How Activity Messenger and AMplify Came to Life

17 min · Olivier Rousseau & William Rochford · Feb 4, 2026

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About this episode

In the first episode of AMplify, William Rochford sits down with Olivier Rousseau to hear how he went from running a kids’ sports business to co-founding a software company. Olivier shares how his business grew from 16 kids to thousands of registrations a year across several cities, the frustration of juggling disconnected tools and manual emails, how meeting Martin Drapeau during COVID led him into tech, and why they started this podcast: to share practical ideas that help sports and leisure organizations save time and grow their impact.

What we discuss

Growing a kids’ sports business from 16 kids to thousands of registrations Paper forms, mailed cheques, and the shift to online registration The cost and frustration of juggling disconnected tools Why manual emails and copy-paste don’t scale How meeting Martin during COVID led Olivier into tech Why sports and leisure organizations matter more than ever The mission behind the AMplify podcast Resources mentioned How to Improve Your Online Registration by Making It Mobile-First (Not Just Mobile-Friendly) The Real Problem With Mailchimp for Sports & Leisure Activity Messenger online registration Activity Messenger automations Book a free demo of Activity Messenger Follow Olivier on LinkedIn About the hosts Olivier Rousseau co-founded Activity Messenger after spending 13 years running a kids' sports program that served 4,000 families. William Rochford is Activity Messenger's product expert. Want to share your story or ask a question? Email olivier@activitymessenger.com.

Full episode transcript

Read the full transcript

[0:00] Hey everybody and welcome to the AMplify podcast. My name is Will and I'm here with Oli. Um, and today we're going to talk about Oli's story. We're going to hear about how he went from being the owner of a business that offers sports programs for kids, so working on the ground into the co-founder of a tech company. So yeah, stay tuned and here we go. Hey Oli, how you doing? Good, good, good. It's good to be back with you. Well, I say back. This is our first episode, but we did practice a little bit.[0:33] Um, yeah. So, I mean, tell us a little bit about you. Um, you are the co-founder of Activity Messenger, uh, helps, you know, sports and leisure organizations do sort of registrations and stuff like that. But you have a whole journey that got you to where you are. So, you know, where did you start and how did you get here? Yeah, absolutely. So in 2012, um, a friend and I, we started a, uh, a business for kids sports programs on the north shore of Montreal. So we kind of got into teaching kids on how to, you know, grow through sports. Uh, we[1:08] started with 16 kids. The first session, we brought it, you know, at some point up to like almost five or 6 thousand registrations per year. Uh, we were just the two of us. At the end, we had like, you know, 80 85 employees. We were in the north of Montreal, but also Ottawa, Quebec City. Wow. So that was all over a span of 13 years. And yeah, so you know, at the back in the days, you know, it was really weird. Like some of our first revenues were mailed in, you know, a registration form that they had printed out, filled out, mailed in with a check. I remember opening, you know, my my[1:39] my mail and being like, "Wow, we just made some revenue, right?" That was kind of like some of the first things and how we started. We were Yeah, that that sounds crazy. I mean, you just talked about what 85 employees across how many locations and you're talking about receiving checks by mail. Yeah, absolutely. Um cuz we didn't have a location, so people have to pay us. And then back then the registration softwares were not ideal. So sometimes it was a bit harder and we still had people uh come in and fill out you know and paper during free trials or you know[2:08] give us a check here and there. Um so I saw kind of a lot of that ev evolution of like okay now how optimized things can be you know in today's world. Yeah. So when did that start hitting you? Like when did you start to realize, oh, I think I need to bring some of these processes online? Pretty quickly actually because one of the things about activity uh about our business is we didn't have a location, right? So we subcontracted all these locations. So gym gymnasiums uh partners with cities and community centers. So we didn't have like a we didn't have a[2:37] place where people can like drive by or see it or come and talk to us. So everything had to be online conversations and then during the class obviously. Uh but then I kind of quickly realized, oh wow, we need to optimize that. We need find ways to market uh take registration and kind of simplify all those processes uh for for people to sign up online. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, to and also just to have a centralized point of communication, right? I mean, yeah, 100%. uh and not only communication but also um to to to[3:08] handle all of those payments and the invoices and the that's a lot of stuff a lot of stuff and and back then it was even more so you know you have your registration uh uh platform but then you needed another platform to do surveys to sign waivers to do your free trials to even you know do your email marketing right so as we kind of built the business we were adding all these tools where at some point we were juggling many tools which a cost a lot of money. Um I you know we brought our Mailchimp kind of fees up to like at least 250 300[3:39] US a month just to send one newsletter a month. Right. Yeah. Because these CRM charge by amount of contacts. Exactly. So as we were growing you know those invoices were going and but it didn't have any context with my registration platform. So it made it really hard for me to kind of market really well. I was paying a lot of money. I didn't have the context of my client and I was using probably 5% of the features in Mailchimp. Like if you send you know not using all the features they[4:02] were building. So, it was just one of those moments where I was like, I need to pay for it cuz it's worth it, but it's like I wish I had another tool that was embedded into the same registration tool. Um, and and that would help a lot, right? So, yeah. Exactly. Okay. So, you said I wish. Yeah. So, that tells me there's some frustration happening here. There's there's a sort of undercurrent of okay, hold on. Uh, this needs to be better. This is not[4:26] working out. Yeah. So, one example that comes to mind is like people register for programs and then I would love to personalize that first message, right? So, here's your program's coming up in 5 days. Here's where to meet us. Here's the time of your child. Here's like, you know, maybe a guide, a parent guide or like a blog article, whatever, right? But I didn't I couldn't do that. I needed to go into Gmail or Outlook, whatever it is, and then copy paste, you know, the 12 kids, put them in there, and then just do it manually for hours.[4:53] Yeah. Um even for just something so simple as a reminder, hey class is in. Exactly. So those that that became a really big frustration. Um and then you know nowadays we have software that just automates all that like you can schedule that you know 7 days before it's just going to have these placeholders and just give you exactly what you want. Um so yeah that I saw the shift of like all that manual work. Um and then that's a lot of time you're spending right before programs start instead of like making sure your staff is ready, doing[5:20] training, all that kind of stuff, right? So you saw the tech go more and more in these service businesses and how it saved saved us a lot of time. Yeah, for sure. For me, I remember in the business I was just giving classes online. It was nothing very complicated. But uh but I I remember having to chain together all of these different pieces of software too. And it's it's not only the cost related to that, it's the time sink of learning all of these different pieces of software. They've all got their unique UI experience. They've all got, you know, their own flavor that you[5:54] kind of have to master. They're all their own learning curve. And so you find yourself I found myself kind of sinking all this time into learning how to but not doing the two. You know what I mean? Exactly. And it's it's learning an inefficient way because you have five tools, right? And then one of the biggest problems and maybe some listeners can relate to that is then it's really hard to delegate because if I have a staff member that is you know you're juggling all these tools you learn them you know your business[6:20] really well but then it's like hey go juggle these five tools and it's like oof that that that becomes pretty hard especially and it depends too but a lot of business in sports and leisure you don't have like that much full-time staff right so that was another of a problem like most of our staff was part-time now you're adding that layer of complexity of like you know part-time employees learning all these tools and then and retrain seven tools and it's like at the I'm sure at the end of the day most admins are just like I'll just do it myself.[6:48] Exactly. And that's what ended up happening with me. Right. So I I wasn't able to delegate a lot of those things. Um and then that kind of lead led me to how I got into tech which is a big surprise still to me to this day. That was 5 years ago. Um probably remember COVID well COVID hit. We had the first wave kind of hit. Let's not talk about that. And yeah the sports and leisure you know was was hit really hard. especially hard of course and in Quebec I think even harder than other provinces or other regions of the[7:14] world and yeah when you know we thought we were going to lose everything um and then you know we got we were able to open up during the summer after that and kind of when they announced that a second wave was coming in that fall that's when I met Martin uh who was starting to build a software to help sports and leisure you know uh businesses automate different processes and he was at the beginning of it and I was one of the first clients got on a demo with him and I loved the product. I saw the vision. I was like, you're looking for a co-founder because[7:42] my other business is about to close down and I don't even know if I'll be able to open it up. Right. So, that's how I got into tech. Oh, that's interesting. So, that moment of uncertainty uncertainty got you into actually saying, "Hey, do you need a co-founder?" Really? And so, but I I just want to backtrack a tiny little bit. So, now you met Martin's the sort of you know, Activity Messenger sort of his brainchild if I understand correctly. So um but before that I'm sure you so when did the vision[8:07] hit you of I wish because just this summer I heard a camp owner say I am at the point where I'm telling myself I'm just going to code my own platform because it's going to be more efficient for me to code than to than to try and patch some other thing that doesn't work and there's always a bug and this and that. So like when did that happen for you? When did you tell yourself ah you know what I I wish I could program something and just bring it all together and yeah it kind of happened during those[8:33] those years as I was adding software and I was like seeing the the the the payment you know let's say for Mailchimp and then even not even being able to like target well with Mailchimp because I didn't have the data of my of my of the people of the registration status right that was more important than me than like drip campaigns and all that kind of stuff and it kept coming to my mind I always told myself if I could just meet a dev and he could take you know the the brain or the things the experiences I had in person running this business growing this business from 16[9:02] to 5,000 kids from you know two two uh business owners to like you know 70 80 plus staff if I could just have someone help me kind of build that software I feel like I could save so much time and so much money right and then so when I met him and then you know we had a few discussions and he was also looking for somebody who had operation you know experience so we can really develop product that would make sense on the field not just in theory right Right. Perfect. So, and he he had a previous experience also developing for registration software[9:32] and so he sort of had this idea of how things could be better and then you come in and so now you have a developer who has experience and you have the operator who has experience. Exactly. And then it's a match made in heaven. That's that's yeah really really was and and the other thing that was interesting is then you know when COVID did not end up being like the super long-term thing that maybe we thought and I didn't know if I was going to lose my business we kind of reopened up uh which was a big challenge but now[9:56] I had a new tool right it's like I was kind of reopening up with like this one tool that was allowing me to do better communications to simplify staff onboarding to you know text parents when a change was made like that in 2020 was a big new thing for the sport the service industry to be able to text and saying Hey, we got to change the timer. So, all these things were helping us save time, automate processes, and then, you know, we were able to grow the business. Uh, but also I was able to kind of, you know, build Activity Messenger and still kind of be the owner of uh of the of the[10:26] of my other business. But then having that vision of like I had the tech side, but I also had the operational side at the same time, right? Not it's not just in my past, it was actually happening both at the same time. Yeah. So that so saving time in it with the with the platform running your business with the platform actually allowed you to hustle harder because now here you are doing you know running two businesses. Exactly. Exactly. Which was a challenge you know in itself and you know I was lucky to have a you know two great[10:54] partners one uh in in both businesses. So that that that made it possible. Uh but I think both saw the value of me being on two sides right on the operational side because then we were able to optimize on on for both both both businesses. And so just to be clear, that's not what we're advocating here. Hustling harder, saving time to hustle harder. No, but we're advocating actually something different. Like, so maybe that brings us into, you know, so in your journey, you go from, you know, you're you're owning this this sports business for kids. You're helping[11:25] kids move and all that. And then, you know, you grow, you grow, grow. You find Activity Messenger. You become co-founder of that. And now here we are, fast forward five more years, and you're co-hosting this podcast, the AMplify podcast. and what what's sort of the the vision and the mission for this podcast? What do we want to offer here? Yeah. And I think the name is there's a reason the the word amplify for us is just that like everybody that we're helping at Activity Messenger, you know, we have, you know, currently over 500 clients across North America. Everybody[11:52] in there is a client that's has a great mission, right? they're either wanting to keep kids active, wanting to connect communities, uh maybe wanting to like have elite athletes go to the Olympics or, you know, Canada games or things like that. So, just that ability to amplify the mission that these sports, leisures, nonprofits have. So, then they can have even more impact in the community because, you know, we have a tool now that helps them a get more registrations, manage them better, better communications, and then save a lot of time doing that, right? So that's[12:23] kind of the mission behind the the the product, Activity Messenger. But this podcast is how can we share tips, strategies, and ways that we can help you amplify your reach throughout your mission. Yeah. Whether you as an admin use Activity Messenger or don't, you know, that's not really the the main point of this. The main point of this is really to how can we open a discussion to you know free up administrators to to really focus on you know not only how they serve uh the people who who who they serve but also you know how to how to[12:54] innovate and how to also free them up so that they have more free time and they can spend time with their families. Exactly. And because like the quality of life is so important in everything that we do and uh we're definitely not pushers of hustle culture, you know, I think I think it's really important to have that balance in in every every step of the way. And if I can just add also on the mission, you know, the sports and leisure mission is so important, especially nowadays today, we hear so much stuff about, you know, maybe less so in Canada, but but still, you know,[13:25] obesity is is running rampant. Uh loneliness is running rampant. the new generation. They say that Gen Z is the most lonely generation ever. And I think that has a lot to do with people being cloistered, you know, on social media, on their screens and everything. And so we're like helping these businesses to get people together in person to move their bodies to exercise. And the other thing that that comes and touches is another thing we hear about every single day, which is like ADHD, hyperactivity, these kinds of things. So I I just wanted to sort of bring that[13:54] point in that this mission is not banal. It's actually very very important. And and the other thing I want to touch upon is like when I started, you know, teaching kids sports and all that, like I love tech. I ended up loving tech, right? How do I optimize? I was always thinking about how to optimize my business, right? And and but the thing is like I've met other owners who are like, look, I I taught dance for years. I just want to open up my dance studio and not have to think about the tech, right? So a lot of times I see some inefficiencies[14:22] because they're like, I don't want to learn another tool, right? Or this tool is too complicated or this and that, right? So through this podcast, we hope to give kind of trick tips and tricks that people may might not have thought of because they just don't have the same interest. They love to teach gymnastics and they don't care as much about the tech, but like it's important, right? If you want to grow, if you want more people, if you want more time to to do what you love, well, if you have the right tech that can automate and create workflows for you, well then you'll have[14:47] more time, right? And I think there's there's a lot of people in the sports and leisure industry that just, you know, are not that interested into the tech. We're going to try and bring that interest back and just make it because we're going to optimize your business. Yeah, exactly. I mean, at at some point you need to you need to learn a tool. There has to be a tool that you need to learn. But we we hope to show some strategies and some ways that are the simplest possible in order to get those workflows automated. And when you get those workflows automated, it's not[15:15] only, you know, it's not only the payment workflows, the registration workflows, it's also the communication workflows, right? So, it's like reducing that time you spend answering the same old questions every other week. Exactly. Uh, you know, reducing the time you spend telling, you know, writing that reminder email. No, you just you do it once, you program it, and then it's good to go. Everything works with your registration calendar and it's like, wow, cool. All of a sudden, it's like, oh, what am I what do I do now?[15:42] Let me go teach a class or something. Exactly. Yeah. So, cool. Um, so that's that's about it. Is there something you want to add uh before we sign out? No, I think I'm I'm excited about this. You know, this has been in our mind for a little while. I'm excited to share this with you as well, like um just your background, what you're seeing with customers as well, um you know, in the day-to-day. Um you know, you're working also with ind, you know, people in that industry.[16:06] So, I think we'll we'll have some great ideas to kind of, you know, propel all these businesses a bit further. But, yeah, really excited to get get this started. Yeah. And because maybe I didn't mention that in this episode here, but I I actually work at Activity Messenger. I'm uh supporting supporting clients how to learn the software so I know what I'm talking about. So that's going to give an interesting perspective too. You know we have two kind of different angles and you know this is uh really offered by the team here and we want it to be you[16:32] know a blessing for everyone. We wanted to really serve the the sports and leisure uh industry. So uh we look forward to continuing this with you and thanks for being with us on the journey whether this is your first episode or whether you're going back in time and watching us here. Um, yeah, it's great to have you on board and uh I hope you I hope you love what you hear here. So, uh, take care and we'll see you next time. Yeah. Bye, Oli. Thanks. Well, bye.

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