VLAD MOLDOVEANU – TRAIN: ONLINE BASKETBALL TRAINING PLATFORM & COMMUNITY – EPISODE 822

Website – https://gotrainbasketball.com/hoopheads

Email – vlad.m@gotrainbasketball.com

Twitter – @gotrainbb

Vlad Moldoveanu is a recently retired Romanian professional basketball player and a mental performance coach.  He played his college basketball at American University where he was first team All-Patriot League in both 2010 and 2011. Vlad played professionally in various countries across Europe up until his recent retirement.

Vlad is the driving force behind Train, an online basketball training platform & community that aims to help players improve their game by providing them with premium courses created by expert coaches and trainers from around the world.  As a coach you can learn from Train and also monetize your coaching expertise.

If you’re looking to improve your coaching please consider joining the Hoop Heads Mentorship Program.  We believe that having a mentor is the best way to maximize your potential and become a transformational coach. By matching you up with one of our experienced mentors you’ll develop a one on one relationship that will help your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset.  The Hoop Heads Mentorship Program delivers mentoring services to basketball coaches at all levels through our team of experienced Head Coaches. Find out more at hoopheadspod.com or shoot me an email directly mike@hoopheadspod.com

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests, and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.

Get ready to learn how Train can help you monetize your coaching expertise and improve your game whether you’re on the court or the sidelines.

What We Discuss with Vlad Moldoveanu

• The value of Train for both players and coaches
• Where the idea fro Train came from and how both players and coaches can learn on the platform
• How the Train platform allows coaches to monetize their knowledge by creating their own video courses
• How Train helps coaches create their video courses
• “You have to explain the drill. Then you have to show it. And then you want to tell the player how many reps they should do.”
• “There’s always different ways to teach the game. And that’s what you’re going to get on the platform.”
• Train has both a free and premium version
• Hearing a different voice and adding variety to your workouts
• How Train is organized by skill and level, making it easy to navigate
• “We definitely want to become the go to resource for players and coaches when it when it becomes player development.”
• Building a community for coaches from all over the world to connect

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Whether you’re a beginner basketball player looking for a place to start or a seasoned vet looking to level up your skills, your new go-to secret weapon is Train.

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Want to get better at blowing by your defender? Learn setup drills with NBA & international pro trainer Marius Williams or how to use the punch drag with NBA trainer Kerry Darting.

Looking to level up your catch and shoot skills? Practice space shooting workouts with former lead female trainer for Kobe Bryant’s Mamba League, San Dixon.

Or if you’re just starting out, learn the basics of shooting and finishing at the basket from international champion, 3 time Romanian player of the year, and Train co-founder, Vlad Moldoveanu.

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THANKS, VLAD MOLDOVEANU

If you enjoyed this episode with Vlad Moldoveanu let him know by clicking on the link below and sending him a quick shoutout on Twitter:

Click here to thank Vlad Moldoveanu on Twitter

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TRANSCRIPT FOR VLAD MOLDOVEANU – TRAIN: ONLINE BASKETBALL TRAINING PLATFORM & COMMUNITY – EPISODE 822

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my cohost, Jason Sunkle this afternoon, but I am pleased to be joined by Vlad Molodoveanu from Train. We have had Vlad on before, but he is coming on to talk about an exciting new basketball training platform that he has put together called Train, Vlad, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:22] Vlad Moldoveanu: Thank you, Mike. Second time. I’m very excited about the platform and this opportunity to share with your listeners.

[00:00:31] Mike Klinzing: Well, tell us a little bit about what Train can do for both players and coaches. You’re going to kind of give us the 90 second overview and then we’re going to dive back into some details.

[00:00:41] Vlad Moldoveanu: All right, so Train is a platform where we share videos for player development and coaches on the coaching side is very simple for us. They record some videos with a specific topic or a theme. And on the player side, you get to work with coaches that you might not have access to otherwise depending on the resources or even part of the world, right? We have coaches from Spain, from Romania, from the U S from the Philippines just to name a few, right? So as a player, you get to access these coaches, see how they teach the game. See how they do their individual player development sessions and what they like to focus on and on the coach’s side we open up the platform we give you this platform to promote your name, promote your skills, promote your training. And of course, then people can follow you. People can email you. And maybe just work one on one with you live. You never know.

[00:01:42] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. You got a lot of different avenues for people at all different parts of the game, whether you’re a player or your coach, to be able to interact with the platform, give people just a quick 30 second bio about you and then we’ll dive into more of the details about each one of the different branches of Train.

[00:02:00] Vlad Moldoveanu: Absolutely. I played professionally for 12 years and basketball is my life transition to post playing career as a licensed agent for overseas players.

I’ve also been working at my own training facility here, we’ve developed a quite nice following the last three years. So as you can see I’ve been involved in basketball and in all aspects of it at a very high level. COVID I wish we had this platform before COVID if you ask me, but during COVID, I worked out with a few kids online via zoom or all these other platforms.

And I realized as good as it is to train in person that also comes with a certain cost and also comes to kids not having access to certain coaching, coaching styles levels of coaching. For me, it was important to open up this platform, started with the players in mind.

I think it’s going to be becoming 50 50 at this point where it’s also players and coaches, but started to be when I started, it was my idea was that players can come on the platform and they can get to train with really high level coaches. Now we’re at the point that I think, like I said, it’s becoming 50 50 and even coaches can come watching the platform on top of working for us, but also coaches can sign up for the platform and just develop themselves, right?

Watch this course, watch this workout, see how high level coaches work. And I think it’s a win win. And that’s kind of how it all started and where it is right now.  It’s taken us a while, but I think we’re developing quite nicely.

[00:03:45] Mike Klinzing: What’s been the hardest part about putting it all together?

[00:03:49] Vlad Moldoveanu: So many ideas, so much stuff you can do or you want to do I mean we’ll get into later.

Like, we’re at a point, right? AI is becoming so important. And we want to incorporate in our product and we have a bunch of ideas, right? And in the beginning, there was so many ideas with coaches. Are they going to go live? Are they not going to go live on the platform? Can they get feedback?

Like, it’s so many ideas that we just have to go like, okay, stop. Let’s go to basics. You understand what I’m saying, right? So you go from like, just kind of like training, coaching basketball. It’s like, you want to go to fundamentals. It’s like, okay, what are the fundamentals, right?

It’s like, we want this high level workout and we want players and coaches to be able to watch them. Of course, players to do them and follow those workouts and coaches to just either watch and learn maybe some new stuff from the coaches that we have on the platform or just say, Hey, I want to do this too.

I want to help out and also for coaches, it’s a way to create income opportunities and we’ll get to that because we do offer even some jobs overseas sometimes or camp or. Well, we have people reaching out to us like, Hey, I have this camp here. Do you have a coach for us?

And we send out a mass email to our coaches and they get opportunities that otherwise they might not have.

[00:05:16] Mike Klinzing: I love the idea. And I think it’s pretty self explanatory, if I’m a coach. I’ve got a membership. I go on and I can watch the videos and I can watch these. Different master coaches from all over the world teach these different skills and I know for myself as a coach and other coaches that are out there, we’re always looking for new ideas.

Right? And I think 1 of the challenges when you start talking about how do I learn as a coach? And that’s a question that I ask guys on the podcast. All the time where do you go to learn? And so many of them talk about, I go to other teams practices or I’m watching video and whatever. But I think 1 of the things that’s most challenging is just like anybody else is we’re all pressed for time.

And so what you want to have is something that is curated, something that you can find and look up and be like, okay, when I look at this, I’m not just doing a random YouTube search. I know. What I’m getting when I go on train, I can look at, I can see the topics, I can see the coaches. I know what I’m going to see.

And so from that perspective, if I’m a coach and I want to learn and I want to gain and improve my knowledge, I can do that by. Becoming a member and being able to see what all these different coaches are doing that part. I think to me is pretty self explanatory. I think the part that’s interesting and the part that maybe people in our audience who are coaching who maybe aren’t aware of this other piece of kind of what you guys are doing where a coach can become a member and create their own.

Courses that then allows them to make some income. So just walk us through step by step what that process looks like. If I’m a coach who I think, man, I’m really good at teaching screen and roll reads, or I’m really good at working on pack line defense or whatever it is. And I want to be able to teach a particular skill or a particular concept.

How do I go about getting what I know on film? And then as part of the Train platform, what’s that process look like?

[00:07:08] Vlad Moldoveanu: Of course, and that’s actually pretty easy. We made the process as easy as possible, you know I recorded myself, like you said I have a favorite move, right? I use the jab step a lot.

I record videos about jab step and I was like, I feel overwhelmed. And I could tell coaches it’s a lot easier than it seems, right? You can use just the camera tripod. I’m talking about phone too not a professional camera, a phone, a tripod and some kind of wireless microphone or even kind of air pods or anything you have, then all you really have to do is just record a workout like you would teach it to a kid, right?

Like you would have somebody there and be like, Hey, this is how we do it. This is why we do it. And that’s just the. Recording part of it, right? But if you just want to get in touch with us and see if it’s a good fit for everybody. You can always reach out to us via social media. You can reach out to me personally on, on any social media or like my email, which is Vlad.m@gotrainbasketball.com. I talked to the coaches, I explained them everything. So once you get on the platform, right, you record for us. You create an income stream for yourself. Not only that we’re going to pay a fee for you to record your very first video, but then on top of that 30% of all subscriptions that come into Train, the coaches share that based on the minutes watched.

So, similar to YouTube or Apple Music, or YouTube Music the more you get watched, the more you can get paid you get a bigger chunk of the share. So that’s why we’re looking for high quality coaches, you know? And we are fortunate enough to have some very, very high level coaches.

I mean, we’re talking about coaches that are head coaches in the Spanish league right now, right. Which is known to be one of the best in the world. We’re talking about some premier individual skill development coaches that work with the With Sparks and WNBA and San Dixon, right? So like Carla has a from the Philippines.

He works with us, and he was part of Olympic 3X3 team for the Philippines. So we have some really, really high level coaches that have worked with professionals over time. We collaborate with them. They send us some kind of video and then we work with them to make sure we.

You know, we get the polished version out of everything so they don’t need to feel overwhelmed. You know, just kind of reach out to us if you’re interested and we’ll guide you through the steps. You don’t have to just do everything on your own. We’re going to be there by your side and help you as much as we can.

And overall, to me, I think on top of the money side that I talked about, it’s also just about giving yourself a platform, just a bigger platform worldwide. Right? My main base was Romania for so many years. And we have all these coaches in Spain that share this stuff and the Philippines and another place in the world.

So you get to access Let’s say a base of database of players and coaches that you might not have access to otherwise. So just the network part of it, I think it’s huge. And all we have to do is just reach out to us. Like I said, just reach out to me via email or anything. We’re more than open to talk to coaches, schedule video calls and we go from there.

[00:10:27] Mike Klinzing: Do most coaches, I’m just kind of thinking through this as if I was going to go through the process and trying to think of questions that I might have if I was a coach. So let’s say that this idea I hear this, I’m like, oh, that’s intriguing. I might want to try that. Like something that I think a lot of coaches have in their mind that they want their influence to be able to spread farther and wider than just the people that they can touch physically.

Right. You want to be able to, if you think you have a good idea and look what we’ve learned from the podcasts. Anybody who loves the game of basketball, like you do, or the way I do that, we want to be able to have the game be impacted in a positive way. We want to do something positive for the game. And I think most coaches feel that way.

And so if you can take something that you feel you’re very good at and something that you feel can have an impact on. Not just the players that are in front of you every day for practice, but can you share that stuff with. Players from all over the world. This is the way to be able to do that. So let’s say that I’m starting and I want to be that person.

Typically, do guys start with one video? Are they putting together a series of videos? How long is a typical video? Or is there no typical?

[00:11:35] Vlad Moldoveanu: So there’s no typical. We have some time. But there is no typical, right? So well, what do we always do is we have a call with me and the coach, and then I can explain everything there in detail.

We can dive into any questions because I’ve had questions. They vary from some are interested on the financial side more. Some are like, Oh my God, I love the platform. You know, it’s like, can you give me some ideas even of courses that I can do?  Basketball wise and I might just talk to them on the basketball side of the workout, right? So like they just want to get on the platform, but they don’t really know how to put the course together. Well, we have everything there for you. But really, like I said, it’s very simple. All you need is just your phone, a tripod and a microphone.

And then from there, really, what you want to do is record eight to 10 drills. But each one is like 1 to 2 minutes long, right? You have to explain the drill, right? Then you have to show it. And then you want to tell the player how many reps they should do. And it’s that basic. That’s one drill.

And then you’re about to do 10 of those and we put a workout together. Now, we do like the workouts to be very specific, right? So if I’m doing because once you come on the platform, you’re going to see that you’re going to have certain levels, right? We don’t want, so if I’m a beginner and I’m looking for ball handling for beginners.

I want to be able to find only those courses, those workouts. So you don’t have to search too long, too much for what you’re looking for. It’s going to be right there in front of you and just choose one of those workouts and you do them as a player. Well, as a coach, you have to be mindful of that, right?

So if I’m doing a shooting workout, it has to be tailored to a certain category. Maybe it’s high school level. Maybe it’s the pro level. Maybe just the beginners and maybe just shooting off the dribble. Maybe it’s just off ball shooting, right? So it has to have a certain theme, right?

Or if I’m doing defense, maybe we’re just doing help side defense drills. So that’s what we’re asking for. The coaches is to really focus on one team and just go with 8 to 10 drills of that. But each one should have A very brief explanation then you should show it or if you cannot show, just have a player there with you that can show it and then tell them how many reps they do.

Right? So, like, if you’re doing, let’s say, doing the Mikan is right. If that’s a drill, you choose to start a workout with. Well, you just have to explain what the Mikan is. You show it make sure you focus on the things you want to focus on. Right. If some folks want to keep the ball high all the time and all this stuff.

So you focus on that and then you tell them how many reps they should do for how many sets. That way the player, when, when the player is watching this, they know they can either watch it and do it, or they can just take notes and be like, okay, I’m going to Mikan. Cause I’m going to do the next set.

It’s going to be whatever it is, you know? So you give them a workout that they were able to watch and then just do themselves. That’s on the player side. You know, if you’re a coach, you’re going to watch that and be like, okay, cool. Like they, they want to do the Mikan is to start a workout with and they do three sets.

Okay. Maybe I should do five or, but at least you get an idea, right? So if you’re on the coach’s side and watching this, you just can always get ideas. You might see a new drill here and there. I’m sure you will, because again, we go back to having coaches worldwide. And I can tell you that I’ve played in nine countries.

All coaches, they teach different, they teach them. Yes, basketball is a universal language until. You get to play in China, or you get to play a pick and roll in the U. S. in college, or you play it at an NBA level, or you play it in Serbia, Romania, and Greece. They play it a little bit different.

So, there’s always different ways to teach the game. And that’s what you’re going to get on the platform. You’re going to get all these coaches with their own philosophy. So you might see the same drill, and you know, they might focus on one technique in Spain, and you might see our U. S. coach teaching it just a little bit different. And then you can see as a player, what, I think the Spanish way really fits my type of game or whatever it is.

[00:15:50] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. So if I’m a coach and I have an idea and let’s face it, most coaches are not used to being in front of the camera explaining.

And I think it takes a little bit of time to feel comfortable with doing that. But what I hear you saying is that if I’m a coach and I have an idea of, hey, I’d love to be involved in this. And I’d love to take some of the things that I teach to my players and put those on video and get onto the platform that if I make this call and I reach out to you via email or call, or we do a zoom, whatever that I share that idea with you.

And now you’re going to be able to kind of walk me through and say, okay, this is what you want to teach. Here’s kind of how you could structure the video. Is that what I hear you saying?

[00:16:30] Vlad Moldoveanu: Exactly. I mean, it’s that simple. Honestly, it’s very easy. You can create a template for you.

Just kind of fill it in. And then you just go record it and you can record each video separately. You know, you don’t have to go in there, but, oh, my God, I’ve talked 20 minutes straight. You know, all you got to do is just, like, record one drill. Stop pause. I recorded one of my workouts in one sitting and I have a colleague I recorded his like over five days.

It was like one, two videos each day, like just didn’t have time and that’s fine because you record for two and a half minutes. That’s it. You’re done. That’s one video and you basically have to put 10 of those together because once you go on the website You know if you’re going to go to our website Even on the free version, so we’re going to get into that, right?

We have the subscription page paid for the paid version, right? They goTrainbasketball.com where our premium coaches are our showcasing their workouts and their ideas But we also have a free version because like I said before I was a player and you know, we want to help Right.

We’re, we’re where you want to help and you know, we want to help the coaches, help the players create this, this connection as much as possible. So we also have a free version, right? If you go to free.gotrainbasketball.com, well that’s a free version. All you have to do is just sign up with your email and you’re going to get curated workouts from YouTube, right?

We have somebody just go on YouTube and we curate those workouts. So if you’re looking for a shooting workout, Right. You’re still going to find the same stuff, of course, not from premium coaches, but from the stuff that we were able to find on YouTube just kind of get a feel for what we’re about.

So it’s going back to coach as far as like recording. I really, I know it can be challenging. I know I didn’t like being in front of the camera, especially I was a player. I wasn’t really a coach, so it was very different trying to explain the drills and everything, but it’s a lot easier than it’s a lot less daunting than it seems.

Let’s put it that way.

[00:18:38] Mike Klinzing: And you get better at it real fast. I will say that. I know I filmed some video. Vlad, this was a while ago, man. We probably started in like 2015, me and a friend of mine that. He was kind of my video recorder and I recorded a bunch of stuff. And I think the one thing that we were missing is what you guys built, which is a good platform to be able to get it out there.

But I know that when I started the first couple of times, you’re up there and you’re trying to talk and you got the camera and you’re like, can the mic picking me up and how do I look? And what does it sound like? And am I explaining it right? And this and that, and then after you do it a couple of times, you start to feel way, way more comfortable and it gets way, way easier.

So any coaches that are out there, you’re thinking about doing it. Don’t judge it by your first. Timer to in front of the camera, trying to record a drill by the time you do it a couple of times, you’ll feel way, way more confident about getting behind the camera and actually being able to do it. Being out in front.

[00:19:31] Vlad Moldoveanu: Yeah. And don’t worry. You’re going to have to record quite a maybe 2 or 3 times the same. The very 1st thing, is like it’s kind of like in the movies like a blooper. It happened. I was like, Oh, what’d I say? You know, like, and you just have to go to flow because I know coaches.

You want to have it perfect, right? This is one of those things where just the drill, just go explain it. Like, don’t try to make a script for it. I think when I was trying to script it, it was just the worst thing. I was like, Oh my God. And after 15 minutes, I was like, okay, this is the drill.

Just explain it. And that was the easiest thing that I can put is like the drill, explain it, show it, tell them number of sets and that’s it. And that went like, that flow was very, very easy. Now, if you try to script it is going to be a lot more difficult and time consuming. So just be yourself, be natural because all coaches at the end, they were teachers.

So you have it in you. You just have to like you said, the camera fright, maybe just. Get over it. He’s going to get over it quick.

[00:20:37] Mike Klinzing: It’s such good advice not to script it because I know when you try to script something and you start thinking about it and then you try to remember those specific words and it always, always, always.

Trips you up. And I learned that with the podcast. I learned it when I was doing video that you sort of have to have almost like an outline, right? Like you’re you have in your head. You almost have some, some notes of like, okay, this is kind of the pattern that I want to follow, but I can’t memorize a script because it just.

It just never works. It just does not work. So yeah, if you can just be yourself and teach the drill, like you’ve taught a hundred times, things go way, way easier. All right. So if I’m a coach and I want to do this, I want to get on the platform. I want to start recording videos, add them to the train platform.

I know you said it once before, but say it again, where do people have to go? How do they reach out to you to get started in the process of becoming a Train coach?

[00:21:31] Vlad Moldoveanu: Absolutely. So you can go to GoTrainBasketball.com or you can just email me at vlad.m@GoTrainBasketball.com and I’ll take it from there. I’ll take you through all the steps. And it’ll be easier and smoother than it might seem in the beginning to put out some videos.

[00:21:56] Mike Klinzing: There you go, and you got your own personal coach or Vlad will take care of you. Let’s talk about it from the player side.

[00:22:04] Vlad Moldoveanu: That’s the part that I thought about when I started I just want to get better. And I think thinking back to my childhood I never had, like, individual skills development coach, either whether it was, yeah, there was not one in the area that was just could be a financial thing also.

So for me, it was important to just give back. That’s kind of where it started. It’s like, how can I give back some of these kids? I had kids when I was playing kids in Turkey, Greece, Poland, Romania, when I was playing in those countries and they’re like, Hey, how can I do this drill?

How can I get better at this? I’m like, Oh my God, this kid just. It’s giving some help and this is my way of giving back giving them access to this. Premium coaches, this high level coaching staffs that they might not have access otherwise. So for players, you’re going to get on a platform and for a small amount every month, you’re going to get access to all these coaches and get these workouts.

And all you have to do is just follow them, listen to what they say, and you’re going to end up getting better because you’re going to put in the work and you know, the work is right because these coaches are good coaches. So. It’s on my side, it’s a win. You just got to be able and want to just get better.

I think that’s, that’s what it comes down to. And I’ve seen a lot of players you know, follow this. Cause how many times have you searched like on YouTube and you try to find a ball handling drill, like, I don’t like this one. Oh, this one’s not for my level. Oh, I don’t know who this coach is.

Oh, he only has X amount of views stuff like that. Like here, you’re going to come on the platform and these coaches are really good coaches. So we make it easier. And then, oh, you need to be like, like we said earlier I need shooting for beginners. Well, you’re going to find out on the website in three clicks, right?

So you’re not going to have to go sort off to like YouTube or whatever it is. You have it right there. And then you only have to do, just choose the workout. Just do it. It’s that simple.

[00:24:02] Mike Klinzing: I love the level part of it because I think that that’s something that when I think about. Looking for stuff for, for myself as a coach, when I’ve looked for stuff for my own kids to work on different things when they’re sick of dad’s ideas.

I’m like, I need some new ideas. I’m trying to go and find something else that when I do searches, right? You look and you’re like, oh, this sounds cool. And then you get like, 2 minutes in the video and you’re like, yeah, this is for like NBA players and. My kids aren’t capable of doing that or vice versa.

Maybe you find something that’s way too easy because you got a high school varsity player and you’re talking about basic dress. And basically it just becomes to the point where it’s overwhelming, right? I mean, there is just so much stuff out there. And I think anybody who’s ever looked at YouTube to try to find basketball drills or concepts or whatever, there’s a million things out there.

And so what you guys have done is obviously streamline that process and said, Hey, we’ve brought. Some of the best coaches in the world onto the platform, we’ve had them categorize and identify what particular level of player this drill or this course is good for. And so now I know what skill I’m working on.

I know the level that I’m looking for, and I know it’s from a coach who has done what they do at a very, very high level. So I know I’m getting quality information and that allows me as a player to then just grab that video or grab that course. And as you said, go out on the court and put the work in and that’s really what you’re looking for, because you can spend hours and hours searching for stuff and still not find exactly what you’re looking for if you’re just randomly searching YouTube.

But what I think you guys have done an awesome job of is by putting it on those levels and helping players to identify, okay, I’m level 1 or I’m level 2, or this is a level 4 ball handling course. I know kind of where I fit. Once I get a feel for those levels and then I can find, as you said, I can find exactly what I’m looking for.

So if I’m a player, where do I go to take advantage of this?

[00:26:02] Vlad Moldoveanu: So our main platform, gotrainbasketball.com. And we also have the free platform, which is free.gotrainbasketball.com. You know, on the free version, all you have to do is just sign up with your email and you get access to our database, on the premium version.

Of course it comes with a subscription. And you pay a small monthly fee to have access to all these videos and coaches. And then, like I said earlier just like the coaches have a process and everything, the players should have one too. An idea and. That’s my main thing is also like we talked about the levels, right?

Then you want to come on the platform as level one. I hope they’re going to end up being a level four by doing a lot of stuff on the platform and you’re going to get reviews. You know, the coaches have reviews over there. So as a player, you can review a coach and their workouts you can give them a rating so you can choose coaches based on the level you think they are at and you are at so there’s plenty of options for you.

But it comes down to just. How bad do you want to get better? When you don’t have access to in person coaching, or when you just want a different voice, because a lot of times variety, right? Variety. It’s you hear the same voice over and over again. You can coach your kids all you want or your coach I don’t know your head coach at the varsity level is sometimes your kids just need a new voice.

So you just got to find that one. And I think that’s what we offer. You know, I offer such a wide variety of coaching staffs that they get, I’m sure everybody can find a coach. That gives them something on that platform, something that even 1% better that they can use to get 1% better.

[00:27:45] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, you guys have built such a good platform that works from a technology standpoint that is easy to navigate that. Is easy to understand whether I’m a player or I’m a coach, I can go on there and I can easily identify. Like I said, the levels I can identify. Well, which coach is this course coming from?

What’s the skill that I’m going to learn? If I go to this course, or I have a skill in mind, I can go and I can search that and figure all that stuff out and. The fact that the site is easy to navigate, I think is a huge plus. And then I think what really makes what you guys are doing unique compared to most of the sites out there is that you are not only a platform for players to improve, but you’re also a platform for coaches to be able to a learn, but B to be able to share what they know, to be able to build their own videos and video courses, and then be compensated for that, which again, All of us coaches, as many of you have listened to the podcast numerous times, a lot of our young coaches making a lot of money.

If you’re a high school coach or you’re beginning your college coaching career, there are a lot of unpaid jobs and jobs where you’re getting some housing in the dorms and whatever. So to be able to add a little bit of income to your world is never a bad thing. And I think you guys have done an awesome job of being able to create the kind of platform that allows for both players and coaches to grow and help to grow the game, which ultimately is what it’s all about.

So I don’t know if there’s anything else that we didn’t hit on that you want to share. And then after you talk about that, we’ll give people all the information again, one more time where they can go. And we’ll have all that obviously in the show notes. And people can see that on both Train social media and on the Hoop Heads social media.

We got that all out there. So you can figure out how you can get on there and either contribute, learn, or. As a coach, or you can get on there and train as a player, but just is there anything that we missed?

[00:29:40] Vlad Moldoveanu: Well, like I said, we have a longer term vision and kind of cover the fundamentals. And that’s what we are, too.

But we definitely want to become the go to resource for players and coaches when it when it becomes player development. That’s huge for me, because I think X’s and O’s is 1 thing you know but for player development like I said in the beginning, and for me, it was huge to give back those kids that were like, Hey, how can I do this better?

And I want to become that go to resource for players and coaches when it comes to player development. Now, the second part is I would love to build a global community of players and coaches. Right. And no, I’m not talking about pros right now like NBA, Euroleague, China, right?

Like, I’m just talking about the youth, the grassroots and the coaching staffs that can help those guys and my global community. I would love to have a monthly call where our coaches can present some ideas to other coaches and just they can meet each other right from all sides of the world.

And of course, we’re exploring some AI related stuff in our product, because I would love down the road to have one click and then the ai is going to give you a workout and it’s going to send you links to various coaching so each. Take drills from each coach, right?

Right. So like you said, I want to work out the shooting workout for level four and he’s going to put all the highest rated or whatever it is that would be cool. Right? So like we have a longer term vision and we also like by building that global community, like we offer.

Even jobs, like I had somebody reach out to me. He’s like, Hey, I have a job at his academy, like for under 16, under 18 in Romania. He’s like, do you have any coaches that might want to take this that want to apply for it? And we sent out an email, maybe there’s a young coach that just, Hey, you know what? I just graduated college. I’m a trainer. I’m going to go through Romania. Right. So. We try to give them some opportunities too. If we have those and coaches or GMs or presidents in Europe or Asia, or they reach out to me and say, Hey, do you know anybody?

And most likely we’re going to call on our Train coaches and see who’s where right. And who might like to join a camp in the summer or Like I said, join maybe like a full time or part time job overseas like you never know when this opportunity is coming.

We want to offer our coaches as much as possible on the side where they can create and we promote them as individuals, right? We don’t they always have their, their Instagram handles over there, the emails like stuff like that. We want to make sure that our coaches promote themselves.

We’re not here to have them promote us all the time, right? So, like, we want them to, hey, my name is So and so and I’m from here. I’m doing this. You can find me at this Instagram or this website. And that that way coaches get out the word about themselves and grow their audience because that’s huge nowadays, right?

We’ve had on the platform coach Jeremy Hayes. I mean, if you go to his Instagram when we first worked with Jeremy, I think he had like 10,000 followers. He’s way, way over that now. So I’m not saying we had a part in that, but we’re very happy he’s a part of our coaching I call it staff.

Because this is like the Train staff, right? This is our coaching staff and he’s part of it and I appreciate all the coaches that are on the platform. And I really look forward to growing this coaching staff and help us grow together,

[00:33:28] Mike Klinzing: Well, that adds value, right?  The bigger it gets, the more connections you have, the more people that you can refer to this, or the more people that can then reach out to you and say, hey, I’ve got this opportunity or the more opportunities will come through the platform as it grows. So I think you guys are in the beginning stages right now.

And as you continue to grow it, and I know you’ve got some great, great people that are on there already. And hopefully as a result of getting the word out there and letting coaches know that they can be a part of that platform. And as you have more conversations and start to add more coaches to the platform, it only becomes more valuable because that database of coaches that you can then recommend or try to find places to be able to put coaches that are looking for positions or.

Camps or like you said, leagues, different places that are looking for coaches. Now you’ve got this stable of people that you can reach out to and say, Hey, we’ve got this opportunities and we want to take it. And the more people you have contact with, the better off you are, just like anything, right? I think in, in life and certainly in the game of basketball, there’s nothing else that I’ve learned from doing the podcast for five years.

It’s that relationships are everything. And when you talk about being able to get a job or, or being able to get that next opportunity. 99% of the time, it doesn’t come down to, Hey, I’m the greatest. Skill development coach in the world, or I’m the greatest X and O person in the world, it comes down to, I knew the guy who could help me get to that job.

And that’s how you end up getting there is through the relationships. And so what I hear you saying is not only you guys a technology based platform, but you’re also a platform that. You’re about building those kinds of relationships that’s going to allow you to mutually help everybody who’s on the platform from players all the way through coaches.

And I think that when I think about the vision that you laid out to me, it seems like one that makes a ton of sense that as you guys continue to build it out, people are going to want to be a part of it.

[00:35:21] Vlad Moldoveanu: Absolutely. And I think we’re in the beginning stages and we have a very extensive plan on how we want to grow.  We want to take baby steps it’s like kind of like basketball, right? You start off fundamentals before you do your combo, move your car, your combo, move in a Kyrie Irving finish, you want to get the fundamentals. You won’t learn how to pivot and all that stuff. So that is my approach to this as well.

We don’t want to jump over hurdles and steps. We want to make sure we put one foot in front of another and, and we grow steadily. Yeah, I was going to get there. So, right. If, if, if anybody wants to, wants to contact us, right. Just go check out the platform gotrainbasketball.com. Our free platform at free.gotrainbasketball.com. And you can check out all the curated YouTube videos on that one. And of course you can just. If you’re interested in coaching, if you’re interested to know more about the platform, just go to @gotrainBB on Instagram, on our social media, right?

@GotrainBB. And then you’re going to see some demos from coaches, some quick reels, some ideas, maybe, and see if you like it and if you do, like I said, always feel free to reach out to us. Either via social media directly to GoTrain or just reach out to me at vlad.m@GoTrainBasketball.com and I’ll be more than happy to just answer an email or schedule a call more than happy to, 30 minute, one hour conversation. And at the end of the day, we’re all going to talk hoops. It might just be a little different, but we’re just going to talk basketball. So there’s nothing too daunting out there.

We’re just going to talk hoops. You might just bounce an idea and like, Oh, what’d you think of that? You know, like I had coaches that would just start talking about like the NBA playoffs like it was just a conversation like, Oh yeah. What’d you think about that move?

I absolutely love it. I love basketball and I know all the coaches out there. That’s what they’re in the business for to teach, to help the youth grow and to teach you the game to love at the end of the day. So more than happy, just feel free to reach out to me anytime.

And we’ll talk more.

[00:37:35] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. You guys are building there with Train is outstanding stuff. And if you are a player that’s listening, highly recommend you go out and grab a membership. You can get a discount through the wHoop Heads Pod. So you can go ahead and access that through the links that you see in the show notes for this episode, which you can access at hoopheadspod.com to pick up your discount.

And I just think again, if you’re a coach, it’s an opportunity for you to share all the knowledge that you have. And then also a way for you to be able to boost your income. And as Vlad continues to build the program out, I just think that the opportunities with train are going to continue to grow.

And to you personally, Vlad can’t thank you enough for taking the time to jump on with us and explain everything so that anybody who’s out there player or coach understands what you guys are building and are going to continue to build moving forward. And we really appreciate that. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.