Syracuse Lacrosse Player Launches Local News Aggregation Startup


Over the last three years working at Lacrosse Playground, I’ve see a good amount of lacrosse players explore the path of entrepreneurship. Starting your own company is always a risk, but that’s a risk a lot of people are willing to take, especially lacrosse players. Today, we had the opportunity to interview Lincoln Cavalieri, CEO/President/Founder of a Detroit based startup called Glocal. Glocal (featured on Mashable) is your place for great news videos. Find, watch and share your favorite stories. Lincoln Cavalieri played at Syracuse winning two national championships, and Aaron Hodari, Chief Operating Officer, played at Michigan. We wanted to learn more about Glocal so we asked Cavalieri a few questions. View the interview below.

What is your lacrosse background?
I played 4 years of varsity Lacrosse at Syracuse as a Midfielder – wearing #27. My younger brother, Alex Cavalieri, was also on the team and a goalie. I was part of the back to back National Championship teams in 2008 & 2009. Played lacrosse at Detroit Country Day in Bloomfield Michigan winning the Division B State Championship in 2003 and 2005.

Aaron played 3 years of lacrosse at Michigan as a Midfielder. Winning back to back MCLA (club) championships in 2008 & 2009. Played lacrosse at Detroit Country Day in Bloomfield Michigan winning the Division B State Championship in 2003 and 2005.

What is Glocal?
Glocal is a video news website that focuses on content from high quality video producers. We have content from over 1900 providers across the country in 68 cities. Users can watch local news stories from their hometown, or browse the day’s top national headlines.

How was this idea conceived? Are you part of an incubator program?
The idea was conceived when I was a senior at Syracuse. I read an article on Hulu and realized the online video market was becoming segmented and that there was no place for news videos. Glocal is not part of an incubator program, but we raised $1million from Compuware Corporation and work with them on the project.

What is Glocal’s overall strategic goal? Do you plan to eliminate pre-existing online news sources, or are you just disrupting the space?
Glocal’s overall strategic goal is to disrupt the online news watching experience. We do not plan to eliminate pre-existing online news sources, but to work with them to help them get their videos to a wider audience in the right context. Glocal wants to become a global platform where people can watch news from all over the world.

Glocal CEO/President/Founder Lincoln Cavalieri


Let me know if I’m wrong, but your site is for local markets on a national scale, right? So, who are your competitors?
Right now, there is no one that is aggregating local news videos with a location based platform.

What is your business model? The news, sports, and entertainment space is ever-evolving, so you probably have to keep a revolving door in terms of staying ahead of the competition, right?
The business model is advertising supported. We plan to capitalize on the opportunity that exists to allow local business to create cheap and high quality ads and serve them to a relevant consumer online. Right now, if a local business wants to make a video Ad, the costs can be onerous. Glocal plans to build video editing software directly onto its system so that small businesses can upload video, edit it, and publish directly to videos being watched in their cities. To stay ahead of the competition, Glocal needs to always be building best in class user experience so that people can constantly be seeing the news they want to see in a enjoyable experience.

Both of you have competitive backgrounds in lacrosse. Was this a contributing factor in creating your organization? In other words, did you see an opening in this space and think, “Hey I can do that, but better?”
The team and hard work ethic aspect that you acquire from lacrosse was a major factor in shaping the Glocal team. The same sought after qualities you find in a great athlete in terms of work ethic, perseverance, mental strength, and discipline, you can find in the individuals that make up a great tech startup team. In addition to our lacrosse experience, one of our programmers was a team captain for the Michigan marching band. Our philosophy is not to revolve around a work day, but to constantly be “working” and thinking of ways to make the product better.

Who is your demographic? What is traffic like? Are you on pace as predicted, or have you hit obstacles along the way?
Our demographic is anyone who watches news, sports, entertainment, politics, etc.. online. We provide a platform where people can watch their favorite videos from CNN, Jimmy Kimmel, ESPN, to their local news providers. Traffic has been good, and we have seen growth every single week. We have hit obstacles along the way, but we have always found ways to push forward and get the product/company to the area we want it to be.

Your interface is extremely advanced and integrated. How do you keep up with maintenance of the site and incoming content?
We like to push code daily and we are constantly fixing bugs to improve the site. Sorting and maintaining incoming content is automated. We have found it easier to do the heavy lifting, in terms of automating most processes, in the beginning. It makes maintenance much easier in the long term.

What’s next for Glocal?
Glocal has a “Community” and iPhone app coming to market shortly. Community is similar to CNN iReport, but all video. It gives regular users the ability to upload news worthy videos from their smartphone, tablet or computer directly to the city page. For example, If you are at a Patriots football game you could film a shot of the crowd with the Glocal app, tag Boston, and that video would display in the Boston community section. Long term our goal is to expand outside the US, build our advertising platform and also offer live streaming.

We would like to thank Lincoln Cavalieri for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat with us. For more information visit Glocal.com. Be sure to check out our Tech section to learn more about other online businesses. If you know of anyone who we should cover on the site please email us at [email protected].

Posted in

Lacrosse Playground

In 2009, Adam O’Neill, Harry Alford and Thomas Alford launched Lacrosse Playground as the preeminent site for lacrosse gearheads. For years Lacrosse Playground provided lacrosse fans with tutorials and tips on how to string a lacrosse head, up-close looks at the gear the top players used and sneak peeks at equipment and uniforms before they were released. More than 10 years and millions of visits later, Lacrosse Playground has relaunched with a focus on storytelling. Our mission is to provide comprehensive coverage of the latest lacrosse news, share insights into the sports betting and fantasy lacrosse world and showcase the lifestyles and personalities of the sport of lacrosse through articles, videos and podcasts.

2 Comments

  1. Lax Links: Nov. 2, 2012 | Great Lax State on November 2, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    […] Michigan midfielder Aaron Hodari is a co-founder of the news aggregator Glocal, along with Country Day (and Syracuse) alum Lincoln […]

  2. downunder on November 2, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    Awesome – wish them great success.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.