In a sparsely furnished apartment in Mountain View, Calif., Griffin Kelly and Elliot Hevel, both 24 and shoeless, are working on their first startup--Timing and Racing Around the Clock Inc., which…
In a sparsely furnished apartment in Mountain View, Calif., Griffin Kelly and Elliot Hevel, both 24 and shoeless, are working on their first startup--Timing and Racing Around the Clock Inc., which makes a timing device, TRAC, that measures runners’ speed.
Both are runners who graduated from Northwestern University in 2013 with masters’ degrees in engineering. They have made a software-powered device that can be mounted on a tripod and operated by a smartphone, remotely if necessary, reading runners’ RFID chips as they cross the finish line and at various points along a race to calculate their times.
On Tuesday, the founders plan to present TRAC at Demo Day for Y Combinator, one of Silicon Valley’s best known startup funds, and ask investors for money along with 126 other Y Combinator startups. The startups represent 19 countries, Y Combinator says.
Mr. Kelly is optimistic about TRAC’s chances. “Running has been an area where tech has left the industry behind,” he said.
TRAC is a reminder that despite the downturn in Silicon Valley, where valuations for startups are falling and some companies are having trouble raising money, the drive to use technology to solve problems and create something new is alive and well.
Current timing devices for runners include stopwatches, paper and pencil with the results perhaps entered into an Excel spreadsheet, and high-end electronic timing systems that are too expensive for many track coaches and running associations, according to early users.
Mr. Kelly and Mr. Hevel said they worked on the device as a side project in Chicago, where they are from, for about a year and then won a local startup competition. They got help from Northwestern, which gave them interns, and some offers from Chicago investors but said they weren’t comfortable taking the money.
“[The investors] wanted to know about things like discounted cash flow,” Mr. Kelly said, and TRAC was too young for that. The men heard about Y Combinator, applied and were accepted. They moved to Mountain View in January and have been operating out of their apartment, which they have dubbed “the TRAC shack,” since then.
TRAC users say they have been pleased with the devices. Andre Martinez, the head track coach for Tulare Union High School in California, said TRAC is about three times cheaper than some other electronic timing systems and is far easier to set up and use.
Edward Zylka, executive director of the nonprofit Chicago Area Runners Association (CARA), likes the fact that TRAC works with current RFID chips but is also powered by software, where changes and new ideas are easy to implement.
“We’re talking about a long-term relationship,” Mr. Zylka said.
Meanwhile, TRAC has the usual startup growing pains--TRAC boxes, for instance, are made in Chicago and its circuit boards are made in California, with Mr. Kelly and Mr. Hevel screwing them together.
“Ultimately, these should be in a single location,” Mr. Kelly said.
Write to Deborah Gage at deborah.gage@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @deborahgage
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read the original article
Comments
Are the guys from TRAC here? It would be great to know more about it. I ran in college, my brother ran in college, my sister hopes to as well. I have always been frustrated that I couldn't follow along with those trackers online. We always resorted to trying to give play-by-play over the phone which isn't the most elegant solution. Definitely an area you could have a lot of impact on. Especially with the rise in popularity of marathons and other races.
By griffinkelly 2016-03-2220:591 reply So the entire idea was first inspired by timing athletes at trac practices. our coach would spend hours timing with 5+ stopwatches in hand, write everything on a clipboard, then type it into excel. He then would print it all out and give us a binder of numbers at the end of the year. We wanted to design a system that would be awesome for repeats on the track/xc course, and its slowly progressed into timing races.
That's awesome. All our splits were written down with pencil in our logs so I definitely felt that pain. I can definitely see a lot of places you could take it. Hope it all goes well!
By griffinkelly 2016-03-2221:49 thanks!
Today is YC W16 Demo Day (so, by the way, brace yourselves for an onslaught of YC/startup stories), so the founders are probably occupied, but we'll ping them.
By nbschulze 2016-03-2220:28 Cool. Thank you!
The key to this product, as I've always seen it, is to subvert all of the enterprise-style incumbent timing systems with a system that costs 80% less and is 200% easier to use. If you've seen any of the current stuff out there that's used at races, then you know that the latter requirement is, in fact, a low bar. TRAC looks to be satisfying both of these stipulations. I like their prospects.
By griffinkelly 2016-03-2222:50 Its insane. In college, I worked with a guy who owned an enterprise system and the software is very backwards. Everything has to be run on a windows machine, and every time windows updated, there were compatibility issues. We've tried to solve as much of that as possible, you can set up on browser, and then operate all the hardware off your smartphone when the race is going.
By griffinkelly 2016-03-2220:571 reply Hey guys, Griffin from TRAC here. Happy to answer any questions I can--pretty busy with demo day going on right now.
By koolba 2016-03-2221:02 In the "office" pic of you two those monitors look low relative to your head/eyes though the posture is eerily familiar. Doesn't that hurt your back?
