Barefoot didn’t start in a boardroom. It started on the ground, at events, with an organiser who was sick of being failed by the systems he was paying for.
Before Barefoot, Bengy was running events himself. And like most organisers, he was stuck with multiple registration and timing platforms that looked the part but fell over when it mattered: clunky entry flows, poor reporting, timing that couldn’t be trusted, and support that lived on the other side of the world.
What frustrated him most wasn’t the technology. It was the attitude behind it. The platforms he was using were owned by large global brands that didn’t understand the industry and didn’t seem to care to. They weren’t built to help organisers run better events. They were built to collect data and move on.
So Bengy built the thing he actually wanted: straightforward registration and timing, made for the realities of event day, run by people who understand what’s at stake when the gun goes off.
I’d stood at enough start lines at 4 am to know what organisers actually need. They don’t need more admin on a global platform that thinks it knows what we want. They need tools that work and people who pick up the phone. That’s all Barefoot is: registration and timing built by someone who’s been in your shoes.
— Bengy, Founder, Barefoot Sport
That’s still the whole point. Reliable tech. Local support. Built by organisers, for organisers.