Ross Kelly’s Smart Scout connects players and talent spotters and is already said to have helped some budding professionals to secure trials
22 year-old Ross Kelly is the founder of Smart Scout.(Image: Smart Scout)
For budding footballers the dream of attracting the attention of a team scout may have become a little more attainable thanks to the efforts of a young entrepreneur from Brough. Ross Kelly, 22, decided to tackle the issue with a tech product that puts players in front of talent spotters – and vice versa.
The idea was conceived about 18 months ago drawing on Ross’ own experiences playing football when he was younger. Having launched Smart Scout, the young entrepreneur left a steady job as a project coordinator for Hull manufacturer Lazenby Group, to pursue his vision full time.
“Getting scouted is the main goal for the majority of amateur players but I felt there was no real visible path or no real direction for them,” explained Ross. “So, I decided to take it into my own hands – without having any previous experience in creating apps but thinking an app was best suited to the problem because it’s easily accessible for everyone.
“The concept is quite simple really: the players sign up and it costs them £5.99 per month and they basically come on board and get their own player ID card, and this is what the scouts on the other side of the app will look at. Their cards are a bit like a full portfolio of their playing history, their stats, profile pictures and highlight videos – everything a scout could want.
“Then we have all our scouts on the other side of the app who are using it as a starting point for discovering talent – essentially using it as an initial discovery tool before they go down and see someone.”
While developers have been busy building and fine tuning the app, Ross has been recruiting scouts. Smart Scout is free for them to use – an incentive which has already helped to secure more than 100 sign ups.
Alongside the essential facts and figures which help talent spotters to do their thing, the app also offers a rating system – where scouts can award stars to players. Those players are searchable by range of criteria including playing position, age and goals scored, among others.
Scout users can add player cards to their “watch list” to give them a clear view of who they’re looking at. Armed with that information, they can then decide whether to travel to a game for a closer look.
Ross added: “Scouts are smart and will try and spend their time as efficiently as possible but sometimes you can’t avoid it – they’ll go down to watch a game and it’s not what they hoped for. So the app is really good for being able to watch someone for a few months and see how they get on, see the videos and how they’re playing in each game – and so far they’re finding it useful!”
And a number of players are already said to have secured trials with the app having put them on the radar of scouts. One of Ross’ users, a 13 year-old girl who signed up only weeks ago was asked to attend a talent identification event hosted by Reading FC.
So far about 30 players are signed up with Ross now turning his attention to recruiting more. He hopes to grow the matchmaking platform as a go-to in the sport.
He added: “I’ve learned a lot as I’ve gone along. The initial base of the app was delivered by outsourced developers. That team are based in India, and I’ve also got an English developer who jumps in when I need him.
“For all of the in-app features, they’re all created by me because that’s the only specialty I have.”
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