Brian Cariveau, founder of Orange Slice Soccer
Orange Slice Soccer is a youth soccer app for parents and coaches that turns a kid's season into a story the family keeps. I'm Brian Cariveau, a soccer dad in Minnesota, and I built it on my own — for my daughter's team first. By day I work in data, AI and storytelling. By night, I build Orange Slice.
Why did a soccer dad build a soccer app?
Orange Slice started as a tool for my own kid's season: the games, the stats, whether she was getting better, and the moments I didn't want to lose. A season throws off thousands of moments, and by spring almost all of them are gone. Parents don't remember a shot-accuracy percentage. They remember the first goal, the breakthrough game, the coach's comment that changed something, the day she got brave.
Most youth sports software is built for schedules, payments and rankings. I wanted a youth soccer app built for remembering.
What does a business fable have to do with youth soccer?
Before Orange Slice, I wrote The Auction Block, a business fable. It used a story to turn years of professional lessons into something people could actually reflect on. Writing it taught me that people keep a story long after they forget the numbers. A kid's season works the same way. The stats matter, but only because they make the story true.
Why isn't Orange Slice a coaching app?
I'm a soccer dad, not a coach. Orange Slice doesn't rate players, rank them, or tell anyone what to fix. Early versions had a spot promising coaching tips, and I took it out: on the screens families look at most, it made the whole app read like a performance dashboard. Kids have enough of those. The point is to help a player see her own growth.
How do I know the season stories are true?
The first season story was one I wrote by hand, from my daughter's team's games and the notes I'd kept. The rules the app follows today came out of writing it. Real names and real numbers. No invented feelings, no made-up quotes, and nothing critical about a child, ever. Under every story is a list of exactly what it was built from, so a family can check it.
A moving story about a ten-year-old that isn't true is worse than no story at all. That is the line the whole app is built around.
Where did the "Capture the moment" button come from?
A dad next to me on the sideline said "I hope you got that on video" after a breakaway. Nobody had: by the time you find your camera app, it's over. So the game screen has one big button that starts recording in about half a second, and the clip goes to your own camera roll, never to our servers.
How do I reach you?
Orange Slice Soccer is just me, so email reaches me directly. Write to hello@orangeslicesoccer.com about anything, or support@orangeslicesoccer.com for help with an account, a refund or your privacy. Every pass can be refunded in full within 14 days, no questions asked. You can also find me on LinkedIn.
Want to see what it makes first? Read a whole sample season, written for an invented team.