New technology from startup ventures is transforming the sports industry. The mission of this series will be to introduce startup companies in the sports technology space to a broader audience and allow Founders of promising new ventures to tell their story.
Company: Insider Training
CEO: Sid Viswanathan
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
1. What is your elevator pitch?
Insider Training is an iPhone app that allows aspiring athletes to see training videos from elite athletes and coaches around world. All of our content is crowdsourced from the coaches themselves, which ensures that the quality of content in the network is extremely high and constantly growing.
Here are some examples of the type of content we are creating:
http://insidertrainingapp.com/video/6nNqIhM
http://insidertrainingapp.com/video/M3z9ir8
http://insidertrainingapp.com/video/-fxpSVU
http://insidertrainingapp.com/video/4Y2KmI4
2. Problem & Solution
Problem: As an aspiring athlete, it’s very difficult to get access to the knowledge and information of elite and professional athletes.
Solution: Insider Training helps bridge that gap by allowing the best coaches and athletes to showcase how they train to perform at the highest level. We’ve got coaches from all sports and levels, and users can dive a level deeper to see coaching cues, reps/sets info and even find a specific category of videos they are interested in.
3. Market – your target market and the overall market
Strength and conditioning coaches and athletes (aspiring or current) are our current target market. The overall market we are going after is a blend between the broader fitness and sports communities.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
We’re currently just getting started building up our content and network of coaches. Our vision is to become the best training tool on the planet for current and aspiring athletes. If we achieve that mission, we think there will be a number of monetization models that we can explore down the road. But for now we’re are staying focussed on our mission to serve athletes and coaches.
5. Management Team
Sid Viswanathan – Co-founder & CEO
Samir Shah – Co-founder & CTO
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
Our earliest advisors on the team are strength and sports performance coaches. They deeply understand the needs of this audience and we are working closely with them to build the best product for coaches and athletes.
But you don’t have to be an athlete or coach to join Insider Training. You can get on the app to follow your favorite teams and athletes to get an inside look at how they train.
Bonus Questions:
If you were stuck on a desert island with any three athletes, who would they be and why?
That’s easy (1) Michael Jordan (2) Tiger Woods (3) Tom Brady… all GOATs that I had a chance to see play in my lifetime.
If you were to invite any CEO to dinner who would it be and why?
Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, has built a really remarkable company over the years, and to have the confidence and instincts to go up against big and powerful incumbents in the space is truly inspirational. And his vision for the future is even more exciting as he seems to be the first fitness/apparel company CEO to really understand and prioritize the importance of technology and software.
If you could go to any sporting event, what would it be and why?
Game 7 NBA finals without a doubt. It’s the only sporting event where you can get so close to the action that you can hear the dialogue between the players. I’ve always loved the players that get mic’d up for TV, but I imagine the experience is even better sitting court side. Also my brother used to be a ball boy for the Washington Wizards, so this would be the only way to one up him.