# Padel Business Intelligence — Vision & Plan

> ⚠️ **Superseded.** Content consolidated into `docs/MARKETING.md` (strategy + positioning + timelines). Kept here as historical context and for the naming candidates section.

## The One-Liner

**"Bloomberg for padel hall operators."** We sell unfair advantages to people making six-figure facility investment decisions — using data nobody else is aggregating.

---

## The Big Picture

The padel market is booming globally but remains **opaque**. Anyone looking to open, run, or expand a padel facility is making €100K–€500K+ decisions based on gut feel, rough Excel models, and word of mouth. Meanwhile, booking platforms like Playtomic are sitting on a goldmine of public demand data that **nobody is aggregating and analyzing**.

We fix that.

We build **the intelligence layer for the padel industry** — starting with a free planning tool for distribution, then layering data-driven market intelligence and operational analytics on top.

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## Why This Works (DaaS Thesis)

| DaaS Viability Check | Our Answer |
|---|---|
| High-stakes decisions? | ✅ €100K–€500K facility investments |
| Information asymmetry? | ✅ No centralized market data exists |
| Willingness to pay? | ✅ B2B operators, not casual players |
| Unique data capability? | ✅ Playtomic scraping + multi-source aggregation |
| 500+ potential customers? | ✅ ~25,000 padel facilities globally, growing to 50K+ |
| Low commoditization risk? | ✅ Historical data depth = compounding moat |

**Analogy:** Kpler started by tracking LNG cargo shipments in an opaque commodity market. We're doing the same for padel: tracking "demand shipments" (bookings) across an opaque facility market.

---

## The Funnel: Free → Paid → Recurring

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  FREE: Padel Court Planner (ROI Calculator)     │  ← Distribution engine
│  SEO traffic, email capture, credibility        │
└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  PAID: Market Intelligence Dashboard            │  ← Core monetization
│  €79–149/mo — occupancy, pricing, demand data   │
└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  EXPANSION: Operational Analytics               │  ← Recurring revenue
│  €49–99/mo — benchmarking, optimization, alerts │
└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  HIGH-TICKET: Consulting + Reports              │  ← Premium upsell
│  €499–999 — Site selection, business plans      │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

---

## Product Roadmap

### Phase 1 — The Wedge (NOW)
**Padel Court Planner** — *Free / €99 premium tier*

The planner is basically ready (single HTML + JS + Tailwind app). This is the top of the funnel.

- **Free tier:** Basic ROI calculator — set price per court, rent, calculate simple returns. Purpose: SEO traffic + email capture.
- **Paid tier (€99–149 one-time):** Full scenario modeling, sensitivity analysis, business plan export, market benchmark data (avg occupancy rates, pricing ranges by region).

**SEO targets:** "padel court business plan," "padel hall ROI calculator," "how to open a padel hall," "padel court investment."

**Goal:** 500+ email signups within 3 months. Every email = a potential padel entrepreneur = future customer for market intelligence.

---

### Phase 2 — The Money Shot (Month 1–2)
**Padel Market Intelligence Dashboard** — *€79–149/mo*

This is where scraping Playtomic (and other booking platforms) becomes the core engine.

**What we scrape and aggregate:**
- Booking slot availability → reverse-engineer **occupancy rates** per hall
- Listed pricing → map **pricing strategies** (peak vs. off-peak, dynamic pricing)
- New hall listings appearing → track **market expansion**
- Halls disappearing or showing low bookings → detect **failure signals**
- Court counts per facility → calculate **supply density** by area

**Dashboard features:**

| Feature | Value to Customer |
|---|---|
| **Market Map** | Interactive map of all padel halls with occupancy heat overlay |
| **City Analytics** | Avg occupancy, avg pricing, court density, growth trends per city |
| **Site Selection Tool** | "Enter a location → see demand, competition, revenue potential" |
| **Competitor Spy** | Track any hall's occupancy and pricing over time |
| **Demand Gaps** | Identify underserved areas (high population, low court density) |
| **Trend Reports** | Weekly/monthly market trends — which cities are growing fastest |

**Tiers:**
- **Explorer (€79/mo):** Market map, city-level aggregated stats, monthly trend reports
- **Pro (€149/mo):** Hall-level granular data, competitor tracking, site selection tool, historical data, export/API access
- **Enterprise (custom):** Multi-country data, custom reports, API, white-label

**The killer pitch to a prospective hall owner:**
> *"You're about to invest €200K. For €149/month, you'll know that the 4 halls near your target location run at 73% weekday occupancy and 94% weekends, charge €40/hour peak, and that there's an underserved suburb 15km north with zero courts and 200K residents."*

That's a no-brainer.

---

### Phase 3 — Recurring Expansion (Month 3–6)
**Operational Analytics for Running Halls** — *€49–99/mo*

Once halls are open, they need to optimize. Shift from "should I build?" to "how do I run better?"

**Features:**
- **Benchmark your hall** against market averages (occupancy, pricing, revenue/court)
- **Pricing optimization** — see what competitors charge and when; get dynamic pricing suggestions
- **Demand forecasting** — predict busy/quiet periods based on historical patterns + weather + local events
- **Competitor alerts** — get notified when a new hall opens nearby or a competitor changes pricing
- **Utilization tracking** — connect with their booking system (or manual input) to track performance vs. market

**Distribution:** Every Phase 1 planner user who actually opens a hall becomes a Phase 3 customer. Built-in pipeline.

---

### Phase 4 — Premium Layer (Month 6+)
**High-Ticket Services**

- **Site Selection Reports (€499–999):** Custom deep-dive for a specific location — demand analysis, competition mapping, revenue projections backed by real data, demographic overlay. Delivered as a PDF report + consultation call.
- **Padel Hall Accelerator (€999):** Everything above + 1-hour strategy call + equipment supplier introductions + community access. Essentially productized consulting.
- **Industry Reports (€299–499):** Quarterly "State of Padel" reports for investors, franchises, equipment suppliers. Different buyer persona, same data.

---

## Additional Revenue Streams

### Affiliate / Lead Gen
- **Equipment supplier partnerships:** Every planner buyer is 3–6 months from ordering courts, lighting, flooring. Partner with suppliers (Phoenix Sports, Padelcreations, etc.) for €500–1,000 per qualified lead or 5% of equipment sale.
- **Padel equipment affiliate site:** "Wirecutter for padel" — racket reviews, gear guides. Cross-promote with planner users. SEO-driven. Potential €1–3K/mo passive.
- **Franchise partnerships:** Padel franchise brands (e.g., Padel Nuestro, World Padel Tour partners) would pay for access to market data or qualified leads.

### Newsletter / Content
- **"The Padel Business Report"** — Weekly newsletter for hall owners and aspiring operators. Market trends, data highlights, business tips. Monetize via sponsorships (€200–1,000/week once 5K+ subs) and as a funnel to paid products.

### API Access
- Sell raw data feeds to hedge funds, real estate analysts, sports industry consultants, or franchise operators who want to build their own models.

---

## Competitive Positioning

### vs. Playtomic
Playtomic is **OpenTable for padel** — a booking marketplace optimizing for players. We're the **restaurant P&L analytics suite** — optimizing for operators. We don't compete; we sit on top. We'd even integrate with Playtomic data to provide more value. Complementary, not competitive.

### vs. Generic BI Tools (Tableau, Power BI)
Those require the operator to find, clean, and model their own data. We deliver **padel-specific insights out of the box.** No setup, no data engineering. Just answers.

### vs. Nothing (Current State)
Most operators use Excel, gut feel, and word of mouth. That's our real competitor. We win by being 10x faster with 10x better data.

---

## Data Moat Strategy

The moat **compounds over time.** This is critical.

1. **Historical depth** — Every day of scraping = data competitors can't replicate. In 12 months, we'll have a year of occupancy trends nobody else has.
2. **Multi-source aggregation** — Start with Playtomic, add other booking platforms, Google Maps reviews, social media signals, weather correlations, demographic data, real estate pricing.
3. **Network effects** — As operational customers share their own data for benchmarking, the dataset grows. More data = better insights = more customers = more data.
4. **Processing layer** — Raw bookings → occupancy models → demand forecasting → site selection algorithms. The ML/analytics layer is hard to replicate.

**Risk mitigation:** Playtomic could block scraping. Mitigations include scraping respectfully (1x/day), diversifying data sources early, and building toward voluntary data sharing from hall operators.

---

## Key Metrics & Milestones

| Milestone | Target | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Planner launched + live | Ship it | Now |
| 100 email signups from planner | Validation | Month 1–2 |
| Playtomic scraper operational | Technical proof | Month 1 |
| Market map MVP live | First paid product | Month 2–3 |
| 10 paying intelligence subscribers | Product-market fit signal | Month 3–4 |
| €1K MRR | Ramen profitability | Month 4–6 |
| 500+ planner users, 50+ paid subs | Traction | Month 6–9 |
| €5K MRR | Sustainable business | Month 9–12 |
| Operational analytics module live | Expansion revenue | Month 6–9 |
| First high-ticket report sold | Premium validation | Month 6 |

---

## Target Customers

| Segment | Pain Point | Product Fit | Price Sensitivity |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Aspiring hall owners** | "Should I invest? Where? What returns?" | Planner + Market Intelligence | Low (making €100K+ decisions) |
| **Operating hall owners** | "Am I charging enough? How full should I be?" | Operational Analytics | Medium (€49–99/mo is easy ROI) |
| **Padel franchises** | "Where should we expand next?" | Enterprise Intelligence + API | Very low (big budgets) |
| **Real estate developers** | "Is padel a viable tenant/use for this space?" | Site Selection Reports | Very low |
| **Equipment suppliers** | "Who's about to build a hall?" | Lead gen / Partnership | Pay per lead |
| **Investors** | "What does the padel market look like?" | Industry Reports | Very low |

---

## Founder-Market Fit

This is a key strength:

- **Building a padel hall yourself** — you ARE the target customer, you feel the pain firsthand
- **Already built the planner** — proves technical capability + understanding of the problem
- **Domain immersion** — you'll have deeper padel business context than any competitor within months
- **Indie hacker approach** — lean, fast, capital-efficient, exactly like Kpler's early days

---

## Name Candidates

### Tier 1 — Top Picks

| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
|---|---|---|
| **CourtIQ** | Clean, professional, "intelligence" built in. Scales to tennis/pickleball. Short, memorable. | Premium B2B |
| **Smashboard** | Padel pun + dashboard. Instantly memorable, fun, tells you what it is. Great for content marketing. | Approachable, clever |
| **PadelPulse** | "Pulse" = real-time health monitoring of the market. Clear, SEO-friendly, works internationally. | Data/analytics |

### Tier 2 — Strong Contenders

| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
|---|---|---|
| **CourtSignal** | "Signal" = data insights, actionable intelligence. Clean and serious. | DaaS / intelligence |
| **PadelEdge** | The "unfair advantage" angle. Direct, competitive. | Aggressive, competitive |
| **Baseline** | Padel/tennis term + "base" of data + "line" of analytics. Elegant double meaning. | Sophisticated |
| **SetPoint** | Decisive moment in padel + "the point where you make the decision." | Strategic, decisive |
| **HallSight** | Specific to padel halls + "insight." Does what it says. | Functional B2B |
| **CourtLens** | Looking at courts through a data lens. Clean. | Analytical |
| **PadelScope** | Scope = comprehensive view. Works for market intelligence positioning. | Research/intel |

### Tier 3 — Creative / Niche

| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
|---|---|---|
| **Bandeja** | Advanced padel shot. Insider name that signals domain expertise. | Padel-native, insider |
| **Vibora** | Another padel shot (the "viper"). Sounds cool, memorable. | Bold, edgy |
| **La Pista** | Spanish for "the court." International feel, padel's Spanish roots. | Cultural, authentic |
| **Dropshot** | Padel shot + "shot" of data. Fun, recognizable. | Playful |
| **GlassWall** | Padel courts have glass walls + transparency/visibility metaphor. | Clever double meaning |
| **CourtCraft** | Building/crafting your court business. | Builder vibe |
| **PadelAtlas** | Mapping the padel world. Great for the market intelligence product. | Exploration, mapping |

### Tier 4 — Domain-Friendly & Practical

| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
|---|---|---|
| **courtdata.io** | Extremely literal, great SEO, instantly clear. | SaaS/dev |
| **padelmetrics.com** | Clear, functional, professional. | Analytics |
| **hallanalytics.com** | Broader than padel (could expand to other indoor sports). | Enterprise |

---

## My Recommendation on Naming

**For the planner alone:** Use something fun and approachable — **Smashboard** or **CourtCraft.**

**For the full intelligence platform (the bigger vision):** Use something that signals data and intelligence — **CourtIQ**, **CourtSignal**, or **PadelPulse.**

**If you want ONE name for everything:** **CourtIQ** is the strongest all-rounder. It works for a free calculator, a market intelligence dashboard, and an operational analytics suite. It's short, memorable, implies intelligence, and can scale beyond padel to tennis/pickleball if you ever want to.

**Dark horse pick:** **GlassWall** — deeply padel-native (glass walls are THE defining feature of padel courts), and the transparency metaphor is perfect for a data/intelligence product. "See through the market." Nobody outside padel would pick this name, which makes it a strong signal of domain expertise.

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## Summary: The 30-Second Pitch

> We're building the data intelligence platform for the padel industry. We start with a free court planning tool that captures every aspiring padel entrepreneur via SEO. Then we layer real market intelligence on top — occupancy data, pricing, demand gaps, competitive analysis — scraped and aggregated from booking platforms. Operators making €200K decisions pay €79–149/month to de-risk their investment. As the market grows from 25K to 50K+ facilities, we become the industry-standard data backbone. Think "Kpler for padel" — bootstrapped, capital-efficient, moat that compounds daily.

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*Data is valuable. Intelligence is invaluable. Being first with both in a booming market is priceless.*
