This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 11, 2023 - September 17, 2023

With their demanding work schedules, many employees are seeking respite from the daily grind by engaging in sports such as badminton or football. But these planned events often face disruptions, from no-shows to last-minute cancellations, forcing the designated coordinator to hunt for a new venue and an available time slot that would suit everyone.

Having been in this situation one time too many, Raymond H’ng (pictured) and three of his friends from university were determined to come up with a permanent solution. A rather invigorating discussion at a mamak stall led to the start of Athletes for Athletes (AFA) Solutions Sdn Bhd, a sport-centric technology solutions provider.

“A bunch of friends and I [would always think of] business ideas when we were in university. I studied international business and marketing at Taylor’s University. During my internship, we experimented with bubble sports. We brought in those inflatable bubbles and supported the futsal ecosystem and team-building activities,” the 30-year-old CEO tells Digital Edge.

Wanting to make the most of that experience, H’ng and his three co-founders developed an application in 2019. AFA is a business-to-business app that facilitates partnerships with owners of sports venues through four essential automated features: a booking system; an IoT (Internet of Things) lighting system; vending machine and kiosk solutions; and a point-of-sale (POS) system for efficient inventory management.

Last year, AFA was rebranded as a super app to better serve its rapidly growing customer base. “AFA serves the sports ecosystem by creating digitally driven solutions and products that support the local sports industry’s move towards digitalisation and automation for basic processes like court reservations and online payments,” he says.

The founders describe their super app as something that is able to consolidate important features and aspects on one platform.

The first iteration of the AFA app only allowed users to book badminton and futsal courts. With the latest update, users can also book tennis courts, archery ranges, volleyball courts and dance studios.

“A super app means having the functionality of an entire ecosystem in one place. The best example would be Grab, which has Grab Car, Grab Delivery, Grab Food and even Grab Grocery,” says H’ng.

Other than addressing the constant struggle of replacing venues or last-minute bookings, the app was also developed to solve booking and payment issues for both users and its venue partners, he adds.

With AFA Pay, an in-app e-wallet that facilitates payments via credit or debit cards, online banking and other e-wallet platforms, users can view their spending history and track transactions such as arrears owed to peers and teammates. For its venue partners, the company offers its services on a subscription basis.

“We charge a merchant discount rate (MDR) for the transactions. We also collect subscription fees from our venue listings. As for users, we only collect the fee they’re supposed to pay the venue partners. The app is like the middleman between vendors and users,” says H’ng.

Currently, AFA users can book 95 sports venues nationwide. “There are about 200,000 users on the platform. We have also redefined the app into a super app and added features allowing users to organise leagues, tournaments and training academies,” he says.

“If you aspire to pursue sports professionally and would like to engage with a professional coach, this feature [the training academy] will be helpful for you. Signing up for the programmes is also easy because users can sign up directly through the super app.”

Although the company has been around for almost three years, it still struggles when dealing with a large number of bookings at a time.

“We now facilitate at least 1,000 bookings every day. Usually, users give us feedback on the booking process. For instance, how we can improve our booking process, how we can shorten it, or how we can help them accelerate or increase its efficiency when making certain bookings. Most of the time, the feedback is positive,” says H’ng.

These reviews play a vital role in enhancing the current system, ensuring it becomes more flexible and user-friendly, especially since it caters to users from all walks of life and different age groups.

“The younger users are more tech-savvy, and those of an older age group may grapple with technology. And that is a very important factor to us, so we can make our app suitable for a wide range of users,” he says.

In an effort to digitalise sports, the setting up of the super app also supports the core strategies that the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Sports Institute of Malaysia have mapped out to make Malaysia an active nation by 2023. During the launch of the app in March, Minister of Youth and Sports Hannah Yeoh emphasised that the platform helps make government sports facilities more accessible and has the potential to provide easy access in terms of participating in and promoting a more healthy and active lifestyle.

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