add research folder with market docs, strategy notes, and KfW files
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Deeman
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research/padel_daas_vision.md
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research/padel_daas_vision.md
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# Padel Business Intelligence — Vision & Plan
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## The One-Liner
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**"Bloomberg for padel hall operators."** We sell unfair advantages to people making six-figure facility investment decisions — using data nobody else is aggregating.
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---
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## The Big Picture
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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**.
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We fix that.
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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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---
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## Why This Works (DaaS Thesis)
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| DaaS Viability Check | Our Answer |
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|---|---|
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| High-stakes decisions? | ✅ €100K–€500K facility investments |
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| Information asymmetry? | ✅ No centralized market data exists |
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| Willingness to pay? | ✅ B2B operators, not casual players |
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| Unique data capability? | ✅ Playtomic scraping + multi-source aggregation |
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| 500+ potential customers? | ✅ ~25,000 padel facilities globally, growing to 50K+ |
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| Low commoditization risk? | ✅ Historical data depth = compounding moat |
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**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.
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---
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## The Funnel: Free → Paid → Recurring
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```
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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
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│ FREE: Padel Court Planner (ROI Calculator) │ ← Distribution engine
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│ SEO traffic, email capture, credibility │
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└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
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▼
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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
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│ PAID: Market Intelligence Dashboard │ ← Core monetization
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│ €79–149/mo — occupancy, pricing, demand data │
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└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
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▼
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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
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│ EXPANSION: Operational Analytics │ ← Recurring revenue
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│ €49–99/mo — benchmarking, optimization, alerts │
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└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
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▼
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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
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│ HIGH-TICKET: Consulting + Reports │ ← Premium upsell
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│ €499–999 — Site selection, business plans │
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└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
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```
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---
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## Product Roadmap
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### Phase 1 — The Wedge (NOW)
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**Padel Court Planner** — *Free / €99 premium tier*
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The planner is basically ready (single HTML + JS + Tailwind app). This is the top of the funnel.
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- **Free tier:** Basic ROI calculator — set price per court, rent, calculate simple returns. Purpose: SEO traffic + email capture.
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- **Paid tier (€99–149 one-time):** Full scenario modeling, sensitivity analysis, business plan export, market benchmark data (avg occupancy rates, pricing ranges by region).
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**SEO targets:** "padel court business plan," "padel hall ROI calculator," "how to open a padel hall," "padel court investment."
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**Goal:** 500+ email signups within 3 months. Every email = a potential padel entrepreneur = future customer for market intelligence.
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---
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### Phase 2 — The Money Shot (Month 1–2)
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**Padel Market Intelligence Dashboard** — *€79–149/mo*
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This is where scraping Playtomic (and other booking platforms) becomes the core engine.
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**What we scrape and aggregate:**
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- Booking slot availability → reverse-engineer **occupancy rates** per hall
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- Listed pricing → map **pricing strategies** (peak vs. off-peak, dynamic pricing)
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- New hall listings appearing → track **market expansion**
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- Halls disappearing or showing low bookings → detect **failure signals**
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- Court counts per facility → calculate **supply density** by area
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**Dashboard features:**
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| Feature | Value to Customer |
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|---|---|
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| **Market Map** | Interactive map of all padel halls with occupancy heat overlay |
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| **City Analytics** | Avg occupancy, avg pricing, court density, growth trends per city |
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| **Site Selection Tool** | "Enter a location → see demand, competition, revenue potential" |
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| **Competitor Spy** | Track any hall's occupancy and pricing over time |
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| **Demand Gaps** | Identify underserved areas (high population, low court density) |
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| **Trend Reports** | Weekly/monthly market trends — which cities are growing fastest |
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**Tiers:**
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- **Explorer (€79/mo):** Market map, city-level aggregated stats, monthly trend reports
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- **Pro (€149/mo):** Hall-level granular data, competitor tracking, site selection tool, historical data, export/API access
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- **Enterprise (custom):** Multi-country data, custom reports, API, white-label
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**The killer pitch to a prospective hall owner:**
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> *"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."*
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That's a no-brainer.
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---
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### Phase 3 — Recurring Expansion (Month 3–6)
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**Operational Analytics for Running Halls** — *€49–99/mo*
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Once halls are open, they need to optimize. Shift from "should I build?" to "how do I run better?"
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**Features:**
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- **Benchmark your hall** against market averages (occupancy, pricing, revenue/court)
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- **Pricing optimization** — see what competitors charge and when; get dynamic pricing suggestions
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- **Demand forecasting** — predict busy/quiet periods based on historical patterns + weather + local events
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- **Competitor alerts** — get notified when a new hall opens nearby or a competitor changes pricing
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- **Utilization tracking** — connect with their booking system (or manual input) to track performance vs. market
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**Distribution:** Every Phase 1 planner user who actually opens a hall becomes a Phase 3 customer. Built-in pipeline.
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---
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### Phase 4 — Premium Layer (Month 6+)
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**High-Ticket Services**
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- **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.
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- **Padel Hall Accelerator (€999):** Everything above + 1-hour strategy call + equipment supplier introductions + community access. Essentially productized consulting.
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- **Industry Reports (€299–499):** Quarterly "State of Padel" reports for investors, franchises, equipment suppliers. Different buyer persona, same data.
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---
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## Additional Revenue Streams
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### Affiliate / Lead Gen
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- **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.
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- **Padel equipment affiliate site:** "Wirecutter for padel" — racket reviews, gear guides. Cross-promote with planner users. SEO-driven. Potential €1–3K/mo passive.
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- **Franchise partnerships:** Padel franchise brands (e.g., Padel Nuestro, World Padel Tour partners) would pay for access to market data or qualified leads.
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### Newsletter / Content
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- **"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.
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### API Access
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- Sell raw data feeds to hedge funds, real estate analysts, sports industry consultants, or franchise operators who want to build their own models.
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---
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## Competitive Positioning
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### vs. Playtomic
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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.
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### vs. Generic BI Tools (Tableau, Power BI)
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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.
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### vs. Nothing (Current State)
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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.
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---
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## Data Moat Strategy
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The moat **compounds over time.** This is critical.
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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.
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2. **Multi-source aggregation** — Start with Playtomic, add other booking platforms, Google Maps reviews, social media signals, weather correlations, demographic data, real estate pricing.
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3. **Network effects** — As operational customers share their own data for benchmarking, the dataset grows. More data = better insights = more customers = more data.
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4. **Processing layer** — Raw bookings → occupancy models → demand forecasting → site selection algorithms. The ML/analytics layer is hard to replicate.
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**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.
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---
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## Key Metrics & Milestones
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| Milestone | Target | Timeline |
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| Planner launched + live | Ship it | Now |
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| 100 email signups from planner | Validation | Month 1–2 |
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| Playtomic scraper operational | Technical proof | Month 1 |
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| Market map MVP live | First paid product | Month 2–3 |
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| 10 paying intelligence subscribers | Product-market fit signal | Month 3–4 |
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| €1K MRR | Ramen profitability | Month 4–6 |
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| 500+ planner users, 50+ paid subs | Traction | Month 6–9 |
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| €5K MRR | Sustainable business | Month 9–12 |
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| Operational analytics module live | Expansion revenue | Month 6–9 |
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| First high-ticket report sold | Premium validation | Month 6 |
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---
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## Target Customers
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| Segment | Pain Point | Product Fit | Price Sensitivity |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| **Aspiring hall owners** | "Should I invest? Where? What returns?" | Planner + Market Intelligence | Low (making €100K+ decisions) |
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| **Operating hall owners** | "Am I charging enough? How full should I be?" | Operational Analytics | Medium (€49–99/mo is easy ROI) |
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| **Padel franchises** | "Where should we expand next?" | Enterprise Intelligence + API | Very low (big budgets) |
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| **Real estate developers** | "Is padel a viable tenant/use for this space?" | Site Selection Reports | Very low |
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| **Equipment suppliers** | "Who's about to build a hall?" | Lead gen / Partnership | Pay per lead |
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| **Investors** | "What does the padel market look like?" | Industry Reports | Very low |
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---
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## Founder-Market Fit
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This is a key strength:
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- **Building a padel hall yourself** — you ARE the target customer, you feel the pain firsthand
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- **Already built the planner** — proves technical capability + understanding of the problem
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- **Domain immersion** — you'll have deeper padel business context than any competitor within months
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- **Indie hacker approach** — lean, fast, capital-efficient, exactly like Kpler's early days
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---
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## Name Candidates
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### Tier 1 — Top Picks
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| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
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| **CourtIQ** | Clean, professional, "intelligence" built in. Scales to tennis/pickleball. Short, memorable. | Premium B2B |
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| **Smashboard** | Padel pun + dashboard. Instantly memorable, fun, tells you what it is. Great for content marketing. | Approachable, clever |
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| **PadelPulse** | "Pulse" = real-time health monitoring of the market. Clear, SEO-friendly, works internationally. | Data/analytics |
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### Tier 2 — Strong Contenders
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| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
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| **CourtSignal** | "Signal" = data insights, actionable intelligence. Clean and serious. | DaaS / intelligence |
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| **PadelEdge** | The "unfair advantage" angle. Direct, competitive. | Aggressive, competitive |
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| **Baseline** | Padel/tennis term + "base" of data + "line" of analytics. Elegant double meaning. | Sophisticated |
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| **SetPoint** | Decisive moment in padel + "the point where you make the decision." | Strategic, decisive |
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| **HallSight** | Specific to padel halls + "insight." Does what it says. | Functional B2B |
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| **CourtLens** | Looking at courts through a data lens. Clean. | Analytical |
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| **PadelScope** | Scope = comprehensive view. Works for market intelligence positioning. | Research/intel |
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### Tier 3 — Creative / Niche
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| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
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| **Bandeja** | Advanced padel shot. Insider name that signals domain expertise. | Padel-native, insider |
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| **Vibora** | Another padel shot (the "viper"). Sounds cool, memorable. | Bold, edgy |
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| **La Pista** | Spanish for "the court." International feel, padel's Spanish roots. | Cultural, authentic |
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| **Dropshot** | Padel shot + "shot" of data. Fun, recognizable. | Playful |
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| **GlassWall** | Padel courts have glass walls + transparency/visibility metaphor. | Clever double meaning |
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| **CourtCraft** | Building/crafting your court business. | Builder vibe |
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| **PadelAtlas** | Mapping the padel world. Great for the market intelligence product. | Exploration, mapping |
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### Tier 4 — Domain-Friendly & Practical
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| Name | Why It Works | Vibe |
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| **courtdata.io** | Extremely literal, great SEO, instantly clear. | SaaS/dev |
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| **padelmetrics.com** | Clear, functional, professional. | Analytics |
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| **hallanalytics.com** | Broader than padel (could expand to other indoor sports). | Enterprise |
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---
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## My Recommendation on Naming
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**For the planner alone:** Use something fun and approachable — **Smashboard** or **CourtCraft.**
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**For the full intelligence platform (the bigger vision):** Use something that signals data and intelligence — **CourtIQ**, **CourtSignal**, or **PadelPulse.**
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**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.
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**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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---
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## Summary: The 30-Second Pitch
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> 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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---
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*Data is valuable. Intelligence is invaluable. Being first with both in a booming market is priceless.*
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