EITM: Richard Lee 4/10/24

The CEO of table tennis and pickleball manufacturer JOOLA is moving in down the street.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How's it going, Richard? Howare you dude? I'm doing great?
How are you? I'm doing excellent? Thank you. Welcome to the neighborhood.
We're right up the street from you. Really, Yeah, when do
you? When do you guys moveinto? When do you? I'm assuming
you weren't listening, but somebody toldyou to call? Yeah, yeah,

(00:23):
no, no, that's fine.Are you familiar with the show at all?
I am. I've been. Uh. I grew up here in a
po stomach and uh, I've heardthe show many years ago, but I
haven't been listening to radio for along time. Oh, well you should.
It's still free anyway. The yeah, you're the no. No.
So we were talking and I apologize. I had never I wasn't familiar with

(00:44):
Yola. But I was reading yesterdaythat you guys were moving into your new
global headquarters literally right down the streetfrom us, so you'll be a pike
in rows. But I had Ihad no idea. First of all,
I didn't know of Yola, SoI apologize for that. But you guys
own the world of pickleball and tabletennis. Yeah, pickleball is growing like

(01:06):
crazy in the US. Table hunis a huge in the in the world.
So we definitely had recognition outside ofthe US. But you know here
you'll growing really fast because of pickleball, so everyone's getting to know the
brand. Now, how did youYou said you're from Potomac. How'd you
start the company? I played tabletennis growing up. I played on the

(01:26):
US junior national team, and aftercollege I just kept on wanting to do
more in the sports. So thatled to what Yola is today. Wait
a minute, so you played likeyou played at a really high level.
Yeah, I played. I didn'tmake the Olympic team. I tried,
but I played as a junior.And there's an amazing table tennis center up

(01:51):
in Gamesburg called Maryland Table and Centerhas produced several Olympians for USA before.
So that's that's where I grew upplaying table tennis. Are you familiar with
a friend of ours, Judah Friedlander. I am, yeah, yeah,
No, I was going to say, I always growing up growing up,
Richard, You're I'm going to tellyou some of you you will care absolutely
nothing about. But when I whenI was growing up, if there was

(02:15):
a family that had a ping pongsorry, table tennis machine, that's not
a machine. It's a table thatto me was the wealthiest people in the
world, you know what I mean, Like I looked at them like they
were the Rockefellers. All I've everwanted was a table tennis thing. And
I'm not asking you to give meone. I would take one, obviously,
but the but I was so excitedto see that it's down the street.

(02:36):
I had no idea, I hadno clue. I was so excited
to learn this. Yeah, we'reexcited to move to Piking Roads. We're
up in your king Farm right now, but we're outgrowing our offices there,
and you're going to have a retailstore at Pike and Rows. Correct.
Yeah, it's going to be ourfirst retail store ever. That's awesome.

(03:00):
And then the other thing I wassaying, you don't have to answer now,
whether it's no or yes, youcan think about it. We should
give away a bunch of ping pongtables. Absolutely, I have some fun
with it. Now we're talking.Now we're talking, I like, Richard,
I'll be extra one from my house. The All right, so Richard,
let's do this. Let's do this. I'm gonna place you on a
on a brief hold. A CEOshould never have to wait long. This

(03:23):
is a CEO. We should know. I'm gonna place you on a brief
hold Kristen, our CEO. She'llpick up and uh yeah, let's definitely
hook up and figure something out.All right, all right, all right,
very good, and please start listeningagain. For God's sakes, I'm
giving away your tables. Absolutely,absolutely