FastPitch
Last Tuesday, we participated in the business competition known as “FastPitch”. The format was for entrepreneurs to present both their product or service and their business model, all in three minutes. A 3-person panel of judges had three additional minutes to ask follow-up questions or make additional comments.
While we didn’t win any prize money, preparing for the FastPitch presentation allowed us to think about our reasons for creating Aim High Hoops, and about what we wanted to provide to basketball players, parents and coaches. We were able to discuss our mission—“Helping players learn both basic and advanced basketball fundamentals, using high-quality professional resources and customer service” —and how the mission is obviously the foundation around which everything we do is centered.
We discussed our first training video, “Pure Shooting”, which we look to have for sale by the end of the summer. We feel that a competitive advantage is in the presentation format. Many successful athletes do not become successful coaches, because they know how to “do what they do” but not “explain what they do”, because their athletic talents always came naturally and without them having to think about it. As teachers, we know how to break content down into understandable, logically-ordered pieces so that the audience understands the connection between everything. In this case, our students are the training video viewers and the lesson is about becoming a Pure Shooter.
We also went into depth about the Pure Shooter’s Report Card, our shooting analysis that will allow us to connect to players across the country with individual lessons, right from their own backyards. We wrote a little about the Report Card back in an April 2010 blog and will continue to share developments.
The third product/service we offer, and have not yet blogged about, are our Aim High Hoops Shooting & Ball-handling clinics. Our purpose with those is not to cram as many players in the gym as we can, but rather, keep the player to coach ratio at 8:1, ensuring individual attention for each player. The first clinic program coincides with our first training video on the mechanics of shooting and how to become a “Pure Shooter”. We will have the DVD and Report Card for sale on site.
We are extremely confident that what we offer will help players who want to become great shooters become great shooters. The reason for the optimism is because the basketball experience that the Aim High Hoops team brings in, combined with the products we offer, gives a very clear picture of how to build the proper fundamental foundation for becoming a great basketball player. Obviously, it is up to the players to actually “build” that foundation of skills. The important thing to remember is: Players that learn the correct habits early on just continue on the fastest path to basketball excellence, while players who learn poor habits have a lot to “unlearn” before being able to reach their potentials, a much longer process.
Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman
Aim High Hoops, Inc.