The Next Next: Update #32
Path towards MVP.
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, Week 30, Week 31
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
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Hi all,
Well, my kids are back from camp, crazy summer activity schedules have commenced, and we jumped right into a hockey tournament all weekend the first weekend back. Now I am remembering why I “need to build different this time”, geesh.
I am definitely feeling under the gun as it relates to kid stuff, keeping up w/ the podcast recording calendar, and moving towards building an MVP version of the product. I am considering dialing the pod back to one episode per week instead of two until I get out of crunch time. I definitely don’t want to stop the pod. But I’m also clamoring to hunker down and focus!
Refresher
As a reminder, I am building a new kind of athlete development platform, starting in hockey. We want to take the high end video analysis and personalized development plans delivered by high end player development coaches, and package them in a way that are more accessible by leaning into digital and automation to serve more players at more affordable price points, while enabling player development coaches to expand their reach (and make more $).
The gameplan
The first step is doing game audits, and ideally even assigning a score. We think once you have the audit and understand the score, there will be another huge opportunity in helping players improve their scores via personalized development programs. But for starters, just giving players a score that is credible and useful for their game performance we think would be a big deal in itself!
We will get there by:
Coming up with a scoring system, designed by high end player development people, that they can implement consistently and reliably.
Putting pen to paper for writing a manual that we could hand to an apprentice to train them on how to do it right.
Taking that manual and using it to try to teach the machines and see how far we get.
Once we have something useful and compelling, package it in a compelling product experience that is easy to navigate and interact with.
Obviously there are a lot of other micro steps within each one of those, but that’s a high level plan of attack. And as I said, once we have the analysis piece down, an obvious expansion path would be around helping players get better, but we greatly value focus and building in stages.
Priorities for next week
Defining and getting the scoring system down in writing.
Continuing to chip away at how to train the machines to do this.
Working to identify what other skillsets we will need around the table, as well as how far we can get with the skillsets we already have.
It is starting to feel more real!
New content this week
Two episodes shipped. Both were with Brett Leonard from Leonard Hockey. Brett was the Captain of UVM’s D1 team back in the day, and has been in player development a long time. He has a roster of D1 and pro players he works with, and also works with Merrimack College’s team on player development.
The first episode is a general overview of his time in the game as a player, path to player development, and thoughts on lessons learned and best practices. That one can be found here: spotify, apple, youtube.
The second episode is a continuation of the first, that is a deep dive into Brett’s player development process and approach, as if he were training me on how to do it. That one can be found here: spotify, apple, youtube.
I enjoyed both of these, and learned a ton! I am eager to talk to and learn from more high end player development coaches, so please send them my way. I’d also enjoy talking to team coaches and scouts about what they look for from players they are looking to recruit, as that dovetails nicely into what we are working on on the player development side.
How you can help
Intros to high end player development people to learn from
Intros to team coaches, scouts, agents and advisors
Intros to founders and engineers who have solved similar technical challenges in adjacent areas
Any feedback/advice!
Thanks all! Until next week…..
Jason