Why We Built RosterPro

Saturday morning, 8:47 AM

I'm standing on a field in Apex, North Carolina with a bag of cones, three kids, and no idea if anyone else is coming. Practice starts in thirteen minutes. I've sent two group texts, a WhatsApp message, and an email this week. Most parents haven't replied. A few said "maybe." One sent a thumbs-up emoji that I'm choosing to interpret as "yes."

This was my life as a volunteer U-10 soccer coach. And I know it's yours too.

The RSVP problem nobody talks about

Here's what surprised me when I started coaching: the hardest part isn't running drills or teaching kids to pass. It's the logistics. Specifically, it's getting parents to tell you whether their kid is coming to the game.

Youth sports runs on volunteer coaches — parents who give up their weekends because they love the game and want to help kids. But the tools available to those coaches are either expensive, overcomplicated, or nonexistent.

I tried the obvious solutions. Group texts turned into chaos — important game details buried under messages about snack schedules and carpool arrangements. Parents muted the chat. I don't blame them. TeamSnap looked promising, but at $15/month for a rec league? I'm already buying the cones out of my own pocket. Plus, asking every parent to create an account with a password and download an app was a nonstarter. Half of them never completed signup. Email worked for about two weeks, until parents stopped opening them.

The pattern was clear: every solution required too much from parents.

The game that changed everything

But the RSVP problem wasn't what made me build RosterPro. That came later.

First, there was the game I'll never forget.

We were matched up against the top team in the league — a team that had been demolishing everyone all season. 7-0. 8-0. Just running through opponents like they weren't there. If you've seen Kicking and Screaming with Will Ferrell, that was my coaching career — minus Mike Ditka and minus the talented Italian kids. So going into that game, I was just hoping we'd keep it respectable.

But something happened when the whistle blew. My kids came out fired up. They were passing, communicating, fighting for every ball. And then — we scored first. We actually scored first against the best team in the league. They equalized, but we didn't fold. We kept playing. For the first time all season, my team looked like they belonged on the same field.

Then, about five minutes into the second half, I heard the other team's bench start whispering. Their star player had arrived late.

I turned around. Walking onto the field was a kid who looked like he'd been held back three grades. Nearly six feet tall at eleven years old. Not overweight, not awkward. Just an enormous growth spurt packed onto an incredibly athletic frame. Still age-eligible, totally legal, but physically in a completely different category from every other kid on that field.

What happened next was like watching a highlight reel. He received the ball at midfield and just cut through our defense. Like they weren't there. He scored. Then again. And again. And again. Four goals, all by himself, all within about fifteen minutes.

Then, to top it all off, the referee awarded a free kick right on the edge of the box. Their star stepped up, planted his foot, and put the ball in the top right corner. Perfectly placed. Like a professional taking a penalty in the Champions League.

Game over.

I looked at my kids' faces. Some were frustrated. Some were confused. A couple looked like they wanted to cry. These weren't kids who didn't try. They tried their hearts out. They just got handed a game they were never going to win.

The real problem

The problem wasn't that kid. He's a great athlete who deserves to play soccer just like everyone else. The problem was the system that put him on a team that was already the best in the league.

Here's how youth recreational leagues work. Every season, the league holds a draft. Volunteer coaches sit in a room and pick kids for their teams. But they have absolutely no data. No records of how players performed last season. No assessments. No development tracking. Nothing. They're drafting blind.

And it gets worse. The coaches themselves are volunteers — parents who raise their hand for a season, maybe two, and then move on. The league admins turn over too. So whatever knowledge anyone had about which kids are strong, which ones are developing, which ones need to be balanced across teams... it walks out the door every year.

The result? Some teams end up stacked with the best athletes. Other teams end up with all the beginners. And every Saturday, you get a bunch of lopsided games where half the kids on the losing side decide they don't want to play sports anymore.

These leagues run on shoestring budgets. Parents pay $40 to $50 per kid per season. That covers field time, referee fees, and basic equipment. There's no budget for technology. There's no budget for player development programs. There's certainly no budget for a fair draft system.

Building the solution

I went home after that game and started thinking. Building AI apps and AI agentic products is my passion — I've spent years turning raw information into better decisions. And here was a problem staring me in the face every weekend that was, at its core, a data problem.

What if there was an app that coaches actually wanted to use? Not another expensive tool that leagues can't afford, but something free. Roster management, schedules, volunteer coordination, parent messaging with magic links so parents don't need passwords or app downloads. All the stuff coaches currently do through a mess of group texts, Google Sheets, and paper sign-up sheets.

And then, as part of using the app, coaches provide simple player assessments — a few times per season. Nothing complicated. Just basic skill ratings that take a few minutes per player.

That data stays with the league. Not with the coach, who's going to leave after a season. Not in someone's head, where it disappears when they move on. It stays in the system, accumulating season after season.

So when the next draft comes around, the league commissioner doesn't have to guess anymore. For the first time, they have real information about how every player in the league is developing. They can balance teams. They can make sure no single team ends up stacked while another team gets crushed.

The app becomes the league's institutional memory. Coaches come and go. Admins come and go. The data stays.

Built by a family

One more thing: the app icon — that gold medal with the soccer ball, football, and basketball? My son designed it. He was very serious about the color choices.

RosterPro is free for coaches. We built it because volunteer coaches deserve better tools — not another subscription fee on top of the cones they're already buying out of their own pocket.

If you're a coach who's tired of chasing RSVPs, give RosterPro a try. Setup takes two minutes, and your parents will thank you for not adding them to another group chat.

What's next

We're building in public and listening to coaches. Cricket support is already built in from day one. Player assessments are live for our pilot season. And we're always looking for feedback from coaches in the trenches.

Got ideas for what would make your coaching life easier? Share your feedback or email us at hello@getrosterpro.com.

— Hema