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The Story Of Pickleball Effect, One Of Pickleball's Top Paddle Reviewers
464 Plays1 year ago
Pickleball podcast featuring paddle and product reviewer, Braydon Unsicker, aka Pickleball Effect. Learn about what it's like going full-time as a paddle reviewer, his thoughts on the current paddle market, and more.
#pickleball #podcast
Pickleball Effect YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@pickleballeffect
Chapters
00:00 beginning
03:47 first time i saw pickleball effect, being 5.1 DUPR
09:30 testing a practice drill/game with Braydon
12:41 attacking at the kitchen / triangle theory
15:35 first impression of austin
17:00 going against the grain
20:36 how long does it take to do a review
21:38 paddle fitting quiz
25:38 going full time as a reviewer / content creator
31:23 do pros sell more paddles than content creators?
34:29 becoming a profitable business
41:30 breaking down his profit
43:12 paddle consultations
47:15 doing reviews in 2020
54:06 how he decides what to review
58:41 video performance analytics
01:01:01 what he's learning about at the moment
01:07:26 attending the joola event
01:08:24 exercise and fitness
01:17:24 paddle degradation
01:20:42 paddle technology plateauing
01:25:46 fan question
01:27:12 favorite players
01:29:43 growth of facilities
01:35:11 sponsorships
01:36:50 closing
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Transcript
Nuances in Paddle Reviews
00:00:00
Speaker
So what's the difference between this paddle and this paddle? Or these two? What's the difference between all these paddles?
00:00:12
Speaker
I started doing paddle reviews in 2020. But not a lot of people are telling you not to buy. And I think it takes at least a week, week and a half to get a feel for it. Get yourself tired to adjust to really form a good opinion on what it's good at and what it's bad at.
Entering the Review Space without Financial Motives
00:00:27
Speaker
You can't go into the review space trying to make money. The tungsten really isn't. I was the first one to bring that out. If you just want to add weight, yeah, sure, go for the throat. But if you're trying to maximize the efficiency of the weight, that spot up there is better.
00:00:42
Speaker
How do you decide what to review?
Introduction to Braden Unsicker
00:00:46
Speaker
We're seeing rounds like reload and pickles start to introduce like these skin concepts of keeping the corn and then just replacing the grit I know that the brands that have offered money for reviews But you just you can't you can't fall into that
00:01:01
Speaker
My friend Braden Unsaker, also known as Pickleball Effect, came into Austin to hang out and jump on the podcast. We got into what it's like leaving his six figure job to go full time into Pickleball while him and his wife support their family of three kids, reviewing paddles since 2020, when many of us were just getting introduced into this thing called Pickleball. Enjoy this week's episode of Building Pickleball. I'm your host, Brian Lim.
00:01:33
Speaker
What, uh, what kind of candy were you into? Like when you were younger, like Halloween, you're like in the candy. I'm still into you. You know, you got that pillowcase full of candy. I, uh, the number one's the nut roll, the nut roll. What's that? You don't have a nut roll, nut roll picture of payday.
00:01:56
Speaker
But instead of caramel in the middle, it's got like a white nugget.
Candy and Rare Treats
00:02:00
Speaker
It's fantastic. Damn, I was missing out. Well, uh, make sure this thing doesn't catch on. I'm going to get you one. I'll get you one while I'm here. Send me some nut roll. I'll just, I'll just go to the gas station, pick one up. They're like semi rare. So when you find one, it's like, it's a find it's a treasure. It's like the Willy, the Wonka golden ticket. Yeah. Yeah. They're not just found at every gas station or Walmart.
00:02:26
Speaker
You gotta hunt for him, so the reward is bigger. I like a little thrill. A little chase. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to another episode of Building Pickleball.
Braden's Insights and Experience
00:02:38
Speaker
I'm your host, Brian Lim. And today, my guest is Braden Unsicker, also known as Pickleball Effect. Thank you to my sponsor, Viori. And of course, thank you to all the subscribers, everyone viewing, if you're watching this right now. Thank you. You guys make this stuff happen.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, dude. Welcome. Dude, I am so pumped for this. I'm so nervous. No, for real. My heart is pounding. I got a haircut. I showered. I bought this Viori shirt.
00:03:12
Speaker
I did. I did, dude. I wanted to represent and I figured when people see how good I look in it, I'll buy it. Yeah. Using Brian's code. You're already wearing the pants, aren't you? Yeah. I've had the joggers. I've been a fan of those for a long time, but this is the first Biori shirt and I don't think it's going to be the last.
00:03:31
Speaker
Is that the Stratotec tea? No, it starts with the tea. It's a little thicker than the Strato. Okay. And I like that. I don't like crazy thin ones. The Strato is like stretchy and nice, but it's a little bit thin for me.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, I can say that. Yeah. I tend to always like start these by talking about the first time I found out about whoever's sitting across the table from me. I think I would just watch your content. I started in 2020. I got into it. Of course, you would see a bunch of different channels, but I think I would come across your strategic stuff, which was the last time you put out one of those videos.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't done one of those in a bit. I did like a advanced like drilling one or not drilling a dinking one and like an attacking one like a year or so ago. Those did pretty well. But yeah, I haven't done as much instructional stuff though. I hope to start getting into that more because I have I have like a list of ideas on my phone and a lot of them are some instructional things that I think are worthwhile that you don't see often.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, dude, I can see that like even playing today We just got done playing like two hours two and a half hours JT Duncan you me yeah, we were teaching them teach them how to play Well what what's your duper?
00:04:52
Speaker
Uh, I'm a five one. I like the way you play. There's not a whole lot of nonsense. Yeah. It's pretty like fundamental.
Pickleball Strategies and Techniques
00:05:00
Speaker
I got, I don't feel like I got, I'm not going to beat you or any with any tricks, but, um, yeah, I feel like I got pretty, pretty good understanding of the game. Got some, you know, the consistency built up, but, uh, not, now I need to learn some tricks, you know, find some like new ways to attack. Cause I can be easy to read sometimes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Hit up, uh, hit up Jack. Like dude, he's got it figured out.
00:05:22
Speaker
yeah when you're on the left side though man you got that once you figured that out you're like oh i'm just gonna keep pulling him wide and then what was nice is that because you're using a two hand like cross court dink once you had the right ball you just sped it up in between them and there it looked
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, dude. The two-hander dink on the left is a good weapon because you can pull it tighter. You can hit hard angle dinks and you have to keep them on their line to manage those. If they don't come back, then you can beat them down the middle or if they come back too hard, then you hit another hard dink.
00:06:05
Speaker
It keeps them moving and guessing and you can disguise it well. I think the two-hander, I mean, it's really common now, right? But it's just gonna keep getting more popular. There's a lot more, I think a lot more options, a lot more disguise on the left side with the two. Did you always have that?
00:06:17
Speaker
No, I've always used two in some capacity. I started out doing it defensively, and then on counters, when I'm on the right, I feel like defending the middle with two is a lot easier. But no, that's a new one when thinking with the two on the left, primarily just because I never felt like I had a lot of weapons on the left, and so I've been trying to build that, and so I started incorporating that probably three, four, or five months ago.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's still got some work, but I like the potentials there and I think it makes sense to me. When was the last time you played a large tournament like PPA or APP? Yeah, it's been a bit. So I did Tournament of Champions towards the end of summer last year. That was probably the last big event I did. But I'm playing Red Rock end of April.
00:07:03
Speaker
So I'm pumped for that one. This guy I play with, his name's Abe Jackson. He's 6'6". He's this big dude, and he uses his height so well. He plays left, I play right, and he just crunches the middle. You can't get past the middle of him. He just swats it, and that really frees me up on the right to be a little more offensive, and just kind of hold that fort down until he finds something that he likes.
00:07:31
Speaker
And I'm a little more conservative, just kind of keep the ball in play until I find something. And he just has those weapons of length I doesn't have, and we pair nicely. So I think we could do some damage. How'd you join the Turn Knight champions?
00:07:44
Speaker
So I did, uh, the men's men's and mix five. Oh, I went, uh, three and two in men's. And then I think one and two and mixed, but, uh, my mix has always been my, my weakest event. Uh, just cause I never really had those weapons on the left, but none of them, I've been developing that two handed stuff that opens up my game a little bit. So I'm hoping to do better mixed and common stuff. Do mixes.
00:08:09
Speaker
Mix
Intentional Targeting in Pickleball
00:08:10
Speaker
is dope now. Like I used to not be a fan of it. I think it's just cause I sucked. Not that I'm like a ton better now, but I just, I really wasn't good then. But now I like understand like the left side player or the male player just being a little bit more proactive. And then, um, a little bit more like the strategic stuff, like the court positioning and the angles and stuff. It's tough.
00:08:33
Speaker
because you have that pressure to create a little bit but still manage more court and that movement is hard. It's been nice. I've been exposed to it a little bit more. Yeah, you were kicking butt too every time I was taking notes as we played. The attacking your backhand, speeding up there did not work out. You punished me there several times. So I made some adjustments and I think I was giving you some issues.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, it is. Just that awkward, just like this punch. I don't know where it comes from. I wish I didn't have it. What do you mean? I was like, you're beating me off that. Yeah, I don't know. It just feels like it's lucky almost. Well, when you hit it multiple times, I don't think it's lucky. Maybe you'll catch on to it.
00:09:18
Speaker
the key is like right here because then I have to go like then I don't have to but I just do I go like this and it's super awkward instead of just like going tip up and going that yeah that whole region is tricky yeah but I think
00:09:35
Speaker
With that game that we played, that constraints based game, what'd you think of that? Dude, I liked it because we had talked about it after we did it. I've done drills before where I find something I want to target. Say I want to do forehand counters in the middle or something. My partner will just repeatedly hit me there, but it's not necessarily very lifelike.
00:09:54
Speaker
And so the constraints game where essentially, at least the one we played, we were standing in front of each other across the net. I was the attacker, you're the defender, but I could only attack one side of your body, or I had to go there 90% of the time. So you're picking that spot that you're working on to target, but it's more lifelike scenario, right?
00:10:17
Speaker
I liked it. I'll be doing that more. That's dope. It's good to get that feedback. I've been trying it. I've been testing it with a lot of people like JT is one of the people and then I think I played it with like Zoya, Jeff Lee. There's like a few. What do they think about it?
00:10:32
Speaker
I think most people like it. I think most people like the intentionality and then I use my prices are very like structured and they're like usually timed, but that game specifically, it's like, what do you like realizing? Like you're picking up the information right? Like what does the ball look, what ball should I be looking for? How do I also create that opportunity? If you're like on the attacking side, it's like after that person is defending it, like what is my next shot? Um, it's also just like,
00:10:59
Speaker
Creating like a sequence and also like staying in the cut longer. It's like we Once you get to a high level, you're not getting away with like this a one-shot kill. It's got to be like Repeatedly and it's like how can you if the person knows that 90% of the balls are going there? How do you disguise that? how do you make that look differently if you're the person on the receiving end it's like
00:11:22
Speaker
There is like the, some element of a small, small element of variability where they can go to the left side of the body, but it's like, how can you counter that? And like, how should you position your body? Like I used to never fade or slide, but then like I started picking that up during that. But yeah, I think the intensity, just making sure that it feels like a live game is important to like the transfer of training, which is cool.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's a good point though, especially like the continuation of the point that makes a lot of sense where that's a great way when you're just repeating that same motion and not playing out the point. Yeah. We got to like find the nuances in there and what does that look like? Um, cause it's very easy to do like the simulated or situational games where it's like, Hey, we're just going to both start at the kitchen and we can both attack or like,
00:12:09
Speaker
Only one of us can attack but there's no real constraints still like a situation again, which nothing wrong with that Damn, this is awesome to talk to you about it, dude No, that's good not and even as I'm thinking about it more to like with me speeding up to that location like okay nine I can pay attention to where's the ball come back like is there a higher percentage in one area you don't get that if you're not targeting something and
00:12:31
Speaker
And they say there's the triangle theory, right? If you attack across the body, that spot, where is it supposed to come straight across? And you can mess with that stuff and see where the ball comes back. Didn't you put a video out on the triangle thing?
00:12:44
Speaker
If you've been watching this channel since the beginning, you know that I was fortunate enough to land a sponsorship with a brand like Viori.
Triangle Theory in Professional Pickleball
00:12:51
Speaker
And this is ad number 22. I've talked about just about everything, the clothes, the company, why I love working with them, some of the ethical principles. And now I want to flip the script and ask you what you want to know about Viori.
00:13:04
Speaker
Basically what I want to know is what's holding you back from trying Viori. So just let me know in the comments below of what you would like to know about Viori. Maybe it's something about the product, maybe it's something about the company. And I know that majority of the viewers of this channel are male and we usually suck at shopping for women. So if you're looking for something for that special person in your life, try Viori. Worst case scenario, if they aren't happy with it, Viori offers free returns. They also offer free shipping on any orders of $75 or more.
00:13:33
Speaker
So, what are you waiting for? Go to viori.com slash building pickleball and you'll get 20% off your first purchase. Yeah, so I did like an instructional interview coaching thing with James Ignatovich. So, he came on to the podcast and me and my co-host like share some clips and one of them, one of the tips he gave us was that triangle theory and it's getting more popularized now. It sounds like you've heard of it.
00:13:59
Speaker
So yeah, I did a video about that based off of what James, you know, when he like kind of brought that to light to me. How common do you, is it like what's, what are the percentages that it really does form? I mean, I don't know like the exact percentages, but when you start paying attention to it, it's like where I like to use it is if I'm on the left and someone dinks middle, I'll set up my body. So it looks like I'm going to dink cross court, which is pretty common, but instead I'll flick it across the body of the person in front of me and then look.
00:14:29
Speaker
So that way you're hitting at an angle across their body Expecting the ball to come back straight and a lot of times it does so you just you flick it then then look for your backhand on the finish and Then when you when you watch like pro pick a ball and just look at speed ups and then where it gets returns You'll see the triangle thing. I have it all over the place
00:14:47
Speaker
it's pretty that combo is where the power is right like there's the setup shot and then there's the winner the first one isn't the winner like that's just to set you up and a lot of people treat the setup shot as the winner which is I think that where the mistake is yeah that was something we came up with that's like another thing about these like games the constraint base games like you start to realize like what are the
00:15:10
Speaker
what's happening during these. And when we started to realize like people were trying to do like a one shot kill to that area and the ball was going out. So then you set like another constraint of like, if any of your attacks go out, you lose a point. And then that like kind of changes like, okay, like should they really, I guess there are times where you can like bag people, but it's like, you probably want to keep those attacks like in. Yeah. Yeah. That's a clever like application of it. That makes sense.
00:15:36
Speaker
What do you think Austin so far is your first? Yeah, dude, this is the first I really haven't seen much right? So I mean it dude It was a mess getting here. So I was supposed to get in last night like late and I was like, yo Brian picking up you're like can't sorry, bro. It's too late. But I know I uh
00:15:52
Speaker
It's all supposed to get last night my fleet my first flight got delayed. I missed my connection so I ended up getting put on a flight to Fort Worth and I didn't get there till like three or four o'clock this morning and then I hopped on another flight at 6 30 and Flew in this morning then we played like an hour later I'm actually impressed with how decent I did with with little sleep I got I
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, you won the series against JT and I, and then did we win against him and Duncan? We won a game, but it was competitive. That was probably our best games. Those were fun ones. Because you were able to carry me. It takes two to win, man.
00:16:35
Speaker
You were left side. When you're on the planes, which seat are you? This is going to say a lot about your personality. When I'm on the plane? Yeah, which seat do you take? I first look for an open seat next to me so I can spread my legs out a little bit. If not, then I go for the aisles just so I can stick my leg out.
00:16:54
Speaker
I got these, these long skinny things I get in the way. Oh, that was something that when I first found out about you, that was something that really stuck out to me is when you were due, when you had a retail store or like an online store. Like the thing that stuck out to me is that you only pushed products or sold products that you believed in that you also reviewed. That's like such a different take from most people.
Selling Trusted Paddles
00:17:20
Speaker
Yeah. So like for those who don't know my history, I started doing paddle reviews in 2020, um, about a year into it. Uh, I was, I was starting to make a little money from affiliate and I was telling my brother about it and he's like, dude, that's pretty good. We should turn this into a retail store instead. Cause you can get higher margins if you just physically sell the paddles. I was like, I'm not sure. Uh, we, we ultimately decided to try it with the idea that,
00:17:48
Speaker
We're only gonna sell the brands we believe in, we're only gonna sell the brands we've tested, even paddles within the brands that we've tested, because you can have maybe 20 paddles from a brand and only 10 of them are good. And so that was kind of the philosophy going into this. Like, okay, this is a curated selection, this is stuff we can speak to, we know how it plays, we can categorize, explain, which is very different from like you go to Pickleball Central, they have like 30 plus brands,
00:18:12
Speaker
Bajillion paddles and it's overwhelming right like it's really hard to figure out especially if you're like newer and don't know what you're looking for so the idea was to make it simple and then and just be more descriptive on how the paddle played because Like these these retail traditional retail sites just use Like the just this the marketing that the brands give them right so like every paddle has the perfect blend of power control and so I
00:18:36
Speaker
We just ignored their stuff wrote our own descriptions and and it did pretty good. We were probably moving I mean nothing crazy right like I think on average we were doing like three to five hundred paddles a month and But like considering margins and shipping and all this stuff like it sounds more than it was but we were doing decent like I think people would be surprised to hear that we're moving that many paddles and
00:19:01
Speaker
But ultimately it was just like I was managing me and my wife were doing customer support I had like my sister-in-law managing fulfillment She was phenomenal and it was just it was just too much like it was just too hard to manage and so we about a year Almost a year ago. I we cut ties on the retail thing but still kind of had that same philosophy with my reviews were like I approach it that way we're like You you can find the paddle that fits you using
00:19:30
Speaker
You know, by reviews and whatnot. But yeah, that was a, that was a little adventure. We tried that for about a year. That's cool that you tried it. Like I have so much, so much respect that you did that. It's kind of like.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. It's just being like intentional and selective and not catering to the masses and just like really sticking to your guns and like what you believe in rather than like just dishing out a little everything. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. I, and a lot of people I think appreciated it. And like, I remember one example, like when they engage, pursue ultras came out, I did a review on them. Wasn't big on them. We didn't carry them and everyone else did. Right. So like that was just like a battle. I was like,
00:20:12
Speaker
It didn't perform especially how much you're paying for it. We're not gonna carry it Yeah, that was just like one of a few examples. But yeah, no nobody does that still I still somebody should I think it's Still think it's a good idea Yeah, I mean there's something to be said about like everyone's telling you to be
00:20:30
Speaker
buy but not a lot of people are telling you like not to buy necessarily uh which is arguably more helpful how long does it take you to do a review yeah so i i will drill and play with the paddle for two weeks so once i decide i'm going to play with it i'll uh i'll play with it for two weeks and then uh during that time i'll film myself playing and get the other pieces together and then
00:20:53
Speaker
Um, and then I'll start writing it and put the final pieces together as well. Take another, you know, three, four days. So about two and a half weeks, it's kind of the full time it takes. If I get, if I give something everything, uh, but yeah, it can vary. Sometimes it's shorter. I mean, it depends on the paddle. Some paddles you can pick up quicker, but I do think that paddles change over time, especially as you adjust. Maybe the paddle doesn't change, but like you adjust to it, like a paddle may be really poppy when you first play it. There's like, Oh man, this thing's horrible. But.
00:21:21
Speaker
As you adjust to it, maybe it's, maybe it's really good a week from now after you get used to it. So it just takes time to get used to a paddle because each paddle plays a little bit different. And I think it takes at least a week, week and a half to get a feel for it. Give yourself time to adjust, to really form a good opinion on what it's good at and what it's bad at. For people that don't know, like your paddle fit, fitting guide quiz.
00:21:45
Speaker
Where, how did that come about? Cause you were telling me some of the numbers of like how often it's used. Like how did that come about? Like how was it structured? That came about when I was in the retail phase. So my website was originally built just as like reviews. I had like blog articles and things like that. And then we transformed the website to be the retail site. So we had like product pages and, um,
00:22:10
Speaker
Part of our kind of idea of, you know, only having the curated selection. We also wanted just to help people narrow down to a handful of paddles that they can then dig further into. So we, I mean, the website's built on WordPress. WordPress has like lots of different plugins and stuff you can use to enhance your website. And so we use a combination of a few plugins to develop a quiz where I ask you a handful of questions like,
00:22:37
Speaker
What's your play style? What are your preferences here and there? Just to narrow down what's gonna fit what you need. And then I have a bunch of data about all the paddles in the back end. They're all just heavily tagged about how they perform.
00:22:55
Speaker
So depending on how you answer the question, it kind of lights up. It's like, oh, this paddle gets a point based on how you answer. And then whatever paddles have the most points by the end of that quiz, it'll recommend those to you. And yeah, like I get 50 ish people a day that'll hit the website and
00:23:14
Speaker
and take that and then it's a pretty cool tool. And if you don't know where to start, it's a great place to start and get an idea of kind of what fits your style. I want to take it now. What's the feedback that people have gotten from it? Have people been like, this is super accurate?
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's not perfect, right? But it's a really good place to start. And it's, I've gotten, you know, comments from folks who are like, nailed it. Like, this is it, I bought it, love it, thank you. Sometimes it just sparks conversations. Like, if you, when you take the quiz, like it automates an email to them and I'm like, yo, here's your answers. If you want some extra feedback, like feel free to respond. And so I have a lot of conversations over email with people that get started from the quiz and I can kind of learn what they're looking for.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, it gets people pretty good. It's pretty sophisticated, but it is on my to-do list now that I'm doing this full-time to go and make that even better. I have a handful of ideas of ways to improve the data in the backend to make it more functional and applicable to the questions that are being asked. It's just going to get better, but yeah, it's a super cool tool and pretty unique to the site.
00:24:26
Speaker
There's been there's been some other sites that have mimicked it which you know, it makes you feel like pickle Central made one they were Steve but just paddles actually had one I kind of got the idea from them because I liked I do it differently than they do they kind of use that as like a filtering system for their Base, but like I was like, this is a really good idea and I just wouldn't Just made it my own but uh, not yet. I think it's a great thing like pickle Central has one now I think everyone should do it because it's
00:24:53
Speaker
but not everyone has as much knowledge as I have about the paddles. And I think mine's going to be a little more sophisticated than theirs, but it's a, it's pretty cool tool. It's like the Myers Briggs of fickle ball. Uh, dude, females love all those little quizzes. Like the buyer, it's like the Myers break. It's like what attachment style are you in? Like all those, my wife and I, we've taken those.
00:25:19
Speaker
I don't remember the answers, but yeah, yeah, we've done those. Those things are like surprisingly accurate. We're not that unique, Brian. I'm an INFJ, by the way. Shout out to all the INFJs, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein. I don't have my memorized, that's impressive. It's my key trait. It's like the only thing I can hold onto to sell myself. Something you mentioned when you were talking about that is like you were talking about now that I've gone full time, I'm going to start like enhancing that.
Braden's Journey to Full-Time Reviewer
00:25:46
Speaker
That's the conversation I want to get to is like full time.
00:25:49
Speaker
This is starting to remind me of like my conversation with Chris and just like that whole like content creator journey. What was it like juggling your previous job where you were a marketing professional like email marketing and then what was it like when you came to the decision to go full time and how has it been since?
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, so the journey started back in 2020 and I won't go into the full story of how it started, but just started doing it as like a passion project and just did it on the side just for fun. And it just kind of slowly grew over time. And as I added to the website, started building out my YouTube channel and my Instagram and stuff.
00:26:29
Speaker
And then like a year, I guess a little over a couple years ago is when things like, when I started the retail side, like things were really starting to pick up. And yeah, dude, like I had the full-time job, working nine to five. I was playing pick a ball probably like three times a week, either from weekends, you know, evenings. I shoot videos, still shoot videos after 10 p.m. every night when the kids go down, just because that's when it's quiet. It's too loud in a small house.
00:26:55
Speaker
It was just it was getting too much and like something had to give and so about six months ago Maya We knew my wife was pregnant baby was coming in December. I was gonna be our third kid Got three got three little girls loving to death. They're gorgeous. I couldn't be happier with them but the so we knew his baby was coming and we're like
00:27:18
Speaker
I want, I want either got to quit pickleball or I got to go full-time pickleball cause it's just too hard on, on the fan, uh, the constraints there. And so the plan was to, uh, you know, stay with my full-time job until we had baby just to keep insurance and then, uh, and then quit after paternity leave. And then this is like, this is like the most bizarre story to me. So baby comes in December. It was December 8th, maybe ninth who, uh-oh, Mia's not gonna, she's not going to get this far in the pot. She won't know.
00:27:49
Speaker
I'll cut it out. Sorry. She was the eighth or ninth. And then I was given my company gave me gave me eight weeks paternity leave. So I'm six weeks into it. And I'm like, I'm sweating, dude. I was like, I'm really nervous to go back to work and tell them that I'm I want to quit and do pickleball effect. I felt felt like a low move to take my eight weeks and then just peace out.
00:28:14
Speaker
I got to do it for the fam and they don't really care about me. I'm just an asset to them. You're a number. A similar number. Six weeks in, I get a call from the CMO, so Chief Marketing Officers on their marketing team there. He's like, Braden, I got some really sad news. We're going through a round of layoffs. I decided to limit your position. In my head, I'm just like,
00:28:38
Speaker
It was just amazing dude. So like I got like a severance package. So like it got a little influx of money I wasn't expecting and it was just it was just like it was meant to be and Just kind of confirmed the decision and we're going into it. But yeah, it's been good month and a half in I still feel like I don't have enough time to do everything I want which is good Like I have a lot of stuff. I want to work on
00:28:56
Speaker
But it's just been like both mentally fit like there's so many benefits that have come from Doing this full-time now like I've never been a fan of the corporate lifestyle like I just kind of just fell into it like just you know you
00:29:13
Speaker
you just do it right like you go you go to college you get your degree you start working and i just just did it like just what you did and i fell into a job in marketing and like i was good at it and i was i was making money and i was supporting i had kids like i have to do it right but i talked to it
00:29:28
Speaker
I was talking to my wife about this the other day. I was like, I haven't complained once about my job since I've been doing pickleball effect. I would complain all the time to her and she likes to point out how annoying it was. But I just never got into it and I just never really enjoyed my days and I just enjoy my days so much more now.
00:29:46
Speaker
And it's been so good, dude. It's been so good for me, for the family, spending time with them. And just so happy about it. But yeah, it was all very well thought out, very planned. I'm not averse to risk, but I'm certainly not afraid to do it. But we had plenty of money saved up. We had money coming in. It wasn't like I was starting from scratch. And when I would tell my family or my dad, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do this full time. He's like, you gotta make money, Brayden.
00:30:14
Speaker
I don't think you realize. I'm making money. Those affiliate sales are rolling in. Yeah, dude. Well, maybe we can talk about numbers later. I'm not afraid. But yeah, dude, it's amazing that nails put my family this way. It's pretty cool.
00:30:29
Speaker
dude it's awesome man like you've been doing this since 2020 most people or like 2019 2020 and most people like either like just got in then or just got in like uh in the past like a couple years um and it's cool to see that
00:30:46
Speaker
It's brought you in like a direction where you can do this full time It's bringing like fulfillment into your life also and like it's also like financially viable for you because we've talked about this in the past, but you know the like you've helped you and of course the other creators like Chris and John Q and some of those other reviewers have like helped bring up the
00:31:13
Speaker
Paddle specification or reviewing Like side of the community and it's extremely helpful like people argue with me about it I don't think pro players have as much weight when it comes to selling products like paddles I think I genuinely think like you John Q and Chris and
00:31:32
Speaker
Have more pool when it comes to selling products. I don't know that would be interesting to somehow quantify that I mean, there's obviously some players that move paddles But the large majority like yeah, I don't know if they really how much impact they have Because they're spot to me they're sponsored so like they're gonna say what they're gonna say about it but like you got all three of you guys are
00:31:53
Speaker
like uh if you want i don't know what you call like independent voices in a way um obviously there is some things that can skew it like maybe a company pays more maybe maybe you know a company might sell more paddles i don't see that from you guys but that is obviously something an argument that can be made
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, between like Q, Chris and I, I feel like we get a pretty holistic view on the paddles from our different perspectives and the way we take it. And I know those guys, we chat all the time and they're straight arrows and I know that we all approach it very intentionally.
00:32:28
Speaker
You can't go into the review space trying to make money. If money comes, great, but that can't be your intention. You're just there to help, inform, educate, and just share your honest opinion about products that are good and bad. There's definitely a line you have to manage there. You got to be honest and you got to just tell it straight up.
00:32:52
Speaker
I feel like I've built a pretty good reputation on being objective and just trying to say it straight and it's done good for me and I think people respect that viewpoint and those guys have done a great job of that too. That's a good question. Maybe the role of the sponsor player isn't to push paddles. Maybe it's just to elevate the brand.
00:33:12
Speaker
I remember I did an interview once with Darrell Wang with Vatic Pro and I actually asked him that question. I was like, why do you sponsor players? And I liked his answer. He said, I do it so that when the amateur or whoever buys the paddles playing with it, they feel confident. They know it's a legitimate brand and so they can feel good about their purchase. And so there are values of having sponsored players outside of just selling paddles that adds some brand equity, I think.
00:33:42
Speaker
Can sell still pals in different ways rather than it's more indirect than direct, but yeah, I mean there's definitely a role there. I think people Put brands of sponsored players like on a higher pedestal like that They respect those a little more like they feel a little more legitimate and so there's definitely something to be said about that
00:34:01
Speaker
I think eventually it'll get there, right? Like a sponsored player. Like Ben is like a great example. Like the Hyperion was like, that's all you saw on the courts for a while. But then once everyone else caught onto the technology, then you started to diversify a little more. And even, um, the Perseus, you still see that like quite a bit too. Yeah.
00:34:24
Speaker
I, of all the players, he definitely has the most influence far as paddle purchases. The content thing. And it's just like the content, uh, role and career. So like a month and a half in, do you have employees? Are you doing this alone? And do you see yourself in the future, like building this out into something larger?
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I do it with my brother. He lives in Utah. So I have like some Amazon products that I developed and he manages the Amazon side of things like getting stock and we're starting to get into more like retailers. And so he's managing like the wholesale relationships and he's crushing it, dude. So we have, I sell tungsten over grips and some edge tape.
00:35:12
Speaker
Like players people like you me. I feel like we're just so into the sport that Like we we touch a lot of products. We see a lot of products and like oh, this is good Oh, man, if it's just a little different then I would love it and That's how I was with these products and I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go make them I'm gonna try it out. And so I developed those and like the tungsten tape Has been like a great example Like I wanted an alternative to lead cuz I I think customizing paddles goes
Tungsten Tape as a Safer Alternative
00:35:40
Speaker
a long ways. There's a lot of benefits to adding weight
00:35:44
Speaker
And yeah, you know, lead tape is toxic. I have kids at home. I don't want them getting into it. And if you put it low on your paddle, like your hands on it, it's just not the safest like option. But the only like tungsten weight option was like Selkirk or Wilson's. And it was like hardly any weight, really long strips. And it was like, you have to put on like the entire package for it to do anything. It's like, I just want a roll of one gram per inch tungsten. Like why can't someone do that? And I was like, I'll do it.
00:36:10
Speaker
So I went and made it and it's been resonating. It's been selling really well. I look at it way too often. The Amazon sells because it's fun. But the last 30 days we've moved over 1600 units between my three products. I don't know 1600 people.
00:36:32
Speaker
But it just kind of shows that like, we're in the space, we know what we want, and I just went and made it, and it resonates with other players, and they're using it, and it's cool, dude. A very fulfilling aspect of being a content creator or like a business owner is like, I'm going to do something genuinely for myself, and if it resonates with other people, so be it. And when you start to see like, it resonated with like, in the beginning, it's like it resonated with one person, resonated with 10,
00:36:58
Speaker
person with a hundred, like hundreds. Okay. 1600 like that's pretty awesome. Yeah. And like, and you're on a platform like Amazon. It's not like it's selling directly from your website or like a smaller, like, uh, like pickleball retail site. You're competing with a lot of other. Yeah. Well,
00:37:17
Speaker
The tungsten really isn't like I was the first one to bring that out. Oh, really? Well, like that weight and configuration of the tungsten, which is why it's so special. It's because like one grand per inch is way more useful and applicable than what like Silkirk was making. Plus, it doesn't have branding on it and stuff like that. And but yeah, more more people will come. They'll see the success that's happened. I think we'll start to see tungsten. Yeah, you're already seeing them and people in different chats. People are starting to say tungsten instead of lead. I'm like, yes.
00:37:46
Speaker
Do you convert people kind of more on a tangent there, but yeah, so me and my brother do it and I've developed the products and then now he's kind of running the show there and then I do guide I manage the website I do all the videos
00:38:01
Speaker
For better or for worse, it's just me. We've been talking about the video stuff and the production because it's easy to compare yourself to obviously Chris who's made a career out of it but nothing to take away from everything he's built and done now. He's honestly just like even for me is an inspiration as far as how he does things but
00:38:21
Speaker
Dude, I tell you all the time, of course you have room to grow and stuff, but I like the way yours is. It's just different content. If everything looked, I won't name the reviewer, but there's some other reviewers who are trying to put stuff out that looks just like Chris's. And I'm like, dude, there's so much room in this space to do something differently. Don't copy someone else.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I couldn't copy him if I tried. So it doesn't matter. That's true. That's true. Like when I was hanging out with him and Will and Q in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, uh, yeah, dude, they, they got a good thing going there that they're very talented in there and it shows in their videos and it's really impressive. Oh, I hope to pick up on some things here and there. And, uh, you know, you gave me some, some tips, some stuff I can look at and start messing with, but.
00:39:07
Speaker
I've always felt the content or what I say, the meat of my videos and stuff is really strong, which helps kind of level the production side of things. But yeah, that's really strong and then the website side does really well.
00:39:24
Speaker
There's a few other review websites, but I think mine's the most robust, robust out there, and it does really well, dude. My website is where the magic happens for me. My YouTube videos, it's kind of supplemental to my website. The website's the workhorse, but I feel like you gotta have the YouTube piece just because it puts a face to the brand. I feel for my personality, even though I'm not always good at putting that in video, it's hard, dude.
00:39:52
Speaker
It's it's hard to to be normal Talking in front of a machine. It's not like yeah, it's like a talking anyways, and then I have to do it No one's there or like the teleprompter. That's so hard. That's a tower to read off the teleprompter I've been messing with that a little bit lately. But what do you use for a teleprompter? Yeah, and despite on Amazon, you know, look like your iPad to it and it throws it up. Really? Yeah, it's pretty slick
00:40:16
Speaker
Why an idiot? I've been memorizing like I'm an actor. I've been going off a script and it takes me like at least 10 takes for like two sentences. Wow, maybe I should. Yeah, but like my review videos, my video review style, like I'll do my little headshot at the beginning or face talking. I don't know terms.
00:40:38
Speaker
Talking head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that a roll a roll. Yeah. Yeah I do that a roll piece and that I can I just rip off cuz like I just am so into that I just know that stuff like I can just talk it talk about it So I'll just you know rip that off and you know in one or two takes and then I just cut to me playing and then I do a voiceover because it's so hard to like
00:41:04
Speaker
Not have Before teleprompter I was I have type it out and then I just read it because it's so much easier to Express yourself when you've written it down rather than just Blabbering and so that's why I did it that way originally and now I just kind of stick with it because it's kind of my thing No Talking to the cameras hilarious You're like do I look at the lens or do I look at the red light or do I look at what's like behind it? And you're late. It's so tough
00:41:29
Speaker
How do you make money in the content creation days? You mentioned you have your own products. You have affiliate sales. Like if you were to create like a pie chart, how much makes up what? And if you have other revenue streams. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. Affiliate sales, the, uh, the Amazon sales, and then I have kind of like, uh,
00:41:51
Speaker
Just like off projects like I'll work with brands sometimes on like prototypes I like I'll give feedback like I guess you call like paddle consultations. So I'll do stuff like that and Then but yeah, those are those are the three areas where that stuff where the income comes from but yeah, the affiliate money is
00:42:14
Speaker
who's probably the biggest chunk right now. Affiliate money's amazing, dude. I don't have to do customer service. I don't have to hold stock. I don't have to guess how many. You don't have to put money up front and figure out how much you want. It's so much easier doing that. It was such a hard game to play. It's like, oh man, what paddle's gonna be popular? How am I gonna sell this one?
00:42:33
Speaker
with the affiliate, you share your opinion and put the review out there and if it works for people, they'll buy it. There's no pressure to play that game and then you just get the paycheck for it. But yeah, so that's just straight profit with the affiliate money and then the Amazon stuff.
00:42:53
Speaker
Like this last 30 days was really solid. It sold, you know, the 1600 units and that's, that was about $24,000, but we only like 30% of that is like profit, right? Okay. So it's that ends up being, you know, five, $6,000 a month or something. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, that's, that's where it comes. We'll talk about the affiliate side, but paddle consultations, that is intriguing. I didn't know you did that. Tell us more about that.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a few, a couple of different scenarios where I've done it so far. Sometimes brands, I get emails very regularly. I'm like, oh, Braden, will you check out or review our paddle?
Paddle Consultations with Brands
00:43:33
Speaker
And I'll say, yeah, I'll try it out. If I like it, I'll review it. But I also, then I just, I pitch them on my paddle consultation, you know, like, what do you call it? Like I packages. And so I'll say,
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'll check it off. I like it. I'll review it. But if you're interested, I also have these paddle consultations. So they'll send me the paddle. I'll run the numbers, like the swing, weight, twist, weight, power, pop, spin, just stuff that they can't get on their own. And I have my database of information to compare it to. If they go buy a speed gun and clock it, it means nothing because they haven't hit 100 other paddles.
00:44:08
Speaker
So I can give them an idea of like, okay, you're in the 56th percentile in power, 46th percentile in pop, 10th percentile in swing weight for standard paddles. So I give them this really descriptive, helpful information to help them understand where their paddle falls and how it compares to the market. And then I just share feedback. I'm like, if I were to change it, maybe I would do this, or this is what it's really good at. If I was marketing this, this is what I would highlight.
00:44:35
Speaker
just kind of advise on like how to kind of pitch it almost and just shared feedback on like future prototypes of they work on it. So it does stuff like that. And then I've, I've, I've also done like same process for prototypes. So brands will be like, Hey, I'm working on this paddle. I want to see what you think. So they'll send it to me, run the numbers, kind of just tell me what I think. And then like, Oh man, if maybe she did this, it could be even better. And we'll, we'll do stuff like that.
00:45:00
Speaker
Have you seen that like happen where you've gotten a prototype you? Advised on it or like offered Like you critiqued it and then they ended up listening to you and put the product out
00:45:15
Speaker
Yeah, so there was one brand, this was a couple months ago. They were, they were like, I had sent them my deck with my information. I got this pretty little deck I made that I sent people with the results and he, we hopped on a call the next day and he's like, bro, this is so good. He had sent me three prototypes and I told him like, this is the one I like out of the three and why. He's like, I was about to order the other two.
00:45:41
Speaker
and just ignore that one and then he changed up his order and included the one I liked. It definitely has some influence, man. These guys are placing big orders and I think it's helpful to have that other opinion.
00:45:59
Speaker
And like, you know, obviously brands are sharing paddles with their friends and getting looks, but I think it's, it's a lot different coming from my perspective where I've hit so many paddles. I've reviewed so many, but it's a very unique kind of niche space or like skill that I have. Like there's really only a handful of people that have probably hit and tested as many paddles as I have, let alone cataloged everything into like a database. And so it can be super helpful for, for brands.
00:46:27
Speaker
When are we going to see Braden on sicker pick wall effect battle? No, I don't think, I don't think I could do it. Like I don't think that.
00:46:35
Speaker
These projects and I share my opinion, but I don't like endorse them. I'm not gonna be like I Won't say I'm promised review or anything. I won't I Won't I can't let that get in the way of other stuff I'm working on because I still give unbiased Reviews, you know, like I still give my opinion and even if they make the changes I
00:46:58
Speaker
I suggest that doesn't mean it's like the best paddle out there, right? So you haven't thought about making your own paddle though? No, like brands have certainly brought up that idea, but I just, I don't think it would, it just doesn't, I don't think it'd be good to do. All right. Fair enough. Um, you've talked about like all this, the paddle review stuff. What was it like doing reviews back in 2020?
00:47:28
Speaker
Yeah. So like super early on. So my first like two reviews, I guess the story goes, I, uh, was just getting into pick balls like a few months in and I wanted to get my first performance level paddle. And at the time, like I had just had my first kid, didn't have a ton of money. And I like, I didn't want to spend $150. I felt guilty buying a fancy paddle. And I, uh,
00:47:52
Speaker
I've been in marketing for a long time. I know how to make websites and I was like I bet if Or I guess take it back a step. So I started researching because like I'm gonna spend 150 I want to get something I like I was like, there's no really good third-party information It's just a bunch of marketing jargon and I didn't
00:48:08
Speaker
I didn't understand the differences between like thicker and thinner cores, the different materials. There was a lot of information about that out there. And so I just started digging in, researching, learning a lot. I was like, man, this would be helpful to share for one thing. And two, I was like, man, I bet if I made a website, told brands, I would do a review that they would just send me the paddle and I'll have to pay for it. And so it was kind of these selfish reasons of why I started just because I wanted to pay for a paddle.
00:48:32
Speaker
And I was right, they sent me paddles. And the very first one I did was I think it was the pro kinics. It was their blue one. The name escapes me. The flight, the they're like super, super light flight. They had the ovation and then they're like square one. Anyways, I reached out to them. They sent me the paddles. I just did a little write up and then I didn't. I did like a couple other write ups for like friends paddles.
00:48:59
Speaker
And then, you know, just iterated, got better over time, learn more. And they just got, you know, it just improved, improved. And obviously my intentions changed over time, right? Like I wasn't looking for free paddles anymore, accomplished that pretty quick. And then it just turned into, man, I actually really liked this. This is fun. And, uh, just kept getting deeper into it. I was helping people. And like, I was then it was never, wasn't making money for like a year. I didn't even know you could make money. I was just doing it for fun.
00:49:26
Speaker
And then until finally someone was like, hey, do you want to do, it was from a pickle. I was like, hey, do you want to do an affiliate program with us? Cause they carried all the paddles I was reviewing. So I started doing that with them. But yeah, it just started with reviewing my friends, reached out to some brands and it just kind of kept building and traffic grew. But yeah, the website now is,
00:49:46
Speaker
It's pretty remarkable. It generates around like 40,000 heads a month from like Google search and from you know, people just typing it in which is like crazy to me and I don't do any any marketing, but it's just it's just built and My reviews have gotten more sophisticated and with and it's just gotten better and better
00:50:04
Speaker
Where did like the nerding out on paddles come from? I mean, I think it's just my personality a little bit and I just wanted to understand it. And the more you get into it, the more I wanted to learn more. And so you had to like, as, as you dig into it more and more, you start learning more stuff. Uh, like early on, I had started defining and categorizing paddles into like control all court and power.
00:50:28
Speaker
uh at the time like everything was control and power and I came up with this term all court actually was looking at shoes and there was all there's shoes called all court style shoes i was like oh that's a good term to use for paddles so i started i created this new category called all court and that's
00:50:44
Speaker
That's pretty standard now. You'll see that all over the place. Those are the three categories people use. Then Chris came along, he introduced the spin testing, and that was a big deal. He started incorporating swing weight. Then I started doing that with him, and then I started pushing for, or introduced a twist weight metric. It was like, hey, we should be using this.
00:51:06
Speaker
Then like Chris and others adopted it and now it's like a main metric you'll see twist weight and swing weight all over the place and then John Q Start doing like the pop and power tests and like I thought between the three of us. We've kind of contributed these different ideas of how to describe and think of paddles and we I think we've kind of created this the way people think about paddles in a way and like
00:51:30
Speaker
It's fun to see the influence that the three of us have had on the industry. You see Swing Weight and Twist Weight all over the place, especially in smaller brands. Selkirk is starting to put Twist Weight and Swing Weight in their descriptions. It all started with the three of us. We've all just lifted each other up, introduced new things, and pushed those metrics and our reviews.
00:51:52
Speaker
And you see it all over the place. And it's really cool to have contributed to pick a ball in such a cool way. And that's meaningful and helpful. And that felt pretty good. Yeah, dude, that's awesome. Twistweight is probably a huge... Twistweight's been a huge one for me, at least.
00:52:11
Speaker
uh and your paddle or your like lead tape video tungsten uh tungsten tungsten oh but i might it might have been lead tape description to that one that tungsten tape video was great because i i always thought about like i knew about swing weight but i was like i don't it's okay like that's fine it doesn't affect me that much maybe maybe not but when i saw like twist weight and where you place the lead for twist weight the tungsten for twist weight i was like
00:52:40
Speaker
Oh, this is huge for me. Cause sometimes it might just, maybe I'm just hit off center or like just my grip in general is sometimes a little like too loose. So I was like, Oh, this makes so much sense. It makes a big difference. Like weight is so cool. Yeah. That was a fun video. That one, that one did really well. That was just like a trial and error, trying to find the best spot. And like, I had the machines to measure it and to see like where different placements affected. And yeah, that spot, like just above the corner is money. So good, dude.
00:53:09
Speaker
Cause everyone's like putting on like the throat and like, you did talk about it. You're like, they will make some, like a smite, small difference for like swing weight. But I was like, Oh, that's where you put it. If you want twist weight. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool spot. Like, yeah. You see that throat placement all the time.
00:53:27
Speaker
Like it's not horrible and it but like you can put like five inches or like four inches Or like four grams in the throat or three grams up here For like the same effect and but it kind of depends on what you want. Like everyone's gonna be a little bit different Maybe you want more weight without increasing the swing weight and you just like if you just want to add weight Yeah sure go for the throat But if you're trying to like maximize the efficiency of the weight like that spot up there is better. That's awesome. I
00:53:55
Speaker
Dude, I've seen like Chris's like all the paddles he sent. He's like showing pictures and photos like between like you, John and Chris for yourself. How do you decide what to review? Yeah, that's always, that's always a tough one because I get so many and I just can't review them all.
00:54:20
Speaker
But I've got a system now where I can get the numbers on a paddle fairly quickly. So like, I'll kind of let paddles build up for like a week or like a couple of weeks. When I have like five, 10 paddles, I'll take them to the quartz and I'll just kind of run them through the paces. I'll look at, you know, the power pop, the spin production, just look at those numbers. And then I look at the, just the technology because I do something a little different.
00:54:46
Speaker
Is there something unique in the numbers that I can pull out and be like, okay, this is cool. Like there's an interesting setup. Like it has low, like a high weight, but low swing weight combo, or just something different than unique that would make the paddle like worth telling people about. And sometimes I'll pull out nuggets from like random brands and we'll review those.
00:55:05
Speaker
But a lot of time you know that there's a ton of paddles out there that just Just aren't really super unique and so I just kind of I just I don't I don't review those and they just don't pass the test and because it takes me a long time like I've said earlier it takes like two and a half weeks ish to do a full review and and So I only can do so many but uh, but yeah, so that's kind of process I go through and then of course Just like interest plays a role like a lot of people are interested in the bigger brands So I'll typically review those just because people want to know how those play
00:55:34
Speaker
And that's kind of when like, you'll, you'll see me maybe do something a little more negative or like, let's say there's more cons to a paddles. Cause like, if there's a, if there's a off brand paddle that I didn't like, it's just not worth my time to tell people that it wasn't great. Cause no one really knows about it. But if it's like a, if it's from Yol or Selkirk or engage, like if it's a bigger brand and it's, I don't think it plays great, then I want to tell people it's like, you might be interested in this paddle because it's a big brand, but I think there might be better ones out there.
00:56:04
Speaker
So that's when you'll see those, those type of reviews, but for a lot of time, but for the most part, you know, you'll see reviews that are generally positive just because we're kind of handpicking the ones we like, and then we'll share those.
00:56:16
Speaker
Yeah, but no, I just started this new thing on my website. I have a forum where people can come on. You create an account and just have some chatter about some gear and stuff. I got a section in my forum now where I'm going to start writing mini reviews of paddles I tried but didn't do a full review of. Just so I can capture more thoughts because I play a lot of paddles I never talk about.
00:56:39
Speaker
So this will be a place where that information can live. It'll be searchable on Google. People can find it, look it up, and be like, okay, Brayden tried this. This is why he didn't review it or whatnot. So I'll be able to capture more information. This forum is an example of something I wanted to do for a long time, but I couldn't do it until I had more time.
00:56:57
Speaker
I'm really excited about that one. There'll be a good place for for that information to live Like I I'll say that information in my podcast and stuff but podcasts kind of like it lives for like a week But this forum will like live forever and people can find it and reference it which is not easily searchable to if it like lives in a video
00:57:12
Speaker
Right. So this will be a, I think this will be a good asset for me to get that information out and for people to consume it and reference it. Dude. That's awesome. I'm excited to hear about like some of the paddles that you don't have time to put or don't feel that it is as valuable to put into a video and put all the resources around that. I'm sure there's so many pals that people have heard of, but it's not going to see the light of the day. It's tough. I would like to do more of them, but it's just just time constraint, right?
00:57:41
Speaker
Like we talked about earlier or you asked earlier I guess in the ranchers question of like what I like to scale I I don't know if I could scale it like it's hard to scale like a creator's position Just because like I have I I'm like I'm the one with the knowledge and the experience and it's hard to transfer that over But there's definitely elements I can like maybe this the video editing or or something like that
00:58:05
Speaker
So, I mean, certainly as, as money and things grow, I'll, I'll look to outsource those pieces and then kind of keep the creative part, uh, at home. Yeah. That's good. I think. Yeah. Kind of sucks when people outsource that part or like try to like push it off onto like someone else. Then it's like the authenticity and the person that the only reason we're like following is because it's right. Yeah. It makes it, it makes it tricky. It makes it hard to like sell that brand too. If I ever get to that point, I don't know what's going to happen there.
00:58:34
Speaker
Yeah, you talked about when we were talking about the tungsten video you're talking about like that one was like a successful video Do you look at the YouTube studio analytics? Yeah. Yeah, I mean I definitely look at it It's just it's a day to do like it's hard not to But I it's just fun to see one take off here and there but I don't put like a ton of weight on it pun intended Do you know do you have a good idea of which videos you think are gonna do well Yeah, I mean
00:59:04
Speaker
Typically, I'll have a sense if one's going to do better than the other. For non-paddle review stuff, I just do videos of stuff that I'm interested in and I figure if I'm interested in it, there's probably other people that are interested in it just because in a way, I am my target audience.
00:59:23
Speaker
Which is kind of cool. And so yeah, like there's definitely some some where I'm like, hey, I think this will do well I mean, it's not always the case, but I I feel like I have a general sense of how they're gonna perform. That's good I remember Zane now we're talking about it. Oh, he's like dude. I have no idea which videos are gonna do all like I
00:59:39
Speaker
He didn't really think that I think it was like the serve video it a serve video and also like the return on like slices Like pros don't do this return anymore. It wasn't sure it was gonna blow up like it did Yeah, it's just no it's a good one. I do that now. I don't I don't slice minor my returns anymore I try to I saw you slice one today. I mean it comes out eventually but where it comes out sometimes, but it's not it's not the go-to anymore. I
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah, you I mean you saw it even our in our games. It's like four out of five. Oh plus games and Anyone anyone slice it the next person just ripped it like TJ I mean that dude can put a paddle on it and when you supply the spin it definitely makes a difference TJ JT no, it's not JT bro. I'm sorry
01:00:24
Speaker
I asked, so confession, we're playing against him. You and I are on a team. I'm like, bro, it's his name. DJ DJ. Like I said like two of the wrong things and you're like, it's neither dude. I'm like, Oh my God, I just did it again. He's going to appreciate it. I'm so, I'm so embarrassed. Um,
01:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, we'll probably see him tomorrow. Hopefully do. I like had asked you what you're currently learning about. And of course, like we've gone over the videography and, you know, that photography side and just setting up your studio. But something I'm like even more curious about is some of the books that you're reading. Like you mentioned, you're reading the autobiography, audio autobiography of Agassiz Federer. And also you had already read the inner game of tennis.
01:01:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I made it a goal this year to listen to our audio books. Just like when I'm traveling, now that I'm like driving to play pick them all more, I have more time in the car. And like when I'm working out too, I've set up a mic and listen to music and listen to books. So I like, I've been cranking them out and it's been a lot of fun. So yeah, I read most recently, like in the last month and a half, I read the open.
01:01:34
Speaker
which is the autobiography of Andre Agassi, really cool book. He's a, I mean, he's been getting more involved in Pickleball and I just wanted to learn it and hear his story. And it's a, it's really good. A lot of really good lessons in there. What were some of the takeaways? Yeah. So for me, one of my favorites was like, he's, I feel like he was just a very introspective person, very honest with himself and the way he accepted his weaknesses, looked for people to fill in those gaps and to like be willing to change and start over in some cases.
01:02:04
Speaker
was impressionable to me. That was a good one. And then it was interesting to hear that he hated tennis his whole career. And so it was about the stories about his personal growth and development and finding purpose in his career and job. And it came from charity work from the money he was making. And he kind of turned that into finding his purpose.
01:02:27
Speaker
Anyways, it was just kind of fun to see his development and find a way to define purpose, how important that is. But yeah, a lot of good stuff in there. And then, yeah, I read The Energy of Tennis, which is this book about managing the mental aspect of playing your best tennis, or it's very applicable to pick a ball. And just using, it describes everyone is having like two selves. They have like a self one and self two. Self one is like your,
01:02:53
Speaker
your conscious brain that's thinking, right? And then you have self too, which is your unconscious. Runs your heart, your breathing's just automatic, right? So strokes and pickleball are so complex. You have to analyze the angle of your paddle, the speed, the spin. There's so much going on that your conscious mind just can't do it all.
01:03:12
Speaker
So his theory is you have to get your conscious mind out of your way, out of the way of the unconscious mind and let it do, let it do work. And then he, so like when you're playing games, like focus on the ball, focus on your breathing, focus on things other than like mechanics and things like that.
01:03:31
Speaker
So that was cool. And then he also applied it to how to develop skills and techniques. And he says, you watch somebody do it. Once you hear what the general mechanics are, try to just visualize the shot in your mind, how you think it should look, and then just let your body do it and figure it out on its own rather than forcing it.
01:03:55
Speaker
And I thought that was a great principle because there's so many people on tour that play so different. There's really no one way to do it. And a lot of times instructors will try to enforce one way when there isn't. And so it's just letting your body figure it out. So anyways, some cool concepts in there. And then just finished another one called winning ugly, which is like kind of the opposite of the other book. And it's more about like strategy of how to win in tennis and by this guy named Brad Gilbert. I turned it was turned onto that one because he was the coach for Andre Agassi.
01:04:23
Speaker
And he wrote this book, but it's a really good read. And one of the concepts he has is just, or like the main concept is like just trying to find ways to play the game that, or play a style that maximizes your strengths, minimizes your weaknesses, attacks their weaknesses and takes away those strengths.
01:04:43
Speaker
If you're at a tournament and you're watching the team, you know you're going to play. Go look up a court they're on, watch them play, and just pay attention to where they win and where they lose. It's like, okay, they're winning off forehand volleys, or they're winning off drives, and then think of ways to take that away from them, and then pay attention to where they make mistakes, and then go after that.
01:05:05
Speaker
He said he has a black book of information and all the players on tour that he used to build strategies. But the idea of the way I beat Brian isn't going to be the same way I beat somebody else just because we all play different. So it's silly to play the same against everybody.
01:05:22
Speaker
And so I've got my own little black book I've started developing for all the people in Boise. So for those in Boise listening, I got your number. I'm gonna take some notes tonight when I go home. I'm gonna put you in there. Dude, you started to figure out when we were playing together, like JT and Duncan, like what was starting to work.
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, like for you, you have a really strong, you know, backhand backhand punch. And so I was avoiding that. It started attacking your your forehand a little more. You have tends to kind of slide and look for that. And if you're so it kind of opened up a window there sometimes.
01:06:01
Speaker
And then with Duncan, he's very consistent. He's got a nice counter, and I just felt like I had to do one extra setup shot. So I was doing that before I went for the winner. It worked out sometimes. But yeah, just look for those things, and it's kind of fun to try to think about how you can add that to your strategy.
01:06:24
Speaker
Yeah. It's interesting because even in just pursuing a certain strategy, then you start to learn skills through that. It's like almost like inadvertent. It's not like, or like indirect. It's not like you're going to a coach and asking for a certain thing. It's like, if I'm playing a certain person and I develop a strategy, pursuing that strategy will teach me or show me certain movements or skills that I need to develop in order to adapt to that individual. Yeah.
01:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. Like, okay, like this is where they're weak and you had to develop a shop that attacks that. But that's a fun one, dude. I've been keeping notes on people because I have a lot of video from all the reviews I do. So I pulled up some videos. I was like watching them and just taking note of where they were good and made mistakes. And it's a fun little game to do. Just like your paddle database. Yeah, exactly.
01:07:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah, dude, we're going to actually just talk to Tom Nguyen. He's the SVP of senior vice president of marketing. I just talked to him on the phone because he's like, what would be the best way to maximize y'all's content creator time for the event? And I told him, like, I was like.
01:07:36
Speaker
Like 15, probably like 15 minutes with each person. I just have like the room set up and he told him, I was with you this weekend or this week. And he's like, it's bringing with you right now. Like now he's back at his hotel. Yeah. I got an idea for that. I'm going to throw it at you. So I want to late to tax stone. I want to play a game. We get two pros.
01:08:00
Speaker
and then you partner with the pro, but you put your pro on the right side, you put you on the left, and you just treat them like the right side as they are.
01:08:13
Speaker
and just get mad at them as you play. But then Colin has to play left. Colin has to play left. Yeah, Colin has to play left. Yeah. I'm going to see if I can get that one. Imagine Ben on the right. Yeah, put Ben on the right, put Tyson on the right, and be like, Tyson, think of a Ferrari. This is how I want you to hit your forehand. It's like they're weak. Come on, bro. Hit it.
01:08:41
Speaker
I've never met them in person. I feel like it's gonna have such crazy energy. I just, I don't know how to keep up with it. Oh yeah, you were talking about working out, man, before. How's that journey been? Dude, it's been good. I've been consistent with it. I feel like anything, dude, consistency is like the name of the game.
01:09:01
Speaker
And with the content and my business, it's just been consistent. And same thing with lifting. I'm starting to get into it, been lifting more, been consistent. But I plateaued a little bit. I got stronger pretty quick in the first four or five months. And I've been the same. And so I need to figure out how to get to that next level, fitness-wise and physical. But I've been getting into it, reading about it. I feel like part of my stagnation is I just don't eat enough.
01:09:30
Speaker
I can cause were you doing like periodization as well? What's, what's that? It's like basically like creating like a training season for like your lifts. Like this week I'm going to like lift 15% of my max next week. I'll do like 20%, 30% just like a steady increase. And then you're also like offloading or like de-loading, uh, eventually. See, this is stuff I don't know. I need to go learn how to approach it. Cause like I've been doing the same exercises and lifts forever. Like I need to.
01:10:00
Speaker
Find some or some like some structure and plan that's like more intentional Honestly, like I don't know what it looks like kind of general principles like add very Variability to like your sets your reps the weight like increased volume lower weight
01:10:20
Speaker
lower volume, increase weight, and you just like kind of, you want to like keep challenging your body in some ways. Um, you know, you know, who might actually be able to help you out. That is like Connor Derrickson shot that pickleball trainer. Um, but yeah, like that, that periodization, that's a very,
01:10:39
Speaker
Very common terminology in the lifting community. So if you just Google it or YouTube it yeah, there's a lot of stuff and they're like Jim Wendler has like a five three one methods like This I think it's the sets go five reps three one three reps one rep And it's very like that five reps is probably like 85% of your max three reps is like what is your goal with the workouts and
01:11:04
Speaker
I want to get stronger. I've started adding more functional movements and exercises so that it translates more to that pickleball court. I've been scrawny my whole life. I want to get a little stronger, add a little more mass. But yeah, just maintain the health. I enjoy it. I think it's good for my mental health. There's a lot of benefits there. Just getting out, getting the energy, just moving those weights around.
01:11:29
Speaker
But yeah, I need to go spend some time learning terms like that. I just don't know what to search. What do you think about personal trainers? Are they worth it? Or is it better just to...
01:11:39
Speaker
know what to look for, figure out to know what to look for. It depends. Like I think, uh, it depends on your, I think form is really important. That it's not even like a personal opinion. That's just like objective form is just objectively important. So it depends on what your form is like. If your form is good, dude, you can look up like lifts and just started on your own. And then like, you can also like figure that out on your own as well.
01:12:07
Speaker
That's another thing of like that external focus of attention that we had talked about in tennis It applies like all motor learning also also even lifting you don't want someone to tell you necessary you want someone that we can give you good cues of like a Good one for I think like squatting is like if you want someone's Knees to kind of like go out or like they're sometimes some people's ankles pronate think of they'll say like instead of being like I
01:12:32
Speaker
point your ankles out or like bring your ankles out they'll be like think of splitting the ground with your feet like split the ground open with your feet things like that so that's where like personal trainers can be really really helpful very experienced personal trainers will help you learn explicitly oh no implicitly rather than explicitly like kind of want to avoid that like explicit instruction and like
01:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. And then there's like the nutritional side, which is like big that I haven't really dug. You already eat pretty clean though, right? I mean, like I eat clean, but like, I don't know. Like I don't think I can eat enough protein that I probably should be. I don't know. I just felt like nutrition is always brought up. Oh yeah. And just eat more. Did you eat any more? Is that all? It's hard. Like eat more protein, eat more carbs. It's hard. And then like you figure it out. Like as you go.
01:13:29
Speaker
Like, do you have a goal? Uh, no, I'm not. I don't know. I set like a weight target, target weight or anything.
Weight Goals and Fitness Motivation
01:13:37
Speaker
This that's the first thing you need is you need to go. I'll set one right now. So I started, I was like under one 60. Now I'm like, Oh, really? I'm like one 66. That's good. But maybe one 70.
01:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, maybe 172. Can you sound any less confident? I don't know. Is that attainable? Yeah, 172. How tall are you? This is how we should have started the podcast. This is Braden, 6'2", 166, lives in Nampa, Idaho. Got a bad lower back.
Benefits of Compound Lifts
01:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think like the thing that's a search is like periodization and then also Just looking up like lifts. Just look up the body part and also look at compound lifts
01:14:30
Speaker
compound lifts is basically like essentially your bang for your buck. You want lifts that incorporate more than one muscle group. Generally speaking, I think this is like very, I'm coming from the side of like more like bodybuilding powerlifting, but like you were saying, you're looking to like incorporate functional training. Um,
01:14:46
Speaker
That's a whole nother topic. Do I need to do one or the other? I can't do both? I would do both. DJ and I were having this conversation because he's just fucking huge now. He's gotten big. Dude, he was wearing a fucking tank top. He kept going like this and he kept like, yeah. I'm DJ. And I'm like, holy shit, dude. And he just said he has all the functional stuff. He's like, dude, I just love lifting. He just wants to get big. He enjoys the feeling of it. I'm like, dude, that's great because he said,
01:15:15
Speaker
it does like have some like effect on his performance in his career because he's like I feel more confident when I'm bigger and I was like great like but then there's also you know like there are people who have talked about how not every lift or exercise transfers equally or positively so we had talked about this earlier about like transfer of training not only in skills but also in like workouts and exercises it's like
01:15:43
Speaker
Friends, Bosch has talked about this, how like people generally have this like utopian view of lifting and saying like, Oh, like squats, heavy squats are good for like all athletes.
Tailoring Lifts to Individual Athletes
01:15:54
Speaker
It's not necessarily true. Like the per an athlete who set the world, like long jump record, never touched a weight in his life because hypertrophy isn't necessarily great for people who need to maintain like a lower body mass or, um, move around like.
01:16:11
Speaker
I think they have like a higher volume of movement. So essentially what I'm saying is like, you want to, that isn't like an important part. It's like, what are functional movements for either tennis or pickleball? I think they're very, they're pretty similar in that regard, like lateral movement, linear movement.
01:16:31
Speaker
Um, that constant like ready position, plyometrics is good. Um, like DJ and I also talked about this, like good lifts, look up, rotational exercises, rotational exercises. Well, like generally always be great. Cause you're using so much of that. I see, I saw you like snap your wrist quite a, quite a bit. So make sure you hit those forearms. Yeah. Cause you don't want to end up like these people having like wrist injuries.
01:16:58
Speaker
Yeah. I, I'm very risky on that backhand, like eyeballs. Yeah. Thing has some pace on it, dude. Yeah. I like that one. Yeah. That's good. I need to write this stuff down afterwards. Make sure I take it home with me. Oh yeah, dude. Tell us about the thrive event. I guess like, did you already kind of, you kind of went over it in your podcast. Yeah. We covered that one in kind of that group pod. Have you done that before though? No. Yeah. That was first. That was, that was a ton of fun, dude.
01:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, like that's something that's been cool about this kind of new job is like experiences like that where like we played pickleball in some of the coolest locations, met some really neat people that like, I mean, I've been sitting on my bone, you know, just on my computer for the last few years and so it's a nice change of pace.
The Shogun Paddle and Discount Code
01:17:46
Speaker
Can you tell me anything about paddle degradation? I see it in so many comments. There's this one guy who's been going around in like the gearbox videos I've posted and he's like, if gearbox has not,
01:17:58
Speaker
client like. Allowed you to claim your warranty on your panel. You can contact this number. It almost sounds like an ad like a late night ad about like asbestos or something. Look at this. Look how cool this is.
01:18:12
Speaker
Oh, the lighting isn't great. Oh, what? What? I just got this in. The reviewers are raving about it. So yeah. So if you've been watching the past few episodes, you know that Doug has given me a discount code that I can give to y'all. This is a 25% off discount code for the first 10 people that use it.
01:18:32
Speaker
So multiple reviewers are talking positively about this paddle. I don't have much else to say about it because honestly, they will tell you everything that you need to know. The Shogun is the very first paddle with the carbon titanium weave. That's all I know so far. I'm going to test it tomorrow.
01:18:49
Speaker
Something that does stand out to me about bread and butter is that none of their paddles exceed $200. I hear about it all the time, right? Like paddles are getting more expensive, yet they're wearing out faster. So yeah, again, that code is BP25D as in dog.
01:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a thing, right? Like, paddles don't last forever.
Durability of Paddle Grit and Core
01:19:11
Speaker
In my experience, the first thing to go is usually the grit before, like, the core. Typically, I mean, thermal form paddles, you know, the cores aren't going to last as long as, you know, like a cold press type paddle.
01:19:23
Speaker
Um, yeah, I, I do think people hold on to paddles longer than, than they should. It's, it's funny. Like when I, I'm switching paddles all the time. Right. And so I always had like fresh grit and occasional, like I'll play with something I'm playing with a bit or that would be like, wow.
01:19:38
Speaker
man, that thing spins so good. I'm like, it's actually average. It's just new. And so like, you definitely lose spin. And like, that's, that's definitely like, that's an issue that brands are starting to address. We're seeing brands like reload and pickle start to introduce like these skin concepts of
01:19:55
Speaker
Keeping the quorum and then just replacing the grit and so like I think it's cool that those brands are trying to deal with that problem And yeah, I mean been dealing with the core issues, you know all year with the core crushing and yeah paddles definitely will Break down.
Enhancing Spin with Paddle Erasers
01:20:11
Speaker
What's the deal with paddle erasers? Like do they hurt do they work? I use them. Oh, really? Yeah, I have you tested like the before and after?
01:20:23
Speaker
No, I haven't. Uh, I've seen videos of people that have tested the before and after and oh, it definitely, it definitely helps. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a fan of them. Yeah. I mean, you can see the immediate difference of like getting all the whites bags off. Uh, I think you did a video like when erasers starting getting popular of like spin before and after cleaning and it was improved.
01:20:42
Speaker
I got an email from one paddle founder. He's, I love him. He's awesome, but I won't say his name, but he had did talk about like paddles, pla the paddle technology plateauing, especially in like the foreseeable future, probably in the year next year.
Plateau in Paddle Technology
01:20:58
Speaker
Do you have any thoughts on that?
01:20:59
Speaker
I mean it's got to eventually right I mean with the rules in place they're meant they're like the rules are designed so that they will plateau right like you can only take the paddle so far and so it'll it'll be good I I think you talked about this with Jack Monroe and I liked his comment of like you know
01:21:16
Speaker
Once everyone's on the same playing field with the plateau, I think that's more fair play. But yeah, it's definitely going to hit some plateau eventually. We're definitely seeing new technology now, with the introduction of skins. There's a lot of hot paddles that are going to come out this year. So we haven't hit it yet. I imagine we'll continue to see improvements in durability, even if we don't see improvements in performance.
01:21:45
Speaker
Maybe we see improvements in durability, whether it's with the skins or the core, different materials, different nuances. We'll see new things introduced all the time, but maybe the differences in those changes get smaller and smaller over time. I think we still have some time of a lot of growth.
01:22:04
Speaker
Just going like from when I looked at the major jumps the last three years we had You know the introduction of of raw carbon fiber So spin became a thing and like remember when like carbon got like banned because they were too spinny I had that battle did you have one dude? So it's so funny to look back on now because all the paddles now are away Spinier than then what that one was and that one got like banned because it was too many well, I mean they said it was too gritty but for the purpose of a big too spinning, right and
01:22:33
Speaker
Anyways, that changed things. This last year was thermal forming and now Gearbox kind of introduced this next level power or some of these foam cores. I think we're gonna see some paddles similar to Gearbox with that level of power. We're gonna see more of those come out.
01:22:51
Speaker
But once that level of power comes out, then we're going to start seeing some innovations around the pickle skins and reload with replacing the face because I think that's one of the bigger problems outside of performance.
Future Developments in Paddle Technology
01:23:06
Speaker
I imagine those companies will probably license
01:23:09
Speaker
that technology out to everybody and it'll it'll become a thing about. But yeah, we'll see things like that. But yeah, I mean, eventually, like as far as how much power pop you can produce, it's just it's going to only be so much, right? Because of the rules. And that's what it's meant to be. And then you just have to pick that mix that you want.
01:23:29
Speaker
I wonder if like paddle skins are gonna be like similar to how like tennis racketing strings like how can a brand continue to like make money or like generate recurring revenue and that could be a way as opposed to like having to replace your paddle all the time although core is a different issue
01:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, maybe we'll see replaceable cores. I don't know like it's it's definitely possible I've always thought the idea of creating some sort of product that is replaceable on there, you know computers have Intel chips Maybe you have oh, this is the pickball effect core and that brings legitimacy to your paddle. This is or their skins or whatever and or
01:24:11
Speaker
Well, I think we'll see maybe some modular stuff like that. But yeah, the skins is recurring without buying new paddles. But if you think about it, brands probably make more money without the skins because then they're spending less overall during the year. I could buy five paddles to get fresh grit or five skins, right? And so that could have an interesting effect on the market.
01:24:39
Speaker
I wonder if the consumers eventually is going to be fed up with having to buy new paddles. Like I'd see it in the comments, especially when some of the videos, like one example is the gearbox. There's just a lot of comments of like, Oh, well you were saying that your core is your core and your warranty is like lifetime, but the quality control isn't, um,
01:25:02
Speaker
Showing that in a sense and all like the way they're being like that the way it's being treated and handled It's interesting Yeah, the the limited lifetime warrant or the lifetime warranties are tricky, right? Because they're not replacing the paddles for spin reduction, which is why you'd want to replace it Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it's the natural wear and tear. They don't they don't replace right? So yeah warranties are almost Default like they don't do much for you in a lot of cases
01:25:31
Speaker
Ooh, one question I had, this is a fan question. I guess JT's a fan, but JT brought up. He's not going to be a fan after earlier. He's not watching this dude. He's probably going to give it a thumbs down. How do you deal with everyone trying to like interact with you as far as like brands and how do you filter out the brands that just want something from you?
Maintaining Objectivity in Reviews
01:25:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:57
Speaker
Whenever I get a request to potentially review a paddle or try out a paddle, I always am very explicit. I decide if I want to review it. I don't accept compensation. If I do make money, it's from affiliate money or affiliate sales. I just try to own. I own my product. I own what I produce.
01:26:20
Speaker
I don't give them the least amount of opportunity to influence those decisions. I hold those decisions and I always tell them, okay, you can send me the paddle. I'll try it out. No promises. I'm going to make the content I want for the paddles that I like. Everything is based on performance. Nothing is based off of
01:26:45
Speaker
Anything else right and so I I just try to own own my content on what I put out and it's I don't I don't know how every other reviewer does it I don't know if I imagine it's something similar, but I'm sure Those brands that have oh, I know that those brands that have offered money for reviews But you just you can't you can't fall into that you have to remain objective and and just go go from there and
01:27:11
Speaker
Who are some of your favorite players? I really enjoy watching Fed in singles. I really like his style, really aggressive. I love what he steps in or comes in hard off of a drop and punishes you for the mid-court. He's fun to watch. In doubles, I did that interview with Ignatovich a little while ago and I've always been a follower and fan of him now.
01:27:37
Speaker
Uh, he's fun to watch. Um, let's see who, who you've influenced me. I'm started following Jack now. Um, Zane, not so much anymore. Yeah. Tell us who you're not following.
01:27:55
Speaker
Zane's foot. I really like Zane. I went to this tournament last year and I was on the side grandstand court and there was five of us in the stands. Every time he would just drive one of the day, I'd be like, boo. He was cool about it. Speaking of gaining muscle, Zane, he's gotten bigger. If you look at Zane now compared to when he started a couple of years ago,
01:28:22
Speaker
Oh, really? He's making moves there. Him and DJ. I wonder what plan he's on. Yeah, DJ is just getting yoked. He said he weighs like 220, which is insane. Did he say what he started at?
01:28:37
Speaker
No, I don't think I caught that but he's probably dude. He's probably like 190 Like a year 30 pounds. Yeah, I gained like six pounds and I was happy damn Yeah, we'll play tomorrow that happened. Well, you said damn. That's what I didn't know I said something good I think that was the first time you said it
01:29:02
Speaker
That's like that's like your phrase to you like when the other person says something good you're like oh damn But it didn't happen to the last 30 seconds of the pod dude. Oh this this is gonna be your worst performing pod dude I try not to say there's no follow-up to it. That's it's that's my feedback
01:29:21
Speaker
There's no follow-up to it. It's like when you get that text message when someone's talking to you and They say like something and you're not interested at all. You just go damn really
01:29:32
Speaker
So maybe it's a good thing you didn't say it then. Yeah, it's a good thing because that just means I don't have any other comment. It's just like, damn. Let's move on. Yeah, we got to play at Eastside, which was cool. Yeah, it's a nice facility. I like the all green. They did a good job there. It's always fun playing on different surfaces. The construction is loud, though.
01:29:52
Speaker
Yeah. That won't, hopefully that won't be still there when you come back. Yeah. It's a good thing. I got to go and do it. It's so fun to see all these pop up. Like it's just, it's not stopping anytime soon. What's the scene like in Idaho? Yeah. So we got our first like big indoor place like three months ago. It's 18 courts, really premium team. Yeah. So it's big. What I love about the place is like,
01:30:13
Speaker
They could have put more courts in but they didn't they intentionally spaced it out made the courts roomy they have like a couple of big championship courts and a couple like pro courts and It's just really nice. They got like kitchen, you know, hang out area and stuff. So that's really really cool They're the first ones to come in and I think they're doing pretty well I'm pretty involved with them like I help advise on like what paddles to carry in their pro shops and stuff and then they sell my products there and things like that and then another indoor place just popped up but it's more of like
01:30:42
Speaker
I ever been to like a pickler where it's just like these are eight courts come play nothing else. So it's kind of That style but they're gonna bring in like some golf simulators and some other stuff. They're just a little different But yeah, so we have two indoor places there now
01:30:58
Speaker
and uh but yeah it's just the the demands there there's there's room the thing about east side paddle club that makes it unique is that it's not just a pickleball facility which at first when he was talking about it to rob the founder he had all these like ideas he's like you know this previously people were gonna buy this uh space and use it for like a nightclub and all these things he's like we're gonna start like hosting events in this i'm like
01:31:22
Speaker
What do you mean like in the front of the lobby? I have some tables like no We're gonna like have events and then they had the South by panel, which is great like Texas Rangers helped Form that but like that whole like the side that we were on with the private courts or the two private courts They removed all the nets and then they had like a bunch of chairs They had booths set up and all that and then he was talking about even in the future like for f1 Dude, they're gonna have a Bugatti rolled in there
01:31:46
Speaker
Yeah, they're going to have like a car in there. They're going to do like, it's cool cause he's like pursuing something that he's like passionate about. And you also using the space to be like a multi purpose space, which I actually think might be like a good business move.
01:32:01
Speaker
In like to be a sustainable facility without being solely reliant like on pickleball where in some cities that might work But I think in some cities like I see some cities where I'm like, dude, how do you make? How do you cover rent? With like just inconsistency or feel like you have a lot of people that enjoy playing outdoors. Yeah Yeah, I wonder what the summers will be. Like I guess it's kind of it's warmer here
01:32:25
Speaker
more often than it is in Idaho. Are they staying busy even when it's nice out? Is east side staying busy?
01:32:33
Speaker
It opened up like two or three months ago. So it was great for the winter, but I think in the summer, like you can't come dress like you did when I picked you up. You're like, dude, how does it be cold? Dude, you would be drenched from like your entire shirt. We'd have to be changing shirts like during this entire set of this podcast. Cause it's so bad. Like I don't, it makes me rethink living here. Yeah. The heat is so bad. Like,
01:32:59
Speaker
People will play in the morning. That's when I think the courts get crowded the most outdoors. These people will take the courts from like six to eight. You won't see. So middle of the day at Eastside will probably be busier because it's air conditioned. I think so. I didn't, I wasn't paying attention to this. So the court we played on, that was like a semi-permanent net. Like it was those Selkirk ones, but you can roll them off. So you can bring in the Bugatti's, which is a cool idea. Were the other nets permanent or were they semi-permanent? They're all the same. Yeah.
01:33:25
Speaker
everything is kind of like semi-permanent in there and they're gonna like create a garage door towards like the front desk area because I was like where are you gonna how are these guys gonna get or just cars in general gonna come through here but it's gonna be cool like hosting like an F1 event he saw they've held like other events like they like a running group
01:33:45
Speaker
Like that met up there and then they're like having a running event. And then like after they did the run, they would come to like, it's open pickleball for you, for all the runners and stuff. And just trying to find a way to like cross pollinate between different communities with it outside of pickleball, which I think is actually like kind of important for the growth of the sport.
01:34:07
Speaker
There's a lot of that that could be done because a lot of that exists I think like pickleball shouldn't be siloed Yeah, if we want like more growth, but like also more like investors and like kind of the people who can help make more things happen is like also more brands like non endemic brands like I think pickleball brands are great, but if we want like a
01:34:32
Speaker
shoe brands or like water brands or like a food and beverage brands. We can't just like expect like, uh, what was that one jigsaw health? Like we can't expect jigsaw health to carry the team, carry the sport. Right. I miss those days where all the commercials were jigsaw. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm at the tour level. Those types of sponsors are very prevalent. Like we're, we're seeing those come in and, uh, and it's refreshing.
01:34:59
Speaker
Speaking of sponsors, like you mentioned your, your three like ways of like generating income like Amazon affiliate and I project the product
Exploring Sponsorship Opportunities
01:35:09
Speaker
consult consultation. Have you looked at sponsorships?
01:35:13
Speaker
A little bit, not a ton. There's definitely a possibility. You have the Fiori deal, which is really cool. I could probably find something similar to that, but look, my YouTube channel gets 60,000 hits a month. That could be me wearing your clothes or something. I pitched that once to a brand, but they didn't bite. I wanted a sponsorship type deal, because I didn't want to do affiliates. I don't want to try to sell the clothes. I just want to wear them.
01:35:39
Speaker
It just goes back to your paddle thing. You just want the free product. Not just that, but I want the sponsorship money. I don't want to have to sell.
01:35:51
Speaker
But you know, over time, I think, you know, as my podcast grows, there'll be more opportunities for things like that. Yeah, I would think brands would be interested if you have the audience. All they care about is like, I won't say all they care about, but they do care about like the main thing is like the views, but it's also like you're an authentic creator, most decent amount of people in the space, or at least the one time friends with are authentic. So I think that's like authenticity views.
01:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it'll come with time and I haven't pushed for that, you know, maybe we could I don't know I you're gonna sell a lot of your shirts because of this this will be the test This is a comment below if you bought this shirt. Yeah, and then I'll know the Tuvalu the Tuvalu Tuvalu sure to the little to the good name. It's called too little yeah Yeah, it's you know, it's a slim fit just a little thicker but not too much If you want the thick boy get that strato tech D. I play in this shirt. It's
Follow and Contact Information
01:36:48
Speaker
great. I
01:36:48
Speaker
Where can more people find out about you, what you're doing, if you have any announcements, like you mentioned the forum, if you have anything else you want to talk about. I'm pretty accessible. Feel free to message me on Instagram, comment on YouTube. Forum is a great place to define me. I respond to everything. I dedicate an hour and a half, two hours a day to respond to emails and do stuff like that.
01:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, website, pickballeffect.com, Instagram, pickballeffect, and YouTube is where I'm living. I'm gonna send everyone your way, too, and I hope this builds your audience and people can see how good you are interviewing. Interviewing's tough, dude. I have a lot of respect for everything you've done, the setup you've built, and the in-person setup. I flew down to come hang out with Brian.
01:37:35
Speaker
you uh yeah you didn't pay me it it means a lot man like that's crazy to think i didn't i wasn't exactly sure when that at what point that would happen but like yeah it just means a lot man like i don't have usually i can blabble on but i'll try to try to keep it short that it just means a lot man i appreciate it yeah yeah i'm really glad i worked out like we've been chatting for a while and i was like
01:37:58
Speaker
I want my story to be like semi interesting. Wait till I like quit my job and I'll come down. And, uh, but no, dude, I, uh, even if we weren't doing the pod, I just wanted to come hang out and it's been fun, dude. Like, I thought you were going to be cool, but you never know. You don't know. Yeah. And it turns out you are. That's good.
01:38:15
Speaker
Make me cry let it out. It's okay Okay Emotions are good, you know, sometimes you have big emotions you have to learn to let them out I just conversation every 10 minutes with my kids. Yeah Okay
01:38:31
Speaker
I'm cheating. You like my five year old. I'm not far off. Um, yeah, I'm glad that, uh, like another added bonus is that you're also a good player. So that makes it that we're able to also like not only do work, but we can enjoy the thing that we're passionate about, which is pickleball. And it's awesome to be able to play with you. They're really competitive games.
01:38:53
Speaker
But now that I got you my black book, it might not be so much. Yeah. We're going to see JT snap that Selkirk over his knee. He's our merging pro now. Congrats JT. That's awesome. He's in their program. Yeah. Selkirk emerging pro. He smushes it with that 002. I remember people buy paddles, not by their names.
01:39:11
Speaker
He's, he's the zero zero two guy. Yeah. He like just converted to that. He was on a little bit everything. He tried the gearbox and then he tried the, that engaged like the more recent one stuff. Sit. He was a six zero guy. Yeah. Um, dude, I'm looking forward to the rest of the trip.