How Everything Started

September 21, 2024

I finally got the courage to start this project thanks to a podcast I listened to with my partner on our way to a place we love and have been visiting for 2 years in a row. It's a 3-hour drive from our city (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) to Mara (Maramures). We go there about twice a year, on weekends, and enjoy beautiful landscapes, really good food, and a super cool traditional Romanian vibe.

Here's a nice view from this location:

So, on our way there, we decided to listen to a podcast while driving to make the trip more "educational." Well, I can say it was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever had. We listened to the best podcast of my life, and it inspired me to start this project.

If you want to start a startup / SaaS too, I warmly recommend this podcast.

Pieter Levels is the perfect example for me that you can do absolutely anything you set your mind to when it comes to creating a startup. He was the inspiration I needed to gather the courage to start Athlete Paths.

About the Project

Athlete Paths is an ambitious project and not easy to achieve, but it's a project close to my heart. I'm sure it can help talented athletes just starting out, and secondly, it can connect fans with athletes in an innovative way. If it turns out the way I imagine, this project will revolutionize the sports world and create a complete ecosystem with athletes, fans, clubs / organizations, and many other possible partnerships as the main actors.

So, as soon as we arrived in Mara at the guesthouse where we spent 2 days, I got to work. The energy and inspiration I got from the podcast was still flowing through my veins.

The first thing I decided to do for this project was a landing page and a business plan in a PDF file. I wanted to do this to better shape my ideas and vision for the project, so I took my laptop to the pool and got to work.

Here's a screenshot from an Instagram Story with me working near the pool:

In those 2 days, I managed to create a rough structure for the landing page, and in the week that followed, I finished it. I'm leaving a screenshot of the hero from the landing page. More about this in future updates.

All the work for the landing page and the start of a business plan happened between August 23 and August 30 (approximately). With 7 days into this project, it was now the time to decide what to do next.

In the next update I will talk about the next steps that I took and even more details about the future of this project.

Thanks for reading and I will see you in the next one!