Tennis Buddy is fighting the rise in loneliness by bringing people together over sports. The figures are alarming, 40 percent of adults struggle with loneliness, up from 20 percent in the 1980s as two recent studies found. And it is understandable. Constant job hopping and frequent relocation in today’s “high achiever” culture often cause people’s social circles to change entirely every few years. All of our internet interactions aren’t helping either — a recent study of Facebook users found that theam ount of time one spends on social media is inversely related to how happy one feels.
Tennis Buddy co-founder Marius Kraemer faced the feeling of loneliness himself. After finishing his degree at the University of Sydney, rather than getting a job working for someone else, Kraemer decided to visit the hottest startup-cities in the world to learn about building his own company instead. However,after one year of constant travel, changing cities and building over 20 apps, Kraemer struggled more and more with loneliness. Being an outdoorsman and tennis player himself, he mostly missed playing sports with other people and making friends through being active.
With this in mind, he began researching apps that were apparently designed for meeting people, yet he was left disappointed. Kraemer recalls: “All the existing apps that worked were for dating. However, I didn’t want to build another dating app, I just wanted to make an app for everyone, single or in a relationship, where people can simply find each other to play sports without the romantic element.” Still, it was not until he met his now co-founder Sophia Vogt, a former Division-I tennis player, who convinced him that tennis is the perfect activity for people to quickly create a meaningful connection.
And so Tennis Buddy was born, a location-based app that is not for dating, but just for hanging out. Tennis Buddy has just come out of its beta-phase with 8,000 users in total and has already hit its first major milestone — there are now ten cities, each with over 200 people who are looking for a game. According to Kraemer, 200 users in one city is the magic number, where it takes under 10 minutes to find a Tennis Buddy at any time.
He explains why: “When building Tennis Buddy, I wanted to especially help the people who often only have a two hour window of spare time that opened up due to a cancelled meeting for instance. Our broadcast feature allows our users to ping all tennis players nearby to let them know that they want to play. With a userbase of over 350 in London and 900 in L.A. already, there is always at least one person who is available at that very moment, which brings down the average response time to a broadcast to under 10 minutes.”
Kraemer explains his favorite part about Tennis Buddy: “It was a shame that I somehow never got to know a city when I would visit for just a few days. The same goes for traveling business professionals. They visit many great cities, but they hardly ever get a chance to get to know the area and its people. What I like most about using Tennis Buddy is the fact it has helped me meet locals very easily; people who could tell me things about their cities and invite me to parties. I think it’s because sports are always a great way for people to get to know each other; as they bring out the best and worst in you.”
“By the end of the year, we aim to have 500 users in over 100 cities each, so that we can connect people across all the international cities of the world.”
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