Sure the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming startups, Built In has launched The Future 5 across 11 major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five tech startups, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. Read our round-up of LA’s rising startups from last quarter here.
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Hard work is a necessity along the road to success. Even still, obstacles tend to appear in one’s path no matter how dedicated they are. One LA startup is a firm believer that life’s hurdles shouldn’t get in the way of a person and their dream, no matter what it takes for them to achieve it. Remote coaching and mentoring platform Obsesh is working to connect talented individuals with the resources they need to build their careers.
Made by athletes for athletes, Obsesh is a place for users to fuel their sports obsessions. The platform features a growing network of top athletes — currently about 300 strong — that consumers can tap for individualized, one-on-one guidance. Over video, professionals can coach and share expertise and advice with young competitive athletes, such as those in high school or college. The platform enables young athletes to learn directly from their sports idols and grow their skills.
“Our goal is to make it easy to access and get expertise and advice because everybody needs a mentor and everybody needs an expert, and usually in sports, you learn from the people that are better than you,” Tracy Benson, Obsesh’s CEO and co-founder, told Built In.
On Obsesh, users can search by the skill or sport they’d like to learn about, and the platform offers them a range of people to choose from as well as descriptive stories about them and the skills they possess. From there, users can go to the athlete’s profile and book that person for a session at a price set by the athlete themselves. Users can then send a video of themselves to their new mentor that shows what they need help with or would like to learn, then in about three days, the athlete responds with a video of themselves offering exclusive analysis and coaching.
[Athletes] really want to build a relationship with fans and consumers that want to learn from them; they want to leave an impact.”
Benson and her co-founder Jonalyn Morris, the company’s chief development officer, first met while working alongside notable athletes like LeBron James at Beats by Dre. When new technologies such as GoPro entered the scene, many athletes began wondering how they could leverage solutions like it to better reach sponsors and fans, according to Morris.
The two co-founders were collegiate athletes themselves — Benson in Division I volleyball and Morris in Division III tennis. In searching for ways to help athletes like themselves monetize the skills they’ve mastered, Obsesh was created as a solution to help athletes become entrepreneurs.
Just as the platform helps aspiring athletes access coaching, Obsesh also serves the athletes who are contributing to that service. The company wants to help alleviate the financial stress that comes with pursuing a career in sports. With the exception of players in the country’s top four leagues, most athletes, even Olympians, have trouble affording the cost of basic needs like training or rent, according to Benson. Obsesh helps professional athletes secure their future by giving them access to supplemental income through digital coaching.
“From the athlete perspective, we’ve been working very closely with them, and a couple [of] things we hear is they love the easiness of it. They really want to build a relationship with fans and consumers that want to learn from them; they want to leave an impact,” Benson said. “From the consumer standpoint, they like the ease and they like how specific and how personalized it is.”
While Obsesh has received a lot of love from users about the platform’s current offerings, the next stage of development is enabling athletes and users to connect live in real-time.
“We are very proud that Obsesh allows NCAA athletes to sit in the same marketplace as a pro basketball player from the Orlando Magic or a UCLA alum who’s now playing for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. And that access is now available to fans,” Morris told Built In. “We know how important [it is] … to at least give consumers a chance to try and get over that barrier to see how their life could change if they have that access.”
