Addressing Slow Loading Times (And What's Happening Behind the Scenes)

Hey coaches — Radford here.

You may have noticed that BenchBoard hasn’t felt quite as fast as usual lately. Maybe a lineup took a beat longer to load, or a save didn’t feel as instant as you’re used to. I want to address that head-on — clearly, honestly, and without hand-waving.

BenchBoard is in the middle of a provider migration. This is a foundational upgrade that will make things faster, more reliable, and more scalable — but during the transition, a little slowness can creep in.

That’s on me. And I want you to know exactly what’s happening.

What you might experience

During this transition, you may notice:

• Longer-than-normal load times
• Delayed synchronization between devices
• But most commonly being reported - slow log on times

Nothing is broken.
No data is at risk.
But yes — some things may feel slower than normal for the moment. But once logged on, users are reporting that speed works fine after that. Why?

A quick nerdy aside (with a very non-nerdy explanation)

Let me explain why this happens in plain English.

BenchBoard has been running on what’s called a serverless setup.

Sounds fancy — and in many ways it is — but it has one quirk that matters here: cold starts.

The cold start problem (aka: waking someone up from a dead sleep)

Picture this.

Instead of having a full kitchen staff standing around all day waiting for orders (very expensive 🤑), you run a food truck.

When nobody’s ordering:

• The grill is off
• The lights are off
• The cook is asleep in the back

Now someone walks up and says,
“Hey, I’d like a burger.” (aka "I'm about to log on with my username and password now - or create an account")

What happens?

1. Someone wakes the cook up
2. The grill gets turned on
3. Ingredients come out
4. The cook stretches because wow, that was a deep sleep
5. Then the food starts cooking

That first order takes longer.

But once the grill is hot and orders keep coming?
Everything moves fast.

That wake-up moment is what developers call a cold start.

Serverless systems shut themselves down when they’re idle to save money. When activity picks up again, they need a moment to spin back up. That initial spin-up can feel slow — especially if you’re the first coach opening the app after things have been quiet.

Nothing is failing.
Nothing is crashing.
It’s just the system putting its shoes on.

Why I chose this approach (and why I’m being real about it)

BenchBoard is new. It’s real. Coaches are using it. But I’m also building this responsibly and supporting myself while doing it. I’m not burning cash just to flex infrastructure on day one.

Serverless allowed me to:

• Keep costs under control
• Scale safely without gambling the company
• Spend money on features instead of idle servers
• Prove real usage before over-engineering

That was the right call early on.

But now BenchBoard is reaching a new phase:

• Usage is more consistent
• Games depend on it
• “It’ll warm up in a second” isn’t good enough anymore

Which is exactly why we’re upgrading providers and tightening things up now.

What we’re doing about it

Here’s what’s actively happening behind the scenes:

• Migrating to a faster, more stable infrastructure
• Reducing cold starts and latency
• Monitoring performance in real time
• Stress-testing everything before full cutover

This isn’t a flip-the-switch change. It’s being done in stages — carefully — because rushing it would make things worse, not better.

What this means for you

Once this transition completes (we’re talking days, not months), you’ll notice:

✔️ Faster load times
✔️ More reliable saves
✔️ Smoother cross-device sync
✔️ A stronger foundation for future features

This is the work that makes everything else better.

Thanks for sticking with it

I don’t take your patience lightly. Every lineup you build, every board you trust during a game - that matters. But as established from the start - we're in Beta. But of course, time is slowly running out as baseball and softball season is about to start. Rest assured, we'll be ready.

BenchBoard isn’t some faceless SaaS. It’s built by a coach, for coaches, and I’ll always be transparent when things aren’t perfect.

If something feels off, slow, or weird - tell us. It genuinely helps.

We’re building this the right way. And we’re just getting started.

See you on the field,
— Radford