Keenan McCurdy is a 15-year wrestling coach. Two-time state champion at Lincoln East. Came back to coach where he once wrestled, eventually replacing his dad, Coach McCurdy Sr.
He’s also is (or has been) a science-turned-gym teacher. A group fitness gym owner. The founder of a youth wrestling club. And somewhere in the middle of all that, he started a software company called GearLocker.
GearLocker helps schools and programs track every singlet, helmet, jersey, and pad they own. Instead of a stack of Google Sheets and a coach’s memory, every piece of equipment gets a QR code and a home.
The part we love most: Keenan didn’t come from tech. He came from the weight room. He lived with the problem for 15 years before he ever decided to solve it.
Key Takeaways
- The best products usually come from someone who lived with the problem for years. Keenan vented about wrestling equipment chaos for three Thanksgivings in a row before GearLocker existed.
- QR codes on every piece of equipment turn 90 minutes of checkout into 20 seconds. Six items scanned to a kid’s name in under half a minute.
- The Guts Club is the model. At Lincoln East, the wrestlers who simply make it to every practice and competition get the award. Most years, only 4 to 6 kids out of 70 earn it. Showing up is rarer than it sounds.
- Don’t ride the roller coaster of short-term wins and disappointments. Progress is non-linear and multi-faceted. That’s true in wrestling, true in business, and true in a SaaS sales cycle.
- The K-12 sales cycle is longer than people expect. Schools have budgets, bureaucracy, and security reviews. Youth clubs move faster. Build for both.
- Selling stops feeling salesy the moment you actually use your own product every day. Confidence is infectious. The pitch writes itself.
Episode at a Glance
Keenan walks through how a 15-year frustration with wrestling equipment turned into GearLocker, a SaaS platform now running in about 500 programs across the country. He explains the QR code workflow, the purchase-request feature that came out of just listening to athletic directors, and why the same Guts Club mindset he preaches to his wrestlers is the operating system he’s using to build the company.
Action step: If you’ve been venting about the same problem for three years, write it down. Then text the smartest builder you know. The thing you live with every day is the thing you’re most qualified to solve.
Main idea: Stacking small efforts over time beats almost everything. In a wrestling room, in a startup, and on a sales call with a school district that takes six months to say yes.
Why it matters: Most founders quit because they’re riding the roller coaster, not the treadmill. The treadmill wins.
Quick tool: A QR code generator and a spreadsheet. That’s it. Every singlet, helmet, and jersey now has a unique ID, a scan history, and a parent on the hook if it doesn’t come back.
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About Keenan McCurdy
Keenan is the co-founder of GearLocker, a SaaS platform for managing the full life cycle of school and team athletic equipment. He’s also the head wrestling coach at Lincoln East, where he wrestled under his dad and won two state titles before coming back to coach. He teaches science, owns a group fitness gym, and founded a youth wrestling club called Team Gogie. He’s stepping out of the classroom to focus on GearLocker full-time.
- 15 years coaching wrestling at Lincoln East
- Two-time state champion as an athlete
- Co-founder and operator of GearLocker, running in about 500 programs nationwide
- Built the product alongside his brother-in-law (software entrepreneur) and Jake’s brother-in-law Ryan (lead engineer)
- Flagship customers include the Bennington High School football program, multiple Class B state champs
- Currently building a fantasy wrestling app on the side, just to learn
His mantra: “Don’t ride the roller coaster of short-term wins and disappointments. Meaningful progress is non-linear and multi-faceted.”
GearLocker: https://gearlocker.com
Highlights & Timestamps
00:00–02:00. The Hot Tub Conversation That Started GearLocker
Jake reminds Keenan they first talked about this in the hot tub. The five-job, five-hat version of who Keenan is and how he got to this episode.
02:00–08:30. The 15-Year Frustration Behind the Product
Why every wrestling coach hates checkout season. Three Thanksgivings of venting to a software-entrepreneur brother-in-law. The moment the table conversation turned into a company.
08:30–15:00. QR Codes, the Full Equipment Life Cycle, and Brothers in the Same Wash
How GearLocker actually works: purchasing, condition tracking, inventory, and the QR code scan that lets a coach check out six items in 20 seconds. Why a “central truth bible” beats any spreadsheet a coach has tried.
15:00–22:00. The Wrestling Room: Guts Club, Slow and Steady, and the Walls at Lincoln East
The award you can only win by showing up. Why 60 practices stacked on 60 more practices is the whole game. The direct line from a wrestling program to a SaaS company.
22:00–30:00. Bennington Football and Listening Your Way to the Right Feature
The early-adopter coach who helped shape the product. Why purchase requests, the thing not on the original radar, became the most-used part of the platform. And the slow-and-steady speech Keenan gives every new coach who’s overwhelmed by their storeroom.
30:00–38:00. The Pitch, the Process, and the Coach Who Doesn’t Want to Change
How Keenan handles the legendary coach with a notebook full of handwriting nobody can read. Why a great product makes objection-handling feel honest, not pushy. The branded vs. unbranded search split on gearlocker.com.
38:00–46:00. The Team, the Brother-in-Laws, and the Sales Cycle Surprise
Meet Ryan and Drew. Why the GearLocker team was built around people who actually understand coaches. And the hardest lesson of year one: schools take longer to say yes than anyone expected.
46:00–54:00. All 50 States, Ireland, and Why You Should Just Start
The Camogie story from a trip to Ireland. The path from Lincoln East to a worldwide product. And Jake’s closing pitch to anyone sitting on an idea: start the landing page tonight.
The Hot Tub Origin Story
Most of the best ARTILLERY conversations happen in places that don’t look like meetings. This one started in a hot tub.
Keenan was venting about wrestling equipment. Hundreds of singlets, headgear, warm-up tops, and shorts. 60 to 80 kids a year. No system. Just a notebook and a hope that the right large jersey came back to the right large kid.
This is the part most founders skip. The years and years of carrying around the problem before you ever do anything about it.
Keenan vented about it for three Thanksgivings in a row to his brother-in-law, who happened to be a software entrepreneur. Right after wrestling checkouts. Right when the frustration was freshest.
Eventually his brother-in-law said the line every founder needs to hear at least once: “That’s a hundred percent doable. And people would appreciate it if you did it.”
The lesson isn’t “have a brother-in-law in software.” The lesson is that the problem you’ve already lived with for a decade is the one you’re most qualified to solve.
QR Codes and the Central Truth Bible
The core of GearLocker is simple. Every piece of equipment gets a QR code and a unique ID. Coaches scan the code with a phone. The app knows who has what, what condition it’s in, and what it’s worth.
“I scan it real quick. I say, well, that’s actually this kid’s. He probably has yours.”
That’s the whole experience. Brothers no longer accidentally trade warm-up tops in the wash. A coach can check out six items to a wrestler in 20 seconds. Parents get notified if a jersey doesn’t come back.
And the magic compounds. The longer a program uses GearLocker, the better the data gets. After year two, a coach can finally see which items they actually check out, which ones sit in the corner, and which ones to stop reordering.
Jake’s name for it on the show: “the central truth bible.” Keenan now wants to put it on a t-shirt.
The bigger insight is the one Keenan kept circling: most coaches don’t have a process for equipment. They have a habit. GearLocker gives them a process, even if they didn’t know they wanted one.
The Guts Club: A Coaching Award That Doubles as a Business Mantra
There’s a wall in the Lincoln East wrestling room with names on it. Keenan calls one of the columns the Guts Club.
To win it, you have to make every practice and every competition. That’s it. No matches won. No trophies. Just showing up.
In a typical 70-wrestler season, four to six kids earn it. Some years, only two or three. Injuries don’t count against you. Life that’s out of your control doesn’t count against you. The Guts Club is for the kids who controlled what they could control.
This is the through-line of the entire episode. The same award works for a startup.
Sixty good practices, plus a few bad ones, stacked on sixty more. Four years of that and the kid is unrecognizably tougher. Four years of that in a business and the product is unrecognizably better.
“If you think of it as a marathon and not a sprint, I can pretty much guarantee that if you stick with this thing for four years, you’re gonna become a better person because of it.”
That’s also the GearLocker sales pitch, by the way. Use the app for one season. Build inventory year over year. Year three is when the data starts paying you back.
Listening Your Way to the Right Feature
The most-used part of GearLocker today wasn’t in the original spec. Purchase requests.
Coaches need to order equipment. Athletic directors have to approve it. The old system was chaos. A sticky note on the AD’s desk. A casual mention in the hallway. An email at 11pm. No central record.
Keenan didn’t think to build for that. Athletic directors told him to.
“That was a big win that came out of just trying to listen to people.”
Now every purchase request flows through one place. The AD can see what’s coming. They can budget against actual inventory and actual condition data. Coaches don’t have to chase approvals.
The takeaway for any founder: the feature you didn’t think of is often the one your users care about most. Build the loop that lets you hear it.
The Sales Cycle Lesson: Schools Are Slow on Purpose
Here’s the part that surprised Keenan the most.
When he demos GearLocker, coaches love it. ADs love it. The product sells itself in the room.
Then it takes six to nine months to actually close.
“The hardest thing we had to learn early on is that the sales cycle is longer than we thought.”
The reason isn’t the product. It’s the buyer. Schools have budgets, security reviews, board approvals, and 25 other programs competing for the same line item. Youth clubs and travel teams move much faster.
The fix isn’t to hate the cycle. It’s to plan for it. Slow and steady on the buy side too. Keep the demos rolling. Keep the relationships warm. Keep stacking renewals so next year’s revenue is already half-built before the school year starts.
This is the same compounding game Keenan teaches in the wrestling room. It just shows up on a different time scale.
Selling Stops Being Salesy When You Actually Use the Product
One of the best moments in the conversation was when Keenan said, almost sheepishly, that he loves sales.
The reason is the one every great founder eventually figures out. Sales feels gross when you’re trying to convince someone of something you don’t fully believe. Sales feels easy when you’re using your own product every day and you genuinely think it will make someone’s life better.
“I don’t feel like I have to sell anything. I just feel like I have to tell coaches and athletic directors how I truly believe I’m gonna make their lives better.”
He scans his own kids’ gear with GearLocker. He uses it at Lincoln East. He’s been deep enough in the problem to know exactly what it solves.
That confidence is what comes through on a demo. Not a pitch. Not a script. Just a coach who solved his own problem and wants to save other coaches the same headache.
If your product doesn’t pass that test, the answer isn’t a better sales deck. The answer is using it yourself until it does.
All 50 States, Then Camogie Sticks in Ireland
The closer was Jake asking Keenan what growth looks like.
GearLocker is in 50 states is the first milestone. Then probably the world. Keenan and his wife were in Ireland a few years back watching a sport called Camogie. The clubs check out sticks to every kid. Same problem. Different gear.
Sports are universal. Equipment is universal. The chaos of tracking it is universal.
The whole thing started in a wrestling room in Lincoln, Nebraska. Slow and steady, it doesn’t have to stop there.
Call to Action
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Start here: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/
Show Credits
Hosts: Jake Kramer
Guest: Keenan McCurdy (GearLocker: https://gearlocker.com )
Produced by: ARTILLERY, Lincoln, Nebraska
Slow & Steady, a podcast by ARTILLERY
https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/
