Testing the case for an early-stage sports app

The situation

A private investor asked us to assess an early-stage sports coaching app before deciding whether to commit more time and money.

The founders had a polished proposition, an early product and a set of ambitious growth assumptions. The investor needed to know what was already convincing, what still rested on guesswork and which questions mattered before the next decision.

What we did

We treated the pitch deck as a set of claims to test. We interviewed the founders, reviewed the product and spoke with potential customers. We compared the proposition with 15 competing apps and substitutes, including the free tools people already use instead of a paid coaching product.

The commercial work went beyond a headline market size. We rebuilt the UK opportunity from cited sources, modelled acquisition and churn, and tested whether the proposed price could support the likely cost of winning and keeping a customer. A review of the onboarding flow and product roadmap connected those numbers back to the experience people would actually buy.

We then brought the evidence together in a plain-speaking report and presentation. Each conclusion showed where it came from, which assumptions were still open and what evidence would change our view.

What changed

The assessment separated a credible founding team and a promising product idea from the parts of the business case that had not yet been proven.

Our recommendation was specific: wait for evidence from paying customers and a believable plan for moving beyond the first small group of users. That gave the investor clear conditions for a future decision rather than a vague yes or no.

The work also gave the founders useful next steps. They could see where the onboarding needed simplifying, which customer segment to test first and what to measure after launch. We followed the assessment with a funnel explainer and metric tree so the early numbers would answer the questions raised in the report.