Why youth sports are chaotic, why parents carry the load, and how Onsides is trying to make it easier.

Youth sports is not just practices, games, and tournaments anymore. It is schedules, apps, travel, training, equipment, group chats, recruiting pressure, and a lot of parents trying to keep up.

Dave Yoo, founder and CEO of Onsides, joins Eric Kasimov to talk about the problem his company is trying to solve. Onsides is built for parents of youth athletes who are tired of jumping between platforms and trying to make sense of scattered information. The goal is simple: reduce the cognitive load.

Eric and Dave also get into the bigger youth sports ecosystem, including AI, private coaching, NIL, parent behavior, social media, startup life, and what it means to build something useful in a noisy market.

Key Takeaways

Why youth sports feels broken, but may be better described as underserved
How parents became the collateral damage of fragmented sports platforms
Why Onsides starts with scheduling but points toward something bigger
How AI can help parents without guessing on the details that matter
Why every feature should reduce cognitive load
The rise of private coaching, travel needs, and sports tech integrations
What startup founders need to think about in the AI era
Why the youth sports conversation still has to come back to the kids

Chapters

00:00 – Youth sports, sports tech, and the size of the market
03:00 – Why Dave Yoo started Onsides
06:06 – Building the all-in-one youth sports app for parents
08:26 – Reducing cognitive load for sports families
10:48 – Training, private coaching, and Athletes Untapped
12:29 – How Onsides uses AI
14:40 – Probabilistic AI vs. deterministic scheduling data
16:41 – AI disruption in software engineering
18:42 – Advice for students entering the workforce
20:09 – College, uncertainty, and keeping up with change
22:29 – Growth, awareness, and reaching overwhelmed parents
24:31 – The commercialization of youth sports
27:07 – Recreational sports, I9 Sports, and getting kids active
30:25 – Too many games, overuse, and youth sports reform
33:02 – Better parent behavior and positive messaging
35:10 – NIL moving downstream
37:52 – How podcasting and media help startups grow
41:38 – AI, content, and the next wave of signal boosting
43:24 – Kids, social media, group chats, and behavior
47:42 – How to find Onsides
48:39 – Connecting with Dave Yoo

Connect

Dave Yoo: Website | LinkedIn

Eric Kasimov — X | LinkedIn

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Entrepreneur Perspectives is produced by QuietLoud Studios.

Music by Jess & Ricky — SoundCloud