Projects · Operations · Systems
Building better infrastructure for sports.
I'm Shannon Baylor, a project and operations manager, systems builder, and founder working across sports, technology, and the systems behind them.
I take messy ideas, complicated projects, and growing operations and turn them into something structured, workable, and built to last.
You bring the what and the why. I build the how.
Tell me what you're trying to build, and somewhere in the middle of you talking, my head is already putting the systems together.
I can't really help it. That's the part I'm built for.
I tend to see the connections between the project, the operation, the people, the technology, and all the little things quietly keeping a good idea from working.
Sometimes that means managing the project.
Sometimes it means untangling the operation.
Sometimes it means building a better system.
And increasingly, it means figuring out where technology, data, automation, or AI can make the whole thing work better.
I'm less interested in being the face of the thing than making sure the thing actually works.
What I Do
My work sits at the intersection of project management, operations, and systems, primarily in sports, with work extending into fitness, performance, recreation, health, and wellness.
Turn the idea into something real.
I lead complex projects from ambiguity to execution: launches, implementations, pilots, technology builds, new initiatives, and the occasional half-finished project that just needs someone to figure out what's actually wrong and get it across the finish line.
Project leadership · Launches · Implementation · Pilots · QA · Cross-functional execution
Make the organization work better.
Growth has a funny way of exposing every process that used to work "just fine." I help organizations figure out what's breaking behind the scenes and build the structure needed for the next stage: clearer processes, better workflows, useful operating rhythms, stronger systems, and less dependence on one person holding everything together.
Fractional operations · Process improvement · Workflow design · Operational planning · SOPs · Performance visibility
Build the machinery behind the work.
Technology should make an operation easier to run, not give everyone another login. I design and implement practical systems using technology, automation, AI, and data, starting with how the work actually needs to happen and choosing the tools second.
Systems design · Automation · AI workflows · Technology implementation · Data · Dashboards · Operational tools
What I'm Building
Some problems are better solved with a project. Others need a company.
I'm interested in both.
Klubbi
Helping families find where their kids belong in sports.
Klubbi is a city-by-city youth sports marketplace built around a simple idea: finding a program isn't enough. Families need enough information to decide whether it's actually right for their kid. We're building better discovery around cost, culture, fit, trust, registration, and the hundreds of local organizations that are surprisingly difficult to find online. Launching first in Houston.
SportsWell Co.
Better sports and recreation systems for communities.
SportsWell works with public agencies, municipalities, schools, community organizations, and institutions on the projects, programs, and operational infrastructure behind sports and recreation. The work sits where access meets execution: turning community needs and program goals into initiatives that are structured, measurable, and built to work in the real world.
Sports Systems Studio
Building the systems behind growing sports businesses.
A growing sports organization eventually reaches a point where hustle stops being an operating system. The Studio works behind the scenes on the projects, processes, technology, automation, and operational infrastructure that help sports, fitness, and performance organizations grow without everything becoming harder to run.
Why Sports?
Every kid deserves the whole journey, not just the door.
I spent more than a decade building and running youth sports, recreation, and wellness programs.
And over time, one thing became increasingly difficult to ignore:
Access isn't just about whether a program exists.
It's whether a family can find it.
Afford it.
Understand what they're actually paying for.
Get there.
Navigate registration.
Trust the organization running it.
Find the right level of competition.
And ultimately, find a place where their kid has a real opportunity to belong, develop, and keep going.
The gap between kids who get those opportunities and kids who don't isn't always passion or talent.
Sometimes it's infrastructure.
That's why creating better access to youth sports remains at the center of my personal mission, even as my work extends across the broader sports industry.
Because better infrastructure doesn't just make sports organizations run better.
Sometimes it changes who gets to participate at all.
Selected Work
From stalled builds to systems that work.
The work changes. The pattern usually doesn't.
There's a problem somewhere beneath the obvious problem. My job is to find it, structure it, and get the right solution working.
Building Klubbi from zero to market
Building a two-sided marketplace from the ground up, including product strategy, marketplace operations, data architecture, payments, organization acquisition, and Houston market launch.
What I saw
Youth sports discovery wasn't simply a search problem. Families had plenty of search results. What they didn't have was enough trustworthy information to make a decision.
What I'm building
A marketplace designed around trust, transparency, culture, cost, and fit, with 1,200+ Houston-area organizations identified ahead of launch.
When "zero conversions" wasn't a conversion problem
I joined a youth sports injury-reporting platform mid-build alongside its physician founder and technical lead. The inherited referral funnel was reporting zero conversions.
What I saw
Before optimizing the funnel, I audited the system underneath it. The notification integration had never delivered an email. The problem wasn't conversion. The process was broken before anyone had the opportunity to convert.
What we changed
The notification workflow was rebuilt around SMS, launch readiness was structured into a 20-gate framework, and pilot strategy moved forward across three tracks in two markets.
More than a decade inside the operation
Before I started building technology for sports, I spent more than a decade building and running the programs themselves. Scheduling. Registration. Payments. Staffing. Parents. Programming. Facilities. Seasons. Launches. The controlled chaos behind making sports and recreation happen. That experience still shapes how I approach every system I build.
What I learned
The best-looking solution on paper is useless if it doesn't survive contact with the people who actually have to use it.
Field Notes
What I'm noticing, building, and learning.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the systems underneath sports: how organizations operate, where technology helps, where it doesn't, what AI changes, why seemingly simple processes break, and how better infrastructure can create better experiences.
Field Notes is where I think through some of it in public.
WHAT I'M NOTICING
Patterns, problems, and occasionally weird things about how sports gets built and run.
WHAT I'M BUILDING
Notes from inside the projects, products, companies, systems, and experiments I'm working on.
WHAT I'M LEARNING
AI. Data. Sports business. Government procurement. Marketplaces. Technology. And the things I was confidently wrong about six months ago.
About Shannon
I like the problems behind the scenes.
I'm Shannon Baylor, a sports project and operations manager, systems thinker, and founder based in Houston.
My career has moved through recreation, youth sports, wellness, project management, operations, technology, and entrepreneurship. On paper, those can look like different chapters.
To me, they've always been the same kind of work.
Figure out what we're trying to accomplish.
Find what's getting in the way.
Create structure around the messy parts.
Build the system.
Get it done.
Today, that means working across projects and operations while building companies and tools that I believe can make parts of the sports industry work better.
I'm particularly interested in the unglamorous infrastructure most people don't think about until it breaks: processes, data, workflows, technology, access, operations, and all the small decisions between a good idea and something that actually works.
That's where I tend to be most useful.
And apparently, that's also where I have the most fun.
Have something messy?
If you're running a sports, fitness, performance, recreation, or wellness organization that's growing faster than the systems behind it can keep up, there's a good chance we'll have something to talk about.
I take on select project leadership, fractional operations, and systems engagements.
Or, if you're just here to see what I'm building, stick around.
There's usually something in progress.