When the University of Miami lost to Pittsburgh on November 24th bringing their perfect season to an end and putting a run for the National Championship in the “unlikely” category, the loss killed something else, too: a deal Nick Hayden had been building to send Hurricanes fans to the ACC Championship game. 

Nick’s start-up FanPlan presented at 1 Million Cups Columbia on February 21 and the Miami story was one of the fails he shared with his audience. The miss underscored the precarious industry Nick has entered: sports entertainment travel. 

Well researched and completely boot-strapped, FanPlan is straddling the fence between travel agent and tour management company. Nick’s senior project is working on the enterprise and he’s earned some support from would-be clients who like the high level of customization and personal service he’s offering. 

Nick shared with the 1MC the challenges he’s facing the the community offered advice on everything from learning more about his customers to learning more about his competitors to learning more about the industry itself. Nick is willing to keep learning and he continues to look for ways to be disruptive in a well-established space. 

The community applauded Nick’s ambition and thanked him for being gracious when Mayor Benjamin popped in during Nick’s time and spoke to the crowd. Mayor Benjamin had with him the Mayor of Las Angeles, Eric Garcetti, as they and several other mayors were meeting with entrepreneurs like Michael Dubin of Dollar Shave Club to discuss how civic entities can support entrepreneurs. The Columbia chapter of 1MC was glad to greet them and then glad to get back to work helping Nick and FanPlan. 1 Million Cups Columbia meets every Wednesday at the Richland Library on Assembly Street at 9 a.m.