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Vatic Pro: 25 Year Old Shaking Up the Pickleball Industry
388 Plays2 years ago
Vatic Pro founder Daryl Wang joins me for his first podcast and interview appearance. Join us as we delve into the captivating story of Vatic Pro, a rising star in the Pickleball industry. Responding to his tweet from Ben Johns, thermoforming, and delamination misconceptions. From his humble beginnings to becoming a renowned brand, this video covers his unique upbringing, challenges faced along the way, and their vision for the future of Pickleball. Hear firsthand about his experiences as a young business owner, learn valuable advice for the younger generation, and discover the truth behind paddle misconceptions. Don't miss out on this inspiring tale that will leave you motivated and excited for what's to come!
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:10 Beginning
03:22 Upbringing and background
16:04 Vatic Pro, the name
18:32 Tweet from Ben Johns, legal
23:44 Challenges: delamination
27:32 Experience as a young business owner
35:32 Inception of Vatic Pro, company outlook
40:17 Future of pickleball
41:31 Last PPA event
44:53 Personal regrets, advice for younger generation, fear
54:16 Paddle misconception
58:42 What's next
A PADDLE GIVEAWAY IS ANNOUNCED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE VIDEO
#pickleball #pickleballpaddle #podcast
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Transcript
Predicting Company Success and Failure
00:00:00
Speaker
Like some of the companies like are obviously you can tell are going to be successful and others you're like this is bound for failure.
Advancements in Paddle Technology
00:00:07
Speaker
His original tweet was a little strongly worded. Most of the things that other companies are sending you are kind of empty threats and more of like political games. For us we're one of the paddles that are like at the center of attention regarding that because we were one of the first ones to use thermoforming. In our new batches with our new designs we've changed
00:00:26
Speaker
And that pretty much alleviated pretty much 100% of delamination
Debate on Legal Paddle Definitions
00:00:30
Speaker
issues. What defines a legal paddle? You know, there's a lot of talk about that. At what point does the sport like become too dangerous?
Paddle Safety and Technology Misconceptions
00:00:38
Speaker
There are paddles out there that are legitimately dangerous to play with.
00:00:42
Speaker
Regarding the technology with pickball paddles, I think there is a very common misconception.
25-Year-Old Founder’s Goals in Pickleball
00:00:49
Speaker
What are the goals of a 25-year-old founding a business in the fastest growing sport right now? Affordability, quality, donations.
Vatic Pro's Manufacturing Strategy
00:00:59
Speaker
Speaking of affordability, how much do you think a top-of-the-line pickball paddle should cost?
00:01:06
Speaker
So if you take a look at the prices, how is Vatic Pro able to lower their costs compared to their competitors? Look, I hear it all the time, right? Manufacturing in China and needing to bring it into the States. But what happens when you have someone who can leverage the relationship with China and see it as an opportunity rather than an obstacle?
Young Entrepreneur's Success in Pickleball
00:01:26
Speaker
Could you imagine facing legal action at the age of 25 years old, right after you just founded your business?
00:01:31
Speaker
So what can we learn from a young individual who's quickly on his way to becoming a top brand in the sport? How many 25-year-olds can you think of that has started a brand that's already profitable less than a year in while launching a product that customers are raving about?
Daryl Wang's Journey and Company Insights
00:01:46
Speaker
Daryl Wang, the founder of Vatic Pro, responds to tweets from the number one player, reveals the big advantage they have over competitors, resolving the latest paddle issues and how the loss of someone close to him at an early age has affected his outlook on life.
00:02:01
Speaker
and stick around for the paddle giveaway that I'm gonna announce in this video.
Podcast Introduction to Daryl Wang
00:02:10
Speaker
Hey, what's going on, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Building Pickleball. This is the founder series where I'm interviewing founders and uncovering their story, going over different challenges, setbacks, and highlights, and really just trying to understand who's behind that brand and that company. And my guest today is Darryl Wang.
Daryl Wang's Background and Achievements
00:02:27
Speaker
He is the founder of Vatic Pro, is one of the more popular paddle brands on the market right now. As far as his background, he went to
00:02:35
Speaker
NYU, measured in finance and global business, left with an NCAA All-American honors. He holds the NYU swimming and diving record and he has a background in investment banking and is the founder of Edmax. Thanks for joining me today, Darryl.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me and I'm excited to talk about some of these things. Yeah, for sure, man. I was like, we were talking about this before and I just don't have, I tried to do my research and I couldn't find a lot on you. So yeah, this is going to be a fun one. Yeah, this is going to be my first one of these. So there's a lot of tea to be spilled. So just stay tuned.
00:03:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah. What's important for me to know about your childhood that made you who you are today? Yeah, I think the most important thing about my childhood is I pretty much grew up in an environment where I was encouraged to kind of push my limits. I didn't have very strict parents at all. They kind of
00:03:30
Speaker
encouraged me to pursue what I was good at. And in my childhood, that happened to be swimming. So I was encouraged to, you know, go out there, pretty much push myself to the limit. Like, I didn't have to worry too much about schools, I was able to pour 100% of my time into swimming. Because my parents kind of understood that there's no point in beating a dead horse, you know, like kids are good at what they're good at. Like,
00:03:54
Speaker
If you have trouble concentrating in school or something like that, there's no need to force them to do something that they're not good at. Eventually, I'm glad it worked out. I swam since I was probably eight years old and managed to make it to the collegiate level. That's pretty much the summation of my childhood and the philosophy that my parents had. What do your parents do? Yeah. My dad is currently retired.
00:04:17
Speaker
He spent the majority of his career in the manufacturing business, working with several American companies and helping them manage logistics from China to the US. And then my mother was an accountant. Is it a coincidence that your dad has a manufacturing background and then you've gotten into pickleball?
00:04:35
Speaker
Um, it's definitely not a coincidence. Like, um, so my dad and I worked together for Vatican Pro. Um, I was kind of the one that started, but the sentio was retired and you know, he just wanted to help me out. Uh, he's been kind of integral in some of that regard. So I'm sure we'll get into more of that later on.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. I feel like, I mean, as long as everything is good, as far as like the relationship between you and your parents, as far as when it comes to business, it's pretty ideal to be working with someone who you already have that trust that's developed and your parents aren't like trying to sabotage your business either.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, who you work with is definitely a very big part in whether you succeed or not, like having good business partners. No one succeeds alone in this industry or any industry rather. So I'm also very thankful that, you know, I get to spend time with my dad. We work together very closely. So it's really a blessing.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah. I'm sure like later on that's going to be something that you'll definitely look back on is such a rare thing to go to work with your parents. Was your mom in all this? She just stay away. Um, no. So, um, a few years ago, my mom had actually passed away, um, from cancer. So, um, since then it's just been me and my dad and then we kind of just went all out with this thing. Damn. Sorry to hear that man. Uh, lost my dad in 2015. It was like a hiking accident. Um,
00:05:58
Speaker
How do you think that has impacted the way you live your life now? Yeah, so it's definitely significantly impacted the way that I approach my life and as well as my career. So just in life, I try to prioritize my health. I'm very fortunate that I'm working in the sports industry where I have the chance to be active every day, play pickleball.
00:06:22
Speaker
which is good for us. But then professionally, I think it really kind of altered my career trajectory. So when I was in college, you know, I was going to business school at NYU and like the most common route that people pursue is either some sort of investment banking consulting, you know, that typical corporate route. And that's where I was headed because, you know, as a young Asian American, I really wanted to make my parents proud since they didn't have the opportunity to go to college in the US.
00:06:52
Speaker
So I was really pursuing that like, you know, path. But I wasn't the best student, didn't have the best GPA. So recruiting for investment banking was tough. But my junior year, my mom passed away and I was thinking, you know, like maybe there is more to life than, you know, a corporate job, which is something that I had experience in. But like,
00:07:15
Speaker
It wasn't the best use of all of my strengths, I would say. So I had a good look at myself after I graduated. And then I also wanted to be close to home, or with my dad rather. And at that time, that's when I founded ED Max. So originally, I was in a different industry. The company that I have, ED Max, was originally focused on education consulting.
00:07:43
Speaker
So my dad was living in China at the time and I had this business idea where I was working with international students and helping them apply to graduate programs and undergraduate programs in the US. So pretty much the whole consulting process from like picking schools, drafting materials, interview prep, all that stuff. So pretty different than what I'm doing now.
00:08:06
Speaker
That was my first entrepreneurial experience and it was actually quite successful. And then so that's kind of where the story changes because I had just moved to China. I was doing it remotely for a while after I graduated and then moved from New York to China. The first week I was in Shanghai was
00:08:22
Speaker
January of 2020. So there were whispers of COVID. No one in America knew what it was at the time. So no one in China even knew. This was before the Wuhan thing. There were whispers in Chinese groups that, hey, there's this disease going around. And then no one knew the severity or the full scale of this thing. But
00:08:45
Speaker
My dad and I didn't want to take that risk so we hopped on a flight the next day and flew back to LA and then we were just waiting for it to unfold rather and then we all know what happens after that like pretty much the entire time after that it's just it was just COVID like full-blown the whole thing and I've never been back to China since until recently. Were you back at China for business?
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, so we were actually there last week, partially for business, partially for family. I usually go there pretty often. We were visiting factories, looking at the manufacturing process, meeting the owners of the factory, and pretty much just talking business, like the usual stuff. Can't disclose too much, but it's cool to be able to see how the paddles are made.
00:09:35
Speaker
There's a lot of paddle brands going around. I don't think many have actually witnessed the process itself from start to finish. It would probably change a lot of perspectives if the customers and the manufacturers knew exactly what was going on in there. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely no accident why the top brands are the way they are. And I've heard that quite frequently so far. Even with 6.0, it's like taking a close look at manufacturing.
00:10:05
Speaker
and looking at not only just design but manufacturing and how to foster those relationships. What benefits would you say you have being able to have that dialogue coming from a Chinese background and then also just having connections out there?
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the benefit of having my dad with me, him being in the manufacturing industry for so long and being a native Chinese speaker, it's something that you can almost not even quantify because it benefits us so much. So I would say the number one thing is that we don't use an agent.
00:10:41
Speaker
every company basically that you see I would say like over 90% they're all working through an agent like an Alibaba agent or an Amazon agent or someone who acts as a middleman between them and the factory because a factory owner can't speak basic English like they only know Chinese
00:11:00
Speaker
And they're often from like in rural areas so just to order products itself You need to go through an agent and with that comes a pretty significant fee Because the agents have to make a living right and then so they're charging a small percentage of each paddle or a percentage of each order and naturally that affects your margins, so
00:11:22
Speaker
I think that's one of the main reasons why we're able to be the price leader in thermal form paddles and then also the new pile that we're coming out with. We've always prided ourselves on kind of changing the way pickleball is perceived from a price perspective. And I think that having this experience and kind of my Chinese background plays a large role into that.
00:11:43
Speaker
Ever since I started this thing, there's been incredible amounts of support and I've yet to do a giveaway. I just want to be able to say thank you to everyone who's supported me, the people who have viewed the videos, who have liked...
00:11:54
Speaker
commented and subscribe to the channel. It means a lot. It helps with the YouTube algorithm. It's very, very helpful. I'm not just asking for it for vanity metrics. But yeah, it makes me really excited that I can be able to give back to you guys. I'm sorry, I don't have like 700 of these. I quit my full time job, so I'm basically broke. And so what I got here is a Blair Mach 1 very
00:12:19
Speaker
Graceful. I will keep this wrapped so it stays in good condition because if I take this out, we might not ever see it again. Oh, yeah, and you get a wristband. And also, I love this part. You get the signature Julian Arnold push button.
00:12:44
Speaker
It doesn't work right now because there are no batteries in it, but I promise when you get it, it'll work. And if it doesn't, well, you bring it up to Ryan. All right, so looks like we have an extra butt cap for Volaire, Volaire stickers. So all you got to do is comment on the video with one thing that you learned, screenshot your comment with your username in there, and then DM the Building Pickleball Instagram account.
00:13:07
Speaker
And then from there, I'll select a winner. I'll select someone by the next video and I'll probably just announced who that winner was in that video too. And no, this paddle is not delaminated. There's definitely a shared sentiment there with a couple founders I've talked to. Joey B from the Pickleball Exchange is one of them as far as just making things like affordable. He tells a story about someone walking into the store and like needing to go into debt just to buy a certain paddle. I won't say which one it is, but
00:13:37
Speaker
Paddles are getting kind of expensive and it's all kind of like contextual based on whoever your, whatever your income is. But we don't want the sport to end up like, I think I can speak to kind of like snowboarding, like for a day pass for snowboarding could be up to like a hundred dollars. And then the gear itself, if you want something decent, it could be like $500. Like the price for gear shouldn't really be the barrier to entry. Ideally, that's what I think.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the notion right now is that pickleball is kind of a sport for like where the existing population was kind of like retired, somewhat wealthy individuals. But if you want to see the growth that we're all forecasting for this sport, it definitely has to spread into more like lower income areas, which is something that like we've kind of addressed. So I've worked to, you know, set up a donation channel for all paddles.
00:14:37
Speaker
either that are unsellable or ones that we get back and they're all donated to low income urban areas so that more people can have exposure to the sport just like in any way that i can i think affordability of itself is like. Kind of a big issue which is like one of the things that i ran into when i first started or when i first started playing and i saw it was an issue.
00:14:58
Speaker
I also didn't realize not I realized but like we have this payment plan kind of thing you know Shopify has a firm where you can pay in installments for your paddles and it just shows that you know people are kind of loving this sport and they want to have the best gear but everyone might not have the means to do so so it offers another option for people to
00:15:19
Speaker
kind of paying plans so that way they can have the best quality materials or gear and it's not worried too much about, you know, paying upfront. Can people donate to the channel that you've created or are you just kind of doing this on your own with Vatic Paddles?
00:15:34
Speaker
I'm pretty much doing it myself with Vatic Paddles at the moment. So I haven't had the time to expand it further, which is something I really want to do. I've been speaking with some people about it. So hopefully that'll be in the works in the near future. Yeah, definitely. What did the name Vatic Pro come from?
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, so a lot of people ask me that. It's not as complex as one might think. So when I was looking for a brand name, I just wanted something that was kind of clean, short. And at the time I was looking for a word that started with the letter V because I thought that it would make for a cool logo.
00:16:14
Speaker
Um, so then I was looking like basically Googling words that start with V and Vatic caught my eye. And then you also want something that, you know, has an open domain so you can create a website and go from there. Cause those are like the first steps in starting a business. And then Vatic just stood out and it has a, it actually has a meeting that not many people know. It's an English word just means like being able to predict the future. Yeah.
00:16:35
Speaker
I didn't see, I didn't know it was even a word before I like scheduled this interview. I looked it up and I was like, Oh shit, Vatican. I didn't know that's an actual word. It's sweet word. How did your background in like investment baking and global business, how is that affected what you're doing now?
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, so my education is definitely something that I credit a lot of my success towards. I think first and foremost, it kind of gives me the confidence that I can approach challenges based on my education from NYU, where there's a lot of collaboration, there's a lot of small projects that you're working on that you don't realize at the time, but they translate very well into the real world. Maybe not so much of the number stuff for these accounting classes, but other than that,
00:17:22
Speaker
To be a successful business owner, you kind of have to be a jack of all trades. Like I have to know how to do every single thing that is involved in creating a business. So that also plays a little bit into my experience as an investment banker. I worked with so I worked on the ECM side, like helping raise capital for some smaller companies.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I worked with a lot of owners of small businesses. So like when you're sitting in meeting rooms, like some of the companies like are obviously you can tell are going to be successful and others you're like, this is bound for failure. So just being able to kind of see what the good companies are doing well and what others are not doing well.
00:18:02
Speaker
Um, I think kind of subconsciously, those are takeaways that I implement into my own business. Um, just being able to kind of combat any challenges because every day is, you know, you don't know what's going to come through your inbox or like someone's going to make a tweet or something like that. And then, um, just got to go from there. So I think my education and my experience, like, even though they were, um, I didn't work in investment banking that long. I think it's part of the reason why Vatic has become successful.
00:18:31
Speaker
You mentioned one word that stuck out was the tweet. Of course, you knew this was going to come up. Just the thoughts on Ben Johns making that tweet about the delamination claims and breaking the rules or finding a loophole against the rules that USAP set.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of understand his frustration in a sense because he's the number one player in the world and his only concern really is to perform at the highest level.
00:19:06
Speaker
And if there are people using delaminated paddles, it's a clear advantage. If you've ever played against one or seen one in the wild or even watching a pro play, there are some shots that I don't think should be possible on a pickleball court.
00:19:22
Speaker
I don't think delamination is good for the game at all. His original tweet was a little strongly worded, I will say, but I know that he didn't mean to come off as very attacking in any regard, so there's no quarrels there. I think people are looking to extract any drama from
00:19:46
Speaker
any tweet these days, and especially since he's the number one player, like people are going to be all over it. But I think big picture, it's something that we can all use to like make the sport a better place. On that subject, there's definitely little like legal tips going around between the top brands, between each other. There's like cease and desist out. Do you have any opinions or thoughts on that?
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, so the cease and desist are kind of normal these days. When I first started the business, I was kind of like, you know, just fresh and didn't know like anything about more of the legal aspects of business. Well, I knew, but like, I just, I took it very seriously, you know, because once you like kind of work in this industry, you realize that most of the things that other companies
00:20:37
Speaker
are sending you or kind of empty threats and more of like political games rather than actual you know cease and desist letters that are like they're going to send their lawyers at you and like go to court because I don't think that makes sense for anyone especially over very trivial issues so my understanding or like what I believe is that pick a ball is like
00:20:56
Speaker
very simple sport. The paddles are extremely simple like there's not too much technology in them at all and there most definitely isn't anything within a paddle that you can pad or you know have something that you owe because there are specific like guidelines on the size you know what you can use on the surface etc so most of those are pretty basic things that no company can own outright and then
00:21:26
Speaker
I think the original one that probably changed the brand the most was when we rebranded. So a company sent us a cease and desist over our logo.
00:21:39
Speaker
And at that time, it was either, you know, we can combat this and like take a head on or we can pivot and rebrand. And then so in my mind, I was thinking like, I'm not in love with our logo anyways, let's use it. And like, at that time, our paddle designs were horrible.
00:21:58
Speaker
Because I had just, when I first designed the paddles, I didn't think that it would blow up as it did. So I was just like, I didn't spend too much time on the design. I did it myself and people would email me and it's like, why is there Times New Roman going down the side? And then I was like, you know what, that's it. So I'm rebranding, like I'm redesigning our paddles completely.
00:22:21
Speaker
After that I hired someone, I contracted someone who has a master's degree in product design. And then so he came up with what you see today on our paddles. And I think it's just looking back, it's just one small challenge that kind of made us better, you know, so everything improved after that people love the way our new paddles look. I'm very happy with the new logo.
00:22:41
Speaker
It has a very nice fading pattern on our paddles. It looks great. That's pretty much how I approach all the legal challenges. Some of them you can use as an opportunity to further your business and others you just ignore. It's a good way to look at it. Whoever that company was that put a lawsuit over the logo.
00:23:03
Speaker
We can thank them and do a shout out for them because the new design, whoever did that new design, that product design looks great. It's clean and it's distinctive when you're like on the court too. Yeah, definitely. Even though like a lot of the paddles are starting to trend towards all black and like a small logo, kind of like a minimal design still. Yeah, it looks great. I can't think of really any other brands that use that strong orange color.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think the orange is a great color for us. It's almost synonymous with the brand at this moment. I think it looks great on black, so I'm glad that we chose that as like our original brand color and stuck with it.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, it looks clean. Great contrast. What have been some of your biggest challenges so far with the business? Yeah, so I mean, every day, there's new challenges. I would say the main recurring challenge that I face is probably making the customers like as happy as possible. Because when you're running a consumer based business in America, like the customer is king, you know,
00:24:07
Speaker
you have to take all of their concerns very seriously and so I pretty much I'm reading every email that gets sent to the company like we have several emails like I I'm the only one reading and responding to every email so if I'm the sole point of contact and I like try my best to resolve every issue in like the most amicable way so that customers you know leave satisfied and want to refer us still to their friends I mean the most obvious challenge with size of that is delamination right so
00:24:36
Speaker
I'm sure that's something that's been talked about like daily. For us, we're one of the paddles that are like at the center of attention regarding that because we were one of the first ones to use thermoforming. That's been something that I'm focused on like on a daily basis. We're speaking with the factory like going over solutions. And by the way, delamination like itself, the actual word or the core coming away from the surface has actually been fixed.
00:25:06
Speaker
Chris Olson's been showing people that what you see when you think of delamination is actually the surface or the honeycomb becoming brittle near the sweet spot from hitting the ball.
00:25:22
Speaker
I don't think delamination is going to be the right word moving forward, but that's the main issue that we're focused on right now. So are you saying the delamination that people are associating with now, which is people are saying it's the core coming apart from the surface is being misused and the actual term is really just the honeycomb core becoming brittle?
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah, so prior to our new glue fix, it was kind of a combination of the two where either could happen. But in our new batches with our new designs, we've changed the sheets of glue that we use to bond the surface and the honeycomb. And that pretty much alleviated pretty much 100% of delamination issues. So what we see now is kind of a
00:26:10
Speaker
crushing of the core of the honeycomb, which is something that's been around in heated paddles for quite some time.
00:26:19
Speaker
when it's molded under very high heat. The PP that the pickable industry uses is not extremely high quality. If you don't heat it up, it won't ever break, but under several hours of intensive heat, this top surface layer becomes slightly brittle because, for example, when they're cutting a 16 millimeter paddle, the PP is not
00:26:42
Speaker
cut perfectly into 16 millimeters sometimes it's like 16.1 millimeters or 16.2 and what happens is when you compress it the top like 0.2 millimeters becomes very brittle and then so over months of play that surface kind of begins to deteriorate and it has a sort of bouncing effect which is what leads to
00:27:03
Speaker
the ball's approaching very fast. And that's only present in thermal form paddles because of the surface tension that we create. So that's what leads to the very fast ball velocity. And there's several methods that we've been looking at to implement a fix. I think we should have one in the near future, but yeah, that's been one of our main focuses at the moment. What's PP? PP is just the polymer, the honeycomb polymer. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah. I'm 25. You're definitely the youngest guest I've had on the podcast so far. What are your thoughts on that experience as far as being a founder by 25? And you know, you've had for, I would say it's been a lot nonlinear trajectory as far as your growth and popularity and your understanding of the market and not just the market, but customers too. Yeah. How's that experience been?
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I'm very lucky to be able to have success at a young age. There's a lot of reasons like the team that I have around me support from my parents. But as a young founder, I don't think
00:28:17
Speaker
age necessarily correlates to, you know, being able to build a business at all. Like, sure, experience helps. But I think the best experience that you can gain is actually by doing. So everything that I learned with regards to starting a business, I've learned either through failure or just doing it myself.
00:28:35
Speaker
kind of reading on how other people do it sometimes but I think doing it really helped me get to this level. I'm kind of one of those people that like if you lecture me on how to do something like it'll just go through one ear not the other so that's kind of how I am like my parents always said that and then if I learn like if I actually have a mistake myself then like it really like sticks to the heart and then I learn from that and kind of grow from that
00:29:02
Speaker
I don't think that's how everyone approaches things. There's a lot of challenges that you face as a young business owner, whether it's like perception or like not having the security that you like your friends have, you know, all my friends are typically in very secure corporate jobs. And then so it's how you deal with like the valleys and the challenges that really kind of make you out to be someone that can be successful later on.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, no doubt. Risk is probably one of the scariest things for some people, but also the most rewarding. It's like what makes being a human incredibly rewarding. I just resonate with that sentiment, just having a lot of friends who are doing corporate gigs and
00:29:46
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with that is especially given the context of some people's lives, you know, they need that kind of security. If they have like a family and bills, I'm just a single guy. So I don't have like a lot of that stuff to be concerned about. But
00:30:02
Speaker
It's great that at 25, you're taking that risk. There's a lot of people who shy away from it, and there's also the danger of looking at other people's success and wanting to take the expedient and the quick route without putting in the work. It seems like the fact that you talked about going out to the manufacturers and meeting them and
00:30:28
Speaker
understanding what it's like to be on the ground level and be able to see the process and understanding the process is huge.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that most people realize it's very easy to judge success from the outside. So when you're really in the middle of building a business, people don't see the amount of work that you're doing. So just for example, I have to manage everything in my business. I'm on call 24 seven.
00:30:59
Speaker
Seven days a week. I don't I haven't taken a day off since I started this company Like I know every paddle that every pro player uses I know like what's going on with the industry at all times. I'm like always on social media seeing updates I know what's going on with the manufacturer. I speak to them daily, you know, I know what's going on with my customers I know what the pressing issues are with my company
00:31:22
Speaker
I know, like, as soon as a batch has an issue, like, I know as soon as I get emails, so then I have to work on a fix. I have to do the social media. I don't have a social media person. I do everything myself. I respond to all the emails. I created the website by myself.
00:31:39
Speaker
set up the Amazon store, you know, manage all the wholesale accounts. It's a pretty intense grind that most people don't realize. Once you're kind of in it, though, and you're in a schedule, you kind of know what to do and you can become efficient. But I think that's the biggest, you know,
00:31:56
Speaker
hurdle that people have. Um, a lot of people are encouraged to start a business, which I think is great, but to put in the work is another story for sure. Why haven't you outsourced some of these more arguably menial tasks? Yeah. So I think, um, I have the time, like I'm willing to make the time. And if you want something done well,
00:32:18
Speaker
You definitely have to do it yourself. Maybe I'm just not a very trusting person and I like doing things myself, but another part of it is that I'm very capable of doing a good job on these things. I think it makes a big difference. For example, I could easily outsource my customer service, but if you're a customer and you email a company about even a small issue and the founder responds to you, I think that leaves a very positive impression.
00:32:42
Speaker
So just small things like that, I think have all played in the success of the business and kind of what sets us apart from other companies. You know, I'm always responding to emails as fast as possible. Like I don't, you know, put them on the back burner. It's just like everything is a pressing issue. Like obviously I prioritize, but like some things, you know, you just got to do it yourself.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm experiencing that myself now. It's tough. I totally understand what you mean, like the trust part. And also when you build something, you have a specific vision for it and you want things to look and also feel a certain way. Like when the way you respond isn't as essentially your brand and people associate how you respond with your brand. And it like I totally agree on getting
00:33:26
Speaker
receiving an email from a founder is much more, it means much more to me than if it's someone that's outsourced or just another person. There's just not the same level of care. But I also have now started to understand how much like time it really does take. If you like count up emails and social media and all these like notifications you receive, say you receive probably like honestly like 500 in a day,
00:33:53
Speaker
Somewhere around there between messages and emails then you say they estimate to take about like two minutes each Yeah, I was always terrible at math. So I can't give you the number but if you calculate it out, that's a significant amount of hours throughout the day Yeah, but I do appreciate
00:34:11
Speaker
And I'm sure a lot of other people listening do appreciate that they know that they're talking directly to you. It's not someone that's outsourced and is disconnected from the inner workings of like the business and someone I can develop a relationship with.
00:34:24
Speaker
You also make a great point. Like if there's going to be like basically if the company like knock on wood, like falls apart, then I would rather it fall on my shoulders. And just because I was too lazy to like do emails and I wanted to hire someone that led to like the demise, I would much rather it, you know, just be my responsibility.
00:34:44
Speaker
very admirable. It's such a tough decision to make these days because I've had that talk with some people and they're like, you should outsource some of this. It would free up a lot of time for you to think about things and to be able to come up with ideas. And I'm just like, they're not going to do it the way that I do it. And eventually you do have to
00:35:02
Speaker
It will take time and that person can adopt your style and all that all that stuff. But yeah, I don't know. Like to me, it's just there's a certain feeling of working hard to create the outcome that you that your desired outcome. Yeah. I think the day will come very soon where I have too much things to do where I need to delegate more. But for now, I think I'm happy with what I'm doing.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And when would you say it was like the month and year that Vatic Pro was accepted? Yeah, so I pretty much made the logo on the website September of 2022, which is pretty recent. I'm actually a pretty new pickleball player. I didn't start playing until August 2022.
00:35:54
Speaker
which is like a lot later than most people and especially most founders. But as soon as I started playing, I'm like, you know, something needs to change. I went to the local shop to buy a paddle and there's like it's two hundred and thirty dollars. I'm like, I'm good, man. Like I want to I want to play, but I don't want to spend that much on something, you know, especially it was recreation that time. If you ask me now, I'd probably buy it in a heartbeat.
00:36:19
Speaker
But, um, yeah, so after I started playing, I started the business two months later. Um, I kind of have the mentality, you know, I don't have a second to waste in anything that I do. I always do everything in a hurry, like maybe to a fault, but that's kind of the approach that I had when starting my business. Yeah. I had, it's funny. I resonate with that too. I just like to do it like quickly and fail fast. You know, it's a common, very common entrepreneurial phrase and saying,
00:36:46
Speaker
But on the topic of like growing your team eventually and delegating these responsibilities, what would you look for in individuals that you bring onto your team?
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, so I want individuals that kind of share my vision and my goals, which is something that I have with my dad right now. And obviously, that's led to a very successful partnership. I think the biggest problem with hiring employees is that more often than not, if you hire someone on a salary, they are not going to be invested in the company to put their best foot forward, which is something that I'm fine with. I think
00:37:25
Speaker
I will resort to hiring people just for tasks that aren't super important. You know, I'm not going to hire someone to, you know, develop products for me anytime soon. You know, it's more of the more of the boring tasks, to put it bluntly. So I'll have to think more about it. Maybe like a student, you know, who is very eager to learn because there's so much to learn in this industry or any industry, especially because it's growing so rapidly.
00:37:54
Speaker
There's new changes, new information every day, and I think that's very valuable. So someone who wants to learn and who isn't afraid to, you know, give their opinion and do all that stuff.
00:38:07
Speaker
not afraid to give your opinion is such an important skill set to have. It's so easy to get stuck in like people pleasing and giving people the answer that you think that they want to hear. And I'm just speaking from that from like personal experience. Um, but I think when you're an entrepreneurial, when you're an entrepreneur, it helps kind of break that habit. Um, you spoke about vision and goal. What is the vision and goal for that at pro?
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah, my vision is the same as before. It's to change the pickleball industry and how we perceive the price quality ratio of paddles as a whole. So whether it not be our success later on, but maybe five years from now, people will no longer have to spend over $100 for the best paddle that people have to offer.
00:38:54
Speaker
kind of like in tennis, what that has become. It's probably going to be a conglomerate that ticks over that mission later on. But for now, I think I've made a very, very small debt in this industry, which is part of my goal.
00:39:11
Speaker
I think people are very happy to be able to have this option of our paddles where they don't have to spend over $150 for something that performs at the highest level possible. That's my goal and pretty much I'm just working towards that and seeing how I can disrupt this industry because if you don't do anything different than what others were already doing, then there's no point in even starting a business.
00:39:37
Speaker
100% man. And I admire that that is the way that you want to disrupt the industry and just cause a change because like you said before, right? Like there's tons of communities of people who can't get into the sport or at least at a memorable experience. I don't think that getting a $30 paddle creates a memorable experience right there. Yeah.
00:40:02
Speaker
And we have an opportunity for all these people who are so excited to join and just participate in this sport and just getting started. And if you're handing them this like $30 paddle that you're just like, this isn't the way to go about it.
00:40:16
Speaker
What excites you about pickleball right now and like where it's headed? Yeah, so I think pickleball is exciting like all around either whether it's the professional side or even the recreational side. Like there was this number that I saw this morning on the number of courts built since last year. It's like more than doubled. So just being having something
00:40:35
Speaker
that people can do recreationally. Like, for example, my dad, before he found Pickball, he was kind of dealing with like, you know, didn't really know what to do with himself. He was retired, you know, had nothing to do in this community, like all his friends are abroad. But since he's found Pickball, he's found like a huge spark of joy in his life.
00:40:55
Speaker
I think a lot of people can resonate with that and share similar experiences like the people that you meet, the experiences that you have, whether it's competing or just playing at night with your friends. I think that's pretty much what the future of pickleball is all about. It's more, I don't know if it will ever be at the highest competitive level like in the Olympics or anything, but I think as a social recreational sport, there is a huge need for something like pickleball.
00:41:20
Speaker
Um, something that's easy to play, easy to learn. I think there's a huge market for that and that's where it's headed. Um, I hope that it heads towards a more competitive direction as well. Like obviously simultaneously, like both those avenues would be great, but, um, that's just my perception as of right now. Given all that, what do you think keeps the sport back?
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I don't I don't want to go too into detail, but I think the lack of like quality or not quality control, but like the regulations kind of hold it back. There is a lot of arbitrary things about like
00:41:59
Speaker
what defines a legal paddle, you know, there's a lot of talk about that. Whether it's the paddle or the ball, like, at what point does the sport like become too dangerous, you know, there are paddles out there that are legitimately dangerous to play with. Like a delaminated paddle would count as one of those. But like, you know, for example, something that people imagine would be better for the sport is EVA foam, but like at
00:42:25
Speaker
It's core for pickable. It's not safe to play with, you know, like people don't want to have to wear safety goggles to play the sport. Like people just want to play regularly and then finding a balance between like equipment technology and like safety is a big concern right now.
00:42:42
Speaker
I also think there's a lot of room to grow in the pro scene. Like I watch every pickleball tournament or every PPA tournament and then the fact that at a professional tour there's like not good enough cameras for a replay system like calling your own lines it just comes off as very rudimentary. Obviously I know they're working to fix it but for now I think
00:43:07
Speaker
It kind of lowers a lot of people's viewing experience in some way. I know that is how it is for me. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm sure like if you had the quality of like replay and like NFL challenges or like NBA challenges, like that would be so much more cool to watch, you know, pick a ball at that level.
00:43:26
Speaker
Um, so I hope that they're working towards that. But for now, I think that's limiting the growth of the sport. Um, everyone's still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. So, um, we're all trying to build a sport together, but right now there's, um, a lot of things that we can improve on. The PPA this past weekend, they did a lot of great things, obviously with that like press conference, like vibe and look, that's very cool to see. But then when you watch the grandstand court, you're like,
00:43:54
Speaker
Why does the audio not work? And why is the camera quality different from the championship court? And I don't know if it's the lighting, but it looked just incredibly unprofessional. And then like you said, the line calls, you're like, why are they using like a CCTV camera to like capture these line calls? Like if I use an iPhone,
00:44:15
Speaker
it could capture this much better. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah. I'm like, if you look at the video interviews that they had, like those cameras were very clear. I'm like, just take the camera from the video interview after a match and move it to center court. And we might be able to like catch some balls on the line. You know, it's just, um, it's a work in progress. I'm sure I'm not going to bash PPA. They're like, they're doing amazing things. Like it was on ESPN this weekend. We had jack socks. So I think that's amazing for the sport.
00:44:45
Speaker
Just kind of looking back on your own life, you've gone through a lot of different things. You've been raised by great parents and you've talked about how you've had a great experience. What regrets do you have so far?
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah, my regrets probably. I'm not a person with great regrets, you know, I kind of, I don't really look back and like, I should have did this or I should have done that. But I wish I would have tried a little harder during university, like, you know, really gotten out there, like done more clubs or whatnot, because I think that was part of the reason that like, I was almost forced to do an entrepreneurial route, because I didn't really apply myself in the generic sense
00:45:25
Speaker
I think if I would have done that more, I would have had more options in terms of my career, like whether it be getting some like very valid corporate experience at like a large investment bank for several years and then transitioning to like entrepreneurial experience and having that experience in a more like whole sense rather than kind of having to do entrepreneurship because I have no other options really. But I think maybe that hunger, like that desperation is what led to my success in a way.
00:45:55
Speaker
So you can look at all these failures with grain of salt and like that all led me to where i am today like i knew that. If this doesn't succeed my original company eighty max like i don't really have a plan b so i'm putting forth all my effort.
00:46:10
Speaker
Into that and then all my effort into this pickleball thing So I know that kind of in the back my head like failure is not really an option Yeah, when you have your back against the wall, it produces something different I don't know what the chemicals that happen within your brain, but something definitely does happen You know like courage just steps up to the plate but on that topic, you know There's a lot of young folks that have trouble finding their purpose in life Not even young
00:46:40
Speaker
a few years ago, I had that problem. I've struggled with it quite a bit. What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to find their passion or purpose in life?
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the best advice that I would give is to get out of your comfort zone. So for example, if you're doing the same things every day and never trying new things, you're obviously not going to find something that you're passionate about if you're not passionate about any of those things at the moment. So the best way you can either try one new thing a day, try a new sport, learn a new language, basically go out and see the world. I'm a big believer in
00:47:18
Speaker
This world has a lot to offer, you know, I think if you can't find something that you're passionate about in this, like, in current society, then it's almost on you for not exploring it enough, because there's something out there for all of us. And everyone has talents in their own way, you know, everyone's good at something.
00:47:37
Speaker
It could be anything. So I think getting out of your comfort zone and taking the first step towards finding something is key. Like you're not going to find something if you don't bother to look, right? So I think that's something that people should take away if they're struggling with kind of finding what they want to do.
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point, man. There's a lot of people watching and very few people looking. Yeah. The way you look at the world seems, I don't know if this is the right word, but optimistic and you see a lot of things as opportunities. What do you fear? Yeah, so I kind of fear not really, in a personal sense, I fear not reaching my full potential. You know, I know what I'm capable of. Like, let's take Vedic Pro as an example.
00:48:21
Speaker
I know what this company and this industry is capable of. So if something in my control that gets, whether it's a mistake, I'm fearful of whether that will tarnish all the work that we've done. That's pretty much it. There's not too much that I'm worried about. I don't think that's a good approach if you're scared of something.
00:48:44
Speaker
Um, then you're obviously not going to want to try. I think trying something, even if failure is right in front of you, I think that's a better way to do it. Why is that? Why is the company failing component of your fear? If you've had success with like Eddie max and even just launching a successful Brandon like eight months, 10 months.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah, I guess really it's because I kind of treat this company as like my baby, like my very successful, not very successful, but like headed in the right direction, you know. So I think everything that we've been doing is like very calculated and we have a very good approach. So I think
00:49:23
Speaker
Like just you don't want to look back in five years and be like, you know, we had such a good thing going on. But because of XYZ, it all felt part like it could have been easily avoided. That's never something that you want to run into in your business or even in your life. Like, oh, I should have did this. You know, I don't think I really operate with that mindset, but it is definitely the fear that keeps me, you know,
00:49:46
Speaker
Doing things well like the fear of failure like should motivate you to like be very precise with how you operate day to day who or what do you do it for. Honestly i do it for everyone who's believed in the brand.
00:50:03
Speaker
Something very early on that I started was the ambassador program, which is one of the things that I'm very proud of. We've amassed a very large number of ambassadors over pretty much every state and different continents as well. And they're all people who are supporters of the brand. They took time out of their day to want to apply as an ambassador. And they take time out of the day to tell other people about whether it's this paddle or this brand or the founder.
00:50:33
Speaker
I think those people are equally as invested in the company as myself. So I think of them all as members of my team and all my pro players. You know, they believed in me even when I didn't have a lot to offer. This was in the early days. I'm working pretty much for all of them. You know, I want them to be proud of the brand that they represent and I want them to like be optimistic about what we can accomplish in the future rather than like looking at it in a negative light.
00:50:59
Speaker
Shout out Spencer Smith. I don't know all the other pros that are under Vatic Pro, but I've always liked watching Spencer Smith play. It's cool to see him rocking Vatic. He has some sweet like apparel too. I forgot what he was rocking. Yeah. Yeah. The Spencer story is probably like one of the basically like perfect opportunities meet stories that I had.
00:51:25
Speaker
This was only like a month after I started the company, like we just barely had paddles in. And then I was looking for people to kind of, you know, work with us as a sponsor, whatever they wanted.
00:51:37
Speaker
So I DM different pro players on Instagram. I probably DM like over 50 and then Spencer happened to like get back to me and he wanted to have a Zoom call. So then that's pretty much how it all started. We had a pretty good chat. I told him like what my vision was for this brand and then how he fit into that role and
00:52:00
Speaker
So far, everything has gone well. I remember there were pros that I would DM. I'm like, can I please send you a paddle just so you can try? And they would be like, no. I'm like, dang. Looking at how far we've come from that where people didn't want to even use our equipment because they had... No, I'm sure they get a lot of messages and whatnot.
00:52:25
Speaker
But looking back at how far we've come till now where people are constantly asking, you know, even pro players. So I think that's very good. I'm very thankful that we've signed Spencer. It was a very, he's just a great overall guy as well as a great player. Like I've never heard a single bad thing about Spencer or like, and he just plays, you know, he plays hard. He's very passionate about pickleball. He, you can't really measure, you know, his impact on helping the brand grow.
00:52:55
Speaker
Um, it's kind of something that's like unquantifiable because like as a pro player, he kind of helped us get on the map in that scene. He's a very reserved guy, but like after he started playing with our paddles, at least every PPA tour player knew about Vatic because they're like, Oh, that's what Spencer is using. So I think that helped us gain respect in some regard to in the pro scene. And then after that, um, like the general masses followed.
00:53:19
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciated that about him. He's low-key, but he does his thing. That's awesome, though, man. It is nice to have that in your back pocket, as that's a memory that I'll always have an experience. No grudges need to be holded, and this doesn't need to be applied to the future, but it's just like, I can always look back on that. You can always look back on that moment and be like, at one point, we were here, and now we're here.
00:53:49
Speaker
Sometimes that's just a beautiful thing to look back on. Yeah, definitely. It's it's a very good thing to have, you know, to see how far we've come. It gives you a lot of perspective, you know, on how it's only been, you know, like eight months since I've started, which is in most businesses, like a very short period of time. But everything, you know, pickleball changes very quickly. So I'm very proud of that. It's awesome. Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about? Yeah. So there's actually one thing
00:54:18
Speaker
that I want to talk about regarding the technology with pickleball paddles. I think there's a very common misconception, not misconception, but somehow it has become the industry standard where all pickleball paddles last forever or at least one year. That's more of a testament to how rudimentary the technology was before. If you have a
00:54:42
Speaker
if you have a sheet of pp that's not altered in any regard and you slap two pieces of fiberglass graphite or carbon fiber around it like there is no reason that it shouldn't last right but if you look at any sport or most industries like the degradation of a product like how fast it degrades is directly correlated with the amount of technology that is offered within that
00:55:06
Speaker
For example, if you have a Ferrari, you're going to be taking it to get service far more than if you have a Camry. Especially with my background in swimming, I think that was a very big thing. In swimming, you buy tech suits basically just for races.
00:55:25
Speaker
And you can only wear them for about eight races before you it's like obsolete you know won't. Do you any good because of like the water resistance and how that works and those things are five hundred dollars you know so you buy something in that industry like five hundred dollars use it for like one or two meets and then you tossing it.
00:55:46
Speaker
So it's just all about perspective and I think people will slowly start to see how that correlates to the pickball industry. Like, yes, we're working as hard as possible to like make our piles last as long as possible.
00:56:03
Speaker
But when you introduce a very new manufacturing tactic that involves very high heat and extremely high surface tension, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that it will last a year or whatnot. I think three to six months is
00:56:21
Speaker
optimal or ideal based on how we manufacture them. That's the way that the industry is changing. I'm hoping more people will start to see that as more technologies are introduced into the industry. Very interesting. You're saying that the half-life of some of these newer paddles is more like three to six months?
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah so I think that because for example like think of our paddles as almost like you know at the highest level like a tournament paddle you know like you bust it out for a tournament if you want to perform at the highest level like obviously you want to practice with what you're using in a tournament um but so yeah that's kind of the way that I see it um I know
00:57:06
Speaker
That doesn't mean we're not working to fix it. You know, I'm working day and night to try to implement new core changes and like different processes that don't damage the core as much. But that's basically the gist of it. Yeah, the half life. What would change or extend that duration?
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah, so there's several options. One option is that you can use a smaller diameter honeycomb. So like right now, each honeycomb is eight millimeters in diameter. And then these are like the little octagon cells that you see on the on the PP. And then you could use, for example, a six millimeter diameter honeycomb. It's just like the smaller units will provide more
00:57:46
Speaker
sturdiness and then under high heats it won't is less likely to break down but there's downsides to that. There's like it adds weight that's the problem adds a few grams of weight so we're implementing changes with that like I'm getting samples all the time that try to fix these issues like on a regular basis. Another fix that is possible is
00:58:09
Speaker
having more precise PP, like the factory needs to, we're working with them to source like more precisely cut PP. So like I mentioned earlier, if it's like 16.1 or 16.2 millimeters in thickness, the top portion will kind of, is more likely to be crumbled and those paddles might break down faster. So we're trying to increase the quality of the PP and so ensure that most of them are cut at 16 millimeters exactly. And there's very little give at the top. I think that,
00:58:39
Speaker
plays a large role into the course breaking. Very interesting. This probably ties into what you were just mentioning, but what can people expect next from Vatic Pro? I think you had mentioned earlier that there's like a new paddle that's going to be coming out too. Yeah. So we have two new series of paddles coming. I'm going to be launching one probably at the end of this week. That's going to be the first one coming is Spencer's paddle. So, um,
00:59:08
Speaker
this is his signature paddle like it's pretty much something that's never been seen in the in the industry not never been seen but it's very unique especially in thermoform paddles it's like the only thermoform paddle like as it is um and then after that we're releasing another series of more
00:59:26
Speaker
affordable paddles. They're going to be under $100 and they're going to have foam injected walls. So a foam paddle with under $100 is unheard of right now. So that's going to be something that people really love in our existing two shapes.
00:59:41
Speaker
So like you're very concerned about delamination and you hit very hard and you don't need that extra power with thermal forming and your paddles are breaking down quicker than you might like. And I think that there's a huge market for people who want to just use a foam injected wall paddle with the raw carbon fiber surface. There's a huge market for that. And I think I'm very
01:00:02
Speaker
looking forward to that launch. It should be launching in like a few weeks and then it's going to be sent straight to Amazon. Damn, that's awesome. Why Amazon?
01:00:13
Speaker
Yeah, so Amazon, just because of the quantities, we're going to be setting them in pretty large quantities. And then because I have to, we pack all our orders here, you know, so at a certain point, it's difficult to pack so many paddles each day and deliver them to the post office and whatnot. It's just for logistics. And then people love shopping on Amazon, like I'm one of those people that
01:00:41
Speaker
Before I, I would much rather buy anything on Amazon way before I even go on someone's website. You know, I just type in like carbon fiber pickleball paddle. Like I'm not going to do research on like all the best brands or when I just buy it on Amazon. So, um, it will be on our website as well. I think, um, a little bit afterwards just to gauge the markets and then we'll go from there.
01:01:03
Speaker
Oh yeah, looking forward to that. Looking forward to the Spencer's paddle especially. That's going to be badass. And then these foam paddles too. Super cool. Also cool that you're breaking your way into that price point given the type of product that you're going to be delivering.
01:01:19
Speaker
Yeah. Man, I appreciate your time. I'm so grateful that you're willing to talk on behalf of your branding company and giving me the opportunity to do this as one of your first interviews. Where can people find more information about you? And if you have any other shout outs.
01:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, so if you want to reach me, you can email me or just go on our website that email at the bottom or DM me on Instagram. Those are the best way to reach me. I usually respond very quickly if you want to get in touch about anything, whether it's like sponsorships, questions about paddles. I just want to probably give a shout out to my pro team. Like, thanks for sticking with me. A lot of
01:01:58
Speaker
They've been integral and, you know, building the brand image into what it is now. And I also want to say thanks to you, man, for inviting me on this podcast. I want to give you a congrats on, you know, the views that you've been getting lately. It's been awesome to see and hopefully more to come. And hopefully this does well in views as well. I'll do everything I can to make sure this thing pops off, man. All right. Yeah. Thanks so much. It's been a great experience and I'm definitely looking to do more interviews after this. It would be awesome.
01:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully we can do a follow up once like the new releases come out. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it, man.