Before
They spent 13 years in competitive youth sports with their two sons, watching parents carry uncertainty, pressure and second-guessing. They saw that players already had coaches, but parents had no clear support. Meanwhile they worked full-time as a Director of Corporate Marketing, with no coding background and an idea that still lived only in their head.
“Protecting that relationship is the whole point.”
In their own words
The turning point
In Mindvalley's AI Mastery program, they began working with Claude as a thought partner they could argue with, not a tool they handed a brief to. They built the business in deliberate layers: personal why, vision statement, brand DNA, ideal customer, brand book and prototype. One line of the vision statement took as much iteration as anything they built in code.
“Claude was a strategic collaborator I could argue with and revise alongside at every layer, not a tool I handed a brief to and walked away from.”
In their own words
After
They now run FieldSide Coaching full-time, with fieldsidecoaching.com live and every word and image on it shaped in the program. Using Claude Code and an Airtable database, they built the Parent Companion, a working prototype tested against real data. They also completed Mindvalley's Life Coach Certification and are now talking with soccer parents to test the business against their real experience.
What it lets people do
The Parent Companion sends parents a short prompt before a game or practice, or sometimes just a quote that needs no reply, and each moment takes seconds. Parents get a private reflections space with no scores, streaks or gamification. The aim is to help them protect their relationship with their child through the pressures of youth sports.
What they learned
They found the hardest part was not the AI but the emotional work of building a business around their own most vulnerable story while still employed. They see this as a beginning, with the app, site and offer set to keep changing as parents share what they need.
“The hardest part wasn't the AI. It was doing the emotional work of building a business around my own most vulnerable story while still being someone's employee five days a week.”
In their own words
FieldSide Coaching was built during AI Mastery.
Read the full submission
Project Title: FieldSide Coaching: An AI-Built Business, Five Months in the Margins of a Full-Time Job
Project Description:
Competitive youth sports keep getting more demanding, more specialized, more expensive. Parents navigate complex decisions around clubs, coaches, training, playing time, and recruiting, while trying to protect their relationship with their child through all of it. They describe uncertainty, pressure, second-guessing. The problem is well known. What's missing is a clear, widely accepted solution focused on supporting the parent, not the player, who already has a coach.
FieldSide Coaching exists on one belief: wins and losses fade, teams change, seasons end, but the relationship between a parent and child outlasts the game. Protecting that relationship is the whole point.
I built FieldSide Coaching to be that solution, from a why I lived myself: 13 years navigating that world with my own two sons. For five months I built the entire business, positioning, product, and go-to-market, using AI as a genuine thought partner, while still working full-time as a Director of Corporate Marketing. My last day at that job was last week. FieldSide Coaching is now my full-time work.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Defined the business's why, name, vision statement, and brand DNA through structured work with Claude, including defending a one-line vision statement word by word until it held up
Built a confirmed Ideal Customer Persona (the "Tangled Parent," a parent who deeply loves and supports their child and is carrying more emotional weight than they expected), validated against real qualifying criteria: existing budget, ability to justify the spend, a real problem, the right market segment
Designed and built the Airtable database behind the business, then built the FieldSide Coaching Parent Companion on top of it: a working prototype for future 1:1 clients, tested against that real data, not a mockup
The prototype sends a short prompt before a game or practice, or sometimes just a quote that needs no response. Every interaction takes seconds. A private "My Reflections" view, no scores, no streaks, no gamification. An engagement dashboard with anonymized, aggregated client themes on my side
Built fieldsidecoaching.com, live today. Built on a Webflow template, but every word and every image on it came out of this program
Completed Mindvalley's Life Coach Certification and graduated from the AI Mastery program, both alongside a full-time job. This submission marks that graduation
Went from a marketer with no coding background to a solo technical founder who can spec, build, and debug a real product
Now in structured market validation, talking directly with soccer parents to test the business against their real experience, before I start selling
Enrolled in Digital Product Business System, a six-week program, and the Speaking and Influencer Summit, building toward a TED Talk and, eventually, group coaching with youth soccer organizations
This is a beginning, not a finished thing. The app, the website, and the offer itself will keep changing based on what these parent conversations turn up
TOOLS: Claude (strategy, brand, positioning, content), Claude Code (the prototype build), Airtable (business and app database), Webflow (site build)
METHODOLOGY: Built in deliberate layers, each one load-bearing for the next: personal why, vision statement, brand DNA, ICP, brand book, working prototype. Claude was a strategic collaborator I could argue with and revise alongside at every layer, not a tool I handed a brief to and walked away from.
LEARNINGS: The hardest part wasn't the AI. It was doing the emotional work of building a business around my own most vulnerable story while still being someone's employee five days a week. The single line of the vision statement took as much iteration as anything I built in code. The AI Mastery program is specifically what turned an idea into a working prototype. It replaced what would otherwise have been a brand agency and a developer.
Written 6 August 2026· Submitted by the storyteller
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