NTangible bets it can predict how athletes will perform under pressure

Collegiate sports recruiting now incorporates psychological assessments to predict athlete performance. The NTerpret assessment offers a new way for management to understand employee responses to feedback.

NTangible, a startup co-founded by former baseball player Dan Connerty and psychologist Dr. Ed Levine, has developed a psychological assessment called the Clutch Factor. This assessment aims to quantify an athlete's ability to perform under pressure, a metric previously difficult to measure. The tool is inspired by the Thematic Apperception Test, where individuals describe ambiguous images. NTangible scores the responses based on word choice and phrasing using a neurolinguistic guide, resulting in a score between 0 and 1000. The company claims athletes scoring above 750 are twice as likely to commit to a Division I school, suggesting its utility in recruiting, NIL deals, and scholarships. The company is presenting its strategy at TechCrunch Disrupt and also plans to adapt its assessments for corporate use to evaluate employee performance under pressure.

The Clutch Factor assessment's potential flaw lies in its susceptibility to dishonest answers, as demonstrated by the author's ability to significantly inflate their score by responding strategically. This raises questions about its reliability as a standalone predictive tool for collegiate recruitment or scholarships. While NTangible suggests it can be used to help coaches understand athletes and improve their weaknesses, the temptation for athletes to game the system for recruitment purposes is a considerable hurdle.

NTangible's expansion into corporate settings with the NTerpret assessment indicates a broader ambition to apply psychological evaluation beyond sports. This move positions the company to compete in the human resources technology sector, offering data-driven insights into employee behavior and performance under various conditions. The company's focus on direct sales to organizations suggests a B2B strategy rather than direct-to-consumer, aiming to integrate its assessment tools into existing organizational decision-making processes.