# A 25-year-old fan's side project, taking Germany from a long-established Norwegian App · groundhopper

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/play_de.grounder.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> Germany is the largest user base for Futbology, the English-language Norwegian app. Grounder offered deeper German amateur data, one-click import of records from Futbology, and lower prices. It grew through word of mouth in the community, local media, and daily TikTok posts. No paid acquisition was seen.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · Android · written 11-6

Grounder: Football Stadium App · Hawighorst Media

# A 25-year-old fan's side project, taking Germany from a long-established Norwegian App: groundhopper

**What it is** A German-language app for fans who visit stadiums one by one: 100k stadiums, German league fixtures down to the lowest amateur leagues, check-ins, badges, a spending diary. Premium is €0.99/month or €9.99/year.

**Why it took off** Germany is the biggest user base of the Norwegian English-language app Futbology. Grounder offers deeper German amateur data, one-tap import of records from Futbology, and a lower price. It grew through word of mouth in the scene, local media, and daily TikToks. No paid acquisition seen.

**C** **How you could follow** Don't compete with it in Germany. The playbook to take: build a native local alternative in a market where the global leader is biggest but not home-based, cover the local long-tail data, and move users over from the leader with one click. Do it in another country (e.g. the Netherlands, Poland) or another collecting/check-in hobby.

Grade C: Germany is already taken by Grounder, and later copycats haven't taken off. The groundhopping scene is small, and at €0.99 pricing the ceiling only supports one person's side income. What's worth learning is the local-alternative-plus-one-click-migration playbook, not the product itself. Whispers in the niche

Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-09-18 · 11-07 installs 4,491

Android · Total installs worldwide

Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.

On 28 October 2026, at 5:30 a.m., Radio 21 in Lower Saxony aired a 30-second local news item: Timo Hawighorst, a 25-year-old fan of Osnabrück's team who makes apps in his spare time, had built an app called "Grounder", launched in September, which "has already been downloaded nearly 13,000 times". Grounder serves groundhoppers, fans who travel from stadium to stadium, a category Futbology has been building for more than ten years. Grounder didn't invent anything new. It took the biggest slice of Futbology's market, Germany, and built a replacement that understands German users better. This piece explains how it did that, and whether you can take the same path.

### "Two-tap import from your old app"

Grounder's first official TikTok went up on Oct 28. The caption is three lines:

> 🏟 All stadiums and fixtures, from Kreisliga (county-level leagues) up to the Bundesliga 📱 Import your data from your old app in two taps 🤝 Lots of new features

The second line is the key one. Its FAQ page names a competitor directly: "Can I move my matches over from Futbology, Europlan, or Footbeen? Yes, via CSV import." The next post is a walkthrough: "In Futbology, open 'My matches,' tap 'Export' in the top right…" (grounder.info, 11-06).

What a groundhopper hates most about switching is losing years of check-in records. Some have logged thousands of matches. Migration cost is the biggest barrier to switching apps, and Grounder wiped that out first.

### What it is

A **German-native stadium check-in and match diary app** . The website says it covers roughly 100k stadiums and 25k+ leagues and cups, men's and women's football, with German fixtures going all the way down to the lowest amateur leagues and reserve teams. At the ground, you check in via location, earn badges, log ticket, travel, and parking costs, and see where friends have been. The map also marks fan bars, shirt shops, and parking spots.

The app is free to use. Premium costs €0.99/month or €9.99/year and unlocks route planning (which stadiums on a route have matches that day), multi-day search, and back-filling old matches from two years ago or more (website, 11-06). The developer is Hawighorst as an individual. The iOS version launched in Sep 14, Android in Sep 18. The website images are labeled "Mit KI erstellt" (created with AI).

### Metric

| Date | Google Play cumulative installs | German Play Sports chart |
|---|---|---|
| 10-07 | 2,615 | — |
| 10-28 | 3,721 | — |
| 11-01 | 3,903 | Free 39, top grossing 38 |
| 11-06 | 4,491 | Free #52, **Top Grossing #34** |

Google Play installs and German chart positions, 10-07 to 11-06.

- Android new installs in the last 7 days: 588. In the same period Futbology's global Android new installs were 836, and it has 300k installs in total (Google Play, 11-06). **A new app that only people in Germany use is adding about seven-tenths as many installs a week as the leader does globally.**

- iOS is the bulk. The media figure of about 13,000 downloads compares to roughly 3,700 on Android at the time, so iOS is probably about 70% (estimate). On the German iOS store it has 50 ratings at 4.59 stars, and its best German Sports free-chart position was #21 (App Store, 11-06).

- Few people pay, but it has already charted. The German Sports Top Grossing #34 threshold is low, so a handful of subscriptions a day may be enough (estimate). On the same day Futbology ranked #15 on that chart.

- Updates ship every 7 weeks to the 1.2.1 version, very frequently.

### Why Germany, and why this one

**Germany was already Futbology's biggest market.** The Athletic wrote in a December 2025 Futbology feature that Germany was its largest user country. But Futbology is an English-language product from a Norwegian company, and the part German groundhoppers care about most, the Kreisliga, women's football, and reserve-team matches, is not its strength.

**Depth of data is the product.** The first question a groundhopper asks when picking an app is "Does it have the small match I'm going to this weekend?" Grounder covered German amateur fixtures all the way down and opened a club backend, so clubs can claim their stadiums and maintain their own info, fixtures, ticketing, and stand food prices. The website and Radio 21 both say it works with about 2,000 amateur clubs. A global English app can't fill in that amateur data.

**Switching is free, staying is cheap.** Import eliminated migration costs, and at €0.99 a month it's barely a decision. The paywall sits on a veteran hopper's pain point: if you want to add matches from ten years ago, you need Premium.

### Where users come from

- **Scene word of mouth (the main source, but can't be verified directly).** Within 3 weeks of launch the Android app had 2,600 installs, and no paid acquisition was found. A user on Futbology's Reddit community wrote that this was "another reason to leave Futbology, Grounder is a promising German project."

- **Local media.** A headline in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung in Oct 27 said the 25-year-old had started a "wildfire." Radio 21 followed up the next day, and the local paper's Facebook page shared it. Afterward, Android daily installs went from about thirty to over eighty.

- **Daily TikToks, a late start.** The account began in Oct 28, with almost one post a day, all as questions: "When are you going to San Siro?" 77k views (11-04); "Which stadium do you absolutely need to visit after renovation?" 45k (11-01); "Where are you going this weekend?" 24k (11-03). By 11-06 it had 661 followers (TikTok, 11-06). No feature talk, just stadiums, and the comments are users posting their own travel plans.

- **App store search.** The app name includes both "Football Stadium App" and "Fußball Stadion App," and the description repeats groundhopper and Kreisliga. Some users surely found it through search, but how many is unclear.

### Who it's competing with

| Product | Scale | How Grounder differs |
|---|---|---|
| Futbology (Norway, since 2012) | Android 300k installs; German iOS 445 ratings; German Sports Top Grossing iOS #10, Play #15 | Category leader, English, global; German amateur data is less deep than Grounder's, and it costs more |
| Footbeen | Very small | English, grows through searches like "Futbology alternatives" |
| Ovals (German, 2023) | Small | Selling point: add matches not in the catalog yourself |
| Flutlicht (German, 2026-04) | 7 ratings on German iOS | Also an independent German developer, launched half a year earlier, didn't take off |
| Groundia (German, 2026-10-16) | Android 343 installs | A German-language copycat that appeared after Grounder took off |
| Stadianity, Seated, TerraceTrail, Kopio, and many more | Most have 0 to 10 ratings | English stadium trackers that appeared in 2026, with no local amateur data |

Install counts and ratings from Google Play and the App Store, 11-06.

This year there's a flood of similar apps, and the barrier to building one is low. Among this batch, only Grounder has broken into the top 60 of the German Sports chart. The difference isn't features: check-in, maps, badges, and diaries are everywhere. The difference is local data and migration, two things others couldn't be bothered to do. So far this is known only in German groundhopping circles and in Lower Saxony local media. Revenue isn't public, and nobody has mentioned it on X.

### If it were you

**C.** The playbook is worth understanding, but copying it directly isn't worth it. Germany is already taken by Grounder; the later Groundia and Flutlicht never took off. Groundhopping itself is small, and at €0.99 pricing, even fully capturing the entire German-speaking market would only support one person's side income. What you can actually take away is the playbook: **in a market where the global leader is biggest but not home-based, build a native local alternative, and make migrating from the leader a one-click process.**

**Who it suits:** a solo developer who knows a niche hobby community and can handle local long-tail data (amateur leagues, local routes, local shops). Ideally you're already part of that community, with a story local media would pick up.

**Who it doesn't suit:** anyone hoping to earn a full-time income from groundhopping; anyone who can't get local data and can only build a generic English tracker (there are over a dozen of those this year, and nobody uses them); anyone unwilling to spend time in the community themselves.

**How to do it:** two paths. (1) Switch countries for groundhopping: pick a place with strong fan culture, lots of amateur leagues, and where Futbology's English isn't convenient, such as the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, or Italy (estimate; user counts in these markets are unverified). First cover local amateur fixtures in full, and open a club backend so clubs maintain their own info. (2) Reuse the playbook in another collecting/check-in hobby: find any hobby with a ten-year-old English app whose biggest user base is in another language. First confirm the leader supports export, then put "Import from XX" in the first line of the store description and on the FAQ page.

**How to get users:** copy Grounder. Pitch the founder story to local newspapers and radio. Reply to the complainers in the leader's Reddit and Facebook groups. On TikTok, skip features and post a daily question insiders want to answer. Put both English and local-language keywords in the app name.

**Window:** Groundhopping follows the season, so the winter break is when people plan their second-half trips. Launch by February 1 at the latest. The route of switching categories has no rush.

**What the mistake looks like:** ① Futbology shipped a German version and deep amateur-league data, so Grounder's growth stalled. Local substitutes only get a window before the leader reacts. ② Grounder went international and charted in the Netherlands and Poland, so the open slots in other countries were already taken by Grounder itself. ③ On the flip side, Grounder climbed into the top 15 of Germany's Sports Top Grossing chart, catching up to Futbology. That means this category pays more than expected, and it can be upgraded to B.

[Android store page ↗](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.grounder)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Futbology (formerly Groundhopper, Futbology AS, Norway) | iOS | 2011-12(iOS)/ 2012-04(Play) | 301k Play installs; iOS German store 445 rating; German store Sports Top Grossing iOS 10 / Play 15; covered by The Athletic, which says Germany is its largest user base | Grounder is native German, with deeper German amateur and women's fixture coverage, lower prices, and a dedicated import from Futbology CSV exports |
| Footbeen | iOS | 2026 | Very small, never charted | Generic English version, pulls in users through SEO comparison blogs; Grounder focuses on German local communities |
| Ovals(Thies Dieckmann) | iOS | 2023 | Small | Pitches adding matches yourself when they're not in the catalog; Grounder simply covers German amateur fixtures completely |
| Ground Hoppers App | iOS | 2026 | Instagram 4,103 followers | Leans toward ultras and fan-culture community; Grounder leans toward complete data and collecting |
| Flutlicht - Groundhopping App | iOS | 2026-04 | DE store 7 rating | Also an indie developer in Germany, launched half a year earlier but never gained traction |
| Groundia: Fußball-Groundhopper | Android | 2026-10-16 | Play 343 installs, iOS 7 ratings | A German-language competitor launched a month later, with no visible edge in data or migration features |
| Stadianity / Seated / TerraceTrail / Ballgame / GroundHopping: Stadien sammeln / Kopio, etc. | iOS | 2026 | Mostly 0–10 ratings | English or generic stadium trackers with no German amateur league data |
| Europlan / footballgroundmap.com / Matchkalender | Web | Long-established (Matchkalender is newer) | Old hopper logging tool, not verified | Web directories or fixture lists, no check-ins, badges, or social features |

Where users come from

- Inferred **groundhopper community reputation / word of mouth** : an NOZ headline says it "ignited a wildfire"; a user on r/futbology described Grounder as the place to go after leaving Futbology; 3 weeks after launch it had 2,600 Play installs and no evidence of ads

- **Confirmed** **competitor user migration (CSV import)** : the first paragraph of the store listing and the FAQ explain exactly how to export from and import data from Futbology / Europlan / Footbeen; supports 1,000+ matches

- **Confirmed** **local media** : covered by Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung 2026-10-27 and Radio 21 2026-10-28; afterward, daily Play installs recovered from about 35 to about 85

- **Confirmed** **TikTok / Instagram owned accounts** : TikTok @grounder.app has posted almost daily since 10-28, with 661 followers and a top video of 77,006 views (11-04); the official Instagram account replies to creators using #grounder reels

- Inferred **amateur club claiming (B2B crowdsourcing)** : a backend for clubs / bars / jersey shops on the website, claiming 2,000 certified clubs; whether they promote the app to members is unverified

- Inferred **app store / Google search** : bilingual titles include Football/Fußball Stadion App, and the Play link carries utm_source=google organic

- Inferred **paid ads** : no records in the metaads library (the library only tracks listed products)

## Grounder: Football Stadium App (de.grounder) research report

Research date 2026-11-06. Data sources: our googleplay / appstore / metaads libraries (agent-im server, DuckDB), Jina / Brave web search and page scraping, TikHub (TikTok), x-radar.

### One line

Grounder is a groundhopping (stadium check-in) app built by Timo Hawighorst, a 25-year-old German indie developer (sole proprietorship "Hawighorst Media," Haan, small-business VAT filer). It covers 100k stadiums and 25k league and cup fixture lists (all the way down to Kreisliga county leagues in Germany, for both men's and women's football), with location-based check-ins, badge collecting, a spending and mileage journal, and friends' activity feeds. It's free, with Premium at €0.99/month or €9.99/year. It's live on iOS 2026-09-14 and Play 2026-09-18. Over about 7 weeks it has accumulated roughly 13k downloads (the website claims 12,800 users), with Android accounting for only about a third.

**Bottom line** : It didn't invent the category. The category leader, Futbology (Norway, since 2012), has been around for over a decade, and **Germany is Futbology's largest user market** (The Athletic 2025-12). Grounder built a "native German + complete German amateur league data + one-click CSV migration from Futbology + cheaper" offer and is competing for users in Futbology's biggest market. Its growth came from word of mouth in the German groundhopper community, local media (NOZ / Radio 21), and TikTok, which only started posting daily in October. There's no evidence of paid advertising. It's still small, in the "people are talking about it in small circles" stage.

### 1. Data (from our database)

- **Play installs** (googleplay library app_day / app_day_ext, the latter estimated by AppstoreSpy): 10-07 2,615 → 10-14 3,219 → 10-21 3,474 → 10-28 3,721 → 10-30 3,903 → 11-03 4,357 → 11-06 4,491.
    - In the first three weeks after launch, installs averaged about 130 per day (the earliest observation starts on 10-07, so daily figures before that aren't reliable). From 10-08 to 10-28 they dropped to about 35–100 per day. From 10-29 they recovered to about 85 per day (the +454 on 11-03 is the total across the four days from 10-31 to 11-03). In the last 7 days: +588.
    - For comparison, Futbology (com.kepermat.groundhopper) has 301,437 total installs worldwide, and +836 in the last 7 days (same library, same period). **Grounder only sells well in Germany. Its Android installs in the last 7 days already amount to 70% of Futbology's worldwide Android installs.**

- **Play charts** (chart_rank, Germany only): Sports Top Free 61 (10-29) → 39 (11-01) → 52 (11-06); Sports Top Grossing 38 (11-01, first charted) → 34 (11-04, 11-06). On the same day, Futbology was ranked 15 on Germany's Sports Top Grossing chart.

- **iOS** (appstore library + iTunes lookup): German store rating 45 (10-28) → 50 (11-06), 4.59 stars; 2 reviews in the Austrian store; best German Sports Top Free ranking 21. Version 1.2.1 (11-03 updates), with frequent updates since launch.

- **Estimated download split** : NOZ (10-27) says about 13,000 downloads. On the same day, Play showed only about 3,700, so iOS likely accounts for about 70% (estimated, unverified).

- **Ads** : No advertisers for Grounder or Futbology turned up in the metaads library. The ad library only tracks listed products, so not finding ads doesn't mean none were run.

- The Play reviews library has no reviews for it (reviews are only pulled for the top 30 apps on the overall chart).

### 2. Competitors

| Product | Platform | Launched | Scale | How Grounder differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Futbology (formerly Groundhopper, Futbology AS, Norway) | iOS / Android | 2011-12(iOS)/ 2012-04(Play) | 300k Play installs; iOS ratings of 445 in the German store and 332 in the UK; best German iOS Sports Top Grossing ranking 10, Play 15; featured by The Athletic / NYT, with Germany as its largest user base | The category leader, with 90k stadiums; mainly English, global coverage. Grounder is native German, covers German amateur leagues down to Kreisliga, includes men's and women's leagues, and is cheaper (€0.99/month). It also has a dedicated "export from Futbology → import into Grounder" migration guide. |
| Footbeen | iOS / Android | 2026 | Very small (not charted in the library) | English, pulls in users through SEO blogs ("best groundhopping apps 2026", "Futbology alternative"); Grounder doesn't do SEO content and relies on German local communities |
| Ovals (Thies Dieckmann, German) | iOS / Android | 2023 | Small | Pitches "you can add matches yourself if they're not in the catalog"; Grounder simply covers German amateur fixtures completely |
| Ground Hoppers App | iOS / Android | 2026 | Instagram 4,103 followers | Leans toward ultras and fan-culture communities; Grounder leans toward complete data and collecting |
| Flutlicht - Groundhopping App (Christian Nolden, German) | iOS | 2026-04 | DE store 7 rating | Also a German indie developer, launched half a year earlier but never took off |
| Groundia: Fußball-Groundhopper (Julien Jordan, German) | iOS / Android | 2026-10-16 | 343 Play installs, iOS 7 ratings, Play German Sports Top Free 91 | A German-language competitor that launched a month after Grounder took off; can be seen as a follower |
| GroundHopping: Stadien sammeln, Stadianity, Seated, TerraceTrail, Ballgame, StadiumPass, Kopio, Matchkalender (web / apps, German fixture lists) | iOS / web | Most have been around for 2026 years | Nearly all have 0–10 ratings | In 2026 the category saw a wave of small apps built with AI assistance, almost none of which gained traction |
| Europlan, footballgroundmap.com, The 92 | Web / App | Long-established | Record-keeping tools for long-time groundhoppers | Web-style directories, no check-ins or social features |

**Bottom line** : There are many competitors, and a lot of similar apps have appeared in 2026 alone (vibe coding has lowered the barrier). Grounder is the only one of this new wave to reach the top 60 of the Sports Top Grossing / Top Free charts in Germany.

### 3. Growth tactics (evidence)

1. **Word of mouth in the German groundhopper community (main driver, partly confirmed)** : an NOZ 10-27 headline reads "How this 25-year-old ignited a 'wildfire' (Lauffeuer)"; Radio 21 10-28 says the app has had about 13,000 downloads since launch. On r/futbology, a user wrote: "Another reason to leave Futbology. Grounder is a promising project from Germany" (Reddit CSV Export thread, search snippet). No evidence of paid acquisition was found.

2. **Migration path to capture Futbology users (confirmed)** : the FAQ specifically covers "how to move your records from Futbology, Europlan, and Footbeen" and "how to export from Futbology," and it supports imports of 1,000+ matches. The first line of the store description is "Import all your stadiums from your old app in a few clicks." For groundhoppers, the biggest sunk cost is years of records. Zero-cost migration removes the barrier to switching apps.

3. **Local media (confirmed)** : Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (10-27, with a VfL Osnabrück fan-story angle), Radio 21 (10-28), and Facebook shares of the NOZ and Bramscher Nachrichten articles. The timing matches Android daily installs recovering from about 10-29 to about 35 after 85.

4. **TikTok daily posts (confirmed, started late):** @grounder.app has 661 followers, 20 videos and 4,114 likes (TikHub, 11-06). The first video went up on 10-28; since then almost every day there's a stadium-talk video like "When are you going to San Siro?" or "Which stadium this weekend?", with a top view count of 77,006 (11-04) and 45,005 (11-01). Instagram @grounder.app is also active (content not captured). Creators post reels tagged #grounder, and the official account replies below them.

5. **2,000 "verified" amateur clubs (existence confirmed, role not verified):** The site has club, kit shop, bar and volunteer backends. Clubs can claim their own stadium and maintain the profile, fixtures, tickets, food and fan info. The site and Radio 21 both say "in cooperation with about 2,000 amateur clubs." This works as crowdsourced data (filling in amateur stadium info), and could also be a channel (clubs share it with members), but I found no direct evidence of club promotion.

6. **Store search:** The app name appears as both "Football Stadium App" and "Fußball Stadion App", and the descriptions repeatedly use terms like groundhopper and Kreisliga. The Play external link carries utm_term "grounder of groundhopping of app" (Google organic search), so some installs come from search, volume unknown.

7. **Paid ads:** No records in the metaads library, unverified.

### 4. Why it took off

- **Targeting the category leader's biggest market:** Futbology's largest user base is Germans (The Athletic), but it's a Norwegian English-language product. A German-native alternative that goes deep on German amateur leagues naturally has an audience waiting.

- **Data depth is the product:** The essence of German groundhopping is amateur stadiums (Kreisliga, women's football, reserve teams). Grounder claims German fixtures go all the way down to Kreisliga, for both men and women, and most of its 100k stadiums are amateur venues. That's the first criterion groundhoppers use to pick an app (comparison articles for Footbeen and Kopio also put "match and stadium coverage" first).

- **Zero migration cost + cheaper:** One-click CSV import of your Futbology records. Premium is 0.99 €/month or 9.99 €/year.

- **The founder is inside the scene:** A VfL Osnabrück fan who has visited stadiums across Spain (photos in NOZ). The story travels well through local media and fan communities.

- **The paywall is well placed:** free users can backfill two years of matches, while older matches, route planning (which stadiums on the way have games that day), multi-day range search, and favorites sit behind Premium. Long-time hoppers who want their full history will pay, which explains how it reached the German Sports Top Grossing chart with only 4,500 installs 34.

- **Fast iteration:** 7 releases a week to 1.2.1, iOS rating 4.59.

### 5. Differentiation

None of the features are new (check-ins, maps, badges and diaries all exist in Futbology). The difference is **localization + data depth + a migration path** stacked together: German language, German amateur and women's fixtures, stadium info maintained by clubs themselves (2,000 clubs), ticket info (1,000+ stadiums), maps of fan bars, kit shops and parking, and "move your ten years of Futbology records over here." That differentiation is why it took off. Many English generic stadium trackers released around the same time (Footbeen, Seated, TerraceTrail, Stadianity and others) lacked this local data, and basically none of them gained traction.

### 6. How many people have seen it

- Revenue isn't public (no TrustMRR listing, the founder hasn't shared numbers). Search on X turns up nothing (x-radar: 60 days, 0 posts).

- The only coverage has come from German regional media like NOZ and Radio 21, plus scattered mentions on r/futbology.

- **Verdict: spreading within a small circle** (German groundhopper community + Lower Saxony regional press).

### 7. Copycats

- Groundia (Julien Jordan, German, launched 2026-10-16, 343 Play installs) is a German-language rival that appeared after Grounder took off. Flutlicht (2026-04) and GroundHopping: Stadien sammeln (2026-06) came earlier, so they count as contemporary competitors rather than copycats. I found no evidence of anyone directly copying Grounder.

### 8. Takeaways

- Build a native local alternative in a market that is big for the category leader but not its home market: language + local long-tail data (here, amateur leagues) + one-click migration of old data + lower price.

- The migration path is written into the first paragraph of the store description and the FAQ, naming the competitor and the export steps outright.

- Let B2B users (clubs, bars, kit shops) claim and maintain their own listings: fills in data, builds a moat, and may bring in a channel.

- Founder story + regional media + community: a few thousand early users at almost no cost.

- The monetization point hits the strong need of existing users to "complete their history."

### 9. Uncertain

- Where the amateur fixture data comes from (guess: fussball.de or similar, unverified; if it's scraping, there's ban or legal risk).

- Daily distribution over the first three weeks (9-18 to 10-07): our library only has data from 10-29, AppstoreSpy only has real observations from 10-07, so the exact early acquisition channels (Facebook groups, WhatsApp, Instagram) couldn't be verified.

- Whether the 2,000 clubs are actually promoting it to their members.

- Whether it has run any ads (the ad library doesn't track it).

- Actual paying users and revenue: getting onto the German Sports Top Grossing chart 34 takes very few sales, possibly only single-digit paid downloads per day.

- Whether it can expand beyond German-speaking markets: so far volume only in Germany and Austria.

### Sources

- NOZ: [www.noz.de/sport/vfl-osnabrueck/artikel/osnabruecker-timo-ha…](https://www.noz.de/sport/vfl-osnabrueck/artikel/osnabruecker-timo-hawighorst-hat-fussball-app-grounder-entwickelt-51593945) (2026-10-27, paywalled, only title, summary and captions retrieved)

- Radio 21:[www.radio21.de/service/news/beitrag/vfl-fan-entwickelt-erfol…](https://www.radio21.de/service/news/beitrag/vfl-fan-entwickelt-erfolgreiche-groundhopping-app-85156.html)(2026-10-28)

- Website / FAQ / club backend / Impressum: [grounder.info](https://grounder.info), /fragen, /verein, /impressum

- The Athletic on Futbology: [www.nytimes.com/athletic/6902663/2025/12/26/futbology-footba…](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6902663/2025/12/26/futbology-football-fandom-travel/)

- r/futbology CSV export post (search snippet): [www.reddit.com/r/futbology/comments/1wuyau9/csv_export/](https://www.reddit.com/r/futbology/comments/1wuyau9/csv_export/)

- TikTok @grounder.app(TikHub,2026-11-06)

- Google Play library (app_day, app_day_ext, chart_rank, 2026-10-29 to 11-06); App Store library (app_profile, app_day, 2026-10-28 to 11-06); metaads library advertiser

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.