Clifford Lidell used to dread the start of his daughter’s soccer season.
With each season came a new team name, requiring two separate trips to the local print store to design a team banner, then to The Home Depot to buy supplies to create a stand out of PVC pipes.
The issue with this process was that it always resulted in a less than desirable product.
“It’s constantly breaking and falling over, and at the end of the day, it looks bad too,” Lidell told the Business Journal.
That’s why he founded Gamestand, an Orange-based tech startup that made a platform using artificial intelligence (AI) for youth sports parents to create unique team artwork in a matter of seconds.
Lidell believes it’s a “massive” untapped market with over 60 million kids registered to play sports in the U.S. this year and the average family spending nearly $1,000 per child, according to the National Council of Youth Sports.
The startup launched last year and is currently partnered with American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), the largest youth soccer organization in the U.S., in 30 regions in Southern California.
Lidell is also the co-owner, along with his wife, of modern Japanese style hot pot restaurant Tabu Shabu in Old Towne Orange.
Doing the Creative Heavy Lifting for Parents
People can make banners at local print shops, but they typically only offer five or so generic design templates, Lidell said.
“As a parent, you have to say, ‘How am I going to make you a banner for this crazy, imaginative name that you just made up,’” he said.
Users can generate multiple custom design options using Gamestand’s AI platform for free before picking their choice and having it shipped to their homes.
Gamestand does the “creative heavy lifting” for the parents, Lidell said.
Most generative AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, require users to provide an initial prompt or idea, which is then translated into text or other forms of media.
“The fact is, most people either don’t have the time or the interest in being creative in the first place,” he said.
Gamestand, instead, only asks users to provide five pieces of non-creative information: the team’s name, color, sport, gender and age range of the players.
The company does more than create designs—it also provides an easy to set up stand to hang up the banner.
Its product is patented as the world’s first fully collapsible sports banner stand, according to Lidell.
A stand retails for $75 on Gamestand’s website.
Former Pacsun Creative Director
Lidell leveraged his 16 years as a brand executive at different media and tech companies to develop his own AI startup.
Prior to Gamestand, he was chief brand officer of NTWRK, an app for online sneaker and apparel shopping for three years and nearly six years at the company total.
Lidell also spent seven years at Anaheim-based Pacsun in various creative director roles, helping the brand resonate with Gen Z and millennial audiences.
When he couldn’t find anything remotely similar to what he was thinking of, Lidell looked at patent databases and realized nothing existed in the space.
“Maybe it’s because we love supporting our kids so much that we just all collectively agreed to be okay with this,” Lidell said. “I’m not really sure what the reason is, but no one had ever solved it.”
Within two days, he developed a working prototype of the stand.
Lidell said that they were granted patent approval for the stand after three months, falling into the small category of U.S. patents approved on first round without any pushback or questions from the examiner.
With the technology piece, the entire process from start to finish took about 12 months to develop.
Gamestand currently has less than 10 employees.
Lidell said the company is in its first phase and coming this fall, will launch a new option for people to create an online shop selling branded team merchandise.
