Why I built IJSEdge.

I'm a skating dad. My daughter started in learn-to-skate at Palm Beach Skate Zone when she was 5. She's 15 now, training at Advent Health Center Ice in Wesley Chapel. Ten years on the ice, and I still don't always know what to ask her coach after a competition.

When she was younger she was on the well-balanced track — the qualifying pipeline that takes kids through Pre-Juvenile to Juvenile to Intermediate, and eventually, for the few who get there, to Sectionals and Nationals. She was good. But the qualifying track has age caps that don't care how good you are. She aged out before her skating was ready for the next jump. We moved her to Excel, the non-qualifying track. Her last competition was Excel Intermediate Plus. The next step is full Intermediate, and we're still figuring out the right way to get her there.

This is a common story. Tens of thousands of families in U.S. figure skating live some version of it. Strong skaters who run out of runway. Kids who started late. Kids whose late growth spurt cost them a season. We all share the same problem: every protocol from every competition is public, but unreadable. Every score is honest, but locked inside an interface that nobody designed for parents.

I built IJSEdge because I got tired of squinting at protocol PDFs at 10pm asking myself whether the loop or the lutz was costing her more points. It turns out it's almost always the loop.

The product is everything I wish I'd had nine years ago. It ingests every IJS protocol from every U.S. Figure Skating competition — qualifying-track and Excel alike — and turns each skater's results into honest arithmetic. How many points are you leaving on the ice? Where? What's worth working on first? Every answer ships with evidence, sample size, and a confidence label. It's not coaching advice. It's the conversation-starter I wish I could have walked into every lesson with.

It's free for every coach because the coaches are the ones who actually do the work. Parents pay $4.99 to $8.99 a month to keep the lights on. We're not VC-backed. We're not trying to disrupt the sport. We're just trying to make the protocols you already paid for — with the entry fees you already paid — actually mean something.

If you're a parent staring at a protocol on a Sunday night, this is for you. If you're a coach planning a summer training block, this is for you. If you're a skater wondering which element actually deserves the next hour of ice time, this is for you.

Welcome to IJSEdge.