By Riley Kaminer
It’s a Friday night. You’re ready to get your Messi on and play a game of soccer, but none of your friends are available.
Fear not – now you can fire up Plei, a Miami-based platform that enables users to easily find access to open soccer games in their area.
“The idea is that whether you are new to a city or you don’t have any friends to play with, you can hop onto our app and find a variety of different games in your city, across a variety of different soccer facilities,” co-founder and CEO Sebastian Duque told Refresh Miami.
“We have games in all different skill levels as well,” he continued. “We really try to make the platform as welcoming as possible for players who have played their entire life or for people who are just getting into soccer – or anybody in between.”
Once a user finds a game that interests them, they can simply sign up through the app and head to the field at the right time. “We make it as simple as possible,” said Duque.
Duque, a Miami native who returned to the Magic City after having gone to college at Loyola University Maryland, co-founded Plei with his brother and COO Alejandro in 2017. So far, the company has been primarily bootstrapped, except for a small crowdfunding raise that was cut short by the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Now it is raising another crowdfunding round.
According to Duque, Plei is already on track to make $4.5 million in revenue this year, up from $1.7 million last year. “This growth is a testament to the fact that we built something that people really needed,” Duque said, crediting Peter Thiel’s Zero to One as having provided him with the framework he followed to build Plei.
Past product-market fit, Duque attributed Plei’s rapid growth to the 25-person team’s customer obsession. “We built a team that is entirely focused on customer success,” asserted Duque, noting that the average response rate for customer inquiries is just 15 seconds. “We try our best to treat all our customers with care, compassion, and respect – and our users can really feel that.”
In the long term, Duque hopes to expand Plei internationally, with a particular focus on North America and Europe. “We want to be the one-stop-shop for soccer enthusiasts.” Duque envisions Plei expanding to more sports beyond soccer, but not for a while. “Right now, the opportunity is big enough to focus on soccer.”
“Our tech growth is here to stay,” said Duque of Miami’s rapidly rising tech ecosystem. “I’ve always seen Miami’s potential,” including its strategic location in the middle of the Americas and its deeply-ingrained hustle culture. “The pandemic accelerated this growth, but it was always going to happen regardless. I’m excited to see what happens in the next few months and years. And at Plei, we’re excited to play a role in that growth.”
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
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- Goal! Miami-based Fz Sports raises $74M in debt-equity round
