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I have spent 17 years on the sideline.
Not watching. Coaching. And raising my own…
Not watching. Coaching. And raising my own…
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15 (Tested) Growth Strategies That Will Supercharge Your Customer Acquisition
15 (Tested) Growth Strategies That Will Supercharge Your Customer Acquisition
Wouldn’t you like to be able to grow without spending months trying different things? I’m sharing my growth tips I…
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Bill Flitter posted thisCoach-facing tech has one job: stay out of the way. I get pitched a lot of youth sports products. I LOVE testing new products and services. As a coach, club director, sports parent, youth sports podcast host, and builder, I know exactly when a product is helping. And when it creates one more job between me and the kids. My yesterday looked like this: ⏰ 4:00 to 5:00 Train an elite shooter. ⏰ 5:00 to 6:30 Coach a 4th grade team. ⏰ 6:30 to 8:00 Coach an advanced grade school team. That is four hours of back-to-back training and coaching after a full day of work. That does not account for all the invisible admin work below the surface. I don't have time to study your tech. The counter I often hear is this: “Oh, just have your assistant run it.” I always laugh a little inside. I’ve coached for nearly 20 years. You know how many assistants I’ve had on the court with me every practice or game? Not enough to build your product around. And if I do have assistants, they are not standing there waiting to become your unpaid implementation team. They are helping teach. Correct. Encourage. Reset cones. Manage practice. Track who is in the bathroom. Make sure nobody turns a rebounding drill into a workers’ comp claim. And now your product needs me to open an app, manage a dashboard, tag reps, check a workflow, and become part-time IT support between layup lines? No. If we can put a spacecraft on Mars, you can spend the time making your tech fit a coach's schedule. If I have kids in front of me, your product better work fast. Actually, fast is not enough. It needs to feel almost invisible. I’m testing Beyond Pulse right now, and that is what I like about it. I set it up once. Click one button to activate it. Done. Behind the scenes, it's doing the work. I get a full dashboard of data at the end of every practice. That is the bar. Invisible Tech. And this is not just software. Products like @solaathletics get it, too: they fit in a backpack instead of making me carry a 3-foot-by-3-foot pad around for 4 hours at a youth tournament. A founder I worked with recently interviewed 500 coaches before building his product. That should not be impressive. That should be normal. And if you want to expand into multiple sports, do not assume they are all created equally. Basketball is not soccer. Soccer is not swimming. Swimming is definitely not 4th-grade girls basketball with 10 kids, 18 parents, and a tournament schedule that changed three times before lunch. Talk to the coaches. Go watch the practices. Several of them. Then ask the only question that matters: Did your product help the coach coach? Or did it make the coach stop coaching? The best youth coach tech does its job without asking the coach to leave theirs. #youthsports #sidelineeconomy #youthsportstech
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Bill Flitter shared thisForty-five minutes into a tournament drive, we turned around. Here's why.👇 Last week I wrote about becoming a System First Sports Parent. The idea was born on the drive to my son's baseball tournament. -- You put in a full work week. Then Saturday hands you a two-day tournament, and the exhaustion from the workweek climbs into the car with you. 6 AM. Coffee in the cupholders. GPS reading two hours and thirty-four minutes. Whole family strapped in before the sun's up. Halfway there, my son realizes he forgot his gear bag. Cleats. Bat. Catching gear. Glove. A five-foot catcher's bag, still sitting at home. No app failed. No text got lost. We didn't have a Saturday Set Play: the recurring stuff, pre-solved in a calm moment, not improvised at 6 AM with the engine running. We didn't have a checklist. Nor a Game Ready standard. We turned around. Forty-five minutes lost. That night, I drafted the system. Shared it with the family. Pasted it on the back of my car seat as a reminder to my son. I'm sharing the system with you. 👇 Hopefully, it saves you from having to turn around.
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Bill Flitter posted thisWe're looking at the following options for online banks. • Mercury • Rho • Bluevine • Relay • Axos Others not on the list we should consider? Any firsthand experience with the ones on the list? Reasons to/not use an online bank? DM me if you have any personal experience or leave a comment! Thanks in advance!
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Bill Flitter shared thisI got delivered to my kid's game last weekend. The contents were missing. Here's what I mean. 👇 Tracking said 'delivered'. 3:58 pm. Confirmed. Open the box and check what actually showed up: ✔️ One email I read twice in the car. ✔️ A deal that stalled Tuesday and won't stop talking. ✔️ A reply I've drafted in my head three times and never sent. ✔️ A calendar alert for a meeting that already ended. I stood on the sideline doing my best impression of a man watching basketball. My kid looked over after a play to see if I saw it. That's the part that gets me. I drove there to watch him. My body clocked in. The rest of me never made the trip. Gloria Mark's research at UC Irvine put a number on it: after an interruption, it takes about 23 minutes to get your attention fully back. A quarter of youth basketball is eight minutes. Check your phone once, and the delivery never completes. Sophie Leroy's research has a name for the contents that go missing: attention residue. Part of your focus stays glued to the last unfinished task unless you deliberately release it. The release takes two minutes. Try this Sideline Shutdown ritual. 👉 In the car, before the door opens: write down every loose thread. Each one you write is a tab you close. Close the tabs. Complete the delivery. Look down any sideline on a Saturday. Boxes everywhere. Signed for. Empty. Be where your feet are. 👇 Share your Sideline Shutdown ritual. #youthsports #sidelineeconomy
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Bill Flitter shared thisYou closed every browser tab. Cued the focus playlist. You're forty-five minutes into a project Then your phone buzzes. "Are we black or white uniform for the game?" You think: thirty seconds, easy. That thirty-second reply just cost you your whole morning. Here's why. Your work runs on a Maker Schedule. Long blocks, deep focus, real building. Team admin runs on a Manager Schedule. Short bursts, quick replies, constant coordination. Drop a short burst into a long block, and the block doesn't survive. Add six more notifications on top of that one, and you're not managing a schedule anymore. You're absorbing Notification Whiplash. Researchers who study task switching have found it can take well over 20 minutes to fully refocus after a single interruption. Some of it stays with you even after you put the phone down. Your brain keeps replaying the questions while you're trying to write the report. Here's how to stop it. Think of it as a simple three-step process. 1️⃣ Collect Don't open it. Don't reply. Drop it in one place and get back to work. 2️⃣ Coordinate Pick a set window. Handle team admin in the car during practice, not in the middle of your best two hours at your desk. 3️⃣ Communicate Set the expectation once. "I check messages at noon and 5 pm." That's your Forcefield. Nothing gets through until you're ready. The sideline will always be loud. Protect your most productive work hours. Close the Tabs before your next deep-work block. 🫵 What's your deep work ritual?
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Bill Flitter posted thisDiscipline is exhausting. The parents who look like they have it together aren't more disciplined. They're running a different system. Some working parents never miss a 9 am meeting. And never miss a 6 pm practice. Not because they have more time. Not because they're less busy. They made one decision you haven't made yet. They stopped being an Overwhelmed Parent. They became a System First Sports Parent. Here's how. 1️⃣ Trade "I can't" for "I don't" A non-smoker doesn't fight the urge all day. They just don't smoke. It's not who they are. Same with a sport parent. Not "I'm trying to stay on top of it." Just: "I don't let team texts sit unread." That's how you close tabs in your head before they pile up. 2️⃣ Write two identity lines "I always ___ within two minutes." Example: "I always add the game update within two minutes." "I never ___ during work hours." "I never respond to the coach during work hours." Pick one of each. Say them like facts, not goals. That's your Game Ready standard. A line you don't cross. 3️⃣ Prep the night before, not the morning of Don't count on willpower to get you through a chaotic morning. Set things up the night before, so there's no chaos to fight in the first place. Lay out the bag. Confirm the ride. Do it tonight. That's a Set Play. Decided in five calm minutes the day before, not scrambled minutes before the game or practice. 4️⃣ Build for your worst day, not your best one A real system still runs when you're exhausted. If it only works when you're motivated, it's not a system. You don't need more discipline. You need fewer tabs open. 🫵 What's your Set Play? What do you prep in advance that cuts the chaos of game day or the pre-practice scramble?
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Bill Flitter shared thisYouth sports has a hidden economy, and every coach has it sitting in the back of their car. Hot stock pick: Buy water bottles. After every and game practice, I add to my portfolio sitting in my trunk. A dented blue bottle. Two $100 sweatshirts. Sunglasses. Headphones. Three basketballs. One sock that has seen things. The cargo area looks like a Dick’s Sporting Goods clearance rack. I send the same text every time: “Is this anyone’s?” Crickets. That’s the part that kills me. We just left the gym. We were the only team in there. Somebody’s kid walked out with shoes on, a backpack over one shoulder, and left half the family balance sheet behind. Aspen estimates families spend $30 to $40B a year on kids’ sports. That still feels low. Because nobody is counting the stuff quietly getting rebought on Amazon on Sunday night. The Lost Water Bottle Index is undefeated. And bullish. 🫵 Your turn - if lost youth sports gear had ticker symbols, what would it be?
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Bill Flitter shared thisA team schedule isn't information. It's a to-do list wearing sheep's clothes. The youth sports app buzzes mid-meeting. "Saturday, 9 am, Field 4." Done, right? The schedule's been sent. So why are you still up at 11 pm, after the workday already took the first shift. Because the buzz wasn't the job. The buzz was the raw material for the job. That status update splits the second it lands. A packing list for you. A driving assignment for your partner. A text to Grandma. A jersey that needs to be laundered tonight. The app sent one message. You quietly wrote six more. A second job, stacked on the one you already worked, arriving disguised as a notification. So I built a system for it. The Team Parent OS, five moves that turn the schedule line into the week's plan, once, instead of seven panicked times. 🫵 Your turn: which youth sport admin job is eating you alive? #youthsports #sidelineeconomy
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Bill Flitter posted thisThe most loyal fans in youth sports are usually outside the group chat. Grandparents. They just need someone to tell her that the game has moved to Court 3 at 9:20. There’s a grandpa on one of my teams who shows up to everything. Practice. Games. He sits in his chair, talks hoops with me, and cheers for every kid. I love that. I also know youth sports makes it way harder than it should be for people like him to show up. The schedule lives in one app. The change lands in a text. The court number is buried in a screenshot. And the parent is supposed to relay all of it while finding shoes, water bottles, dinner, and their last bit of patience. That’s the miss. Giving everyone the same app is not the same as keeping everyone informed. Grandparents don’t need the whole team operation. They need the few details that let them be there. A lot of empty bleacher seats aren’t empty because nobody cared. They’re empty because nobody remembered to tell them. 🫵 Your turn - how do grandparents in your family find out when and where to show up?
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on thisCareer update hard launch!! ✨🤩🍴 I’m swapping Super Bowl commercials for “every day is the freaking Super Bowl.” (Bonus points if you know the reference). And I couldn’t be more excited… After four and a half years at Highdive, I’ve officially joined Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants as a Divisional Marketing Manager, supporting concepts such as Aba, Ema, Beatrix, Antico Posto, L. Woods, and The Dalcy across Chicago, Austin, and Nashville, with Dallas coming very soon! During my time at Highdive, I learned more than I ever thought possible. I worked on award-winning Super Bowl campaigns, watched the agency grow from fewer than 50 people to nearly three times that size, helped lead new business storytelling and pitch orchestration, planned industry and company events, built operational systems, managed the agency social channels, supported PR and award efforts, and wore just about every hat imaginable. I had a front-row seat on a rocket ship, and I’m grateful to everyone who was part of that incredible journey. Every experience sharpened skills I look forward to bringing into this next chapter: strategic storytelling, relationship-building, creative problem-solving, operational precision, and an unwavering belief that the details matter. For anyone who has known me for a while, this probably won’t come as a huge surprise. Somewhere between The Bear, some amazing books, an unhealthy number of podcasts, and years spent running a photography business centered around people’s most meaningful moments, I realized I wasn’t just fascinated by hospitality, service, and the restaurant industry. I wanted to be part of it. In many ways, this feels less like a pivot and more like an alignment that has been building throughout my entire career. Put me in, coach!! 😎 Taylor Swift once said (OK come on, you knew I’d bring her into this somewhere) that she’s “in the business of human emotion.” Looking back, I think that’s the part of my work I have always loved most. Building relationships, telling stories, celebrating people, anticipating what someone might need before they ask, creating moments that make people feel something they remember and want to share with others. I’m so excited to bring these passions and skills together in my new role, and to contribute to an amazing team already doing incredible work. One week in, I couldn’t be more certain that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Cheers to the next era!! 🥂
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on this6 months ago, this founder was mass DMing strangers on Linkedln hoping someone would respond. 2,000 followers. Zero inbound. Invisible in his industry. Today? 127,000+ followers. 47 qualified leads hitting his inbox every month. $2.4M in pipeline from Linkedln alone. The craziest part? He didn't write a single post. He didn't spend hours "engaging." He didn't hire a VA to comment on random threads. He handed us his voice and let us do what we do. We turned his expertise into content that dominates feeds. We built his authority while he ran his business. We made him impossible to ignore. This is what 100% done for you actually looks like. If you're a CEO or founder who's tired of being the industry's best kept secret, we should talk.
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisRumor has it this really cool startup called fanwayz is going to be featured at this event. Any opportunity to spend time and eat BBQ in Kansas City (my favorite city) is always welcomed. Thanks to Austin Moss and his team for putting this event together. Look forward to meeting the great people supporting the #KansasCity startup ecosystem. Can't wait to hang out with our newest advisor and KC/Mizzou/NBA basketball legend Kareem Rush who is doing amazing work in the college sports experience industry. Sign up using the link in comments. #sportstech #sportsinvesting #angelinvestor #fanengagement #dataBill Flitter reacted on thisFive days out. A few of the people in the room on Tuesday: The founder scaling remote therapeutic monitoring across 40 plus states. The DVM who built the anesthesia charting software vets actually use. A former NBA guard building a spirits and media company around alumni pride. The team bringing German longevity tech to North America. An agency that represents athletes as founders. A capital platform matching businesses with 300 plus lenders. That's one corner of it. Tuesday, July 21. 4 to 6 PM. Leawood. Free to attend. RSVP in the first comment.
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on this🚀 Excited to share that Ironmind.ai has been selected for the NFL Forward Program 2026. We’re honored to work with the National Football League (NFL) Football Operations Innovation Team to identify where emerging technologies can create the greatest value within the NFL ecosystem through proof-of-concept and technology evaluation. Ironmind.ai’s AI-powered platform brings together wearable, behavioral, and contextual data to deliver actionable insights for coaches, clinicians, and organizations. Our technology aligns with several NFL Forward innovation focus areas, including: #ArtificialIntelligence + #Performance Data & Analytics • Readiness intelligence • Recovery monitoring • Risk identification • Decision support #CoachingTools • Coach-facing decision support • Training load visibility • Athlete management workflows #PlayerDevelopment • Youth athlete readiness • Development tracking • Wellness education We’re grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with the #NFL Football Operations Innovation Team and look forward to exploring how AI and performance analytics can help advance the future of football. #NFLForward #FootballOperations #SportsTech #ArtificialIntelligence #PerformanceAnalytics #HumanPerformance #WearableTechnology #Innovation #IronmindAI
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on thisAs we head into year two with one of the first clubs on SPIN (Sports Profile Network), Abby's been after me to share how year one went. So here it is, in her words. Abby Bauer is President of Fairfield Youth Field Hockey Association (FYFHA) in Fairfield County, Connecticut. "I've used a lot of sports apps, and SPiN has worked better for me, our families, and our field hockey players than anything else we've tried. Registration fed straight into player profiles, so nobody was entering the same information twice. The SPiN calendar and team communication lived in one place, and everyone used it. Even apparel ordering was simple, thanks to SPiN’s partnership with SquadLocker. SPiN's evaluation tool worked the same way: easy to use, insightful, and connected to data that we can leverage season after season. Overall, SPiN more than delivered the baseline of what we needed, and was easy for everyone to use, which matters a lot when the people running a program like ours are volunteers and parents are as busy as we all know they are. Now, for what sets SPiN apart and most excites me, and the reason I asked Hut to let me share my perspective. SPiN is built on a non-toxic social network. There's no public commenting, and every post is monitored to stay sports-related and positive, so it never becomes what social media usually becomes. It gave us a safe place to celebrate our athletes and build our community. It's very convenient, too. We can push our posts straight out to Facebook and Instagram. It's great to be able to do so much from one platform. Kudos SPiN. That's the part I tell other organizations about first. Beyond all of that, I believe in where SPiN is headed. Right now, a parent has to juggle multiple apps, frequently using a different one for every team and every kid. SPiN is building the one home where all of it lives, where an athlete's profile follows you for your whole journey, so you can look back and see how far you've come. No one else is solving this the way SPiN is, and through it all, their team has felt like a partner, not a vendor." That means a lot. We were just getting started with FYFHA last year, and year two is bound to be even more exciting and frictionless. More integrations. More tools for coaches and families. More ways to celebrate athletes. And more of what this is all building toward: a more connected ecosystem where every kid's sports journey lives in one home, for good. Thank you, Abby. Here's to year two.
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on thisBeach volleyball is making waves. What was once considered a niche variation of the indoor game has become one of the fastest-growing sports at the youth, collegiate, and professional levels. More athletes are competing on the sand than ever before, colleges continue to add beach volleyball programs, and opportunities for young players to develop and compete are expanding across the country. But with growth comes new challenges. More athletes, tournaments, leagues, and events mean more scheduling, registration, communication, and coordination behind the scenes. That's why having the right systems in place matters. At Waresport, we're proud to support the organizations helping grow the game by simplifying the administrative side of sports management, allowing coaches and administrators to spend more time focused on athlete development and less time managing logistics. The future of beach volleyball is bright, and we're excited to watch the sport continue to grow. ☀️🏐
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on thisSponsorships and partnerships are a legitimate revenue source for youth sports clubs. But they’re not passive income. The idea that a club can simply post an opportunity and wait for sponsors to come forward doesn't reflect how this actually works. Building a sponsorship program takes relationship development, a clear value proposition, and consistent follow-through. The clubs succeeding in this regard know what they're offering, who they're targeting, and what the ask looks like. But the clubs that treat it as a fallback for budget shortfalls find out quickly that the revenue isn't reliable enough to count on when they need it most.
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on thisYouth sports parents have two different personalities… February Parent: “My kid just needs to have fun, make friends, and learn the game.” July Parent after one strikeout: “I’ve watched 17 YouTube videos, joined three Facebook groups, listened to two podcasts, and I’m pretty sure Coach needs to completely rebuild his swing before tomorrow.” 😂😂😂 It’s amazing how quickly we go from… “We’re just here to have fun.” …to… “Should we buy the $499 bat?” “What about the bat speed sensor?” “I saw this weighted donut on TikTok.” “Maybe he needs a nutritionist.” “He definitely needs batting gloves that match his cleats.” Meanwhile… The kid just wants a blue raspberry Gatorade, some sunflower seeds, and to know if Dairy Queen is still open after the game. 🤣 Parents… Your kid didn’t strike out because he doesn’t own enough gadgets. He struck out because baseball is hard. Even the best hitters in the world fail 7 out of 10 times. Sometimes the best development plan is incredibly boring: ✅ Play catch. ✅ Hit baseballs. ✅ Learn the game. ✅ Laugh a little. ✅ Eat some ice cream. ✅ Show up tomorrow and do it all over again. Kids don’t need perfect swings. They need patient adults. Now if you’ll excuse me, one of the neighborhood kids just yelled, “Coach, watch this!” …which has never once ended with something good. 😂 #YouthSports #BaseballParents #WagnerWay #LutzGO #CoachLife #KeepItFun
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Bill Flitter reacted on thisBill Flitter reacted on thisSports continue to offer numerous opportunities for children to have fun and learn the importance of leadership and teamwork. They also help kids buildAs Youth Sports Become Expensive, Pulse Up Foundation Helps Girls Stay In The GameAs Youth Sports Become Expensive, Pulse Up Foundation Helps Girls Stay In The Game
Experience & Education
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Sideline
View Bill’s full experience
See their title, tenure and more.
or
Volunteer Experience
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Assistant Varsity Coach & Scout | Girls Basketball
San Ramon Valley High School
- Present 1 year 10 months
Children
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Co-Director Of Basketball Operations
LMYA
- Present 6 years 2 months
Children
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Volunteer Marketing Consultant
Grateful Gatherings
- Present 12 years 3 months
Poverty Alleviation
Advise organization on email marketing, SEO strategy, social media, Wordpress and overall marketing strategy.
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Board Member
CYO Youth Sports
- Present 15 years 10 months
Children
Set strategy and mission of organization that works with over 500 kids in our local community.
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Executive Director
Level Up Sports Academy
- 8 years 6 months
Children
• Raised $40,000 in donations in first 9 months.
• Increased program participants by 100% in year 2.
• Doubled the size of the volunteers in year 2.
• Secured first working board of 5 executives. -
Varsity Girl's Coach
Campolindo High School
- 2 years 2 months
Children
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School Board - Development Committee
St. Perpetua School
- 6 years 1 month
Education
Chair committee responsible for marketing, PR, and social media strategy.
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Publications
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5 Steps to A/B Test like a Growth Hacker
Online Marketing Institute
See publicationLearn proven strategies for saving money in your paid media programs by leveraging earned & owned media.
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CM 2015: An Interview With Bill Flitter, CEO & Founder, Dlvr.it
Chief Content Officer magazine
See publicationIn the February issue of Chief Content Officer magazine, we asked the top experts in content marketing:
Content 2015: Where are we headed in the next three years?
Tech 2015: What technologies will change the field?
Company 2015: Which companies ‘get it’?
Personal 2015: How will each of us change as marketers? -
Facebook Messenger and the Rise of the Bot – Should You Care?
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See publicationEmail forever changed the way my generation communicates. The next significant shift in communication was social networking. As a new generation of users are storming the web, a new form of communication follows. An increasing number of young adults are migrating from highly public social media networks like Facebook to private micro-networks like Facebook Messenger, Slack, WeChat, and Telegram for their to day-to-day communication.
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HOW TO: Maximize Your Content's Reach on the Social Web
Mashable
See publicationWe have all heard that "content is king" — Sumner Redstone deemed it so, then Rupert Murdoch upped the ante, calling it "emperor." But how do we make sure content is delivered to the right places, at the right times? How can we measure the effectiveness of this content and its distribution?
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Really Simple Sale?
Wall Street Journal
See publicationAs RSS feeds catch on, advertisers are taking notice
Honors & Awards
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Direct Marketing Scholarship
Direct Marketing Association
Organizations
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American Marketing Association
Speaker and Committee Chair
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