Hiroyuki Doi, the CEO of SPLYZA founded the company on May 2, 2011. In about ten years since then, the number of teams that have introduced their main service, "SPLYZA Teams," has exceeded 900, and the number of users has exceeded 30,000. Here is a summary of the founding story of SPLYZA.

The founding inspiration was a desire to "experience excitement every day of the week, all seven days."

Doi was originally a software engineer. During his student days, he did not belong to any club activities and lived a life unrelated to sports, but in his third year as a working adult, he happened to discover windsurfing. Since then, he has immersed himself in it from morning till night every weekend. As a result, his work on weekdays became relatively boring, and he thought that if life is a continuous week of 7 days, he wanted to experience "Every day is exciting." This led him to quit his job and travel alone to Australia.

However, even though he was engrossed in his passion in a foreign land, he continued to feel unfulfilled. Australia was the holy land of windsurfing, but he had no acquaintances or friends there and spent his days training alone. It was then that Doi realized, "I love windsurfing, but what made it fun was having friends to train with, filming each other, watching the footage together, and discussing it over meals. All of these things combined made it enjoyable!" Doi still aimed to become the best amateur windsurfer in Japan, and his friends at the time shared similar aspirations. In other words, even though it was an individual event, everyone shared the same goal, and worked towards it, which made the process fulfilling for him.

After returning to Japan, Doi was hit by an unexpected setback: his car, which was loaded with all his windsurfing equipment, was stolen. While he still had the desire to start a business, he felt conflicted because he couldn't quit windsurfing to prepare for it, since he needed the time and money to do so. However, this incident became the turning point that motivated him to start moving toward starting his own business.

"Realizing the desire of amateur athletes to become 'better'."

In preparation for starting a business, over 100 ideas were proposed, but the one that was ultimately adopted was the one that Doi proposed last: "Improving the situation where IT is hardly used in the field of amateur sports, rather than in professional sports." This idea came from Doi's experience in Australia, where he filmed videos to connect with his Japanese friends and wrote about his techniques and current status in a blog.

At the time of its founding, in the field of "Sports Tech," there were only services available for professionals and top athletes who compete in the Olympics. All of these services were expensive and out of reach for amateur players. Therefore, to realize a video-based "Sports Tech" service for amateur athletes, three people, including Doi, started SPLYZA.

＊＊

"SPLYZA Teams' predecessor app "Spoch" was released in 2014."

The founding of SPLYZA dates back to 2011. Three years later in January 2014, their service "Spoch" was finally launched. However, despite the long launch process, there was virtually no response from consumers. This was understandable since at that time, the founding members of SPLYZA were all engineers and had no one w knowledgeable in BtoC marketing. Subsequently, they exhibited at trade shows and made announcements on Facebook, but the only people who responded were friends with no connection to sports.

The reason why they couldn't release the app for a long time in the first place was that they were developing it based on themselves as users, as what they wanted. They continued to implement any feature that they thought was necessary, which led to an increase in development costs without any real progress.

Amidst this, Doi began selling the service to universities across the country via email and message boards in the spring of 2014. Despite conducting an enormous amount of sales efforts, only two users registered for the service. At this point, his spirits were broken and he was in a slump so severe that he began to question whether the concept itself was wrong. He didn't know what he could do next and so for the time being, the "Spoch" service was put on hold.

Released "Clipstro/Clipstro Golf" in the latter half of 2014.

Taking the lessons learned from their previous experiences, they developed and released two new apps in just two months. The first, "Clipstro," was released in July 2014 and automatically converted sports videos into slow-motion replays. Then in December of the same year, they announced "Clipstro Golf," which specialized in analyzing golf swings. However, at first, only acquaintances used the apps. At that time, the industry was shifting away from the "paid app model" and towards the "freemium" model. Regardless of the business model, they realized that "if an app is not recognized, nothing will start."

So, Doi came up with a plan to "actively reach out and expand his network of contacts in the sports industry." For one year, he traveled all over Japan, meeting with sports business professionals, and coaches of school sports teams, and even appearing on sports media. His efforts paid off, and gradually, the recognition and awareness of his product increased.

And at the end of 2014, "Clipstro" was picked up in a special feature on the App Store, and the following year, it won the Microsoft Innovation Award. Gradually, the company SPLYZA and its self-developed apps gained recognition around the world.

In 2016, despite having left "Spoch" hanging in the air, Doi couldn't give up on it and continued to hear feedback from sports professionals every day, identifying improvements and requests for the app's re-release. Through trial and error, he improved the features originally aimed at individual sports and re-launched it with enhanced team sports functions. Finally, in October 2016, the revised version of Spoch, now called "SPLYZA Teams," was released.

＊＊

Although it seemed like a smooth start, the challenges continued.

The beta version of "SPLYZA Teams" was received with great enthusiasm, with trial registrations from 150 teams across 20 sports categories. However, the app ended up not being used at all. As a result, when the app was officially released in January 2017, only five out of the 150 registered teams had become paying customers. Around the same time, Doi had been meeting with 20 to 30 venture capitalists per year, but none of them believed that amateur sports could be profitable, and he struggled to secure funding. It wasn't until he pitched at KDDI's Mugin Labo that he was finally able to raise 60 million yen in January 2017.

This time, having more acquaintances in the sports industry turned out to be a disadvantage. In response to requests and hearings from coaches of various sports and age groups, the app was packed with a full range of features. However, despite incorporating every conceivable feature, the app was not being used at all. Nevertheless, they couldn't afford to miss the opportunity they had almost grasped in front of them.

Therefore, they decided to narrow down the app's features to focus on "high school soccer club activities," which were the most popular among the initial five teams. However, during the soccer festival held in Hamamatsu in July 2017, they received criticism from coaches one after another during their sales pitch. For example, some said they were interested but didn't have any extra time to spare, while others said they didn't want to increase their workload any further. Despite this setback, Doi didn't give up and decided to shift his approach.

“TEDxHamamatsu” presentation by Hiroyuki Doi→[ YouTube ]
Photo credit: TEDxHamamatsu

Solution provision that solves the customer's problems has finally fit.

Today, it's not uncommon for high schools to allow students to bring their smartphones to school, and some schools even provide tablets to each student. Additionally, many schools offer Wi-Fi access. It was in this environment that the idea of "getting students involved in video analysis" was born. As a result, "SPLYZA Teams" was completely overhauled in just one month to allow for collaborative work by multiple people.

As they started to pitch and conduct seminars in various places, they received unprecedented reactions from both students who found it interesting and teachers who were moved by it. It was the moment when innovation was born for SPLYZA Corporation and sports clubs nationwide. The user reactions at subsequent seminars changed 180 degrees, and this became the catalyst for a movement in youth teams across the country to "analyze game footage" and "create analysis teams within their teams".

In this way, SPLYZA, which achieved a problem-solution fit, was able to clarify the essential challenges of its users and satisfy the needs of potential customers. Rather than focusing on features that the development team wanted, they adopted a stance of prioritizing the needs of the users when developing new functions.

As an aside, SPLYZA was founded in Shizuoka, where student soccer is popular in Japan. This allowed the company to expand its services mainly to high school soccer and grab the opportunity to surface. If it had been started in Tokyo or Osaka, for example, it might have faced a different outcome.

＊＊

The necessary puzzle pieces to complete the puzzle are beginning to come together.

In 2018, personnel who had not previously been present in the company began to join one after another. Within a short period, three individuals - a soccer analyst, a former teacher and club activity advisor, and a graphic designer skilled in social media marketing - were hired. At the time, the company was not actively recruiting and was barely making ends meet, with few users. It was not a situation where they could afford to hire new staff, even if people came knocking on their door. However, they decided to take a chance and hire them anyway.

After that, to make "SPLYZA Teams" more user-friendly, the company became more active in developing new features based on customer requests and feedback. As a result, the app's features are now used more than 10 times as much as before 2018. In addition, the company actively approached previously untapped markets through marketing on social media and launching owned media, increasing the number of users.

In August 2019, the long-awaited SPLYZA Cup was held in Yaita City, Tochigi Prefecture, with users at the center of the event. Particularly noteworthy was the winter National High School Soccer Championship, where heavy user Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School made it to enter a competition, which led to an increase in brand recognition. Currently, more than 10 teams participating in the championship are also SPLYZA users. Starting in 2020, sales were further strengthened, and by the 10th anniversary of the company's founding, the number of teams using "SPLYZA Teams" had exceeded 500 and the number of users had exceeded 30,000. As of March 2023, the number of teams using the service has increased to over 900.

As for new in-house developed services, in April 2020, SPLYZA released "Lecta", an automatic camera editing app for the on-demand delivery of classes. In January 2021, they also launched "SPLYZA Teams for ACADEMIC" to support practical classes at universities. In recent years, in addition to supporting amateur sports, they have also expanded into the field of "sports and education".

＊＊

A global team with members gathered from all over the world.

The nationalities of the staff working at SPLYZA are truly worldwide, spanning nine countries including Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Honduras, Vietnam, China, India, and the Philippines. Many of the foreign staff members are engineers, making it possible to develop software in multiple languages.

Starting a business in a local area has its benefits, but there are some disadvantages when it comes to recruiting talent. However, since one of the founding members of SPLYZA was American, we actively recruited foreign staff without being overly concerned about hiring Japanese people.


Generally, most of the reference materials related to programming are in English, so it is better to have people who can read English rather than just Japanese. By using services such as LinkedIn and Stack Overflow, we received applications from dozens of talented engineers from around the world in a short period.

For example, even if a foreign national wants to work in Japan, there are limited companies that will accept them unless they are large corporations that have established a global framework. However, SPLYZA's strength is that it offers an environment where people can work even if their Japanese language proficiency is imperfect. Although English is the majority language in the current development environment, there is a flexible environment where we can respond to different situations and partners.

＊＊

Developing talents who can survive in modern society through sports.

Sports is a problem without a correct answer, and it is something that continuously seeks the best solution through trial and error in discovering and resolving issues. Regardless of age, we strongly hope that individuals can acquire the ability to survive in society through sports and by utilizing SPLYZA's services.

SPLYZA has a long-term vision of establishing "SPLYZA Park," which includes all-weather grounds and gymnasiums, as well as video recording equipment at all venues. In addition to hosting games and tournaments, there is a fully equipped MTG room that enables immediate stats and video analysis after the game. We have a strong desire to move away from the "play and forget" culture of sports and promote a culture of "reflection on sports."

We aim to deliver our service to a wider audience and become the standard in the sports industry.

We aim to grow the products offered by SPLYZA into services that can be used by users around the world in the future. We will continue to provide solutions that receive daily feedback such as "I became a professional athlete using our service" or "I was able to participate in the Olympics" using our service.

We are also working on image recognition and deep learning, and conducting proprietary research and development of technology that can automate what was previously done manually, by utilizing cutting-edge technology. This allows even the middle and lower tiers of amateur sports to use our services easily, without complex operations, and at a relatively low cost.

The utilization of sports videos is not only for enhancing performance on the field but it has also been proven to alleviate communication issues between teammates and even unearth hidden talents. We will continue to actively develop services that can support users in solving their challenges and embody the theme "Every day is exciting." of SPLYZA's founder, Doi.