The 10-year success story of feeton

 

From a tremendous passion for soccer, Richard Elsinga, Erik de Jonge, and Auke Swart created a mission: every child deserves a good and educational training. Their idea became a clear plan. And the plan became a serious venture: VTON, now known as feeton. “Our country has countless dedicated, voluntary soccer coaches. They all want to make the most out of their training based on their own knowledge and skills. However, there is often a lack of structural policy. While it’s known what a child should learn at each age. And it shouldn’t matter who’s leading the group,” Auke explains.

This year, they celebrate their tenth anniversary. In those years, the three gentlemen have built a wonderful enterprise. Where it all started with a need, there is now a complete online training program ready for club administrators, coaches, and children. This makes them unique in the world.

feeton supports sports clubs
feeton offers an innovative online platform that relieves clubs from the burden of devising training sessions. “In the past, you had well-intentioned coaches, often parents, who browsed YouTube to prepare their training. Sometimes they were lucky that they encountered two red lights on the way, so they could quickly come up with some additional drills. Clubs working with feeton no longer have this problem. They have structure and insight into development. Moreover, trainers know what the age group under their team has already developed, providing structure in training and quality in the game, and peace of mind for coaches,” explains Erik. “As a coach, you should mainly focus on the pedagogical aspect, on conveying the material without worrying about training methods. Those are already devised,” Auke adds.

How it all started
Richard meets Erik at a gathering. The two know each other from years ago when they gave soccer training in America. “I told Erik what I was struggling with as head of training at amateur clubs: the lack of structure and technical policy. As a coach of indoor soccer teams and in his role as regional coach of the KNVB, Erik recognized that. He said, ‘Richard, what you’re outlining is the same problem at every club.’ Because I have a background in education, I’m used to working with core goals, learning objectives, and a methodology. That’s how the plan emerged to shape this also for amateur soccer,” Richard explains.

Training drills on paper
For the F’jes, E’tjes, and D’tjes (youth teams), the duo develops training schedules from a methodology. “I can barely imagine it now, but we started in Word,” Richard laughs. “We tinkered with inserting drills and then adding text to them before saving it as a PDF. But that wasn’t all. We printed everything out on our leased printer, then laminated all the pages and put them in folders. And we sold those folders to clubs. Not to individual coaches, because we aim for structure throughout the entire club. We did everything in our spare time, alongside our jobs and young families.” A club quickly needs fifty folders, so the gentlemen were busy with it. Moreover, when something was adjusted in the training, the whole process started again. But Richard and Erik noticed that clubs were interested in their idea. So, they persevered.

From duo to trio
After two years of messing around with physical folders, the desire to digitize arises. An app costs too much money, so they launch a cheap website. Richard gives a presentation about their plan at a gathering in Joure. Auke is also there because his son plays soccer at the club. Richard proudly talks about the folders filled with training material devised from a strong plan. “I was in the middle of my story when I saw someone shaking their head. I asked what was wrong. Auke told me he thought my idea was great but that the execution could be different. After everyone had left, Auke confirmed my idea to digitize. We agreed to meet one evening, even though we had never seen each other before. What turned out? We lived on the same street! Erik and I told our whole story, and Auke listened and thought about what was possible digitally,” Richard explains. Auke adds, “I watched it for six months. I saw those guys struggling to set learning paths and reuse and upload drills on a website. Based on that, I started modulating, because I wanted to make it easier for them. At first, it was just for fun, but it quickly became more serious.”

The evolution of the platform
The gentlemen already realize that an app is necessary to realize their vision. They have an app developed. They also think about the next step: the decision to start a company together. They quit their jobs and look for office space. “With the transition to the app, we made huge strides in a short time. Every year, we grew by 100%, from 30 clubs with folders to 300 clubs now using the app,” Richard says.

Expansion of applications
To retain clubs, the gentlemen make enormous strides in product offerings. They develop the Coaching app and later the Play app for children. But they also notice that coaches in the lower age groups struggle when they are told what to do. “That’s why we came up with the Trainingground. The structure is still maintained here, but coaches have the freedom to create their own training from a library. Clubs really love that. This curriculum, which is mainly used in the lower age groups, is unique in the world. There are few other parties that have shaped it this way, that have thought about how the amateur level works and brought it together in applications like we have. Moreover, we can now fully brand the app to the club’s own style. All of this has led to a significant decrease in club turnover,” Erik explains