Hard Luck Baseball Lab

Good Luck Is Hard Earned.

Hard Luck Baseball Lab

Train Hard, Play Free book cover

Volume One

Train Hard,
Play Free

A father’s mindset manual for athletes

Written from a father to his three children — and to every athlete who has ever felt the weight of a missed swing, a dropped pass, a fall from twenty feet in the air, or a moment when bigger and stronger walked across the line and made them feel small.

This is not a coaching textbook. It is a fatherly conversation about the mind you bring to the game — the mind that decides whether one mistake stays for one play or for nine innings. Ten short chapters. Each anchored in Scripture. Designed for a ten-minute read.

What’s Inside

Section One

Train Hard — Discipline removes luck. Training is stewardship.

Section Two

Play Free — Joy is the unfair advantage. Peace creates freedom.

Section Three

Reset Fast — Failure is an event. It is not identity.

Section Four

Speak Like a Winner — Words shape belief. Belief shapes performance.

Section Five

The Hard Luck Mindset — Adversity is revealing you. And building you.

Section Six

The Competitor’s Creed — A code that holds under pressure.

Section Seven

Leadership Under Pressure — Strong leaders create calm in chaos.

Section Eight

Pressure Is Privilege — The hard produces the hard.

Section Nine

These Hands, His Glory — Stewardship of the gift God placed in your hands.

Section Ten

The Next Play Belongs to You — The game changes. The lessons remain.

About the Author

Matthew Swaggart

Matthew Swaggart is the founder of Hard Luck Baseball Lab and the father of three athletes: Ryder, Lola, and Navy. He writes from the dugouts, sidelines, and quiet rides home where most of the real coaching actually happens.

Hard Luck Baseball Lab
Good Luck Is Hard Earned.
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Hard Luck Baseball Lab · Confidential
Hard Luck Baseball Lab · Investor Brief

The premier 24/7 baseball training facility.

A premium, automated, private-lane training environment built for the modern hitting culture — paired with an emerging baseball lifestyle apparel brand. Designed to scale.

$240K
Projected Monthly Revenue
10×
Private Training Lanes
24/7
Automated Access
Hard Luck Baseball Lab badge
Vision

A scalable, repeatable
training facility model.

Build the premier 24/7 automated baseball training facility. Combine training facility + lifestyle apparel brand. Create a scalable, repeatable facility model designed for national expansion.

The Problem

  • Most batting facilities are outdated, loud, chaotic, and crowded.
  • Limited operating hours restrict training access.
  • Players want private space, performance data, and flexible practice times.

The Solution

  • Premium 24/7 training facility — Hard Luck Baseball Lab.
  • Private hitting lanes with individual exterior access.
  • HitTrax premium lanes and dedicated pitching tunnels.
  • Membership-driven recurring revenue.
16M+
Youth Players in U.S.
Massive, durable demand pool driving the youth-baseball economy.
$3K–$10K
Annual Travel-Ball Spend
Per family — reflecting deep parental willingness to invest in development.
Tulsa
Flagship Market
South Tulsa / Jenks / Bixby corridor — strong youth baseball density.
The Private Lane Advantage

A fundamentally better
training environment.

Traditional facilities cram open cages into a shared warehouse. Hard Luck builds enclosed, private training lanes with individual exterior keypad access. The result is a dramatically better player experience and a structurally more profitable building.

🔑

Private Entry

Park outside your lane. Enter via secure keypad. No waiting rooms, no front desk, no congestion.

🤫

Low-Noise Focus

Walls between lanes mean cleaner coach-player communication and a premium-feeling session.

24/7 Access

Train early morning, late night, between school and practice. Flexibility drives utilization.

📊

HitTrax Lanes

Premium lanes with HitTrax for exit velocity, launch angle, and swing analytics.

Zoned HVAC

Per-lane mini-splits and motion-activated lighting. Energy runs only when revenue does.

🤖

Minimal Staffing

App booking + keypad entry + camera monitoring. Automated operations at scale.

Traditional Cages vs. Hard Luck Private Lanes

Traditional
 
Hard Luck
Open warehouse with shared cages
VS
Private enclosed training lanes
Loud, echoey environment
VS
Quiet lanes that allow coaching dialogue
Players take turns hitting
VS
Dedicated lane for the entire session
Waiting areas and congestion
VS
Private exterior entry per lane
Staff required to manage cages
VS
Fully automated access system
HVAC runs all day across full building
VS
Per-lane HVAC, only on when booked
Limited operating hours
VS
24/7 training access
Basic practice environment
VS
Premium private training experience
The Member Experience

Book. Unlock. Train. Capture. Share.

The member-facing app removes every front-desk friction point. Choose your sport and session length, walk up to your lane, train under a server-authoritative timer, and walk out with branded clips ready to post — all without a staff member ever being involved.

The full loop, in one app.

Three live screens. Tap the tabs below the phone to step through the flow.

  • Book — Baseball or softball · 30-min or 55-min session · lane type
  • Train — Big countdown, cleanup warning at T-5, machines auto-off before exit
  • Share — Save Last Swing → branded export with logo + tagline + handle
  • Membership credits and one-time payments handled inline
  • Parent-controlled privacy settings for every minor

Interactive prototype — not a live booking system.

9:41● 5G
Book a session
Sat · May 2 · Tulsa
Sport
Session length
Lane type
9:41● 5G
Active session
Lane 04 · HitTrax
Training
25:00
Active training time
9:41● 5G
Share clip
96.4 mph · 18° launch · Hard-hit
⚡ 96.4 MPH
@hlbl_player
HL
HARD LUCK
Good Luck Is Hard Earned
🛡 Parent approval required for public share. Sent to mom for review.
Economics

Recurring revenue,
franchise-ready unit economics.

Membership creates a predictable revenue floor before hourly bookings even begin. The energy-efficient private-lane design improves profit per square foot dramatically over traditional cages.

Rookie

$99/mo
Casual hitters. Younger kids. Recreational players.
  • 2 hours of lane time per month
  • 10% off additional hours
  • App booking access

MVP

$249/mo
Advanced travel players. Serious hitters.
  • 10 hours of lane time per month
  • 20% off additional hours
  • Priority booking
  • HitTrax lane discount

Coaching

$299/mo
Private instructors. Steady-revenue ecosystem.
  • Discounted lane access
  • Bring clients to the facility
  • Preferred scheduling blocks
$240K
Projected Monthly Revenue
Across membership, hourly, HitTrax, team rentals, and apparel — at full member ramp.
$26K–$31K
Estimated Operating Costs
Automation + zoned HVAC drive structurally low overhead.
75–100
Members to Safe & Stable
The point at which the building reliably pays for itself. Break-even arrives even earlier with turf revenue.
$8M+
Royalty at 100 Locations
Future franchise model: ~$50K fee + 6–8% royalty.
Path to Profit

Break-even is reached early.
Upside compounds from there.

The unit economics let the facility survive at a fraction of full membership and thrive well below dominant scale. Each stage below maps members to financial state — the building covers itself long before reaching the elite tier.

40–50
True Break-Even
With turf rentals included — the bare minimum for the lights to stay on.
75–100
Safe & Stable
The building reliably pays for itself. Operating risk drops dramatically.
~125
Membership-Only Break-Even
Even without turf or hourly revenue, monthly memberships alone cover all costs.
150+
Strong
Real profit begins. Surplus funds reinvestment, marketing, and apparel inventory.
250–350
Elite
Scalable, dominant. Approaches projected $240K/mo across all revenue lines and validates the franchise prototype.
The takeaway: the flagship doesn't need to fill to dominate. It only needs to pass roughly 75 members to be safe — and roughly 50 to break even. Scaling from there is upside, not survival.
The Raise

$3.0M to build, own, and run safely past break-even.

The flagship Tulsa-area location is structured for ownership, not a lease. The raise funds the land and building outright, plus operating capital that covers multi-year runway well past the safe & stable threshold of 75–100 members — with substantial headroom toward the elite-stage upside of 250–350.

Land + Building
$2.0M
67%
Operating Capital
$1.0M
33%
Use of funds · 1
Land + Building Construction
$2,000,000
Acquire the site and build a purpose-designed 13–14K sq ft facility from the ground up — owned, not leased. Owning the real estate compounds equity, eliminates landlord risk, and gives full control over the prototype that drives the franchise model.
Use of funds · 2
Operating Capital & Member Runway
$1,000,000
Working capital to cover staffing, marketing, technology, machine maintenance, and overhead while membership ramps. Sized to run comfortably through the 40–50 member break-even and well past 75–100 stable, with budget remaining to push toward elite-tier scale.
Total raise$3,000,000
StructureOpen to discussion
Use of fundsLand · Build · Runway
Break-even~40–50 members
Built to Scale

A network,
not just a facility.

The flagship validates demand and builds the brand. Micro Labs unlock rapid, capital-efficient growth across each metro. The app is the operating system that connects every location.

FLAGSHIP
Anchor
Micro
Micro
Micro
Micro
Micro
Micro
Layer 01 · Anchor
Flagship
Build~$2.0M
Footprint13,500 sq ft
Lanes10
Per metro1 anchor
Premium destination. Validates demand, defines the brand, hosts team training and HitTrax-driven development.
The play: Flagship proves the model. Micro Labs scale it. The app makes the network feel like one product — find and book the nearest open lane in seconds, anywhere we operate.
Why Now · Brand Opportunity

Two engines.
One culture.

Baseball training has entered a new era focused on hitting performance, data, and equipment optimization. Baseball Bat Bros has 1M+ subscribers watching exit-velo content. Baseballism and Baseball Lifestyle 101 prove apparel can scale to $10M–$22M+ in the same culture. Hard Luck combines a training facility with a lifestyle brand — two engines, one community.

Training Engine

  • Recurring membership revenue
  • Hourly training revenue
  • Team rentals + coaching
  • HitTrax data + leaderboards

Apparel Engine

  • Hats, hoodies, shirts, training gear
  • Facility = built-in customers + content
  • Players wear what they train in
  • Local → Regional → National trajectory
$250K
Local Apparel Stage
$1M
Regional Stage
$10M+
National Stage
The Pitch Deck

The full investor brief.

Flip through the deck below or download the PDF for offline review.

Pitch deck slide 1
Slide 1 / 18
↓ Download PDF
Next Steps

Let's talk.

Hard Luck Baseball Lab is raising $3.0M to acquire land, build the flagship Tulsa-area facility, and fund operating runway well past safe & stable. If you'd like to discuss participation, get in touch.

Hard Luck Baseball Lab · Confidential and proprietary. For invited investors only.

Confidential