Over the past few years, a bizarre phenomenon has emerged in the technology industry.  Great software was being offered for free all over the place.  Ex: Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Yelp.  We at StadiumRoar are proud to bring this phenomenon to the world of sports and recreation.

How does free sports software make any sense?  How can a “free” company keep the lights turned on without going broke?  What is the difference between a “free” company and “paid” ones other than cost?

Free sports software makes a lot of sense for users (you) and companies (us).  A free company still earns money, and can pay the bills, but we have to do it in creative ways instead of charging our users.  As a result, a free company has to try much, much harder than paid companies to keep you as a user happy and keep you coming back.

With a paid sports software company, the goal is simple; they charge you up front.  You will either be charged one life-time fee or get charged at the start of each month.  Once you pay them, you get the software.  They have your money and are happy.  Yes, it is still in their best interest to keep you satisfied as you use the service, however, once they have that initial cash from you, most of their battle is complete.

As a business, their time and energy is typically spent on the “pre use” phase of your relationship with them; this is the time before you actually have the software and start using it.  This is the time when they convince you to take out your wallet and give them money.  Once you give them the money, they will still support you as a user, however, their main goal is already satisfied.

Free companies are typically motivated by more than money.  Spreading the use of our service is much more important than maxing out profits.  Our mission is to spread lasting sports experiences all over the globe.  Our free sports software helps program managers save time and money with things like registration, scheduling and communication, and lets them focus on what they do best, which is create and promote awesome sports programs to the world’s athletes.

However, we still need to keep the lights on and still have bills.  A free software company like StadiumRoar typically pays the bills through ads.  Every time a user sees or clicks an ad, a free company gets a little bit of money.  Thus, we only make money when there are a lot of people using our service on a regular basis; this leads to more ads getting clicked.  Thus, our time and effort is spent on the “use” phase of the user relationship, not the “pre use” phase.  We cannot pay our bills if someone just signs up on StadiumRoar.  We can only pay them if people sign up AND THEN  (1) like what they see (2) use the service on a regular basis (3) spread it to all the people in their program.

Therefore, we at StadiumRoar are very focused on making our service powerful, easy-to-use and constantly improving.  This is the same thing that motivates Google from a business perspective.  However, like Google, we have goals that are larger and more important than “business”.  As mentioned, our main goal is to spread awesome sports experiences to the world’s athletes.  In addition, we are proud to support other great initiatives as well.  For example, check out our Go Paperless donation program.  By giving away our software for free, we can reach more people, and spread our causes to more places.

What else do you like about free software companies?  Leave a comment and let us all know.