Founded in 2011, bookacoach helps you find and book sports coaches in everything from baseball to soccer to cheerleading. They pride themselves on safety, performing up to three county background checks on coaches, repeated annually. They also designed software to help coaches manage their schedules.
Bookacoach was founded by Kevin MacCauley, a little league baseball coach who believed he could improve the status quo. But, as it often goes in sports, he and his team hit a few bumps along the way. Below, CFO Myles Grote explains how their startup survived in crunch time.
Tech Cocktail: Describe a challenging moment for bookacoach.
Myles Grote: We’ve been faced with many challenges, but for us, the most challenging moment was around the end of August when we were supposedly going to be launching. After several weeks of lack of production, our recently acquired developer backed out on us at the 11th hour. This was the second developer that we had gone through and to top it off, we were also strapped financially so our options were limited. We knew that if we didn’t get the right developer this time, that bookacoach would be no more. We attended the Tech Cocktail Mixology event on August 23rd and luckily found the right developer, which basically saved our company.
Tech Cocktail: What happened next?
Grote: The misfortune was yet to end. The next night, we lost a bookacoach family member. While we continued to try and work through everything, the challenges associated with the loss were enormous. We learned a lot of things from this series of events, but I think the most important was that no matter what the challenges are, you have to believe in your mission and understand that no matter how well you execute, things are going to go wrong. In the startup world, how you react to the challenges is the differentiator between success and failure.
Tech Cocktail: What’s one quirky fact about bookacoach?
Grote: Our office is literally an old storage closet in a massive sports complex. … One of our biggest advantages against our competition is our understanding for the market. What better way to immerse yourself in the market than to step outside of your office and be on an indoor soccer field surrounded by basketball courts and batting cages?
Bookacoach was a showcased startup at our Tech Cocktail DCWEEK mixer.