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NEW Hybrid Paddle, Founder of Bread&Butter Pickleball Sold A Multi-MILLION $ Bandana Business To Sell Paddles
473 Plays1 year ago
First ever podcast interview with Doug Sapusek, founder of Bread & Butter pickleball. Most recently known for their thermoformed, T-700 carbon face, foam-injected paddle the Filth. Doug is one of the few founders in the space right now who comes from having launched and sold a previously successful multi-million dollar business. Doug talks about the courts in Austin, the rec play problem, his approach to building a brand in pickleball, and running a family business. Doug also mentions an upcoming new paddle release.
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Chapters:
00:00 Trailer
01:24 Intro
01:50 Beginning
03:40 Courts in Austin
07:33 Doug's previous business, Hoorag
10:32 Reacting to covid, why he sold Hoorag
14:28 Inception of BNB
17:10 Pivoting the business
20:06 Employing family
24:06 How capital affects decisions
29:24 Doug’s idea process
31:42 The pro journey
36:40 BNB marketing
40:28 The rec play problem
43:44 How BNB is diff from other brands
54:36 Most difficult experience right now
01:02:42 BNB back story
01:05:36 Closing
#pickleball
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Transcript
Pre-COVID Business Insights
00:00:04
Speaker
pre-COVID, I had gotten a little bit of a, I'll call it a tip. It had basically come from our manufacturing facility overseas in China. It was New Year's Eve, December 31st. It was going really well. We grew really, really fast. It started off in his office in Jupiter, Florida, and then ended up moving into my house in Fort Pierce. And then ultimately, I think we were occupying like 10 or 12,000 square feet. We had full-blown commercial grade heat presses. Our client list was pretty
Printing for Major Clients
00:00:30
Speaker
crazy. I mean, we printed for Meta, Google,
00:00:32
Speaker
Land Rover, the Miami Dolphins. We've printed for Yeti for a while. To answer your question of why I don't own it anymore is, yeah, the Loco. It's a hybrid shaped paddle, lower swing weight, 5.3 inch handle. Before you can ever focus on innovation, you have to perfect the customer experience.
00:00:50
Speaker
Tell me what you see when you look at this brand. Do you get the feeling that it was created by a former U.S. Marine or maybe the co-founder of a multi-million dollar business?
Doug Sapusic on Brand Strategy
00:00:58
Speaker
This is the story of Doug Sapusic, founder of Bread and Butter Pickleball, most recently known for their paddle, the Fill. I pick his brain on why he chose a different approach on building a brand than most other companies, his history with building a multi-million dollar business, and even announces a new hybrid paddle. This is Building Pickleball.
00:01:23
Speaker
All right, welcome to another episode of Building Pickleball. What's going on, everyone? My guest today is Doug Sapusic. He served in the United States Marine Corps, AutoCAD operator, president of Magnetic Media Works, Hoorag, co-founder and VP. He's a father of two, husband based out of Florida. To all my subscribers, I appreciate you. Welcome to the show.
00:01:50
Speaker
Thanks for having me in Austin, buddy. It's been a hell of a trip. Dude, what'd you do today? I didn't even see you today.
Austin Tournament Experience
00:01:56
Speaker
I woke up and was recovering. I was telling you earlier, but it was cool to be here and see you. But I also have a couple of good buddies that I went to high school with that live in Austin. And, um, Eric, one of my friends showed up to a little tournament thing that we did last night. So we ended up staying up very late and catching up after not seeing each other for 25 years, hanging out late. So this morning I woke up and I edited some stuff. I tried to sleep in and couldn't, but just laid low today.
00:02:19
Speaker
I may or may not have taken a nap. Yeah, tell the audience more about what we did yesterday. You've been taking a lot of naps, huh? Yeah, I'm a napper. I love it. I love a good nap. Just wait. You hit 45, buddy. You're going to be in the nap club. Yeah. So yesterday was super cool. I ended up meeting up with Eric and my friend, Jared. They wanted to tell me about this, uh, this pickleball club that's opening up right next to him. So.
00:02:44
Speaker
They took me over there to introduce me the owner and they weren't like fully open and you and I had been talking about trying to do this whole like Moneyball thing where he basically let you know, four really good teams pickleball players Get together and compete for 500 bucks, but they had to play with the filth. We quickly messaged Braxton which you also you introduced me to all these people they played pickleball for $500 cash until like 11 30 p.m. It was it was fun. I
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, I left that at like 11. It started at 9. Got there at 8.30. I was tired. Did you look at any of the footage? Was any of it decent or have you not even looked at it? I haven't looked. I've been so off my sleep schedule yet lately because I went to Seattle and then I got a squat rack so I'm back to like lifting heavy and ever since then working out more. Just been so tired. There's some ballers up there. Some good players. So it was fun to watch. Oh yeah, the players. Yeah, they're cool. Austin's got some good non-pro talent.
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, up-and-coming talent is for sure did that guy tell you about the price what they're charging? Yeah, I think he I this is there's they have a founders deal I think and I want to say he told me it was an a thousand bucks to become a thousand bucks How is it like a year
Pickleball Club Memberships
00:03:53
Speaker
month?
00:03:53
Speaker
a founder's payment that you make and then I think it's 500 a month but you're allowed to bring up to seven guests. So I think what'll happen is you'll start to see like a bunch of corporations and stuff like that that are like wanting to like provide an additional service or a perk for their employees to go in there and you know like imagine like Eric and Jared we're talking about they've got like 35, 40 employees or whatever it is and like they can sign it up and then they can always have their people like they can go play before work or after work or at lunch or whatever so.
00:04:22
Speaker
See, I think that's why I don't really understand it or get it or I don't see myself buying it is because that's just not, I'm just not the audience that caters to. I'm mostly looking for competitive play and I feel like that has more of a laid back or social or networking. That's pretty interesting, like a pickleball for your, like a company perk. So yeah, back to your point though, like, yeah, it's, you know, that is a conversation is like with clubs like that is like,
00:04:48
Speaker
are you gonna have competitive levels of play? Well, I think it is probably more of a social type thing and it's made for corporations or groups of friends that like, take if it was like all your friends and you had the same seven guys that always like to play together and everybody pitches in and has their own little membership and kind of like plays together all the time. Yeah, we would never play with seven people.
00:05:10
Speaker
I'm saying. I'm not saying seven on a court. Even then, we would never have seven people at the court. Any competitive groups, they always want to play with just four. No one wants to rotate out. They always have people waiting. But who knows? That might be the business model that actually makes more money.
00:05:28
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure. I mean, yeah. And well, I think the thing is the reason why it probably is going to work well in Austin. And I will say that like the one thing that I, first of all, Austin has been amazing. Cool city, cool vibes. Art scene is crazy. Food scene was good. Not crazy traffic from what I could see. It wasn't bad like LA or San Diego or Chicago or anywhere
Challenges with Austin's Public Courts
00:05:47
Speaker
else. Dallas. The one thing is like you will have a really bad public pickleball court problem. Oh yeah. Super bad.
00:05:56
Speaker
And like, you know, I, I had heard that, but like I showed up and I was like, it's crazy. And it kind of sucks because you've just got all these great players that are here that are eight up with the game and love it. And I mean, court availability is tough, man. And, and the conditions of the courts, the least, you know, yeah, I mean, atrocious.
00:06:15
Speaker
Bro, if you're on rollerblades on half of these courts, if you were to rollerblade them, you'd break your neck on cracks, dude. You could even skate on any one of those things on a skateboard. Everything's just cracks in them. I saw temp nets, lines over tennis lines. It's not great. It's not what you would expect from the way people talk about pickleball in Austin, but if you're from Austin, you're like, this is exactly what I would expect.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like this ghetto Not ghetto, but it's just like this. No, it's like a hand. It's it's pretty it's like a hand-me-down I mean that is an adjective you could use. It's not in great shape man. It's those bad You have anything more to say about Austin? I'm definitely gonna come back and try to bring Julie I think she would really like this town. I think it's a running crew here for her. Oh, I'm sure she'll run this place She'll see the whole town in three days if we come
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah. Because it is really compact. You're right. You told me when you got here what's cool is you can get from each place quickly and it's true. Yeah. Coming from the DMV area, DC, Maryland, Virginia, you'd have to drive 40 minutes, pretty much any direction to get anywhere.
Growth and Sale of Hoorag
00:07:21
Speaker
If you're coming from Leesburg, you have to drive three hours in morning traffic just to get to DC.
00:07:25
Speaker
So yeah, people complain about the traffic here and stuff. But anyways, this is not a podcast about Austin. So I'm going to keep this ball rolling. Let's get into who rag. I'm almost certain a lot of people listening right now don't know what who rag is, but it was something that I mentioned in the introduction.
00:07:44
Speaker
where you were the co-founder, VP. What is Hoorag? What did you do? What products are they? And what happened where it's no longer a company you're a part of? Yeah, so in 2012, I was introduced to my partner with Hoorag, which was Dave. I'll leave his last name off. But he had came to me and I was a graphic designer by trade. Some people know that.
00:08:13
Speaker
I don't really design much anymore, but David at the time I was designing landing pages for e-commerce for Dave and he came to me and said, hey, I like what you do. I like your work ethic. He said, do you want to start this business with me? And basically at the time there was a company called Buff and we, all my friends at home, we're all very much like avid outdoorsman hunting, fishing, all that stuff. See you right next. Yeah.
00:08:40
Speaker
We're in Florida, bro. We're sophisticated next. That's what it is. We're not rednecks. We're sophisticated next. Yeah. I like, like, I, like I drive a four wheel drive truck, but it's like, it's fancy. Do you have a flag hanging on the back of it? No.
00:08:55
Speaker
We like to do outdoor stuff, and we were always fishing, and those products back then, 2012, were like all the rage for some protection. They really are a very utilitarian piece of gear. Whereas a neck gator, you can wear this bandana a bunch of different ways. If you don't know what a buff or a hoorag is, don't go to buff. Go to hoorag.com. I'm still friends with the owners.
00:09:13
Speaker
Really good guys, really well-ran company still. But Dave and I started that brand selling neckgaters and we started off in the retail world, DTC, Ecom, and it was going really well. We grew really, really fast. It started off in his office in Jupiter, Florida and then ended up moving into my house and
00:09:34
Speaker
uh fort pierce and then i moved to virro and it moved into my other house and then it went into 1500 square feet you know rented like flex space and then it turned into 5000 and then ultimately i think we were occupying like 10 or 12 000 square feet we had full blown
00:09:51
Speaker
commercial grade heat presses that were large format heat presses and we cranked out and sold a lot of bandanas and it turned it started retail or we were just buying from overseas and then we had so many requests for people asking if we could do custom bandanas for people that we started doing that and at the end of the day we ended up having I mean our client list was pretty crazy I mean we printed for like
00:10:16
Speaker
production companies. We printed for Meta, Google, Land Rover, the Miami Dolphins. We printed for Yeti for a while, Coasted Omar Sunglasses. It's like a hero list of customers. We had built a really good B2B brand. So to answer your question of why I don't
00:10:34
Speaker
I don't own it anymore is quick message about the sponsor of today's episode. It is Viore. I've been preaching about Viore for the past few episodes because they sponsor this podcast. Very fortunate. I love working with them. It's been awesome. I love the gear. I've been wearing their gear for a long time. I had a pair of their board shorts and one of their shirts. Even before I moved to Austin, Texas, I used to use the board shorts for grappling, but
00:10:59
Speaker
anyways it's a new perspective on performance apparel perfect if you're sick and tired of traditional old workout gear a lot of that gear that's like pure cotton like Fiori is great because it has that like soft fabric feel and the product is incredibly versatile it can be used for just about any activity like running training swimming yoga you've seen me do like two out of four of those like running and training and it's great for lounging even like going out on the weekends wearing some of that gear i see the shorts all the time on like pickleball courts and
00:11:29
Speaker
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00:11:50
Speaker
pre-COVID, I had gotten a little bit of a, I'll call it a tip, it had basically come from our manufacturing facility overseas in China. And it was New Year's Eve, December 31st, and I had a bottle of wine that was mostly gone, and I was standing in front of a barbecue grill, and we had
00:12:12
Speaker
friends and family over and had a big celebration. There was a band there at the house plan. It was like super fun. And I get this message from from our girl and she basically says, like, hey, there's like this weird sickness going around China right now. And our factory is being told we may have to close instead of ordering one hundred and fifty thousand bandanas for Q1. You might want to order more. So I called my my partner. I found like this article that I ran through Google translate that was in Russian. And it was the first time that I had seen SARS-CoV-2.
00:12:42
Speaker
And so I called my partner and the danger for us at that point was most of our business, even though we were ordering the blanks from China, we weren't asking them to print them anymore. So we were just ordering in straight white bandanas and our own in-house design team was designing these patterns or getting patterns from brands. Yeah, so basically we're just running a good size B2B business and
00:13:04
Speaker
We were ordering those bandanas as blanks in and embellishing. So back to the whole Q1, 150,000 unit like we normally do order. We would order those in white and then we would print them for customers and that was enough to get us through Q1. When we heard that there was this like sickness, i.e. COVID about to come, nobody knew,
00:13:24
Speaker
my partner and I went hard and ordered a ton of bandanas. It was basically, I wanna say we had over the course of three months we had had almost a million bandanas in stock. Now we didn't do those, we didn't order those bandanas anticipating to sell those retail. That was straight for the customs business because at that point 80% of our business was customs related and I knew that if we couldn't order white bandanas anymore that we would literally have to let people go and basically shut the company down.
00:13:52
Speaker
So we just preemptively ordered all those bandanas. And then it turned out the president had basically said something along the lines of, if you can't get an N95 mask, I don't know, go buy yourself a bandana or a neckgater. And when that happened, our sales blew up and we had a solid nine months of crazy amount of sales. We went at one point, I think we were at 35 employees and like most of those people were shipping people.
00:14:19
Speaker
And it was just absolute chaos. And at that point, when it was kind of slowed down and it leveled off, we were still running above our normal numbers. But also, I tend to not like working on projects when the creative side or the fun goes away. And I was definitely at a point with that business that I was no longer having fun. And for me, that's, you know, we can circle back to some of that later with bread and butter, but that's the deal for me is the marketing wasn't fun anymore.
00:14:45
Speaker
And it was just a lot of people and it just wasn't, it just wasn't something that I was like having fun. So I called my partner and I was like, dude, let's list this thing. So we got a broker. We found a, we found a buyer really quick and yeah, it got purchased. I stayed on for like nine months for the transitionary period and then went away and boom, that's where.
00:15:01
Speaker
where bread and butter started after that. Six to nine months after that, I had started the pickleball company. What was the thought going into bread and butter? Part of the reason that I started, I had another couple brands that I was working on to spin up, which are still great brands that if I ever wanted to do them or had the head space, I would definitely start them.
Founding Bread and Butter Pickleball
00:15:20
Speaker
Richard Blanco came to me and it was his idea. He had the he had it branded. He's an illustrator He had had come to me and basically he was an old employee of mine And he came to me basically with a pitch deck and was like hey, I want to do this He's like it's a little bit capital intensive, and he was like if you're interested. I'd like you to to work with me on it, so
00:15:44
Speaker
The idea, it's no surprise, and I don't ever try to hide this, is that I am an e-commerce business person. At the end of the day, I like to sell products to individuals, and I like to deliver amazing customer service with a really good product and build a brand that people are loyal to.
00:16:05
Speaker
I had played some pickleball. My mom has been playing. My mom's like, oh, gee, pickleball. I think she's been playing since 2005. And so I. Yeah. So I. Yeah. So I had been playing. I had I had played with her a little bit and knew that she was super into it. I knew I knew it existed. I had played some. I was her rating. Dude, not high. I mean, she's like 72 now and she's like she's going through some medical stuff so she can't really even play anymore. Would she smoke you? Yeah.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah, she definitely probably would smoke me. But you know that that's like, I'm not a good pickleball player. That's a fact. That's a fact. But no, it started off, that's the thing is I think that it started off for me as a business venture, but also the one thing that I didn't anticipate is the community. And for me, that's what's been kind of the surprise. And for me, it's kind of like, I've changed my thought process on bread and butter a little bit. Originally, I'll share, I have never said this like publicly, but
00:16:59
Speaker
Initially, when I started the company, it was a 36 month road. That was the map. It was start it, get the sales to where I wanted it to be. That was a very acquireable business. Turn around, sell it, and go on and do another one. That was my initial thought process, and that has since changed. And for a couple reasons, and I'll elaborate, both of my kids have now come to work for me.
00:17:22
Speaker
My daughter used to work at Hoorag. She's like a shipping monster. She's a customer service monster. I mean she's great and knows a lot of things that my son Devin is like he's just a really really smart kid that is a deep thinker and very articulate and Detail oriented and he's now dealing with forecasting. He's doing I mean he writes a little bit of code and
00:17:43
Speaker
So he helps with a lot of the web stuff.
Family Business Dynamics
00:17:46
Speaker
He also helps with higher level customer service stuff. And I guess the thing is, man, is like where I'm at now, before it was like just straight business, like build this thing, turn around, sell it. Now I've got two kids that I've always loved, that I've always tried to be there for as much as I can or could. But I always felt like when they were younger that I wasn't able to be there for them because I was constantly trying to like make a living and pay bills.
00:18:11
Speaker
This is the first time in my life where like I still need to make a living and I still need to you know pay bills But financially the pressure is not on me like it was and so this is like a new chapter where I'm I'm getting to work with them and teach them and watch them grow and give them responsibility and It's it's pretty cool, man I had always said I would never have a family business and I am kind of feeling like that's why you should never say never is because I'm having fun with it You told me that you you were at a family business to weren't you?
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, my parents, they owned retail B supply stores. We weren't really heavily involved. I mean, we worked at those stores when we were little kids, not teenagers. We were little kids just because they had to bring us in there because my parents weren't going to pay for daycare or anything. It's either we stayed at home.
00:18:55
Speaker
and you don't answer the door for anybody or you come into the store and you do some work and you just hang out at the store for like 10 hours. I think the store was open for like 10 hours a day. That's just a family business and that's like something that made sense was when you're talking about like start a company and make money and like to pay bills and I say it on this podcast that being in it for the reason to make money is not a bad thing as long as like
00:19:17
Speaker
it's for ethical reasons and you're putting out a product, but not everyone enjoys what they do. Immigrants come to this country, they don't necessarily enjoy what they do, they just have to make money so that they can support their family and then they can also, I forgot what the technical term is, but they can send money back home as well using Western Union and all those companies like that. I've seen a lot of that in Florida. I used to work in the landscape contracting business and I worked
00:19:42
Speaker
with a lot of awesome dudes and most of them were Mexican guys and then I would say over 80% of them were single working in the United States and sending money back home and they would like they would live together in like pretty tight conditions but like you know that's a thing too is that the one thing that's like I think is pretty cool is
00:19:59
Speaker
I feel like as Americans family units are not as important to other cultures and other countries. I feel like as a whole and I've seen this traveling like and I even look at my old and I think this is why I love the bread and butter thing and my kids there is like this is feeling like real family stuff that we're doing and like
00:20:17
Speaker
My daughter, we used to do dinners once a week at the house, and when she started working, again, at Bread and Butter, she came back, or not came back, but started working there. And she's like, hey, I think we should start doing family dinners again. And I was like, go. There you go. Now you live in the American dream. Well, the thing is, is keep it tight. It's nuclear families. Yeah. Sure.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah. And the other side of it too is, is that like, I think working together and making sure that you still have and do the family things together are super important because if you can navigate those two things and like keep work, work and stay professional and not let personal stuff get involved with the family stuff, you can hash out some family stuff when you're back at the house or the weekend or at the pool hanging out. But like,
00:21:07
Speaker
If you learn, those are skills that I feel like I'm still learning and that they learn to where it's like, hey, we're not going to let emotions get the best of us. Like we're here. Our number one job when we're in the office is to serve our customers to make good products and do what we say we're going to do, which is ship pickleball paddles and stand by them.
00:21:25
Speaker
Don't let some stuff that happened at the house earlier, like make you have a bad day and like hold a grudge and be like, I'm not going to work hard today. You know, it's like, I wonder if the reason why family businesses may be like making a comeback or why it works is because society has shifted because people are on their phones more. So they're like, in a sense that we're more disconnected than we've been before. And then we're not seeing as much of each other's people are growing apart.
00:21:49
Speaker
and it's no longer the norm anymore of like a family business like that's kind of become like rare there's people that are leaving countries to go start businesses a lot of like migrants coming here like the whole startup culture a lot of people coming from like india and asia and like all these other countries but then even just in the u.s you're starting to see like people working for other companies yeah i guess what i'm trying to say is it's no longer really the norm it's not like a taboo thing because it's
00:22:15
Speaker
I feel like it's not happening as often as it was so it's just like a cyclical process like in the past maybe it was something so then people were against it but now since it's not so typical then people are kind of like seeing that having this like realization
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I also think there's something to like there's family businesses that that get ran and kids are given jobs are put into positions that they're probably not capable of running either. And
00:22:47
Speaker
some families are okay with that. Like, hey, I'm going to start this thing and I'm going to put my daughter in charge of all the marketing for our entire company. And she literally has never ran a pay per click account her entire life or even looked at one. So it's like, is that a smart move? Here's the answer. No, it's not like it's, it's dangerous. And you can very quickly, you know, tank a company. If you, if you, if you put a family member in a position because their blood that is not capable of running it.
00:23:13
Speaker
And I will tell you, that's why I didn't want to do the family business thing is because my thing is, is like, I know the fastest from zero to hero to scale a company is to put talented people that know their craft and what they do, and they can scale quicker. And when I did this by bringing Aurora and Devin on,
00:23:30
Speaker
I'm kind of running a hybrid model. I will put them in positions that I know that they can handle and flourish in and learn the basics of the business. And I am slowly injecting them, like Devin, for example. I wasn't doing this before and I realized how stupid it was. Every time that I have a pay-per-click call with my ad guys, I put him on the invitation for the meeting. And at first he's like, do you want me on this? And I'm like, yeah, I want you on all of them. Yeah, should be a fly on the wall for sure.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah. Just, just, and he's learning, you know? So now he's looking at reports and seeing stuff and he can throw a flag if he sees something that's not right. Do you think it's also a factor that you've launched a successful company and you sold it and you have a little bit more wiggle room to allow for like failure? That's a really good question. And the answer is no. And yes. Yes. In the sense that like I have a little bit of extra cash to where if I mess some things up, it's not going to ruin my day. However, I don't like to burn cash.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yes, I have some wiggle room. No, I don't like burning cash. And I have a very specific amount of cash that I am willing to burn. Yeah. And when that runs out, I'll burn the company to the ground. Because at that point, I'm moving on to do something else that is going to make more sense. I don't know all this stuff myself. The smartest thing that advice that was ever given to me was my old partner, Dave. And Dave Dyer, something what happened to him?
00:24:53
Speaker
No, he's alive. Dude, we're still friends. Dave, if you're watching this, he lives in South Florida. He's an amazing, amazing dude. He's still alive, guys. What does he do? He is an entrepreneur. Here's the thing. I hate that word, entrepreneur, by the way. Why? Because it's- I'm an entrepreneur. You know, part of the reason that I hate that word, and I'm going to give a shout out to Chris Olsen at the Pickleball Studio. He had me read this book, The EMIF.
00:25:16
Speaker
No, dude, this was supposed to I will just I will this I'm trying to like going to It's been like four podcasts in a row that Chris has been mentioned and I wanted I wanted to break the streak. All right. Shout out Chris Yeah, so pickleball will sent me this book called the emiff Okay, I changed I changed it from you didn't catch that Damn, it now wills being mentioned in every episode to who's next dude. Who's next? Oh god. Anyway, Chris had me I'm just adjusting this this thing's gonna be
00:25:47
Speaker
This guy's driving me nuts with this thing. That's also probably because that thing is so far out. We know that right arm's stronger than that. Oh Jesus. Anyway, so Chris Olson had sent me this book, the E-Myth, back to why I'm like, I don't like that entrepreneurial word, is that just because you start a business and you have an LLC in your name, like, let's be real, you're not an entrepreneur, you're a sole proprietor. He's talking to me, guys. No, I'm not. Is he aimed at me?
00:26:15
Speaker
No, I'm just saying an entrepreneur is somebody that goes out and is like building teams and building brands and scaling things and like building a system that works that's going to make money that they can step away from and do it again and replicate over and over and over.
00:26:30
Speaker
And I think that's a word that gets thrown around a lot. When I talk about my old partner Dave, Dave is a freaking entrepreneur. He has SaaS companies and he's working on some cool projects. The dude dropped out of college and he had a company called Wake Up Land and it was for college students where you could pay a monthly fee.
00:26:54
Speaker
like it would literally a phone service would call you and wake you up so you wouldn't miss your classes and then he started textbook land and like it was a reseller of like online books in college books. I remember textbooks were the biggest ripoff in college. He hated it and like was like selling them you know recent having a resale program from
00:27:11
Speaker
Anyway, he's done all kinds of stuff and he most recently started this new company called Helpful. It's pretty badass. It's basically a program where like if you've got, let's say we're gonna come out with a new pickleball paddle and we have like seven different iterations of what the design of that paddle should look like. I can upload that, spec demographics of who I want to look at it based on how much money they make, what gender they are.
00:27:35
Speaker
what they're into sports and recreation wise, what their education level is. And then they basically put all the images up and these people get paid to go in and vote on what image you like. So it's being used by e-commerce brands, but it's also, like I probably shouldn't even be telling everybody this, all these other e-commerce companies listening, but it works really well. And like Amazon, it's really good for Amazon because it's like you can do general stuff and see what images are gonna perform the best for products. Anyway, Dave is an entrepreneur and he's not dead.
00:28:05
Speaker
and I talk to him all the time. He's very much alive. He's very much alive. See what you wanted to segue though. We were talking about the podcast and he said segue into, cause we're... Go right into it. Are you going to be our first guest? Are you going to fly me out there? Yeah, I'm going to have to. I'm gonna have to fly all these people out here. I mean, the thing is, is like, if I want to get, if I want to get like engaging people on it, yeah, we're going to have to, we're going to have to fly people in and like,
00:28:28
Speaker
I already talked to everybody in the office that you know all three of us that we're gonna have to set a budget for it but we're building this big set we're basically we've got all the equipment there we've got signage being built for it and
00:28:40
Speaker
We're going to start talking pickleball, but also not just pickleball. Like we're going to, we're going to just get on and talk about what we're doing as a brand. Um, and just, and just have fun and try to try to do it weekly. And it's cool. Yeah, it should be fun. It's very much like a loose concept. Um, it seems like a pretty natural transition from like the vlogs, which were pretty heavy, heavy left of like the resources, the effort a little bit longer.
00:29:05
Speaker
And then the thing is, we wanna talk pickleball, but we also like, what's up, pickleball's name? Ryan Dewidgen. Yeah, I was talking to him, Braxton Greco. We sat down and had coffee yesterday, and they were like, I was basically ripping a lot of things about pickleball, like just- That sounds about right. Yeah, like I was just ripping stuff like, this is stupid, this is dumb, why do they do this? This is crazy. By the way, that's where all great ideas come from. You start to see that there are problems or inefficiencies, things that are not as effective as they should be. So then you're like, it all just comes from bitching.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, just from complaining. This guy, dude, he bitches a lot, dude. I do. And I'm like, how you actually should be looking at those is like, anytime someone's bitching, it's like, what opportunity is there? Well, that's the thing is I think that I have been accused of complaining about stuff before, but I think that, as you know, you always say I talk too much, and I
Problem Solving in Business
00:30:01
Speaker
totally do.
00:30:01
Speaker
But I think the reason that I outwardly complaining about stuff is the way that I solve problems is identify them. I just don't think I'm smart enough to identify the problem and work through it internally without vocalizing it. So I think what I do is I see there's a problem. I tell everybody that it's a problem. I complain about the problem. And then in my head, I'm like, how mad am I about this problem? And if I'm not that mad, I stop bitching about it.
00:30:27
Speaker
But if I'm mad about it, I will solve it. Yeah, if you're around Doug, and he's bitching a lot, and you don't come up with a business, that's on you. But yeah, Ryan DeWidgen and Braxton Greco, they are the guys behind the newsletter, the reset. So yeah, I was talking to him and to circle back around, both those guys are hardcore pickleballers, just like you, they love it, they're ate up with it.
00:30:57
Speaker
All their Instagram names used to be their real names. Now they added a underscore PB to the end of it. Like, well, you know, when you change your name on your, your, your personal IG account, the underscore PB, you're serious. That was everyone last night. Like pickleball has always had his name, but then like Braxton has like his, they all had personal IGs and then now they have dot PB Austin bricker.
00:31:19
Speaker
uh, Marcelo, they all have like dot PB. Yeah. And they're like, you just see that it's just like these, like the stereotypical pickleball photos. Yeah. And you're like, this is how it starts. This is great that they created. People were starting to understand like, it's a thing you need social.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah. At this point in pickleball, you need social. No one cares about if you're good or not. Because I was talking to this other kid on Instagram, I was like, dude, becoming a pro in pickleball is a diamond. It's just becoming like, it's saturated. Basically, he was asking like, I want to document the journey of going pro. And he's like, what advice do you have? I was like, document everything from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, but also create a storyline that people care about because
00:31:59
Speaker
Everyone has heard the story of, hey, I'm going pro. It's not exciting. Also, I'm drilling for the 17th time this week. Also being a pro in sports is incredibly boring. It's just repetitive. So you have to find like what your angle is. Like, what is your story in each of those episodes? Because it's incredibly boring. Being a pro is so disappointing. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that these, and the only reason I just actually made a pose,
00:32:26
Speaker
I get so many requests, like, I was just texting someone before I came here, like, I'm a, you know, a 5'5", you know, duper rating, I plan on playing, you know, 23 PPA and, you know, events and local tournaments throughout the next year, I want you to give me money for travel and for lodging.
00:32:47
Speaker
And let me finish, but I get these all day long, and I wonder, I ask myself, when I have gone to tournaments myself to cover them, meet people, do business while I'm there, I look at the schedules that the pros are running, and I also...
00:33:05
Speaker
Can you do you know like what's up? What I mean, let's take Ben Johns out of it Let's take like a Leah Jansen or a Riley Newman or what are they making per year? Do you think really maybe like maybe like 80k? I know like but now that's changed because of the new contract stuff, right? Like yeah, so I have no idea Here's the thing Even if it's 500 grand a year
00:33:29
Speaker
That's a really good salary, like a really good salary. Like at 500 grand, you can. That's yeah. Here's the thing. If someone told me we can snap their fingers and you're going to be a pro pickleball player, Doug, and you're like going to make 500 G's and you're just going to travel freaking 42 weeks out of the year to go play pickleball. Bro, I'm not doing that.
00:33:53
Speaker
If somebody wants to pay me $500,000 a year to go travel and go see stuff and have fun, great. That's not fun. They're literally staying in crappy hotels. Well, some of them get Airbnb's. At that money, you could get an ICE Airbnb every time you go. But to me, you gotta give hats off to those pros in the sense that they are very dedicated to their craft and love it that much to be able to
00:34:17
Speaker
basically sacrifice relationships, quality of life. Like any of those players that have kids, dude, like, I don't even know how you do that. Young kids like Jay Davila. He's got like four kids. Uh, Tyson McGuffin's got like six, but his wife is like, obviously like great. Yeah. A hundred percent, dude. Like, should they travel together though? Yeah. Yeah. That's why it's great. When you talk about like relationships, 100% dude.
00:34:42
Speaker
Jelling with someone having like a Having like syncing up with someone at this time at this period in like society is already difficult But then if you're gonna tell someone you're a pro athlete in pickleball Dude, they're not listening that like they don't really that's not like a huge draw it's cool that you're like a pro athlete then like yeah pro and pickleball like
00:35:05
Speaker
What? Okay. Yeah. And then you have to like, you're basically telling them about like your life while they're talking about like the work that they do. Right. It's incredibly boring. They're like, so what'd you do for, what'd you do today? Like I woke up, I ate, I practiced, I took a nap, I ate, I went to practice again. That's it.
00:35:23
Speaker
Yeah, I don't quite understand it. I do want to bring this back around to Ryan though. I'm terrible about getting off topic, but Ryan and I were talking and I was basically back to me complaining, problem solving the way I do it. What are you calling bitching problem solving? That's just my thing.
00:35:49
Speaker
but so so Ryan and I were talking I think I don't want to like misquote him but I think he said to me he's like so what like are you like a pickleball paddle company owner that like secretly hates pickleball and I'm like what no I don't secretly hate pickleball does he
00:36:09
Speaker
No, it was just it was just one of those things where I was like trying to explain to him where I think there's some issues And why and I want to get into this at some point in this podcast But it comes down to new players coming on court and you make your little note. You're you're always so good at that. He's got Don't let us forget that. I'm just drawing I'm just doodling should I take my shirt off and pose for you? I'll be like one of your French girls. Oh my gosh
00:36:33
Speaker
Anyway, but Ryan was like he was like asked me that question and I stopped them kind of and I was like listen I was like we basically need to generate more media that is focused around pros Everybody knows that our brand is known for being like kind of out there with our designs I mean our newest paddles like shipping with a bottle of hot sauce people are finding that out people don't really know what to think about us and my thing is is
00:36:58
Speaker
I do this stuff because I want to have fun and I want to wake up and for me to get out of bed, I have to work on a project that's cool and fun and exciting. Otherwise, I sit around like, could I have designed a entire brand and like, you know, had a triangle logo and like, you know, any of them.
00:37:15
Speaker
But like, however many triangle logos there are. But my thing is, is like intake, even it's not that I'm not like ripping on that. I'm just saying I could have designed a brand that was very safe and very simple. But at the end of the day, that marketing is really boring. And we, because we have this fun look and we do this crazy stuff, I think there's certain levels of players. Last night was a perfect example. Like those guys are all playing, you know, Yola, Selkirk.
00:37:40
Speaker
Vatic 6-0 all great brands all make good stuff all you know reputable companies and they see us and they're like what is up with this brand like is this like a Like a dudes recess brand like you know is that what it looks like but then they hit the filth and like holy crap This is a good paddle
00:37:56
Speaker
I was explaining to Ryan is we need to bring some people that do care about pro pickleball and what's happening in that spot and kind of inject some of that into some of our marketing stuff so that it helps resonate with players that may not know about us that then begin to realize like, hey, this is like a valid brand. That's like making great paddles. And so we started, I told Ryan, I was like, I was like, what I think we should do is we start this podcast. I was like, you should come on it and you can be,
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm saying them on like a weekly where they like, they chime in and give us a rundown of everything pro. And then Tim, if you guys, if you guys are no Tim with the beard, he's on all our packaging. You open that box and you see that like gargantuan Sasquatch looking guy. That's Tim. That is Tim. Yeah.
00:38:46
Speaker
But the idea is, is Tim, you know, and I will take that information and like, yeah, we'll keep up to date on some of it, but we're also gonna probably like, poke fun at some of it. Like, not trying to be like, mean-spirited, but also like, probably a little mean, because some of it's really crazy, some of the stuff that goes on. But... Like what? Do you have any examples or do you not remember because your memory is terrible? No, I'm just, I mean, just take the whole PPA, MLP, debacle and all that stuff going on. There's a marketing play.
00:39:13
Speaker
What marketing, but the other side of it is, is like, I feel bad for the pros because they're being thrown around like ragdolls. And like, did you, I heard rumor that even after they did, you know, it was like signed, signed, signed, signed, signed, all this stuff. And like, I heard somebody told me, I don't know if it was like Jimmy, but I didn't tell me I saw it on a podcast had stated that like,
00:39:32
Speaker
None of those, anyway, we could jump back and just like the, Jimmy had basically stated that those pros were signing those contracts and like none of them were wet signed. That's what I heard. I'm like looking at this and being like, like you mentioned pickleball founders not having experienced first time e-commerce brand, but also like most of these pros that I see on their Instagram, they have like an agent or maybe they were just like, maybe the agents were doing their job and said, hey, this needs to be executed.
00:40:00
Speaker
officially but maybe MLP and PPA were like hey we're not doing this yet because they knew I do my thing is are you gonna are you gonna start an agency no I'm not I'm not I'm definitely not doing that
00:40:15
Speaker
My thing though is, and we hit on this a little bit before, when I complain about pickleball, the biggest thing that I don't like about it, and I do really want this to be known, I think it's important for everyone to take a look at what's going on with pickleball.
Rise of Pickleball During COVID
00:40:31
Speaker
Everybody before this really, really, really started to take off in 2020 during COVID, that's when it got juiced a little bit. I think the thing that happened
00:40:40
Speaker
I was thinking about this last night after hanging out with all those guys. I think what happened is that these players all came in at the same time and there was a lot of people that went from a beginner pickleball player to a 4-0 or a 4-5 all at the same time.
00:40:58
Speaker
A lot of them. They just mass came in, the ones that got serious, kept training, kept doing their thing. They all got to this level. When you get to that level, you're respected, you can play the best of the best. I will show up, we were talking about how bad I am at pickleball. You and I played a match together and I just embarrassed you. You were like... Well it's just not fun when, it's not your fault, but it's not fun when you're playing two high level guys and...
00:41:24
Speaker
You know who I'm talking about? You're watching this, because I also saw you last night. And they're just hitting winners at you. And you're like, well, this isn't cool. Well, we know who the better player is, so why not just move the ball around lightly to him and move it. You can move it as aggressive as you want to me. But when they're going ahead and pickling us, I'm like, OK. I guess in some instances,
00:41:51
Speaker
No, I've never really done that to complete beginners. If someone has terrible footwork as making a fool of themselves because they're a beginner, I'm not exposing them for that or exploiting that. I'm like, what can I do to make this beneficial for me, but also so this person doesn't feel like shit? Just better systems have to be set put in place.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah. I don't really know what the solution is. There's no way to check egos at the door on a pickleball court in jujitsu and MMA gyms. Very easy. Anytime you walk in a gym, as soon as you walk in the door, all egos left at the door. No one brings the ego to the mat.
00:42:34
Speaker
Because there's a sense of respect. I don't care what level you are. Well, everybody's gonna call you out in your dojo, right? They'll call you out on it, but you're also like, hey, we're all here putting in serious hours and also risking our health and our livelihood to come in here and put training. We're all dedicated. We're all trying to be better. So if we're all trying to be better, then we should all treat each other with that same level of respect.
00:43:00
Speaker
But yeah, picklehole is weird because there's also people who've never really been in a competitive environment, so they just have massive egos about it. I've definitely been there where if I'm playing with a complete beginner because I just happen to be in a paddle stack, dude, I don't know how many hours I work, or just ever since I've been doing the YouTube and content creation path.
00:43:21
Speaker
The only thing I want to do when I play pickleball is just play competitively. That's also because of my past. I don't want to play with beginners when I'm out there most of the time. I want to get my competitive games in. I just want to dial in and be focused. I love that feeling and that's all I want. At the end of the day when I'm done working, I just want to play competitively. Looking at your brand and what you've done and knowing a little bit about your background, you have a history with marketing,
00:43:51
Speaker
can you go into how that drove like your brand? Like that is something that separates you from probably like 90% of the brands in pickleball is you actually know the marketing aspect. And a lot of people are just starting with product first and then you're starting with, well, yeah, not that they're completely separate, but you're coming in with a much heavier marketing. You asked in the process, Brian, or how, or,
00:44:23
Speaker
why you started with like marketing first because if you look at like a lot of the paddle brands they're just everyone already knows this majority of these paddle brands are just looking through a catalog and selecting it and they're going off like the product of the paddle like the feeling of the paddle they don't care about the design they don't care about creating a brand that resonates with people
00:44:46
Speaker
Dude, I, as a kid, I used to look at skate magazines, I used to look at shoe catalogs, I used to walk into stores and look at all the different, I didn't even know what a colorway was, but I would look at all the different colorways and I'd be like, dude, look at this one, it's got checkerboards on it and this one's yellow, this one's red. It's literally what you're wearing right now. I like those two colors. Yeah, it's dope colorway. It's colorway brown.
00:45:13
Speaker
Anyway, my point is, I have always been a consumer. My mom used to get super annoyed with me because it'd be like, you know how you do your first day of school shopping? And I was the kid that was in like,
00:45:30
Speaker
Footlocker looking at like a hundred and thirty dollar pair of Nikes and like 1983 or whatever it was and my mom is like there is like or not would be a 389 is probably when I've started looking at things that way and she would be like There's no way that I'm spending this kind of money on shoes and I was like well fine I'm gonna go make money cuz I am buying these shoes cuz they're rad, so I was always in Two things
00:45:53
Speaker
I've gotten a little bit more or less caring about them now, but I think growing up that way, I was always enamored by, again, I didn't know what a call to action was when I saw an ad. I didn't know what marketing initiatives were. I didn't look at something and know all the terms to say, hey, this is how people are catching a customer.
Marketing Inspirations from Other Industries
00:46:14
Speaker
I didn't know. I was being caught.
00:46:18
Speaker
And eventually, when I started designing, I started realizing, oh, this is how you catch a customer. Start learning the hows. Yeah, you start learning the hows of it. And again, it's not a secret. I didn't go to college for any of this stuff. I just studied it religiously all the time. And literally, when I started a web design company, I had never built a website. But WordPress was out, and I knew that I could hire it out and have sites cut up. So literally, I'd have a client, and they'd be like,
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah, we they would call the phone be like we heard you're like the best web designer in town living a small town It wasn't very hard to be number one, but I was number one But they would come in and they would say hey, you know, we have a lawn care business. We want a really cool website Well, dude, you got Google
00:47:02
Speaker
Like you just Google best lawn care websites and all of a sudden all these templates come up and all this other stuff. And now I never did templates, but I always took pieces from a template and was like, I like this aesthetic. I like this color scheme. Always steal, man. Yeah. Always. Yeah. Yeah. Always. And I think people like, and we, we catch it like, Oh, bread and butter is just, you know, doing another panel and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, guys, like that is, that is, yes, we are just taking existing shapes and other things that are out there. But at the end of the day,
00:47:32
Speaker
I always try to remember this quote the right way, but Steve Jobs said, and let me get this right as close as I can. Somebody will Google it and they can leave it in the comments for the exact quote. But the quote is, before you can ever focus on innovation, you have to perfect the customer experience.
00:47:48
Speaker
And so those aren't the exact words, but here's how I interpret that. If you start a business and you focus 100% on being a leader or innovator in that space, where the most important thing that needs to happen for you to grow is to begin cash flow and capital coming in the door.
00:48:08
Speaker
Now if you if you've got 20 million dollars and you want to start a pickleball paddle company and like you want to go sit around for two years and like beat your head against the wall trying to keep up with the newest paddle you're gonna design this perfect thing yeah go ahead burn cash but if you want to prove the concept you want to prove sales and you want to get it going go ahead and start with a paddle work on the customer experience and so that's 100% is our goal is like
00:48:32
Speaker
when we first started, like what are returns gonna look like? How are we gonna get these paddles in people's hands without, and remove all the hurdles and all the friction from the buying experience, and then when capital starts getting made like it is now, now we can talk about it. Like we have a patent pulled on a paddle, super cool. Like I wanna talk, I actually wanna talk to some other smaller brands and possibly even license some of it to them. But before I ever even do that, that's like so cart before the horse. You need a customer list.
00:49:02
Speaker
You need clicks, you need traffic, you need top of funnel stuff happening before you can ever say, I'm going to, I'm going to invent the world's best pick of all battle. Like some of the brands like six zero or Vatican, they put out the product first, the paddle, and they just focus on getting that. And that paddle and the product brought in the customers rather than starting with
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, you can totally do it that way. You can totally do it. And both those guys have been wildly successful. And I mean, to my knowledge, both those companies are like ran really well. Like, you know, I've watched, I've chatted like a little bit with Dale, like here and there, nothing extensive. I've been friendly with Daryl and those guys are doing cool stuff.
00:49:50
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with doing it that route, but for me, I'll say it like this. So, take the new gearbox paddle that's coming out. I know Vatic players, and I know 6-0 players, and here's the deal, is that very few of the people that buy those paddles are going to be loyal to that brand if something new comes along that may be a little shinier.
00:50:14
Speaker
Is anyone in Picklewall really loyal to any brand right now, though? I think we have some, we got some freaking troopers, dude. If you read the comments that come on our social media, we've got people that are like, if you need me to set up in this state for this. You need me to kill somebody?
00:50:32
Speaker
I got you. No, like people people here's the thing is like posting a picture of a pro with like a Performance paddle and it's like black and white or maybe like color graded just right and blah blah blah and it looks cool It's like cool whatever but like, you know doing stuff where you're having fun with and this goes back There's nothing wrong with what those guys are doing. Here's my thing and this is a selfish thing is that there is no way that I'm gonna wake up every single day and
00:50:58
Speaker
and want to put my shoes on and be excited about what I'm doing that week. If I've got to market something freaking boring. No way.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah. This whole topic of like the brand though, like not that this may not be your goal, but when I look at brands in any other industry, if you look at the shoe industry, Nike, Reebok Adidas, that's what I meant. Adidas, not Reebok who was wearing Reebok still to this day. Uh, then you look at phones, look at Apple, Google. So like a lot of those brands, even if you look at like camera gear, like Peter McKinnon's brand is more on that. Like it looks like, I don't know what the right word is, like top tier performance.
00:51:38
Speaker
Does that affect your thoughts on your brand at all? Are you asking, do you think that we could rebrand ourselves to be a little more serious? Is that what you're saying? Not if you can, you could, but all those brands at any of the levels in any consumer good at the top are always these monochromatic-looking brands that are... Yeah. Here's the thing, dude. There's a big...
00:52:08
Speaker
I mean, well, first of all, there are brands, like you could look at Vans. Vans sells more pairs of shoes, I think, than any freaking shoe company on the planet. And they're not monochromatic. You can like, I've got a pair of Vans that have freaking dolphins on them, like porpoises. I mean, like, it's just, you can have fun and do it, but the reason why, I'm gonna tell, this is my opinion of what drives monochromatic design.
00:52:35
Speaker
First of all, by nature, most humans aren't comfortable wearing bright stuff because they stand out and they don't want to stand out. There's a lot of people that don't want to be, like take Travis Rhettmeyer, for example, that dude doesn't give a damn. He's going to put on a flamingo shirt and go out there with like slick back hair and talk trash and like have fun and like be a fun pickleball player like that. He pulls it off well.
00:52:59
Speaker
Yeah. And some people have the personality to do that. A lot of people don't. So that's one reason. And dude, I've been doing e-commerce for a long time and I will tell you top selling colors, white, black, gray, always, always. The thing is though, is like, I don't want to look back to the creative thing. I don't want to work on it that way. And you know, we're going to, we have some apparel apparel lines that we're working on and the performance line, it's going to be boring. Like it's going to be those colors, but then we're going to have a couple, what's that?
00:53:26
Speaker
Right up my alley. Yeah, I'm just gonna open up my drawer right now It's like gray gray gray like two different grays. Yeah, we're we will Devin texted me earlier today He's gonna call the line the Brian Lim emo line. It's just gonna be a Black the black dark colors I'm kidding but no it's that's that's part of the thing the other the other reason I think that a lot of companies don't do what a vans did is that I will tell you it is way way way harder and a lot more work and
00:53:54
Speaker
to pull off sophisticated in-your-face design stuff. Risk. Well, it's risk involved and also it's just more work. Like, every paddle that we launch, we do an entire branding campaign on it.
00:54:09
Speaker
Stuff that these companies do once when they launch the company never do it again We're doing that on every single paddle brand kits packaging all of that stuff It's a lot more work and the thing is is like the reason why most people don't do it is because they can't Not because they don't want to some of them I think would want to but it's a it's a much heavier lift It just so happens that like I'm very comfortable in that space and it's the space that I want to be in What's the most difficult thing that you're experiencing right now?
Managing Brand Ambassadors
00:54:40
Speaker
the ambassador program. What about it? We've got an inbox full of applicants and like Instagram messages for days and of people wanting to get involved.
00:54:55
Speaker
I don't know that I really want to get into why I've slow rolled it, but it has to do with some administrative logistics and a little bit of tax stuff that I want to make sure is done correctly and above board. And like when you're dealing with all these 1099s with individuals, cause it's all coupon code based, right?
00:55:13
Speaker
So we have a we have a new piece of software that we're getting ready to kick off that's going to make all of that possible. But even if that was done today and we're ready to sign these people up, I promise myself that I would never run a unthoughtful ambassador program again. And like right now, the standard operating
00:55:31
Speaker
Procedure with these paddle companies is you know, you issue them a code, you know, there's various different, you know Incentives they get paid out whoever's buying the paddle from them or using their code gets paid a commission But back to the loyalty thing that I was talking to you about when you go to these courts and talk to these ambassador kids if you open up their bag it's like a bread and butter filth a double black diamond a vatic v7 flash probably a prism a Selkirk
00:55:57
Speaker
Whether whether it's like a vanguard air or was it the o6 is the new one that I wrote the carbon fiber face Like they all have these paddles and it's like, you know hot butted popcorn Which one you want like take this one take that one? It's like they're just like for shilling them on the thing is is like that's cool. But like also
00:56:16
Speaker
I would like to be more thoughtful with the program to when we send somebody and hire them on as an ambassador there's more of a relationship there and they get more stuff from us to where they really do want to wear and have all of our gear and so that's what we're doing is we're trying to like stutter step a little bit like
00:56:35
Speaker
I don't wanna be like, oh yeah, just take a paddle, here's a paddle for, you know, 30% off, or 50% off, or 40, whatever you wanna do with the program, and then go like, shill paddles all over the place, like, I want that kid swagged out, dude, like, and not, not with like, cheap promo gear, like, I wanna put him in a legit shirt that would retail for...
00:56:56
Speaker
$80 $70 something you actually to do when you have a shirt you like when you wear you wear you want to wear it every day like or have like V or e Exactly. That's my point in my sponsor. But my point is is like we want to have quality products like that or
00:57:15
Speaker
where when they get a package from us they are like part they feel like they're part of something and they're not just like uh you know you go to the courts you're like oh hey i'm dude i've literally been on the courts and seen two or three different people like trying to get their code for an i won't name a brand like to that person before he'd like you know use my code and they joke they're like nah you you use you're the other guy use yours use mine like that kind of stuff and it's like i
00:57:39
Speaker
I don't know, man. Like I don't, I know it probably is. It doesn't, it's not probably is working for them. I just want to do something that's a little bit more thoughtful. Interesting. So maybe it was just an example, but the paddle, like having multiple paddles. So do you want a filth ambassador to only be using filth gear or not filth gear, but bread and butter gear? Yeah.
00:58:01
Speaker
Oh, I think people should always be switching, or should have a choice of like paddles in their bag, just like tests, different conditions. That's up to us, and this is what we're working on, is expanding out to have a paddle for every, right now we're very unidimensional with an elongated paddle. If you want a five and a half inch handle, you got the filth. Thermiform edgewell injector is 16 millimeter. What's their next option gonna be?
Introducing the Loco Paddle
00:58:28
Speaker
Segue. The loco.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's the colorway for it. Yeah, the Loco. It's a hybrid shape paddle, lower swing weight, 5.3 inch handle. The next paddle is going to be the Loco. And I don't know when this video is probably going to go up next week. When it goes up, we'll... Yeah, so by the time that happens, we should be releasing the first looks on the paddle. We haven't really shown people what it looks like.
00:58:56
Speaker
We've showed everything else like the box and the hot sauce. Every, every, every box is shipping with a hot sauce for the first thousand orders on that. I've seen it and no other pedal. Okay. I need to stop saying that. No other pedal.
00:59:12
Speaker
It looks different and you're bouncing. You're doing a good balance of fun, but also it looks performance. So it's cool. Going back to that, you know, this is where I always battle is like, I want to make it crazy.
00:59:29
Speaker
But it's like, well, let's try to like, let's try to like slick this one up a little bit and just keep it super clean. Like when I designed this paddle, I would literally like, it's like design it for Brian. Just super simple, nice clean lines. You put yellow on there for me.
00:59:44
Speaker
But yeah, no, it's coming out. We're super excited about that paddle. And then we had a little meeting today and there's another paddle that we're, we had another paddle that we were working on that I hit pause on. Cause it was some news that just changed that I don't want to get into on this podcast, but we're, we're working on it. We're going to shift and go to another paddle that we had decided to not do, but now we're going to bring it back, I believe. And then.
01:00:09
Speaker
my signature paddle but yeah we're we're we're excited about the loco it's gonna be it's gonna be a lot we have a lot of customers they're like hey i love the filth but you know i want something with a lower swing that a lower swing weight that's a little faster in the hands filth is i love that paddle i really do i was using the 006 i had tested the 60 60 just wasn't for me
01:00:32
Speaker
I didn't like it. I know a lot of people do. Not for me. Never really tested the Vatican Pro. I hit Jeff's a little bit. I was using 006. The filth, I guess I had used, I used Voltaire before that. Um, but the filth's been my favorite. It's a good paddle, man. It's just like the elongated. I like the white on white aesthetics and performance just all around has been great. Yeah. Funny. Cause I, I like it. I'm like the last person in the world that should be like, like giving paddle advice. Cause I just don't play that much, but I play.
01:01:03
Speaker
The way that I do this testing is because I'm not capable of like really, really knowing what I'm hitting very well. And I'll admit that I'm not afraid, but like that's why I have literally a hot list. And when we get a paddle in, I mean, you know, it's like, boom, I send out like 20 or 30 of them. And I'm like, guys, what do you think? Hit this. Yeah, it's not. I'm sure a bunch of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I just I'm not like I let other people hit it and like you know It's that's a tough thing to do too because like if you sent 10 out You're not gonna get 10 out of 10 people that are like I love this thing But when you get six or seven like more than 50% 70% like it It's pretty good And if and here's the thing is as long as the other 30 40% say I don't hate it It's a good paddle if you ask them they typically say something like I just don't like elongated
01:01:52
Speaker
paddles or I just don't like hybrid paddles. So you want everyone to say, it feels good. If they don't like it, they just say, but this isn't the shape. If you get people that are like, I don't like it, dude, then you have a problem. They usually take care of the shape. They usually take the same paddle and they're like, we're going to offer it in multiple shapes. That's, that's an easy, but I really liked the local, like I liked the filth a lot too. But when I hit the loco pre-production sample, I was like, okay, I, I might be a, I might be a hybrid guy. I like it.
01:02:17
Speaker
I've been telling everyone about it, like not even just cause you're here. Like I've been telling even on some of the people that were there last night, like they had seen me, we've been, we played at like, uh, the rooftop courts and I was, they're like, what panel is that? And I was like, oh dude, you can use it if you want. And they're like, oh man, it feels good. As soon as they feel like, oh, it feels good. And they hit around with a little bit like Ryan was doing that Ryan division, anything I haven't asked you about that you would like to talk about?
01:02:50
Speaker
I think we covered almost everything that that kind of explains like who we are and what we're doing and maybe why we are a little bit out there and you know really comes down to like we want to be out there because it's fun for us and I really I think it's covered it like
01:03:08
Speaker
you know, I guess I will share this because we're talking about paddles and we talked about being taken seriously because of our graphics and how we aren't just playing it safe and doing like kind of weird things and I think people should know a little bit of the backstory is that when we started bread and butter, all of our paddles were sandwich paddles.
01:03:25
Speaker
that really did look like a dude's recess. Like it was like, and believe it or not, we still sell a good amount of those paddles. Like beginner players want color on their paddle. And I don't think that I'll ever get rid of not, I'll continue to do fun paddles. In fact, we've even looked at some licensing stuff here that we'd like to execute in 2024. That's even crazy. I mean, crazy graphics on paddles. They're not going to be a paddle that you and any of your friends are going to hit, but they're going to be a paddle that a lot of new players to the sport want to hit. And here's the thing.
01:03:52
Speaker
is if I can get people hitting a pickleball because of the way a paddle looks and they impulse buy something because it looks cool, that's a new player potentially. And so I always want to keep doing that. You're never going to see bread and butter just all blacked out aggressive pro level paddles. We want that in a lineup and it will be part of the lineup.
01:04:11
Speaker
But at the end of the day, you know, we started with those fun paddles. We pivoted a little bit and launched the Filth, proved that it worked and people loved it. And so it opened our eyes to that. But I think people need to know that we came with
01:04:26
Speaker
you know basically wet behind the ears like not knowing like what we were doing came into the scene we're like okay now we figured this out like this whole thermal forming thing is going on and we did it and we're going to continue to develop you know higher end paddles but we also want to have
01:04:42
Speaker
Like, again, all of us love this game, whether you love it because you want to grow a business and you want to secure financial stability for your family or you want to become a pro pickleball player or you just enjoy getting your workout in without running down the road like my crazy wife and you just want to go exercise. It doesn't matter what reason you're doing this. It's in all of our interest to grow the game. And we've used that hashtag throughout our marketing stuff, grow the game. So, you know, that's the deal, man. Don't.
01:05:12
Speaker
don't turn away new pickleball players, embrace them, bring them on because they are going to be, and it's kind of cliche. We need to have new players coming in, and it is important. It's said, and even if it's not, even if it's being said just because it's a cool, popular thing to say or it sounds good, there's a lot of truth to it. Gotta keep new people coming into the sport. Where can people find out more about bread and butter?
01:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, they can go to bnbpickleball.com. I encourage you to read our About Us page. Oh, boy. That's a great page. That's a good page. That's literally one of my favorite movies. By the way, just real quick, I won't go long about this, but so the producer, the producer's wife of that movie when we first started, freaking emailed us.
01:06:04
Speaker
and I thought we were like going to be in some trouble like I was like oh my god we're like three months into this and she says hey can you give me a call and we're like oh my god dude Devin's like what do you want to do and I'm like like just let me handle it let me take a deep breath but I call her and she's like oh my god I love you guys and I was like ma'am she's like let me tell you the backstory she's like my husband produced
01:06:48
Speaker
Isaac Isaac will oh will will you try to sabotage why I called Isaac and Chris too? Cuz we're doing that podcast and that's what I was gonna that's what I was gonna do I'm gonna I'm probably still trying because they're good price like So anyway, yeah, they don't so the the older people don't get the joke and they think it's like just think it's a good natural like a real story I think it's a real story dude like
01:06:51
Speaker
the Stepbrothers movie.
01:07:10
Speaker
that Richard and I started this this pickleball company because we had like failed businesses and wrecked our yacht and like all and like we have like the logo it's like tennis worldwide on there and all this stuff dude anyway thanks man I appreciate it yep