Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Grozdanoff.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Brian. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My story starts when I first started playing soccer as a kid. From there it was a life-long love of and passion for the sport which has translated into many great experiences, lessons, opportunities, relationships, and ultimately a means of earning a living.
I’ve played soccer almost my entire life – competitively from the time I was 6 years old through college, and then on a recreational level since then. I grew up in Atlanta and, as a kid, had the opportunity to participate in some of the different youth clubs/leagues that were around back then (the landscape is a lot more developed today). When I made my way back to Atlanta after college I, of course, wanted to keep playing soccer and explored many of the amateur leagues—both indoor and outdoor—that were available so I could get my fix, typically playing 2-3 times per week on a year-round basis.
I had come back to Atlanta for a job offer (which had nothing at all to do with the Landscape Architecture degree I had gone to school for…) with a company I had worked for during the summers while I was home from school. It was a start-up company that began operations the first summer I was in college and over those five years had grown into a moderately-sized operation. Looking back, it was probably all those summers spent watching (and being a part of) this company growing up from a one-man show and turn into a “real” business that fostered an entrepreneurial spirit that was within me. I wound up staying with this company for 7 years or so, helping it grow to become the largest of its kind in the southeast and ultimately having an opportunity to strike off on my own to start, from scratch, another new division of the company.
Looking even further back, I should credit my parents for planting the entrepreneurial seed that was eventually fostered by my later experiences with starting and growing the small businesses that I was a part of. Both of my parents, upon moving to Atlanta when I was a baby, started new businesses from scratch, initially operating out of the house so from even before I could walk or talk I was exposed to what it’s like to be involved in a small business.
So while the entrepreneurial spirit was in my DNA, so-to-speak, the one thing that put it all together for me was something as simple as a bad customer experience. After being back in Atlanta and having played in a number of adult leagues around town, my teams would at times express to me (I was always stuck being the team captain because nobody else wanted to do it) certain things about the leagues we played in that they didn’t like. After a particularly negative experience on one occasion, while my own teammates were complaining to me about things that were completely outside of my control, a light just came on and I said to myself – “I know soccer. I know how to start and run a business. So why not combine the two and do something all on my own?” And that’s where the idea for what would become One-Touch Soccer was born.
Has it been a smooth road?
Any new business is going to have its struggles and growing pains, and One-Touch Soccer is no exception.
Probably the hardest part of the whole process was the planning and building phase. It took us over 18 months just to secure a building permit from the City of Atlanta. While that process was unfolding, the banking crisis hit and the bank which had originally approved our construction loan wound up being acquired by another bank so we had to go through the entire loan approval process (in an entirely different banking environment than before) all over again. Then, the big flood of 2008 hit right as we were about halfway through construction, setting our construction schedule back by about 6 months and costing us a whole bunch of extra money.
Through all these ordeals I was very fortunate to have massive amounts of support from my family, my business partner, our engineering and construction partners, and even from would-be customers who were already aware of us and were looking forward to our getting open. All of this made it that much worthwhile when we finally got our doors open, as I was able to share in the excitement of it all with everybody who had helped along the way.
Since we’ve been open, we have faced the usual challenges—staffing, collections, etc.—but we have really been fortunate to have a great group of employees to help us build things and an equally great and loyal group of customers who not only support us but routinely provide us valuable feedback on how we can continue to make things better.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
One-Touch Soccer is a 5½ acre indoor soccer / outdoor soccer facility serving the Atlanta area, specifically the in-town and Westside neighborhoods. We designed and built our facility from the ground up specifically for team-oriented league play, practice, instruction, and field rentals. Programs are available for both adult and youth teams and players, at all levels of play from beginners to highly skilled players.
Our most popular activity is adult league play, which we offer seven days a week, year-round, for men’s, women’s, coed, and over-30 teams. We partner with two of the largest predominantly-Hispanic adult leagues in the Atlanta area as well. Our fields are also always available to rent for practices, parties, corporate events, or really anything else anybody needs an all-weather field for.
We plan to start offering some new programs in 2017, focusing on new youth programming options to augment our always-popular winter youth league and also some other sports offerings like flag football and lacrosse.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think Atlanta is a good place for a business like ours. As evidenced by the huge amount of support for our new MLS franchise, there is a tremendous soccer community in this city. More and more people continue to see the value in exercise and participation in social and team-based activities.
The biggest challenge Atlanta holds for any business is its size, sprawl, and traffic. We selected our location to be as traffic-free for as many people as possible, with particular focus on the in-town neighborhoods and for those on the western edge of town.
I think Atlanta is on the right track with a lot of the planning and redevelopment that we’re seeing right now, but we have to continue to think forward and stay on track so we can keep attracting and welcoming newcomers to our great city.
Contact Info:
- Address: One-Touch Soccer
3200 Atlanta Industrial Parkway NW
Atlanta, GA 30331 - Website: www.onetouchsoccer.com
- Phone: 404-691-1009
- Email: info@onetouchsoccer.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/onetouchsoccer
