The CoachAccountable Blog

PhotoShopped cakes with a text layer for the candles 4eva.

The number 13 has a bit of a reputation.  But from a longevity standpoint of this enterprise, I’m feeling pretty lucky.  In these last 365 we here at CA got a whiff that, yes, even coaching platforms die.  Meanwhile, CoachAccountable keeps merrily humming along.

CoachAccountable’s 13th year saw the addition of numerous quality of life enhancements in the December release of Version 5.1.1, and in smaller releases sprinkled throughout (such as last week’s addition of appointment series scheduling for clients).  All told, there were 32 bug fixes and 66 such tweaks and enhancements added.  If you’re curious what you might have missed, go check out the Release Notes!

In October, I launched and subsequently ran a highly effective Bug Bounty Program, inviting the internet at large to take a stab at finding vulnerabilities in CoachAccountable.  $26,500 in bounties awarded later, I feel better than ever about the security of the platform and you should too.

On Sunday March 2nd, CoachAccountable had its only notable downtime this year, and it’s one I’m very proud of.  It was for 6 minutes while I moved CoachAccountable out of its server environment of the last 7 years, and into a shiny new one with far beefier machines.  Fun fact: in the week leading up to the migration, the old server setup had an average execution runtime of 0.1966 seconds across 294,963 requests.  In the week following, the new server setup’s average was 0.1009 seconds, i.e. just a hair over a half that of the old.  That is a nice gain in app responsiveness that you can feel!

In April, I had a blissful 3 weeks of not checking my email a single time while traveling abroad (thanks Jaclyn for so thoroughly taking the reigns!)  It was the longest stretch of not being in email since getting my first address as a freshman in college.  On the heels of that I thought “You know what?  A fella could get used to that.  Maybe it’s time to hire again and grow the team a little so that I may do this more often.”

Now then, anyone familiar with the trappings of management probably recognizes that as a rather naive sentiment.  I hear it, too!

I still figured I’d try.  This time I got smart and posted the roles just to the CoachAccountable community, rather than on general internet job boards.  And what a difference that made.  The result (thus far!) is Noah, who joined the team in early July.  Please do take a beat to get acquainted and say hello!

It’s already going very well.  And so now, bolstered again by having a team behind me, I’m feeling quite free to truly step away for weeks at a time.  And lest you think I’m going soft, I’m also feeling inspired and supported to take on what we might call more ambitious projects, to shift the very definition of coaching itself to include more than the conversations.  This of course is a drum I’ve been beating in our little corner of the internet for quite some time now; more on that another day. :)

And that’s a wrap on year 13!

My many thanks to the CoachAccountable community, without which this party would hardly be a party at all.  Thank you all for coming.  I appreciate and remain honored as ever to be your coaching platform guy.

Happy Birthday, CoachAccountable!

Hi everybody!

I got a kick out of telling you all about bringing Noah on to the team, and now I’d like you to hear from the man himself.

– John

Make no mistake: he is every bit as friendly as he looks in this photo.

Hello CA Family! I’m Noah, and it is a huge blessing to be here! My story of arriving at CA is one that I would have never imagined. It all started with a book.

During the winter break of my Sophomore year of college, I went to a local book store and walked down the non-fiction aisle. That day I discovered the self-help genre, and I was instantly obsessed with the idea of learning from others’ wisdom and life lessons. I clearly saw how these authors were living life very differently than anyone I had encountered, and that made me want to share what I was learning with the world.

By the middle of my junior year of college, I was promoting myself as a coach. I had no idea what I was doing, but I believed that helping others apply what I was learning would also help me integrate it more deeply. At the same time, I was also interning as an engineer.

Truthfully, I wanted to change my major to psychology. I decided that I was too close to graduation to make a change, so I completed my engineering degree. Two weeks after graduation, I started working as an engineer. Months later, I bought a house and got married. At this point, the idea of coaching was completely out of my mind.

As an engineer, I was in charge of rolling out a Workforce Management software system to 130+ locations during the middle of Covid. I was overwhelmed with my job, and shaken to my core by the loss of several family members. To help me through this season, I asked my new friend from church, David Limiero, to be my mentor. David’s current position was leading a software support team, and he was also coaching. The company he was coaching for used CoachAccountable. That is how I was introduced to this amazing platform.

I later decided to receive some coach training myself. I knew that my intentions in college were pure, but at the end of the day, I wanted to help people with real tools and strategies. Right after I finished coach training, David gave me the opportunity to blend my experience of rolling out software platforms and my coach training to help several CA users get up and running with their own accounts.

When John posted the role for my position, I was nervous to apply. I have always worked as an engineer, and my last company had 300,000+ employees. As I considered the potential impact on my wife and two daughters, it was not easy to  leave a very stable but life-draining career for a new opportunity in the field of my “hobby.” Thankfully, as I learned more about how John has built the CA culture and business model, I had a sense of peace and excitement about joining the team.

Now, I couldn’t be more grateful to be here! The vast majority of this work is in my Desire Zone¹, and the work couldn’t be more meaningful to me. Helping coaches help their clients live better lives; it doesn’t get more value-driven than that for me.

I look forward to helping each of you however I can, and if you are ever traveling through East Tennessee, send me an email. I would love to connect with you over a cup of coffee.

I did something a little different when hiring this time.

Instead of putting a job notice out to a general purpose remote jobs board, this time I got smart and actually put it out to the CoachAccountable community itself.  I started with the CA User’s Group, figuring I’d give those folks a head start and then soon put the notice out to the whole of CA customers.

And my, what a difference!  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some nice wins posting CA openings to the wider internet.  But out there, the median applicant doesn’t give a lick about coaching, let alone CoachAccountable.  So there would be a LOT of sifting and winnowing to be done.

Here?  Signal-to-noise ratio was WAY higher.  Refreshingly higher.  Delightfully higher!  The applications I got for the roles were overwhelmingly high-caliber and promising.

And this was even before I put the notice out to all CA customers.

Turns out I didn’t bother.
Because I didn’t need to.
Because Noah.

You can feel the engineer/caring coach vibes. 🤩

Noah immediately impressed.  Yes, his credentials were rock-solid for the support job.  He’d been in charge of rolling out a workforce management software system to a 130+ locations.  He’s completed a coach training certification.  He’d already been helping a team of coaches set up their own CoachAccountable accounts.  He even did a thorough job answering the sample support questions as part of the application.

And I won’t deny, I felt a definite “game recognizes game” energy when he could relate to a tale of my studying for a Differential Equations exam.  For he, too, has taken Differential Equations.

But what really sold me on Noah was his drive and (credible!) vision to rise up and really make a difference playing the CoachAccountable game.  When he was my presumptive candidate for the support role, I was sharing with him the overall landscape for the several roles I had in mind to hire for.  About that he said to me the following, roughly verbatim: “Well John, how about this.  You’re able to handle support in a few hours a day, so I bet I can get there, too.  So what if you hired just me for now, let me get up to speed with support, then grow into the outreach and the sales roles.  That way you and I could really figure it out, and get our way of doing it well established before we bring more people into the mix.”

That’s some serious moxie, and I love it.  I let him know that yes, customer support does tend to bleed into customer success (consultative teaching and hands-on guidance), and that tends to bleed into sales.  And I let him know that I love the idea of being able to hammer out what we’ve been calling “the CoachAccountable way” of doing things with him, he having already proven himself as a delightful co-creator of culture and vision.  Heck, I couldn’t even deny the allure of growing the team just one at a time, rather than hire several at once and hope that we all actually gel (which is tough enough in general, and doubly so as an all-remote team).

Though I often espouse in these parts “We’re playing for mastery”, Noah’s counter to that is “Let’s see what we’re capable of.”  YES.  Let’s.

After an unhurried period of winding down his role at his previous employer while learning the CA staffer ropes in the margins, Noah started full-time early last month.  Not even two months in, he’s able to field most of what comes his way and is already doing outreach and getting on customer calls solo to show folks around.  AND he and Jaclyn got along swimmingly when I was off for two weeks.  Gelling for the win, and I am delighted.

All told, Noah is a fine addition to the troupe CoachAccountablers who Know How to CoachAccountable™.

Please help me in welcoming Noah!

As of April 30th, Nudge Coach ceased all operations.  These last few weeks, we’ve had several soon-to-be refugees of another platform approach us, looking for an option to move to on the quick (this is apparently not yet public knowledge, so we’ll keep it classy and not name which one).

Wow.

So, coaching platforms can go out of business, just tell everyone “Sorry folks, show’s over.  We’re not gonna charge you anymore.  You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”

Yeah, y’all remember the late 90’s, right?

To me this is super odd, downright foreign.  From our posture here at CoachAccountable, it is an utterly bizarre decision to close things down and tell all of your paying customers to go away, figure out something else.  To me, such a business has already done the hardest work of (1) getting the platform built, (2) finding the customer, and (3) having them still want to stick around.

Haven’t they already won?

This is of course, a naive take.  In the broader world, of course there are businesses whose operating state is some combination of the following:

• Big staff / high payroll
• High effort to support
• High effort to maintain / keep operational
• Impatient investors
• Low or negative margins

Realizing as much makes me proud of a simple but seldom-guessed fact:

CoachAccountable is a 7-figure business that can be run single-handedly.

To do it at the level of being awesome with our customers that I’m committed to, that person has to be pretty well trained.  But it doesn’t have to be me, the founder.

I share all of this not to brag (though admittedly it is a bit of a flex), but out of sympathy for enterprise buyers, whom we’ve seen a rash of, lately.  (And indeed parties of all sizes, who are looking to find a platform that they can depend on for running their coaching business.)  Because even though I’m tempted to look at someone sideways when they ask questions probing the long-term viability of CoachAccountable (or even roll my eyes: to be fair, they don’t know what I know about the waters we swim in here), they’re trying to make a big decision that will shape so much of the trajectory of their business for the years to come.

So I get and honor the thoughtful care that those questions come from.  And I wish everyone success (and luck!) in choosing the right platform, because it can’t be fun to get the notice that operations will be shutting down and you’ve got X months (or days) to pack it all up and find something else.

For our sake, CoachAccountable has cockroach-like staying power.  It’ll keep on running for so long as anyone is depending on it.

I remember cooking up the functionality for coaches to schedule a regular series of Appointments long ago.  It was in CA’s first year of the (commercially viable) 2.0 release.  I was in Bali at the time.

Lotta flexibility here for scheduling a regular series.  Reads like a nice sentence, marching orders to be carried out for you!

I thought for a beat about adding this to the client side of things, but I thought “Nah”.  There are a whole lot more constraints that clients are subject to when picking from specific date and time options and lookout windows, and back in those days I had LOTS of things to focus on to evolve the relatively nascent platform.  It was well enough to keep that scheduling one at a time!

And of course these days the rules for client scheduling come with more constraints, thanks to the allocations and duration rules provided by CA Engagements.  Great power for coaches to control and regulate how and when they can be scheduled with, but again, all the more at odds with letting a client willy-nilly choose to take the next 8 Tuesdays at 10:00am: there could be a dental appointment somewhere in there to break the streak!

So I figured the UI of having someone choose yet potentially often have some reason why the whole series is not be on offer made that feature perhaps more gnarly and unwieldy to use than it was worth.

Then we got this email to support yesterday from Kirsten Chong of Building Champions, emphasis added:

Hello,

I wanted to reach out and ask if you thought the ability for clients to schedule recurring sessions would ever be an option in CA?

The reason I’m asking is because we are getting this question more and more often from our clients and so I thought I would check.

I know internally we can do this and override blocked time, from the client’s side it would be great if they are told of the conflicts, and book everything BUT those dates.

Just an idea

Thanks!

Huh.

That’s elegant.

Yes.

It could give a little alert as needed, letting ’em know if there are some that are a no go, and in so many words just ask “You want the other ones?”

Why didn’t I think of that?

So today I spent about 3 hours and cooked up that functionality, deployed all tested and ready to go with 25 minutes to spare before my 11:00am.

I even made a nice little pop up that pops up if and whenever needed, letting the client choose what to do:

Can’t get the whole series? Then you get the full story of what’s so, and the power to choose.

I wrote back:

Ah, that’s a fine idea! I originally decided against adding the ability for clients to schedule series because of the possible conflicts and the difficulty it might be with the back and forth for a user who can’t override, e.g. if you want a series of 8 but only 6 are available, it gets tricky.

But you’re right, giving them the option to book what IS available in case there are any conflicts is an elegant way to manage this, balancing both the power and ability to manage when that power falls short.

This is now in place! Clients will now see the option to schedule series just like coaches do.

Enjoy!
John

I can’t deny, I relished in the reply I got 19 minutes later:

This is AMAZING!!! You rock John. Seriously. Thank you!!!!!

Thank you, Kirsten!  That little bit of insight that made things come in to clear focus, and here’s to a slightly better CA for all!

Some folks (looking at you, enterprise buyers) get a little nervous about our size as a tiny team, but this to me is the delight of running things a bit unorthodox.  I would be having way less fun (and CA wouldn’t be nearly as good) if I had to coordinate across several teams with disparate priorities to make this sort of thing happen as a Tier-3 Priority™ for next quarter’s Roadmap Release Initiatives®, or whatever.

I’ll take my means and manner of delightful collaboration with customers any day. :)

Carla Reeves of the differently podcast has been a long time fan of CoachAccountable and has really used the heck out of it to give her clients great coaching.  So when she invited me to riff with her as a guest on the show, I was delighted by the chance to talk shop in a real “game recognizes game” sort of way.

And what a treat it was!

Consistent with the very name of her show, throughout the conversation I found it instructive (and hopefully you will too) how much CoachAccountable takes a different perspective on how coaching gets done, one that is NOT enmeshed at all in the towering edifices of capital-C Coaching with their entrenched views on “how it is to be done”.  That offers something to coaches looking for an angle to distinguish themselves and give stand out good service.

Some of my favorite parts:

• How and why I got into creating CoachAccountable in the first place, including my first acquaintance with coaching via Landmark Education (2:40)
• CoachAccountable Version 1: Uh oh, turns out our baby is ugly (6:30)
• The philosophy behind CA’s design, tuned for the experience of being on the receiving end of coaching (12:21)
• The magic of journaling (which frankly I didn’t expect when I built such a basic feature) (16:45)
• My desire to infuse a little “yang” energy into coaching and why (26:55)
• Novel perspective to coach better, coming from a guy looking in on coaching from the outside (40:44)
• A little about AI in coaching and how to remain relevant (48:24)

Fun fact: I listened to the first 20 minutes of it last night during snuggle time with my kids, 8 and 10, who got a kick out of seeing that their daddy could be found somewhere on Spotify.  To the fellow parents out there, I confess it was a bit of a giddy thrill to have my little ones hanging on every word of their daddy talking with another grown up about why he does what he does. :)

Find the official episode page with show notes and transcript here:

Coaching Differently with John Larson

Enjoy!

The other day we got the following question in an email to support:

…where would you recommend recording the main coaching goals and success measures for clients?  …  My current thoughts – top of session notes so they are always there as a reminder or maybe add them to a whiteboard? What do you think?

This is a common-ish question, the general wondering “Where do I store and track my client’s goals?”  Given how central goals are to a results-oriented coaching relationship, ostensibly it’s weird for CA to not just have a “Goals” area somewhere within the app.

The issue reminds of when my Philosophy of Science professor gave the following example in lecture one day when describing what a “category error” means:

Say you’re showing someone around campus to give them a tour.  You take them to the building where the chemistry department resides, you take them to the mathematics building, you show them the student union, the administrative buildings, and so on.  And they get impatient and say “Yes  yes, these are all well and good, but when can I see the university?”  That’s a category error.

So it goes with CA and goals for clients: one might expect a Goals area for recording such an important and central thing.  But that would basically be a glorified notepad for merely capturing words.

CA offers a twist on this: goals themselves can be recorded, yes, but they can also be set up as interactive things to work at.

Here’s how:

Actions

For goals that amount to things to get done and accomplish, those can be entered as Actions, each with their own due date and associated reminders to keep them top of mind of what there is to do.

Action Projects

For bigger goals with multiple steps to be taken, those Actions can be grouped together as an Action Project, complete with a spiffy progress bar that shows your clients getting closer and closer.

The goal here is clear: mark these items all done to fill up that progress meter!

Metrics

For goals and success measures that have a measurable, quantitative bend to them, setting up one or more Metrics for whichever measurable KPIs is the winning move. For a nice grounding on using Metrics effectively, read Why Metrics are Awesome.  To go deeper, check out the Coaching with Metrics Webinar.

You can measure all sorts of meaningful KPIs! The target trend line defines the goal.

Whiteboards

For capturing the long term, big picture stuffs of main coaching goals, Whiteboards are the perfect place.  Unlike Session Notes, Worksheets and Journal Entries, they’re not dated nor are ever marked “Complete”, so they’re evergreen and easy to access by you and your clients.  They admit ongoing edits by either party as things evolve.  They also keep the history of drafts, which can be nice to see the evolution of thinking and priorities over time.

Key Insights

And finally, yes, at the top of Session Notes in the form of Key Insights can be a good place too, as the sort of “Here are the things to focus on THIS week.”  You are able to sort these chronologically with the newest ones first, or star select ones as desired and having those float to the top.  Either is a great way to keep the more immediate goals top of mind.

Key Insights are often worth putting into regular practice, the doing of which is a worthy goal indeed!

So there you have it!  Where to put the goals?  The measures of success?  Like buildings that make up the university, the varied client functionality collectively house your clients’ goals AND success measures.  Beyond mere documentation, they pull for active participation: actual measurement and doing the work.

Over time these goals (as recorded/worked on) become a proud record of accomplishment, ready to share as a lovely souvenir of working with you.

I had fun launching Version 5.

Then I had fun launching Version 5.1.

Today I don’t have anything quite so big and major to show off, but you know what?  Since 5.1’s release in August I’ve done my usual thing of adding numerous little enhancements.

And absent making some sort of thing about it, many of those little gems are apt to go unnoticed.

So I dunno, let’s make a thing a Thing and call the last 4 months worth of new features Version 5.1.1!

Here’s what’s new:

Drag-and-Drop File Uploads

You can now drag files into the Library >> Files area, or into the Files section of a client page.  Do so and they’ll be immediately uploaded into whatever folder you were looking at.  They won’t have any alternate titles set, or descriptions, nor will any notifications be sent in the case of sharing with a client.  But you can set and do those things if needed as a separate step once they flash into existence.

Up to 20 files allowed in a single drop, super satisfying!

Yeah, anywhere in that blue rounded corner rectangle will do.

Drag-and-Drop Gallery Images

When you’re composing anywhere in the WYSIWYG editor and gallery image inserting is allowed, you’re now able to drag an image file right over the compose window and drop it in.  This will have the effect of automatically adding whatever image to your Gallery (upon save), and save you the trouble of having to upload and then insert it as separate steps.

The image will be inserted wherever your cursor presently is, so get that right before you drop.

High Definition Gallery Images

Speaking of inserting images into your WYSIWYG content, images added now support a max width of 1400 pixels (up from 560), as in they’ll only be downsized to 1400 pixels if needed.  They’ll still be shrunk to fit the standard content width, but this means your high def images will look sharper when viewed on e.g. a retina device.

I’ve also made it so that when an image’s natural size IS much larger than the standard content width, one can click on it to view it full size.

And if the image is too big to view full size in the whole browser window, click it again and cue the scroll bars!

On a related note, when choosing images from your gallery those display as mere thumbnails.  You can now get a closer look by clicking on whichever thumbnail you’ve selected as it displays in the right side panel.

Inline Editing of WYSIWYG Images

Okay, one last goodie to do with images when composing content with the WYSIWYG: if you click on an image a little inline popup will appear, allowing you to set styling properties, alignment and size.

I mean, I think the rounded corners are rather fetching, but if they’re not your thing just uncheck the box.

Nicer WYSIWYG Linking

The UI for adding a hyper link via the WYSIWYG is now a spiffy pop up.  It admits full keyboard control, meaning you can link a bit of content without ever having to reach for your mouse: select the content, hit Ctrl+K, paste or type in your URL, and hit enter.  You’re cursor will be right back where you left it ready to continue your edits.  Have a change of heart?  Hit escape at that pop up and it’ll get out of your way and have you ready to resume.  Smooth as silk.

Ctrl+K got me in this, and enter will get me out.

Ctrl+S Save Keyboard Shortcut

Ctrl+S used to be a shortcut for strike through text, but eh, how often do you use that?  Now, in contexts where saving work in progress is a thing (think composing Session Notes and Journal Entries, working on Worksheets, editing Whiteboards) hitting Ctrl+S will save your work.  It won’t do more presumptuous things like mark things complete or send a Message, so you’ll never be caught off guard.

Me saving that work of adding that hyper link, keeping up the streak of not having to reach for my mouse.

In-Calendar Cancel and Reschedule Links

You know how your clients can readily have your appointments with them automatically pipe into their calendar of choice?  Now in the events as added to their calendar the Description field contains magic links for canceling and rescheduling that appointment.  No login required: total convenience, and super handy for clients who have a VA manage that sort of thing on their behalf.

Those links? They’re real, and they’re fantastic.

Invoicing Details in the Current Engagements Listing

For at-a-glance awareness, the invoicing details of a given Engagement are now listing for Current Engagements as found in the Business Center.

Nice to be able to see those upcoming paydays.

Search Filter in Offerings Sign Ups

Because sometimes it’s nice to be able to search by Offering name or client.

Nice to see how sales are for that particular one!

Offering [appointmentLocation] Magic Tag

If clients sign up for an Offering that entails an Appointment, sometimes it’s nice to have the location of that Appointment (often a URL to join a virtual meeting) be included right in the confirmation email for that Offering.  With the new [appointmentLocation] magic tag you can now have exactly that, in addition to the usual reminders, in-app display, and calendar sync.

If it helps your new clients be more likely to easily find their way to your sessions, I’m all for it.

Group Whiteboard Emailing Options

When emailing a Group Whiteboard, CA will now auto suggest the emails of the various Group Members.

Now then, who asked for a resend? Ah yes…

Group Worksheets

For Group Worksheet assignments being viewed in the Group Page’s Stream, your clients can now click on it to bring up the editor for their own work right there on the group page, no need to go back to their Home >> Worksheets area.

If the rules are such that further working on is allowed after marking complete, a client will also be able to do that from the Group Page.

I mean, it’s the little wins, right?

And there you have it!  Any major game changers in here?  Nah.  But there are some quality of life enhancements in here that are worth knowing about.

I hope you and your clients will enjoy!

I got an email the other day with the following subject line:

Critical Vulnerabilities Identified in Your Application

That SOUNDS like an alarming discovery, and if it was true it would be.  But this is the stuff of a form letter that gets thrown around fairly regularly by self-described “security researchers” and “ethical hackers”.

I shouldn’t even put those terms in scare-quotes: folks who find genuine security holes and practice responsible disclosure to get them resolved are doing a great service!  And they deserve to be rewarded.

The email continues:

Hello,

I hope you’re well.

I have identified security weaknesses in your application that may pose risks to user data security and operational stability. It is crucial to address these vulnerabilities promptly to mitigate any potential impacts. Could you please provide a suitable contact point so that I can share detailed findings with your team for immediate attention and resolution?

If your organization has a Bug Bounty program, please share the necessary information for participation. If not, I am committed to collaborating with you to enhance your application’s security posture.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I look forward to your response.

Best regards,
[name redacted]

Sounds good!  I appreciate the thoughtful intentionality here.

But here’s where the “genuine” part of “genuine security holes” often breaks down.  This is a form letter, with no mention of any specific issue.  In my experience, in every single instance these have turned out to be concerns over best practices without any evidence of an exploitable vulnerability.  MAYBE my new security friend was just withholding those details until connected with a suitable contact, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Still, as a responsible steward of everyone’s data in CoachAccountable land I do indeed owe it to everyone to make sure I’m staying on top of things and ensuring the security of that data.

This time, instead of responding in the usual way to ask further details (likely wasting time entertaining the non-impactful nit-pickery of someone who doesn’t necessarily know that this isn’t amateur night) I figured:

You know what?  It’s time CA had a Bug Bounty program.

Let me do this concerned party (and all others to follow) one better by creating a bug bounty program that lays out real cash rewards for genuine issues that may be discovered, making it clear once and for all what counts and for how much.

It now lives here:
https://www.coachaccountable.com/bugBounty

Here are the rewards:

Able to gain access you shouldn’t have? I’m putting my money where my mouth is in betting you won’t be able to, and happy to pay you if I’m wrong.

The Bug Bounty program also makes clear a long list of non-meaningful reports that are out of scope.  As I explain there:

This is a long list. It reflects common “vulnerability” reports that either depend on the unsafe/insecure behaviors of other users (which we cannot control) or are merely ostensible “best practices”, the violation of which cannot actually be meaningfully exploited.

It’s nice to have that in place!  I figure I’ve already done the hard work of securing CA to the point that I’m truly willing to back up that claim of security with real dollars, therefore only good can come of standing by that claim publicly, and inviting whomever to show me otherwise.

With that up and published, I was able to respond thusly:

Hi [name redacted],

I’m well, thanks!

You can find the details of our Bug Bounty program here:

https://www.coachaccountable.com/bugBounty

Cheers,
John

Nine days later, I haven’t heard back.  It must not have been that important.

But I will be very happy to learn of any genuine issues that anyone is able to find, and pay out accordingly. :)

It sounds like a lot when you put it that way, doesn’t it?

And I suppose it is!  Now well past the decade mark (a fine demarcation of the longevity of any software business), CoachAccountable is getting up there.

Of course this year’s biggest news was the release of CoachAccountable 5.1.

Reflections, Metric Templates, Key Insights, Default Landing Pages, pinned Stream items, and new worksheet rules all add to the mix of letting coaches give better and more meaningful experiences for their clients.

But a few other goodies were added to the mix.

Courses got a few enhancements, including new Course Availabilities (which allow you to grant access to Courses and leave it up to your clients to start whenever they choose) and the ability to have Course Content be completable (for greater control of pacing and progress).

Offerings got a few new magic tags and a new type of restriction.

Invoices can now be paid by clients and company personnel without logging in or registering their account, and the history of past sendoffs can now be seen.

Metrics now have the option to show only the most recent data (great for long running tracking).

All told, the release notes of this past year detail 64 releases and 43 bug fixes.

A fine year indeed!

Looking Ahead to CA’s Thirteenth Year

Last December I put out a feeler to all CA users, toying with the idea of offering a group course teaching ways to give better and more results-producing coaching experiences to clients.

The response I got back from this was most encouraging, but I realized quickly that such a live class would not scale, to say nothing of its synchronous nature putting a major damper on who could participate.

So in lieu of that, I’ve been working on something else to fulfill that aim, something that would be fair to call the CoachAccountable perspective on how coaches can be more powerful in their efforts.  (And spoiler: I’m proud to say it ain’t more certifications and it ain’t tacking on even more hours of logged experience.)

It’s nearly ready.  Can’t wait to show you when the time is right.

Onward and upward!
John