Protect Your Child with BUNKR ft Hannah Keeling

Transcript

I’m Lisa Stone and you’re listening to Parenting Aces. Welcome to season 15 of the Parenting Aces podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Stone, and this week I am joined once again by Hannah Keeling. Those of you who’ve been following the podcast may remember my episode with Hannah last year when we were discussing college tennis. But Hannah has made a career change. She is now the director of tennis for a new platform called Bunker. That’s B-U-N-K-R. And you’re going to hear all about Bunker and its uses for tennis in the junior world, the college world, and the professional world, and why this app is so necessary in today’s environment. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Hannah. Before I bring her on, just a quick reminder, if you haven’t already, I hope you will go follow us on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, on LinkedIn. We share lots of information on those platforms as well as on our website, parentingaces.com. Of course, if you haven’t signed up for our e-newsletter on parentingaces.com, you need to take care of that right away and make sure you’re a subscriber to this podcast. And you can do that through whichever podcast app you like. We have the video version on YouTube, the audio version on pretty much all the podcast apps out there. One last thing, if you are a tennis parent and would like to have a one-to-one meeting with me to talk about your family’s tennis journey, I do offer these one-to-one consults. You can get more information on that on our website, parentingaces.com. If you click on the Shop tab at the top of the page, you’ll see all of your options for those one-to-one meetings. So now sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Hannah Keeling of Bunker. Hannah, it’s great to have you back on. Last time we chatted was all about NAI college tennis and college tennis really beyond Division I. And you were coaching at Georgia Gwinnett. You’ve had a bit of a career change. I have indeed. And thank you for having me on here again. It’s always a pleasure being here with you, Lisa. So thank you so much. I am now with Bunker. I left college tennis. It was last October after our last Nationals event down in Rome. And it was an amazing, very organic transition to step out of a pretty successful college career and a few national championships, which was amazing. And keep working in the tennis world, which I’m doing at Bunker and continue to help make an impact on athletes and their families and just transition over to the sports, business, and tech world that way. So let’s dive into Bunker. And I would love for you to share with our audience what is Bunker and what is your role at Bunker? Yes. So I’ve been brought in at Bunker as the business development director for tennis. And Bunker is essentially an all-in-one app trusted by elite tennis players and athletes all around the world that coaches their families to basically safeguard their communications when they travel, when they play, from juniors with our safe sports all the way up to the ATP/WTA highest level of tennis. We have several hundred highly ranked professionals on the app right now. And we are just a trusted app where athletes, families, agents, you name it, can manage their lives day in, day out and simply focus on what’s most important. And that is competing and doing that in a safe and secure way. Why do we need Bunker? What is going on that precipitated the development of this app and specifically how it relates to tennis? I think, you know, the world is just evolving. Every single day, there’s so many moving parts and for athletes specifically, I mean, the whole spectrum, you know, from juniors or to families, you want to make sure that communication and information sharing are safe. An athlete doesn’t want to have to worry about losing their tax documents or their visas, you know, when they travel or their hotel information. And there’s so many platforms out there that may not have that level of security. So Bunker was created to add and help to people’s lives so they can focus on what is most important and have a digital platform that manages them and their sports and their, you know, their trusted circle. So it’s really organically taken off in the elite sports world. And it’s now everywhere because we found that the safe sport part, you know, for juniors as well, it’s just up and coming with all those moving pieces that they have now, especially with NIL and, you know, kids developing, going into college, that there’s a need for Bunker to have that trusted space. So compare Bunker to, let’s say, WhatsApp and, you know, over the last at least decade, WhatsApp has kind of been the go to platform for, especially when you’re traveling outside the country because it’s on wifi and it’s easy to communicate and has been free. But what’s going on that made the creators of Bunker, and maybe you can kind of take us into that a little bit too, think, okay, WhatsApp is great if you’re just texting back and forth, but if you’re sharing sensitive information, maybe we need something a little more secure. For sure. I mean, you know, I can speak on behalf of Bunker, but you can see, you know, in the news nowadays that how many issues that athletes have to deal with, especially most recently, some articles where players get horrible messages, you know, about when they play and it can lead all the way up to threats for their families and everything like that. So Bunker is so secure where, first of all, it’s 100, 100% verified human users. You know, it’s invitation only. You cannot get any unsolicited messages from cyber criminals or imposters. So if me and you are both on Bunker Lisa, you have to be in a proof connection to be able to communicate with each other. And then as well as that, you know, we’re regulated in the industries, finance, medical, HIPAA, and it just adds that layer of protection. And we’re finding that a lot of people, a lot of teams, whatever team it is or families, it’s given that layer of security blanket to know that, Hey, this is my group. And I think there’s a lot of people in the world who don’t have a trusted network unless we give permission and we know this person. So that’s been really remarkable to see that take off because there’s so many things that athletes have to deal with nowadays, all these distractions that they have just for traveling and, you know, playing the sport of tennis. And so Bunker has really been used worldwide now and I think that when they leave, for example, this ATP player came off the court and he had like 80 messages on WhatsApp. And he said, no, I’m just going to go to Bunker. I don’t know half of these people. And I’m just going to speak to my trusted people that I know. So it gives that focus, you know, that they can safely communicate and keep things private. So that’s kind of the difference that we have going on right now. And I think it’s important to play any kind of role in fan engagement with the athletes. Cause I know you were talking early on about the fact that athletes are getting these horrible messages. And a lot of that has to do with betting and, you know, people betting on an outcome and it’s not going their way. And then they attack the players and we’ve seen all of that. We’ve read all of that in terms of social media communication. Things like Instagram and TikTok has been the ability for fans to interact with their favorite athletes. Bunker is definitely not allowing just that open communication, but are you finding that your Bunker users are kind of stepping away from that Instagram, TikTok engagement that they might’ve had previous to Bunker? No, I think that’s super important for athletes. To be able to have that fan experience and that community that they have with their fans. I think the layer of protection in their personal lives and their athletics lives is what we can and we do fully protect against. And if an athlete kind of doesn’t use the other platforms to communicate with their teams, it naturally filters out, you know, the bad guys per se. messages that people get on social media, but we can certainly put up that shield against it from that communication standpoint. Can you give us an example of how a junior tennis player and family would use Bunker to protect against some of these things that we’re talking about? Absolutely. So for example, you have a junior tennis player, 12 years old, right? When you start to really, really travel, around the country and a junior tennis player may be going on a trip with their coach for the first time without the parent. So we are there to protect the junior player, but we’re also there to protect the coach and the parents. So in Bunker, the parents will have full visibility and they can use their email or phone number in Bunker. And it’s a way for the parent to be able to safely share credit cards, you know, travel documents, match analysis. The coach could send the match analysis, you name it, anything. And that trusted network in Bunker gives full visibility to all of the components that makes, you know, a junior tennis player. And that’s one thing that’s been really successful and super important. And to have the security from a parent’s standpoint of knowing, okay, the coach is in here, we can, you know, we’ll see everything that’s going on. We can manage our important stuff that we need our child to have, you know, even allergy, a list of allergies and everything like that. And then it gives the junior that maturity, the start of their maturity piece. I love to talk about this because, you know, tennis players, they travel so much when they’re so young and you want them to be ready when they go to college. And then after college, you want them to be ready for the real world. Right. So in Bunker itself, it allows that maturity to grow where they can manage and use everything that is going to help them be successful themselves. But then again, share with openly with their group. Yeah. And you mentioned the safe sport piece. Talk a little bit about that and why Bunker is utilizing that and how that should give families a sense of wellbeing around using this app. Yeah. I think it goes back to nowadays, you know, you’ve got to be so careful with everything and the emerging threats that are out there for athletes, for coaches, for parents, the safe sport piece. Obviously USDA has their safe play, for example, and coaches have to complete all those certifications to be able to be a USDA coach. And in Bunker, because it is so regulatory, it provides that layer of safe sport and for the parent to have full control with everything. And I think that is so important nowadays with the ever changing world of sports. And then for coaches, speaking to other coaches, to be able to have that almost peace of mind, being able to have that with the group has been amazing to see. I always say, we talk about the threats of the sports world and the horrible messages, but to have it openly there, but so secure and to protect coaches and open communication in that network is key because, you know, anything can happen nowadays and you want to make sure the protection is of highest level. For sure. And, you know, we talk a lot about this need for parents to make sure that any communication that’s happening between a coach and a young player, that the parent is in the loop on that. We don’t want coaches and players communicating, especially, well, especially junior players. So any kid age 8 to 18, a parent needs to be in the group communication. There should never be anything that’s happening just between a coach and a player. And so Bunker is providing that safe platform for the parent to then be in the loop, be monitoring, even if the coach and the player are messaging back and forth, the parent is in on it and can see everything that’s happening. Correct? Correct. Yes. So for example, that the parent would be the admin of the group. So because it’s invitation only, the parent will have full control who can communicate in Bunker. And that’s, you know, to have that. And if my kid was going to California, for example, to play a tournament, not going this weekend to still be able to see everything in the group, monitor and just let them do what they love. That’s just to compete and enjoy and to have that peace of mind. That’s kind of what we’re here for. And you guys are working a lot with college teams now, too. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like and why a college team would want to use Bunker instead of WhatsApp or just regular old text messaging? Absolutely. I can’t tell you this funny story here, but how many times and if my former players are watching, they’ll be like, oh, no, you’re going to call us out here. So, for example, just getting a team ready for a travel weekend. Right. So and tennis predominantly, you have a lot of international students on your team. So in in Bunker, for example, for them to manage all their most important information, like their their health insurance cards, you know, just to keep the credit card photos of credit card or you need to scan a receipt. For example, I used to get phone calls at midnight saying, Coach, I cannot look into my my health insurance. I said, Well, you should get Bunker and know that, you know, so to have that to take almost that return of investment in time for a coach to know that everything is there. The vault piece of Bunker has been just amazing for them. And then to add the communication where they can manage the teams and put it into different groups. Has been huge because, for example, other platforms, you don’t want to share these information or their transcripts, even through like when you’re speaking to recruits, for example, that is such private information for individuals. So being able to have that and that communication piece, share notes for matches and the after matches. We found that coaches are really, really loving it. But then for also the athletes to use it as a tool when they go and play a tournament when they travel themselves. So it’s taken away a lot of the extra work that coaches have to do from that admin side and made it a lot more streamlined. And essentially, you know, coaches love to coach. They want to be out there on the court and not worrying about a lost health insurance card or, you know, before a match, a student doesn’t have a document that they they need to travel. So that’s been really awesome. And the adoption there just keeps growing and growing throughout all divisions because it’s it’s really helping assist teams and some teams that may not have an assistant coach, for example, adds that layer and helps the coach themselves to have it all in there because they don’t have an assistant because I just I know how much work college coaches do. And they’re amazing. So it’s been awesome to help in on that side. You mentioned the vault in bunker. So the vault, I’m assuming, is where you would upload, for example, your health insurance card, your travel documents, your transcripts, those types of things. And then they’re held securely within the app and can only be accessed by whom by yourself. So you would decide to share it with your trusted network or somebody individually that is in your trusted network. So we have a vault and notes and password manager, which is awesome. And in the vault, you can customize it, you know, make it really specific to yourself and also to a team. So finding in the vault anything from visas, passports, credit cards, health insurance. You name it can be put into folders in the vault. And then that person has control of who they share it with. So if I would like to share my visa with my coach, we need a visa to travel. I can share that file in bunker directly to the coach or another angle there is the coach wants to share everybody’s room and hotel information when they travel. They can share it individually. Or as a group. So you have that piece. And then the note section, it can be anything, you know, from a lot of college coaches use it for their schedule for the after match analysis, private, the private lessons they’re having with their players. And you can go back and forth and share notes individually or as a group. And then the password one is one of my favorites because I cannot tell you how many passwords I have for different things. I’ll be in paste that into your whatever app you need it for. But that one is is pretty awesome too. Yeah, love it. So let’s talk about the specifics of getting bunker. How do how does somebody download the app? What’s the cost involved with using the app and anything else that we need to know around that? Yeah, for sure. There’s a few aspects of bunker. You can go onto our website, which I’ll share with you. And download it individually or we have governed teams, which has been really successful for colleges, teams, academies and our governing bodies. And that will just be requesting to speak to myself essentially. And we create an environment and cost for for the team with all of those added layers to customer for their needs, for example. So an individual user would be $40 a year. It’s not monthly. It’s a year. So which is very, very good price compared to some other apps. And then for teams, it’s done as licenses. So let’s say I’m a college coach and I would like 20 licenses because I’m going to use it for my recruits or I’m going to add athletic trainer in the group. So they’ll request that through myself or online and then we’ll price it up there very similar to that. OK, and so for for a college team or for an academy, let’s say that wants to set up this license arrangement. Let’s say I’m a coach. I run a junior academy. I want bunker available to all of my players that are traveling to tournaments and I want it available to their parents. I would talk to you then, Hannah, and you would create this team piece of it for me. Is that right? Yes, exactly. So we’ve just been setting up a really awesome academy in Florida that has boarding, too. So what they have done is given me a number of licenses, let’s say random number 200 licenses. And the Academy directors and the school are the administrators and then we help them set up just sharing the licenses. It’s literally as simple as you share a license and you download the app and the person is pretty ready in their team, already ready to go. And that transitions across if they would like a student athlete to have two parents in it, too. So you would share it to the parents and share it to the student and everybody’s already in that team network. So that’s how we set it up there. So it’s extremely user friendly. And then that way, the administrators of the group can create the different groups. So whether it’s high performance, you have your homeschool group, parents group. So you can pick how you want them all to be connected together. And in terms of the cost, then if if an academy has set up and they’re paying bunker directly for access, then is the license sent to the family free of charge? Are the academies trying to offset their expense by then charging the families? How is that working so far? What you’re seeing? Yeah, I think it depends on who it is and how they want to do it. So we can pretty much do it anyway. I’ve had some academies have actually purchased it for a family member and the child, or they will purchase it for the tennis tennis academy, the administrators and then just say to the parents, hey, this is how we’re doing our secure communication. If you can download bunker and you can be part of the group. So it really depends, you know, need to need basis and we can do it in any way possible. And funny enough, we found that a lot of academies already have some people on bunker, which is great. So you can just simply add them into the network that way. Okay. And I’m just thinking as you’re talking, if an academy sets this up, they can’t include a junior player without including the parents, correct? Correct. Yes, that’s they could, they can, but they would need parental permission to do that. And what we’re finding is pretty much all of the time, the parents will be in there also. And that’s what we recommend too, because that’s, you know, that security piece there for sure, because you want to make sure everybody is on the same page. So some people like to use it for the, you know, the management piece for academies, coaches, staff and players. And then they will include their families just to share the information out as well. So yeah, I’m going to say to the parents watching or listening to this, do not give permission for your academy to add your child without adding you just don’t do it. It’s, it’s not worth the risk. You need to be monitoring any communication that’s happening. So I think that’s really important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What else do we need to know? I think, you know, you’ll see bunker out there, you know, in the tennis space and not just tennis, but all sports. And I think, you know, the most important thing is we’re here to help people do what they love. We love sports, love tennis, anything about competing and to have that, you know, this app itself, I think is a great way for people to do that with more peace of mind. And that’s been really exciting to see. So we’ll see bunker. Everyone will see bunker out there in the world. I’m sure more and more. Are you guys sponsoring events yet? Is that something that’s in your future? I think we’ve just had our new partnership with the ITA that is come out. They’re really taking a proactive approach with what we do to help colleges and teams. So we’ll definitely, you’ll definitely see us out here in some tennis events very soon. Yeah, that’s awesome. I will. Yes. I will send everything to you, but it will be bunker, B-U-N-K-R dot life. Love it. Dot life. That’s a new one. Yeah. I think it’s pretty cool. Bunker dot life. And then on the bunker dot life, you can go across to the uses and see the tennis and sports area and then the governed team management pages. So check it out. And reach out to me if you need anything. So I want to encourage the parents to take a look at this, consider downloading it for yourself and your child, then talk to your child’s coach and get them to download it and to set up these types of groups as a way to safely communicate to the academies that may be watching or listening. This is a great added value that you can offer to your tennis families. And I can help you get it set up for your academy, for all of your coaches, for your staff, for your families, for your players, and make that communication piece just seamless and secure, which is the keyword here. Yeah. And Hannah is incredibly responsive. So we will have all of her contact information in the show notes on parenting aces.com as well as a link to the bunker website. So you can kind of take a little deeper dive into what it looks like, the interface and how you can incorporate that into your family’s tennis journey. Hannah, thank you so much. I’m so excited that you found this new kind of path out, out of coaching, but still in the tennis world. We don’t ever want to lose you in the tennis space. So never will never will. Yeah, it’s been amazing. So it’s been a, it’s been an awesome journey and I’m super, super excited. Very excited for the future. So thank you so much. Of course. And for those of you who missed my previous podcast with Hannah, we’ll have a link to that in the show notes as well, because her tennis story is so great too. So I hope you’ll check that out. Hannah, again, thank you so much for taking time out of your crazy busy schedule. I hope to see you next time I’m in Atlanta and to my audience. Thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll catch you next time on Parenting Aces. I’m Hannah Stone and you’ve been listening to the Parenting Aces podcast for tennis parents by a tennis parent. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us and write a review on iTunes. For more information on navigating the junior and college tennis journey, please visit us online at parentingases.com. Thanks for tuning in and sharing us with your tennis community. [inaudible]