New technology from startup ventures is transforming the sports industry. The mission of this series is to introduce startup companies in the sports technology space to a broader audience and allow Founders of promising new ventures to tell their story. Feel free to submit your startup’s answers to the below questions or contact us if you know of a startup that should be considered for this series.
Company name: BridgeAthletic
Founder(s): Michael Sharf, CEO, and Nick Folker, Chief Performance Officer
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
1. What is your elevator pitch?
BridgeAthletic builds high-performance training tools for coaches and athletes who compete at the highest levels. The integrated BridgeAthletic platform leverages the power of technology to revolutionize the way coaches create, deliver, and track athlete progress. With customized training programs delivered directly to their smartphone or tablet, athletes train smarter, power through plateaus, and perform better come game time.
2. Problem & Solution
In the age of digital tracking, coaches and athletes are still using paper sheets and whiteboards to track athletic development. Leveraging state-of-the-art technology, the BridgeAthletic platform empowers coaches to manage athlete training in a whole new way. Instead of manually updating complicated spreadsheets from sweat-smudged cards, coaches get real-time tracked training data and clear visualizations of progress, allowing them to optimize training, get the most out of their athletes, and tailor programs to avoid costly injuries from overuse or under-preparation.
Remotely via mobile devices and in the weight room via tablets or larger screens, athletes are able to train through the intuitive, native app interface. Once the coach assigns them a program, athletes are able to see clear demonstrations and instructions for each exercise, along with given parameters such as reps and weight, leaving no questions about which exercise to do or how to perform it. Upon completion of each exercise, recording their data is just the tap of a screen and the next exercise is ready to go. Athletes are able to leave notes or questions for coaches along with media uploads, such as recording a video to check for proper form. Finally, athletes are given a daily performance survey to track their nutrition, well-being, and game-readiness so that coaches know when their athletes are at their peak.
Providing the foundation for a skilled coaching staff to manage strength training, communicate with each other and their athletes, and easily visualize athlete performance, the BridgeAthletic platform is built for elite organizations to efficiently train hundreds of athletes
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
Coaches and athletes at all levels who strive to go harder, play longer, and train smarter.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
For elite-level organizations that have the in-house expertise to build their own training programs, the BridgeAthletic platform provides a foundation for creating, distributing, and analyzing training programs. These packages are sold on a subscription basis per team or organization.
For youth teams and individual athletes seeking personalized, sport-specific training programs, the BridgeAthletic performance team, led by Nick Folker and an extensive Performance Advisory Board made up of top strength and conditioning experts from every sport, creates and manages individualized programs, starting at $25 / month for a General Athletic training plan.
5. Management Team
Michael Sharf – Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Nick Folker – Co-Founder & Chief Performance Officer
Fadi Zoghzoghy – Chief Technical Officer
Nat Chambers – Chief Operations Officer
Learn about the whole team here!
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
Since BridgeAthletic’s launch in 2011, dozens of top collegiate and professional organizations have adopted the platform, including the Boras Sports Training Institute, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Oakland Raiders, the Portland Trailblazers, the San Jose Earthquakes, USA Rugby and USA Water Polo, as well as many NCAA D1 schools such as Alabama, Arizona, Cal, Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, and USC. They’ve seen their strength and conditioning programs become more efficient for coaches, easier for athletes to follow and record data, and, overall better results on the field, court, pitch, and pool with personalized, measured athletic development programs. To learn more about how the platform can benefit your team or organization, visit the BridgeAthletic website here.