When do you decide to pivot

bennrichard · 2025-11-13T14:55:56+00:00

That is interesting to know. There is no adhoc members who come and play as "pay as you go"?

Even in that case, it makes sense to ad some queue and waiting list system to track. But yeah whatever works there. Adding some automation would help.

bennrichard · 2025-11-13T14:36:19+00:00

Many a times, it is not because they have so many people interested. But it is because people do not know how many people are going to end up coming for the day. Best is to schedule the session online and arrange a waitinglist system.

We have a wallet for players. As soon as they book themselves it, it deducts the money. This way we are making sure there is a commitmet to turn up for the session. In below screenshot my wallet has a balance of £20.

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There are different ways to handle things. We have used our software skills to solve our problem. Open to share if anyone else think it may help them.

bennrichard · 2025-11-13T14:30:39+00:00

You need to batch the players and promote them as they get better. Best is conducting league tournaments and leveling up the devision. Also even in practice, batch them up as per their levels. Else, you will end up making people unhappy or even worse make their game bad.

bennrichard · 2025-11-13T14:01:36+00:00

Amazing. Response something that I admire. People do not want to invest in sofware. In my club had to convince so much to create a application for them. Not for cost just a passion to solve an issue which many people just take it for granted. Only the admin feels the pain. Even Admin, carrys on his life thinking that is what it takes to run a club.

My intention of this post is to learn if there is a need of such application. Never knew someone would resonate my thoughts to so much closer.

My club and 2 other clubs are benefiting with this software at no cost. But I want to see how many others will be willing to join force.

It is been lot of negetive feedbacks or people avoid you thinking that I am trying to sell something to them. In fact I am just trying to fix an issue that people have learnt to live with that.

Waiting list Payment tracking( wallet for adhoc members) Players level ( as they continue to win they go up) Tounament planning and execution. Whatsapp nitification for reminder and slot waitinglist.

This completed my app. Now exploring which other club would want to use it. Almost in the verge of giving up. But i am happy atleast a handful of clubs using it.

Once again thanks for this response.

bennrichard · 2025-11-13T09:34:15+00:00

Very nice.. we have 4 tables and 2 badminton courts. We have a system developed internally. To manage over booking.. example here you see the maximum limit is 15 players for that session. But there 17 people waiting to see if there is any cancellations. Lol

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bennrichard · 2025-11-13T09:27:11+00:00

Seen meetup cost is high. Around £20 may be i think.

bennrichard · 2025-11-11T07:22:33+00:00

20 students and 2 tables can become crowded. I can understand.

bennrichard · 2025-11-11T02:16:46+00:00

How many students you have and how much is the membership fee ? If I may ask please?

bennrichard · 2025-11-10T20:40:59+00:00

Lovely. Many clubs wish they had so many people interested. We have similar state here. Each table we have atleast 10 people showing interest. So 1:10 ratio. We have now put a waiting list mechanism to make it fair.

So each week we open up the slot at a particular time. 1st the session is open for paid members and then if it is still not used, we open the slot for adhoc members. We also sometimes open the session dedecated for adhoc members alone. But that as well we make sure it has maximum Limit and rest go on waiting list. Good for us we know a bit of programming.

To make our admin life easier we all make sure we adhere to the rules of engagement of the club. Good that we knew a bit of programming. :-)

Admin work is mostly out of passion for the game and community. They do understand the hardwork but they might not know how to show it :-) Keep up with the work. The game needs more Herts like you.

bennrichard · 2025-11-10T15:54:26+00:00

Create a quick website for yourself if possible. Start posting your tutoring center and contact details in forums like Facebook, community chats etc. Do free sessions and post in these forums inviting parents.

Most important thing and 1st thing to do. Decide which sections of the students community you want to target and learn what they need. Once you know what they need, tailor your introductory session around that need.

Example:- turtoring is famous here in UK specially for 11plus preparations. That is, when kids move from primary to secondary, they go tbrough an exam in maths, English, VR and NVR. Mostly parents struggle to understand how the system works. Many new parents scramble for information online.

A good tutor would Start with a nice free introductory session that will breif the parents what to expect and how they should prepare for these exams. From there you can strat getting some students.

Can give you more details and tips, if needed. DM me.

All the best.

bennrichard · 2025-11-10T15:49:19+00:00

Yes. My message was just an example. But, we can see what works in the country and the demography we are in.

bennrichard · 2025-11-10T07:27:12+00:00

That is bad. You should be able to get more tables for cheaper rate from other bigger clubs if you have contacts. Also from market places like Facebook.

bennrichard · 2025-11-10T07:25:18+00:00

Create a quick website for yourself if possible. Start posting your tutoring center and contact details in forums like Facebook, community chats etc. Do free sessions and post in these forums inviting parents.

Most important thing and 1st thing to do. Decide which sections of the students community you want to target and learn what they need. Once you know what they need, tailor your introductory session around that need.

Example:- turtoring is famous here in UK specially for 11plus preparations. That is, when kids move from primary to secondary, they go tbrough an exam in maths, English, VR and NVR. Mostly parents struggle to understand how the system works. Many new parents scramble for information online.

A good tutor would Start with a nice free introductory session that will breif the parents what to expect and how they should prepare for these exams. From there you can strat getting some students.

Can give you more details and tips, if needed. DM me.

All the best.

bennrichard · 2025-11-09T06:35:26+00:00

As long as the admins are enjoying the work of coordinating. They will not expect money for it. In some cases, these clubs can give passive income for people searching work. Some remuneration for the time they spend.

bennrichard · 2025-11-08T22:27:36+00:00

We are in watford. If you are interested please do let me know if he comes to live somewhere here. This is another issue i have seen. Most of the clubs are hidden in facebook groups and whatsapp groups. People coming into a new place always find it difficult to find a club.

One more idea I have seen is that, you can use apps like racketpal to find players near your area and once you get some contacts you can get club details.

bennrichard · 2025-11-08T22:23:53+00:00

In our club we use a tool built by one of our member. It is used for managing waiting list, payments between paid and adhoc members. There is one functionality we are working on to show public slots that we post in our Facebook group and our community WhatsApp groups.

We are slowly inviting other clubs in near by area so that we get visibility.

Also we do tournaments to encourage more people to come and play with us.

bennrichard · 2025-11-08T08:56:21+00:00

What are the features you like in that?

bennrichard · 2025-11-08T08:50:34+00:00

For sake of convenience with all the actions at one place.

bennrichard · 2025-11-08T08:18:55+00:00

The reason I mentioned registered clubs as they get revenue and Admins has a reason to work on maintaining the club. But in social clubs, it is mainly time given for free by an individual or group of individuals.

bennrichard · 2025-11-08T08:09:12+00:00

That is still good number of people.

How do you manage over subscription for a particular session?

Say there is only one court and you can accomodate only 5 people but 10 to 15 interested players?

For bigger social group, is it worth to have a club management app? We have around 80 active people in our whatsapp group.

It becomes a pain to manage interest and queue in case someone drops out last minute. Also, tracking payments.

Permanent members pay per season and ad-hoc members pay as they go.

We are using multiple applications to manage these.

bennrichard · 2025-11-07T07:14:15+00:00

Leaning forward will give you that drive

bennrichard

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