September 15, 2023 • 56 mins
How well can you navigate the world of pickleball? Our guest, Kevin Perkins, the founder of Crown Pickleball, can certainly help you. While sharing his passion for pickleball, Kevin also provides a look at the significant merger of #MLP and #PPA, the two key players in the professional game, and explains why the MLP's format has kept him more engaged and excited about the sport.
Are you curious about how pickleball could improve your life? Kev shares his powerful story about the health benefits of pickleball and how it has changed his life. You'll hear how he applies visibility, spin, and durability principles to his pickleballs and how this strategy has boosted his business in just three months. Kevin also takes us on his journey of setting up a Shopify store, sharing how that experience shapes his business direction and why he believes pickleball marketing needs a more modern vibe. John & Karen talk about avoiding #pickleballdivorce, the reason behind their own journey, and some exciting teasers about the upcoming #Oktoberfest celebration in Southlake, TX.
Finally, Kevin brings us into the heart of the pickleball community with his cancer awareness initiative - the pink pickleball. As he shares how cancer has touched his family, he reveals how he's using the sport to raise awareness and funds for the cause. We explore the fun and competitive side of pickleball, discussing Kevin's experience in tournaments, and he gives us tips on playing pickleball without a tennis background. So, get ready for some fun, insights, and lots of pickleball!
Listen for shout-outs to #KOTC, #TheBadger, #MILP shirts and some very unfortunate puns about Kevin's balls - pickleballs, that is.
https://www.instagram.com/crownpickleball/
https://www.instagram.com/kevinsperkins/
https://dink.pro/products/milp-tee-unisex (sold out, new colors on the way!)
https://dink.pro/products/pickleball-anyone-tee-ladies
https://dink.pro/products/god-bless-pickleball-4th-of-july-tee
Looking for a fitness app specifically designed for Pickleheads? Download the Aim7 app today. Use our url to get a 25% discount and try the app for a free trial before committing. https://www.aim7.com/?via=blazing-paddles
Special thanks to Crown Pickleball for their support and sponsorship! Don't waste money on balls that break, Crown pickleballs rarely crack, are more visible and have a higher spin rate than the competitors.
Use our link to receive a discount on your next purchase! https://crownpickleball.store/blazingpaddles
Have a suggestion for a guest or topic you'd like to see us address?
Hit me up at john@dink.pro or shout out on social:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kevin (00:01):
Oh my God, if you're looking for a man, don't go to a
bar.
Go to a pickleball court onFriday night and you're going to
find an athletic guy.
You've done it a lot, a littlelot.
John (00:13):
It's here, it's going to happen.
Blazing paddles is on the airand we're starting it today.
What a day it is.
This is a big day in pickleballhistory September 13, 2023.
Mlp PPA finally announced theirmerger after two weeks of the
popcorn eating its funnest dramayou can imagine for the sport.
And to kick us off, today we'regoing to talk to Kevin Perkins.
(00:34):
He's the founder of CrownPickleballs and he sent us some.
We played with him, but we gotall kinds of stuff to talk to
him about.
So hang in there, saddle up,You'll be glad you did.
Let's get on to Blazing Paddles.
Kevin Perkins, I can hear stuffnow.
How you doing, buddy Doing,great Thanks.
How are you?
We're doing good man.
(00:55):
This has been an unbelievableday.
September 13, 2023, kind of abig day for pro pickleball today
.
I don't know if you heard.
Kevin (01:05):
Yeah, I know what happened.
John (01:10):
Those two crazy kids are going to give it a shot MLP and
PPA.
They announced their mergertoday, private equity backing,
all kinds of good stuffhappening for them, and I think
it was a great day forpickleball.
I really do, yeah, I mean youkind of could predict it right.
Oh sure, oh sure, you know, Iwas telling Karen how we
(01:31):
originally connected becausewhen this all went down, like I
am want to do, I postedsomething and I am, you know,
mainly because I'm just morefamiliar with it, though I just
I like the bracket play, I likePPA style, and I think you, in a
respectful way, came back andsaid, well, let me offer you the
other side of the coin, and Ithought that was pretty cool and
(01:53):
it was like you know what?
There's a topic, there's atopic, it's a good spot.
And here we are and we'resending you shirts and you're
sending us your pickleballs andwe're finding out that, like.
One of the funniest things was,too, I was listening to the
podcast.
Karen (02:07):
Oh, look at that, he's got a sluggo.
He's got a sluggo representing.
That's greatness.
John (02:13):
That you sponsored the podcast that I was listening to.
You know, I just picked it uplike three weeks ago, but then
it hit me.
I was like, did they just saycrown pickleball?
And then later Jimmy mentionedyou by name and I was like, oh
my God, this is meant to be so.
How long have you been, howlong have you been interactive
with that show, or how long haveyou known those guys?
Kevin (02:33):
So I got connected with them via Tyler when they were
out for the San Clemente MLP andPPA in June, so that's
literally like right down thehill from my house.
So I reached out to him andjust said, yeah.
I just said, hey, you know whatare you guys doing for balls or
whatever, Like your pod, blah,blah, blah.
(02:55):
And then I don't think I heardback from him right away and
then maybe a few days later,maybe even that weekend towards
the end of the weekend, Iprobably, after obviously he was
done playing, he reached outand said yeah, we're definitely
interested and we just sort ofhit it off and kind of been
working together like thatthat's fantastic.
Karen (03:16):
When we get to that point , we're going to have people
just asking to be our sponsorsyeah, yeah.
So you know, you're our firstguest, right, you're telling
this.
Kevin (03:27):
I do.
I saw the transformation.
I heard the transformation topod on.
You went from an old subjectmatter to now this right, yeah.
John (03:39):
Yeah, it was kind of a weird deal.
I've had a blog for about 12years.
I've been human resources, justa riveting topic.
Karen (03:46):
Can you believe a personality like him?
Human resources I get thatquestion.
John (03:50):
I get that question a lot.
But I would write a HR hardballblog and that turned into a pod
and then my wife would guestwith me and those episodes would
always end up being the mostpopular because it was just more
fun.
And then it seemed like everypodcast we would start talking
about pickleball, no matter whatthe subject or the guest was.
We're like what are we doing?
Let's just make this flip.
(04:11):
So we some of our friends arefinally convinced that we're
insane because we've justtotally flipped this one.
Kevin (04:18):
I mean I'm almost embarrassed sometimes how much
I'm talking about it or whatever.
Both my wife, my kids are likeyou're not professional, you
need to calm down, and I'm likeyou don't understand.
Like this is a thing you know.
Be happy, be joyful, playpickleball, anyway, yeah, it's
(04:39):
funny.
So on the MLP, ppa thing, youknow, let's talk about that real
quick.
I'm definitely not surprised B.
It's kind of sad in a way thatthey kind of had to.
You know, I don't know if itwas their negotiation tactic to
do that split in the first placeor whatever to try to force
(05:01):
this issue.
I don't know who knows what,whatever terms, were happening
on behind the scenes.
The upside or the upshot forthis is the players for sure,
are going to benefit More thanlikely.
There's going to be even morewell, there was like $50 million
injected from that privateequity firm, so fans,
technically, are probably goingto benefit somewhere or another.
(05:26):
It may be a little bit too, inmy view, a little bit too early
for something like that.
I don't know what the numbersare per se for PPA or MLP, you
know, in terms of your ship andthings like that, but it
definitely has a lot of room forgrowth.
I personally like the MLPformat because it is a little
bit more engaging and dynamicand exciting.
(05:48):
I do don't get me wrong I likeall pick of all PPA too, but you
know, I just think it's alittle bit more kind of
strategic in that sense.
Whereas, like I'll be honestwith you, like I didn't watch a
championship Sunday this lastweekend at Cincinnati, because
who's going to win?
John's and Emily Waters right,even though Saxxru did win.
Karen (06:16):
Yeah, it can't go on like that forever, though.
But I get you.
I mean, we didn't either.
And I'm going back to yourfirst point about this like, was
this already in the works?
It totally was in the works.
We're talking aboutbillionaires.
They didn't know what they'redoing.
They needed to prove that theycould get some hype and get some
media attention, and you know,private equity jumping in, that
(06:38):
doesn't happen overnight.
So I think, yeah.
But then now going back to yourformats, I mean the MLP style.
We actually are doing that inour paddle club, that when we
run a tournament, we're doingthe MLP style, which is super
fun.
Now, I haven't seen it, though,done professionally.
So that's the other thing.
John (06:56):
Well, I mean, like even Tyler Lune, he plays both
formats and I think that's kindof cool.
That was what was going to be,I think, the real crime of it At
least that's how they wereposing it.
Well then, you're not going tobe able to play both formats,
which is just that.
Would have killed us for it.
I think I really do.
Oh, to a large extent, and I'mjust glad they worked it out,
(07:17):
but it's, you know, it's funnytoo, because we are so into it
and following it.
I don't know how many littlevideos I did on it.
You asked probably nine out of10 people that we know in our
paddle club.
They don't know anything aboutit, they don't care, they just
want to play pickleball, youknow.
Kevin (07:33):
Yeah, and that's where I was kind of going with the whole
idea about like who knows whatthis will do to the numbers.
Because one thing that I youknow, that I'm taking advantage
of in my marketing and mypositioning for my brand and
stuff is to kind of be excitingand creative and fun and do
stuff like that.
And I feel like pickleball isreally kind of bland and the way
(07:56):
it has been marketed in thepast right, you know, with, just
frankly, some of the brands,the reps that are in the brands,
they definitely, you know, havepeople that are repping them
that don't have a lot ofpersonality and stuff.
you know, sometimes and you know, I don't mean that as like you
know, to be a jerk or anything.
It's just that you knowpickleball needs to figure out
(08:18):
where the height zone, the rightheight level, is, because it's
because there's a huge mistakein trying to make it tennis.
Yeah Right, and then you've gotto be quiet when they're playing
and everything you know rightand then on the flip side,
though, like I don't know aboutyou guys, but I'm not a huge fan
either of like the super smacktalky, like you know, fighting
(08:43):
back and forth either.
So there needs to be a littlebit of a, in my view, a little
bit of a balance.
Karen (08:49):
Well, there needs to be some refinement for sure.
I mean, if you watch theinterviews afterwards, you go
gosh.
These people have received zerocoaching and then what did that
?
One guy say he goes, he goes, Ijust threw up.
Kevin (08:58):
I just threw up, I was like that's hilarious.
Karen (09:02):
You know John did a meme.
Yeah, had he created a meme.
It was John Daly and TigerWoods in the same picture, and-.
Guess who pickleball is John.
Daly with pickleball and TigerWoods was Tennis.
Kevin (09:15):
Tennis.
Karen (09:16):
And I mean you know John Daly's, his clothes are
mismatched.
He's got a cigarette in hismouth.
You know beer in his hand.
I mean, that's the difference.
Ah, there you go, you'repickleball.
John (09:27):
Let's go.
Kevin (09:28):
Let's go, I gotta find out.
Karen (09:30):
How did you first hear about pickleball?
How'd you get involved in it?
Because-.
Kevin (09:34):
Oh my gosh, that's a funny story.
So, like like everybody whohears about pickleball for the
first time, I was likepickleball, that, what that's
for old people.
You know A bunch of.
You know randos, you know likeyou said doing like dancing over
the anyway, and 21 rolledaround.
(09:56):
We were, you know, obviouslycoming out of the pandemic and
our kids had all are all gone.
So we're empty nesters.
And my wife was like, you know,you know, what do you think
about if we take a class ofpickleball, would you be
interested, you know, be like adate night, you know?
And I was like all right, inthe interest in the, in the, in
the effort of that, yeah, Sure,that sounds really good.
(10:19):
Sure, you know what?
I got there and I was like gameon bruh.
This is like Right go, humansized ping pong.
I am on this all the way rightand so like by this, the second
class, the second class.
I'm like, come on, hit the ballover the net.
Ding, ding, ding, let's go,yeah.
And just my wife's like like Ijust created another.
(10:43):
You know another thing he canbe a monster on.
Karen (10:46):
Right.
Kevin (10:47):
So, anyway, I, I I attenuated, I brought it down a
little bit and enjoyed that thatsemester class so much and met
tons of fun people and just itreally propelled us into, like
you know, what I feel is whatpickleball is all about, which
is the social aspect of it,because, honestly, there are so
many people and they kind ofwent around the the class saying
(11:09):
why did you do pickleball orwhy are you here, and da, da, da
, da, and I'm almost like 80,85% of the people are like it
sounded fun and I wanted to meetpeople and like you know,
that's, that's just like, it's a, it's almost, it's a 99.9%
surety that that's going tohappen.
If you're looking for somethingto do, you know there's that,
(11:30):
that, that funny video of that,of that girl on the on the
interweb saying, oh my God, ifyou're looking for a man, don't
go to a bar, go to a pickleballcourt on Friday night.
You're going to find anathletic guy who's done it a lot
.
And I'm just like yep.
Karen (11:46):
Yep, yep, yeah, you know what that social aspect that's
that is, and I, and then the funwe've.
We've taught so many people andand we know I mean our club.
We have 1200 members and I'lltell you what it any.
No one I've I've ever seen comeoff of a pickleball court where
the I mean, I don't like it.
I don't like it.
(12:06):
And they all are smiling,everyone laughs, even the, even
you know chicken and pickleshere, right, and I we're, we're
at that competitive level LikeI'm trying to get better and
better and better, right.
And I look over still and I seethe people who are just
learning it and they smiling,they're laughing.
They can't play the game wortha crap, you know the ball is
going everywhere, but they'resmiling and having fun and I
(12:29):
just love it.
The community it creates too.
I mean we have.
I have friends from differentbackgrounds and different
ethnicities and different walksof life that I would never have
had if it wasn't for pickleball.
That's true.
Kevin (12:41):
That's true.
Yeah, and the health, thehealth aspect, like I've, I've
lost maybe, and since I started,maybe like 40 pounds by now.
Karen (12:47):
Oh yeah.
Kevin (12:48):
You know, and and it's just you know my knees are a
little bit trash, but that's awhole nother subject, hey.
Karen (12:55):
I got some advice for you there.
I'll turn it on, okay, no, I do.
Kevin (13:01):
Actually, yes, I started that process of looking into,
like maybe, what thereplacements look like and
anyway, they said you know,before you do any of that, just
go do some prehab and learn.
You know your mechanics of howyou're doing stuff and, honestly
, in like less than a month myknees don't even really hurt
hardly.
It's just, it's just been under,it's been understanding like,
(13:23):
oh, okay, it's all in thepositioning, it's all how I'm
bending, it's all how.
You know, every now, therealization is, every time he's
shot in the net, it's because Ididn't bend my knees enough,
right, right, right.
That loop of like, oh, painequals hurt, Don't bend knees,
you know, makes the game go downa little bit.
So, anyway, it's been reallypositive.
(13:44):
But yeah, but back to thesocial thing.
Really quick, you know, we've,like you said, we've, we've.
You know, as a couple, we'vemet so many people.
And then, you know, ever sinceI started doing crown like, it's
even more so.
I mean, I'm getting people allover the world literally saying,
hey, you know, want to try outyour balls, want to, you know,
(14:06):
become ambassadors or resellersor blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, oh my God, likeI just started this company,
like nine and three months ago,right, so things are definitely,
yeah, it's really accelerated.
You know, we have, we have twoballs really, and you know it's
kind of my, my marketingstrategy to not go into like 20s
(14:27):
views and just really focus onjust the, the one ball that's
always going to work, that'salways going to have the, the
high you know value that you'regoing to get from it super good
visibility, good spin, doesn'tget fuzzy, itis very much Um.
And then also the indoor ball.
So it's not quite the samecolor but it's on that sort of
(14:48):
spectrum.
But this thing is is a lotharder than like the mushy
franklins and stuff.
So I'm telling you like we, wewe do get some feedback of like,
oh, I don't like your balls orwhatever.
That sounds funny, we don'tlike your balls.
But um, hey, man, don't knockmy balls.
Karen (15:09):
Um, no, I love it.
Hey that color is spot on.
Like me, my eyes were trackingit so well the other day, and
that's and when you play inchicken and pickles.
I don't know if you ever playedin one, probably not, because
they're not out West.
Kevin (15:25):
We don't have them out here yet, but I've heard there
we have friends that live inKansas.
Uh, in.
John (15:29):
Missouri in.
Kevin (15:31):
Kansas city area and they said it's, it's like huge.
Karen (15:35):
It's huge, but the something about the lighting and
the colors or something inthere.
It takes your eyes a while toadjust, but when we were playing
with your balls the other day,which sounds like oh man, yeah,
I suggested.
John (15:47):
Hey, let's play with Kevin's balls and we but they
were very easy to track.
This is like that Saturdaynight live skip with sweaty
balls.
Hey, melting your mouth, oh myGod.
Kevin (15:58):
There's no beating them.
John (16:00):
I love that sketch.
Kevin (16:01):
That's hilarious.
We were cause.
That is the biggest downfallsthe visibility.
John (16:08):
You're going to get hurt out there when you get to
certain levels, especiallyinside there we play with a guy
who he's a banger all the waythrough and get a little nervous
out there if you can't see theball.
So that was.
That was a real nice, real nicerealization that the visibility
on yours is really outstanding.
Have a good night.
Kevin (16:25):
Yeah, and I mean it's like you know it's not, it's.
It's, it's a, it's a differentgreen, though it's not really
it's a.
Yeah, I caught one.
Okay, so right, for those arekeeping score at home.
There's definitely those yellowish balls, the Dura balls, some
of the, I think those they'restarting to venture into
greenish neon, I don't know whatthe heck they call it, but the
(16:46):
reality is that the Dura iscrack so fast and you know, this
isn't maybe as hard as the Dura, but I do think there's an
inherent value.
So, again, I'm looking at thisstrategically speaking and this
goes back to the PPA coverageand everything you know.
You're talking about a pyramidthat looks like this, you know,
with just a small sliver ofpeople who care about, you know,
(17:08):
the new, the nuances of whatDura does right, and the rest of
people just want balls thatthey can see, that they can have
fun with, that.
They're going to last a goodwhile and come back for more and
not break the bank.
Yeah, we're priced at such we're.
We're killing everybody on thatfront too, by the way.
So we, just we just.
(17:28):
You know I have approached itfrom in my past on a tech guy, a
product manager, you know,techie person.
So I'm really honed in on likeuser experience, customer
experience and making sure thatthat's really high on my
personal priority list.
I try not to release stuffunless it's get something I
(17:50):
would want, you know, I wouldwant to use myself and I'm by no
means again like a five ohplayer, anything like that.
But I do you know, get outthere a fair amount and I do you
know that's one of the reasonsI got into this business is just
that the balls really sucked.
You know the Franklins getreally mushy and fuzzy and then
they crack that way and the Durais like, seriously, if you're
(18:10):
playing with like one of yourfriends or whatever that just
crank cranking balls, you mightgo through three, one of their
cans and a hole and anyway, butthey have assigned balls.
Karen (18:21):
So on net you have to use Franklins and on TCD you have
to use Dura, and so it's verygood because they hit very
different.
And so and this is my firstseason doing TCD, so this is my
first time actually even playingwith the Dura balls and notice
is that they change shape.
The Dura balls do yes, not yeah, they, wow, I don't understand
(18:43):
that.
And the and the seam is sonoticeable, but they, but they
change shape.
It's crazy.
I had to, I had to bounce it toserve and I would have to stop
and do it again because I'm likeI'm going to you know, so how
do you?
even start like what you were,just like, hey, there's a need
here and I'm I'm a tech guy, soI'm just going to create my own
(19:03):
wall.
Kevin (19:05):
Yeah, I mean just as kind of a thing for a side hustle
just to be able to say you knowI'm doing something with the
community and enjoying, maybepotentially personally
benefiting.
My thought was to you just sortof experiment and see what
would start.
You know what was the rightapproach.
But as as I was noodling thevariety of, actually I was
(19:26):
watching what's the?
What's the podcast with Zaneand Thomas, the dink or
something like that, or picklepot, I don't know.
John (19:36):
Yeah, it might be.
Kevin (19:38):
Yeah, they had.
They had a private equity guyon there that would play a
pickle ball and they weren'ttalking to him and he was just
going off on all the differentavenues of making money and I
just was like how could I dothat?
You know, how could Iessentially, you know, inserted
into this potential stream here?
And you know I had a friend ofmine and we were talking about.
(19:59):
You know, do we do tournaments,do we develop like a facilities
type thing, like you know,dream land or whatever, where
you've got you know warehousethat you, you open up to charge
memberships, do privates, youknow that model, all that stuff
was just really time consumingand, you know, needing to be
(20:20):
gone on the weekends probably.
I just started like that doesn'tseem very appealing and so just
kind of paddles, like alreadythere was like a billion paddles
and I was like, ah, you know.
And so then I started thinkingabout the balls and I'm like you
know, that's that's an area forimprovement, because a just
just out of the gate were.
I think we're already kind ofcompeting pretty hard with the,
(20:42):
the name brands, on this, maybenot as is known yet, but as far
as the quality of the productit's pretty close.
But the future of this stufffor what I want to do with it is
is, I think, going to make thenext step on the whole ball
transition, like bringing techinto the ball, being able to
measure how many, how many topspins did you do?
(21:06):
You know what?
How's it striking at your, onyour paddle?
You know having some technologythat's inherent either in the
balls or the paddles or both,and so kind of noodling some
options there.
But again, part of it is cameto it which we think we can.
The other part of it is whocares, like who's going to use
it and what's the real marketthere for stuff like that.
(21:29):
So you know it's on the road,it's not a priority yet, but
we're, you know we have.
We have our lab, you know, kindof doing that kind of stuff too.
Karen (21:38):
That's cool.
What about noise?
Have you heard?
That's nothing.
Kevin (21:43):
Yeah, so that that's actually.
I don't know how you saw thatone, because I think I want to
say gamma already has asoundless ball.
John (21:54):
Right.
Kevin (21:54):
But it's like, it's just like a soft, it just soft, it
doesn't even totally.
Yeah, it's not, it's notpickleball, yeah.
Karen (22:03):
Honestly, I think that the pickleball sound is the best
on the world.
Like when I hear it, she'sexcited I get excited.
I'm like I hear pickleball.
It puts me to sleep.
Kevin (22:19):
Oh, it's a laundry folded .
I was watching pickleball and Ifell asleep.
Yeah, you know, the whole soundthing is just really kind of a
weird argument.
I mean if you think about it?
Like people complain, ohthere's pickleball happening in
the courts, you know, by thepark or whatever.
The same people that, like, buyhouses near schools go.
(22:40):
You should shut that schooldown because you know it makes
too much noise.
Like dude, you know you boughta house next to a park, so that
that's.
There's a little bit of like youknow, need to be some
responsibility, some selfactualization there, to what's
the difference if, like you hearpickleball in the background or
like, let's say, you knowthere's like a.
(23:01):
Oh yeah, football, like afootball game on in the grass.
You got a bunch of guyshollering and shouting and you
know, going back and forth andyou know, like what's what?
Isn't that louder than thepickleball sound like?
So I just kind of feel likepeople need to like play it and
just get over there ourselvesand get a box fan.
John (23:23):
You know, just put a fan in your room or put an app on
your phone.
Karen (23:28):
that was a white noise.
I'm with you all the way.
I think it's ridiculous whatyou're going to complain because
people are what?
Outside exercising, having fun,getting a box fan, having fun,
getting sun, doing all thethings that we should getting
healthier, making friends, beingsocial.
Come on, it's ridiculous.
Kevin (23:44):
Well and so, and so we're talking about a type of person,
right?
So let's say I get let's say Icracked the code on building you
know this type of ball and it'ssoundless, right.
And people are like, okay,we're going to buy that ball at
a premium because we want to begood neighbors and that it out,
and so then they start playing,but of course there's going to
be some noise and like that sameperson, and like that same
(24:04):
person comes out and goes andthey're like but we bought the,
you bought the special ball.
And they're like I don't care,you know it's right.
John (24:13):
I can hear your.
Your shoes are squeaking toomuch.
I can hear him, and that'swhat's bothering me now.
So we have to get shoes orsoundless shoes.
Now it's just crazy.
Kevin (24:22):
Yeah, exactly so it's not I, yeah, I kind of reject the
premise, regardless if I wasselling balls or not I.
I would just say those peopleget lives and maybe you know,
they might change their tune.
John (24:37):
Now, are you, are you purely a virtual store right now
?
Do you have a brick and mortar?
Kevin (24:42):
No brick and mortar, all virtual.
So because of my techbackground I was pretty quickly
able to prop up a Shopify site.
Get it, get it humming.
We're actually now almost tothe point where we're going to
probably either start fulfillingwith Amazon or shop I and you
know, or or just keep you knowor just keep inventory on hand.
(25:04):
I'm not really sure yet wherethat's all going, but yeah, no,
it's, it's all direct.
We have we actually.
The next, the next round ofinventory is going to have a
mesh bag with a hang tag andthree balls in it.
So we have some pro clubs andpro things you know available
(25:26):
for point of sale and stuff likethat.
But it's not going to be ourprimary target.
We're.
I feel like we're going to beso much more successful watching
all these episodes of shark.
Take.
You say just go direct, just godirect.
I feel like that's thedirection that we're going to go
for a while.
John (25:43):
Yeah, I think you're smart .
To you said you're basicallylimiting your, your skews, to
two items and you focus on it.
I think you know we're.
I think we can relate to a lotof what you're saying, because
we're going to pickleentrepreneurs to pick it up in
the pandemic, got hooked on it,looked around us and boy, the
current merches crap.
It's all cheesy.
I mean, how many, how many punscan we make about?
(26:05):
I've got a dinking problem, youknow it's like.
Kevin (26:09):
I don't like, yeah, I mean that somebody is so funny,
okay, so.
So I've been getting obviously,and parted with a we sponsor
tournament though.
So we Typically do that, whichis fine because I, you know,
whatever.
That's a secondary topic, butthe point is is that this this
late, this one had like this hey, you can get on our flyer, and
(26:30):
it was like the running pickleguy with the paddle, you know.
And I'm yeah, and just as afavor to the guy I read it is
flyer for him.
Just because I'm like you can't, you can't be, put that crap
out.
That's kind of what I wassaying, like at the onset of our
podcast was that there's somuch like retro pickleball stuff
(26:54):
.
It's not the direction thissport needs to go.
It needs to be far moreexciting and far more like
modern and not so obvious withthe sexual puns and that right.
You know it's funny to talkabout it or when you're on court
or whatever.
But like there's so many peoplethat these these virtual stores
with shirts like you said,that's as big responsibly are, I
(27:17):
don't know it's just dry.
John (27:19):
It's like it's the same thing over and over.
So we just decided it was samething.
I wouldn't if I wouldn't wearit.
Kevin (27:25):
We don't make it, it's something that I love my, my
milk shirt and I love pickleball.
John (27:32):
I love it, great, call out , yeah, that's.
It's so funny because that'sone where we're like, yeah,
should we put that out?
That's a little edgy.
And we finally did, and, sureenough, that would be the one
that's just blows, blows up andwe're gonna, which is actually
another reorder today, but it'sactually great it's a great
shirt yeah thank you.
Kevin (27:51):
Good, the materials really nice yeah, it is.
Karen (27:55):
it's soft and form fitting, I see, yeah, so the
funny thing is that it's nowbecome a kind of a woman
favorite yeah, they're wearingit the women are buying it now
because they want to wear.
They think it's hilarious welland that, and I mean if he, I'll
just connotation.
I get like 50 double takes whenI wear like people like what.
What is this?
(28:16):
Because you know their firstthought is milk, right.
And then they and they do thedouble take.
What is that?
John (28:23):
one confident woman.
Yeah.
So you you've only been doingyour stores been open.
You say like three months.
Is that it really yeah?
Kevin (28:35):
Let's see.
I see I kind of was starting tonoodle the idea about all
specifically April and then Ilaunched, right before the, the
tournaments here in town.
So that was like the beginningof June, ish, give or take.
John (28:51):
That's fantastic.
It's been kind of a rocket ridethen, in a sense.
I mean, you're, somehow youconnected with the touring pro
and a podcast about my favoriteone, by the way, king of the
court and you became a sponsorof that.
You're, you know, you'reactually, you're kind enough to
send us a sample, and I guessyou're do.
You're being asked a lot ofthat.
(29:11):
But if people want to buy yourball, and you know where do they
go, they go to crown pickleballs store dot store.
Kevin (29:19):
Yeah, right, yes, yeah, if you just if you instagram
just type in crown pickle ball,or if you're our facebook,
because that'll put up the shopwithin the the facebook and
instagram, or you can go tocrown pickle ball, that store,
and there's links all over theplace.
We have, I think, over 30affiliates now and ambassadors,
(29:44):
so that's also growing.
That's what that's.
One of the things that,strategically, I wanted to do
too, is to really Be a part ofthe community, to not just, you
know, sell to it.
It's important that everybodyfeels like it's their ball and
their brand, and I think we'restarting to get pretty
successful on that score.
John (30:05):
I think you posted something the other day where
you just come back from thelocal court said everybody there
was playing with your ball.
What a great feeling that hadto be.
Kevin (30:13):
My gosh, that was like you know, I don't know there's.
You know, anecdotally, likewhen you, when someone says, oh,
that time, that you feel likeyou know you made it or whatever
, you know if it's an actor orsomething, that was kind of that
moment.
For me it was just like wow,like I guess all that works
already paid off, you know, andliterally we were in a garden
(30:35):
with the eight court, everybodywas playing with one, so that's
pretty cool.
Karen (30:42):
So tell us about this.
Yeah, F cancer Pink ball.
That's super cool yeah.
Kevin (30:49):
Yeah, so so you know I'm everybody's seen the pink balls
and stuff before.
Cancer is affects everybody,whether it's them themselves or
family members or friends.
My mom passed away from it in2001 and yeah, but she was a
trooper.
She fought it for like almost19 years or something before.
(31:12):
So she, she was definitely afighter on that score.
But, like you know, we'regetting so close to like cures
in for like breast cancer andthings like that.
Just People that I know who getit.
You know they just have adifferent outlook now.
Before it used to be kind of asense, and now it's like you
(31:34):
know, people can live theirlives and and have some more.
You know More to offer, and soI just want to tap into that
right.
So one of the things is just tobe able to put out the, the pink
ball and Hard to a little bitmore for it, whether you play
with it or if you keep it onyour shelf or even if you don't.
You know, play pickleball andyou just want to support what,
(31:55):
what we're doing.
That money's gonna go towardscancer cure or admissions and I
Don't know, I mean may not justdo it for October, you know, I
might just doing it all year?
I'm not sure yet, so we'll see.
I've gotten tons of tons ofinterest and we're sponsoring
the pink pickleball Tournamentin Rancho Mirage in November, so
(32:17):
that that'll also.
Yeah, so that's also gonnagenerate some revenue.
For I forget who they'respecifically doing it for, once
a maybe Coleman or one of thoseeight Organizations, but yeah,
so so for me it was just youknow, I try to do everything on
my branding a little bit edgyand stuff, and so the F?
F Astros cancer, you knowthat's, that's the, the, the
(32:40):
brand we're going with for that.
Well, that's.
John (32:43):
You know what else you're doing.
You're doing October fest withwe've got this huge, huge ass
event that we're tasked withcoordinating.
We're gonna we're gonna put thecrown emblem up on our banner
and we're gonna use your ballsin the matches at call out.
Give you some love there aswell, because I think it's
really one really cool thing isthere are a lot of startups.
(33:04):
You know there's so manystartups in this industry
because, as old as it is, it'snew.
It's a new old thing.
Three years ago had no ideawhat this sport was, kind of
like you.
I walked.
I walked by somebody, or in ourlocal gym, and these older
folks were sitting, but theywere very talented.
They look like they were fivefeet apart just firing at each
(33:25):
other and I just grabbed someguy.
What is that man?
He goes well, that's pickleball.
And I said pickleball, allright.
So I order a net off Amazon and, like I'm, I do, I sat in the
garage.
Karen (33:38):
I was like, oh great, another sport that you're gonna
start with me and quit.
Who's the bigger?
Bigger pickle addict me or you?
John (33:52):
John, oh, you by far I am such a pickle.
Karen (33:55):
I mean I am so thankful he bought that stinking thing.
When go ahead?
John (34:00):
Oh yeah, so then pandemic, and, like everybody else, were
bored to tears.
It's like, hey, why don't wetake that thing out and go to
the parking lot?
Because they had, of course,locked up the tennis courts
because they were dangerous, youknow.
So we set up on a parking lotwith our net and for about 10
minutes like yeah, we're in,this is this, is it.
And then we started playing sixand seven hours a day with
friends and bringing out youknow, you have music, you got a
(34:23):
cooler, you've got the kidsrunning around with on their
scooters and we just would playand play, and play and play and
we didn't know how to do it andwe're always getting hurt and
we're always, you know, justplaying all wrong, but it was
the funnest thing ever.
Karen (34:37):
That's why sluggo has this scuff on his on his face,
because you know, you, you.
He's got determination in hiseyes Because that's what you're
like, right, when you startplaying this game I got to learn
this game and then you get hurtalong the way, but you're
smiling the whole time.
No pain, playing through thepain, yeah, I.
Kevin (34:56):
Know, I know that's that's a sad but common, common
commentary that I've heard about.
You know, setting sports stuffdown during the pandemic.
I just Especially stuff that'soutside.
You know, like I was, I wasDoing a fair amount of swimming
so my background is likeswimming, water polo.
(35:18):
You know, I live by the beachso everything's surfing and
water sports stuff like that.
But yeah, during the pandemicthey actually shut the pool down
because I don't know why andit's like, if you think about it
, it's outdoors, it's gotchlorine in the pool kills germs
, yeah, I mean yeah.
(35:40):
So I just, I don't know, I justwhatever, but I'm a lot of
people got there kind of kickoffwith pickleball during the
pandemic for those very reasons.
It's just to get outside and dostuff.
So it's really a common story.
What do you guys feel like hasbeen like one of your more
memorable moments at this pointwith your, your career, I guess
(36:02):
your careers right, as coaches,as Ambassadors, so far?
Karen (36:08):
I think, um, for me, one of the most exciting moments is
just this, this, the developmentof this club that I'm on the
board for, and it's it's calledthe South Lake paddle club.
We, we, we have to closemembership because we can't
handle how many people we'vegone, grown so fast in one year
1200 people, 1200 people.
And so that's like that's, it'smy baby.
(36:31):
But it's also just so coolbecause it's because, to me,
pickleball creates community andthat's just an example of it.
Right there now, do all 1200play?
No, they don't, they just wantto be a part of it.
You know, and I don't care ifyou go out once a week or once a
month or you know whatever.
You know we have our hardcorepicklers, but also we've also
done some cool things, like DaveWeinbach, who's who's on the
(36:53):
senior in the senior tour, likeWanted a ton of gold medals and
things like that.
He's coming down in clinic forour club, like I think the
accessibility and I'm gonna missit because I know that that's
gonna go away.
You know, six, the last is hethe badger?
Kevin (37:08):
Yes, he's the badger.
Yeah, that guy's, that guy'scool I like him?
John (37:13):
Yeah, he's he's funny, he's a character man, he is a
running college, I mean whenhe's doing a clinic.
Karen (37:19):
So we did a clinic and then we did a program that
evening and In the program.
So they played it the stylewhere if you made a mistake,
you're the guy who has to comeoff the court right, and then
the other guy who's off thecourt comes in but, he pointed
out in during the play.
You know what people are doingWrong and you know and engage
the crowd.
That was just a cool thing.
(37:39):
And then we've done cool thingslike the mayor has come out and
played pickleball.
We had pickleball with themayor night and and just now
seeing this.
Now we're like John said, we'redoing a three-day event, 27
hours of pickleball during ourcity's October Fest.
Because you know why.
They were looking for newentertainment, new ways to draw
people there and new ways tokeep people.
What else is more it can dothat better than pickleball?
(38:02):
Nothing, I mean.
It's the best thing, right?
Kevin (38:05):
You're 1200 show off.
You're gonna make that cityreally happy.
John (38:10):
No kidding, everybody buy one beer and you just paid the
salaries for that for the entirechain that seriously.
Karen (38:16):
So what about for you, john?
John (38:18):
I tell you what I don't know.
Kevin, do you play in?
Kevin (38:20):
tournaments.
So I played a couple and I wantto talk a little bit about that
, but I want to hear your takefirst.
John (38:29):
Okay, well, karen and I were married and we played
together, which is not as commonas one might think, and you
probably know this.
That's very hard to play with aspouse.
Karen (38:40):
Most couples are pickle divorced.
They literally will play withtheir best friends, whatever.
It's a rare thing, so go ahead.
John (38:47):
Yeah, we were given it everything we got.
We were fighting and we werenot really on the same page as
we're learning.
Oh my God, the stress, thestress, the stress.
It was miserable and we finallygot to a tournament where we
got a bronze medal.
We actually meddled togetherfor our first time and then, two
(39:09):
tournaments later, we got asilver and we decided you know
what?
We can make this work, we cando this.
It's still it's not alwayssmooth sailing, but we're.
I think that that's my.
The thing for me is, if we hadlost the fact that this was
something that was ours, that wedid together, it wouldn't mean
as much to me.
So we found something kind oflike.
You know, your wife said we'reempty nesters now too, and it's
(39:30):
like we need something that wedo together and I don't want to
take another ballroom danceclass.
So this is good, this is muchbetter.
Kevin (39:38):
Yeah, we tried that, yeah , yeah, no, that's great, that's
, that's really great.
And you know what?
You guys, it was really superrare.
I mean honestly, like I belongto lifetime down here where they
have the PPA and MLPs and theyhave this, this class in the
middle of the day called Aurora.
It's the older group of peoplethat play pickleball, so it's,
(39:59):
but it's more of a kind of aclub than it is pickleball thing
.
But anyway, there's a couple,there's a couple of couples that
play together and they yell ateach other and it's not.
Karen (40:13):
Oh yeah.
Kevin (40:14):
It's not represent like what I endeavor to have every
time I play right.
Like the last thing I want todo when I play with my wife is
to get in a fight with her andgo and fight.
Like that's not ever somethingI want to do.
Karen (40:28):
You know what I mean.
Kevin (40:29):
Yeah, yeah.
And so when we do, when we playtogether, I like I want to make
sure that that's the first andforemost thing is to have fun.
But again like, the fact thatyou guys can compete and do well
too, that's says a lot aboutyour communication ability and
to respect one another.
And, and you know, sports isn'talways like hey, great job.
(40:51):
You know, slap, slap on theback it's.
You know, sometimes when youget the ball, it's a problem.
John (41:00):
You know, I said, let's have fun Okay.
Karen (41:02):
So he was like, let's just, he said this before we
went on play he was like kind ofdoing a little prayer thing
Like let's, let's get on thesame page and let's you know,
let's let's have fun and we goout there, we lose our butts and
I'm like, was that fun?
No more fun.
I go, no more fun, no more fun.
So we do not go out there forfun, nope it.
(41:25):
It winning is fun, overcomingyour, learning a new skill and
pickleball.
And for me, because I don't havethe tennis background, like I'm
having to learn everything, I'mcreating that muscle memory,
which is a good, it's a good anda bad thing.
So my learning curve is goingto be longer because I don't
have that tennis background.
But I'm learning pickleball theright way.
(41:46):
So I'm playing with ladies whohave a long time, you know,
tennis players, and they'restruggling to unlearn some
things from tennis that will notlet them get to the next level
in pickleball, and so I.
So I'm grateful that I don'thave that tennis background, but
it's frustrating with thelonger learning curve, cause in
the beginning, like I saw peoplesurpass me quickly and I did
(42:08):
not like that.
Like I'm just highlycompetitive, right, but the you
know, and the good thing withJohn and I too, because he
doesn't have the tennisbackground, we do move really
well together and that was likea big thing that.
That that was probably one ofthe longest learning curves and
fight bigger fights.
That we had was where you'resupposed to be.
(42:29):
You know so yeah but I'm happyyou guys playing together.
Kevin (42:33):
Do you guys stack or do you guys just play it straight
up and switch sides, or yougotta tell them the story honey.
John (42:40):
Okay, well, so I'm a natural lefty and about a year
and about a year and two monthsago, I tore my left bicep while
playing pickleball, of course.
So I had two choices, of course.
I could either learn to playright handed or I could sit
around and wait for it to heal.
Karen (42:55):
So I decided wait for your wife to go home.
John (42:57):
Yeah, yeah, and that would get.
Yeah, not like she was going toshut it down.
So I learned how to play righthanded and actually got pretty,
pretty good at it and tore myright bicep.
So that was like a month ago.
Yeah, just like a month ago.
And it healed remarkably quickly.
But I so I can play with eitherhand now.
But we haven't taken advantageof the stack because, honestly,
(43:19):
I'm more consistent, I make lessunforced errors.
With my right, with my left, Itend to try to bang up, bang
away and you know, that's,that's when Wind shots.
Kevin (43:28):
Yeah, right, right.
Karen (43:29):
I always have the hero shots, so Winner shot Right and
it's out, and it's in the net.
Kevin (43:36):
So that was kind of the thing.
Yeah, so it's interesting thatyou mentioned that, because
lately I've been doing someprivates with the.
There's a.
There are the pro at.
One of the pros at our club isWalter Lau.
He's like a five-oh he.
He kind of goes in and out ofthe qualifiers with with the PPA
.
So anyway, super good.
John (43:56):
I follow one Instagram I do.
Kevin (43:58):
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, super nice guy and it's really
helping me to undo some reallybad habits that I, you know,
made over the last two years,because I've only been playing
for two years, and part of it'sjust because, like you're saying
, karen, like I don't, I don't,I don't have a tennis background
, but I do have like a ping pongbackground.
(44:20):
So, like I get the kitchen and Iget spinning and I get, you
know, voling and stuff like that, so, so from that lens, like my
whole process was like oh, Ineed to figure out how to, you
know, rip forehands from thebaseline and stuff and, you know
, get my tennis game going, andall I, all I do is make errors
(44:40):
when I do that.
Right, instead of focusing ondrops, focusing on the, the high
percentage, even if it's not awinner, cause it does feel great
.
I'm not going to lie.
That's one of the best feelingsis when you, you know, do a
shaped top, spin, roll rightdown the line or right down the
middle, and they're just likewhoa, what was that?
You know, that is like one ofthe best feelings.
(45:02):
However, however, it doesn'thappen more than, let's say,
five or 10% of the time, rightRight.
And so it's some from from from,like you know, just like
watching the pros, you know,it's a lot of times I'm like why
don't they just rip the balljust now, like they were, the
ball is high, it was in thegreen zone, they kind of just,
and instead they just knocked itover.
They're playing 40 chess,they're four moons out because
(45:25):
then the next one's going to beeven better.
And so, like I've had to likekind of understand that strategy
of the game.
Now that I feel like I've got adecent, you know, skill level,
now I'm kind of, you know,hoping to.
You know, I'm trying not to getinto this 4050 business because
, honestly, sometimes I watch,like YouTube and they're like
(45:46):
watch the 4050 match from theblah, blah, blah, and you're
just like that's not 50.
Like these people have a realweird sense about, or their
competitive levels like reallylow or something, and I'm just
like, oh man, so I'm not, youknow, a big fan of like you got
to compete all the time just soyou can run up your score and
(46:07):
say, hey, I'm an X number right,because I think it's more a
function of, like you know, likeyou know, like you know, 10,000
hours.
You know that 10,000 hoursgives you the level of expertise
that you would want, right?
I forget the name of the book.
I think it's called 10,000hours or something, but anyways.
So actually, one of the appideas that I'm working on, I'm
(46:30):
kind of talks more to that like,because you know, realistically
somebody could say, oh, I'vebeen playing for eight years,
but if you play like once a weekor once every other week,
versus like me who plays all thetime and it's like, okay, but I
have more time under my belt,so you know.
So where does that put me?
Just because I didn't do atournament, and that's.
(46:52):
That's the other kind of likegripe I have with the whole PPA
and all P thing too, is they'reso hyped up on duper that you're
dealing with this much of themarketplace.
Most of the people don't give a.
You know what about that, so,but they're looking for good
pairings, they're looking forgood relative matches, and so I
(47:12):
think there's there's got to bea better way to do that.
So we're actually working on anapp that might address that.
We'll see if we can get itright or not.
Karen (47:20):
Well, I hope so, because we tried duper as a club and it
bombed.
I mean, of course they didn'ttell us that you shouldn't do it
for just rec play until itbombed.
And then we had a conversationwith some, we met, a duper rep
and they were like oh yeah, youguys shouldn't have written it.
Well, thanks a lot.
Now my, I'm like a stinking.
I don't even want to look atwhat I'm rated, because I hate
(47:41):
it, because it's wrong and andit made me it made so many
people fight out there on thecourts because you were fighting
for your duper score and that'snot what pickleball is about?
John (47:51):
Are they?
They get mad because.
Oh yeah, sure, cause I got thewrong partner this time and
you're you're checking, you'retargeted them the whole time.
My score yeah, yeah that's notfun.
Karen (48:01):
Karen's just mad because my dad's tired than hers, yeah.
I am mad about that Cause, andyou're right though, kevin let
me tell you this, and it's notreflective, it's not, and but
that's fine, whatever, yeah, Imean, is it?
Kevin (48:12):
like Colin Jones?
How like the highest partnerscore and he's not better than
his brother Ben?
Like that doesn't.
That doesn't make sense.
Karen (48:21):
Right, so I don't know the.
To your point.
Um on the, um the playing, oh,the, since I've increased my um,
how many hours I've beenplaying now um, I it's taken me
to a different level that Icouldn't have got there.
It would have taken a lotlonger.
John (48:39):
Yeah, she'll get to 10,000 hours by probably next Thursday
, I think she's.
She's been really piling it on.
Karen (48:45):
It's so great, I love it, though, like it's so cool when
you, when you get something elseand yours funny is that, like I
just started in these ladiestournaments and or leagues and,
um, I don't think they know whatto make of me.
Like I'm kind of odd, I do oddthings and I can pull stuff out
that I don't even know what I'mpulling out, and the ladies are
(49:06):
like you, just we just started.
Yeah, they call.
I've called the wall, I'mcalled um.
Tasmanian devil, but my favoritenew one is little monster
because if a ball is flying.
I am flying in that air and I'mgoing to hit it with my entire
body to push that thing, CauseI'm little, I have to use
(49:28):
everything I have to get thepower.
You know, it's fun thoughthat's great, that's really cool
yeah.
John (49:36):
Yeah, so what's next for you, kevin?
We're still on the immediatehorizon with you.
Kevin (49:42):
So really, just to keep, you know, uh, growing at a kind
of, uh, measured pace.
Uh, again, this is just meantto be a fun thing, and the fact
that it's been going at its rate, that it's going, I mean I feel
blessed.
Right, I'm not sitting here,you know going.
Wow, you know I'm, I'm going todump $100,000 into this now and
see where it takes me, like I'mgoing to just keep
(50:03):
incrementally growing and keepincrementally getting there.
Um, that you know.
Again, I I come from tech.
I grew up with the internet inthe late nineties, so I
understand, you know these ideasof bubbles and and
accelerations and and so forth,and actually drops to experience
a few of those myself.
Um, we're definitely in a, in abubble period for pickleball
(50:25):
right now.
So, um, my thought process isto just let the bubble carry me
as far as it can take me with aslittle uh effort as possible,
and then, just from there,ascertain you know what am I
doing?
You know I'm always doing thatevaluation every time, every
time, you know, a big slag oforders comes through.
(50:47):
I'm just like man, I can't evenbelieve this.
Like, this is great, this iscrazy.
And so, you know, do I expectthat every day or every week?
No, but when that happens I'msuper thankful.
So I'm just, you know, I justwant to re, you know, reinforce
and and restate how thankful Iam for every single order that
(51:08):
comes through from everybody whoplaces it on their line.
It uh, it doesn't uh, you know,it takes.
It's everyone's money and, andyou know, I'm doing what I can
to uh to make the productsbetter and ship it out as fast
as I can and do it.
So I'm doing everything Ipossibly can to do it.
Um, and and someday, you knowuh, we'll see, maybe it'll,
(51:28):
maybe it'll turn into something.
You know, uh, that everybodygoes hey, you know eight PPA.
Why aren't you using crown?
Why are we using this you knowthat would be.
Karen (51:37):
That would be kind of the icing on the cake.
You know what?
That's super cool.
I'm glad we we met you and I,you know this is so early.
I keep telling John, I'm likewe're so early, we're sorry
Cause you know now that when westarted there wasn't any merch
out there and now there's,everybody's getting in on it and
but I'm like it's still soearly.
This is just.
We're still in its infantinfancy and um, you know, and we
(52:00):
want to do things for topromote the community.
It's not just about our shirts,right, or now.
We now we bought a pickle roll.
Can you believe that we own apickle roll?
You did, oh, we did For this.
Kevin (52:13):
You put it in your back.
Karen (52:14):
No, we're putting it out there for October fest because
we, that was like a three yearplan.
Well, this October fest thingkind of sped that up, because
you can't run an event justplaying in the street and make
it as cool as, like you know, wegot this in our head, so we're
going to.
Yeah, we, we purchased a pickleroll, we'll be installing it
for the first time for Octoberfest, and just fingers.
Kevin (52:36):
Yeah, john was telling.
Or his email about this sorrydinner, his email about your.
Your event sounds amazing, likemaybe.
Karen (52:44):
I'll have to come out there and, and I think, it's
going to be the biggest yeah, Ithink it's going to be, the
biggest pickle ball event that'sever been done, at least it may
be in the state of Texas, ifnot in the surrounding states,
for for pickle ball, that wasn'taround a tournament.
That's, that's what I.
Kevin (53:01):
That's what I, that's what it's you should try to get
some of the local pros that areout to maybe show up and see if
they'll make an appearance.
I bet they will.
John (53:12):
I bet.
We're trying to work in angleright now and we actually we had
a meeting today we're going tohave some pretty big
announcement here soon aboutsome partnership that we're
going to have them putting onthis tournament.
It's, it just went from thisthing's going to be awesome to
this thing's going to be epic.
Karen (53:27):
And we're we're really excited, we're super excited
that Nationals is coming hereand I'll tell you what the
growth of pickle ball in Texas Ithink it's one of it's rated
like one of the top five fastestgrowing states for pickle ball
and so I mean we're just superexcited that this is going to
happen in October and we can, wecan blast out there about
Nationals and bring all newperspective.
(53:49):
You know, bring new spectatorsto the sport, hopefully by
putting on this event, andthey'll be like, wow, I want to.
You know we'll promoteNationals and maybe get you know
, drive some more people tothese things.
John (54:02):
Well, and they're going to drive more participants.
That's what's going to happen.
They're going to do just likewe all do All three of us and go
.
God, that looks fun, I'm in.
Karen (54:08):
Yeah.
Kevin (54:09):
Yeah, well, I'm super thankful you're you're adopting
that for for this, because it'sgoing to be on and we're, we're,
we're, we're, we're going topartner with you guys.
For sure that's going to begreat.
John (54:21):
And yeah.
Kevin (54:22):
I'm that I like I said maybe I'll find some time to
come out, but I'm like threedays.
John (54:28):
It's going to be a scene man.
It's going to be.
It always is.
It's a I don't unbelievablywell attended event, like over a
hundred thousand people overthe weekend, and this one ought
to be the biggest ever.
So we're just, you know, knockon wood, get good weather, like
should be here by then, and it'sgoing to be awesome.
Kevin (54:46):
You guys are, we're, we're outside of Dallas, or yeah
?
John (54:49):
It's a community called Southlake.
It's right by DF.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Kevin (54:53):
Lewisville, that's right, that's right.
John (54:55):
Yep, so we're literally five minutes from DFW airport,
and all the little communitiesright around us are all getting
their little pickleball clubstoo, so this place is just
picking a little crazy.
Kevin (55:06):
It's nuts.
Yeah, that's awesome, that's sogreat.
John (55:11):
Well, man, it's been our great pleasure to take some time
and to get to know you.
Karen (55:15):
I'm going to.
Yeah, live, love, play baby.
That's right, man, see there'smine, yeah, there's mine.
John (55:23):
We're going to put all your information to how people
can find your products, howpeople can connect with you on
the gram, any other socialchannels, and we got the sluggo
Sluggo's our man and you've beena fantastic.
We could depict a better firstguest.
I'll tell you, you're a greatstory.
Thank you, let's keep incontact.
We just became best friends.
(55:44):
Thanks��ти.
Questionnaire accessing.
Oh my God, if you're looking for a man, don't go to a
bar.
Go to a pickleball court onFriday night and you're going to
find an athletic guy.
You've done it a lot, a littlelot.
John (00:13):
It's here, it's going to happen.
Blazing paddles is on the airand we're starting it today.
What a day it is.
This is a big day in pickleballhistory September 13, 2023.
Mlp PPA finally announced theirmerger after two weeks of the
popcorn eating its funnest dramayou can imagine for the sport.
And to kick us off, today we'regoing to talk to Kevin Perkins.
(00:34):
He's the founder of CrownPickleballs and he sent us some.
We played with him, but we gotall kinds of stuff to talk to
him about.
So hang in there, saddle up,You'll be glad you did.
Let's get on to Blazing Paddles.
Kevin Perkins, I can hear stuffnow.
How you doing, buddy Doing,great Thanks.
How are you?
We're doing good man.
(00:55):
This has been an unbelievableday.
September 13, 2023, kind of abig day for pro pickleball today
.
I don't know if you heard.
Kevin (01:05):
Yeah, I know what happened.
John (01:10):
Those two crazy kids are going to give it a shot MLP and
PPA.
They announced their mergertoday, private equity backing,
all kinds of good stuffhappening for them, and I think
it was a great day forpickleball.
I really do, yeah, I mean youkind of could predict it right.
Oh sure, oh sure, you know, Iwas telling Karen how we
(01:31):
originally connected becausewhen this all went down, like I
am want to do, I postedsomething and I am, you know,
mainly because I'm just morefamiliar with it, though I just
I like the bracket play, I likePPA style, and I think you, in a
respectful way, came back andsaid, well, let me offer you the
other side of the coin, and Ithought that was pretty cool and
(01:53):
it was like you know what?
There's a topic, there's atopic, it's a good spot.
And here we are and we'resending you shirts and you're
sending us your pickleballs andwe're finding out that, like.
One of the funniest things was,too, I was listening to the
podcast.
Karen (02:07):
Oh, look at that, he's got a sluggo.
He's got a sluggo representing.
That's greatness.
John (02:13):
That you sponsored the podcast that I was listening to.
You know, I just picked it uplike three weeks ago, but then
it hit me.
I was like, did they just saycrown pickleball?
And then later Jimmy mentionedyou by name and I was like, oh
my God, this is meant to be so.
How long have you been, howlong have you been interactive
with that show, or how long haveyou known those guys?
Kevin (02:33):
So I got connected with them via Tyler when they were
out for the San Clemente MLP andPPA in June, so that's
literally like right down thehill from my house.
So I reached out to him andjust said, yeah.
I just said, hey, you know whatare you guys doing for balls or
whatever, Like your pod, blah,blah, blah.
(02:55):
And then I don't think I heardback from him right away and
then maybe a few days later,maybe even that weekend towards
the end of the weekend, Iprobably, after obviously he was
done playing, he reached outand said yeah, we're definitely
interested and we just sort ofhit it off and kind of been
working together like thatthat's fantastic.
Karen (03:16):
When we get to that point , we're going to have people
just asking to be our sponsorsyeah, yeah.
So you know, you're our firstguest, right, you're telling
this.
Kevin (03:27):
I do.
I saw the transformation.
I heard the transformation topod on.
You went from an old subjectmatter to now this right, yeah.
John (03:39):
Yeah, it was kind of a weird deal.
I've had a blog for about 12years.
I've been human resources, justa riveting topic.
Karen (03:46):
Can you believe a personality like him?
Human resources I get thatquestion.
John (03:50):
I get that question a lot.
But I would write a HR hardballblog and that turned into a pod
and then my wife would guestwith me and those episodes would
always end up being the mostpopular because it was just more
fun.
And then it seemed like everypodcast we would start talking
about pickleball, no matter whatthe subject or the guest was.
We're like what are we doing?
Let's just make this flip.
(04:11):
So we some of our friends arefinally convinced that we're
insane because we've justtotally flipped this one.
Kevin (04:18):
I mean I'm almost embarrassed sometimes how much
I'm talking about it or whatever.
Both my wife, my kids are likeyou're not professional, you
need to calm down, and I'm likeyou don't understand.
Like this is a thing you know.
Be happy, be joyful, playpickleball, anyway, yeah, it's
(04:39):
funny.
So on the MLP, ppa thing, youknow, let's talk about that real
quick.
I'm definitely not surprised B.
It's kind of sad in a way thatthey kind of had to.
You know, I don't know if itwas their negotiation tactic to
do that split in the first placeor whatever to try to force
(05:01):
this issue.
I don't know who knows what,whatever terms, were happening
on behind the scenes.
The upside or the upshot forthis is the players for sure,
are going to benefit More thanlikely.
There's going to be even morewell, there was like $50 million
injected from that privateequity firm, so fans,
technically, are probably goingto benefit somewhere or another.
(05:26):
It may be a little bit too, inmy view, a little bit too early
for something like that.
I don't know what the numbersare per se for PPA or MLP, you
know, in terms of your ship andthings like that, but it
definitely has a lot of room forgrowth.
I personally like the MLPformat because it is a little
bit more engaging and dynamicand exciting.
(05:48):
I do don't get me wrong I likeall pick of all PPA too, but you
know, I just think it's alittle bit more kind of
strategic in that sense.
Whereas, like I'll be honestwith you, like I didn't watch a
championship Sunday this lastweekend at Cincinnati, because
who's going to win?
John's and Emily Waters right,even though Saxxru did win.
Karen (06:16):
Yeah, it can't go on like that forever, though.
But I get you.
I mean, we didn't either.
And I'm going back to yourfirst point about this like, was
this already in the works?
It totally was in the works.
We're talking aboutbillionaires.
They didn't know what they'redoing.
They needed to prove that theycould get some hype and get some
media attention, and you know,private equity jumping in, that
(06:38):
doesn't happen overnight.
So I think, yeah.
But then now going back to yourformats, I mean the MLP style.
We actually are doing that inour paddle club, that when we
run a tournament, we're doingthe MLP style, which is super
fun.
Now, I haven't seen it, though,done professionally.
So that's the other thing.
John (06:56):
Well, I mean, like even Tyler Lune, he plays both
formats and I think that's kindof cool.
That was what was going to be,I think, the real crime of it At
least that's how they wereposing it.
Well then, you're not going tobe able to play both formats,
which is just that.
Would have killed us for it.
I think I really do.
Oh, to a large extent, and I'mjust glad they worked it out,
(07:17):
but it's, you know, it's funnytoo, because we are so into it
and following it.
I don't know how many littlevideos I did on it.
You asked probably nine out of10 people that we know in our
paddle club.
They don't know anything aboutit, they don't care, they just
want to play pickleball, youknow.
Kevin (07:33):
Yeah, and that's where I was kind of going with the whole
idea about like who knows whatthis will do to the numbers.
Because one thing that I youknow, that I'm taking advantage
of in my marketing and mypositioning for my brand and
stuff is to kind of be excitingand creative and fun and do
stuff like that.
And I feel like pickleball isreally kind of bland and the way
(07:56):
it has been marketed in thepast right, you know, with, just
frankly, some of the brands,the reps that are in the brands,
they definitely, you know, havepeople that are repping them
that don't have a lot ofpersonality and stuff.
you know, sometimes and you know, I don't mean that as like you
know, to be a jerk or anything.
It's just that you knowpickleball needs to figure out
(08:18):
where the height zone, the rightheight level, is, because it's
because there's a huge mistakein trying to make it tennis.
Yeah Right, and then you've gotto be quiet when they're playing
and everything you know rightand then on the flip side,
though, like I don't know aboutyou guys, but I'm not a huge fan
either of like the super smacktalky, like you know, fighting
(08:43):
back and forth either.
So there needs to be a littlebit of a, in my view, a little
bit of a balance.
Karen (08:49):
Well, there needs to be some refinement for sure.
I mean, if you watch theinterviews afterwards, you go
gosh.
These people have received zerocoaching and then what did that
?
One guy say he goes, he goes, Ijust threw up.
Kevin (08:58):
I just threw up, I was like that's hilarious.
Karen (09:02):
You know John did a meme.
Yeah, had he created a meme.
It was John Daly and TigerWoods in the same picture, and-.
Guess who pickleball is John.
Daly with pickleball and TigerWoods was Tennis.
Kevin (09:15):
Tennis.
Karen (09:16):
And I mean you know John Daly's, his clothes are
mismatched.
He's got a cigarette in hismouth.
You know beer in his hand.
I mean, that's the difference.
Ah, there you go, you'repickleball.
John (09:27):
Let's go.
Kevin (09:28):
Let's go, I gotta find out.
Karen (09:30):
How did you first hear about pickleball?
How'd you get involved in it?
Because-.
Kevin (09:34):
Oh my gosh, that's a funny story.
So, like like everybody whohears about pickleball for the
first time, I was likepickleball, that, what that's
for old people.
You know A bunch of.
You know randos, you know likeyou said doing like dancing over
the anyway, and 21 rolledaround.
(09:56):
We were, you know, obviouslycoming out of the pandemic and
our kids had all are all gone.
So we're empty nesters.
And my wife was like, you know,you know, what do you think
about if we take a class ofpickleball, would you be
interested, you know, be like adate night, you know?
And I was like all right, inthe interest in the, in the, in
the effort of that, yeah, Sure,that sounds really good.
(10:19):
Sure, you know what?
I got there and I was like gameon bruh.
This is like Right go, humansized ping pong.
I am on this all the way rightand so like by this, the second
class, the second class.
I'm like, come on, hit the ballover the net.
Ding, ding, ding, let's go,yeah.
And just my wife's like like Ijust created another.
(10:43):
You know another thing he canbe a monster on.
Karen (10:46):
Right.
Kevin (10:47):
So, anyway, I, I I attenuated, I brought it down a
little bit and enjoyed that thatsemester class so much and met
tons of fun people and just itreally propelled us into, like
you know, what I feel is whatpickleball is all about, which
is the social aspect of it,because, honestly, there are so
many people and they kind ofwent around the the class saying
(11:09):
why did you do pickleball orwhy are you here, and da, da, da
, da, and I'm almost like 80,85% of the people are like it
sounded fun and I wanted to meetpeople and like you know,
that's, that's just like, it's a, it's almost, it's a 99.9%
surety that that's going tohappen.
If you're looking for somethingto do, you know there's that,
(11:30):
that, that funny video of that,of that girl on the on the
interweb saying, oh my God, ifyou're looking for a man, don't
go to a bar, go to a pickleballcourt on Friday night.
You're going to find anathletic guy who's done it a lot
.
And I'm just like yep.
Karen (11:46):
Yep, yep, yeah, you know what that social aspect that's
that is, and I, and then the funwe've.
We've taught so many people andand we know I mean our club.
We have 1200 members and I'lltell you what it any.
No one I've I've ever seen comeoff of a pickleball court where
the I mean, I don't like it.
I don't like it.
(12:06):
And they all are smiling,everyone laughs, even the, even
you know chicken and pickleshere, right, and I we're, we're
at that competitive level LikeI'm trying to get better and
better and better, right.
And I look over still and I seethe people who are just
learning it and they smiling,they're laughing.
They can't play the game wortha crap, you know the ball is
going everywhere, but they'resmiling and having fun and I
(12:29):
just love it.
The community it creates too.
I mean we have.
I have friends from differentbackgrounds and different
ethnicities and different walksof life that I would never have
had if it wasn't for pickleball.
That's true.
Kevin (12:41):
That's true.
Yeah, and the health, thehealth aspect, like I've, I've
lost maybe, and since I started,maybe like 40 pounds by now.
Karen (12:47):
Oh yeah.
Kevin (12:48):
You know, and and it's just you know my knees are a
little bit trash, but that's awhole nother subject, hey.
Karen (12:55):
I got some advice for you there.
I'll turn it on, okay, no, I do.
Kevin (13:01):
Actually, yes, I started that process of looking into,
like maybe, what thereplacements look like and
anyway, they said you know,before you do any of that, just
go do some prehab and learn.
You know your mechanics of howyou're doing stuff and, honestly
, in like less than a month myknees don't even really hurt
hardly.
It's just, it's just been under,it's been understanding like,
(13:23):
oh, okay, it's all in thepositioning, it's all how I'm
bending, it's all how.
You know, every now, therealization is, every time he's
shot in the net, it's because Ididn't bend my knees enough,
right, right, right.
That loop of like, oh, painequals hurt, Don't bend knees,
you know, makes the game go downa little bit.
So, anyway, it's been reallypositive.
(13:44):
But yeah, but back to thesocial thing.
Really quick, you know, we've,like you said, we've, we've.
You know, as a couple, we'vemet so many people.
And then, you know, ever sinceI started doing crown like, it's
even more so.
I mean, I'm getting people allover the world literally saying,
hey, you know, want to try outyour balls, want to, you know,
(14:06):
become ambassadors or resellersor blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, oh my God, likeI just started this company,
like nine and three months ago,right, so things are definitely,
yeah, it's really accelerated.
You know, we have, we have twoballs really, and you know it's
kind of my, my marketingstrategy to not go into like 20s
(14:27):
views and just really focus onjust the, the one ball that's
always going to work, that'salways going to have the, the
high you know value that you'regoing to get from it super good
visibility, good spin, doesn'tget fuzzy, itis very much Um.
And then also the indoor ball.
So it's not quite the samecolor but it's on that sort of
(14:48):
spectrum.
But this thing is is a lotharder than like the mushy
franklins and stuff.
So I'm telling you like we, wewe do get some feedback of like,
oh, I don't like your balls orwhatever.
That sounds funny, we don'tlike your balls.
But um, hey, man, don't knockmy balls.
Karen (15:09):
Um, no, I love it.
Hey that color is spot on.
Like me, my eyes were trackingit so well the other day, and
that's and when you play inchicken and pickles.
I don't know if you ever playedin one, probably not, because
they're not out West.
Kevin (15:25):
We don't have them out here yet, but I've heard there
we have friends that live inKansas.
Uh, in.
John (15:29):
Missouri in.
Kevin (15:31):
Kansas city area and they said it's, it's like huge.
Karen (15:35):
It's huge, but the something about the lighting and
the colors or something inthere.
It takes your eyes a while toadjust, but when we were playing
with your balls the other day,which sounds like oh man, yeah,
I suggested.
John (15:47):
Hey, let's play with Kevin's balls and we but they
were very easy to track.
This is like that Saturdaynight live skip with sweaty
balls.
Hey, melting your mouth, oh myGod.
Kevin (15:58):
There's no beating them.
John (16:00):
I love that sketch.
Kevin (16:01):
That's hilarious.
We were cause.
That is the biggest downfallsthe visibility.
John (16:08):
You're going to get hurt out there when you get to
certain levels, especiallyinside there we play with a guy
who he's a banger all the waythrough and get a little nervous
out there if you can't see theball.
So that was.
That was a real nice, real nicerealization that the visibility
on yours is really outstanding.
Have a good night.
Kevin (16:25):
Yeah, and I mean it's like you know it's not, it's.
It's, it's a, it's a differentgreen, though it's not really
it's a.
Yeah, I caught one.
Okay, so right, for those arekeeping score at home.
There's definitely those yellowish balls, the Dura balls, some
of the, I think those they'restarting to venture into
greenish neon, I don't know whatthe heck they call it, but the
(16:46):
reality is that the Dura iscrack so fast and you know, this
isn't maybe as hard as the Dura, but I do think there's an
inherent value.
So, again, I'm looking at thisstrategically speaking and this
goes back to the PPA coverageand everything you know.
You're talking about a pyramidthat looks like this, you know,
with just a small sliver ofpeople who care about, you know,
(17:08):
the new, the nuances of whatDura does right, and the rest of
people just want balls thatthey can see, that they can have
fun with, that.
They're going to last a goodwhile and come back for more and
not break the bank.
Yeah, we're priced at such we're.
We're killing everybody on thatfront too, by the way.
So we, just we just.
(17:28):
You know I have approached itfrom in my past on a tech guy, a
product manager, you know,techie person.
So I'm really honed in on likeuser experience, customer
experience and making sure thatthat's really high on my
personal priority list.
I try not to release stuffunless it's get something I
(17:50):
would want, you know, I wouldwant to use myself and I'm by no
means again like a five ohplayer, anything like that.
But I do you know, get outthere a fair amount and I do you
know that's one of the reasonsI got into this business is just
that the balls really sucked.
You know the Franklins getreally mushy and fuzzy and then
they crack that way and the Durais like, seriously, if you're
(18:10):
playing with like one of yourfriends or whatever that just
crank cranking balls, you mightgo through three, one of their
cans and a hole and anyway, butthey have assigned balls.
Karen (18:21):
So on net you have to use Franklins and on TCD you have
to use Dura, and so it's verygood because they hit very
different.
And so and this is my firstseason doing TCD, so this is my
first time actually even playingwith the Dura balls and notice
is that they change shape.
The Dura balls do yes, not yeah, they, wow, I don't understand
(18:43):
that.
And the and the seam is sonoticeable, but they, but they
change shape.
It's crazy.
I had to, I had to bounce it toserve and I would have to stop
and do it again because I'm likeI'm going to you know, so how
do you?
even start like what you were,just like, hey, there's a need
here and I'm I'm a tech guy, soI'm just going to create my own
(19:03):
wall.
Kevin (19:05):
Yeah, I mean just as kind of a thing for a side hustle
just to be able to say you knowI'm doing something with the
community and enjoying, maybepotentially personally
benefiting.
My thought was to you just sortof experiment and see what
would start.
You know what was the rightapproach.
But as as I was noodling thevariety of, actually I was
(19:26):
watching what's the?
What's the podcast with Zaneand Thomas, the dink or
something like that, or picklepot, I don't know.
John (19:36):
Yeah, it might be.
Kevin (19:38):
Yeah, they had.
They had a private equity guyon there that would play a
pickle ball and they weren'ttalking to him and he was just
going off on all the differentavenues of making money and I
just was like how could I dothat?
You know, how could Iessentially, you know, inserted
into this potential stream here?
And you know I had a friend ofmine and we were talking about.
(19:59):
You know, do we do tournaments,do we develop like a facilities
type thing, like you know,dream land or whatever, where
you've got you know warehousethat you, you open up to charge
memberships, do privates, youknow that model, all that stuff
was just really time consumingand, you know, needing to be
(20:20):
gone on the weekends probably.
I just started like that doesn'tseem very appealing and so just
kind of paddles, like alreadythere was like a billion paddles
and I was like, ah, you know.
And so then I started thinkingabout the balls and I'm like you
know, that's that's an area forimprovement, because a just
just out of the gate were.
I think we're already kind ofcompeting pretty hard with the,
(20:42):
the name brands, on this, maybenot as is known yet, but as far
as the quality of the productit's pretty close.
But the future of this stufffor what I want to do with it is
is, I think, going to make thenext step on the whole ball
transition, like bringing techinto the ball, being able to
measure how many, how many topspins did you do?
(21:06):
You know what?
How's it striking at your, onyour paddle?
You know having some technologythat's inherent either in the
balls or the paddles or both,and so kind of noodling some
options there.
But again, part of it is cameto it which we think we can.
The other part of it is whocares, like who's going to use
it and what's the real marketthere for stuff like that.
(21:29):
So you know it's on the road,it's not a priority yet, but
we're, you know we have.
We have our lab, you know, kindof doing that kind of stuff too.
Karen (21:38):
That's cool.
What about noise?
Have you heard?
That's nothing.
Kevin (21:43):
Yeah, so that that's actually.
I don't know how you saw thatone, because I think I want to
say gamma already has asoundless ball.
John (21:54):
Right.
Kevin (21:54):
But it's like, it's just like a soft, it just soft, it
doesn't even totally.
Yeah, it's not, it's notpickleball, yeah.
Karen (22:03):
Honestly, I think that the pickleball sound is the best
on the world.
Like when I hear it, she'sexcited I get excited.
I'm like I hear pickleball.
It puts me to sleep.
Kevin (22:19):
Oh, it's a laundry folded .
I was watching pickleball and Ifell asleep.
Yeah, you know, the whole soundthing is just really kind of a
weird argument.
I mean if you think about it?
Like people complain, ohthere's pickleball happening in
the courts, you know, by thepark or whatever.
The same people that, like, buyhouses near schools go.
(22:40):
You should shut that schooldown because you know it makes
too much noise.
Like dude, you know you boughta house next to a park, so that
that's.
There's a little bit of like youknow, need to be some
responsibility, some selfactualization there, to what's
the difference if, like you hearpickleball in the background or
like, let's say, you knowthere's like a.
(23:01):
Oh yeah, football, like afootball game on in the grass.
You got a bunch of guyshollering and shouting and you
know, going back and forth andyou know, like what's what?
Isn't that louder than thepickleball sound like?
So I just kind of feel likepeople need to like play it and
just get over there ourselvesand get a box fan.
John (23:23):
You know, just put a fan in your room or put an app on
your phone.
Karen (23:28):
that was a white noise.
I'm with you all the way.
I think it's ridiculous whatyou're going to complain because
people are what?
Outside exercising, having fun,getting a box fan, having fun,
getting sun, doing all thethings that we should getting
healthier, making friends, beingsocial.
Come on, it's ridiculous.
Kevin (23:44):
Well and so, and so we're talking about a type of person,
right?
So let's say I get let's say Icracked the code on building you
know this type of ball and it'ssoundless, right.
And people are like, okay,we're going to buy that ball at
a premium because we want to begood neighbors and that it out,
and so then they start playing,but of course there's going to
be some noise and like that sameperson, and like that same
(24:04):
person comes out and goes andthey're like but we bought the,
you bought the special ball.
And they're like I don't care,you know it's right.
John (24:13):
I can hear your.
Your shoes are squeaking toomuch.
I can hear him, and that'swhat's bothering me now.
So we have to get shoes orsoundless shoes.
Now it's just crazy.
Kevin (24:22):
Yeah, exactly so it's not I, yeah, I kind of reject the
premise, regardless if I wasselling balls or not I.
I would just say those peopleget lives and maybe you know,
they might change their tune.
John (24:37):
Now, are you, are you purely a virtual store right now
?
Do you have a brick and mortar?
Kevin (24:42):
No brick and mortar, all virtual.
So because of my techbackground I was pretty quickly
able to prop up a Shopify site.
Get it, get it humming.
We're actually now almost tothe point where we're going to
probably either start fulfillingwith Amazon or shop I and you
know, or or just keep you knowor just keep inventory on hand.
(25:04):
I'm not really sure yet wherethat's all going, but yeah, no,
it's, it's all direct.
We have we actually.
The next, the next round ofinventory is going to have a
mesh bag with a hang tag andthree balls in it.
So we have some pro clubs andpro things you know available
(25:26):
for point of sale and stuff likethat.
But it's not going to be ourprimary target.
We're.
I feel like we're going to beso much more successful watching
all these episodes of shark.
Take.
You say just go direct, just godirect.
I feel like that's thedirection that we're going to go
for a while.
John (25:43):
Yeah, I think you're smart .
To you said you're basicallylimiting your, your skews, to
two items and you focus on it.
I think you know we're.
I think we can relate to a lotof what you're saying, because
we're going to pickleentrepreneurs to pick it up in
the pandemic, got hooked on it,looked around us and boy, the
current merches crap.
It's all cheesy.
I mean, how many, how many punscan we make about?
(26:05):
I've got a dinking problem, youknow it's like.
Kevin (26:09):
I don't like, yeah, I mean that somebody is so funny,
okay, so.
So I've been getting obviously,and parted with a we sponsor
tournament though.
So we Typically do that, whichis fine because I, you know,
whatever.
That's a secondary topic, butthe point is is that this this
late, this one had like this hey, you can get on our flyer, and
(26:30):
it was like the running pickleguy with the paddle, you know.
And I'm yeah, and just as afavor to the guy I read it is
flyer for him.
Just because I'm like you can't, you can't be, put that crap
out.
That's kind of what I wassaying, like at the onset of our
podcast was that there's somuch like retro pickleball stuff
(26:54):
.
It's not the direction thissport needs to go.
It needs to be far moreexciting and far more like
modern and not so obvious withthe sexual puns and that right.
You know it's funny to talkabout it or when you're on court
or whatever.
But like there's so many peoplethat these these virtual stores
with shirts like you said,that's as big responsibly are, I
(27:17):
don't know it's just dry.
John (27:19):
It's like it's the same thing over and over.
So we just decided it was samething.
I wouldn't if I wouldn't wearit.
Kevin (27:25):
We don't make it, it's something that I love my, my
milk shirt and I love pickleball.
John (27:32):
I love it, great, call out , yeah, that's.
It's so funny because that'sone where we're like, yeah,
should we put that out?
That's a little edgy.
And we finally did, and, sureenough, that would be the one
that's just blows, blows up andwe're gonna, which is actually
another reorder today, but it'sactually great it's a great
shirt yeah thank you.
Kevin (27:51):
Good, the materials really nice yeah, it is.
Karen (27:55):
it's soft and form fitting, I see, yeah, so the
funny thing is that it's nowbecome a kind of a woman
favorite yeah, they're wearingit the women are buying it now
because they want to wear.
They think it's hilarious welland that, and I mean if he, I'll
just connotation.
I get like 50 double takes whenI wear like people like what.
What is this?
(28:16):
Because you know their firstthought is milk, right.
And then they and they do thedouble take.
What is that?
John (28:23):
one confident woman.
Yeah.
So you you've only been doingyour stores been open.
You say like three months.
Is that it really yeah?
Kevin (28:35):
Let's see.
I see I kind of was starting tonoodle the idea about all
specifically April and then Ilaunched, right before the, the
tournaments here in town.
So that was like the beginningof June, ish, give or take.
John (28:51):
That's fantastic.
It's been kind of a rocket ridethen, in a sense.
I mean, you're, somehow youconnected with the touring pro
and a podcast about my favoriteone, by the way, king of the
court and you became a sponsorof that.
You're, you know, you'reactually, you're kind enough to
send us a sample, and I guessyou're do.
You're being asked a lot ofthat.
(29:11):
But if people want to buy yourball, and you know where do they
go, they go to crown pickleballs store dot store.
Kevin (29:19):
Yeah, right, yes, yeah, if you just if you instagram
just type in crown pickle ball,or if you're our facebook,
because that'll put up the shopwithin the the facebook and
instagram, or you can go tocrown pickle ball, that store,
and there's links all over theplace.
We have, I think, over 30affiliates now and ambassadors,
(29:44):
so that's also growing.
That's what that's.
One of the things that,strategically, I wanted to do
too, is to really Be a part ofthe community, to not just, you
know, sell to it.
It's important that everybodyfeels like it's their ball and
their brand, and I think we'restarting to get pretty
successful on that score.
John (30:05):
I think you posted something the other day where
you just come back from thelocal court said everybody there
was playing with your ball.
What a great feeling that hadto be.
Kevin (30:13):
My gosh, that was like you know, I don't know there's.
You know, anecdotally, likewhen you, when someone says, oh,
that time, that you feel likeyou know you made it or whatever
, you know if it's an actor orsomething, that was kind of that
moment.
For me it was just like wow,like I guess all that works
already paid off, you know, andliterally we were in a garden
(30:35):
with the eight court, everybodywas playing with one, so that's
pretty cool.
Karen (30:42):
So tell us about this.
Yeah, F cancer Pink ball.
That's super cool yeah.
Kevin (30:49):
Yeah, so so you know I'm everybody's seen the pink balls
and stuff before.
Cancer is affects everybody,whether it's them themselves or
family members or friends.
My mom passed away from it in2001 and yeah, but she was a
trooper.
She fought it for like almost19 years or something before.
(31:12):
So she, she was definitely afighter on that score.
But, like you know, we'regetting so close to like cures
in for like breast cancer andthings like that.
Just People that I know who getit.
You know they just have adifferent outlook now.
Before it used to be kind of asense, and now it's like you
(31:34):
know, people can live theirlives and and have some more.
You know More to offer, and soI just want to tap into that
right.
So one of the things is just tobe able to put out the, the pink
ball and Hard to a little bitmore for it, whether you play
with it or if you keep it onyour shelf or even if you don't.
You know, play pickleball andyou just want to support what,
(31:55):
what we're doing.
That money's gonna go towardscancer cure or admissions and I
Don't know, I mean may not justdo it for October, you know, I
might just doing it all year?
I'm not sure yet, so we'll see.
I've gotten tons of tons ofinterest and we're sponsoring
the pink pickleball Tournamentin Rancho Mirage in November, so
(32:17):
that that'll also.
Yeah, so that's also gonnagenerate some revenue.
For I forget who they'respecifically doing it for, once
a maybe Coleman or one of thoseeight Organizations, but yeah,
so so for me it was just youknow, I try to do everything on
my branding a little bit edgyand stuff, and so the F?
F Astros cancer, you knowthat's, that's the, the, the
(32:40):
brand we're going with for that.
Well, that's.
John (32:43):
You know what else you're doing.
You're doing October fest withwe've got this huge, huge ass
event that we're tasked withcoordinating.
We're gonna we're gonna put thecrown emblem up on our banner
and we're gonna use your ballsin the matches at call out.
Give you some love there aswell, because I think it's
really one really cool thing isthere are a lot of startups.
(33:04):
You know there's so manystartups in this industry
because, as old as it is, it'snew.
It's a new old thing.
Three years ago had no ideawhat this sport was, kind of
like you.
I walked.
I walked by somebody, or in ourlocal gym, and these older
folks were sitting, but theywere very talented.
They look like they were fivefeet apart just firing at each
(33:25):
other and I just grabbed someguy.
What is that man?
He goes well, that's pickleball.
And I said pickleball, allright.
So I order a net off Amazon and, like I'm, I do, I sat in the
garage.
Karen (33:38):
I was like, oh great, another sport that you're gonna
start with me and quit.
Who's the bigger?
Bigger pickle addict me or you?
John (33:52):
John, oh, you by far I am such a pickle.
Karen (33:55):
I mean I am so thankful he bought that stinking thing.
When go ahead?
John (34:00):
Oh yeah, so then pandemic, and, like everybody else, were
bored to tears.
It's like, hey, why don't wetake that thing out and go to
the parking lot?
Because they had, of course,locked up the tennis courts
because they were dangerous, youknow.
So we set up on a parking lotwith our net and for about 10
minutes like yeah, we're in,this is this, is it.
And then we started playing sixand seven hours a day with
friends and bringing out youknow, you have music, you got a
(34:23):
cooler, you've got the kidsrunning around with on their
scooters and we just would playand play, and play and play and
we didn't know how to do it andwe're always getting hurt and
we're always, you know, justplaying all wrong, but it was
the funnest thing ever.
Karen (34:37):
That's why sluggo has this scuff on his on his face,
because you know, you, you.
He's got determination in hiseyes Because that's what you're
like, right, when you startplaying this game I got to learn
this game and then you get hurtalong the way, but you're
smiling the whole time.
No pain, playing through thepain, yeah, I.
Kevin (34:56):
Know, I know that's that's a sad but common, common
commentary that I've heard about.
You know, setting sports stuffdown during the pandemic.
I just Especially stuff that'soutside.
You know, like I was, I wasDoing a fair amount of swimming
so my background is likeswimming, water polo.
(35:18):
You know, I live by the beachso everything's surfing and
water sports stuff like that.
But yeah, during the pandemicthey actually shut the pool down
because I don't know why andit's like, if you think about it
, it's outdoors, it's gotchlorine in the pool kills germs
, yeah, I mean yeah.
(35:40):
So I just, I don't know, I justwhatever, but I'm a lot of
people got there kind of kickoffwith pickleball during the
pandemic for those very reasons.
It's just to get outside and dostuff.
So it's really a common story.
What do you guys feel like hasbeen like one of your more
memorable moments at this pointwith your, your career, I guess
(36:02):
your careers right, as coaches,as Ambassadors, so far?
Karen (36:08):
I think, um, for me, one of the most exciting moments is
just this, this, the developmentof this club that I'm on the
board for, and it's it's calledthe South Lake paddle club.
We, we, we have to closemembership because we can't
handle how many people we'vegone, grown so fast in one year
1200 people, 1200 people.
And so that's like that's, it'smy baby.
(36:31):
But it's also just so coolbecause it's because, to me,
pickleball creates community andthat's just an example of it.
Right there now, do all 1200play?
No, they don't, they just wantto be a part of it.
You know, and I don't care ifyou go out once a week or once a
month or you know whatever.
You know we have our hardcorepicklers, but also we've also
done some cool things, like DaveWeinbach, who's who's on the
(36:53):
senior in the senior tour, likeWanted a ton of gold medals and
things like that.
He's coming down in clinic forour club, like I think the
accessibility and I'm gonna missit because I know that that's
gonna go away.
You know, six, the last is hethe badger?
Kevin (37:08):
Yes, he's the badger.
Yeah, that guy's, that guy'scool I like him?
John (37:13):
Yeah, he's he's funny, he's a character man, he is a
running college, I mean whenhe's doing a clinic.
Karen (37:19):
So we did a clinic and then we did a program that
evening and In the program.
So they played it the stylewhere if you made a mistake,
you're the guy who has to comeoff the court right, and then
the other guy who's off thecourt comes in but, he pointed
out in during the play.
You know what people are doingWrong and you know and engage
the crowd.
That was just a cool thing.
(37:39):
And then we've done cool thingslike the mayor has come out and
played pickleball.
We had pickleball with themayor night and and just now
seeing this.
Now we're like John said, we'redoing a three-day event, 27
hours of pickleball during ourcity's October Fest.
Because you know why.
They were looking for newentertainment, new ways to draw
people there and new ways tokeep people.
What else is more it can dothat better than pickleball?
(38:02):
Nothing, I mean.
It's the best thing, right?
Kevin (38:05):
You're 1200 show off.
You're gonna make that cityreally happy.
John (38:10):
No kidding, everybody buy one beer and you just paid the
salaries for that for the entirechain that seriously.
Karen (38:16):
So what about for you, john?
John (38:18):
I tell you what I don't know.
Kevin, do you play in?
Kevin (38:20):
tournaments.
So I played a couple and I wantto talk a little bit about that
, but I want to hear your takefirst.
John (38:29):
Okay, well, karen and I were married and we played
together, which is not as commonas one might think, and you
probably know this.
That's very hard to play with aspouse.
Karen (38:40):
Most couples are pickle divorced.
They literally will play withtheir best friends, whatever.
It's a rare thing, so go ahead.
John (38:47):
Yeah, we were given it everything we got.
We were fighting and we werenot really on the same page as
we're learning.
Oh my God, the stress, thestress, the stress.
It was miserable and we finallygot to a tournament where we
got a bronze medal.
We actually meddled togetherfor our first time and then, two
(39:09):
tournaments later, we got asilver and we decided you know
what?
We can make this work, we cando this.
It's still it's not alwayssmooth sailing, but we're.
I think that that's my.
The thing for me is, if we hadlost the fact that this was
something that was ours, that wedid together, it wouldn't mean
as much to me.
So we found something kind oflike.
You know, your wife said we'reempty nesters now too, and it's
(39:30):
like we need something that wedo together and I don't want to
take another ballroom danceclass.
So this is good, this is muchbetter.
Kevin (39:38):
Yeah, we tried that, yeah , yeah, no, that's great, that's
, that's really great.
And you know what?
You guys, it was really superrare.
I mean honestly, like I belongto lifetime down here where they
have the PPA and MLPs and theyhave this, this class in the
middle of the day called Aurora.
It's the older group of peoplethat play pickleball, so it's,
(39:59):
but it's more of a kind of aclub than it is pickleball thing
.
But anyway, there's a couple,there's a couple of couples that
play together and they yell ateach other and it's not.
Karen (40:13):
Oh yeah.
Kevin (40:14):
It's not represent like what I endeavor to have every
time I play right.
Like the last thing I want todo when I play with my wife is
to get in a fight with her andgo and fight.
Like that's not ever somethingI want to do.
Karen (40:28):
You know what I mean.
Kevin (40:29):
Yeah, yeah.
And so when we do, when we playtogether, I like I want to make
sure that that's the first andforemost thing is to have fun.
But again like, the fact thatyou guys can compete and do well
too, that's says a lot aboutyour communication ability and
to respect one another.
And, and you know, sports isn'talways like hey, great job.
(40:51):
You know, slap, slap on theback it's.
You know, sometimes when youget the ball, it's a problem.
John (41:00):
You know, I said, let's have fun Okay.
Karen (41:02):
So he was like, let's just, he said this before we
went on play he was like kind ofdoing a little prayer thing
Like let's, let's get on thesame page and let's you know,
let's let's have fun and we goout there, we lose our butts and
I'm like, was that fun?
No more fun.
I go, no more fun, no more fun.
So we do not go out there forfun, nope it.
(41:25):
It winning is fun, overcomingyour, learning a new skill and
pickleball.
And for me, because I don't havethe tennis background, like I'm
having to learn everything, I'mcreating that muscle memory,
which is a good, it's a good anda bad thing.
So my learning curve is goingto be longer because I don't
have that tennis background.
But I'm learning pickleball theright way.
(41:46):
So I'm playing with ladies whohave a long time, you know,
tennis players, and they'restruggling to unlearn some
things from tennis that will notlet them get to the next level
in pickleball, and so I.
So I'm grateful that I don'thave that tennis background, but
it's frustrating with thelonger learning curve, cause in
the beginning, like I saw peoplesurpass me quickly and I did
(42:08):
not like that.
Like I'm just highlycompetitive, right, but the you
know, and the good thing withJohn and I too, because he
doesn't have the tennisbackground, we do move really
well together and that was likea big thing that.
That that was probably one ofthe longest learning curves and
fight bigger fights.
That we had was where you'resupposed to be.
(42:29):
You know so yeah but I'm happyyou guys playing together.
Kevin (42:33):
Do you guys stack or do you guys just play it straight
up and switch sides, or yougotta tell them the story honey.
John (42:40):
Okay, well, so I'm a natural lefty and about a year
and about a year and two monthsago, I tore my left bicep while
playing pickleball, of course.
So I had two choices, of course.
I could either learn to playright handed or I could sit
around and wait for it to heal.
Karen (42:55):
So I decided wait for your wife to go home.
John (42:57):
Yeah, yeah, and that would get.
Yeah, not like she was going toshut it down.
So I learned how to play righthanded and actually got pretty,
pretty good at it and tore myright bicep.
So that was like a month ago.
Yeah, just like a month ago.
And it healed remarkably quickly.
But I so I can play with eitherhand now.
But we haven't taken advantageof the stack because, honestly,
(43:19):
I'm more consistent, I make lessunforced errors.
With my right, with my left, Itend to try to bang up, bang
away and you know, that's,that's when Wind shots.
Kevin (43:28):
Yeah, right, right.
Karen (43:29):
I always have the hero shots, so Winner shot Right and
it's out, and it's in the net.
Kevin (43:36):
So that was kind of the thing.
Yeah, so it's interesting thatyou mentioned that, because
lately I've been doing someprivates with the.
There's a.
There are the pro at.
One of the pros at our club isWalter Lau.
He's like a five-oh he.
He kind of goes in and out ofthe qualifiers with with the PPA
.
So anyway, super good.
John (43:56):
I follow one Instagram I do.
Kevin (43:58):
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, super nice guy and it's really
helping me to undo some reallybad habits that I, you know,
made over the last two years,because I've only been playing
for two years, and part of it'sjust because, like you're saying
, karen, like I don't, I don't,I don't have a tennis background
, but I do have like a ping pongbackground.
(44:20):
So, like I get the kitchen and Iget spinning and I get, you
know, voling and stuff like that, so, so from that lens, like my
whole process was like oh, Ineed to figure out how to, you
know, rip forehands from thebaseline and stuff and, you know
, get my tennis game going, andall I, all I do is make errors
(44:40):
when I do that.
Right, instead of focusing ondrops, focusing on the, the high
percentage, even if it's not awinner, cause it does feel great
.
I'm not going to lie.
That's one of the best feelingsis when you, you know, do a
shaped top, spin, roll rightdown the line or right down the
middle, and they're just likewhoa, what was that?
You know, that is like one ofthe best feelings.
(45:02):
However, however, it doesn'thappen more than, let's say,
five or 10% of the time, rightRight.
And so it's some from from from,like you know, just like
watching the pros, you know,it's a lot of times I'm like why
don't they just rip the balljust now, like they were, the
ball is high, it was in thegreen zone, they kind of just,
and instead they just knocked itover.
They're playing 40 chess,they're four moons out because
(45:25):
then the next one's going to beeven better.
And so, like I've had to likekind of understand that strategy
of the game.
Now that I feel like I've got adecent, you know, skill level,
now I'm kind of, you know,hoping to.
You know, I'm trying not to getinto this 4050 business because
, honestly, sometimes I watch,like YouTube and they're like
(45:46):
watch the 4050 match from theblah, blah, blah, and you're
just like that's not 50.
Like these people have a realweird sense about, or their
competitive levels like reallylow or something, and I'm just
like, oh man, so I'm not, youknow, a big fan of like you got
to compete all the time just soyou can run up your score and
(46:07):
say, hey, I'm an X number right,because I think it's more a
function of, like you know, likeyou know, like you know, 10,000
hours.
You know that 10,000 hoursgives you the level of expertise
that you would want, right?
I forget the name of the book.
I think it's called 10,000hours or something, but anyways.
So actually, one of the appideas that I'm working on, I'm
(46:30):
kind of talks more to that like,because you know, realistically
somebody could say, oh, I'vebeen playing for eight years,
but if you play like once a weekor once every other week,
versus like me who plays all thetime and it's like, okay, but I
have more time under my belt,so you know.
So where does that put me?
Just because I didn't do atournament, and that's.
(46:52):
That's the other kind of likegripe I have with the whole PPA
and all P thing too, is they'reso hyped up on duper that you're
dealing with this much of themarketplace.
Most of the people don't give a.
You know what about that, so,but they're looking for good
pairings, they're looking forgood relative matches, and so I
(47:12):
think there's there's got to bea better way to do that.
So we're actually working on anapp that might address that.
We'll see if we can get itright or not.
Karen (47:20):
Well, I hope so, because we tried duper as a club and it
bombed.
I mean, of course they didn'ttell us that you shouldn't do it
for just rec play until itbombed.
And then we had a conversationwith some, we met, a duper rep
and they were like oh yeah, youguys shouldn't have written it.
Well, thanks a lot.
Now my, I'm like a stinking.
I don't even want to look atwhat I'm rated, because I hate
(47:41):
it, because it's wrong and andit made me it made so many
people fight out there on thecourts because you were fighting
for your duper score and that'snot what pickleball is about?
John (47:51):
Are they?
They get mad because.
Oh yeah, sure, cause I got thewrong partner this time and
you're you're checking, you'retargeted them the whole time.
My score yeah, yeah that's notfun.
Karen (48:01):
Karen's just mad because my dad's tired than hers, yeah.
I am mad about that Cause, andyou're right though, kevin let
me tell you this, and it's notreflective, it's not, and but
that's fine, whatever, yeah, Imean, is it?
Kevin (48:12):
like Colin Jones?
How like the highest partnerscore and he's not better than
his brother Ben?
Like that doesn't.
That doesn't make sense.
Karen (48:21):
Right, so I don't know the.
To your point.
Um on the, um the playing, oh,the, since I've increased my um,
how many hours I've beenplaying now um, I it's taken me
to a different level that Icouldn't have got there.
It would have taken a lotlonger.
John (48:39):
Yeah, she'll get to 10,000 hours by probably next Thursday
, I think she's.
She's been really piling it on.
Karen (48:45):
It's so great, I love it, though, like it's so cool when
you, when you get something elseand yours funny is that, like I
just started in these ladiestournaments and or leagues and,
um, I don't think they know whatto make of me.
Like I'm kind of odd, I do oddthings and I can pull stuff out
that I don't even know what I'mpulling out, and the ladies are
(49:06):
like you, just we just started.
Yeah, they call.
I've called the wall, I'mcalled um.
Tasmanian devil, but my favoritenew one is little monster
because if a ball is flying.
I am flying in that air and I'mgoing to hit it with my entire
body to push that thing, CauseI'm little, I have to use
(49:28):
everything I have to get thepower.
You know, it's fun thoughthat's great, that's really cool
yeah.
John (49:36):
Yeah, so what's next for you, kevin?
We're still on the immediatehorizon with you.
Kevin (49:42):
So really, just to keep, you know, uh, growing at a kind
of, uh, measured pace.
Uh, again, this is just meantto be a fun thing, and the fact
that it's been going at its rate, that it's going, I mean I feel
blessed.
Right, I'm not sitting here,you know going.
Wow, you know I'm, I'm going todump $100,000 into this now and
see where it takes me, like I'mgoing to just keep
(50:03):
incrementally growing and keepincrementally getting there.
Um, that you know.
Again, I I come from tech.
I grew up with the internet inthe late nineties, so I
understand, you know these ideasof bubbles and and
accelerations and and so forth,and actually drops to experience
a few of those myself.
Um, we're definitely in a, in abubble period for pickleball
(50:25):
right now.
So, um, my thought process isto just let the bubble carry me
as far as it can take me with aslittle uh effort as possible,
and then, just from there,ascertain you know what am I
doing?
You know I'm always doing thatevaluation every time, every
time, you know, a big slag oforders comes through.
(50:47):
I'm just like man, I can't evenbelieve this.
Like, this is great, this iscrazy.
And so, you know, do I expectthat every day or every week?
No, but when that happens I'msuper thankful.
So I'm just, you know, I justwant to re, you know, reinforce
and and restate how thankful Iam for every single order that
(51:08):
comes through from everybody whoplaces it on their line.
It uh, it doesn't uh, you know,it takes.
It's everyone's money and, andyou know, I'm doing what I can
to uh to make the productsbetter and ship it out as fast
as I can and do it.
So I'm doing everything Ipossibly can to do it.
Um, and and someday, you knowuh, we'll see, maybe it'll,
(51:28):
maybe it'll turn into something.
You know, uh, that everybodygoes hey, you know eight PPA.
Why aren't you using crown?
Why are we using this you knowthat would be.
Karen (51:37):
That would be kind of the icing on the cake.
You know what?
That's super cool.
I'm glad we we met you and I,you know this is so early.
I keep telling John, I'm likewe're so early, we're sorry
Cause you know now that when westarted there wasn't any merch
out there and now there's,everybody's getting in on it and
but I'm like it's still soearly.
This is just.
We're still in its infantinfancy and um, you know, and we
(52:00):
want to do things for topromote the community.
It's not just about our shirts,right, or now.
We now we bought a pickle roll.
Can you believe that we own apickle roll?
You did, oh, we did For this.
Kevin (52:13):
You put it in your back.
Karen (52:14):
No, we're putting it out there for October fest because
we, that was like a three yearplan.
Well, this October fest thingkind of sped that up, because
you can't run an event justplaying in the street and make
it as cool as, like you know, wegot this in our head, so we're
going to.
Yeah, we, we purchased a pickleroll, we'll be installing it
for the first time for Octoberfest, and just fingers.
Kevin (52:36):
Yeah, john was telling.
Or his email about this sorrydinner, his email about your.
Your event sounds amazing, likemaybe.
Karen (52:44):
I'll have to come out there and, and I think, it's
going to be the biggest yeah, Ithink it's going to be, the
biggest pickle ball event that'sever been done, at least it may
be in the state of Texas, ifnot in the surrounding states,
for for pickle ball, that wasn'taround a tournament.
That's, that's what I.
Kevin (53:01):
That's what I, that's what it's you should try to get
some of the local pros that areout to maybe show up and see if
they'll make an appearance.
I bet they will.
John (53:12):
I bet.
We're trying to work in angleright now and we actually we had
a meeting today we're going tohave some pretty big
announcement here soon aboutsome partnership that we're
going to have them putting onthis tournament.
It's, it just went from thisthing's going to be awesome to
this thing's going to be epic.
Karen (53:27):
And we're we're really excited, we're super excited
that Nationals is coming hereand I'll tell you what the
growth of pickle ball in Texas Ithink it's one of it's rated
like one of the top five fastestgrowing states for pickle ball
and so I mean we're just superexcited that this is going to
happen in October and we can, wecan blast out there about
Nationals and bring all newperspective.
(53:49):
You know, bring new spectatorsto the sport, hopefully by
putting on this event, andthey'll be like, wow, I want to.
You know we'll promoteNationals and maybe get you know
, drive some more people tothese things.
John (54:02):
Well, and they're going to drive more participants.
That's what's going to happen.
They're going to do just likewe all do All three of us and go
.
God, that looks fun, I'm in.
Karen (54:08):
Yeah.
Kevin (54:09):
Yeah, well, I'm super thankful you're you're adopting
that for for this, because it'sgoing to be on and we're, we're,
we're, we're, we're going topartner with you guys.
For sure that's going to begreat.
John (54:21):
And yeah.
Kevin (54:22):
I'm that I like I said maybe I'll find some time to
come out, but I'm like threedays.
John (54:28):
It's going to be a scene man.
It's going to be.
It always is.
It's a I don't unbelievablywell attended event, like over a
hundred thousand people overthe weekend, and this one ought
to be the biggest ever.
So we're just, you know, knockon wood, get good weather, like
should be here by then, and it'sgoing to be awesome.
Kevin (54:46):
You guys are, we're, we're outside of Dallas, or yeah
?
John (54:49):
It's a community called Southlake.
It's right by DF.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Kevin (54:53):
Lewisville, that's right, that's right.
John (54:55):
Yep, so we're literally five minutes from DFW airport,
and all the little communitiesright around us are all getting
their little pickleball clubstoo, so this place is just
picking a little crazy.
Kevin (55:06):
It's nuts.
Yeah, that's awesome, that's sogreat.
John (55:11):
Well, man, it's been our great pleasure to take some time
and to get to know you.
Karen (55:15):
I'm going to.
Yeah, live, love, play baby.
That's right, man, see there'smine, yeah, there's mine.
John (55:23):
We're going to put all your information to how people
can find your products, howpeople can connect with you on
the gram, any other socialchannels, and we got the sluggo
Sluggo's our man and you've beena fantastic.
We could depict a better firstguest.
I'll tell you, you're a greatstory.
Thank you, let's keep incontact.
We just became best friends.
(55:44):
Thanks��ти.
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