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Former UNC athlete aims to help young athletes 'Stay The Course' with SunBite startup

UNC_WSoccer_vs_NotreDame_20191103_Alexander_Coffey1684.JPG
UNC junior defender Lotte Wubben-Moy (24) dribbles the ball down the field during the Tar Heels' 3-0 victory over Notre Dame at Dorrance Field on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019. Wubben-Moy scored two goals in the match.

Former UNC women’s soccer star Lotte Wubben-Moy, two current UNC athletes and a couple of key mentors, had a spark of inspiration: They wanted to create a platform targeted toward young athletes. 

In early 2020, they took this spark and created SunBite, a startup aimed at creating a community of positive thinkers and mentors. SunBite is centered around an app they utilize to send out short daily video messages encouraging their users to “Stay The Course.”

While the app is free for all who are interested to download, SunBite also offers a paid program that gives groups access to videos providing more context. The private program also allows members access to weekly Zoom meetings where they can interact with the founders and each other.

Scott Sievering, head coach of The Summit Country Day School’s boy’s soccer team, subscribes to SunBite’s private service. Sievering, who has guided his Cincinnati-based team to four state championships, got involved with the app through two of his former players. Both are now influential members of the SunBite team but could not speak to The Daily Tar Heel about the company due to NCAA regulations and the paid element of the service.

“It’s been great for our players in terms of providing them with motivation and really a number of different mental health areas,” Sievering said. “We do a thing once a week where we talk after training, and guys share motivational stuff. A lot of SunBite stuff comes up in that, so we’ve used it a lot.”

Sievering believes the SunBite team’s experiences as athletes have been part of what makes the platform so easy for his team to pick up.

“They’re very familiar with the struggles that go into playing sports,” he said. “The fact that their team has been through that, it’s very easy for the players to relate. It’s not like it’s a company that seems to be in the distance or too big. It’s a company that you can feel connected to and that they care about you individually.”

Developing positive relationships and trusting their timing are recurring themes throughout the SunBite story. Not a minute passes by without one of the team members mentioning someone who has helped them greatly, and how appreciative the team is for having that interaction.

"You hear it thrown around, 'It's not what you know, it's who you know,’” Wubben-Moy said. “I think SunBite is a perfect mixture of both. I think that the synergy between that has been what's accelerated us so much. It's the people that we've had around us, but also the 20 years of knowledge that we've actually built up.”

One of those particularly influential relationships has come through Paula Gilland. Gilland is the chief executive officer of The Purple Bowl, a Franklin Street restaurant that has partnered with SunBite to facilitate the brand’s nutritional arm, SunBite de Santé.

The main products SunBite de Santé sells are Energy Bites, a protein snack that includes peanut butter, oats and chocolate chips.

Gilland said Wubben-Moy approached her about rebranding Purple Bowl's energy balls as the Energy Bites, wanting to have physical products that could help their users.

“The Energy Bite was a perfect product to launch with them because it was transportable like their app was transportable," Gilland said. “We liked the positivity they were creating with the app, and how they were trying to get people to think positively during this really difficult time for our country.”

Gilland believes SunBite has a lot of room to grow, especially when it comes to speaking to young women. She thinks once Wubben-Moy can be more involved in the content being produced, the platform could be very influential in the market for young female athletes.

And as for how far the SunBite team can take its platform, Sievering believes the sky's the limit.

“Their limitations are going to be based on whatever their goals are,” he said. “They’re doing it for the right reasons. They’re not doing it for the financial gain or notoriety, they’re doing it to help youth athletes, so I think it could go as far as they want it to.”

@cd_avy

@dthsports | sports@dailytarheel.com

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