Newbie looking for help!

jckpurcell

Hi all,

I am a masters student at UCC who is designing a website to link athletes and coaches together. Could you please fill out the following 7-8 minute survey and I will come back here next Monday and explain in detail our idea. Your help is greatly appreciated and if our idea works I am sure it will be of great benefit to many of you!

Thanks a mil..here's the link! [HTML]https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q2LKKJL[/HTML]

tunney

Look at training peaks, and look at the desktop companion for coaches, for coaches the big thing is customization of template sessions and the distribution of same.

tunney

Also some of your questions need refinement.

"how much do you pay a training program overall" : yearly? monthly? lifetime of relationship of coach.

tunney

Finally - Garmin send out pretty much the same survey (in terms of thrust of questioning yesterday!)

(all answered anyways)

jckpurcell

Thanks for filling for your help. Our survey has been out for a few weeks now. Actually worried that Garmin have seen it. Anyway I am not sure what they are getting at. Basically a brief outline of our website is as follows.

Our project is to create the website which will connect coaches with athletes throughout the world for collaboration. The aim of the site is to provide athletes access to top quality coaches. Athletes can indicate the type of training they would like and coaches then have the opportunity to see these requests. They can then contact the athlete and offer them a program for their own specific price/terms. The site would provide tools to track an athlete’s progress (e.g gps tracking) and also supply tools for the coach to create training programs. All coaches will be vetted to make sure they hold adequate certification.
*(e.g. a person who has competed in one triathlon may want a 12 week program designed to help them improve their time for their second triathlon)


it works on a reverse auction principle which gives the buyer more control over price, length of contract etc. than other web training which is currently available.

tunney

jckpurcell wrote: »

Thanks for filling for your help. Our survey has been out for a few weeks now. Actually worried that Garmin have seen it. Anyway I am not sure what they are getting at. Basically a brief outline of our website is as follows.

Our project is to create the website which will connect coaches with athletes throughout the world for collaboration. The aim of the site is to provide athletes access to top quality coaches. Athletes can indicate the type of training they would like and coaches then have the opportunity to see these requests. They can then contact the athlete and offer them a program for their own specific price/terms. The site would provide tools to track an athlete’s progress (e.g gps tracking) and also supply tools for the coach to create training programs. All coaches will be vetted to make sure they hold adequate certification.
*(e.g. a person who has competed in one triathlon may want a 12 week program designed to help them improve their time for their second triathlon)


it works on a reverse auction principle which gives the buyer more control over price, length of contract etc. than other web training which is currently available.

Do you think that there is a demand for this sort of coaching?
I know one lad who paid for, alot of money too, this sort of online coaching and to be honest it did more damage than good.

Plus certification means nothing imho, I know lots of people with coaching badges and I would not let them try and teach a toddler to walk never mind run!

Have you considered adding something to make things a little more personal? That was something I always found lacking from the TrainingPeaks approach (used TP with a coach for a year or so)

jckpurcell

One of the things we have already nailed down is a video chat functionality between the coach and the athlete. Is that the sort of thing you would believe would make a relationship more personal? We are also looking at binding the coach to a minimum amount of contact.

Our research leads us to suggest that their is a market for this idea. If we can attract the right caliber of coaches then there will certainly be a market. For example in some parts of the world, access to a top nutritional coach is just not available. We aim to provide a portal for that relationship.

The key seems to be getting quality coaches on board.

tunney

jckpurcell wrote: »

One of the things we have already nailed down is a video chat functionality between the coach and the athlete. Is that the sort of thing you would believe would make a relationship more personal? We are also looking at binding the coach to a minimum amount of contact.

Video chat functionality between the coach and the athlete? Not really.
I don't know what but coach-athlete interactions solely through a site, not something I'd be interested in.

jckpurcell wrote: »

Our research leads us to suggest that their is a market for this idea. If we can attract the right caliber of coaches then there will certainly be a market. For example in some parts of the world, access to a top nutritional coach is just not available. We aim to provide a portal for that relationship.

I think you've (a) missed the boat by about 5 years (b) over estimated the market. You want people who know enough to know that they need a coach/nutrionist/whatever, but not to know enough to know that online is not the way to go.

jckpurcell wrote: »

The key seems to be getting quality coaches on board.

That will be difficult - the calibre of coach required to make anything like this work would not need to use such a system to get athletes and as such would be, imho, be unwilling to hand over money for use of a system.


Would be very interested in Peters take on this.

tunney

Would also be nice to change the title to reflect that this is not a newbie looking for advice but a commercial (or semi commercial) entity looking to plug their wares.

peter kern

Sorry i havent even looked at your survey yet
You would have to pay good money for good coaches to get them in . As the good coaches tend to be over booked, the lesser coaches will be happy for being part i would say. so the reverse pricing would not work as the good coaches wont do that. and the ones that do are not coaches they are what chris jones would call people that write off the shelf prescribtions. like allan online etc.


would totally agree with tunney that coaching qualification means nothing.

Personally I do beleive that really good coaching can only happen face to face with most athletes. I remember Paulo Sousa saying once he was banging his head against the ceiling with online coaching and I would totally agree with that Nothing beats the look in the eyes of athletes during a session.

At the same time people are old enough to make their own decisons and if they like what you offer fantastic. and triathltes love to fall for hype if you market it well triathletes will buy everything.

I can see it work if its not done as a buisnees venture but more to help if its only businees to earn money you compete with carmical systems and allan online and I really think there is enough of them around but thats only my personal opnion. But I think because you are looking this way you realise that most top coaches are earning far less moeny than the mass coaches.