{"id":38229,"date":"2023-10-20T14:55:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/melbourne-startup-blueq-is-on-a-mission-to-make-junior-sporting-clubs-safer-and-more-efficient-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:55:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:03","slug":"melbourne-startup-blueq-is-on-a-mission-to-make-junior-sporting-clubs-safer-and-more-efficient-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/melbourne-startup-blueq-is-on-a-mission-to-make-junior-sporting-clubs-safer-and-more-efficient-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne startup BlueQ is on a mission to make junior sporting clubs safer and more efficient – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Melbourne startup is on a mission to improve safety-screening measures at junior sporting clubs and make the administration process smoother and more efficient.<\/p>\n

BlueQ offers a platform that digitises compliance checks, allowing clubs and organisations to keep this information up-to-date and in one place, CEO Nathan Merzvinskis says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe brought qualification data online so you never have the problem of losing [it and get] expiry reminders to renew those,\u201d Merzvinskis tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since founding the startup in 2014, Merzvinskis and co-founder Hugh Krantz have raised $100,000 in seed funding and secured a $30,000 grant from the City of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

The startup is\u00a0based out of Melbourne co-working space York Butter Factory and now has acquired more than 3000 users and 30 client organisations across the education, hospitality, healthcare and sports and recreation sectors.<\/p>\n

Krantz says that until now junior clubs have had unreliable and ad hoc systems in place to ensure their trainers and volunteers are properly screened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spoke to one sporting association that kept working with children checks on a phone,\u201d Krantz tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

This leaves the system\u00a0open for failure and correption,\u00a0Merzvinskis says.<\/p>\n

\u201cManaging qualification data is not an appealing role particularly in coaching clubs where coaches are volunteers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

So the two entrepreneurs\u00a0created BlueQ as a tool that digitises hard copy checks and\u00a0provides a way to lighten the administrative burden and streamline the process of ensuring people working at children\u2019s sporting clubs have valid and current safety checks to do so.<\/p>\n

To ensure these are valid, Krantz says the startup\u00a0also runs a free auditing process to cross check databases with certification providers to ensure individuals on their system have actually completed them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an extra level of protection,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The platform offers two account types, one for individuals in any sporting context to register their working with children checks or first aid certificates and receive expiry reminders to ensure these are updated periodically, and another for organisations and clubs to “have oversight and aggregate all that data in the one spot”, Krantz says.<\/p>\n

Krantz and Merzvinskis both worked at schools before launching the startup and experienced the problem of storing and updating an array of checks, certificates and qualifications firsthand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became a real hassle to check if we\u2019re compliant,\u201d Merzvinksis says.<\/p>\n

Since launching in January this year, BlueQ has been picked up by several junior sport clubs, including South Metro Junior Football League (SMJFL), which has more than 1800 coaches, trainers and volunteers.<\/p>\n

SMJFL general manager Jake McCauley says\u00a0the platform will become incredibly useful in junior sport across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving our coaches and trainers their own accounts to manage their accreditations is a great feature that will make them more proactive in ensuring their accreditations are up-to-date and valid,\u201d McCauley says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that BlueQ becomes the industry standard for qualification and accreditation management nationally, to help increase the compliance levels in junior sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

The co-founders\u00a0are now working to drive up their user base to 50,000 and generate $100,000 in revenue by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be the gold standard of digital qualification \u2013 we\u2019d like to increase the compliance levels of all junior sporting clubs across the country,\u201d Krantz says .<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,<\/em>LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Melbourne startup is on a mission to improve safety-screening measures at junior sporting clubs and make the administration process<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}