Nearly every time Taylor Acton stepped out of his Mesa home wearing his navy Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, a stranger paused to start a conversation about football. The exchanges were quick and easy — casual talk between fans who shared a team allegiance — but they regularly dissolved before game day arrived, leaving Acton to watch alone on the couch. “My wife started calling my hoodie our ‘friend maker’ because of its power to elicit greetings from strangers,” he said, describing the small interactions that would plant the seed for a larger idea. The problem, he realized, was that those impromptu conversations rarely led to organized gatherings where fans could watch games together.
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That observation has been turned into Fancav.com, a free online platform Acton developed to help sports enthusiasts find or organize watch parties with fellow supporters. The Mesa-based startup officially launched this month, timed to coincide with the second half of the professional baseball season and the run-up to a busy fall slate of football and international soccer competition. Acton said he expects engagement to grow as Premier League, college football and NFL schedules begin in the coming weeks.
Acton sees the Phoenix area as fertile ground for the concept because of its mix of long-time residents and people who have relocated from around the country. “Phoenix is home to a huge transplant community,” he said. “There are fans of every team right here in the Valley. I want those fans to know they are not alone and that they can find their crew using Fancav.” The platform is designed to connect people who want to gather around any team — whether local franchises like the Arizona Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Suns or clubs and squads hundreds of miles away from the Valley.
His path to the app began with formal business training and a technology-adjacent career rather than with a traditional software-engineering background. Acton, a native of Salt Lake City, earned an accounting degree from Brigham Young University and later completed an MBA from Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, graduating in 2025. He spent 12 years in Seattle working for Alaska Airlines, where he led development of new commercial products, including the airline’s Flight Pass subscription program. Those professional responsibilities taught him how to identify customer needs and shepherd product ideas through development to market.
Life intervened briefly after he and his wife welcomed their first child in July 2025, and Acton spent several months focused on fatherhood. The business idea, however, did not go away. “I was sure there were thousands of other fans like me,” he said, and early this year he began putting that conviction into practice. He says he “began building the platform in earnest in January and had it ready for launch six months later.”
One of the larger surprises during development was that Acton does not come from a software-engineering background. Rather than assembling a conventional team of developers, he turned to a set of artificial intelligence coding assistants to translate his product vision into functioning software. “I wasn’t sure how to actually build a digital internet product without a team of developers,” he said. Using tools such as Claude and Cursor, Acton directed the development work and relied on his prior experience managing products to shape the finished application. “AI helped me create the base product,” he added, while acknowledging that additional, human development expertise will be required for future growth. “I acknowledge actual development expertise will be needed to grow Fancav in the future.”
The Mesa entrepreneur behind the fan-focused startup poses outside a building; portrait used to illustrate the article about his company.
For now, Fancav is free for both individual users and businesses as Acton seeks to rapidly build a user base in Phoenix and gather feedback to improve the product. He said the free launch is intentional: he wants as many people as possible using the service during its initial rollout so he can collect real-world input before introducing premium features and business subscriptions sometime next year. The platform’s core functionality is straightforward; users can create listings for watch parties or search for gatherings centered on particular teams and games. Acton envisions bars, restaurants and other venues using the service to advertise fan-specific events in addition to individuals organizing private or public viewings.
Screenshots from the fan-based app showing local Arizona Diamondbacks watch‑party listings on the startup’s mobile interface.
Acton said the platform also seeks to help people who might not otherwise venture out or know where to find fellow fans. “The best part of being a fan is celebrating, and sometimes commiserating, with other fans like you,” he said. “I don’t believe that the communal nature of sports should disappear outside the stadium or arena.” He noted that while some fans are naturally outgoing and can find fellow supporters easily, others are not, or are new to an area and need a tool to locate likeminded people. “Some fans are extroverts by nature and easily find others like them,” he said. “Others are not, or do not know where to find other fans. Fancav is built to make it easy.”
Acton’s plan for the platform centers on building critical mass in the Phoenix market before expanding or rolling out paid features. He declined to tie the timeline to specific growth targets but said the seasonal calendar informed his decision to launch now, when baseball and Major League Soccer matches are underway and American football is about to begin. The early months after launch will focus on collecting user feedback and iterating on the product experience. For businesses and venues, a later subscription offering is in the plans; those details will be developed after the initial user-driven testing phase.
Whether Fancav grows into a widely used tool remains to be seen, but the premise that casual encounters can become organized gatherings is simple and familiar to many sports fans. Acton points to his sweatshirt as proof of concept: it started conversations that suggested a demand for more sustained connection. “I don’t believe that the communal nature of sports should disappear outside the stadium or arena,” he said, repeating a central theme behind the platform’s creation. The site is live at Fancav.com, where users can create or search for listings as the startup begins its first season in the Phoenix market.
Fancav's website reports the Phoenix beta has drawn thousands of fans with events growing weekly. Early users earn a permanent "Founding Fan" badge and advance through loyalty tiers (Superfan, Diehard, Legend) for rewards like custom caps and priority RSVPs. Identity checks via Stripe aim to keep gatherings safe, per the platform's current homepage.
Fancav uses Stripe Identity for a one-time verification that requires a photo of a government-issued ID and a selfie; Stripe performs the identity match and Fancav states it does not store users' ID documents.
For fan-hosted events the platform keeps the exact address hidden until 24 hours before the event and reveals it only to confirmed guests; Fancav also notes that full names are never displayed to other users and hosts can enable manual RSVP approval to control their guest list.
Platform-enforced attendee caps vary by loyalty tier: Fan hosts are limited to 20 guests, Superfan hosts to 30, Diehard hosts to 50, and Legend hosts have no platform-imposed cap; business hosts set capacity based on venue size.
Attendees check in with an "I'm Here" button that opens 15 minutes before the event and closes three hours after; hosts receive a link 24 hours after the event to mark attendance and must submit attendance within a 48-hour window so guests receive loyalty credit.
Venue listings on Fancav are verified through Google Places, and the company is offering businesses free access during the Phoenix beta with early-adopter pricing and other advantages locked in for venues that join now.