TourneyMachine helps tournament directors schedule games for a variety of youth sports.
For more than 10 years, Rob Lynch and his brother, Tom, have operated their own software company, creating custom applications for existing businesses. But with their latest venture, TourneyMachine—a web-based application that helps manage and organize tournaments for youth sports—the pair is bringing a bit more of their work home with them.
Launched in the fall of 2011, the brothers—parents to four children ages six to 16 between them—decided it was time to find a solution to the way their kids’ softball tournaments were run. So they built one. 
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“Through the last 10 years we’ve had a number of products that we were first to market on,” Rob (right) said. “They were successful products for us but they’re not on the national scale. They didn’t explode like they should have because of the marketing we were missing.”
Enter Shoplr co-founders Sam Schill and Nathan Haila, who recently joined the team full time. Now the Ames-based startup works with more than 200 tournaments across 40 states. But Rob and his brother are no strangers to solving scheduling snafus.
In 2001, the pair created the scheduling software that managed the Geek Squad team, then just a small tech support company based in Minneapolis. Not long after, the company was acquired by Best Buy and the brothers worked as the product’s lead developers for about six years.
“That is the same type of thought that was put into scheduling youth sports tournaments and camps,” Rob said.
The team of four recently released a TourneyMachine mobile web app as part of a massive company rebranding. The web app will be utilized by participants at specific tournaments to receive updates and scores throughout the weekend. The platform’s new look features a cleaner interface and user experience the co-founders hope will help attract potential partners. While the site was originally geared toward parents like the Lynch brothers, the focus has shifted to the needs of tournament directors.
Currently the site’s main source of revenue comes from tournament directors, who pay a fee per team registered, though Schill (left) says they are looking at ways to further monetize their product.
“Thankfully this thing has a great viral effect to it,” Schill said of the scheduling platform. “When you go to a tournament and have to see the event on a TourneyMachine page, it encourages other groups to join.”
Credits: Photos courtesy of Sam Schill.
