Mayo-based sports software firm is building a global brand

SportLoMo is a huge player in the world of sports management software and it’s based in Castlebar. The company was founded by Vivienne Kyne and her husband Seamus and they continue to grow and develop, adding some of the world’s biggest sporting organisations to their books.

A Galway native, Vivienne moved to Castlebar over 30 years ago and very quickly developed an IT business that has continued to pivot and adapt. Vivienne is a powerhouse but so modest about what they do. Providing jobs and a positive work environment in Mayo is a key requirement for her, and when you step into SportLoMo's beautiful offices in Castlebar, you get the sense she has achieved that.

Angelina: Vivienne, thanks for chatting to me. Tell me a little about your background.

Vivienne:  I'm originally from Salthill in Galway and I moved to Castlebar about 31 years ago to join my fiancé at the time, Seamus. We got married and have three kids.

Angelina: At that time, what were you doing in terms of work?

Vivienne: I had worked a small bit for Digital in Galway and then I was working in recruitment. My connection to Castlebar then was the VEC and, in particular, Joe Langan. So I did an interview with them and got the job. I worked there for four years, more or less as a computer trainer. 

"Then I had this idea that I'd like to set up myself. I thought it was going to be a little room on the side of the house, maybe with six computers, but it effectively ended up larger than that. We were 21st Century Computer Training for quite a few years.

In 2000, we changed and pivoted a little bit more into web design. We were getting a lot of sports organisations coming into us and looking for websites. We'd ask them to give us their results, give us their fixtures, and they just weren't able to collect them. So we started to build a back office initially on results and fixtures, but then we evolved to more extensive software. Now, along the way, we picked up other things. We worked with willietheshoe.com, which was a sports website set up by the late Willie McNeely, we did some Skillnet stuff. 

"We kept switching the business depending on where the economy was going, I suppose. Obviously, it's been pressured times over the last number of years. 

"Now, our main business is SportLoMo. It is a sports software company. We have customers and users all over the world at this stage. We do all the club rugby for Ireland - Ulster, Leinster, and Munster, Connacht - the whole lot. We do fixtures, results, and learning management. The system does membership and events. It's very extensive at this stage. 

"A couple of years ago, we expanded internationally. We have Canada Rugby, and Swimming Canada, which is a big contract we got recently. We have England Volleyball and we're in for a couple more tenders. We have a couple in Hong Kong - Hong Kong Netball. We have just very recently got USA Adult Soccer.

Angelina: You're doing most of that from here in the office in Castlebar?

Vivienne: Castlebar would be our headquarters. And staff-wise now, we have 26, but there are only about 12 of them that are based in Mayo and Galway. We have some external staff who have been with us a long time - they're not just subcontracting companies - in India, Vietnam, we've one guy in Bangladesh. We're taking on another guy in Canada. Our system is multilingual, so that appeals to a lot of people.

Angelina: There have been some huge challenges over the years with the recession and Covid.

Vivienne: There were certain times we did have to let a couple of staff go in redundancies. But Covid definitely hit us because, obviously, sport stopped for two years. We had a good few new customers in the pipeline before Covid. We were fine for the first year and we got Government support, which was great. But in the second year, the pipeline was going down and down and down. Then when we came out of it, we hadn't really built up the relationship. It takes quite a while sometimes to get a client on board because they do a lot of tendering and a lot of processes. The pipeline was fairly slack for a while, but we're coming back again now. We have a couple of big names that we're hopeful about at the moment.

Angelina: You obviously have to have a bit big appetite for what you do because the challenges are tough.

Vivienne: My husband Seamus Kyne is involved in the business. He is the CEO, so a lot of that would fall on his head and our senior management. There are times when you're under pressure and there's cash flow and there's banks and various things, but it's not something you can really walk away from, especially when you have staff that are with you for years. You are very tied in with staff and commitments, and we have a lot of commitment in Mayo. 

"Now, what does encourage us is we get a lot of calls from companies in software or payments wanting to invest. Payments are through membership events. We have a couple of our own investors who have invested in the company, but we get calls on that regularly. We're not quite ready yet to take on more investment, but it is very encouraging that you feel, well, okay, if we're really struggling or bumping on the bottom or we need an injection of cash, or we need to upscale or scale up a bit more that we know there is people out there.

Angelina: You're in this beautiful office space near MacHale Park in Castlebar. And you do house other businesses here too?

Vivienne: We moved building during Covid because our previous building was being sold. When we came here there was nothing in the place. During Covid then, a few of us worked with builders and brought it back up to a nice level. I say, jokingly, we're trying to become the Google of Castlebar. You'd be here some days - it's 3,000 square feet - and you'd be looking around you and there'd be only two or three staff in, and they'd be working remotely and you're thinking, the light and the heat and the expense - rates and insurance, the whole lot. We already had the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) renting with us for a long time. We started to advertise because we wanted some regular people as opposed to people at the hot desk and in and out. We now have LGFA and another company and three individual ladies as well. They help a lot with our overall bills and stuff.

Angelina: You said there have been huge challenges over the years - what do you put your longevity down to?

Vivienne: I think it's because you get the buzz and then you pivot a little because you have to. Now the SportLoMo thing has very much grown and grown. Initially, it was quite a small operation and it was just Ireland only, but we were never going to make enough money in Ireland. Then we got a break in Canada and now we're looking at the US and stuff like that. But because it's an IT thing, you can work remotely. We can compete with other companies. 

"Another interest we have is European Rugby. They have 36 rugby nations. We have a new tournament module on our system. The European Games were on recently in Krakow and our team member Eoghan Carney went out to them and helped our client European Rugby to run the Rugby 7s on our system. Seamus did a presentation recently on how to digitise sport - it was in the FRR outside Paris - it's the headquarters of the French Rugby Union and they had a big conference there with top European nations. Here we are, a small company in Mayo presenting at it but they don't see that, they just see the product.

Angelina: What keeps you going, Vivienne?

Vivienne: If you had said to me years ago when I was leaving the VEC, would you do all this and go on this journey, I would probably have said, absolutely, no. But then you get the buzz and you get into it. We have some very good staff and Seamus is very supportive. But I find myself now, I'm so long at it, I'm starting to step back and take it a little bit easier so that I'm not as tied to the office and I kick in when there's maybe some big tender document that we have to work on. It's not that I have lost the buzz on it, but I am getting to a certain stage in life that I should be able to step back a bit. I certainly wouldn't consider myself a workaholic. We're quite realistic on that one. It's just we want to continue and grow and do very well and bring good jobs into Mayo, and that's extremely important for us.

Angelina: Would you have advice for people wanting to take a leap of faith in business?

Vivienne: I think always be flexible and be ready to move and to change and to adapt. I think it is very important to realise that some days you'll have bad days or maybe you'll lose a client contract or maybe there'll be a recession or there'll be some problems. There'll be ups and downs at it, but you just have to teach resilience and be as positive as possible. A lot of the usual stuff, hire good staff and look after them because they're extremely important.