I’ve been a semi-regular viewer of the ABC series called ‘Shark Tank’, where aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their ideas and seek investment from the show’s 5 resident millionaire venture capitalists, for several weeks now. I’ve often wondered how long it would be before an iPhone app would make an appearance on the show, and sure enough in this week’s season finale episode we will get to see one.
It’s called JumpForward and it’s an online service and iPhone app that helps athletes, families and college coaches and administrators navigate the recruiting process.
Here’s a little more background on the app and service:
JumpForward provides proactive recruiting and compliance software solutions to the sports industry via the web and mobile applications on the iPhone. JumpForward provides athletes, parents, coaches and administrators the freedom to manage all their communications (voice, video, text) from their mobile device; proactively preventing compliance violations and increasing efficiencies at the same time. JumpForward also educates high-school athletes and parents to help them navigate the recruiting process, ensure eligibility and search for over 50,000 college coaches.
The Shark Tank episode featuring JumpForward will air tomorrow night (10/20) at 8:00pm Eastern. You can see a trailer for the episode, and specifically for the JumpForward portion of it, at:
http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/
The trailer doesn’t really talk at all about the iPhone app side of things unfortunately – but it does feature two of the sharks (Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec) throwing out some enthusiastic bids to the two founders of JumpForward.
JumpForward is currently aimed at both ends of the college athletics recruiting space – athletes and families, as well as the coaches and administrators trying to recruit them. Here are a few of its notable features:
- Push notifications inside the application to “proactively prevent call, text and email compliance violations”
- Because the software is on the device, we are able to implement internal controls that enable the Athletic Department to enforce the NCAA rules and regulations.
- Our patent-pending technologies enable us to track all phone, text and email correspondence and auto-populate reports for the Athletic Departments and College Compliance Officers.
- Call tracking and Proactively Preventing Communication Violations. Mobile access to all prospect student athletes – including the ability to take notes about a student profile on the go and auto-synch with our web server.
The app is already in the App Store, and is free – although there are premium services for student athletes and parents available for a fee. The College coach and Compliance Solution is a subscription based fee which varies depending on the size of the athletic program.
The JumpForward service is already in use at some NCAA Division 1 programs, and the service’s founders feel that the iPhone app offers a competitive advantage for them.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing Shark Tank tomorrow, and hoping the iPhone app portion of the service gets a mention – and that JumpForward gets a funding deal signed up.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Seems like most recruiting companies have just translated a the physical-world solution to the web, but it sounds like this company is actually innovating in that space. Being on the cutting edge with an iPhone app, I can't imagine a athletic department that wouldn't want to sign their coaches up…really avoid a lot of bad publicity by keeping their coaches under control.
I think it's an interesting concept – can anybody that's tried it let me know if it's worth getting? I really like their Twitter account http://www.twitter.com/jumpforward for those who haven't seen it, just wanting an opinion.
I can tell you that its an incredible service. Without JumpForward, I don't think my daughter would be playing in college right now. She's a D-II athlete, was never really the blue-chip type, and it's hard for those athletes to stand out among all the others. JumpForward gave her a platform to show how great of a person (and soccer player) she is. This is for real, and I hope that the exposure on the show gets their ideas to household name status.
wow! I saw the show as well and was very impressed with the two gentlemen who knew their worth. I too have a son who is not being recruited, all eyes are on two players. My son plays basketball very well but again eyes are upon 2 10th graders that are 6'9″ 200 pound and 6'8″ 210 pound. My son 6'5″ 180 pound. There are no comparison. I am looking for a way to get him notice and this program would do that. Can you please tell me what steps I need to take?
I'm not sure how you mean on the what steps you need to take. The app is available in the iPhone App Store. The service is live online as well. Either of those is a good starting point I imagine.
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