If you had told me back in 2022 that our little idea would turn into what AthletiFi is today, I probably would've laughed. Not because I didn't believe in us, but I didn't yet understand how entrepreneurship really works. I thought success meant perfectly executing a brilliant plan. Instead, I've learned that building a startup is about systematic experimentation – putting your vision to the test, measuring results rigorously, and having the courage to change direction when the data tells you to.

It began with a simple problem we all saw firsthand. Parents shell out thousands of dollars every year for their kids to play competitive soccer, but they have almost no visibility into how their child is actually developing. As a brother to a competitive youth player myself, I witnessed this frustration up close. My dad Roberto and I would watch Esteban play, and we'd come away with different perceptions on his progress, with nothing but our subjective observations to go on.

Meanwhile, Pablo was experiencing this same challenge as a parent. His kids were in competitive programs, and despite his expert eye, even he struggled to track their progress objectively. And Jake, with his community-building experience, immediately saw how this lack of transparency was affecting entire clubs.

The four of us connected at a tech conference in Philly during the summer of 2022, and suddenly AthletiFi was born – not as a polished concept, but as a shared frustration and a "what if" conversation that wouldn't quit.

What most people don't realize about startups is that your first idea is rarely your final product. We initially thought we'd create digital player cards as NFTs. We partnered with sports analytics firms, worked with Villanova Soccer Academy, and built smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain.

Then reality hit us. Parents and players were either completely indifferent to the NFT concept or, worse, viewed it with suspicion. "Aren't those scams?" was a question we heard more than once. We quickly realized we could accomplish everything we wanted without NFT technology—and without the reputational risk it brought along.

So we pivoted to focusing on digital player cards with automated stats and highlights, dropping the NFT component entirely. This seemed like a more straightforward value proposition: give players and parents objective data about performance and automate the highlight creation process.

But then we hit another snag: to get automated stats and highlights, you need good data. And to get good data, you need good video. The existing solutions in the market weren't reliable enough for our needs.

So we made another bold move – we decided to build our own camera system that people could use to capture the videos that would feed our data tagging system. We actually built several prototypes and successfully tested them in outdoor conditions. We were now trying to be both a hardware company AND a software company.

As development progressed, we kept hitting roadblocks. Scaling automated tracking proved far more complex than we anticipated. The technology worked, which felt like a huge breakthrough, but we still weren't getting the level of quality we needed to get accurate data.

More critically, we realized we were in way over our heads. We didn't have the capital to build an automated camera system from scratch, and there were already well-funded companies working exclusively on that problem. We had spread ourselves too thin, trying to solve too many problems at once.

It was at this point – after multiple failed attempts and considerable resources spent – that we realized we needed to go back to square one and truly understand our customers. That's when we discovered the Lean Startup methodology and began to appreciate the importance of validated learning.

Instead of making more assumptions about what people wanted, we conducted over 50 interviews with parents, players, coaches, and recruiters across multiple countries. We asked open-ended questions and really listened to their answers.

The conversations were eye-opening. Yes, parents wanted development tracking, but their ultimate goal was college recruitment. But when we spoke to the college coaches, they told us they don't put nearly as much weight on stats as people think. They were interested in a player's growth, character, leadership, and real passion for the game.

Meanwhile, when we talked to kids, we heard they weren't nearly as focused on college recruitment (yet). They wanted to share their highlights with friends, celebrate wins, remember big moments, and have fun. Stats were just part of the story.

All these experiences led to a crucial insight: the real problem wasn't about automating stats—it was about motivating young athletes to document their journeys in a way that felt natural and fun. If kids aren't interested in building a profile, then any fancy tool—automated or not—is going to fall flat.

That's when we decided to flip the script: What if we stopped trying to eliminate the work and instead made the "work" enjoyable? That's when we finally got it. The real opportunity was in making the documentation of a sports journey something kids actually wanted to do. Make it social. Make it fun. Make it feel like collecting Pokémon cards or leveling up in a video game.

I won't pretend the journey has been graceful. We've thrown out code, redesigned interfaces, and completely reimagined our product more times than I can count. I still have one of those camera prototypes sitting on my desk as a reminder that sometimes the hardest work leads to the clearest lessons.

Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing about our path. Each detour, each failed prototype, each pivot was necessary to shape our understanding of what we're really building and who we're building it for. We learned to listen more deeply to what customers actually need versus what they say they want. These weren't wasted efforts - they were the tuition we paid for our real-world entrepreneurial education. Sometimes your best idea is waiting on the other side of your biggest mistake.

For us, that idea is AthletiFi—not as we imagined it, but as it needed to be. A platform where young athletes can build their athletic story in a way that's authentic, engaging, and actually fun.

The collection starts with you. The journey starts with us. And man, what a journey it's been.