Forming an opportunity belief-4A

I believe that there is a need for coaches to have more education on not how to teach a skill, but how to coach the individual. I am a retired gymnast, and I trained for 15 years. I competed at the elite level and earned a full ride athletic scholarship to UF, but never got to compete in college due to spinal stress injuries that I later found out could’ve put me in a wheelchair had I continued training. I had various coaches with different coaching styles, all with the same intent: to help their athletes excel. However, not all coaches know how to coach effectively and constructively. Many coaches are willing to do and say whatever it takes to motivate their athlete to do what they want them to do, and as many times as they want them to do it. This is where verbal abuse and psychological manipulation can occur, whether or not the coach even realizes it. There is no type of degree or certification required for someone to become a coach, and I do not believe that degrees are the key to success. I believe quite the opposite actually, depending on what it is that you want to do. However, there should be more resources available for coaches to be able to access that would educate them on how to not just teach a skill, but how to coach the individual and help that athlete develop into an exceptional human being, not just a world class athlete. That is where I come in.  

  

I believe this need has existed as long as high level athletics has. There are coaches who will do their own research to look for literature or YouTube videos pertaining to coaching, but from my own research, there’s great content, but it’s scattered everywhere, and in my almost 20 years of being involved in sport, there’s very little emphasis put on coaches development. So, this is where I asked myself the question “will people buy the type of content and services I want to produce?”. After interviewing athletes and coaches, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a very strong need that many coaches wish they had because they too were coached by coaches who didn’t have this education. I am 100% sure that this opportunity exists, and it’s a matter of being able to create quality content and effectively market what I will have to offer. 

  

The type of personal who’d be looking for this content would obviously be a coach looking to become an effective coach and leader. Every year thousands of coaches of different sports go to coaching clinics and seminars to learn how to coach skills. But what about coaching the individual? The coaches I sat down with expressed frustration with not knowing how to handle certain situations they come across with their athletes. They lack the proper skills to help their athlete. That frustration is often times taken out on their athlete in a negative way, and thats when they had realized they need to educate themselves on how to coach the individual. More experienced coaches experience this frustration less than young coaches being that they have 10+ years of coaching experience that has taught them a little bit about what does and doesn’t work. Younger coaches experience this frustration much more often, especially when it comes to working with athletes who have fear issues and bad attitudes. These coaches realize they have the need for more education pretty soon in the game. It doesn’t take long for coaches to come across an athlete that doesn’t listen or has other incompetencies that go deeper than physical skills. Very few coaches are already addressing this need with self-education through books and online literature/video content, but most coaches are just trying to figure it out on their own. For the coaches who are already addressing this need on their own, they find some good content here and there, but they wish there was more quality content with clear instruction on how to handle certain issues.  

  

After customer interactions, the only thing that changed was also potentially adding athlete's education and parents-of-athletes education. Other than that, the opportunity has remained the same. I think the new opportunity just adds more value, and if I was able to put all of that content and offer services to not only coaches but athletes and their parents, that just opens up more possibilities to create something even more impactful and potentially more profitable.  

  

I think entrepreneurs should take customer feedback into consideration and gauge whether or not applying that information can help them be more innovative. Also, to consider if applying that information would still allow the entrepreneur to stay true to his/her vision for what they want to create and if it aligns with that person's values as well. We’ve all heard the quote by Henry Ford who said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” And a quote by Steve Jobs who said, “A lot of people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” To some extent, receiving peoples feedback on your potential product or service is good, but I think when people receive a God-given vision, there’s a reason, and they should stay true to that and not stray too far from that vision.