As a race or event organiser, looking after the entry process, marketing and keeping an eye on fundraising are just two of the many tasks that underpin a successful event. Locally based Race Nation are a small but rapidly expanding team of experts that are willing to take this work off of your hands by cutting through the complexity of race organisation and making your life as a race organiser much, much easier
These are the folks who are helping us look after the entry process for this years Gallery Rall, alongside this and with it being our active issue we wanted to take the opportunity to find out a little more about this small, but rapidly expanding local business, so we met with Andrew Scott-Miller the co-founder & CEO of Race Nation.
Can you tell us what it is that you do?
Race Nation is an online event registration, management and fundraising platform. Our purpose-built technology powers local, national and international sports events and through our Sports Giving platform we make it really easy for entrants to raise loads of money for charity.
What was the motivation behind setting up the site?
I used to work at Durrell and organised the annual Durrell Dash. After 3 years spending the event stood in the rain with a mountain of clipboards and spreadsheets, leaking pens and a queue of runners asking where they came and what their time was, I thought there must be a better way. After a few conversations over coffee with Rob and Gordon (the other co-founders) we made a plan and Race Nation was born.
When did it all start?
The idea was born in late 2013 with Rob and I taking the big leap into the unknown in February last year. We worked out of coffee shops for a couple of months, then our financial advisors allowed us to work from their offices for a few weeks whilst we found some more space. 8 months later we found that space and returned a sense of peace and normality to our accountants office!
How many of you are involved in the race nation team?
We are growing really fast! When does this interview go to print? There are currently 10 of us and we’re really proud to say they are all local, although we are beginning to struggle finding more developers. We have an enthusiastic team combining the best business knowledge, technical know-how, fund raising expertise & sports experience!
Based in Jersey, but with an off island reach?
We are all based in Jersey and it provided a great launch bed for us. There are some great events in the islands and some real characters behind them. They provided us with the ability to test the platform and the Collas Crill Island Walk was our first customer. We were taking registrations and donations through our platform before we even had a bank account. The big challenge for us was to break out of the islands where people knew and trusted us. The beginning of the year saw our first event in the UK and we have had great success since then as we have significantly more events in the UK now than the islands and already have international events on our platform.
What makes you unique from
other competitors?
There are two differentiators for us. Firstly the platform is designed for event organisers – we have a number of tools including timing integration, SMS and management that really save huge amounts of time. And the second is our integrated Sports Giving platform allowing everyone who enters an event to raise money on an automatically created, personalised Sports Giving fundraising page. We are saving event organisers time and money whilst enabling charity events to raise more money. It is a win for everyone.
Any plans for expansion in the pipeline?
We are expanding weekly! We have secured some events from one of the highest profile event brands in the world and are already working with a number of top 100 national charities. The demand is growing and the real challenge is managing it and making sure we don’t over promise and under deliver. We are already expanding our technology platform into other areas of sport so we have a very exciting 18 months ahead. We are currently opening a UK office and that should take away some of the pressures of traveling and make it easier to support our UK customers.
What should we be looking out for from Race Nation in the future?
We have a couple of big developments planned later in the year that sports clubs in particular will be very excited about! And a couple of medals from our team members that are taking part in the Island Games would be great!
www.race-nation.com
