The Next Next: Update #30

Two steps forward, one step back.

Jul 04, 2025

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 the market, 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, Week 29

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

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Hi all,

This was a roller coaster of a week, but also a prolific one in the end. I’ll start with a fun Vermont picture from this week. I literally saw this thing in my back yard. What a giant!

Refresher

As a reminder, I am building a new kind of athlete development platform, starting in hockey. The problems I see are that 1) kids are playing too much and on burnout pace, 2) kids are getting hyper-skilled at individual skills but the hockey IQ/game sense isn’t keeping pace, 3) all of this training is $$$ and becoming increasingly inaccessible to those that aren’t either standouts at an early age, financially of means, or both, and a new one this week is 4) best practices/knowledge sharing are often hoarded, not shared widely (great sites like The Coaches Site and The Hockey Think Tank (and many others!) are, of course, exceptions!).

Criteria

So some criteria I have been thinking about for my platform are 1) helps get top tier video analysis into more players’ hands, 2) helps those players see the right way to do the things they need to work on visually by watching clips of other players in similar game situations, 3) gives them a personalized development plan to work on those things in game-like environments, and 4) gives them a community to get feedback from of both player development coaches and other players serious about getting better, so each player can learn from the feedback of multiple coaches but also learn from the feedback those same coaches give to other players, while the coaches learn from each other. (This last one is a new criteria and still an experimental one, but I am excited about it! Would love to hear feedback from others on if that part resonates.)

Now, all of this could be done, that part I don’t think is very controversial. But the sticking point in my mind is cost. Time is money for these development coaches, so unless you find a way to make their time go further, the cost will remain prohibitive for most players/families. This is where AI may be able to help!

Imagine if…

AI could review your shifts, analyze them, and tell you which areas to work on
AI could pull clips of others handling similar situations better and teed them up for easy reference
AI gave you drills to work on to hit those areas head on and internalize what needs to change in your game
AI could help pair you with the right coaches at the right time to help you navigate specific challenges that come up along the way (or maybe with other players navigating similar challenges)

Now, getting AI to do all of that would be super duper hard, if not impossible. But could you start 100% human-powered and have the AI start learning over time under your feet? I bet you could! And the more AI takes on, the more efficient it would make the human expert’s time, right? Which would presumably enable them to serve more people w/ the same time, and thus lower the cost for each person, yes?

Conventional wisdom says AI can’t handle subjective, nuanced areas like a hockey player’s shifts. And even if it could doesn’t mean it should. But for starters, I want to put how we will use it to the side and just figure out first how much it can do. I have a feeling it is more than many people think, but let’s find out and push it to the limit!

Breakthrough this week

The breakthrough I had this week was I was about to get a pilot going w/ human coaches doing video reviews. But what I am realizing is I don’t need to prove that part out. There are plenty of people doing that work already and doing a great job of it. But it is expensive, it often isn’t well integrated with the player’s skills training, and is often done one-on-one between player/video coach without benefitting from more eyes on it from other coaches and other players.

Things I need to prove out

The things I do need to prove out are 1) how tech/AI can bring efficiency and start automating pieces of player development over time and 2) how developing in a small, curated community environment rather than one-on-one may bring compounding benefit to both players and coaches. And rather than put those things off to figure out later, I need to put them front and center and start tackling them up front. Goes without saying, but I know these types of communities exist IRL (academies, for example!), but what I am looking at is how to recreate that kind of environment for those who are doing most of their development on their own.

Progression of my journey so far

Phase 1: started by looking broadly at how I might build different (with more flexibility and control) and how AI might help.

Phase 2: then looked broadly at sports tech holistically, to see what areas were of most interest.

Phase 3 (the one I’ve been in): Doing a deep dive into player development in hockey specifically, to see where the pain points are and what types of solutions are needed.

Phase 4 (the one I am just entering now): Doing a deep dive into how to start testing/iterating and bringing those solutions to life.

I will continue to talk to lots of hockey people on the show, and otherwise. But in parallel, as I enter this new phase, I will begin to talk to lots of product people, software engineers, machine learning experts, computer vision experts, etc to see what’s possible and how to do it. And for better or worse, I am going to share all of my learnings along the way and hoard nothing. :)

Where I could use some help

If you are a player development person, I would love your reactions to the above.
If you are a skills coach that does lots of individual and/or group work, I would love your reactions to the above.
If you are an assistant/head coach that cares about the individual development of your players, I would love your reactions to the above.
If you are a hockey player/parent, I would love your reactions to the above.
If you are a machine learning engineer, CTO, software engineer, product manager, computer vision expert, etc that has experience w/ any facet of the above, whether domain-specific or not, I would love to chat with you.

New content this week

Two new episodes this week!

One was with Jesse Winchester, a former professional ice hockey player who transitioned into player development after an NHL career from 2008 to 2016. The discussion delves into Jesse's non-linear path to the NHL, highlighting his late blooming, work ethic, and passion for the game. It also covers his thoughts on player development, the balance between skill development and hockey IQ, and the role of parents in the athletic journeys of their kids. You can find it on apple, spotify, youtube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The other was with former goalie for University of Minnesota and current player advisor, Brock Kautz. Brock shares his journey from playing junior hockey and winning an NAHL Championship to receiving a scholarship at the University of Minnesota and transitioning into coaching at Bemidji State. Now a player advisor, Brock discusses his role in guiding young players through the evolving landscape of hockey development, and his thoughts on the influence of parental involvement in youth hockey, the importance of multi-sport participation, and adapting to the changing nature of hockey recruitment and player representation. You can find it on apple, spotify, youtube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.