Startup Idea: Coaching Management App

Startup idea to develop a coaching management application designed for tutors and coaches to track clients' progress, exchange learning materials, and organize their proprietary methods. The app should allow the coaches to catalog their exercises or worksheets, set client-specific goals, and also personal development goals. It should also facilitate idea-capturing and improvement tracking to help coaches grow their practice.

I'm a voice and speaking tutor, and there's a lot of back-and-forth and keeping track of clients in a way that gets confusing -- and I don't think this is unique to my particular kind of tutoring; I think it's common to any coaching profession where you're knocking yourself out to give high-quality individualized training. After each session, I send the client a recording of our session. I make notes on where I think the client is making progress and what I think we need to work on next time. I develop new exercises to meet an individual client's needs, and then I need to keep track of what I sent this person and -- ideally -- somehow keep track of the exercise or worksheet I've created so that I can put my hands on it when another client comes along with a similar issue, instead of continually re-inventing the wheel. Clients send me recordings that I can listen to to check how they're doing, and I download those and put them in folders, but it all just gets chaotic very easily.

What I wish I had was some kind of app that students would sign into when they sign up with me. We could use it to send recordings back and forth as attachments, and I would have a teacher's-view-only area to keep my notes on how each student is coming along and what to do next. The thing that would make this especially valuable would be if there were also ways for me to cross-reference or file some of these things not only under the individual student name, but under headings according to the kinds of topics that the exercises pertain to, so that I'd gradually be building an organized catalog of materials to use with new people. In fact, it'd be even better if there were built-in tools in an area called something like Practice Builder, where I keep track of 1. things I've made 2. things I think I'd like to make eventually 3. visions of how the different things I'm doing fit together (tutors and teachers often develop their own model or vision of how their job can work, and work better, and as that's coming together, it would be unbelievably helpful if I had some kind of tracking, organizing and goal-setting software -- come to think of it, it'd be ideal if there were a way to set goals for the students and goals for me -- like my student is working on relaxing the throat and I'm working on developing a new method to teach tone of voice). It'd be great if there were ways to earmark ideas that I think I should develop as major components of my practice, turn into new workshops, etc. -- so that great ideas aren't just "Oh, I did something really interesting with that student Samantha the other day" but "I've captured an idea that can form the core of a new workshop." There would be places to put notes on what worked well and also what should be revised -- and ways to flag things like "Hot ideas to work on more" and "Stuff that needs to be improved before the next time I get a client with the same problem." Thus I'd be organizing both the plans for the students' progress and my own progress.

How much money would there be in this for you? Well, if a lot of personal trainers, fitness gurus, business coaches, life coaches, physical therapists, etc. used it -- and I think that what I'm imagining would work for all of them (it would work for any trainer who needs to keep track of a whole lot of individuals with unique issues and goals, and who wants to deliver high-quality tailored coaching and gather all their high-quality ideas and proprietary methods into a growing practice), not just for something as esoteric as a voice-and-accent coach like me -- it could be worthwhile. I have tried but have never found anything. A friend of mine suggested I look harder under apps for physical therapists, and I think I will search that idea more carefully. Now I handle things by having hard-copy folders for students, taking lots of notes in a binder, making Excel spreadsheets, and mostly getting annoyed with myself for feeling disorganized -- feeling that some good ideas slip away and others stay in rough form because it's hard to keep track of what to follow up on. I'm making a copy of what I've written to you here in case it helps me get more ideas for using paper, post-it notes, etc. to help me keep track of things.

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