What Nobody Tells You About Starting a Sports Performance Business with Data!

By Martin Alido

When you’re starting a sports performance business in a country where data is barely used… You either figure things out, or you stay stuck.

Most athletes in the Philippines don’t have access to force plates. Coaches don’t use dashboards. And testing? It’s usually a stopwatch and a clipboard.

So, I decided to change that. Not with a big facility. Not with a team behind me.

Just me, my gear—and a promise to bring data to the people who need it most. I Was Collecting the Right Data. But I Had No Idea How to Show It. Force-time curves. Sprint splits. Jump asymmetries. I knew how to get the numbers.

But here’s the part nobody prepares you for: If you can’t present it clearly, the data doesn’t matter. Coaches won’t use it. Athletes won’t understand it. And your business? It won’t grow.

That’s when I found Tableau. Tableau Made Me Start From Zero (And That’s Exactly What I Needed) I wasn’t a data analyst. Still not. But I needed to learn how to visualize performance.

So, I took the beginner course on Tableau for Performance Analysts.

Opened the software. Felt completely overwhelmed. But I kept going. Because every dashboard I built was one step closer to turning raw testing into clear decisions.

Now, even as a beginner, I can:

• Show an athlete’s progress over time
• Compare testing sessions at a glance
• Help a coach understand why an athlete might not be ready to return

It’s not fancy. But it’s functional. And that’s all I need right now.

Why This Story Matters!

If you’re trying to build something— A business, a system, a new way to do things in your country— You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to start.

This isn’t a story about mastering Tableau. It’s a story about not waiting.

In Philippine sports, if we wait for better systems, they won’t come.

But if we build them—one dashboard at a time—everything starts to change.