The Next Next: Update #25
Student of the game
For those of you tuning in for the first time, The Next Next is a ‘build in public’ type of journey from founder Jason Jacobs (me!) to explore 1) how I can build my next company differently (prioritizing health and family, not just work, while still building an ambitious and important company) and 2) how AI can help, and more broadly, how it will change how startups are built and funded. Increasingly, I am starting to explore specific domains I am passionate about as well, and working backwards to see if that meets these first two explorations in the middle and produces some magic. Update: as of week #23, I am focused exclusively on player development in youth sports :)
There is this newsletter (subscribe here), which publishes weekly and chronicles the ground I covered that week, insights I’ve gleaned, topics I’m wrestling with, and where I plan to dig in the week following. And there’s also this podcast, which publishes at least weekly, and explores these topics in-depth in a series of interview-style discussions with others who are well placed for me (and you!) to learn from. You can subscribe from your favorite pod player, like Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
The goal of this public learning journey is to have it evolve over time from a journey into a livelihood, to prove to myself and others that it is possible to ‘have your cake and eat it too’ (flexibility and control of your schedule while doing fun, purposeful work), and to help define a new playbook for how to build companies that inspires other founders to follow suit and gives them a roadmap for how to get started.
If you want to catch up, the historical weekly updates are here:
Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12, Week 13, Week 14, Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, Week 18, Week 19, Week 20, Week 21, Week 22, Week 23, Week 24
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Hi all,
This is my second full week in company-building mode. I am super early, but it is going great! I am energized, learning tons every day, meeting lots of interesting people, and my ideas and vision for what’s possible are evolving quickly as well.
I am fully anchored on the area of player development, focused in hockey specifically as the initial market. The hypothesis is that youth coaches focus a majority of their programming and time around systems and teams, and their goal is to win games. Makes sense! They aspire to help each kid maps their individual journeys, but don’t have the bandwidth to do so properly. Private skill coaches see kid after kid (or group after group), and are great with development in the moment (an hour of grind!), but often don’t see their athletes on the ice in a game setting. This leaves some dot connecting between your on-ice play and what you should be doing to work on your game ongoing. They also typically aren’t looking across development areas, as they tend to focus on one (strength, or sport-specific skills, for example).
Who is focused on the overall development path for the kid? Well, the parents are primarily. And most parents don’t have the time nor the expertise to do it right. There are of course other options, like academies, or increasingly agents seem to be adding capabilities in this area. But those aren’t for everyone, and every serious player (that wants one and is willing to do the work!) could benefit from a more personalized development path. A lightweight digital one isn’t for everyone, but it seems like it would fill a void (though tell me if I am wrong!). At minimum, there is a lot that can be done at home in between the formal stuff, that a platform like this could likely help with - both on doing the right stuff and on adherence.
This is the area I see of greatest interest and opportunity: centering a platform around the individual athletes, and tailoring personalized (and holistic) development paths for each athlete that evolve with them over time. Not as a replacement for other options, but as a complement that works quietly in the background to provide structure and guidance to the kids/families that could benefit from it and may not have access to it in other ways. The dream would be something that can assess on-ice performance, identify key areas to work on, lay out a holistic off-ice plan to make progress in those areas, and then monitor that progress over time.
There are a number of ways to get there. Could be in person or could be digital. Could be one to one or one to many. Could involve fully humans, fully AI/tech, or some combo. Could be a closed and curated experience, or more of an open marketplace where clients have choice. Could be available to anyone/everyone or could have an application process with selection criteria. Etc etc.
I have a rough initial hypothesis on the above, but I am resisting the urge to lurch to any of those answers.
For now, the path is the following:
Do a deep dive into the craft of player development at the highest levels of the game, the different styles and philosophies, and what historically has delivered the best results.
Do a deep dive into the existing resources that are available, what they do well, and where the gaps are (and for whom).
Start to form a worldview on where the opportunities are, and also into what is now becoming possible to deliver w/ advancements in AI, computer vision, etc that may not have been possible previously.
Start to pick off areas to experiment in as we build a product vision and roadmap from the ground up.
I am not in a rush to determine what I am building exactly, which I get seems counterintuitive to many. I am trying to steep in the game, get to know lots of well placed people, and build a peer group of others who are excited about where this could go to try to come up with these answers collectively, with feedback/input from a growing tribe every step of the way.
It is a scary path, because in some ways I am dangling in the breeze over here. And I am hyper-aware that I am coming in as an outsider and there are people who have been honing their crafts in these areas for longer than I have been alive. But I also have strong intuition that tech advancements are leading to things becoming possible in this area that wouldn’t have been before, and that given my deep background in consumer tech startups (my whole career!) and deep background playing hockey growing up (not saying I was good, haha) and as a hockey dad now, I may be able to help build a bridge to make some magic come out the other side. What kind of magic, I don’t know yet!
As I have said before, I am also acutely aware of the arms race in hockey right now. The sport is ridiculously expensive, and the higher the level you play, the more expensive it becomes. Ideally, whatever we build here won’t further exacerbate the “haves and have nots” with another expensive option not accessible by most, but would be increasing accessibility so that a higher percentage of athletes could take advantage of the resources that are today afforded only at the top.
My hope in building whatever I end up building here is that it reduces the number of kids who look back like I do with regret and say “I wish I worked harder and maximized my potential.”
On my plate for the next week:
I want to finish this awesome player development book I am in the middle of, which has been super useful and fun to read.
I have 3 pod recordings scheduled for next week, including with one longtime NHL’er, the CEO of a player development skills platform, and the owner of a AAA club whose kid just got drafted in high level juniors.
I also have a bunch of discussions scheduled with smart people to learn from in the hockey world, in the player development world more generally, and in the consumer tech world (platforms to help train people in other stuff) so I can learn from them how to apply those lessons here.
I am continuing to refine our product thinking/hypothesis and prepping for some small experiments in the coming weeks (maybe we take on a small group of players via zoom and do everything manually to start, for example).
Areas I could use some help:
Feedback! It is the lifeblood of this project, at every step of the way. Even if you think I am a bozo, I’d like to hear that too!
Suggestions for who to talk to and learn from, what companies/products to check out, books to read, etc. Student of the game!
Nothing else really, for right now, the ball is in my court and I am not blocked in any way!
New content this week:
We published two new pods this week:
One, with Ted Sullivan, the GameChanger co-founder/CEO and Chief Growth Officer at IMG Academy, on entrepreneurship, parenting, youth sports, and the business of sports. That one can be found here on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
And one with Max Faingezicht and Adam Blake from Telescoped, on the state of recruiting, the state of remote work, AI’s impact on both, and where Telescoped fits in. That one can be found here on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
As a reminder, I have a few more recorded episodes to publish that are more general, but the content is going to largely shift to align with the company I am now building going forward.
I think that’s it for now! Thanks for tuning in.
Jason