April 25, 2025
Finding the right business coach can be a frustrating experience.
After watching my friend Chase Murdock struggle through several coaches before finally finding an excellent match, I realized there’s a significant gap in the market.
This observation, combined with my experience building SMBCommunity.co, sparked an idea – what if there was a better way to connect business owners with the right coaches?
That’s when I decided to start BusinessCoachList.com, a solution that could help countless business owners find their perfect coaching match.
Business Coach Discovery Problem
Finding a business coach can be tricky for a few reasons:
- There’s no centralized place to find and compare quality business coaches
- The discovery process relies heavily on Google searches and “vibes” from discovery calls
- Business owners lack clear criteria to evaluate coach-client compatibility
- The market is saturated with coaches of varying qualifications and specialties
- There’s little transparency around coaching methodologies and results
I’ve experienced similar challenges while building SMBCommunity.co, where peer groups share many characteristics with finding the right fit in a coach-client relationship.
The Solution
So I thought – “hey, what if we had an open directory of really good business coaches that was organized well with specific criteria business owners can search for. Rather than just googling, doing discovery calls, and choosing a coach based off vibes.”
BusinessCoachList.com aims to solve this problem by creating a searchable, well-organized directory that helps business owners find coaches based on specific criteria relevant to their needs.
Building with Delegation in Mind
The fun part of this project is that I have one really good employee who works for me who I’m delegating 90% of this project to.
I’m mostly giving them ideas and direction, but they’re going to do most of the work that it takes to actually build out the site, do cold email to get coaches on the platform, build the coach onboarding survey, competitive research, all of it.
This approach allows me to leverage my team’s strengths while focusing on strategy and vision for the platform.
Investment and Initial Goals
My plan is to fund the website ($1,000) and fund the SEO ($400/mo) and see if we can get good results.
What is a good result you ask?
Well, good question, I think I’m looking for 3 quick wins:
- Getting business coaches to sign up on the website from cold email
- Getting business owners who are looking for business coaches to use the directory
- Collecting some referral fees when I can match people together
Primarily, if I can get great success with #2, I’ll be happy. But at the moment I’m just trying to get this rolling and get traction, there’s more opportunities down the line, but right now we just need to get a proof of concept.
Moving Forward
With a clear vision and dedicated resources, BusinessCoachList.com is poised to fill a significant gap in the business coaching marketplace.
By creating transparency, organization, and a structured approach to coach selection, we aim to save business owners valuable time and increase successful coaching relationships.
Are you a business coach looking to expand your reach or a business owner tired of the coaching discovery process? Shoot me a message on LinkedIn by clicking here.