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Forward Thinking Founders is a founder podcast where we interview high potential founders from networks like Y Combinator, The Thiel Fellowship, Product Hunt, Twitter, etc. and brings to light what they're building for the world. Think of it like the opposite of How I Built This, where we interview founders before they are successful, then if they are, we have a moment in time we can look back on in the early days. Does the model work? Look at our early interviews and you'll have your answer.
There are trillion dollar industries built on answering one single question. What is the future? Before Apple, Google, or more recently, companies like Airbnb or Stripe became massive enterprises, They were just small groups of people with a vision and the will to execute it. This podcast focuses on that stage, the early stage. We seek out founders with high aptitude backgrounds, maybe they've won a dozen hackathons.
Speaker 1:Maybe they use AI so well that every time they something goes viral on X. Or maybe they're up and coming through programs like Founders Inc, South Park Commons, ODF, or HF Zero, or just maybe they have that something we want to bet on. Since we've been running this podcast since 2019, we've interviewed the founders of Deal, Turing, Mercury, and hundreds of others at the pre seed stage. And now we're looking for the next one. We find these founders, we interview them, and we track them over time.
Speaker 1:And our bet is a good portion of these guests will go on to build a billion dollar companies of tomorrow. We won't be perfect, but every guest has passed our sniff death, has an interesting story to share, and is on a trajectory worth watching. This is Forward Thinking Founders. I'm your host, Matt Sherman. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Alright. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Forward Thinking Founders. Where we talk to founders about their companies, their visions for the world, and how the two collide. Today, I'm very excited to be talking to Megan Franks, who's the founder of SportSitters.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show. How's it going?
Speaker 3:Thank you, Matt. Doing well. How are you?
Speaker 2:You so
Speaker 3:much for having me, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Very excited to have you on. I mean, I just saw you on LinkedIn or somewhere a few weeks ago. I dived into what you were doing. I'm just like, holy smokes.
Speaker 2:We gotta get you on the pod immediately because this is this is a this is a gnarly a gnarly model you have going on here. Let's just dive into it. What what are you what are you building? Like, what what tell us more about your company.
Speaker 3:So sports sitters, it started from two two worlds kinda colliding. Way back in the day, my husband played ice hockey. He was actually at ASU. His great uncle used to coach football there, and we graduated, said peace out to Tempe. Thought we'd never ever have anything to do with the school again, and we were done.
Speaker 3:And many years later, we started getting involved in the athletic department again, and we had children of our own. And I had some worked in child psychiatry for some time before. And so our kids grew up around athletes. And slowly over time, these NIL laws had changed, and athletes were allowed to work through a brand. When all of this sort of started happening, I realized that a lot of the male revenue sports were getting a ton of they're awesome, like phenomenal NIL deals.
Speaker 3:But I sort of personally felt like a lot of the women that are so incredibly talented were getting a little bit left behind in terms of brand offerings and their ability to now earn outside of their sport and their scholarship. And this, I realized, was a way that we could get athletes out in the community. They were influencing kids. Parents loved it because there's nothing more trustworthy than an athlete babysitter that walks through your door that you can check their roster link. They're engaged, they're playing, and they're active.
Speaker 3:And so it was just something that was very accidental that has turned into me feverishly learning a new industry that I have no experience in terms of the tech side.
Speaker 2:Well, that is often the best companies come out of kind of like outsiders to the industry or outsiders to a certain sector. Don't this could be know. It's that's how it goes. That's I mean, because, you know, people that are just used to a certain way of doing things, they're just used to it. You have to have a fresh a fresh viewpoint and a fresh mindset to to shake it up and and solve solve, you know, solve problems in a more, you know, unique way.
Speaker 2:So so let's walk through maybe, like, the the the operations here. So I I have a kid, and I'm about to have another kid. Mhmm. Walk me through how someone like me or another kind of set of parents would engage with your brand and use it to get in touch with these athletes to to, yeah, to essentially watch their kids.
Speaker 3:So so far, it's been all word-of-mouth. So you would find out about it through a friend. You register. You go through a cool down period after you register. We background check you.
Speaker 3:We background check your spouse, which is extra special. Most people don't check both registrants in the household or both parents in the household. You send a request in, and we broadcast the request to all the athletes that are available. So what's different and for me very exciting because I love just the child psych and the exposure piece of this is that you don't get to necessarily go and choose, I want a soccer player for my son or my daughter. You find out who you're matched with or who's coming to your house that day.
Speaker 3:And what we've learned is that oftentimes when we were testing, we allowed parents to kinda choose the sport. Now we broadcast, and it gives children and athletes so much exposure to, like, kind of the non rev, also Olympic sports, a lot of track and field. You wouldn't necessarily go and pick a water polo player in December to watch your kid. But these women, they're able and willing and ready to go work and go play. And what's most important is that when they show up, these ladies are born with an energy that it would take me 10 cups of coffee to get to naturally when they come out of like, when they wake up.
Speaker 3:And children are so magnetic to that. It's so curious. You know? Each of these athletes, they walk into your house and in the door, and they all they look different based on different teams. Some are tall.
Speaker 3:Some are short. Some are strong. Some are fast. And children, as you use this service more often, start to recognize these different qualities and also peak interest in sports that they've never been exposed to or maybe you or I would have said, okay. We always want volleyball because our kid loves volleyball.
Speaker 3:And all of a sudden now, you know, they're like, wait a minute. What's the what's this thing that as a parent I wouldn't have put on the radar for my child?
Speaker 2:Totally. I mean, I I think it's great. A couple of questions just as, a from, like, the parent point of view or the parent perspective. So do like, I'm guessing because these athletes they're athletes. Right?
Speaker 2:They're they have, like, lots of energy, like you said. They you know, they're very fun. How much kind of training do you need to do with the athletes on on what to do with kids? Or do they just kind of know? Or what's the ramp up from going from athlete to kind of, like, watch babysitter of of kids?
Speaker 3:It's so interesting. So, some of them have prior experience babysitting for friends, family, siblings, all all of that all that sort of what you'd expect out of a babysitter. The other piece is that many of them have requirements on their teams that they do community events. They do, you know, summer camps. And so they really do have a depth and a breadth of experience that it just wasn't tapped into before.
Speaker 3:No one looked at a volleyball player and said, hey. Cool. You can watch my kid, and I can go, you know, have drinks or run errands or whatever it is for a couple hours. And my child enjoys a pseudo lesson. And you do have all of these requirements both through your team, through your school that you're engaging with young members of the community to grow the next generation of athletes.
Speaker 3:And we are absolutely leveraging that with this one on one kind of VIP feeling experience for these children.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I guess I'll maybe this I should assume this, but I'll just ask anyways. Like, how much of the time of the of the of the athletes watching the kids, is it is it, like, very sports focused? Is it is it all kind of, like, lesson based? Is it sometimes not lesson based?
Speaker 2:Like, how much of it is is sports specific versus just doing whatever the kids wanna do?
Speaker 3:It really depends. So I always tell the girls to kinda let the children guide based on the way they're feeling because we don't wanna force something on children. Right? We want them when I'm saying that they're they're magnetic to something, it's because oftentimes they get to be in control of how much. So sometimes these athletes are almost doing a pseudo lesson for three or four hours, and you have a kid like, my son drags these girls through every minute.
Speaker 3:I mean, they are outside grinding when, you know, my son is around. And if it's just my daughter, they're playing dolls, and it's very relaxed, and it's a totally different experience. But what is interesting that both of our kids in just in my experience, and also I've learned from other parents pick up on is that they've seen these ladies in the arena. They've seen them on fields, and they've seen them at events. They've seen them signing autographs.
Speaker 3:And when they come into our home, whether they're playing dolls or they're out in our field and grinding, our kids and all kids learn that if they can do these amazing things in front of an audience, and also they're normal humans inside of my home, hold on. Maybe I can do that awesome stuff too. And it really ignites this confidence in children, whether it's sports or not sports. Right? Like, you these children start to learn, if it's piano and I stick to something and I practice and I practice and I practice, hold on a minute.
Speaker 3:I might become good. You know? And, like, that is really the spirit of what we want children to realize and grow that confidence. And it doesn't always necessarily happen to be in sports. It's really that theme.
Speaker 3:And sports, it's amazing. Like, they get this healthy lifestyle. They get the exposure, all the things. It's such a phenomenal, you know, focus, but it does bleed into other areas, which has been unexpected and, like, just super fun. Like, I never thought that that would kind of be an outcome after releasing Into the Wild.
Speaker 2:Definitely. That's how that's how it goes. You put it out there and people use your your product or your service in ways that you didn't expect. No no doubt.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh. Yep. Yep.
Speaker 2:So I wanna go a little on the the NIL side. So I when NIL when these rules started to change, I started to know, I think everyone started paying attention. It's super fascinating.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I actually think I did I think I mentioned this over LinkedIn. I, like, did did, like, a deal, like, a $100 deal on one of the marketplaces, NIL. I, someone, like, made a post about me from, like, a football team. So it's, like, very interesting. K.
Speaker 2:I'm curious. Yeah. How does NIL play into the world of of of what you're doing here? And, like, where where's the link in yeah. What's your, like I guess is the question.
Speaker 2:What's your NIL strategy for for the company?
Speaker 3:So NIL is interesting because a couple of years ago, before all these laws had changed or before there was any there was no these athletes weren't allowed to work outside of their sport and their scholarship. And so the idea is kind of you're drafted into or, you know, selected into some school that's d one. Your job is your sport, and your and your job is also your academics. Outside of that, you really shouldn't have some sort of job that you're earning. You weren't supposed to.
Speaker 3:You're not you weren't allowed to because let's say you go and you work at a bank, and then you have a game that afternoon, and you're tired, and your performance is weak. It all of a sudden has this ripple effect that universities were trying to avoid. So the NIL's laws changed, and these athletes are now allowed to work through brand and get, you know, paid for their name, image, likeness. The platform leverages this because every time an athlete goes into your home, for example, we really want them building not only their brand because some of them do end up going pro, and some of them end up staying in sports. And so we really wanna grow that presence for them in the community and make people recognize, number one, how important their sport is, two, how phenomenal they are as individuals.
Speaker 3:And the other piece is that we also are required to have certain behavioral expectations. So these athletes, when they're in someone's home, they're expected to behave a certain way based on what the university expects, and also what their team expects. And so that whole, I guess, NIL university requirement also boosts our platform because it adds a level of trust that parents really get to enjoy. But without those laws, we would not have this platform whatsoever because they wouldn't be allowed to work outside of their sport. And, you know, it's it's interesting because they're changing all the time, and so it's sort of been this, like, game of ping pong that we have to keep up with.
Speaker 3:And it's been unpredictable, but also fun. So
Speaker 2:That that's crazy. I didn't make the the mental connection that this literally couldn't have existed before before this NIL law laws. And because of the changes, it just enabled a platform like this to exist. That's that's awesome.
Speaker 3:The other piece that's still very funky for us or hard to deal with is that so the NCAA, the NIL laws only allow US citizens to work outside of their sport with a brand if the brand is from The United States. So you have to work with your home country, any brand or any company from your home country. So if you're a French tennis player at ASU, you cannot be a sports sitter. Mhmm. You cannot go rep any US brand and be paid for it whatsoever.
Speaker 3:So I don't know if you remember, like, the swimmer from ASU, Leon Marchand. He was phenomenal in the Olympics. Right? Definitely. He did NIL with LVMH.
Speaker 3:Why? He's French. That's his home country. He wouldn't have been able to do any US brand, or have a partnership with them. And at the same time, you can only rep them when you're in your home country.
Speaker 3:So it's not like, he can't post about or any athlete can't post about some other brand that's in a different place when they're not in that specific place. And what's been difficult for us is that there are amazing athletes from all over the world that know how to influence kids that are phenomenal role models that want extra money that have time, particularly in their off season, that have registered to be on this platform, and I can't approve them. And, you know, I I want to send them out, and I want kids to, you know, learn and feel and see, touch, feel these people. And they just those rules are still in our way, which is really tricky. And it also makes things a little unfair when you're from, call it, a more developed country.
Speaker 3:Right? Because there's more brands. There's just more and there's more money, and there's more places and opportunity that you can do these partnerships with. So that part pulls at my heart a little bit, especially with the platform because I know that there's great talent out there that still, you know, has kinda rule in the way. So
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully, the the rules of the laws continue to to evolve, to to be more inclusive, and just more just, like, easier to do business in the NIL world. You know, as they it's easier than it was five years ago, obviously now. Hopefully, in five years, it'll be
Speaker 3:We hope. Easier. Yeah. Totally.
Speaker 2:So We hope. I I wanna dive into kind of you as, like, a founder of this company, as the founder of the company. Is this your first, like is this your first company that you've started? What's your kind of it been what what's been your experience getting this off the ground just as, a company builder and, you know, just, like, taking an idea in your head and turning it into an actual, you know, company that makes money and solves problems and is valuable to a lot of people?
Speaker 3:So it is the first time I've ever done anything like this. I have never gone out on my own. I've never started anything before. I it really started out by testing with some friends. I had just the most basic MVP you could ever imagine built.
Speaker 3:And the spirit of it and the base of it was awesome. There were friends of you know, and then friends of friends that had learned about it. They wanted to download. We had more athletes that had found out that their friends are making money off of it, and they wanna download. But it didn't have, like, the infrastructure and everything that it really needed to start actually onboarding and kind of moving out of, like, cutesy hobbyville into, like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3:This is, like, actually gonna become a business. And so that was sort of a point where I'm like, this started mostly because I wanted to help out a small group of ladies that were athletes at ASU. And so am I going to give up a life that I really love that was perfectly fine and go grind and start waking up at 04:30 in the morning and building this thing out and trying to, you know, get all these hours in before my own kids wake up because I don't wanna ignore them to bring something to somebody else's children. I mean, that's a huge that was a huge problem that I had to solve for. The other thing is, you know, you could you could make all the checklists in the world.
Speaker 3:You can have every single plan, and nothing went as expected. Nothing. There were, you know, things that I thought that would be super easy that I could tap into or leverage, and those ended up being things that we abandoned immediately or quickly. I thought this platform would grow originally through, you know, like, my closest network of friends, and it ended up being kind of a little bit different than that. I didn't realize that there's so much tech stuff that I had to learn in the background.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that Apple required your info p list to be correct or your distribution certificates to always be updated or, you know, your SMS has to be connected to this platform to make sure that everything goes properly, and we need proof that things went through. I didn't know about business insurance. I didn't know about bank accounts. Like, all of it was really just a simple, how can we get through the next thing that's right in front of our face? So we're playing defense.
Speaker 3:Like, this is not offense. We are a 100% playing defense. I have a plan for offense. It just hasn't happened yet because there's always something that, you know, starts to expose itself or unfold or not necessarily unravel because that's negative, but just that we need to solve for. And I'd say the tech side at this point is probably what really has gotten in the way of letting me sort of let this platform explode in a good way.
Speaker 3:We have over 50 schools that are waiting for it now and hundreds of athletes that have contacted me from all over the place. And it absolutely kills me and also ignites a fire inside of me to try to get it done faster and faster and faster. But, you know, it's you know, it doesn't come without pain and without mistake, and it looks awesome on the outside, and and it is. The spirit of the app is amazing. There are ladies working on this.
Speaker 3:There are kids that are, you know, enjoying it. There are parents that get to go and, like, relax for a couple hours and feel A plus great. But all of that does require a lot a lot of sacrifice from the ones, you know, in the background that are that are propping the platform up and supporting it.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely. I appreciate you sharing all that. You know, oftentimes, people see the headlines of companies raise this much money or exit it for this billion dollar outcome, and and no one sees the early days and just, like, the process of building when, like, you know, some people care, but it's not like everyone in the world knows about it yet. Right? It's like a small group of people, and you are just kinda, like, with the world on your shoulder.
Speaker 2:So appreciate you sharing that. I do have one follow-up because, you know, there's a lot of people listening to the podcast that they're they're nontechnical, and they wanna build tech products, and maybe they are, like, into vibe coding, or they hire an agency, or they have a CTO. What what have you you know, how how have you gone about building the platform? Like, are you vibe coding it?
Speaker 1:Do you
Speaker 2:have, like, an agency, CTO? What's, like, feel Just a pain point. Oh gosh. Well, you can share as little or as much as you want. I'm just curious, like, That's good.
Speaker 2:Everyone is everyone is trying to figure out, you know, their way to build what they wanna build, and there's, like, a million different ways to do it. So I'm curious, like, how have you approached it?
Speaker 3:So this is super recent. Over the summer, we had I think it was five student interns that were engineers and a very small dev team, and we were gonna take what was our MVP that we chose to build off of and just kind of fix it up, add some features, rerelease with a new look, refresh everything. And we I allowed our students to use a lot of AI. And AI politely destroyed a lot of that work. It was so overengineered.
Speaker 3:It didn't quite understand. A great example is, you know, if a athlete needs to cancel on a parent. Right now, we send that job back to the open job list. Someone else can scoop it. We send out a push like, hey.
Speaker 3:There's a new open job. Somebody grab this. And they're always filled. We have a phenomenal acceptance rate because there's always someone ready to go. When we started to rework this logic using AI and we thought it would be great to, like, leverage it and make coding go faster and push this thing out faster and then go, you know, grab grab every school as fast as we can, It was doing things like, okay.
Speaker 3:Let's cancel the job and then send an SMS to the parent and then send a push notification to all the ladies that the job was canceled. And I'm like, it's it still requires such delicate, you know, prompting that it's so fine tuned and and we to get the product that you or to get what you want out of it, that we realized our engineers are faster. In in our experience, the engineers are faster. They know exactly what it needs to do, and they're occasionally using the AI as a tool because they're doubting themselves. And then we have to go and, you know, unravel all this overengineering.
Speaker 3:And all of a sudden, you're like, okay. Now we've wasted a week on something that we can't we can't push that, like, to our main branch. Like, just scrap scrap it. You know? And I think that in terms of mistakes over overusing or overconfidence in what you think will help you build fast and furious cost us a lot of time.
Speaker 3:And I wish I could get that time back because, like I was saying earlier, we have schools that are waiting. We've which means there's kids that are waiting, which means there's athletes that are waiting, and they need the money, and they wanna earn. And there's nothing worse than having users ready to go, and your tech is what's slowing you back. Like, oftentimes, it's a reverse where someone all you know, they built out the restaurant, and no one's coming inside. We have a line out the door, but, like, the food's not ready.
Speaker 3:You know? And, like, that that really is something that it's it's such a good irritating energy where you're like, alright. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 3:Let's fix it. But now we know we need to fix it also responsibly and slowly at the same time.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's definitely I think it's definitely a good problem to have if you've all this demand and you're just trying to get the tech up and running to to supply it. Obviously, it's like, you know, it's it's it's frustrating. But like you said, better that than having a restaurant with that's empty every day. So maybe solve the hard hard side, you know, but I I have faith that you'll be able to figure out the tech, no doubt. So I I want one business going back to just the business fundamentals, and I just wanna talk about the future a little bit on what you're trying to you know, what you wanna accomplish here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So I I should have asked this earlier. So how does it how does it work for a parent? You talked about the experience of one of my sitters coming over. But let's say, like, I literally wanted to use this for our son.
Speaker 2:Do I, like is it, like, a do I pay one time? Is this a subscription? There is, like, a like, walk me through, like, I guess, like, maybe how the money flows and and how people pay for it. And any other information that you think could be relevant for someone that, like, might wanna use this for their for their own kids?
Speaker 3:So register. So you download the app. You register. We do a double background track. Hit us cool down screen.
Speaker 3:You actually add your credit card first. For me, that was a big point of contention with our developers. They want you to add the card after someone has already onboarded. And I don't wanna spend the money background checking to people if, you know, they're not serious enough to show me that they're willing to pay on the platform. And so that's why we asked for that first.
Speaker 3:You you it really is pretty simple. I mean, we have, like, a create booking page. Most of the information is auto filled because we just fetch your information from the registration. You select which of your kids will be there. We recently switched to charging, by the number of children.
Speaker 3:Before, it was just a flat rate, and you could have between one and four kids, and it it was what it was. We also right now, we still haven't built out potentially maybe changing rates based on, like, how many years someone has been an athlete. Maybe they've gone to Olympic trials. Maybe they're on team USA. And that actually like, there are those ladies on our platform.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:It's it really is so cool. Like, I'm I'm like a fan girl of my own platform. Like, there's
Speaker 2:people coming
Speaker 3:to my house. I'm like, you're who? I don't wanna go anywhere.
Speaker 2:I'm staying. That's awesome. How how funny is
Speaker 1:that? And
Speaker 3:so then we broadcast it out. Somebody will accept it. Parent gets to see the athlete's profile. They can see their roster link. We have families that they or one family has told me that they show all their kids, like, on YouTube.
Speaker 3:They'll just Google who it is, which is super cool. Get them familiar with the girl beforehand. We have chat communications. Everything's in app. We really don't want parents circumventing the app.
Speaker 3:The athletes are because it's NIL and there is this NCAA expectation, they've been extremely honest, and that has kept them on the platform, which is great because most babysitting apps have that's a big sort of pain point for them. Like, you get cozy and you kinda just go do your own bookings. But we have to go through the brand and all that stuff. So you chat with your girl beforehand. When they get to your house, they start the shift.
Speaker 3:You can see the athlete's location when you're away. So if you wanna just I mean, I can it's pretty sensitive. I'm like, okay. You're in my backyard right now or you're playing Legos in the playroom. Like, you can really kinda dial in.
Speaker 3:One thing that we do that I enjoy is we ask parents to book the maximum time they'll be away just so you make sure you're paired with someone that is available that whole time in case you stay a little out a little late or whatever. We only charge parents based on the actual amount of time they're gone. There's no you know, there's other apps that they do, like, an extra roundup to the nearest fifteen minutes. I just find all of that kind of, like, garbage. I really love, like, a clean, honest, this is what you know, this is the actual time we were there, and that's what it is.
Speaker 3:I I've been on the other side. Right? Like, I I I pay for childcare myself, and every time I go to the grocery store alone, it costs me money. And it's like, you want it to you wanna be sensitive to parents too. Right?
Speaker 3:Like, I want parents to feel freedom enough that they'll go out and enjoy and reuse, but you also have to kind of consider these athletes are, you know, women that they do go pro. You do see them on TV. They are on ESPN, and they are trying to leverage their brand. And so what's kind of the sensitive spot where you're respectful to both sides? And then, you know, when you're done, you under shift, and that's it.
Speaker 3:And the next time you pop one in, you might get the same girl. You might not. And a lot of it is based on seasonality. Right? Like, we have a lot of women on soccer working right now.
Speaker 3:But three months ago, they were they were ghosts. Like, they were they're training. They're in season. They're you know? I mean, where ASU and, some and GCU, they have wild travel schedules now that are all over the country.
Speaker 3:It's not some cute little tight, school to school thing anymore. And so, you know, that's kind of how everything, I guess, the expectation if you if you, decide to book.
Speaker 2:Awesome. And if you were to kind of look out into the future a bit, yeah, what do you think this can be, or what direction are you rowing in if you were to look out, like, several years into the future?
Speaker 3:I really, really want to make sure that this platform grows to multiple schools, but a small group, you know, in each kind of cluster. Sports sitters is not for everyone. Like, the the best way to describe it is sports sitters is like flying first class. It's different. It costs extra.
Speaker 3:It feels very different than a normal babysitter. You know, normal babysitter, it's like there's hundreds of them out there. They're great. You will get to where you need to go. Your bags are gonna show up.
Speaker 3:Everything will be fine. Your ticket costs a little less, but what, you know, what you needed to do, the box is checked. Sports sitters is it's elevated. It's different. It's curious.
Speaker 3:It is active. It is you are getting a role model. You are getting someone you see on TV. You are getting someone that they will you know, there are athletes you will meet on our platform that go pro, you know, that are gonna sign stuff inside of your home that give kids this really awesome kind of school cred. They know this person, and they're recognized at games.
Speaker 3:And that's different. That's elevated. And so what you know, in terms of, like, the next couple years when we're growing, I wanna make sure that we hit that target crew that really understands the value of these women in their homes. You know, I have people that they hit me up or they email me and like, hey, I need someone to drive my kids somewhere or like, you know, can they take the dog out? And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3:That's that is not the point here. The these women why would if you're gonna have the captain of your volleyball team in your house, why why are you putting her behind the wheel? Go put your kid outside and play. Go inspire them. Go, you know, ignite a curiosity in your child.
Speaker 3:Do not run errands with these people. You know what I mean? Like, that's a nanny, and that's different. And it's on me to make sure that when we're growing that, that people really know the difference between a sports sitter and a babysitter. And when we go to each of these schools that, you know, that brand and that expectation is understood.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, you go to a certain hotel chain and you when you open the door, you know exactly what that Marriott room is gonna look like. You know you know exactly what that Ritz Carlton room is gonna look like. And so that's on me to make sure that that experience is communicated very well and that, you know, target user is exactly what we want. Because, you know, we we want to also help their kids with each with each family that they, are with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. I think your vision is wonderful, and I think you're kind of protecting what you built, and you want to make sure it grows in the right way, not growth at all costs, but growth properly. I think that's great. Can someone, if they're listening to this, where can someone, you know, you know, learn more? The Uvr app, is there is there a website?
Speaker 2:Is there social media? Is there other places someone can learn more about about the platform or about the company?
Speaker 3:So we leverage, Instagram the most. Like, our athletes aren't Instagram, parents, parent groups. So Instagram is sports sitters. I I started posting a lot probably over the last year on LinkedIn. I feel like that's more of in the business side, but I think the users on both sides, because this is a two way marketplace, both parents and athletes, really, use Instagram the most.
Speaker 3:You can learn more also on our website, sportssitters.pro. You know, there's fact pages on there. Any any emails you send will go to me. I'm also customer service. Any text that you send will go to me.
Speaker 3:I'm also tech reply. So, you know, it it's it's it's been fun. There's a couple different places that we've peppered information with. I think that probably website and Instagram are the best. And Instagram's been fun because we've sort of introduced a bunch of the girls on our platform.
Speaker 3:You know? Like, you don't know who's coming to your home at the end of the day. And so you really kinda wanna put, like, okay. This is the type of person that's there. These are their accolades.
Speaker 3:This it gives parents kind of a little bit of a see touch feel beforehand. And, I think that it also allows the athletes to sort of know what's going on. I mean, I I I tell our girls all the time. I'm like, it's we have such a phenomenal parent group. It truly I don't understand how this is such an incredible utopia for them, and I hope that that is the same copy paste in other places.
Speaker 3:But, you know, they're very lucky so far and will be. I'll make sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No doubt. Well, I appreciate you coming on to the podcast. What a what a great marketplace you've built here. And just meaningful for for the student athletes, meaningful for the kids, helpful and meaningful for the parents.
Speaker 2:So well done. I'm looking forward to tracking this over time, and it's cool to know that this is in my own backyard. You know, obviously, it'll be it's gonna expand, but it's cool to know that it's, you know, starting in in Arizona. So thanks again for coming on to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Yes. I'm so excited. It's been awesome. They're such an easy group to talk about. So
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3:Thank you.