Finding the perfect sports coach for your child is never easy. Rainier Narine founder and co-owner of Coach Easy had been looking for a skating coach for his son for weeks. After going through multiple sources to find a hockey coach Narine thought there must be an easier way to go about finding the perfect fit. That’s when Coach Easy was born. “Coach Easy is a platform where we connect sport coaches with young athletes. These coaches specialize in advancing the skills of young athletes who want to take their training to the next level. Our age demographic ranges from 5 years of age to 16 years.” With today’s technology it seems out of date that finding something specific could be so complicated. When searching for a coach before Coach Easy was established Narine says “It was hard to find a coach specifically for my son’s skating skills. I searched and searched for a coach who specialized in skating then came to realize the best fit would be a figure skating coach rather than an overall hockey coach.” Coach Easy does more than just creating exceptional athletes. “We go way beyond than just professional coaching. We focus on mental health, fitness, diet, nutrition and establish skills that will help shape them into well rounded human beings.” It’s evident that now more than ever there’s more to coaching than meet’s the eye. During the pandemic children were greatly affected by the lockdown. School aged children faced more mental health issues than ever before. The increase of mental health problems came when children had to adapt to online learning and the elimination of extracurricular activities. There is something to be said about Coach Easy and their business model. They were able to focus on the key values of mental health pre-pandemic.
Narine and his business partner first started the company in January of 2020. Keen on hitting the ground running Coach Easy had to take a short break from their coaching sessions with their younger clientele. “We built our whole platform at the beginning of that year, we networked and had great coaches on our team. We were ready to launch on March 10th 2020 but then covid happened.” There’s no denying that the pandemic had hit many businesses in the worst ways. Coach Easy was able to adapt themselves amongst the chaos “We had to make a couple of pivots and come up with a new covid business plan. We created one on one private training sessions where the coach focused on the child solely rather than a group setting. We’re hoping as restrictions lessen and more public sports start to commence their seasons in public spaces, we will be able to offer group sessions in the next coming weeks”.
Mentorship comes naturally to Narine, it runs in his blood. “Both my parents were teachers. Teaching children to better themselves and their skills is one of the greatest rewards I have ever received. I come from a family of mentors and teachers; I’ve always had that drive to teach.” With years of experience as an entrepreneur Narine has learned and gained knowledge that has made Coach Easy such a thriving business. What really pushed Coach Easy above their competitors was their website. “Graphica Designs created our website. They really helped collect all our ideas and thoughts for the website into one interface and created a product that could rival some of our competitors. We have an amazing relationship with the owner and they really helped elevate us to the next level. Choosing them to create our website was one of the best business decisions we have ever made. One of our goals was to make booking sessions with coaches easy for the consumer. We also wanted to create a platform for coaches where it was easy to manage their sessions with their students. We take care of all the details and scheduling so that our coaches can focus on what’s most important- coaching” said Narine.
When it comes to working in Metspace Narine says “I really do enjoy it. I’ve always had my own offices and I’m that kind of person who is really big on the atmosphere, energy and mindfulness. The networking in this space is incredible. I’m already working with three other companies on three different things. I’m really happy to be working here and as we grow; I’ll be doing so within the Metspace workspace. It’s exactly what I needed to get my company going again.”