The Coach's Site filmed its live conference presentations. A chance meeting inspired the idea to put these videos, previously stored on a hard drive, behind a paywall, creating a "Netflix for hockey coaches" and launching their subscription business.
An unintended benefit of the platform is that a coach's profile becomes a de facto professional portfolio. When a hiring manager Googles a coach, their profile—featuring their content and ideas—often appears first, offering a dynamic view of their expertise beyond a static resume.
The founder observed that elite coaches constantly shared ideas, but this knowledge rarely reached lower-level, grassroots coaches. The platform was created to bridge this information gap, trickling down high-level strategies to the broader coaching community.
The Coach's Site recognized coaches were shifting from physical binders to digital resources but lacked a central place to organize them. They built a "locker" feature, like a Pinterest board, for users to aggregate coaching content from their site, YouTube, and elsewhere.
Unlike news-based media, coaching strategies have a long shelf life. This allows The Coach's Site to build a vast, evergreen library where content from a decade ago can be as valuable as content posted yesterday, creating a durable and compounding asset for subscribers.
Instead of a Substack model where users subscribe to individual creators, The Coach's Site opted for a pooled, pay-per-view revenue share. This prevents siloing information behind multiple paywalls, aligning with their mission to democratize coaching knowledge for all members.
The Coach's Site found that while posting free video clips on Instagram was popular, users mistook them for just a free content channel. They had to become more intentional with calls-to-action to drive users from passive social consumption to their paid platform.
While individual subscriptions are key, The Coach's Site found its most efficient growth came from B2B deals. By partnering with federations and leagues, they onboard entire groups of coaches at once, scaling much faster than through one-by-one consumer acquisition.
Before implementing a platform-wide revenue share, The Coach's Site created standalone, paid courses with high-profile coaches. This allowed them to experiment with revenue-sharing agreements and gauge user appetite for premium, specialized content, de-risking a much larger strategic shift.