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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.