Dean coaching varsity boys volleyball at Las Lomas High School
I'm Dean Achelis. I am the varsity boys volleyball coach at Las Lomas High School (my alma mater) and a former libero for UC Davis.
Off the court, I've spent the last 15 years building products in the wearable and health tech space, currently working as a Product Manager at Google.
For years, I've wanted to bridge these two worlds. I always dreamed of augmenting human coaches with powerful analytics, but I knew from experience that the technology had to feel effortless. The reality of a live match is that coaches do not have the time or attention to fight with complex interfaces or do manual math on a clipboard.
The recent maturity of AI changed the equation. It empowered me to finally build the exact tool I wanted to use. I became my own first user, developing SideOutIQ specifically to solve the immediate frustrations I faced on the sideline.
Building SideOutIQ has been an exercise in solving my own pain points, resulting in a platform that is genuinely useful and built for the reality of the game. I'm excited to share it with the coaches, statisticians, and parents everywhere who want better data without the friction.