Dutchman Chris Zijlstra has developed Matchable – a digital platform that benefits padel players, coaches and clubs.
Matchable could be described as a kind of Tripadvisor for padel. It’s a platform for coaches to promote themselves (in the same way as a restaurant or hotel) with their location, availability, experience, qualifications, pricing, personal profile, cancellation policy etc – and for players to find a nearby coach who suits their needs, book a lesson and pay with one click, then leave them a review afterwards.
Chris first identified a gap in the market for Matchable in his role as Head of Operations at XNRGY Padel Club in Amsterdam. Frustrated at the time-consuming back-and-forth of emails and text messages between his coaches and players to arrange coaching sessions, he looked around for solutions at other padel and tennis clubs and in the fitness industry. He found nothing useful. “The process we had at my club was so inefficient I was pulling my hair out – so I decided to sort it myself,” he tells The Padel Paper.
Having previously worked in the digital product design, he recruited some old colleagues and they have now partnered with leading court booking platform MATCHi to come up with a version of Matchable that is almost ready to go to market.
Version 1 was launched eight months ago and piloted with clubs in the Netherlands and Version 2 is currently in a testing phase with two clubs in the Nordics.
Once launched, there is obvious potential to expand Matchable beyond padel into other racket sports that also offer one-to-one or group training sessions with a coach and require court bookings.
Matchable’s marketing blurb says: “MATCHi, with over a decade of experience and trusted by 3,000 venues worldwide, is renowned for its booking system that connects players to facilities effortlessly. This partnership will streamline operations for sports venues, offering players and trainers a more flexible, dynamic platform for padel, tennis, and other racket sports.”
Chris explained further: “People really want to take padel lessons and the sport really wants to grow, but even though more and more clubs are opening, just having accessibility to a venue is not enough. If you have 20 courts open but no lessons left, there’s an imbalance. The whole ecosystem needs to come together.
“At my club we put a lot of effort into training our coaches to a high level, but 20 minutes down the road might be a tennis coach who has only done a course in padel and has little experience, but is charging the same price! As a client you might only find that out after paying your €100 for a block of lessons. You’ll get a sour experience and may never return. Matchable will make it a fairer marketplace.”.”
Andreas Karlsson, COO of MATCHi, said: “MATCHi was founded with the vision of empowering people in racket sports. Our partnership with Matchable perfectly aligns with that goal, allowing us to streamline operations further and help venues focus on what truly matters. With Chris and Tyrone [Loran]’s extensive industry insights as both club owners and tech entrepreneurs, I’m confident this collaboration will be a tremendous value-add to the MATCHi platform, and I’m very excited about what we will achieve together.”
Find out more at matchable.io
