Casey Mulholland - Kinetic Pro & Tech Innovations in Baseball

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over two years and running. It is 2021, and I am your host, Eric Malzone. I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. When you do what you love, running, racing, or simply enjoying the great outdoors, you want to do it for life. Insight Tracker can help. Insight Tracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, Insight Tracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clear picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. Personally, given the results of my Insight Tracker DNA and blood tests, I now have a clear and simple game plan to lower my cholesterol and stave off my family's genetic history of heart disease. The best part is that the plan doesn't include any kind of pharmaceuticals, just personalized nutrition and natural supplementation. Possibly my favorite feature of Insight Tracker is the inner age score, a singular metric that shows me how my biological age compares to my chronological age. They just gamify longevity. It's crazy cool. For a limited time, you can get 25% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future. But wait, there is more. If you're a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or any other health and wellness practitioner, you can now leverage Insight Tracker services to help your clients perform better than they ever have. And you can offer them discounts while you earn revenue. InsightTracker Pro is your gateway to offering your clients Insight Tracker, the science-backed, ultra-personalized performance platform trusted by elite athletes and top coaches. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future to get more information and enjoy deep, deep discounts. That is insight tracker.com forward slash future. Kids deserve our best. Brand X has dedicated themselves to doing what is best for kids in the youth fitness space for over two decades. Look, all major pediatric organizations agree that youth strength and conditioning and fitness programs must be specifically designed for children and coached by those specifically educated in working with children. This seems like a no-brainer. A successful and sustainable youth program comes from educated coaches who have all the tools to best serve the demographic. Brand X offers unequaled, ongoing support through ever-growing relevant content delivered monthly and mountains of information leveraging their 20 plus years of experience. As the developers of the original Kids Functional Fitness Program and Certification, and recognized as the world's leader in youth fitness, Brand X now offers Plug and Play Systems, a fully integrated and personally guided roadmap to start, build, and sustain a flourishing and profitable youth fitness program. This includes mentorship, education, programming, and a huge resource library, all offered at an affordable monthly price. If you are a coach, boutique gym owner, a school district, or anyone interested in paving a better future for our youth, you've got to check this out. For a limited time, Brand X is waiving the setup fee and offering a VIP discount on plug and play solutions. Visit thebrandxmethod.com slash VIP to get your code today. That is thebrandxmethod.com slash VIP. This episode of the Future of Fitness is presented to you by the Fit Tech Club, a business network run by the creators of the FitTech Summit, Europe's leading conference devoted to fitness and health technology. Look, friends, the fitness industry is changing faster than ever. The intersection of technology with fitness and health is growing bigger and more dynamic by the minute. Gyms are exploding figuratively, and their constituent parts are ending up at home, outdoors, on your wrist, or in entirely new places with brilliantly new concepts. Investors are pumping astronomical amounts of money into the market like we've never seen before. The FitTech Club believes that collaboration is the advantage to these times of change. That's why the club aims to bring thought leaders together to inspire them by making the right contacts at the right time and giving insights to the industry's most relevant and current trends. Here's what Melanie Lauer, CEO of Kettler and TriSports, says about the FitTech Club.

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Appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you. Uh who do we uh shout out to Erica Souter for getting us connected. Um you guys are in the uh you're in the Tampa Bay area, right? Am I am I right in saying that?

Yep, exactly. Yep. Erica just moved in and uh we've been established for a little while, so nice to uh have uh different businesses, different industries, but uh same same goals, same mindsets.

Yeah, yeah, man. I I've starting to see, I mean, maybe it's just because of uh, well, Tampa Bay has the Buccaneers, right? You got the NFL Champs. Uh you got uh the hockey championship as well. You guys got the Stanley Cup. Um a lot of very uh I guess people I respect quite a bit in the coaching industry are migrating to Tampa. So question, what is going on in Tampa Bay? Like what's in the water? What are you guys drinking over there? What it's a fascinating place to be right now for sport and athletes.

Yeah, first off, it's uh been re uh recoined the last two years. It's now Champa Bay. So we uh moved from Tampa Bay to Tampa Bay, so we're uh updating the name. But uh no, you know, it's it's actually interesting. I laugh because um you know I didn't really intend to start the business that I that we run today. Uh there's just so much opportunity in this area. And I laugh because there's a new gym that opens up on every street corner, you know, every week, I feel like in in Tampa. And um it's just a lot of people really interested in doing really great things for people. And um, I would say, you know, uh one of the unique things is obviously you can play your round here and the sun's out and you know you're by the beach, but um you know it's very competitive, uh the the especially youth market here. Um, you know, there's a a drive, something about this area. There's a drive uh where kids really do want to see the best of themselves, and and you got a really good support system and organizations that are pushing kids in the right direction, I feel like, in a lot of cases to do that.

So yeah. Yeah, it's great to hear, man. I mean it's it's uh you know, I I get to work with the folks at Brand X method and and their you know fundamental principles of you know making kids move more and getting them ready for the challenges of life through movement and sport, right? And uh, you know, there is there's a big problem. We won't get into it, but there is a big problem with today's youth and kind of uh the state of their fitness and their mental health and um all that's you know, a whole nother podcast. And I'm curious, you know, you mentioned uh well gyms being open and the ability to be outside, but what what are some of the characteristics or quality of the Tampa Champa Bay community uh that you think are you know nurturing those qualities so that that athletes are coming really strongly out of it? You mentioned it was kind of a community thing.

Yeah, it's um you know, there we do obviously there are issues, no doubt, especially in the youth market uh across the board, but um, you know, I think you know for myself, I I didn't have a background in in business, I didn't have a background in uh you know engineering. Uh I was just really curious. And I would say one of the great things about the Tampa community, for whatever reason, um, you know, people are very open to talking about things. You know, you can find a lot of incubators, you can find a lot of um you know just unique individuals that are willing to talk to you. Uh and it's I feel like that's not always the case in other places. So um, you know, one of the uniquenesses of the community down here, I feel like a lot of people just have their door open. And so when you're you know trying to get started, you're trying to find your way in, uh, and you're trying to innovate, uh, you know, it's a it's a hotbed of entrepreneurs. And so um it's just it's great to be able to sit around like-minded individuals, and especially with you know, COVID, you know, being what it is and Florida being open, there's a lot of people that have moved here. Uh, and it seems like that's become even more expediated uh with others coming from other industries now and and moving into the area and really trying to you know you know fall into that community and feel that boost it. It's been really good. So um I'd say we just really uh welcome entrepreneurship down here, which is great. So yeah.

Awesome, man. Well, let's get into the entrepreneurship side of things. So you uh I'll you know, kind of allow you to give your your backstory here, but you know, you're one of the founder or one of the founders of Kinetic Pro, and you guys are doing some really innovative stuff within uh you know the sports-specific area of baseball and throwing. Um so I guess before we get into that, man, kind of walk us up what led to that, the founding of that company, your background, and uh yeah, kind of your origin story.

Yeah, so I'm the founder lead developer of Kinetic Pro Performance. Uh, you know, honestly, I did not mean to start a business. It kind of happened. Um, I got done playing uh my my backgrounds is really as a baseball player. Um I went to IMJ Academy in Bradenton, Florida, which is now very well known as a very prominent youth academy for you know aspiring athletes, uh, which is really a lot of where my uh sports science background kind of fell into play. Uh, and and at least got I got intrigued at that time. Uh but out of high school, I was supposed to be a first-round draft pick. I missed it by about six years, Tommy John surgery, and started really getting peppered with the why question. Uh, you know, you miss a million dollars at the age of 17 years old, and uh you start to kind of wonder what what if and and how do we get to the next level. So um ended up at Ole Miss uh grade school, uh transferred out after a year, junior college, University of South Florida, uh played for the Dodgers for a little bit and ended up getting hurt. But along the all along the way, I was asking questions, trying to solve the problem of and and the question of why did I get hurt? Like what happened to me? Um and so when I got done playing, I was kind of writing programs for myself at the time and uh decided to pop my head into a biomechanics lab at IMG. Uh lucky enough they had one. So uh started getting some answers from a technical side of things from from an engineering background, from a guy named Ben Hansen and the MODIS Global team. Uh, and then started training one guy. One guy turned into two, two, and we looked up, we had uh, you know, two other guys coming through the door, and I had to open a business and you know, really make this thing official. And uh it's all been word of mouth, and it's uh a really great community of guys that uh you know, got some guys doing some amazing things in the league, uh and got some young guys that are you know really bought in and wanting to change the game as well. And just it's it's been innovation and and it's been a community, and it's it's been really thankful and lucky uh to get put in the spot that I've been in.

Yeah, so why walk us down the road, Casey? Like what where where did you see in you know in the sport of baseball, or would you what do you say? Do you say baseball or throwing sports, or are you like are you specific? What how do you address that so I can get it right?

Yeah, so it's just pitchers and baseball. Um we've really it's a beast market. Uh it's it's the sports science side of you know trying to help pitchers understand arm health and and also performance.

Yeah. So where did you see, I mean, generally all great innovations come from kind of uh you know scratching your own itch and finding a problem. So what what were the problems that you saw that uh you looked to solve and innovate?

So baseball, uh like many industries, uh, is an oral tradition when it comes to coaching. So if you think about it this way, uh, you know, you learn and you watch somebody who's excellent, uh, and a coach tells you subjectively this is how I did it when I played, or this is what somebody else taught me. Um, you know, only recently have we really had the the data and the objective side of sport um like we do today. So um, you know, I started asking questions in high school, which was, you know, why are we doing this? Like, why, why, why this drill? Like, why should you tell me to change my mechanics completely? Why are you telling me I'm gonna get injured? Um, and some people had you know pseudo-objective information, but most of the time it was the way people felt about things. And that just didn't sit well with me. Uh, I felt like there was always a missing component to my my injuries. Um, and so when I started to realize I got done playing Pro Ball, and um I I always heard strength and mechanics were the two big things. You know, you gotta be really strong, you gotta have good, strong shoulders, a good foundation, uh, and you gotta have great mechanics. And we hadn't really objectively started looking at the mechanics. Strength was pretty well quantified, you know, we had some good metrics there, but I always felt there was this missing category. And it wasn't until I got into the MODIS lab, uh, again, you know, shouting out Ben Hansen and and uh what the MODIS team was in 2016, uh Ben kind of opened my eyes to this thing called workload management. And I went, aha, like that's it. That that's the thing that was missing. It's not necessarily you know just about strength and mechanics, it's also about how much we're doing and how we program that. And so I kind of had this aha moment of not only you know understanding the complexity of that, but then also looking into the technology behind that. Uh, and it just brought me into a whole world of of engineering and and a whole space. I'm no engineer, but you know, I know enough to be dangerous now to to you know build products and and help layers start to solve problems and and kind of dove into the research space.

Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, that's what that's what it takes. It takes someone who knows enough to be dangerous about technology and knows the direct application and where the opportunities are, and then you can bridge that gap, and then you can, you know, you can find people to to help you do the rest of it. Uh so tell us what is it exactly that Kinetic Pro does from a technology standpoint? I know you have a band product, you have an app coming out, you got a bunch of different kind of layers to what you do. But yeah, give us insight. What is the actual business?

Yeah, so we really started with just the founding principles of training athletes. Um, and that was just writing a program, you know, a basic throwing program, uh, utilizing some things like weighted ball use, uh, you know, pitch. So in in baseball today, we have uh these systems that capture the ball in flight. Uh so they're ball flight systems. And so I was using one, uh, invested in one a long time back, and was using one to help guys understand how their pitches move. Uh so that was really the foundation of it. And then it just blossomed. We started asking more why questions, got into things like BBT, um, and then we started developing our own products, things like our bands product, which uh the gist of it is that we're creating an individualized band program based off a shoulder assessment process that we've patented at this point. Um, and so when we look at uh you know, even our throwing models, uh, I started taking that idea of workload management and we started looking at how to write uh you know, off of technology that already existed, how do we apply this to the field? And so I wrote the first dynamic throwing model um in that space. Uh so we have a couple of of, like I said, just main pieces, as you mentioned, a couple of products, uh, but it all comes back to the idea that we're trying to create a system uh that allows the athlete to basically step in, uh, utilize the objective data, and then get feedback and continue and improve. So if you want to simplify it all down, really our products are our bands, uh, our workload management, uh, and then our app that's coming out. Uh, but we leverage and utilize a lot of other technologies to combine with those pieces to provide outputs for our athletes.

Yeah, yeah. That that was my next question, is you know, to get the outputs that you guys are working for, which is you know, actionable data, right? And probably I imagine insights that you guys provide on, hey, this is when to work harder, when to work down. I don't know, I've never played baseball. Um, but what what are the inputs? Where are you guys getting the data? Where's that coming from?

Yeah, so we have uh IMU, so basic uh wearable technology. Um so we utilize uh an IMU that sits up over the UCL on the medial elbow uh and it tracks torque. Uh so per throw. Uh in baseball, we have this thing called pitch counts, which we look at every throw that gets pitched or every ball that gets pitched, uh, but we don't track every throw. So imagine only measuring the races that you run, right? That doesn't make a lot of sense in training. I want to build up and make sure that my load is appropriate to get ready for a marathon or whatever that race is. It's the same thing in throwing, it's it's an endurance component. Uh, we want to measure that fitness for that endurance over time and be able to deliver actionable items daily uh for guys to build up for seasons. So, you know, it's it's funny because uh we talk to parents, we talk to players, and it's oftentimes that people don't understand the technology pieces that we utilize. We have IMUs, uh, we have uh motion capture technology, uh, we have uh like we talk about all flight technology, which is basically just a radar system, um, and even things like a VBT unit. Um, you know, uh we have so many different pieces. Uh, but the the main pieces that we're gonna use on a on a daily basis with our athletes to track the most are gonna be our IMUs and our radar technologies, uh to to you know and imply data that athletes understand, which I think is a huge problem, not just in baseball, but across the the the span of sport, right? So um trying to simplify those pieces.

Yeah. That's uh you know, that seems to be probably one of the biggest focuses that uh fitness and sport technology has now is like, okay, we have a ton of data, right, from all these different you're adding more data points with your system, right? Um, but the ability to actually do the okay, well, what now? We got all the data points, but what do we do with it? And uh, you know, I'd interviewed um uh a guy on Mike, uh I can't remember his last name now, uh, about a year and a half ago when we talked about where where things were going. He said that the biggest thing is, you know, athlete management systems and all their variations and being able to, and that's why data scientists are now coming into the fitness and sports industry, right? You're starting to see that influx in it. Five years ago, if you asked me if data science was going to be a big part of our industry, I'd be like, uh, what? That doesn't make sense. Uh so a couple more questions for you in this, and and maybe you kind of breezed over it earlier, but what is IMU exactly?

So it's an inertial measurement unit. Um, and so it's comprised of a few mean pieces. Um, in this case, the way I'll give you an example of how an IMU works for baseball specifically for throwing. Um so uh an IMU has has two really big main components. We're talking about the arm. One is a gyroscope, which is telling us where the arm is in space, and the other one's an accelerometer that determines how fast the arm is moving. Um so when we're looking at uh an arm throwing, for example, let's say I wanted to trigger uh an IMU to record a specific throw. Well, my arm is constantly moving when I run, when I'm you know walking back to the mound or around the field. Um what we need to do is we need to be able to isolate all that extra noise, right? All that extra data that's coming in of just all the movement. We want to only focus on the throws. So when the arm, and in this case, the unit that we use, uh when the arm goes up to throw, that gyroscope triggers once it goes past a certain range, uh, and once the accelerometer goes past a certain speed, and it starts to say, okay, record now. And so then it'll record at a certain rate that allows us to actually see uh the positioning of the arm, the movement, the speed of the arm, it takes in your body type, uh, and then it creates a torque value uh to give us an output to determine how much load or how much stress was was in that single throw that you just threw.

Yeah, fascinating, man. Um where are you as a company right now? Like, are you guys in the market? Are you kind of still developing the technology? Are you in beta? Uh yeah, give us some insights as where where the company is right now.

Yeah, so we have different uh really January this in 2022 is gonna be a um drop for us where we're gonna really uh announce and launch some of the the really the hardware software that we've been developing. Um we've been currently partnered with and utilizing a lot of other software hardwares uh to suffice the outputs that we've been trying to create. Um but we we kind of target um our business is broken out into where we target uh, for example, our partnered schools. Um so groups like University of Michigan, uh, where I'll work with them and basically write their throwing programs for them based off of this technology. So I'm never up, you know, I'm stopped by Michigan, but I'm not there constantly. I'm down here in Tampa, but I'm able to see all the throws that their team accumulates and we're able to write programming for that. So that's just one example of where we can go uh to direct to a team and I work with the coaches as kind of a partnership versus you know, maybe in our facility or even our our big league guys, you know, I'll watch with the individual athlete uh and I'll utilize other technologies to um kind of work with them uh one-on-one as a remote in a remote setting uh to provide them training. So um as a business right now, we're launching uh what has been in beta, which is our bands, uh, in January. We're gonna be launching a workload sleeve, uh, which is our own in uh January to do what we talked about in the throwing component. Uh then we have our software, uh, which is gonna be the space at which all this information is gonna come in and allow us to take much deeper insights uh into how all these pieces work together. Um and so that software uh is gonna be called the KP app uh and that will include all these different components into one nice streamlined uh software for athletes to use daily.

So yeah, awesome. Um so the question that comes to mind is like, okay, so you specifically work with pitchers, and pitchers are specifically part of baseball, and there's only so many baseball teams and baseball players out there. So how how big is this market? Like, I'm sure you've you've run some rudimentary numbers on or more detailed, I don't know, but what are we looking at here?

Yeah, so I mean, solving the the issue of Tommy John surgery is, you know, I I can't even put a dollar figure on it. Um, MLB teams specifically, you know, if you're the guy that solved that, that if you correct that code, uh you know, you're talking about uh full-scale implementation across you know multiple markets, um, which is which is great. But you know, honestly, um, when I got into it from the business side of it, like I said, it was kind of more organic. We really haven't done any marketing as a business. And and you know, part of me, I kind of laugh. You know, we've been in the development phases for a little while. Um, and we've got this nice business that's you know gained some notoriety and and some growth, but people hear about us from somebody else that's had a great experience with us. And so um from that end of it, you know, uh I'm not sure I can tell you how big exactly the market is. Uh, I can tell you that there is you know a handful of groups like mine that are doing some similar things. Uh, but uh you know, I really want to solve the problem that exists in baseball with Tommy John surgeries, period. And if that helps one guy, you know, I don't really all the money that we've spent and all the time that we've spent, the effort we spent, you know, I sound I know it sounds cliche, but uh it it changes the the course of somebody who's potentially gonna go through what I went through uh in my career. And that's what really drives me, you know, gets me up in the morning and and uh you know makes this thing worth it. So uh how big is the market? I'm not sure, but if the market was just one, I'd still go after it to make sure somebody doesn't go through the experiences that I had.

Yeah, yeah, good answer. Uh you know, I had the opportunity to talk to uh Eric Cressy. He was on Morpheus Radio, which we haven't released that episode for people. Actually, we haven't released a podcast yet, but he'll be on it. Um and I was shocked to find out how hard coaches work, especially at the national level, right? The MLB level. Like it is, I mean, everybody, right? The the players, the coaches, everybody, it's a grind. Like it's it feels like it's a never-ending and the amount of time they're on the road and how long games are and how frequent the games are. Um, you know, that seems to be a huge strain on both athletes and staff. You know, how how does this impact that problem as well? Is this a time saver for them? Uh yeah, give us some in, give me some insight on that, knowing that I never played the sport, but have a general idea.

Yeah, our our goal is to actually fundamentally change that. And I think one of the issues, um, there's a lot of busy work, especially in professional and organized baseball. You know, there's a lot of emails that get sent out that nobody ever reads. Uh, there's a lot of reports that get written that nobody ever reads. Um, you ask organizations, you know, well, why is this guy coaching at this level? Uh you know, you have minor leagues and you have the big leagues. Um, the big leagues obviously where everybody wants to be, um, but you have minor leagues as well, which are very important, and you know, there's good money to be made in minor league baseball. Uh and actually those coaches play a key role in you know helping athletes achieve their dreams. But the question I asked a long time ago on this was, you know, again, why is this coach at that level? Well, organizations don't always have an exam, or don't always have an answer, and it's definitely not a streamlined answer across organizations. So uh when you talk to you know higher-ups, you say, well, this guy's in triple A. Oh, well, he's got great relatability to those players at that age. And you go, well, you know, maybe that's subjective though. How do we determine that? How did you guys come up with that? And it really comes down to who's in charge. You know, it's uh it's a ladder, and guys move up the ladder in baseball, they you know, gain some tenure and and they get into you know more decision-making roles within the organization. But uh, our software, our app, one of the things that we're looking to do, uh, like I said, we want to bring in all this information from these different sources. Uh, and our goal is to use AI. Um, and there's a lot of issues with AI, but we want to use AI to try to make some recommendations uh and to try to help organizations streamline, you know, what types of trends are we seeing with coaches and their inputs to certain things like pitch types. You know, if a guy throws a really good curveball and we see the shape and the profile of that curveball week over week, and you know, we're watching the trends in a minor league system, this guy goes from a lower level to a higher level. But somewhere along the way, all of the guys that go through this middle level, some reason their breaking balls all change. And then they go to the higher level. We could see that trend and we could say, hey, let's go talk to that coach at that middle level and maybe let's have a discussion around what he's teaching. You know, is it within our space? Is it making these players better or is it making them worse? And we can start to adjust positioning of coaching staffs accordingly. Um, you know, for me as a as a coach, you know, I spent a lot of time on the floor. Uh, don't do as much today as I did the last couple years, but um, one of the big things I I noticed with our guys is I was constantly trying to remember assessments on players. You know, we do uh assessment month over month over month with our with our players, and we would get 10 assessments in, and I couldn't remember trend lines of across assessments for a certain player. I'm trying to make insights or references to this player to give them the best coaching cues and to help them make uh better changes. Reality is I needed software to help me leverage those insights so I could turn back and give that player uh better application. And so that's what the ability of something like our app and time, that's what we're hoping, is that we're gonna be able to use AI to look at those trend lines a little bit smoother, uh combine some of these data points and you know uh just create new values for these players and then hold them accountable and hopefully help them continue to progress uh over time. And so I think it'll help coaches solve these problems faster. It'll take some work off their plate, uh, but it may also fundamentally change the way that coaches look at the game, which could also be uh a buy-in factor, maybe something they're not used to. So it'll it'll come in time, but that's what we're hoping our our business is able to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's great, man. Uh so it sounds to me like you are going B2B, right? You get you're going from you're not going after the end athlete or the consumer, you're going directly to coaches. Is that is that accurate as well?

For right now, uh that's the starting point. And as we um become more confident in the data and what we're receiving, uh we'll go B to uh B2C, but it it's um you know, there's a lot more software uh communications that need to be solved and a better user experience that needs to be divided as we kind of go to B2C.

So yeah. Yeah. Uh so let's talk about Casey for a second. Uh I'm curious as you've gone from athlete to coach to entrepreneur, right? Um athlete to coach can be, depending on the person's you know makeup, can be rather seamless or it can be challenging, right? Uh I'm curious about your jump from coach to entrepreneur. Like walk me through that process. What have been uh maybe some of the stumbling blocks or learning opportunities that you've had so far?

Yeah, I think you know it's funny. The the one thing that I noticed in the baseball industry specifically when I first got started was there were a lot of snake oil salesmen. And uh I just I couldn't stand that. I just wanted to be different in that space and and I uh purposely kind of removed myself from promoting ourselves on social media early because I wanted to be confident in the in the message that I would send once I got a platform. Um and so now I do a lot more tweeting and I'm a little bit more involved and engaged in our stuff, but um I really took time to to refine that. But I'll tell you, you know, the everybody wants to do a certification or everybody wants to do uh, you know, a uh a weekend camp where they go down somewhere famous and they, you know, they they spend time learning that method or that process, that system. Um, but my system was built in a library. I mean, I've got a library card and I didn't have a background in any of this. I wasn't an engineer. I went to school to be a pastor. I mean, I was a religious studies major out of college. So um I was just really hungry. I saw an opportunity, I had a little bit of an vendetta because of my own issue. Um, and so what really drove me from you know coach to entrepreneur was I had to learn first on the floor and build my own system that would be different, you know, than what was out there. Um and I always kind of quantified this in my head. I said, okay, uh, let's look at this person's you know segment of their system. Can I build something better or do I think that's the best? And if it was the best, I just went and partnered with it. If it wasn't the best, I said, you know what, I'm gonna reinvent that, make it better. And so there are a handful of things like we talked about with bands and and we talked about with you know our throwing workload. There are a handful of things I said, I can do that better. Like I know I can build that better. I have no idea how I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna spend a lot of hours on YouTube and and in Google and reading physics books, which I don't understand. Uh, but I know in time like I can get there. And you know, it's been three and a half years, uh, and we're just now kind of coming over the hump where we're starting to push these things out. And people ask me a lot, like, how did you get there? I really I don't know. I just like I said I watch a lot of YouTube videos, and that's ultimately what what got me there. I you know, we I looked up and we had a business that worked and some good some good relationships.

So Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, YouTube videos are pretty powerful, man. My uh wife learned to ski uh on YouTube, so uh there's proof in the pudding there for sure. You know, when you look at you know, you kind of alluded to her, and and if I'm misspeaking here, it could be please correct me. It seems like baseball is kind of late to the game as far as technology goes for the most part. Um, would you say that's accurate compared to some of the other bigger sports?

Yeah, I would say yes. Um, it's getting it's moving quickly now.

Yeah.

The last five years you really had a a a window of opportunity where if you were somebody who could get ahead, you you were in in much needed demand. Today there's people from NASA stepping out of NASA and going to work for professional baseball organizations, and you're like, you know, NASA really. But it's happening more and more, and that's that tells you the the level of individual that are looking at, you know, whether it be analytics or sports science as a viable field in baseball.

Yeah, so that that leads me to the question of uh when you look across the board at other sports, um is there any that you can point out right away and you're like, you know what, they're they're leveraging technology extremely well. Like what do you what do you see when you look out?

My a lot of my inspiration comes from cycling, um, to be honest with you. Um you know, I I look at cycling and I I laugh because some of the stuff that they're doing in terms of workload, especially workload calculations are just so advanced, and they've been doing them for a while. Um, the other one that I really like is golf. Um, there's things like you know, businesses like golf tech, which you know, it's everywhere. And you know you can go to almost any town and in in any country, and it's like golf tech exists. And uh the amount of technology and the system that they've created and the scale that they've created it, I mean, that's high-level stuff. Um and and they're bringing that to the masses. So that's so encouraging for somebody like me who sits in in my space and I look at it and go, man, I want to I want a system like that. Uh that's where a lot of inspiration for me, you know, kind of came. Um but yeah, I think golf and cycling are two that you know for me have just advanced. You know, they're they're ahead. But I think we can close the gap and get there in baseball uh you know pretty pretty soon. Uh you know, it just depends on what new technologies are around the corner.

Yeah. Yeah, man. Golf tech, awesome. I went to uh when I was living in Santa Barbara, I went to uh shout out to Travis at Golf Tech on Coda Street. Uh I went there all the time. It was you know walking distance from my my business, and I would go in there and I would you know really get to work on the finer details of just kind of fundamental swing, right? Um, and it was great. I mean, nothing beats being out there, right? And you know, all the different angles that you get on a golf course, not to get too much on golf, but I have to say it was it was really cool. And you know, being someone who's kind of drawn to technology, I was like, this is this is really fun. Uh so one more question about baseball. So it's obviously big in the United States, right? I presume it's pretty big in Japan, right? It is um, as well as the Caribbean islands. Uh what what other markets out there are you guys, I mean, besides the United States, what other markets you guys think this is going to be um potentially big in?

Yeah, I mean you nailed the the two big ones. It's it's the Caribbean and and then we look up into Japan, and um, you know, that takes up majority of uh what is baseball today. Canada seems to have the baseball bug. It's been interesting to watch. There's a lot of really good thought coming out of Canada. Um, and it seems to be that there's a lot of interest in in Canada to build some great baseball players. So, you know, I would say that there's a another market starting to kind of really open. Um, and and I think a lot of it comes from the technology component of it.

Yeah, yeah, Canada. I always make fun of Canadians because I'm right at the border, so I'm always talking to them all the time. But man, they look just like us, they just talk a little different, basically. A little, just a little different. A little bit it's hard. It's hard. I can't. My wife can nail it. She can she can nail it. She's like, Oh, he's Canadian. I'm like, really? How did you again I can't hear it? And then I was like, when a boot comes out or something like that, and then uh then it's a dead giveaway. Um you know, I I like to ask this question, you know, uh to get it in there, and I always do it in the spirit of collaboration because a lot of other you know entrepreneurs and um coaches in the industry um listen to this show. So what is it you know in your current iteration? Like what do you need right now as far as like partnerships or talent? Or yeah, what are what are some of the biggest needs you have? Funding, I presume, is always nice.

Yeah, funding's great. Um no, but we're uh we're looking at scale right now. I mean, we just have to continue to create the ability to scale. And so as I mentioned before, you know, our our um we have an app coming out that's we're excited about that's gonna really take a huge step for us in that direction, um, you know, in our products, but you know, there's a fundamental issue at the youth level uh that is really hard to reach to, especially with high-level technology. Um, we want to get kids into a better place, especially with things like workload management, uh, but teaching parents and teaching kids how to you know wear a sleeve and then go sink the sleeve. And there's just so many components there that are really difficult. Um, but I mean we've got some of the top baseball pitchers in the country, we've got some of the top schools in the country. So at the upper levels, you know, your early adopters, you know, our engineers and and our our you know, guys that are kind of industry leaders, uh, they're buying in right now, which is awesome. But it's just you know, over time, just creating the product to be digestible enough where the system can reach that that younger athlete. So I'd say as a business, I mean that's that's our uh our target right now, and that's our biggest need is to figure out how to just continue to scale ourselves, I wouldn't say up, but maybe scale ourselves down uh to the uh the youth market.

Yeah, well, that that's a challenge across a lot of different areas with with new technology coming out too, is that uh, you know, maybe as coaches or people who um really get it, right? Like, okay, we understand the value of the data or the technology and what we can do with it, and we know how to harness it and use it, but for the majority of you know everyone else, it's like if it's if it's two degrees off normal behavior, then it's difficult to get adoption, right? I mean, that's why uh my favorite ones is the ring doorbell, right? There was no change to any consumer behavior whatsoever. Like the doorbell has always been there, but now we're adding new functionality to it and how you use it. So there was no knowing how to adopt a whole new thing. Um, and I think that's you know kind of the challenge. But early on, you have no, you just got to get the best data and best technology out there, and then you kind of learn. Um, I mean, everybody who's got a hardware component to what they do always wants to go fully SaaS, right? They want to go fully, you know, app and fully SaaS, but it's just not the tech's not there yet. So you have to kind of hope that maybe Apple does something because everyone's wearing an Apple Watch, right? Uh, and then you can harness that if they open their APIs. So it's it's an interesting time we're in where it's like until we all get microchipped, we still need we still need wearables. And uh, you know, I think the uh, you know, I can tell you in the wearable space, the risk, risk real estate wars are are are a big deal, you know. Um people generally don't want more than one device. But I think in your case, it's so much driven by the coach. Like if think if there's a a practitioner, um, you know, in this case, the coach is the practitioner, someone who's like, no, I need that data, you're gonna wear that thing, right? Um, and you can kind of push that. But as soon as you try to get to the consumer market, and it becomes a little bit more difficult. Uh so yeah, is that similar to what you've seen so far?

Yeah, it's the B2B relationships. I mean, you uh you establish a model, uh, you showcase the success of that model, and then you basically take it out to the coaches or the organizations, and you say, hey, listen, you know, here's the the verbiage, here's the you know, the financial structure that I built around this, and it's it's gonna help you gain money by doing X, and it's gonna help you keep your players healthy or safe, or you know, push your your athletes to better performance by doing X. Uh, you just have to get compliance. And you know, most of these coaches, that's their job. It's to get player buy-in. It's to to be a great uh a great coach is you know getting great player buy-in. So you know you don't have to enter this from a side door, you know, you go direct through the coach who already has that relationship, that trust, and and your technology can follow it. So that's kind of the approach that we're taking um to hopefully infiltrate and and then uh you know scale down in the market over time, go B2C.

So yeah, right on, man. Right on. Uh Casey, if people want to get a hold of you or check out more, yeah, just get where where do you send people online?

Yeah, so uh they can go to if you want to look at social media, uh we're on Instagram, Kinetic Pro Performance uh is our handle. Uh on Twitter, it's kinetic underscore pro. And then uh for any messages, if you guys want to contact us direct, uh it's Casey C-A-S-E-Y at kineticprobaseball.com for email. Always open to emails and chat with anybody that wants to chat.

Yeah, very cool. Uh Casey, great work, man. Great backstory. Um, you know, I'm obviously sorry to hear you make miss out on a multi-million dollar contract of A H of 17, but you know, it seems like it may be uh happened for a reason not to be cliche. But you know, maybe it has happened for a reason, and now you're here and now you're gonna you know impact uh a lot of other people and and keep them safe and pitching for a long time. So great job, man. Great interview. And uh yeah, ladies and gentlemen, great uh Casey Mulholland.

Appreciate it, Eric.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Catbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and we want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.