blog.ImprovCoaches.com

I’ve heard the rumors.

They said ImprovCoaches was done.  It had a good run, they said, but all you could do was find Improv Coaches.  Pretty one dimensional, they said.  ”Improv ‘Coaches’?  That’s it?  It’s 2014.  We need a bit from a site called ImprovCoaches than just Improv Coaches.”

Fine.  Here you go.

Introducing Spaces.

Spaces is New York only, but I’d LOVE someone from another market (LA, Austin) to step up and compile information for those markets.  And if you’re in New York, please email me updated descriptions with hours or any commonly used rehearsal or performance spaces I’ve missed.

There are a few more ideas kicking around to expand this, but I wanted to get it out i front of people.  Enjoy!

Coaches will now get email notifications when a user leaves a Facebook comment on their profile.  Students, get to leaving comments.  Coaches, get to having those comments emailed to you.

Invites have been overhauled!  In addition to working more reliably, there's now a landing page so coaches know exactly what they're getting into!  Coaches, check your profile tab for invites to send out to new coaches.

LosAngeles is Launching!  If you're a coach in Los Angeles, let me know if you're interested in being a coach.  It'd be a huge help if someone in the LA scene could be an ImprovCoaches.com ambassador to get the site established out there.

Nothing major, but a few updates to the site I'd like to share.

We've sent over 125 emails to coaches since launch.  Pretty cool!

Over 40 coaches currently on the site, with several invites pending.

Search has seen a bunch of bug fixes, so searching by experience, name, and availability are more accurate.

Ratings are now being processed (including past ratings).  Like/Dislikes now affect coach rankings.  I'll go into more details later.

Profile pages have been redesigned to highlight feedback.  Not the prettiest design, but that'll do pig.

A ton of people have asked me about setting up a coach account this week, which is great.  The more people who use ImprovCoaches, the better it is for everyone, students and coaches alike. I just want to take a second to explain the current process for becoming a coach.

When I was designing the site, I talked to a lot of people about coach sign ups.  Though some people thought it should be completely open, most coaches I spoke with expressed that coaches should be vetted on some level.  A website full of new coaches wouldn't be of use to students, and veteran coaches also would be wary of bringing their own stock down by appearing with a bunch fresh faced Jonny 101s trying to get on the coaching circuit.

At the same time, being a "coach" on the site shouldn't feel like an exclusive club.  There shouldn't be a formal screening process for new coaches.  Everyone was a new coach at some point, and it's important to keep getting new people involved in the site.  Plus, manual vetting isn't a long term solution.   I'm not going to know everyone in the New York community, let alone LA or Chicago when the site expands there. 

The current coaches on the site are people I either knew personally, knew from pedigree, or came recommended to me by people more connected to the coaching scene.  I'm still approving people as coaches on the same system right now.

In the near future, however, ImprovCoaches will be switching to an invite system.  Each coach on the site will receive invites to send to people who want to be coaches.  With invites, I'm hoping we can grow the community of coaches while keeping some level of trust in the quality of coaches already on the site.

ImprovCoaches has been updated to use names in urls instead of numbers.  Now instead of ugly old arabic numerals, coaches can have their own sweet, sexy name in the url.  Imagine the SEO and personal branding now possible!

OLD AND BUSTED: http://www.improvcoaches.com/coaches/3

NEW HOTNESS: http://www.improvcoaches.com/coaches/dustin-drury