Sports Reels: Ugochinyere Onyewuenyi
Ugochinyere offers valuable insights into the challenges and rewards of being a founder and provides tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.
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Ugochinyere Onyewuenyi
Ugochinyere is a seasoned and award-winning mixologist turned Sports Pathway coordinator and certified product and project manager. She has created products across the web, two and three spaces in various industries such as faith and charity, governance, sports, and education.
She works as a Pathway and performance coordinator at City Sports Group and product strategy and partnerships for Youdonate protocol while tripling as the head of product for Sports Reels. Her work revolves around creating pathways for young people to excel in sports, developing products that make it easier for people to donate to charity, and managing projects from inception to delivery.
What puzzles lie beneath the surface of your sports tech company, and how have they been solved?
The Greatest Puzzle is which feature will guarantee us product market fit.
Positioning and branding the stickiness feature we believe is most important to our users and potential.
We chose virtual scouting and social CV to find product market fit.
Who is your favorite athlete, and why?
My favorite athlete was Kobe Bryant. As an ex-collegiate athlete, Kobe taught me discipline and Persistence to achieve greatness. His life taught me to persevere and remain steadfast yet relatable in all matters of life and success. To be king! ( in my case, Queen )
Are you a morning person or a night person? Why?
Neither. I get only 4 hours of sleep and work from as early as 6 am till 2 am the next day.
What was your inspiration for starting Sports Reels?
That is a beautiful Story. In 2010, I was about positioning myself for greatness by playing collegiate basketball in the US. Upon application, I got feedback about having had the worst video and statistics they had ever received and being a young black woman from a developing country. Additionally, I was disadvantaged to all U.S.-based kids with access to equipment, resources, etc.
Without access to scouting opportunities for collegiate or pro sports, I decided to create leverage for talented yet underserved kids from third-world and untapped potential countries to gain a chance to tell their athletic brand story and showcase their talents to the world with just a click of a button.
What advice would you give founders looking to break into the same space?
Keep Building! It's more challenging building in industries without so many backers. But it only gets easier at some point!
Who are some of your biggest influences?
My Biggest influences are the 100 million plus disenfranchised sports athletes worldwide without access to a potential trial to showcase their skills and talents to the right and target audience.
We are paying the high cost of participation or opportunities and access to the target audience due to the logistics involved in scouting in sports.
What is your biggest tip for founders preparing for a pitch competition?
You can never be prepared, Know your product, own it, sell it.
How many sick days have you taken in the past year?
Thankfully Just 1. I got sick at some point after a 4-year sick break!! 😂
But the building can stress you out, so I have taken to resting up once I am feeling stressed out instead of waiting to be overwhelmed and undertaken by bad health.
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