Taylor Acton’s favorite Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt kept creating the same unexpected problem.
Nearly every time the Mesa resident wore the navy blue hoodie while running errands, another Cowboys fan would stop him to talk football. The conversations were easy, friendly and proof that plenty of fellow fans lived nearby.
Then Sunday arrived.
Like many sports fans, Acton often found himself watching the game alone from his living room.
“My wife started calling my hoodie our ‘friend maker’ because of its power to elicit greetings from strangers,” Acton said. “The problem was those interactions would end, and on game day I’d end up watching the football game alone.”
That simple observation sparked the idea for Fancav.com, a free online platform designed to help sports fans organize and find watch parties with others who cheer for the same teams.
The Mesa startup officially launched this month, just in time for baseball’s second half and ahead of the busy football season.
Acton believes the Valley’s mix of lifelong Arizona sports fans and newcomers from around the country makes it an ideal place to test the concept.
“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 idea began shortly after Utah native graduated from Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business with an MBA in 2025.
Originally from Salt Lake City, he earned an accounting degree from Brigham Young University before spending 12 years in Seattle working for Alaska Airlines, where he led development of new commercial products, including the airline’s Flight Pass subscription program.
That experience taught him how to identify customer needs and turn ideas into products.
“I was sure there were thousands of other fans like me,” he said. “I wanted to create a platform to solve this problem for me, and by extension, any fan wishing they could watch their teams play alongside other fans like them.”
Life briefly interrupted those plans.
Acton and his wife welcomed their first child in July 2025, prompting him to spend several months focused on being a first-time father. But the business idea never disappeared.
He began building the platform in earnest in January and had it ready for launch six months later.
One of the biggest surprises came during development.
Although Acton had experience managing technology products, he isn’t a software engineer.
Instead of hiring a team of developers, he turned to artificial intelligence coding assistants.
“I wasn’t sure how to actually build a digital internet product without a team of developers,” he said.
Using AI tools, including Claude and Cursor, Acton directed the software’s development while relying on his background in product management to shape the finished product.
Taylor Action’s website, fancav.com, shows what game day notices would look like.
He compares the process to leading a development team, even if some of those “team members” happened to be artificial intelligence.
“I acknowledge actual development expertise will be needed to grow Fancav in the future,” he said. “AI helped me create the base product.”
For now, the platform is free for both sports fans and businesses.
Acton said he wants as many people as possible using the service during its Phoenix launch so he can collect feedback and improve the product before introducing premium features and business subscriptions sometime next year.
The timing is intentional.
While summer offers Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer, he expects activity to increase significantly once Premier League soccer, college football and the NFL season begin next month.
The concept is simple.
Fans can organize or search for gatherings centered around their favorite teams, whether that’s the Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Suns or franchises hundreds of miles away.
Acton says that’s especially important in the Valley, where transplants often remain loyal to teams from their hometowns but don’t always know where fellow fans gather.
“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 also sees the platform serving people looking for a reason to get out of the house.
“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.”
Whether the startup succeeds remains to be seen.
But Acton believes his old Cowboys hoodie proved one thing long before he wrote a line of code.
Sports fans don’t have much trouble starting conversations, he believes – sometimes they just need a place to continue them.
