Startup TopProp Wants Daily Fantasy Sports To Have A More Social Side

For Griffin Kurzius and Michael Zavagno, running a daily fantasy sports app that creates the social feel of a virtual sports bar and creating another way to engage with the vast world of daily fantasy sports and sports betting is a way for freshmen. It started in a dormitory. At Wake Forest in the mid-2000s.

Both are longtime fantasy sports players and have been in the same fantasy football league as their other college friends for over a decade. The duo wanted a way to make it funnier, more informal, and social.

Kurzius is now COO and Zavagno is CEO of Top Prop. Top Prop is a relatively new player on the daily fantasy scene, but has raised around $500,000 before launch while trying to differentiate itself from the bigger names.

To make it more interesting is where Top Prop creation comes in.

Launching at the beginning of the 2021 NFL season, the service is distinct from Fan Duel and Draft Kings’ daily fantasy sports outlet. Top Props provides users with props to guess the expected fantasy points of two players instead of drafting entire teams with salary caps for daily purposes.

“Over the years, we have looked at other daily fantasy sports platforms, but what drove us more than anything was the one-on-one nature of everything. We do communication and smack talk,” said Kurzius, who is from Cleveland. ) just wants you to pay $20 for the game and enjoy watching it.”

An example would be a one-on-one quarterback matchup.

For example, TopProp might predict 20.5 fantasy points for Russell Wilson against 22.5 fantasy points for Josh Allen. The user can choose Allen to give 2 points or Wilson to give 2 points.

“We offer a way to play daily fantasy that is very different from DraftKings and FanDuel,” said Zavagno. “I think that makes our target audience quite different.

According to Zavagno, the more casual nature of Top Prop’s daily fantasy system is geared towards younger users, with the average user being 25 years old, and demographically speaking, Stephen Curry’s overall stats are higher than those of Golden’s. It is likely that you are interested in the statistics of state warrior.

“We’re trying to cater to the type of people who are interested in a more interactive type of experience, like casual socializing,” Zavagno said.

“We are targeting a different audience,” added Kurzius. “It’s kind of like his Gen Z users that make things easier. So our goal is kind of a different, differentiated audience that allows us to grow and grow our user base pretty quickly. can.”

As expected, the NFL is currently the most popular sport, but the company plans to add NBA when the regular season starts next month.

The main similarity is on the money side. Users can participate in free competitions. Or, if you’re in 29 states or Washington DC, you can deposit money into your account and use that money to enter various competitions like Fan Duel and Draft Kings.

Another goal of the company is to create a social aspect in contrast to the formal and interpersonal nature of large tournaments. Think of it like a virtual sports bar where users talk about their daily fantasies choices during a big game.

“And we’re going to go against each other so that we can have social features, the ability to chat with friends, the ability to create groups, and eventually badges, leaderboards, etc. So the platform Give people a reason to enter and then just swipe through the contest,” says Kurzius.