Useful Failure: Why We Keep Showing Up

At Sendcoach, we often talk about the life lessons student-athletes gain from the recruiting process. It can be humbling, getting a lot of “no’s,” learning patience, and still having the drive to keep pushing forward. This past weekend, that same lesson came home to us as founders.

On June 15, Father’s Day and the first day Division I coaches can contact rising juniors, Sendcoach experienced a major disruption. Due to global outages affecting Google and other services, our Gmail integration went down. Because Sendcoach is built on top of Gmail, this outage caused a cascade of issues that affected hundreds of our users.

What seemed like a routine tech hiccup quickly turned into a critical failure. On a day that matters deeply to many families in the recruiting process, our platform wasn’t working. So my cofounder Bob and I spent the entire day, yes, all of Father’s Day, and into the night trying to fix the issue, testing everything we could.

By Monday, we were able to restore full functionality and strengthen the Gmail connection. But more than that, the experience reminded us why we do this.

We received messages from families who weren’t angry. They were simply curious and wanted to make sure they weren’t doing something wrong. Those messages were the motivtation we needed. They showed us how much this tool matters, how much people rely on it, and why the fight to fix it was worth it. Thank you for your support.

Sometimes, when you’re building a product like Sendcoach, it can feel like you’re preaching from the sidelines. But we’re right there in it too, learning, growing, and doing our best to make things better. Just like the student-athletes, parents, and coaches we serve.

Thanks for your patience. And if there’s anything we can do to make your experience better, please let us know.

– Ben

Co-founder, Sendcoach

Sendcoach is the college marketing platform that empowers student-athletes and their families to take control of the recruiting process together.