Case study · Sports coaching marketplace
Instacoach: a Retool dashboard for a sports coaching marketplace
Instacoach connects people learning a sport with current and former college and professional athletes who coach them. Its operations ran on a Google Sheet that couldn’t keep up. We built a Retool dashboard backed by PostgreSQL, synced with the existing sheet, with Retool Workflows and Slack alerts.
The challenge
What wasn’t working
Coaches, sessions, payments and learner progress were all managed in one Google Sheet, which got harder to work with as the marketplace grew.
The team needed a proper database without disrupting the operations that depended on the sheet every day.
Routine admin, from reminders to reports, was done by hand.
The solution
What we built
Retool dashboard
One internal app for coach management, session scheduling, payments and learner progress.
PostgreSQL alongside the sheet
Data migrated in phases from the Google Sheet into PostgreSQL, with validation checks, and kept in sync with the sheet the team still used.
Retool Workflows
Automated notifications to coaches and learners, data syncing between the sheet and the database, and routine reports and emails.
Slack alerts
Real-time notifications in Slack for important events such as payment failures and session cancellations.
Custom forms
Forms for coach onboarding, session feedback and performance reviews, so every record is complete.
Charts and drill-downs
Interactive views and charts for performance, finances and operational trends.
How it works
How data moves through the dashboard
- 1
Work in Retool
The team manages coaches, sessions and payments in the dashboard.
- 2
Stored in PostgreSQL
Records are saved in PostgreSQL as the main database.
- 3
Synced with the sheet
Workflows keep the Google Sheet and the database in step.
- 4
Everyone notified
Coaches and learners get automated reminders; the team gets Slack alerts.
- 5
Reports on schedule
Routine reports and emails go out without anyone building them by hand.
The result
What changed
- Coaches, sessions and payments managed in one app instead of working directly in a shared sheet
- A PostgreSQL database in place, without breaking the sheet the team relied on
- Reminders, syncing and routine reports handled by workflows
- Slack alerts for the events that need someone’s attention
More work
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