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Join us as we introduce each of the teams participating in our 2024 Summer Launchpad accelerator!
Hedgeis the robo-advisor for sports gambling.
Team Members: Henry Armistead (SPS ‘24) and Nico Colosso (Tandon '23)
After growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley, Henry Armistead is no stranger to entrepreneurship, startups, and success.
His father, one of the many entrepreneurs based in the global hub for tech and innovation, exposed Armistead to the highs and lows of the startup world. Seeing the excitement of building something for yourself from his parent and fellow community members certainly ingrained the spirit of innovation early on.
But it wasn’t until 2022 when Armistead’s aspiration for entrepreneurship came to the forefront. As a long-time sports fan, he became interested in sports gambling after moving from California, where sports betting is banned, to New York, where it’s legal. This opportunity not only presented a potential additional stream of income, but also a chance to build community in his new place of residence.
In the true spirit of an entrepreneur, Armistead founded an online community and sports gambling subscription service. His community expanded to over 50,000 members within a year and half, and he began witnessing an exasperating cycle plaguing many sports betters: Paying for gambling improvement tools they believe will help them make money, but continuing to experience financially irresponsible losses and incur financial liabilities.
Armistead recognized that tracking gambling finances requires an intricate combination of time and skills that many recreational players struggle to acquire. After milling through a few ideas and obtaining day-to-day insights on the needs of his target customer, he honed in on a solution.
Hedge, a robo-advisor for sports gambling, uses analytics to give users real-time performance data and recommendations that are designed to minimize reckless losses and maximize winning periods.
Below, Armistead tells us more about Hedge and his journey to entrepreneurship. (Responses have been edited for clarity.)
In your own words, how do you describe Hedge and its mission to someone new for the first time?
HA: We're aiming to even the playing field for sports gamblers through personalized performance data and recommendations with the goal of limiting financially irresponsible losses and capitalizing on periods of winning. What we do is provide people with the data, insights, and recommendations that aren't just coming from gambling, but a more holistic understanding of their financial profile. From there we can look at their gambling performance and habits and identify some of their strengths and weaknesses, and let them know in real-time if they're overextending somewhere or doing well. We are like a financial advisor for sports gambling, if you will.
How did you meet your core team?
HA: My co-founder is Nico Colosso, our CTO. He's a full-stack software engineer. I've known him since I was five years old. We went to the same middle school and junior high and then went on to different high schools and fell out of contact. We attended different colleges and still weren’t in contact. He moved to NYC a year before I did and went to NYU for software engineering. When I moved here a year and a half ago, we reconnected. We have the same sort of interest and he compliments the skills that I have and vice versa.
How did you initially find NYU’s entrepreneurial community?
HA: I had a great professor, Jared Barnes, encourage me to check out the Leslie eLab. From there I went to an info session, and then we did the Startup Bootcamp. We started the process in November of last year. We went on to the Startup Sprint [in May] and from there you're just in it. We got to know Darren [Yee], Jen [Curtis], Rebecca [Silver], and Frank [Rimalovski] and thought “Alright, we definitely want to pursue this.”
What’s the biggest business challenge your startup has overcome so far?
HA: Working in an industry that's highly regulated. There are certain stigmas, even though we're on the responsible gambling side, that are hard to break through. When you're in that space, you have to break down the wall pretty quickly and get your point across.
What’s been the most rewarding moment of your founder journey so far?
HA: Running a pilot program where we proved that we can improve people’s return by 10% on average. We proved that we can drive impact. That was super exciting because now we know that we can do it well. Now it's a matter of how we package it and get it in the hands of people that need it. We've proved that we can make a serious change, and that's been exciting.
What 3 words would you use to describe your founder journey?
HA: Aggressive, Joy, Humbling
What’s the biggest piece of advice that you’d give to aspiring student founders?
HA: Don't build your product until you talk to a bunch of people and lock in on their problems. Don't assume that everyone has the same problem that you think. Do not fit a product into a problem that you've made up for yourself. If you can get someone to buy it before you build it, do that, but do not do anything until you've identified a problem with other people that you don't know.
What is your best college experience (either academic or social) at NYU?
HA: The Leslie eLab. I'm a master’s student and 28-years-old, so I'm not super involved with school, but Summer Launchpad has been the best thing that I've done by far. It's a pretty unique experience.
Favorite NYU/NYC spot to spend time?
HA: Leon's Bagels. It's right down next to campus by Washington Square Park.
How else do you integrate sports into your life?
HA: I'm pretty competitive by nature. I have two brothers. One is four years older and the other one is four years younger. My older brother was a sick athlete and so I grew up always in his footsteps. We grew up super competitive. I played three sports in high school. I was in All American Lacrosse and decided not to play in college so I could go to USC. I was asked to join the women's practice squad at USC. They were a Top 5 team and they wanted to bring in a couple of guys to play with them. So me and my two friends got asked to do it and we joined the team. We were full practice squad players and our team made the Final 4 that year. That's the last time that I've done anything athletic. Now I just exercise and play tennis.
