Finding the Winning Formula: An Interview with CatchCorner CEO Jonathan Azouri on Transforming Sports Facility Bookings

When Jonathan Azouri struggled as a youth to find available facilities for hockey, little did he know it would plant the seeds for a revolutionary new startup. As the co-founder and CEO of CatchCorner, Azouri is pioneering the way athletes and recreational players book sports venues with an intuitive mobile and web application.

In this exclusive interview, Azouri takes us through CatchCorner’s journey from concept to nationwide platform. He discusses the ‘aha moment’ that inspired the company’s creation, the strategic partnerships and operational efficiencies driving its scale, and how the team persevered through challenging times like the pandemic. With CatchCorner now empowering sports fans in over a dozen cities, Azouri shares the ambitions of expanding the platform’s reach even further to make bookings easier for communities everywhere.

Please provide a brief introduction of yourself and your professional background.

I’m an entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of CatchCorner by Sports Illustrated. I studied at McGill University, graduating in 2016 on the Dean’s Honor List with a Bachelor of Commerce.

Before CatchCorner, I founded TasteMontreal, a marketing platform designed to promote Montreal’s culinary industry. This experience gave me valuable insight into developing user-centric platforms, helping me refine my approach to creating accessible and seamless digital solutions. Combining this knowledge with my passion for sports and technology laid the groundwork for CatchCorner, where we’re making it easier than ever to book sports facilities online.

Please tell us a bit more about your startup – what does it offer, what problem does it solve, and who is your target audience?

CatchCorner by Sports Illustrated is an app – available on iOS, Android, and web –
for booking sports facilities. Whether it’s ice rinks, soccer fields, or basketball courts, our app allows users to easily find and book available spaces in real-time, much like how you could use another platform to book a flight or hotel.

We recognized the difficulty that athletes, teams, and recreational players face in finding available facilities, both during peak and non-peak hours. Our platform solves this problem by connecting users directly to a wide range of venues, offering them greater access and flexibility.

Our target audience includes casual players, seasoned athletes, as well as fitness enthusiasts who seek convenient access to sports facilities. We also cater to facility operators looking to optimize their bookings and better manage their operations.

What inspired you to start your own business? What was the “aha” moment?

Growing up playing hockey in Toronto, I often struggled to find available ice rinks. Either they were fully booked, too far away, or it was just a hassle to coordinate. That frustration sparked the idea for a booking platform. If booking a flight on Expedia can be so easy, why can’t booking a sports facility be just as effortless? So, along with my co-founders, I started developing what is now known as CatchCorner.

How do you stand out from the competition in your space? What sets your product/service apart?

What sets CatchCorner apart is the quality of our platform, both on the front and back end. The user experience is unmatched – we don’t see a one-to-one level of competition from a product standpoint. Given that we’re a multi-city app, we have a much larger operation. What we’ve noticed from our experience is we can move at anywhere from 10-15 times the speed of a local competitor. That’s an operational advantage. We’ve done our homework and gone through numerous experiences that give us an edge where a company would have to go through with those experiences to have that same level.

What have been your key strategies for growth and gaining traction/users?

Our key strategies for growth and gaining traction include forming strong partnerships, scaling operations efficiently, and continuously optimizing our app.

A significant milestone was our partnership with Sports Illustrated in 2021, which was instrumental in driving our expansion into the US market and fueling cross-category growth. Since launching in Toronto in 2019, we’ve expanded into 14 North American markets.

How did you go about building your team and attracting talent in the early days?

In the early days, it was a small team— three of us spent about three years developing CatchCorner, focused on perfecting the platform before launching in 2019.

Once we were ready to scale, we began bringing in talent to help grow the company. We were careful in selecting people who not only had the skills we needed but also shared our passion for sports and technology. Building a strong, dedicated team was crucial to our growth, and we’ve been lucky to find people who really believe in what we’re doing.

What are some future goals or plans you have for your business in the next few years?

We’ve had an incredible year, and our team is excited to keep the momentum going while exploring new growth opportunities. Looking ahead, we plan to harness emerging technologies to further improve the user experience. One of our key goals is to expand into additional markets, with the ultimate vision of making CatchCorner accessible in every city.

What have been some of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make as a founder? Any stand out as pivotal?

One of the toughest decisions I had to make as a founder came when we launched CatchCorner just a year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In 2020, lockdowns meant that sports facilities in Toronto were shut down, and no one was using our platform. It was a huge challenge—after spending years developing the app, we faced a complete halt in operations. However, we decided to push through, adapting our strategy and preparing for the eventual reopening. It was a pivotal moment that tested our resilience, but in the end, it made us stronger and more prepared for future challenges.

Under Azouri’s leadership, CatchCorner is transforming how we access sports facilities and fulfilling his original goal of giving players stress-free options for their games and practices. Through innovative solutions and a relentless dedication to customers, CatchCorner is emerging as the leading platform in its category. This is just the beginning of the impact this Canadian startup will make on both the sports and technology landscapes.