@jmwirtz would love to hear about initial idea to traction for this service.
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We started fully focused on NFL and Division I football when we launched. Were super un-lean and built out all sorts of tools that just a handful of Husker football coaches thought would be cool (we're based across the street from the University of Nebraska). Things like interactive quizzes for players, a full-blown messaging system, etc. Three big lessons learned as we slogged it out to sign just a handful of NFL/DivI teams the first 2 years:
1. Fast, simple delivery of video to the team was 95% of the value, the rest really didn't matter
2. Enterprise sales to NFL and DivI teams is a slog - no matter how great the product is
3. There was a deep need for coaches and athletes to share video at the high school, small college, and youth levels where the market is bigger and decisions can be made faster.
So in 2008 we adapted the platform to a browser-based, $800/year, video-focused system and that's when things started really clicking for us in the high school football market. (12 teams in 2008, 350 in 2009, 2000 in 2010, 6000 in 2011, 12000 in 2012).
The hardest friction points for us to get on that growth path:
* Convincing coaches that security/privacy of their video on the web is not an issue
* Convincing coaches that compressed video delivered online can get them what they need to prepare for games and coach players
* Convincing coaches/ADs that SaaS pricing is way better than up-front licensing (which is how they all bough software in 2008/2009).
As iOS and Android devices took off - that gave us an even better platform for our tools and helped ramp up our growth starting around 2009.
Hopefully that gives some good perspective but feel free to hit me up with more questions.
@eriktorenberg for the foreseeable future, we are pretty heads down on sports. We are expanding further into team sports (basketball, volleyball, soccer) and individual sports like golf and expanding outside of North America. Still lots of work to do...
These guys are killing it and have been at it for a bit. @DGhudl or @Jmwirtz would love for you to share your journey on Hudl.
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To begin, Consistent stats! I was told by a Hudl rep that he would “personally” redo the game stats...I’m still waiting for them. This program is too costly to make the mistakes they make. I have had 3 videos freeze up as they were downloading this season. Hudl support has not been successful in getting those videos downloaded either. I will not be using this service next season!
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