Meet Teresa Friesen, Founder @ SheMate and FanWell

SheMate is a mentorship platform aimed at pairing youth sports teams with former and current women athletes at different professional levels. The purpose is to give girls real insights and experience in reaching their goals and continuing their athletics journeys.

FanWell is a platform that seeks to support coaches and youth sport organizations through improving the culture of fans in the stands — such as helping guide the parents of players into being better contributors to their teams.

Friesen has established herself in the Nebraska startup ecosystem, joining the state’s sportstech scene and becoming a 2026 Pipeline Pathfinder.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur or support other entrepreneurs?

I’m a social worker by training. After years of work in school and hospital settings and teaching college classes, I kept wishing the business world had a stronger social sciences presence. I became curious about how technology could expand access to wellness and create meaningful impacts.

I never imagined that curiosity would lead me to sports, but it ultimately inspired me to build SheMate, where we mentor girls in sports, and FanWell, where we help teams build the best fans in youth sports.

For me, entrepreneurship has become a way to bring together my background in social work, my interest in innovation and my belief that we can create healthier communities by rethinking how we approach the challenges around us.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to when you were just starting out?

It takes time to learn the world of entrepreneurship. It will not go as quickly as you want, but the time spent learning is necessary to develop quality relationships and make a real impact.

It turns out it’s actually time well spent.

How can the Nebraska community support you?

My goal is to make Nebraska the best place in the country for young people to play sports and a model for what youth sports can and should look like nationwide.

We have an incredible opportunity to build something special here: a sports culture where every kid knows their value, every girl knows she belongs in the game, coaches feel equipped to lead and parents and fans become part of what makes sports great.

At the heart of this vision is making sure kids get to experience all the incredible benefits sports can provide. Sports teach teamwork, perseverance, resilience, leadership and confidence. They get kids moving, give them a break from screens, help them build relationships and teach life lessons that will serve them long after their playing days are over.

Every kid deserves these experiences, but too many kids miss out. Girls drop out of sports at higher rates than boys, and negative sideline behavior drives kids, coaches and officials away from the game.

Through SheMate mentoring and FanWell parent culture, we can help young people stay in sports, feel supported and thrive. I’d love to connect with schools, clubs, coaches, parents, community leaders and sponsors who share this vision and want to help make it a reality.

The opportunity is bigger than any one person or organization. It’s about working together to make youth sports better for the next generation and showing the rest of the country what’s possible when a community gets behind its kids.