Episode #59: Meet the Startup Gamifying Your Training Gains

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  Samantha Herrick:
  So you want to play in the NFL, but your 9:00 to 5:00 seems to be a pretty big obstacle.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  We truly sit in this intersection across sports, gaming, media, and technology. For us, it’s fun to have relationships with platforms like Meta, Apple, and Google—some of the largest companies in the world—but then also work closely with sports leagues like the NFL.

  Mike Collins:
  There’s going to be the equivalent of the next kind of Madden football type of thing that’s going to happen.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  But this idea that holograms didn’t have heartbeats was a unique solution for them. Coaches were like, “Okay, well right now we’re using trash cans, so let’s just give this thing a shot.” That’s really what created the opportunity to show, “Hey, there’s value in this technology.”

  Samantha Herrick:
  All right, everyone knows what time it is. Welcome back to this episode of The Tech Optimist. We’ve got a “Meet the Startup” show for you today, and the company we’re talking to is StatusPRO.

  On the AV side of the ball, we have Mike Collins, founder and CEO here at Alumni Ventures, taking us through the interview today. Our guest is Troy Jones Jr., co-founder and CEO of StatusPRO.

  We’re going to get into what they do in a second, but you know my voice—my name is Sam Herrick. I’m the guide, editor, and narrative savant for this show.

  StatusPRO is a VR and gaming company that gamifies experiences—specifically, an experience so many gamers and sports fans want: being a quarterback or playing on the defensive line in the NFL.

  Maybe you want to be a quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens like Lamar Jackson—you can be in this game they’ve created.

  In this episode, Troy and Mike talk about their founding story, why they entered the licensed gaming space, and how Troy and his co-founder’s experiences were so unique. They felt like they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this gaming company off the ground.

  I’m not going to spoil anything else because this conversation’s really cool and has some awesome points. Sit back, relax, enjoy your commute or wherever you’re listening, and join me, Mike, and Troy for this chat. Let’s do it.

  As a reminder, The Tech Optimist podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not personalized advice and it’s not an offer to buy or sell securities. For additional important details, please see the text description accompanying this episode.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, it is.

  Mike Collins:
  So I’m up in New Hampshire, and it’s nice this time of year, but it can be a little rough in the winter.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, is it starting to feel like fall yet, or—

  Mike Collins:
  Oh, definitely. The trees are starting to change. It’s the very beginning of that classic leaf-peeping period—warm days, cool nights. It’s a really nice time of year up here.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Nice. Yeah, I was in Bristol last week—Connecticut and New York. Bristol for ESPN, Connecticut for some meetings, and New York. It was really nice. During the day it was warm, and at night it got a little cool, but not too chilly.

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah, we’re probably three weeks further along the calendar than Bristol, so you can get a sense.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, that makes sense.

  Mike Collins:
  Welcome to this episode of Alumni Ventures: Meet the Founder. I’m here with a really exciting company. I’m a sports guy, as a lot of you know, and StatusPRO—which is an AV portfolio company—is right in the middle of that.

  I’m here with the founder and CEO, Troy Jones. Troy, nice to meet you.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yes, pleasure to meet you, Mike. And you’re a sports fan, so you’ve got to tell me—what’s your favorite sport? What’s your favorite team?

  Mike Collins:
  This gives me an excuse. My favorite sport? I played basketball growing up and played at Dartmouth. My claim to fame—and this ages me—is that I got to cover Michael Jordan when he played for North Carolina.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Did you hold him to 10 points?

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah. I mean, they beat us by 48. That team had not just Jordan, but Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Matt Doherty, Joe Wolf. Kenny Smith was their freshman point guard.

  They were a juggernaut, and we were one of those Ivy League teams coming back from exams. It was one of those “walk-through, getting-back-in-shape” kind of games.

  So yeah, I was a highlight film on college basketball with Jordan dunking over me for about six weeks.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Not a bad person to have.

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah, no. Like I said, this is probably the third time this story has come up on the podcast.

  I’m from the Midwest, so I believe in staying loyal to your team. I’m a Milwaukee Bucks fan, a Green Bay Packers fan, and a Chicago Cubs fan.

  I believe in sticking with your team through good times and bad. But I do love sports. So, give me the elevator pitch—what’s StatusPRO, and what do you guys do?

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, StatusPRO is an entertainment company. We leverage XR to build first-person sports products across gaming, media, and training.

  Our flagship product is NFL Pro Era, the first-ever fully licensed sports game in VR. It’s the fastest-selling sports title in VR history on the Meta Quest platform.

  It’s been rated four stars since launch, with over 1.2 million users.

  We just launched last week with the main feature being defense. You can now tackle people in VR and make big hits without feeling the pain that comes with real football contact.

  We’re really excited to bring that to the world. Our mission is to democratize the professional athlete experience.

  My co-founder Andrew Hawkins and I are both former athletes. I played Division 1 quarterback at the University of Maryland and Western Kentucky. Hawk played six years in the NFL with the Bengals and the Browns.

  For us, we always talk about: what does it look like to take the experience we had as athletes and share it with the world?

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Because usually, 1% of people get a chance to do what you did—guard Michael Jordan or even play at the highest level. So to be able to share that with fans through this new, innovative technology has been amazing.

  We truly sit at the intersection of sports, gaming, media, and technology. For us, it’s fun to have relationships with platforms like Meta, Apple, and Google—some of the largest companies in the world—but then also work closely with sports leagues like the NFL and athletes who we partner with to market the title.

  It’s truly a business that’s all-encompassing, and I always say we feel like it’s a culmination of our life experiences. We’ve always been people who enjoy technology; we played sports games growing up, and we were athletes.

  To build this company that’s driving innovation across sports, founded by two former players and athletes—which is extremely rare—we’re really excited about what we’ve accomplished so far and look forward to continuing to build out the vision.

  Samantha Herrick:
  I want to interject here because I think this is a really good spot to take a second and back up to truly understand this company, StatusPRO.

  I’ve navigated over to their website, www.status.pro, on the “Our Story” page, and I just want to read it because it helps set up the rest of the episode nicely:

  “Andrew Hawkins (Hawk) and Troy Jones each have their own unique journey that ultimately propelled them into the tech space as successful Black co-founders of a budding startup. Leaning on their respective experiences as former athletes, the duo wanted to help others better understand what it takes to compete at the highest levels from an athlete’s first POV.

  Their vision manifested into the development of Pre-Game Prep, a training product for NFL club coaches and players. From there, they’ve applied similar technology to build new applications geared toward providing the most immersive and entertaining first-person sports simulations for sports fans.

  The two friends and business partners have since secured funding from institutional and celebrity investors, including LeBron James, Naomi Osaka, Drake, Maverick Carter, Jimmy Iovine, and Paul Wachter, to help grow and scale a first-of-its-kind technology and sports company.

  StatusPRO is disrupting the world of VR by creating the world’s most authentic and immersive gaming and training products. Founded and developed by former athletes, our technology is designed to help players and coaches unlock the ultimate strategic advantage while simultaneously allowing fans to experience what it’s like to be a pro.

  The NFL and StatusPRO have partnered together to develop the first-of-its-kind NFL-licensed virtual reality simulation gaming title.”

  More on that in a second.

  Mike Collins:
  I mean, this is inevitable, isn’t it? That you’re going to be able to—with near-perfect approximation—feel like you’re participating in these sports.

  We’ll show some demos in post-production, but it’s not hard to envision a day when it’s not just sitting in front of a flat screen. Graphics today are amazing, especially compared to 10 or 20 years ago, but imagine a fully immersive experience where you turn your head and you are in the stadium, physically replicating the action.

  To me, that’s inevitable. It’s just a question of timing and who wins that race. I don’t think we need to predict whether this market will happen or become huge—it will. There’s going to be the equivalent of the next Madden football-type experience.

  But tell us about your secret sauce. Why is StatusPRO going to be one of the winners in this game?

  Samantha Herrick:
  Hold on, hold on. I know we all want the answer to this—it’s a bummer, and you can boo me if you want—but we’ve got to do an ad first. We’ll get into Troy’s answer right after. Don’t go anywhere; I promise we’ll be right back.

  Keaton Nankivil:
  Hey everyone, taking a quick timeout so I can tell you about the Sports Fund from Alumni Ventures.

  AV is one of the only VC firms focused on making venture capital accessible to individual investors like you. In fact, AV is one of the most active and highly rated VCs in the U.S., and we co-invest alongside renowned lead investors.

  With our Sports Fund, you’ll have the opportunity to invest in a portfolio built around tech and business advancements across the sports world—from personal wellness, to sports media, to team ownership.

  This fund is focused on companies that have the potential to tap into the massive global sports market, expected to exceed $250 billion by 2030.

  To get started, visit av.vc/funds/sports. Enjoy the rest of the show.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And to your earlier point, I do believe it’s inevitable.

  One of the advantages we have as a company is twofold. Number one, we have a first-mover advantage. This is year seven for me in this space, drilling into the technology. The first headset I got my hands on was the Microsoft HoloLens.

  When you combine that with the fact that we’re former athletes—and many on our team have either played or worked in sports at a high level—we uniquely understand the use cases that truly drive innovation in this space.

  In the early days of the company, Hawk and I would meet and talk about all these grand ideas technologists had for how athletes could use the product. Many of those were valid use cases. But like any industry, you’ve got to crawl, walk, and then run to show the immediate value—what problem the technology solves first.

  Because we come from this space, we understand that deeply. We can package and present the product in ways that are immediately valuable to the consumer, whoever that might be.

  When we started in 2017 as a training product, we knew coaches wanted to simulate walkthroughs during Phase One of OTAs—the beginning of the season when they’re allowed to return. The CBA states you’re not allowed to line up against a heartbeat, meaning they can’t run walkthroughs against coaches, teammates, or anyone.

  But the idea that holograms don’t have heartbeats was a unique solution. Coaches said, “Well, right now we’re using trash cans—let’s give this a shot.” That’s what created the opportunity to show value in the technology.

  Similarly with the game, when we launched NFL Pro Era in 2022, the first thing users did was run out of the tunnel, feeling what it’s like to enter a roaring stadium.

  That idea came from Hawk and me asking: what was the coolest moment when you first got to high-level college or pro football? For both of us, it was the tunnel run-out—something we remember vividly.

  Giving users that experience lets them feel something unique—something they couldn’t get anywhere else. While getting AI right, game mechanics, and other features are important, drilling into those singular moments that parallel real athletes’ experiences is what makes the technology special.

  That’s something we have a strong grasp of. If we continue to weather the storm as technology improves, focus on the benefits of the tech, and highlight those authentic elements of the sport, we have a great chance to not only stay but lead in this space when it becomes ubiquitous.

  Mike Collins:
  And I think for those of our listeners who have experienced this—I own the Vision Pro—there are some really immersive experiences in there related to mountain climbing and even footage from the Kansas City Super Bowl.

  It’s different. It’s a very different experience to look around and be there. And yeah, it’s very expensive, and there’s not enough content. We’re in the early days, but you’d rather be early than late.

  I think we’re on the steep part of the growth curve for the next five or ten years, and we’re really excited about your team grinding it out early. We believe there are going to be big companies created in this space.

  So, if there’s an ask for our community, what are you looking for? How could we help?

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, the top ask for founders is you’re always raising money. We’re always looking to continue to grow and scale.

  To your point, we’re in the early days of this space and building a company during a challenging and complex time. When you think about the remote aspects of building products, the emerging XR/VR category—we were the first company really building sports in this space—we’re truly building a plane in the air.

  We always invite people who are interested and excited about XR to connect with us. From an investment standpoint, it’s not just about raising a round or note; even just having conversations with investors about what excites them in this space and what they look for in companies is valuable.

  Sports is a unique use case that, coupled with new hardware, can really drive innovation and be the content that brings people in. People who believe in that—we’d love to connect with them.

  As you know, building a company is hard. You try to surround yourself with believers—not only believers in the founding team, but also believers in the space itself. That’s how you find creative opportunities: activations at schools with top football teams that want to showcase the product, conferences where you can socialize what you’re doing and building.

  We’re always open to that. And second, obviously… sorry.

  Mike Collins:
  Go ahead. I’ll just pause you there—that’s really smart, Troy. I tell founders they have two jobs: half the job is always raising money, even when you’re not in a round. You’re always meeting potential investors who might be interested in your next round.

  The other half is building the business. Fifty percent of the job description is selling and raising capital. So, for our community interested in tracking the company and following along, please reach out.

  What’s your second question, Troy?

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, second is: go play the game. I want everyone to experience it.

  Quest is launching a headset this fall that’s going to be extremely favorably priced. I ask people to just step in and try it.

  Videos are great, but as you said earlier, graphics will get better over time as the technology evolves. People forget that this is a computer on your face—it’s literally the iPhone 1, the first-ever PlayStation. We’re at the very beginning.

  When you watch a video demo, you might think, “Okay, this looks great, but compared to traditional games, the fidelity may not be there.”

  I promise you, when you put the headset on and you’re fully immersed, you’ll realize it’s a totally different experience.

  Apple Vision Pro went for extremely high-fidelity quality, which is why it’s priced the way it is. Our headset isn’t as powerful, but it delivers a truly fun, engaging experience because of the interactivity.

  I think that if people try and play the game, they’ll have the time of their lives.

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah, it’s one of those things you have to experience rather than just talk about. So, I encourage people to do that.

  If there were an introduction, a partnership, or if you could wave a wand, Troy, who would you love to talk to?

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Interesting. That’s a great question. I’ll give you an honest and direct answer.

  We were part of the Disney Accelerator program this year and got a chance to meet Bob Iger, which was amazing. We had meaningful time with him, giving a high-level overview of the business.

  But personally, I’d love to have a longer sit-down conversation with him—about how he thinks about products, partnerships, and how he pushes innovation in such a large company.

  It’s challenging enough as a startup, but for Disney to achieve what they have at that scale is impressive.

  I’ve read his book The Ride of a Lifetime, and one thing I noticed is that he had a vision for how Marvel IP, Fox IP—all these properties—would tie together. The board didn’t see it initially.

  I’d love to pick his brain about being someone who loves innovation and disruption, but having a vision that isn’t always clear to stakeholders.

  I’d like to learn more about how he thinks about the future of this space with AI and XR, and Disney’s plans as this technology evolves.

  They’re the world’s largest media company—understanding how he thinks about this future would be extremely helpful for a startup like ours, which is building what we believe will be the future of content consumption.

  So, probably dinner with Bob Iger.

  Mike Collins:
  Great. Okay. Awesome.

  Samantha Herrick:
  Before we wrap up this episode, I want to give a little more credit where it’s due and really celebrate Troy and Hawk for their massive achievement of being part of the Disney Accelerator program.

  Troy was just talking about how his dream dinner or dream conversation would be with Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, and I think it’s really cool that Bob Iger has this program within Disney at all. I want to share a bit about it because it’s an awesome achievement for StatusPRO to be part of it.

  The Disney Accelerator program is a business development initiative designed to foster innovation and accelerate the growth of promising companies in technology and entertainment sectors.

  Here are some key things about it:

  • The Disney Accelerator, now in its 10th year, selects a small group of innovative companies to participate in a mentorship and development program.

  • The program focuses on exploring how emerging technologies can enhance storytelling, create new experiences, and bring Disney magic to fans in novel ways.

  Benefits:

  • Participating companies receive investment capital.

  • Access to co-working space on Disney’s creative campus.

  • Guidance and mentorship from Disney’s senior leadership team.

  • Opportunities to collaborate with Disney’s brands and businesses.

  Structure:

  • The program typically lasts a few months and culminates in a demo day held at Disney Studios in Burbank, California.

  • Participants are invited to visit Disney’s Glendale campus for key milestone weeks, which is really cool.

  Focus Areas:

  • Companies working in cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, Web3 technology, and immersive entertainment experiences.

  StatusPRO hits three of these focus areas, which makes it a perfect fit for this program.

  Since its inception in 2014, the Disney Accelerator has connected over 60 global companies with Disney’s resources and expertise.

  Notable alumni include Epic Games (the company behind Fortnite, which has taken the world by storm) and Kahoot! (a popular classroom quiz platform).

  The program has led to successful collaborations and even acquisitions, demonstrating Disney’s commitment to embracing technological innovation in the entertainment industry.

  All right, that’s my spiel. One more ad, and then we’ll wrap up the show. We’ll be right back.

  Announcer:
  Do you have a venture capital portfolio of cutting-edge startups? Without one, you could be missing out on enormous value creation and a more diversified personal portfolio. Alumni Ventures, ranked as a top-20 VC firm by CB Insights, is the leading VC firm for individual investors.

  Believe in investing in innovation? Visit av.vc/foundation to get started.

  Mike Collins:
  Okay. Well, thanks. It’s been really interesting talking to you and meeting you, Troy. Congratulations on what you’ve built so far. We look forward to catching up in six or twelve months and continuing to track your story.

  Troy Jones Jr.:
  Yeah, I appreciate that, Mike. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited and blessed to be here.

  Samantha Herrick:
  Thanks again for tuning into The Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d really appreciate it if you’d give us a rating on whichever podcast app you’re using, and remember to subscribe to keep up with each episode.

  The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions. Please email us at [email protected] with any of those, and be sure to visit our website at av.vc.

  As always, keep building.