The Pista Method · updated 6 October 2026
How a good academy actually runs.
Pista is not only software. It ships with an opinionated way to run an academy: rules, rituals and defaults that solve the problems technology alone cannot. Every rule below has a recommended default and a reason, and an academy can change it in Settings → House rules.
Written 6 Oct 2026 from running Pad Thai Padel's academy. Benchmarks are marked where they are assumptions.
The three hard problems (none of them is technical)
| Problem | Why it is hard (the human part) |
|---|---|
| 1. Level you can trust | Players overrate themselves. App ratings are inflated and mean different things per city. Beginners are not alike: an ex-tennis player and someone who never held a racket are both "beginner". Coaches disagree, and they avoid moving a friend down. One wrong placement makes the strong player leave and the weak one feel bad. |
| 2. Availability | Everyone wants 18:00–21:00. Students' lives change and they don't tell you. Freelance coaches work at three clubs. The academy competes with court rentals for prime time, and a rental often pays more per hour than a half-empty group. |
| 3. Groups that hold | A group of 4 loses one, then another, and dies at 2. Merging upsets people. Friends want to train together whatever their level. No-shows and make-up classes turn the week into chat messages. |
Underneath all three sits money: coaches are friends with students, so nobody chases; cash goes to the coach's pocket; discounts, pauses and credits are agreed by chat and forgotten.
1 · Level: trust comes from process, not from a number
Pista Level, 1.0 to 7.0, owned by the academy. The same scale players know from apps, but only the academy's coaches can set it.
| Rule | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Every level has a confidence | Unknown → Provisional → Confirmed | The owner must see how much to trust a number before building a group on it. |
| An app rating is a hint, never a level | Shown next to the Pista Level, greyed | Ratings are inflated and inconsistent. They help order people, nothing more. |
| Never-played beginners start in a Start cohort | 4 weeks, fixed dates, 4–6 people, one price | Solves the unknown-beginner problem by design: nobody enters an ongoing group untested. The cohort is the assessment, and it sells well ("learn padel in 4 weeks"). |
| Everyone else gets a placement class | A guest seat one band below what they claim, flagged Provisional | Players overrate. Starting low is a pleasant surprise; starting high is a bad first class for five people. |
| Coaches assess 6 skills in 60 seconds | Serve & return, volley, overhead (bandeja), walls, positioning, consistency: 1–5 each | Fast enough to actually happen on court. Skills, not a gut number, so two coaches can compare notes. |
| Coaches compare, they don't grade | After class: "Who was stronger today, A or B? Why?" one tap + one reason | People are bad at absolute numbers and good at comparisons. Ten comparisons order a whole group reliably. The reason is recorded. |
| Second opinion when signals disagree | Gap ≥ 0.5 between signals, or a move proposed on Provisional data → a coach who does not teach the student scores them | Removes the "my student" bias and the awkwardness: the system asks, not the owner. It also means two coaches know every student, so students belong to the academy. |
| Confirmed = two independent signals within 0.5 | Second coach, or ≥ 6 comparisons | A clear, checkable bar. |
| Level review every 8 weeks, never mid-cycle | Moves proposed together at cycle end, with a message template | Moving one person on a random Tuesday is personal. Re-balancing everyone at term end is normal. |
| Friends may request the same group | Allowed inside ±0.75; outside it, the owner decides with the trade-off shown | Belonging keeps people more than level does; be explicit about the cost. |
2 · Availability: ask once per cycle, plan from demand
| Rule | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Availability is a weekly grid (7 days × morning / midday / evening) plus preferred location | Collected at sign-up, re-confirmed with one tap at each renewal | People answer a one-tap question; they don't answer "when can you come?". |
| Coaches set availability, max hours and locations | Changed in the coach app; time off needs 7 days' notice | Planning needs supply as well as demand. |
| Demand map | Students wanting a slot at a level, against coach hours and free courts | Shows where to open a group, and which slots to stop offering. |
| Court-hour yield | Academy revenue per court hour next to the club's rental price | The honest number for negotiating prime time with the club: a full group beats a rental, a group of two does not. |
| Waitlist by slot and level | First to confirm gets the seat, 24 h to answer | Fair, and it fills seats without phone calls. |
3 · Groups: a seat is a commitment
| Rule | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Min 3, max 4 on court | Below 3 for 3 weeks → merge proposal | 2-player groups lose money and energy. |
| Level spread in a group | ≤ 0.75 (≤ 1.0 for beginners) | The strongest player leaves first when the spread is wide. |
| Group health | Fill, spread, attendance, payment, tenure → one score | Tells you which group will die before it does. |
| The seat is paid monthly, attended or not | Clear at sign-up | Otherwise absences become discounts. |
| Make-up tokens | Tell us ≥ 12 h before → 1 token; max 1 a month; use it in any seat freed by someone else's absence, same band, within 30 days | Turns chaos into a rule, and absences into filled seats. |
| Pista proposes, the owner decides | Fill a seat, open a group, merge, move: each with a fit score and the reasons | The owner keeps the judgement; the software does the searching. |
Fit score (0–100): level match 50 · availability overlap 30 · location 10 · age group 10. Always shown with its reasons.
4 · Money: the system is the one who asks
| Rule | Default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Money never goes through a coach | All payments to the academy's account; coaches don't see who paid | Protects the friendship and stops leakage. |
| Auto-renew is the default | Card or direct debit on file where the country allows it; a pay link on the 25th where it doesn't | Renewal should take no effort from anyone. |
| Renewal calendar | Invoice on the 25th · due on the 1st · reminders on day 1, 3, 7 · seat released on day 10 (owner approves) | Everyone knows the dates; reminders come from the academy, not from a person. |
| Join mid-month | Pay the remaining classes | Fair and simple to explain. |
| Pause | Whole months, ask before the 25th, max 2 a year; the seat is held 1 month | A rule beats negotiating each case. |
| Cancel | Before the 25th for next month | Same date as everything else. |
| Packs | 10 classes, valid 4 months, for people without a fixed slot | Flexible without blocking a seat. |
| Discounts and credits | Always a named reason and an end date, in the ledger | Nothing agreed by chat and forgotten. |
| Coach pay | Per hour taught; a class cancelled < 12 h before is paid; rain: not paid, students get a token | Written once, so month-end is arithmetic, not an argument. |
| House rules are accepted at sign-up | One page, in the student's language | You can only enforce what people agreed to. |
The rituals (how little time it should take)
| When | What | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Every day | Open Today: approve drafts, confirm payments, check tomorrow | 10 min |
| Monday | Planner: seats to fill, groups at risk, suggestions | 15 min |
| The 20th | Group check before renewals: merges and moves | 20 min |
| The 25th / 1st | Renewals run themselves; approve what needs you | 10 min |
| The 8th | Month close: eight numbers, three actions; coach hours to payroll | 15 min |
| Every 8 weeks | Level review: proposed moves, second opinions, messages | 45 min |
A student's first 90 days
Day 0 welcome and house rules → week 1 placement confirmed by the coach → week 2 check-in message → week 4 first progress note → week 8 level review → day 90 "what's next" (move up, add a class, or a private). People who leave mostly leave in the first two months (assumption, from fitness benchmarks), so this is where the attention goes.
What this means for the product
- Levels screen: review queue, comparisons to answer, second opinions, history. Coach app: 60-second assessment and one-tap comparison.
- Planner screen: newcomers to place, demand map, suggestions with fit scores, court-hour yield.
- Student profile: level and confidence, skills, availability, attendance, plan, auto-renew, tokens, money, messages, family.
- Money: plans, packs and tokens; auto-renew; next month's forecast.
- Reports: revenue, retention, occupancy, coaches, funnel, levels.
- Settings → House rules: every default above, editable, each with its reason.