The Next Next: Update #29

Marching forwards, and getting the shovel ready to break ground.

For those of you tuning in for the first time, The Next Next is a ‘build in public’ type of expedition from founder Jason Jacobs (me!) to chronicle my path building a new kind of athlete development company from the ground up, starting with ice hockey.

I am learning in public, ideating in public, and eventually building in public as we try to create a new kind of development experience for athletes. One that’s digital-first, built for modern families, grounded in real performance improvement, and accessible to anyone, anywhere.

I am still super early, and as anyone who has built companies from zero before knows, what comes out the other side will likely look far different from where I am starting. But the benefits of building in public along the way are invaluable for accountability, feedback, accelerated learning, and meeting lots of interesting and relevant people and potential collaborators along the way.

Each week in the newsletter (subscribe here) I share behind-the-scenes updates: what we’re testing, what we’re hearing from parents and athletes, and what’s coming next. The podcast goes deeper, featuring conversations with coaches, founders, athletes, and experts who are shaping the future of sports and human performance.

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, Week 25, Week 26, Week 27, Week 28

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

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Hi all,

Another week in the books. My first in Vermont, where I will be working from for much of the rest of the summer. It is really beautiful up here and quiet, and I think I am going to be hyper-productive during this time. Good wifi too! I was a recording machine this week, with no issues at all. And study breaks involve trail runs or mountain/gravel bike rides, with no people in sight. I could get used to this!

In terms of this project, things are coming along quite well. Below are a few updates on the latest.

Video analysis and personalized development

We are definitely starting to home in on video analysis and personalized development as our initial entry point. I look at my own kid, for example, and he could keep getting more skills, but there are certain tweaks he could make to his movement without the puck (for example) that would create many more opportunities with zero additional skills. It’s not that skills don’t matter (of course they do!), but with the rise of skills instruction as a business (and social media!), there is a constant rush for more more more skills, and playing smarter can get neglected.

An example of the power of video analysis

Here is the feedback from one longtime NHL player development leader who watched the shifts from one of my kid’s games. The feedback is simple, actionable, and clear in terms of one thing he can work on that can make a big difference over time.

Another player development leader’s process

Here is a summary of another player development leader’s process, who a also works with many D1 players and pros. It is abbreviated, and I am sure I am getting some elements of it wrong, but will give you a sense of how he works.

• watch 2-3 game videos of the player

• take a very data-driven approach, looking at one set of core data for all players, then a second set of personalized data as you work with a given player over time

• look for 2-3 high frequency/high failure rate situations with that player, and the same for things that should be high frequency but are not

• pull clips of the player that are illustrative of these issues, as well as clips of others doing these things right in similar situations

• come up with game-like situations on the ice to work on those specific areas of development

• track how a player is doing with those areas over time and what other areas of development pop up, and course correct as needed

• introduced additional skills training as specific deficits come up

We understand that different player development people have different philosophies and plan to go on a tour of sorts, speaking with and learning from many of them, and exploring how we may get them involved with the platform we are building and with young athletes who could benefit from their services.

Pilot kicking off soon

As we are continuing to build our long-term worldview and product plan, in the meantime, we have a handful of exceptional player development people around the table who are excited to start engaging with players and families. In order to get some reps, and to start the feedback loop with potential customers, we are building a small group of early (understatement!) adopters who want to work with us to help shape the offering from the client side.

We are still shaping how this offering will be rolled out, who can participate, etc, but stay tuned for more info as we have it.

Potential longer term vision: WHOOP for player development

We’ve been dancing around this vision of offering video analysis and personalized development from a wide range of exceptional coaches with different philosophies and styles.

While I don’t think AI will ever replace the human coaches, I can’t help but think that you could train a model to do more and more of the supporting analysis over time - so the coaches could step in with the final guidance but much of the heavy lifting could already be done.

One player development coach showed me the below image, which is of a real NHL prospect (that he anonymized). It basically breaks down all the core aspects of his game and gives him a score.

It made me immediately think about my WHOOP band (which I love).

My WHOOP gives me a snapshot daily of key metrics like my sleep score, steps, HRV, blood pressure, VO2 max, etc. It shows me which ones are red/yellow/green, how I am trending, and will give me tips on how to improve them. It has been incredible effective at keeping me dialed in on the right stuff to improve my health and fitness.

Now imagine if you could get similar on your game performance. You could upload a game (or a few for a bigger sample size), get a score for your performance in them, get guidance on what areas to improve, sample videos for examples of how to do them right, and drills you can do to work on those things —all powered by AI! Then you could see trends over time, and know how your development path is coming along.

I don’t know yet if it is possible, but we are going to investigate and find out! Could certainly be powered 100% by humans initially as well, which would be the logical path to get going.

Next steps

• We are going to try to finish defining it and kicking off the initial pilot in the next 2-3 weeks.

• We are going to keep refining our player development worldview through discussions (on and off the show), reading books (like the 3 on ecological coaching that just got recommended to me!), and other awesome sources I’ve found like The Coaches Site, Ice Hockey Systems, and The Hockey Think Tank Podcast, and many others.

• We are going to continue hammering away at a longer-term product plan, tools to utilize to bring it to life, etc, so as we get through the pilot phase, we are ready to run.

New content this week: 2 new episodes

One is with my two college friends, Matt Kingsley and Tobin Anderson, who both happen to be D1 college basketball coaches. We talk about their journeys as players, what they are seeing in terms of player development today as coaches, and their approaches as sports dads given their experiences with both. You can find it on apple, spotify, and youtube.

The other is with longtime NHL player and now player agent and hockey dad, Matt Calvert. This was a fun one, as Matt’s story was so inspiring (he thought he was going to be an accountant when he was 18, and had a long career in the NHL!). It was also fascinating, as he is now coaching his young boys in the game, and was very reflective on the right and wrong ways to do that, which is something I know I wrestle with, as well. You can find it on apple, spotify, and youtube.

How you can help

• Let me know if there are guests you want to hear from

• Let know if there are people we should be connecting with and/or learning from given our current direction and focus

• Any feedback on the stated direction, things to watch out for, etc

I think that’s it! Thanks everyone, have a great week.

Jason