Scaling Human Transformation: How David Henzel Built Upcoach Into a Platform for Coaches and Teams

When David Henzel set out to improve how he coached the leadership teams of his portfolio companies, he wasn’t thinking about launching another SaaS product.

He was thinking about results.

His self-paced online course had a 7% completion rate — a frustratingly common number for “DIY” learning. When he switched to group coaching, completion shot to 93%. That shift revealed something bigger: the right combination of accountability, structure, and peer support could radically improve outcomes.

From Personal Tool to Product

Henzel asked his CTO to build an internal tool that stitched together his course materials, meeting agendas, habit trackers, and SOPs.

It worked — and when he showed it to longtime coach and author Todd Herman (The Alter Ego Effect), Herman immediately saw the potential.

“I’m not a coach by trade,” Henzel says, “but Todd had been coaching for 25 years. When he got excited, I knew we had something real.”

Herman didn’t just endorse it — he became an investor and co-founder. Together, they shaped the platform into Upcoach, a “human transformation system” for coaches, consultants, and business leaders.

Who It’s For

While Upcoach can support nearly any coaching model, the initial go-to-market focus is business coaches and coach-of-coaches programs.

That focus is deliberate:

• Business coaches can run client programs, deliver training, and monitor progress all in one place.

• Coaches who train other coaches become natural multipliers — introducing Upcoach to each new cohort they serve.

Building for Stickiness and Flexibility

Henzel didn’t rush to market. Instead, he onboarded 100 coaches, closed the doors, and studied exactly how they worked.

The lesson? Every coach wanted to customize their programs — and the original version wasn’t flexible enough.

The solution: a drag-and-drop builder (inspired by Elementor for WordPress) where users can assemble courses, trackers, meeting templates, and to-do lists into fully customized coaching programs — all connected to a built-in CRM for accountability and visibility.

Why This Company Became His Main Focus

Henzel’s mission is deeply personal.

After his wife’s battle with breast cancer, he re-evaluated his life and work:

“I imagined myself on my deathbed, asking, did I have the impact I wanted? Back then, the answer was no.”

He sold his previous business and committed to work that aligned with his personal mission: to be a change agent transforming the lives of individuals and organizations so they can reach their full potential.

Upcoach amplifies that mission — empowering thousands of coaches to impact millions of clients.

Embedding Mission, Vision, and Values

Henzel is a self-described “mission, vision, values nerd,” shaped by past mistakes. At MaxCDN, rapid growth without clear alignment led teams in conflicting directions. Implementing values reversed the decline — and he now embeds them in every business:

• Candidates review and sign the company values when they join.

• Monthly onboarding sessions share “core value stories” so new hires see real examples in action.

• Public shout-outs celebrate employees living the values.

• Even difficult decisions, like letting go of misaligned customers or employees, are tied back to the values.

The result: what Henzel calls emergence — when everyone knows what to do without constant oversight.

Process Discipline

Upcoach’s development process is equally values-driven:

• No “urgent” feature requests can jump the queue unless they’re properly specced and aligned with the roadmap.

• Customer feedback is welcomed — but filtered against the company’s decision to focus on the delivery and transformation layer (not marketing funnels or website builders).

• An error log tracks every mistake or customer issue, with SOP updates to prevent repeats, turning the company into a “self-healing machine.”

Leveraging Service Add-ons Without Killing SaaS Multiples

With experience in outsourcing, Henzel sees an opportunity to pair SaaS with value-added services. Upcoach plans to launch “Up Admins” — trained virtual assistants who can manage the admin side of coaching programs.

This not only solves a pain point for customers but adds recurring revenue. By keeping service revenue under 15% of total, Henzel notes, they can preserve SaaS valuation multiples while boosting customer retention.

The Founder’s Playbook: Lessons for SaaS Leaders

1. Build for your own pain first. Henzel’s best ideas came from solving problems in his own businesses.

2. Test deeply before scaling. Closing the doors after the first 100 customers gave space to redesign for flexibility.

3. Hardwire values into operations. It’s not a poster on the wall — it’s hiring, onboarding, decision-making, and recognition.

4. Protect your product focus. Say no to features that dilute your category positioning.

5. Turn mistakes into systems. An error log plus SOP updates creates compounding operational strength.

6. Expand revenue strategically. Services can work with SaaS if they solve high-value problems and stay proportionally small.

Final Advice to His Younger Self

“Figure out how to make decisions out of love, not fear. In sales, public speaking, managing people — if you’re acting out of fear, it shows. Out of love, you can be persuasive, inspiring, and authentic.”

In 2024 and beyond, Upcoach aims to grow the team fivefold, add communication features to replace Slack, and deepen integrations — all while holding fast to the vision of helping coaches create measurable transformation at scale.