Fanpics

What We Do

Fanpics is changing the way people enjoy live events, both for fans at the venue and also the people they share their stories with. We install proprietary camera technology into venues to capture every fan’s reaction to the big moments in the game (think Splash Mountain, but for sports). These images are then used to produce a personalized story for each fan, and all they have to do is enter their seat number into our mobile app.

Our Story

A long time ago in a far away place called London, our CEO sat with his dad on the sofa watching Premier League soccer (as father and son do). In classic-dramatic fashion, their team Chelsea FC comes back to win a Champions League game at the last second... pandemonium ensued. They explode in excitement, erupting from their sofa positions they were previously glued to, emitting the rare sound of grown men screaming - the neighbors surely heard them several doors down.

By the time their excitement settled, they looked back at the TV through the eyes of the camera man, and of course, their celebrations were not alone. They sat together and soak in the spectacle; fans jumping out of their seats, the roaring of the crowd interrupted only briefly by the announcers own amazement, the pile of players all embracing each other, the coach running onto the field to join them.

It was then our CEO realized how uniquely emotional sports were, that there's not a lot of moments in your life that give you that emotional intensity. "What if you could capture all of those great moments for every single person?” he thought. And that’s where our story begins. What started as an idea on the couch, became pen on paper, then robotics in a laboratory, and today, a young company with ambitions of changing every live event experience in the world. Fanpics was created to give every fan a story, a story of those unique, emotional experiences that were until now, lost.

Our Opportunity

The camera technology provides a low-cost footprint into each venue and produces a few things for Fanpics; a large amount of users, high engagement around our content, and, a lot of user data. For the first time, this presents teams and brands the ability to reach fans at scale, in a targeted, emotional, and personalized way. This has significant implications for live-event sponsorships and e-commerce. And since our adoption and engagement rates are higher than any other in-venue digital product, we have the best opportunity to capitalize on those markets.

How we Hire

First we should warn you, we’re not a typical start-up. We have unique challenges by the virtue of our ambitions involving hardware, software, manufacturing, business development, marketing, sales - all in the highly competitive global market of sports, media and entertainment. These challenges excite and inspire us, and it’s why we’re constantly looking for the best and brightest to join us on our journey.

We like to start our hiring process with a quick call or hangout with the founders, explain our business, where we are and where we're going, and see if it excites you (and, to also check if you're crazy and/or a possible murderer). Then, we like to schedule a 2nd call with the team you'd be working with to do a bit more of a dive into capabilities - no tests or coding exercises, but just some more pointed questions to ensure you can do what you say you can do. This also provides a temperature check for both sides on the level of comfort they'd have working together (personalities, work styles, paper or plastic, etc.).

Lastly, we'd like to bring the candidate to the office in person (if possible). There is the last step to meet the rest of the team, check for a culture fit, see the robots - we want you to look around our exposed brick walls and think, "This feels like home..." and if it doesn't, then that's cool too.

The skill set and capabilities are simply a checkbox, what puts a candidate over the edge is someone who is excited about joining an early stage company and has the energy, passion, and drive to do something big.

Growth & Culture

Fanpics launched its pilot just over 18 months ago at Viejas Arena, SDSU's College Mens Basketball (with a team of 4). After amazing success, we rebuilt our technology for scale from the ground up, closed funding, hired a team, found manufacturing partners, and quickly expanded to MLS Galaxy's StubHub Center in LA just 8 months later. We're now installing into our 3rd venue, Staples Center, operating for the Clippers & Kings beginning Fall 2015 (EXCITED!). And, we have 10 more teams coming online by the end of the year with an additional 50 in the proposal pipeline. In the next two years, our goal is to install in every major sporting venue in the continental US, becoming part of the sports vernacular and just as common as hot dogs and soda pop.

Our culture is equal parts laid back and heads down. You'll find no micro-managers or extensive meetings here. As a small team (15) we come together to plan our weekly sprints and have light touches throughout the week when needed. We expect everyone to be a self-starter and independent, and with a portion of our employees being remote (across three countries and 5 timezones) we are always pushing as much a-synch communication as possible via Slack (messaging) & Asana (project management). We try to use email almost never internally (that sh**'s wack!) and want everyone in the company to have a voice across the board, regardless of seniority or tenure.

We run our tech at live events, so sometimes we'll need support at weird times - weekends, nights, holidays. But that coverage is all remote (grab a beer and chill on your couch) and our super-flexible PTO and work schedules allow you to recharge your batteries at your own discretion. In the office (San Diego's historic Mission Brewery Plaza) we have occasional Nerf battles, yoga sessions (led by our sensei and Lead Hardware Designer DJ) and creative sessions called "Beers & Brains", which is mostly beers.

Lastly, every employee is offered stock options, meaning you are all owners of the business, we expect everyone to go that extra mile to make us successful.