Performance Analytics Archives - SportsTech Ireland

January 1, 2020

Spotlight on the FitrWoman App With Co-Founder, Grainne Conefrey

SPOTLIGHT ON: FitrWoman powered by Orreco

INITIAL APP LAUNCH: 2016

FOUNDERS: Grainne Conefrey and Georgie Bruinvels

HEAD OFFICE : Galway, Ireland

In September 2018, SportsTech Ireland and Kemmy Business School, UL launched the Sports Entrepreneurship Masterclass, which was the very first of its kind in Ireland. The two day event welcomed athletes, entrepreneurs, coaches and leading sports innovators to participate and present at the event. Over the course of the two days, there were many insightful lectures. One of the standout product talks, in terms of ingenuity and innovation, was given by Orreco Product Development Manager and FitrWoman Co-Founder Grainne Conefrey.

FitrWoman allows female athletes to optimise performance during their menstrual cycle. Many studies have highlighted that the menstrual cycle can be a major deterrent for women partaking in sport. In a study conducted by Populus on behalf Orreco, 54% of women have had to stop exercising as a result of their menstrual cycle. This increases to 73% in 16 to 24-year-olds. In a separate study by Women in Sport it was identified that 42% of women do not exercise while on their period. The FitrWoman app is helping to combat these issues. The app helps athletes to track their menstrual cycle. It then provides personalised training and nutritional suggestions tailored to the changing hormone levels throughout the cycle. We caught up with Grainne to discuss how the product came about, the remarkable highs to date and what’s next for this invaluable product.

Intrapreneurship and the Development of FitrWoman

Although FitrWoman first launched in the Apple Store in 2016, the seeds were planted years previously. Grainne graduated from UCD with a degree in Sports & Exercise Management. Her first job out of college was outside of Ireland in Boston where she worked with Hill Holiday Marketing Agency. Grainne explained the relevance of this role.

“One of the biggest clients was Major League Baseball and I was working with the MLB account team. In this role I was working closely with the marketing team, developing the next seasons campaign. I also had to research and analyse the other major competitive sports in the USA. This included the NBA, NFL, NHL. It was an amazing experience.”

This experience gave Grainne her first taste of working with elite athletes. Upon moving back to Ireland she wanted to continue in this field and started working with Orreco in Sligo. Orreco is a company that is well known to SportsTech Ireland. It was founded in 2009 by Dr. Brian Moore and Dr. Andrew Hodgson. Their goal is to use proven sports and data science to enable elite athletes to perform at their best.

It was through this role that Grainne met Georgie Bruinvels. Georgie is a research scientist who,at the time, was completing a PHD on female athletes and the effect of the menstrual cycle on performance.

“Through her research, Georgie was discovering all these fascinating insights, most of which weren’t widely known by the public. There was information on how the body changes during the menstrual cycle and how you can adapt your nutrition to perform better during your cycle. The more we spoke, the more we decided that this is something that all female athletes should know. We decided to pitch our idea to Orreco and see where it would take us.”

This bit of intrapreneurship proved vital to FitrWoman’s success. Having the backing and support of an established sports science company afforded them huge opportunity for growth.

“Orreco gave us a small fund to put toward the development of the first version of FitrWoman. Initially, we outsourced the development to create an MVP version. However, after the success of this version, Orreco backed us even further and we were able to bring development in-house. We have a fantastic product team and sports science team to help us with future development. FitrWoman has very much become a part of the Orreco roadmap. Having the support of Orreco from the start has been incredible and has created some great opportunities for us.”

Forbes, CNN, Ladies GAA and the US Swimming Team

FitrWoman is the first app of its kind on the market. Although there are other apps that help women to track their menstrual cycle, there is none that come from the angle of physiology and sporting performance. FitrWoman has been able to use this innovative angle as well as the help from a very well established company in Orreco, to garner worldwide attention and achieve success that is very inspiring for such a fledgling product.

“We’ve definitely had a lot of great moments already. We were featured in Forbes Magazine, CNN, Italian Vogue and The Guardian. Georgie recently did a podcast with Judy Murray (Scottish Tennis Coach and Creator of Miss-Hits, mother of Andy Murray), who is a massive fan of the app. Sonia O’ Sullivan has also been introducing the app to younger athletes. Outside of that we were also featured in the App Store under ‘Best New Apps’. That’s something I like to tell people. Getting featured on the app store is much harder than you’d think. There are millions of apps out there!

In the past year, we have been working with some amazing athletes. Amongst others, we work closely with the Oregon Track Club in America and British Cross Country Champion, Emelia Górecka, has become a brand ambassador.

We have also signed some exciting partnership deals with the Ladies Gaelic Football Association and with the USA Female Swimming Team. The LGFA are a fantastic organisation to work with and we both have very similar goals to increase participation and awareness. Five players have also signed up as ambassadors. Working with the US Swimming Team will be a science and research partnership. It’s a partnership that we hope both sides will learn a huge amount from”

Bringing an Elite Performance Platfrom to the General Public

FitrWoman is available to all users for free on the App Store. When the app was initially launched, it was aimed specifically at elite athletes. However, Georgie and Grainne quickly realised that they could translate the information in a way that was accessible and beneficial to the general public. While working with their elite athletes, Grainne and Georgie were able to build a bank of questions that athletes were interested in. This has helped them to develop the app even further.

Along with this, FitrWoman continues to grow its coaching platform. This is a paid offering where coaches can monitor their own athletes. The coach has access to a team dashboard. Through this dashboard players upload information about any symptoms they might be experiencing or where they are in their menstrual cycle. The coach is then given suggested plans tailored to individual’s needs. The platform helps coaches to better understand the players and work with them to optimise performance.

An Ambitious Vision for the Future

It is a testament to the ingenuity and effectiveness of the app that FitrWoman was featured in such prestigious publications as Forbes and CNN. Aside from the positive feedback and media spotlight, FitrWoman is also starting to grow a dedicated community of users. This early success has afforded Grainne to look ahead to a very positive future.

“At the moment we are putting a huge amount of focus on app-performance and user engagement. To make a great app, you need to constantly be upgrading and making improvements with your target user in mind.

We are putting a big emphasis on making our content very user-friendly. We also want our users to be able to interpret the data they are capturing in FitrWoman and make it beneficial and actionable for them. Right now, we are focusing on creating charts and insights to allow users to track their cycle and activity over time. Something else that we are pursuing is ‘wearables’ and integrating devices such as FitBits and Apple Watches into FitrWoman“

And the Grand Vision for FitrWoman?

Our big ambition is to be the number one exercise tool for women. We want FitrWoman to become part of a daily routine. That desire is what is driving us forward right now.”

It is very inspiring to see an Irish Sports Technology company making such big strides and having such a positive impact on females in sport. If early signs are anything to go by there is a very bright future for Grainne, Georgie and their team at FitrWoman and Orreco. We would like to say a massive thank you to Grainne for sharing her story. For all our readers, be sure to head over to the App Store and download the FitrWoman app.

If you would like to hear more from exciting Irish Sports Technology companies, why not check out our Spotlight on Kitman Labs. Kitman Labs have created another fascinating tool developed to assist in athlete’s performance.

To learn more about our recent Sports Entrepreneurship Masterclass, check out this blog post.

January 1, 2020

When Passions Collide: Rugby, Technology and Performance Analytics.

An Interview with Andrew Sullivan, former coach/performance analyst with New Zealand Rugby and STATS.com Director.

Andrew Sullivan was destined for a career in SportsTech, even if he didn’t foresee how two of his passions would eventually collide, back in his days as a sports performance analyst in New Zealand.

“I had three loves, that of sports, the Crusaders, and Information Technology,” says Andrew, who had originally begun a career as a Systems Analyst in IT, before being snapped up by New Zealand Rugby.

Andrew spent almost a decade working as a coach and sports performance analyst for the Crusaders and Canterbury Rugby, working with the Crusaders, New Zealand Rugby and of course, the All Blacks. He went on to advise Australian Rugby Union for a further 6 years, before being headhunted by STATS, to work as a multi-sport product manager.

STATS geographic reach extends to Europe, China, Australia, and Africa, and its tech analyses athletic performance to deliver commercial insights, enabling coaches and front-office personnel to make intelligent decisions and gain competitive advantage. STATS boasts a database of over 100,000 players, and captures proprietary data from around 12,000 sporting events each year. Their software combines data analytics and video tracking to analyse matches, trends, opposition scouting opportunities and more.

“I have to admit, the transition from sports to sportstech was tough. My first role with STATS had almost as steep a learning curve as the one I faced at the start of my coaching career. My very first technology role focussed heavily on content, streaming video and live events. There was a lot to learn on the software side, but it was also incredibly exciting. With technology changing so quickly it meant that each day was about finding new opportunities – finding an edge – something that I was used to when working with athletes.”

Andrew has thrived in the STATS environment, though travel has been inevitable. With a HQ in Chicago, and a new office in Limerick, it means some time on the road. However, this isn’t too much of a change, life on the road with the Crusaders, and the All Blacks, took him all over the world, working with their high performance athletes.

We discussed the challenge athletes face, when retiring from a sporting career. Professional athletes are often faced with serious career challenges once they reach their 30’s. Many athletes have begun to address the lack of meaningful support following high profile athletic careers, highlighted by recent press and interviews with the likes of Olympic badminton player Gail Emms and others.

Andrew believes that player welfare is key. He highlights how clubs like the Crusaders are leading the way.

“The life of a pro athlete is short, and player welfare is key. For example, the Crusaders are totally committed to ensuring players make the transition from performance to post-performance smoothly. The player welfare officer will help athletes identify a new role, they will look at financial planning, and ensure that players can make that transition smoothly and effectively.”

One example of an athlete-turned-entrepreneur is JP Hartigan, a Limerick native and rugby player who turned to product design in college, and launched his rugby tackle dummy back in 2009. JP was pro-active in his efforts, and sought out Andrew’s advice back in the early days of product development, when Andrew was working with New Zealand Rugby.

“It’s great to be back in Limerick again, in fact, one of the most promising startups I’ve seen in the space came from here. I met JP Hartigan of Shadowman back in 2010 as he was beginning to launch his tackle dummy into the US market. I was here with Australian Rugby, and he got in touch. I think JP got it right – he identified a problem, and then he helped to solve it. He has managed to effectively control the load on players as they tackled. I have watched his progress with interest, and I’m delighted that he’s made such a big impact on US football.”

Concussion in rugby, and American football, is a topical subject.

When asked his opinion, Andrew said;

“It’s very important to address the issue of concussion and brain injury at the very earliest coaching opportunity, from day one for the youngest athletes. Prevention and coaching methodology is key.”

However, many clubs rely on volunteer and amateur coaches. And in this Andrew says that the education starts from the top with World Rugby and governing bodies and he emphasises that they are doing a good job with online coaching tools and education. The severity of risk is such that the best practice must be applied throughout coaching systems, to protect all of those that play. SportsTech has generated interesting examples in this space – such as mouth guards that measure the impact of a tackle, however, this is a diagnostic rather than a preventative tool. It will be interesting to see how wearables, smart fabrics and player analytics are applied to solve this problem in the future.

STATS has a fairly international scope, so how big a part does rugby play in that mix?

“STATS has a global focus, but the major elements would be worldwide soccer, international rugby and then the major US sports. The work we’re doing around optical tracking and pixel tracking is immensely fascinating, the data we are drawing down on player performance is second to none. When we also consider the new advantages available from machine learning and player outcome tracking, the future is wide open. Not only can we automate data analysis, we can start to understand playing styles, player performance and so much more.”

“Working with players gave me the euphoria and satisfaction of helping people to achieve their goals. Yes I miss that, however, working on the technology side is a new kind of exciting. There really is no limit to how much we can learn and I’m very happy to be in the heart of that kind of action.”

In conversation with Emily Ross of SportsTech Ireland, Limerick Oct, 2017, at the Savoy Hotel. Follow Andrew on twitter @sydneydigit for more rugby and sportstech insights.