For coaches who want to grow a sports training business from scratch—with no facility, no trust fund, and no playbook—the path looks different than most expect.
For Jae Taft, founder of Vision Basketball Academy in Denver, it looked like renting a church gym with a crooked rim and a three-point line that barely misses half court. It looked like texting parents at odd hours to remind them to sign up for sessions. It looked like finally switching to a membership model and realizing, almost immediately, that it changed everything.
Now, five weeks into planning her own facility, Jae joins the CoachIQ Podcast to share how she’s building a sports training business with purpose—one that’s specifically designed to serve women and girls in the game.
In this episode:
- Why switching from per-session to membership pricing was a turning point
- How Jae structures her group training model—and why she’s moving athletes away from private sessions
- What training girls is really like compared to boys (and why coaches who make the switch rarely go back)
- How she found a $10/hour church gym and turned it into a client base worth moving into a facility
- The delegating mindset that’s helping her scale without burning out
The breaking point that led to memberships
Before memberships, Jae was doing what a lot of trainers do: chasing bookings. She’d text parents to remind them about sessions they said they’d attend. She’d schedule drop-ins, sell session packs, and mentally track who was coming and who wasn’t.
“It consumed me,” she says. “I would literally have a hard time falling asleep thinking, ‘I have these many people I need to text.'”
The shift to memberships didn’t just save her time. It changed how her clients showed up.
“The same parents I had to remind constantly—they’re now booking three weeks ahead,” Jae says. “My communication isn’t ‘reminder, we have a session tonight.’ It’s actually talking about their daughter.”
That’s the real transformation coaches describe when they make the switch — it’s the same shift Jeff Schmidt experienced when he went from spending five to six hours every Sunday managing schedules by text to running a 90-client membership business. When your automated payment processing handles recurring billing and your scheduling automation handles the booking, and your client communication tools send session reminders automatically, you stop being an admin and start being a coach again.
If you’re still on per-session or drop-in pricing and wondering whether the switch is worth it, Jae’s advice is simple: “The minute you can go to membership-based, please do it. It will save you so much time.”
If Jae’s story sounds familiar, CoachIQ’s membership and payment automation tools are built exactly for this transition — recurring billing, automated reminders, and self-service booking all in one place.
Why group training is key to a sustainable sports training business
Jae still offers private training—she’s not cutting it entirely—but her goal is clear: get athletes into group sessions.
It’s not just a business decision. It’s a development philosophy.
“Parents think because they spend more money, it’s going to be better for the kid,” she says. “But in a group, they’re competing, making real reads, playing against people their age. I can watch from a bird’s eye view and actually teach.”
She also points out the economics. Group sessions are more affordable for families and more sustainable for trainers. If you’re doing individual sessions all day, you’re trading hours for dollars with a hard ceiling. The group training economics only get better as you scale your sports training business.
And there’s a social angle that Jae values just as much. “Kids come in and have real friendships after a few weeks,” she says. They carpool. They come back. Retention goes up because the experience is about more than just basketball.
Training girls: what most male coaches discover too late
Ninety-nine percent of Vision’s athletes are female—not by design, but by demand. Families specifically sought out a woman trainer for their daughters.
Jae describes the difference between training girls and boys as a coaching tension: girls tend to want to do things exactly right. Boys tend to need reeling in. Neither is better—they just require different approaches.
“With girls, I’m fighting to get them to play more free, to not be so robotic,” she says. “With boys, I’m fighting to get them to focus.”
She saw this play out directly in practice when she gave her group ten minutes with no instructions—just a challenge to take initiative and lead a drill. They froze. “None of them said right-hand pounds or V-dribbles. They just didn’t know what to do.”
It’s a great reminder that as trainers, we sometimes over-coach. The goal is eventually to build athletes who can think and compete on their own—and group environments, structured thoughtfully with the right session management tools, help develop that independence.
The $10/hour gym that built a client base
Before Vision had the brand recognition it has now, Jae’s business partner cold-emailed over a hundred churches looking for court access. One responded.
The gym had a crooked rim. The three-point line was practically at half court. But it was consistent, it was hers from four to nine every evening, and it cost $10 an hour.
“We found a little gold mine,” Jae says.
Consistency is what makes a sports training business grow. Not flashy facilities—consistency. Once families know your schedule is reliable, they stop shopping around. That’s when you can build real momentum.
Now, after a rent increase at the church gym, Jae has done the math. The same money she’s paying in rent could go toward her own facility instead. So that’s the direction she’s heading.
What it takes to grow a sports training business with your own facility
Jae is five weeks into the process of opening her own gym, and she’s already ahead of where most trainers are when they sign a lease.
She’s already identified a strength and conditioning coach who will operate their own business inside the facility. She’s in conversations with physical therapists for recovery services. She’s run a survey and gotten strong interest in women’s-only pickup runs and leagues.
The vision is a space where female athletes can get everything they need in one place. Training, strength work, recovery, community.
One practical piece of advice she received that she’s passing on: negotiate a build-out period into your lease. If it takes four to five weeks just to get a court delivered and installed, you don’t want to be paying rent on an empty warehouse while you wait. Build that time into the deal before you sign. It’s the same lesson Tyler Leclerc learned when he opened TJL Training in Massachusetts — and if you want to understand the real costs of opening a training facility before you sign anything, that breakdown is worth reading first.
The mindset shift that lets you grow a sports training business beyond yourself
One of the most valuable things Jae has internalized from watching her parents run their own businesses: you cannot grow if you’re the only person doing everything.
“My business is never going to get to where I want it if I’m the only one doing it,” she says, echoing advice her father gave her.
She has trainers under her now—a post player, a shooting guard—and she’s deliberately working to teach them Vision’s training philosophy so the quality doesn’t drop when she’s not in the room. A point guard herself, Jae openly admits she doesn’t have the feel for what it’s like to play in the post. So she finds people who do.
That’s what building a team actually looks like. Not just hiring warm bodies—finding coaches who share your values and fill your blind spots.
When she’s traveling, clients can still train through CoachIQ’s virtual coaching tools, and she’s excited to expand her online training offerings as the platform grows. Her goal is to eventually train athletes outside of Denver—all through the same system her in-person clients use.
Where to follow Jae
Jae is documenting the full facility build process in real time—from warehouse walk-throughs to opening day. If you’re thinking about opening your own space, her series will be worth following closely.
Find her on all platforms at @CoachJaeTaft and Vision Basketball Academy for the business content.
Ready to make the switch to membership-based coaching? See how CoachIQ’s automated payment processing and scheduling tools help coaches like Jae stop chasing bookings and start building a business that runs on its own.
