I wanted to be like my favorite Olympians... until I realized they were broke

Attorney by day, track athlete anytime I can squeeze a long jump in before getting back to work. That was my life in 2021 when I was going for Olympic Gold. It was my first year back in spikes since I hung them up to go to law school, but I was even better at this point than in college (where I was All-American). I started to jump up the rankings, so much so that I was getting into elite meets like the invite only meet at the Chula Vista Elite Athletic Training Center, formerly known as the Olympic Training Center, where all the big dogs train year round. I was juiced, being on the same runway as Olympic medalists was a dream come true, and I couldn’t wait to learn how I could be like them. 

I went up to any Olympians willing to talk, and asked how I could go pro so I could make money like them. I was looking to leave my stressful law job to go all in on track. They all gave me the same response: “What money?” Come to find out I was making more than them, way more.  59% of Team USA athletes live under the poverty line, defined as making under $25,000 in a year. Even in an Olympic year. Looks like I wasn’t going to leave that high stress attorney job after all… unless? 

I kept saying to myself, these athletes are too talented, too inspirational, too amazing to be working side jobs, buying their own plane tickets to meets, and some even on food stamps. It wasn’t right. Someone should do something to help them leverage their skills that they refine every day for decades. So many people could learn so much from them if they were incentivized to share. Shoot, I wish I could learn from them. 

I meditated on it, journaled about it, and ultimately thought if I was going to do something scary like leave a great job, I had to conquer my fear first. And as long as I can remember, I’d been afraid of heights. Kind of ironic since I used to be a high jumper. So I signed up for skydiving. I was nervous putting on the skydiving gear, scared when we went up in the plane, and petrified when it was my turn. But still, I jumped out. And when there was blue sky all around me, I knew what I needed to do to put my soul at peace. I put in my 3 weeks notice the next day. 

Fast forward to now, and that burning idea is now Couro, an AI-powered marketplace that connects elite athletes, coaches, and trainers with the athletic community. Pros can offer video analysis, training plans, access to their training footage, inspiration, one on one calls, and more all in exchange for one time and subscription payments. While still in Beta, our AI can streamline the video analysis process for our Pros from over an hour, to just 5 minutes, so they can scale their feedback and reach more athletes looking to learn from the best. Next step is to raise our pre-seed so we can lock in and make Couro the world’s first professional athlete-derived AI model giving elite performance insights, instantly, at scale.

It’s been a grind, but anything worth doing is. Take it from a jumper, sometimes, you just have to jump, and not look back. 

Cam Van

Couro Co-Founder, CEO