We recently connected with Gerard Jones and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Gerard , thanks for joining us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of being a service provider is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

Last year I faced one of my biggest challenges yet, being diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome, an extremely rare and rapid-onset muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system, resulting in the lose of legs, arms and other body parts including breathing difficulties.

I was diagnosed in the summer of 2022 and lost the ability to use my legs, feet, and arms, had numbness in my face and struggled to breath, immediately being admitted into ICU and facing a battle that was life threatening. I was released in August/September 2022 and since then had to go on a track to recovery that I am still on today. I have faced some bad days with my health and progress, feeling tired and fatigued a lot. This made running multiple start-up businesses extremely hard, never mind studying a part-time PhD!

I have had to learn how to walk again, how to move, how to speak and this drive and focus to get better and never give up has transferred into my business life by growing not one, but two businesses into leading companies!

Gerard , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Firstly, I have always had a passion for soccer coaching and developing people, having established a career working in grassroots and professional soccer across different age-groups around the world.

Originally from England, I played for Halifax Town AFC as a youth player and started coaching as a teenager at the club’s Center of Excellence program working with U12s and U15s. Aged 19, I founded my own soccer coaching business called Gérard School of Football, which I grew into becoming a Top 100 Best Business Startup in the UK in 2010, forming a partnership with Premier League Arsenal FC to run Arsenal Soccer Schools which at the time was one of the largest soccer school programs in the world whilst still only being aged 21. I grew GSF to securing strategic partnerships with Asda, one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK to run free sporting sessions for children throughout the UK during their school-holidays to help kids keep fit and active. I also formed a partnership with multi-billion pound property management company British Land PLC providing funded training opportunities to under-privileged areas, as GSF delivered after-school clubs, holiday courses and ran Advanced Skills Centers.

I later worked in professional soccer in England as a Head of Coaching at EFL Bristol Rovers FC, and as an Academy Coach at Rochdale AFC, and have also mentored coaches across all levels from the elite level to the grassroots for four of the six continental bodies of governance in football, which includes UEFA, AFC, CAF & CONCACAF. Most recently, I worked as an Elite Coach Educator with the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, where I influenced the national playing philosophy and coaching methodology and all coach education courses.

It is these experiences that fuelled my focus to launch an innovative ed-tech startup (ULEARNBLY.COM) to disrupt the market place and address a lot of issues in coach education by providing courses and mentoring to coaches of any level at an affordable price, and available anywhere, any device, any time! ULearnbly is currently used by thousands of soccer coaches globally, with the help of grant funding from Mansfield Council and the South Yorkshire Digital Innovation Grant as part of the European Regional Development Fund, designed to help build and improve the use of digital technology and promote innovation. ULearnbly is also a beneficiary of the Productivity through Innovation program with the University of Derby, and Sheffield Innovation Program, whilst working with several UK universities.

Last year, ULearnbly was inducted into the prestigious NatWest Bank Entrepreneur Accelerator 2022 program, with NatWest Bank, one of the largest banks in the UK, as part of a six-month program for entrepreneurs with high-growth businesses who are looking to scale up. We were also inducted into one of the world’s leading universities, Cambridge University through their Impulse 2022 program. The Impulse program is a 12-week intensive learning program to support entrepreneurs commercializing innovative ideas in high-growth technology companies.

The growth has been incredible, with some of our content featuring in the prestigious UEFA Champions League 2022 Technical Report.

I combine this role with being a Director of Coaching of Sporting City North, a youth soccer club of MLS Sporting Kansas City that launched in the summer of 2022 and has already generated over $1m in revenues, providing soccer coaching to children aged from 5-19 in the Platte County and the surrounding North Missouri communities.

I am most proud of my ability to grow two startups and see the growth and potential of this whilst overcoming physical recovery challenges with being diagnosed with GBS

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Being diagnosed with GBS and having to go through physical and occupational therapy whilst trying to run multiple businesses and study at the same time is hard, and it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows! In fact, I faced challenges in the early days of running ULearnbly and trying to cover the bills and personal costs whilst also trying to gain new business and earn enough to survive and it was this resilience of not giving up and continuing to study, find new ways to improve myself and my business and learn on the go that helped me through tough days.

I am so happy that I’ve not only helped grow ULearnbly from being founded in 2021 to where it is today, and at the same time grow Sporting City North into a leading youth club and business that’s exceeding all areas when it comes to business, player and coach development.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Take ULearnbly as an example, trying to get people to share a special word about my business on social media. A lot of people think that you need to pay people but actually reaching out to people and asking them if they could do a post about a product or service and share on their platforms was actually pretty easy and a really effective thing to do as people were quick to show their support with a few words on Twitter (now X) and Instagram which I could later use as a testimonial.

I was also clever in co-designing products people wanted and reselling them as well as gaining feedback on my services and using this to improve my product development!

This helped grow my clientele a lot!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ulearnbly.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ulearnbly/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ulearnbly/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ulearnbly