The Partners I'd Lock Onto First
Orgo isn't a line item a director has to fund. It's a free resource a partner organization offers to its athletes and families, and earns recurring revenue back on every paid subscription. So the 'ICP' isn't a buyer with a checkbook. It's a partner with reach, trust, and a community that already feels the pain. Here's how I'd rank them.
How I'd define the primary partner profile
I'd draw the box this tight: athletic organizations and youth sports entities fielding roughly 10–150+ teams, which translates to a few hundred up to several thousand athletes across multiple age groups and locations. Roster math grounds the range: competitive youth teams typically carry 12–18 athletes (baseball 12–15, club soccer 16–18, basketball 10–12, volleyball 12–14, hockey up to 20), while gymnastics and multi-sport clubs run wider. The qualifying question isn't "can they afford it." It's "do they have enough families, enough trust, and enough scheduling pain to drive real adoption when we put Orgo in front of their community."
Sources: US Youth Soccer (~2.5–3M players across ~10,000 clubs), USA Gymnastics (~240K members), USA Hockey roster rules, Aspen Institute State of Play 2025.
How I'd prioritize segments
Three tiers, three different weights. The point is to refuse the segments that look attractive on a TAM slide but bleed focus in practice.
Highest priority (60% of prospecting effort)
- Travel Sports Leagues
- Travel baseball, club soccer, AAU basketball, club volleyball, hockey. Typical team rosters 12–18 athletes; a competitive league fields 20–80 teams, meaning roughly 250–1,500 athletes and families per organization.Why I'd lead here: regional and national tournament complexity, seasonal scheduling, high parent frustration. The pain is acute, the director is named, and families are conditioned to install an app the league recommends.What I'd expect: one decision-maker (Executive Director), 60–90 day partnership cycle, 40–60% paid adoption inside a season once endorsed.
- Multi-Sport Rec Depts
- A single organization (think a city Parks & Rec department or a large community youth sports nonprofit) running baseball, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and flag football side by side. One Rec Director typically oversees 50–200 teams across those sports, with each team rostering 10–18 athletes.The math: 50 teams × 10 athletes lands around 500 athletes on the low end; 200 teams × 18 athletes pushes past 3,500. Counting the parents and guardians behind each athlete, one signed partner puts Orgo in front of roughly 1,000–5,000+ families at once.Why I'd hunt here: retention is existential. One partner introduction reaches families across five sports at once.What I'd expect: 60–120 day partnership cycle, multiple stakeholders (Rec Director, Parks Dept IT, Board), large athlete base per signed partner.
- Regional / State Associations
- 10+ member clubs under one umbrella, each fielding a few hundred to a couple thousand athletes (US Youth Soccer alone spans ~10,000 clubs and 2.5–3M registered players).Why I'd hunt here: one partnership unlocks N member clubs at once. The association becomes a distribution channel for the rest of the partner network.What I'd expect: 90–120 day cycle, committee reviews, ED + Board, but a single yes that compounds across dozens of communities.
Secondary priority (30% of prospecting effort)
- School Athletic Depts
- High schools and competitive middle schools. Varsity/JV/freshman rosters typically 12–25 per team across 10–25 sports, so a single AD coordinates 300–1,000+ student-athletes and their families.Why I'd touch them carefully: real pain (varsity/JV/ freshman, parent comms, travel) but slow procurement even when no dollars change hands. 90–180 day cycle, school board signoff on any community-facing tool, spring planning window.
- Training Academies
- Gymnastics, tennis, martial arts, dance. Competitive gymnastics teams alone run 20–30 athletes (sometimes 200+ across all levels), and a typical academy serves a few hundred member families.Why I'd touch them: owner is the decision-maker, so partnership cycles run 60–90 days. Smaller athlete base per partner, faster proof, easy rev-share story.
- Tournament Operators
- Seasonal multi-day events, 50–200 teams.Why I'd time them: 30–60 day cycle, but only if we hit them before the season. Miss the window, lose the year.
Tertiary / opportunistic (10% of effort)
Community Recreation Departments, Sports Camps, Coaching Networks. I'd take these inbound but I wouldn't outbound to them. Smaller athlete bases, but useful for volume and expansion once we have anchor partner references.