cac3b3b324
Move historical docs from docs/ and .claude/ to research/. Add superseded notice to research/PLAN.md. Add CHANGELOG entries for previous fixes. New: PROJECT.md (task tracker), docs/MARKETING.md (marketing strategy). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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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⚠️ Superseded.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.
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.
- 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.
- Multi-source aggregation — Start with Playtomic, add other booking platforms, Google Maps reviews, social media signals, weather correlations, demographic data, real estate pricing.
- Network effects — As operational customers share their own data for benchmarking, the dataset grows. More data = better insights = more customers = more data.
- 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.
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.
Data is valuable. Intelligence is invaluable. Being first with both in a booming market is priceless.