BallReviews
General Category => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: DP3 on November 01, 2016, 01:39:09 PM
-
Hello guys, I am gathering interest for a company that I am consulting for that has service that a lot of people could benefit from. What would you guys think about a subscription based, online coaching service? There will be a network of USBC & Collegiate Level coaches who will analyze your video over the course of your subscription and send you back video feedback with edits made to your videos, 1 on 1 skype/video sessions & mentoring, and equipment analysis.
I know that iABBowling (Jason Belmonte & Diandra Asbaty's company) does a similar service but their fees are $100/lesson with a voiceover of your video analysis and $50 for a 30 min FaceTime with a coach for Q&A.
This company is looking to price a subscription based model in line with what you might pay for a streaming service like Netflix with the option to bill yearly as well.
I would love to get some feedback from everyone here, just to get a gauge on interest and to give some metrics back to the company.
Please just do me this one favor, if you reply can you please state at the end of your reply your age & state if you're comfortable with that? Like so:
33/NV
Thanks everyone for reading and I look forward to hearing the responses.
-
This sounds like a great idea. If the price were right I would be in.
29/CA
-
Sounds like a viable option. Are you planning on a monthly fee or per use basis? Sounds like monthly fee with unlimited use?
45/TX
-
Fred Bordon, Ron Hatfield etc did this( or something similar) a few years ago. I think it was called My Bowling Coach or something.
Have not heard anything about it recently though.
-
It definitely sounds intriguing. As others have said, I'd need more details, but if the price were right, I'd consider subscribing.
37/IL
-
I agree on the price thing. Nearest coach is 45 minutes away and with my work and school schedule, I don't have time. Going to get WAY worse when I start clinicals. Online services would be perfect
-
I think this would be huge for parents with High School aged kids. There are a ton of great colleges giving full rides and I really want to position this service to that demographic. Also, for people who don't have access to good coaches. The owner has coached dozens of high school and college aged women to full rides at Universities so I would love for people to get behind this idea.
Thank you for your submissions so far. Just to answer a few questions,
A defined price point isn't established yet if it's going to be a month to month, there will definitely be a yearly option but we are talking about other short term options before launch. As far as usage, there will be a turnaround time assigned for each submission. Hopefully when the company gets to scale, we may be able to deliver a turnaround in 24-48 hours. For big projects, a delivery date will be sent to the subscriber. When it comes to video editing and analysis it takes much longer than you think, just to narrow down and edit frame by frame the corrections that need to be made.
Thank you guys so much for the quick feedback. I will try my best to answer all questions.
-
Sounds like a viable service, but as others have stated I would need more details before subscribing.
Also. heard that Belmo sold his interest in IAB. I believe Diandra brought in Coach Bill Spriegner. Can anyone confirm?
-
Bill Spigner is now involved in the coaching aspect of IAB, but I can't speak to Belmo's hand on involvement.
I will give credit where credit is due and say Bill Spigner is one of the elite coaches of this era. His son Robby, I watched bowl and crossed with a lot in college and I'll tell anyone anyday that Robby Spigner is the best talent that never went PBA.
Keep the questions and concerns coming guys. I will try to stay as hands on as possible in this thread with any of your questions.
-
Bill Spigner is now involved in the coaching aspect of IAB, but I can't speak to Belmo's hand on involvement.
Didn't Ron Hoppe have a major hand in IAB with Belmo and Diandra? I remember them being coached by him after he came back from coaching the Singapore team in the early 2000s.
I bowled league with Ron just shortly before he left for Singapore and remembered Diandra talking about working with him..
Back to the OP, I'd be game for this.
42/CA
BL.
-
How would you retain a customer once they have used the service?
How would you acquire enough customers to make this a viable business and service those customers often enough for them to continue paying a monthly subscription?
Subscription services like Netflix work because there is minimal labor involved. A bowling coach can only watch and critique so many videos per month.
-
This site offers a similar service for video analysis by a USBC Gold coach, but payment is per instance as opposed to a subscription:
http://yourbowlingcoach.com/lessons/video-lessons/
A subscription model is interesting, but will people take to such a service or would they rather pay a local coach $30 per lesson for tune-ups as needed? Recording yourself bowling, getting the right camera angle to show approach and release, could be frustrating and time consuming for some people. Asking coaches to sift through the videos (some of which may be dark/grainy/shaky cellphone videos) could be challenging as well.
-
To answer some other questions. The coaches in this network are all full time USBC Silver Level & Above coaches. The best way I can answer to how we plan on retaining a customer basis is this.
Retain customers- customers that use the service will get short doses of information instead of a lump sum. Think of getting one lesson over an hour compared to getting 12 5 min lessons over 6 months. This kind of coaching will allow for constant growth, interaction, and feedback. Short spurts of information that is personal that one can master and move on to the next thing. There will be a set template to what the coaches will be looking for (angle wise) in your video. Any smartphone will do.
Subscription would probably run in a time frame of say 6-9 months. Allowing users to upload multiple videos a month and keeping the feedback short and on point to specific tasks to work on and showing the plan to success.
Keep the questions coming. We love the feedback so far.
-
Sounds great. What about two handed bowlers? Alot of coaches really can't teach that style if they can't do it themselves.
-
Sounds great. What about two handed bowlers? Alot of coaches really can't teach that style if they can't do it themselves.
The Team USA coaches have seemed to adapt real well to the surge of two handers. The biggest problem two handers face are inconsistent footwork, poor launch angles, and working the outside of the ball to get revs, rather than working the deep inside of the ball which stores a ton of energy and makes these new balls hit like a ton.
The footwork, launch angles, and release training can all be done by any good coach. I am not one of the coaches, but I have bowled two handed in the past and received some really good coaching tips and pointers from a PBA HOF'er that greatly improved my game, footwork and timing. And this guy is in his 60s.
Coaching bowling is breaking down mechanics on a granular scale and working on a sum of parts to create a better whole. That's a mission that this brand hopes to achieve.
-
In that case I would like to be a tester in your project
-
How are you planning on keeping a consistent message to single bowler when more than one coach may be involved? Will each profile (bowler) be given a certain amount of storage space to keep videos (or links at least) along with an instruction journal? This would allow each bowler to get consistent coaching where Coach B can look at what Coach A is suggesting and continue with the education or reinforce if needed.
-
How are you planning on keeping a consistent message to single bowler when more than one coach may be involved? Will each profile (bowler) be given a certain amount of storage space to keep videos (or links at least) along with an instruction journal? This would allow each bowler to get consistent coaching where Coach B can look at what Coach A is suggesting and continue with the education or reinforce if needed.
I think you answered your own question. :)
What could happen is that, depending on physical location (read: the coaches are sitting there in the same room), the coaches could analyze the video, take separate notes, then come together and discuss what notes they have, what they would suggest that the bowler should work on, etc. etc. In short, review each other's suggestions, come to a good consensus (especially if they suggested the same thing), and send that unified list back to the bowler as a list on what to work on.
That way, coach A and Coach B would have their input taken into consideration, as well as their own suggestions on what to do. It wouldn't be truly contradictory as long as the coaches know about what the other is suggesting to do.
BL.
-
How are you planning on keeping a consistent message to single bowler when more than one coach may be involved? Will each profile (bowler) be given a certain amount of storage space to keep videos (or links at least) along with an instruction journal? This would allow each bowler to get consistent coaching where Coach B can look at what Coach A is suggesting and continue with the education or reinforce if needed.
I think you answered your own question. :)
What could happen is that, depending on physical location (read: the coaches are sitting there in the same room), the coaches could analyze the video, take separate notes, then come together and discuss what notes they have, what they would suggest that the bowler should work on, etc. etc. In short, review each other's suggestions, come to a good consensus (especially if they suggested the same thing), and send that unified list back to the bowler as a list on what to work on.
That way, coach A and Coach B would have their input taken into consideration, as well as their own suggestions on what to do. It wouldn't be truly contradictory as long as the coaches know about what the other is suggesting to do.
BL.
I got the impression the coaches would be independent and wouldn't be working as a group. The concept of getting a group of coaches together at one time to do this kind of work seems more expensive that what I could afford.
The way this works is if the coaches can do this independently of their daily responsibilities. They would be able to do the online work as time becomes available.
-
Hi guys. I am going to try to stay as active in this thread as possible. The next week is going to be pretty busy with the US Open here in Vegas for the next 7 days. I relayed a lot of this feedback to the owner and he gave me some notes to answer a few points.
As far as demand, the owner, A USBC Silver Level Coach with 10+ years of Collegiate Coaching experience is running this startup full time as his career. We can assure you that the hands on efforts with clients and relay of information will be communicated efficiently and within the time window that will be assigned to each video submission.
As far as dealing with multiple coaches, the team of coaches work closely together in the industry and have been for years. Because of the emphasis on short lessons/drills, the cost can be kept at an affordable amount while still allowing a coach to do this full time and have full access to the members including additional benefits without paying a premium price. Think of it as this:
Bowler A- Has been bowling league for 4 years, current average 175. Bowler submits a 5 minute video showing 5 shots in a row of the full approach from behind and to the side, The bowler also submits a video at lane level so the coach can analyze release as well. Bowler submits the video.
-Bowler A is greeted automatically by auto-responder with the name of the coach assigned to him, the ETA/delivery date of the video analysis.
-The Bowler's coach then contacts him with a warm welcome, asking about some of that bowler's goals and what they are looking to achieve. The bowler's video then will be analyzed, voiceover'd, and sent back with an accompanying video analysis and drills to practice for the next video submission. The coach gives the player a regimen to work on and asks for a follow up video at a later date which gives the player time to practice, implement the changes suggested before shooting the next video. Things progress from there.
The assigned coach may collaborate with other coaches behind the scenes on your work, but your assigned coach will be the one relaying all of the information. As membership grows, we already have a plan in place to cover the demands of additional part time/full time staff.
I think this is going to be a wonderful tool for those who may live somewhere where there's no access to good bowling coaches. Or to parents of middle school/high school aged kids. Women's NCAA and Mens NAIA Collegiate bowling is at an all time high and a lot of kids are getting full scholarships to universities for bowling. In Womens Collegiate bowling, some of these schools have such a large surplus of scholarship money for NCAA womens athletics, that you have girls coming out of high school with a 175-180 average and getting full ride 4 year scholarships to bowl.
I can't think of a better resource to potentially send your child away to college for absolutely free. The owner of this program has been coaching at the collegiate level for over 10 years, has coached high school as well, and many of his students have went on to receive athletic scholarships for Womens NCAA Bowling. Mens NAIA Bowling now gives scholarships as well so we are hoping to catch a big segment of that market as well.
We may be contacting some people directly from the multiple channels we have been reaching out to for our beta/pilot program. I will have more information on that after the weekend.
Take care everyone, and keep the questions coming.
-DJ
-
Guys, stay tuned for some exciting news. Due to the great feedback here and other forums, we will be launching a beta testers program very soon. People will be hand selected in the future when the announcement is made. Keep the great feedback coming!
-
Excellent
Always up for reasonably priced access to high level coaching!
-
Guys, the service is here and live. I myself have had a video analyzed by Coach Mike and while I have a lot of work to do in my game, I'm very interested myself in seeing my progress through this great program.
Check it out at www.bowld300.com (http://www.bowld300.com)
-
I hope that I am picked for the beta test
-
Coach Mike is local... I'll have to schedule a time to visit