A Technique Subscription Takes Three People

Whether a technique subscription works doesn't come down to how hard the athlete works.

This one is about athletes again. But it isn't only about them. It's about how the athlete and the platform work together, and why that matters a lot more than people think.

01 Not the athlete alone, not the design alone

When I look at the technique subscriptions that are doing well, they don't feel like one athlete doing it all.

I can't know for sure. But I get the strong sense that behind each one there is a good developer, shaping how it works.

So is good design enough? Not quite.

A developer can want to get more out of a design, but if the performer doesn't get it, it falls apart right there.

It works the other way too. A performer can know exactly how they want to show something, and if the developer can't build it, it stalls.

Either one alone isn't enough. A good subscription comes from the two of them clicking.

02 There are three people in this

Every technique subscription has three people in it: the developer, the performer (the athlete or instructor), and the viewer.

All three voices matter.

The viewer can say, I wish it did this. The performer can tell the developer, I want to show it like this. The developer says, then let's do this, and builds it.

That goes round and round. Let's do this, let's do that, and it keeps getting better.

03 Grappling grew up with video

Why does this matter so much in jiu-jitsu and grappling in particular?

Because jiu-jitsu and grappling evolved together with video.

Performers are proud that video made them better. The people watching learned from video too. So everyone has opinions. What if it worked like this?

There needs to be a place where those opinions can go back and forth.

04 How we do it at SubPro

So how does SubPro actually do it?

First, before launch. The athlete and SubPro work out together what the site should be, and build it as we go.

Once it's far enough along, we soft-launch. Customers come in and we listen. Once the serious bugs are mostly gone, we launch for real.

After launch there is always a forum and a way to report problems. Whatever comes in, we fix fast.

Subtitles work the same way.

The subtitles are made with AI. And sometimes, because of how it works, it can't catch a word, or it hears something else. So anyone watching can send a fix: I think this line should say this.

Fix it once, and the same mistake slowly gets fixed in the other videos too. The tricky words viewers point out go into a glossary, so the next translations don't repeat the mistake.

Viewers, performers and SubPro. The three of us push it forward together, and that's how a subscription site gets built.

05 The key from here

Not a place where the athlete grinds alone. Not a platform that just rents out a box.

A place where the developer, the performer and the viewer throw ideas at each other and make it better together.

I think that's what will change the market for technique videos.

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