When Athletes suffer through a serious injury, they often take rest, rejuvenating themselves so that they can enter the game again, fit and healthy. But this is not the case for Lucas Espada. He was the best high school goalkeeper in East Brunswick, New Jersey when he suffered a broken left ankle. However, he didn’t let it stop him, turning his misery into a beautiful opportunity.
While studying at the Northeastern University, he spent all his first semester in planning an app that would help athletes like himself publicise to the college recruiters. It is difficult to get noticed. Moreover, it is even more so when it comes to expanding your connections. Espada knows this based on his own personal experiences. He’d incorporated music score from the movie ‘The Dark Knight’ to his package of highlights.
The idea bagged a lot of positive response from college coaches. This led to CAPTIV, Espada’s company, which would go on to make videos for more than a handful of fellow athletes. The work was tiring as well as unprofitable. Even to make a 3-minute video, Espada has to invest at least 18 hours. He decided to relaunch his company at the University. This new company has a different policy. It is based on an assembly line of editors that are used to scour client game videos.
“We take a 90-minute soccer game video, and we assign 18 people to watch it at the same time so that each of those 18 people watches five minutes apiece,” Espada told. “You do that for seven videos, 630 minutes turns into 35 minutes, and you go from there.”
Espada has also written an Excel program so that the editors can give ranks to the highlights that they discover. He had taken interviews which helped him develop his company. Around 30 people showed up, from which he picked up his staff. Espada’s presentation of CAPTIV gave him a place in the finals of the ‘Husky Startup Challenge’. It is a semester-long competition. It is where the University provides students with any kind of help they need to develop their ideas into successful companies.
Espada, over time, has kept himself very busy. In addition to joining different clubs in the University, he is doing meditation and yoga, and learning taekwondo, among other things. Now that his ankle has all but healed, his next task is ready, “Soccer Tryouts. They’re in February.”
Pranjali Wakde
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