Scott Brown from Paddle Smash

Sam (00:01): Scott, welcome to Beyond the Inbox. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Scott (00:06): Thanks for having me, Sam. Good to be here.

Sam (00:08): Can you tell us about your background and how you got started in the sporting goods industry?

Scott (00:14): Yeah, I feel like I'm barely in the sporting goods industry at this point. I don't think I've earned the right to call myself in it, but trying to get in it. The quick and dirty history is that I was working at a venture capital firm in 2008. I was hired as an entrepreneur in residence, so they were experimenting with this new model of hiring young, we'll call it scrappy, entrepreneurial minded people, but none of us had our own business idea at that point, or at least anything we had started. And they gave us office space and gave us mentors and offered to fund ideas that they liked. And so it was sort of Shark Tank style. I think in the uk it's den, it's that style where you would pitch your ideas to them and they would decide whether or not to fund your idea.

(01:04): And we pitched an idea around brain health and they liked it enough to give us at least some initial funding. So our concept was we've got this aging population concerned about their brain health, what resources are there out there for them to use to improve their brains? And so we decided to aggregate all the cool products we'd found and put 'em together in one shop, which we did in downtown Chicago. And that went well enough that we were able to secure more funding. And over the course of the next 10 years, we grew that business from one brick and mortar shop to 40 brick and mortar stores across the US and an online store. And ultimately that business ultimately evolved to become a toy and game focused retail store. The brain health angle was still always a part of it, but what we found was that for people to want to exercise their brain, they had to find that it was fun, something that they would do over and over again.

(02:03): And we found that toys and games were the best medium for that. And so ultimately people knew us as a toy and game store that was good for your brain. And so we sold that business to a big toy and game retailer called Spin Master. And I ended up joining Spin Master, worked there for three years, and then decided for some weird reason, had the itch again to go out on my own and be an entrepreneur and decided to start looking for what my next thing was. And that's where I happened upon Paddle Smash. So while I was running Marbles, the Brain store, I met my co-founder, Tim Swindle. He created a card game as a side hustle and I carried it in my stores. We were the first to carry it and he and I hit it off and we just vowed at some point that we were going to work together.

(02:54): And so when both of our schedules freed up and we were looking for the next thing, I was on the lookout and I started to play pickleball. I literally just came from playing pickleball, even a little sweaty from playing pickleball. I played as much as I possibly can. So I was like, Tim, if you can find anything in the pickleball space, it would do me a big solid because I love this space. It is in North America. It's the fastest growing sport, and it is a gold rush for opportunity in that space. So he and I started to draw on, basically on the back of a napkin, some concepts. We were like, all right, what could we do that's pickleball related, but not another paddle brand, not another apparel brand. We didn't want to be in the fray of all the other people scrambling to get in pickleball.

(03:40): And as we were doing that, I literally, the same week we had sketched something up, I got introduced to a local inventor. People are always coming to me. I've got a friend who has a game idea, you've got to see it. And I always say yes, and most of the time they're awful. But this time it was really actually good. It caught my interest. So I met Joe. Joe was like, I've got a pickleball concept and it combines pickleball and another game called Spikeball. Well, I knew both games well, of course pickleball, as I said, I played Spikeball. I was one of the first retailers to carry spike ball. And I watched its amazing growth in my shops. I mean, it went from a less than million dollar brand to now it's a $50 million brand. It is one of the fastest growing outdoor games in the last 10 years.

(04:29): And so we're like, Joe, that's pretty good to combine those two games. I went and played it, loved it, told Tim to fly out from Chicago to join me. We took it down to the local pickleball courts and played it just to see what people would do. And it was like bees to honey. It was People immediately stopped playing their games, came over to the fence, asked what we were playing, wanted to play. We had such a good experience that we both looked at each other, we're like, all right, well we've got our next business. And so then it was really the next year was working to get it to market. So it was manufacturing, engineering, production, shipping, all of that. And in October we launched Paddle Smash, which as I've described is a love child of pickleball and spikeball.

Sam (05:17): I have so many follow-up questions for our European listeners who might not be aware. What is the difference between pickleball and spikeball?

Scott (05:27): So pickleball is played with paddles. You could think of it as a miniature tennis, but instead of a racket, you're playing with kind of an oversized table tennis paddle, and you play with what we call a wiffle ball. I don't know if you guys call it the same, but it's a plastic ball with holes in it. And so it's lightweight, much lighter weight than a tennis ball. The appeal and why it's taking off in the US I think is two. Part one is it is much easier to play than tennis It, it's quicker to learn, easier to play. You're serving underhand, so it's not about the serve. And so it's much more accessible to a broader range of ages and skill levels. And then the other is it just doesn't take up as much space. You can fit essentially three pickleball courts in one tennis court.

(06:15): And so for cities looking to economize their use of space pickleball, courts are far more economical for them. They can get more players out on a smaller amount of space. And so you see cities across the US converting their tennis courts into pickleball courts. So those two things together has caused a sharp rise. Spike ball is a very different game. Spike ball is played on a round net that you set on the ground. Imagine you're out in a park setting it on the grass and that net you're working with a teammate to bump set and spike a ball back into that net surface. You've got up to three hits to get it back into the net. And then the other team is meant to do the same. They are working together to go back and forth. So it's kind of like volleyball around a round net that's on the ground.

(07:05): So those two, they're quite different games, but the mechanics of both are interesting to merge together. And truly in the toying game world, it's like there are no new games, there's just rearranging. So no new ingredients is what I should say. It's like no new ingredients to games, it's just the rearranging of ingredients to create new recipes. It's the same in this outdoor game space. It's just you're always looking for, alright, what if I took a little bit of volleyball and a little bit of bad and then combine 'em together? You're just looking for combos like that.

Sam (07:34): It sounds like everything came together. You met the right people at the right time. I want to ask you, what steps did you take to bring puddle smash to the market?

Scott (07:44): Yes. So one, this is my area of expertise in Tim's as well is manufacturing. So one of the things that we knew we needed to do was to get it right out of the gate. We just did not have the funding or the runway to kind of withstand the tweaking of things after launch. So what you'll see a lot of big companies do is they'll rush something to market knowing that they'll be able to tweak it along the way. And us we're like, we can't do that. So we took our time to get it to market and really honestly, it took probably six months longer than we would've hoped because we were really trying to nail it. So once we nailed it, then we ended up launching in the fall of last year, which is not an ideal time to launch an outdoor game. Outdoor, it starts to get cold.

(08:38): Spring is the time to do that. And we thought, should we wait till spring? But we wanted to get it to market and start to test and learn. And that test and learn was all around potential retail partners and marketing strategies. What's the best way to get out there? One of the great things we've got is we're writing the tailwinds of these two big opportunities. So writing the tailwinds of pickleball, writing the tailwinds of spikeball and outdoor games, generally outdoor games, it's the fastest growing category in toys and games. So everyone is clamoring for an outdoor game. Covid certainly started that trend, but it sustained post covid that people are looking to get outdoors more. And so we had those nice tailwinds and then we had some good marketing strategies already laid out before us with the pioneers in the space. And I'd say two of the biggest pioneers would be spikeball and cross net big success stories in the direct to consumer outdoor game space.

(09:33): And thankfully we've got some friendships in both of those companies. They don't see us as a threat. I think it's a rising tide races, all ships we're all kind of in this together and they were willing to share some of what they've learned about how to get it out into the world. One of the biggest learnings is just user generated content is what drives purchase of outdoor games. Games inherently have a viral coefficient, so if you see it being played or you play it with friends who own one, you then want to buy one for yourself. So the way Spikeball really took off was getting a critical mass out into the world and then letting those people get out to parks to play, and then people seeing that coming in and asking about it and then wanting to buy their own. And so we knew what we needed to do was to get a thousand out into the world, however we were going to do it, we needed to get a thousand out into the world.

(10:26): That's how many we ordered in our first shipment. And we're like, all right, by Christmas we've got to get a thousand out into the world and hope that snowball starts to roll. And so we were doing that through email marketing. We were doing that through social media, we were doing it through social ads. I'd say social ads would be our most effective to date, just letting people see people playing it in social ad. And then we were doing a lot of sampling. So this is where we were reaching out to influencers, generally influencers particularly in the pickleball space and some in the spikeball space that we could just get free copies out to and let them play it, let them share videos of them playing it and start to build a momentum. And then one of the things we learned is that if you get it into the right person's hands, they can become kind of a hotbed of activity.

(11:17): So we got one in the hands of a local former college tennis player who took it with them to on a vacation to Lake Powell, Utah. And they played it on a houseboat and every one of his friends that was there ended up buying one after, but they also shared the video with us and easily that has been our best marketing video to date by far and away was that authentic play in a beautiful setting. And then all of his friends bought it and then all of their friends bought it. I think that one person's responsible for probably 50 sales of our game. So if you find enough of those little micro influencers, it starts to build that momentum and a bit of a snowball effect.

Sam (12:01): So much here to unpack. So let's dive into the email marketing side of the business. What are some of the email campaigns you're sending? What are some of the automation you're using? What does the journey look like when a new visitor runs on the website for the first time?

Scott (12:17): One of the strategies is just to incentivize an exchange of email for an opportunity to win a free product. So on our website we have a pop-up, we also have a section of the homepage that allows people to enter to win. We give away a certain number of paddle smashes every month. This feeds into our desire to just get it out into the world and also helps us to gather emails. So it's been a really good tool for us to gather emails of course one way. We have another tool that's helping us to capture emails of those that visit our website, and that has more than tripled our ability to gather emails every single day. So add that together and we kind of got enough emails and then they get put into a flow immediately and depending on how they got into our flow, whether they expressed immediate interest, so you can sign up for our newsletter, which we would consider a hot lead or sign up to win a free one.

(13:12): And I'd say that's like a medium lead and you get into a different flow depending on what you signed up for. Hot leads are often getting promotion codes. Of course someone that visits our website gets into a cart is getting a promotion code sent after a couple of days. There's the classic looks like you left something in your cart and then we're kind of hitting 'em up again with the, Hey, how about a promo code to help sweeten the deal? We built enough margin into our product costs to allow for some of that marketing and the promo codes. And so the other thing that we feel is critical is that this is a brand new game and it's got a little bit of a learning curve. We say it takes about 10 minutes to get through the awkwardness of play. And so it is critical that these first thousand customers, and we're well past the first thousand, we ended up selling out before Christmas and having you to get another thousand.

(14:05): So I skipped that part, but we almost sold 2000 before Christmas. So we've got a bunch out in the world now. The critical part is everyone has a good experience. So in our flows with anyone that makes a purchase, they are within a week and a half. So we wanted enough time for it to get shipped and then for them to open the product, but they're getting an email teaching them the nitty gritty of how to play the game, and we've created a video. We've created a step-by-step instructions and key bullet points of how to get in. We're trying to flatten that curve or at least to lower that curve of getting into the game. So that's some of what we're doing to reach out to our customers and stay engaged with them.

Sam (14:45): How do you think about once a customer has made a purchase, how do you continue to communicate to them and build brand loyalty?

Scott (14:53): Yeah. Well, it's an interesting thing because we are one product company at this point, and so it's not as if we're trying to upsell them or retain them for the purpose of selling more things to them. Of course, at some point down the road we will likely have iterations or variations, but we are focused on this one product right now. And so our main concern right now is to help them to have a great experience with their game so that they become ambassadors of our product. And we do have an ambassador program. We're experimenting with what that looks like right now. We've toyed a bit with creating a kind of incentive for them to share the game and in exchange they get an affiliate. They basically have an affiliate, a link that they can share with friends and family and then they would get an affiliate fee for having sold that game.

(15:43): Honestly, we didn't do very well with that. We just didn't get enough traction. And it may have been too early. We maybe need to be more patient, but we're trying to figure out how to turn that customer into an ambassador that helps spread that word. And so I think we're looking, actually honestly right now, we're such a young company that we're trying to figure out how to engage with current customers, those that have already purchased beyond just teaching them to play the game, how can we make them loyal ambassadors of the brand? And I don't know, this is something we're trying to figure out.

Sam (16:14): Yeah, it's super interesting. I'm wondering if influences with existing audiences are more likely the type of person that would benefit from having an affiliate link and more likely to do promotion like that?

Scott (16:28): I think so. I think that the common customer's not used to this. I don't know if they don't trust or they just don't want to go to the trouble. They don't want to be salespeople. They want it to be more authentic and organic. So didn't take off for us in the six months that we had that program running. I only think we had two people actually use it. So that wasn't it for us. So what it is, I don't know. There's some good examples of people doing it with both cross net and Spike Ball where they've got some nice ambassador programs where they're selling it to some of their customers, they're selling it to them at wholesale and allowing them to be resellers of that product. So we'll experiment with that as well. Yeah, I think there's the swag and all of that stuff that we can hook people up with. So we'll figure that out hopefully.

Sam (17:16): You mentioned in our pre-interview that your target audience is primarily pickleball loving parents. Can you tell me more about how you identified this niche and developed your marketing strategy around it?

Scott (17:28): Yeah, so we've got these two worlds. We've got pickleball and the question we went into this is who's going to be our audience out of those too? And maybe it's both. It's a Venn diagram and it's the middle section of that. But what we've found so far is that it's far and away the pickleball player. I think there's a couple of things playing into that. One is that pickleball players are thirsty for anything pickleball related. And if they feel like it's something that can improve their pickleball game, they'll jump all over it. And really there's much higher threshold of what they'll pay for that. Spikeball players, I think demographically tend to be 20 something guys, usually college aged and they are, I'd say they don't have a lot of discretionary income generally. And so they've spent their money on a spike ball set. They're not eager or looking for some variant of spike ball.

(18:19): They love spike ball already. So this is like a, I wouldn't say direct competitor to Spike Ball, but it's a replacement. You're either playing spike ball or you're playing Paddle Smash, where with pickleball it's very easy to set up a pickleball set or a paddle smash set next to the pickleball courts while you're waiting to play pickleball. Courts are wildly popular and packed here in the US and so you're always waiting. And to have a game that's pickleball related, that doesn't take up a lot of space and you can set up on the grass, keep you warm in between games is a great option. And then the other thing is that pickleball players tend to be older and more affluent. Generally it's a bit of the country club crowd and they have more discretionary income, they are dropping. The most popular paddle right now in pickleball or one of the most popular is a 250 paddle for one single paddle.

(19:12): And so our product is expensive. It costs a lot to build this product. It has a net, has four paddles, has two balls, and it has this big plastic base. And that plastic is big, heavy, all on purpose because required to bounce well enough to play all that leads to an expensive product cost, which leads to a high retail. And so we knew we were looking for the type of customer that was willing to part with kind of a high amount of money in exchange for something they find value. And so pickleball crowd, like I said, willing to drop $250 for a single paddle. So for a game that you can have kind of a pickleball to go experience at the beach in your backyard, people are not hesitant to spend what we're asking to spend for that.

Sam (19:56): We've talked a lot in this interview about spikeball and pickleball. I'm curious, how do you see these trends evolving in the coming years and how do you plan to stay ahead of the curve?

Scott (20:08): I mean, I think we're at the very early stages of pickleball growth. I think that pickleball, I don't think it's a fad. I think the fact that so many cities across the US are converting tennis courts into permanent pickleball courts says that I think it's here to stay thousands of pickleball centers, indoor centers opening across the us. There's a massive amount of capital being pumped into this. So I think high likelihood this becomes a big thing, but it is very early stage and I think that people that get in right now and are able to sustain this still call it early stage, slower money period, will be well positioned for what will explode over the next five years. And I do think within the next five years we'll see an explosion where we'll see it'll compete with tennis. I think it'll compete with tennis for airtime on the major networks. So yeah, so I think that that is an exciting thing to have something pickleball related in these very early stages. And then I don't think the outdoor games growth is going away.

(21:17): I am privy to conversations with major US retailers. They are seeing massive growth in that section. They're expanding those sections within their stores. It's one of the fastest growing categories on Amazon in the US as well. It is just Spike or Covid started it, but it's not going away. I think everyone got a taste for what it feels like to set your devices down and get outside and play. And parents are thirsty for that. I think parents are thirsty for a game that they can play together as a family that will be good enough that their kids will want to put down their devices. You don't want to have a game that you have to beg your kids to play. If it's a game that's good enough that your kids want to play, it's like such a win for parents.

Sam (22:01): I couldn't agree more. And I was going to ask you about that. You just answered that question for me, the role that the pandemic played. And it is interesting how so many different industries or niches rather, are sprouting up after the pandemic. And I think you're absolutely right. A lot of people rediscovered old hobbies, discovered new ones, and a lot of people have sustained that interest now a couple of years later after the pandemic.

Scott (22:26): It's amazing to see just the bar graph of growth for pickleball. People are like, what caused it to all of a sudden spike? Because it's a game. It's been around since the 1960s, so it's an odd thing to have something go so slow and then all of a sudden spike like that. Really, I would attribute almost all of that to covid, some of it to just time is right and tipping point. But Covid caused people to look for things to do outside of their home, ways to get together and socialize with people that were less dangerous. And so yeah, I think we're nicely suited. Obviously the pandemic hurt a lot of industries and hurt many in the toy industry, and so it's a painful thing. But there are some things that came out of it that I think are positive, and one of them is our recognition of the value of being social, recognition of the value of getting together and playing.

Sam (23:24): We've talked a little bit about partnerships and I'm curious, are there any partnerships or collaborations, paddle Smash has plans in the future

Scott (23:33): Working on them? For sure. I think we're nicely suited to collaborate with many in the pickleball space. The nice thing is that there are sort of rock stars in this space, but there are only rock stars within that community. It's a nice sized community, but it's not so big that we cannot, as a new company, afford to sponsor or partner with some of these professional pickleball players. They're still very approachable and very affordable. And so we can look for ways to partner with these pro players that they're not going to have millions of followers, but in aggregate, if we can partner with enough, they do have nice healthy numbers. And then the great thing is that their audiences are rabid pickleball fans. They're exactly who we're targeting. Is the rabid fan looking for anything pickleball related? And so if we can get some of these professional players to help us to spread the word and what does that look like?

(24:35): I don't think for us it's a patch on their outfit. I think it's them playing the game. I think it's them. And a great thing here is that we are not in conflict with any of their other sponsorships. So it's not like we're some paddle company coming in and trying to talk them into switching paddles. We are incremental to what they're already doing. So for them, it's like, sure, you're not in conflict with anything. You want to pay me a little bit of money to talk about this game that I can play with my family and have a ton of fun with. You bet. So we're starting those conversations. We literally, in the next couple of weeks, we'll be kicking off some of those.

Sam (25:15): We've talked about a lot of different marketing strategies in this interview. What are you doubling down on in 2023?

Scott (25:24): So certainly social ads have been great for us. I talked about the success of that houseboat video. I think that is our model is to solicit user generated content from our fans. Some of that will come free, some of it we'll have to figure out ways to incentivize the sharing of those videos. So whether it's we have contests on our social channels to send best smashes of the week, and then we're using that content, repurposing it as ads, but it's eyeopening to watch the success of that one video. I don't know how many units it's responsible for selling, but it's hundreds and hundreds and we got that content free. So what we're looking to do is to really grow our community of user generated influencers, ambassadors, people that will film their play and send it our way. And when we have that content, we can then use that for ads.

(26:22): There's something about the kind of authenticity of it. We call it the TikTok style video rather than the Instagram style video. So to differentiate, Instagram feels polished compared to TikTok. TikTok feels raw, and there's something about that rawness that people are really loving right now. It feels real, it feels authentic. So we're looking for TikTok style user generated, and that is where we're focusing so much of our time and energy. So that'd be one. Another would just be to look for the right types of partners outside of direct to consumer. So one of them certainly is retail. We got really lucky early on, we sent a couple of cold emails to the two biggest retail sporting goods retailers in the us. Immediately heard back from both of them. They are thirsty for pickleball related product. Dick's Sporting Goods is the biggest sporting goods retailer in the US and we emailed them in September.

(27:16): We were in their stores just a couple months later, and we would've been sooner if they would've wanted it sooner if we could have pulled it off. It's normally a year process to get into a store like that. And we got in immediately in select stores in the stores that do best with pickleball. They've put us in and the test is going great there. And we've now gotten into two additional sporting goods retailers. Everyone's thirsty for pickleball related product. So that's one. And then the other is just getting it in front of people that can help to spread the word. I've said that. But what I mean by this in particular is that we went to a trade show for summer camps. So these summer camps are thirsty for anything new. And they have a new pool of kids, teenage kids, who are perfect for our game, coming to their camp every single week.

(28:08): And then they come, they love the game, they fall in love with it, and then they go home and then kind of convince their parents to buy the game for their families. And so the more we can do that, whether that's through church groups, it's through physical education classes in schools, it's through summer camps. If we can get the game in front of those counselors and teachers and then let them play the game and help spread the word to the kids, it does help to increase our surface area of luck in spreading the word of Paddle Smash.

Sam (28:43): I love it, Scott. And I love the way that you ended that. I'm a big fan of that term as well. It sounds like you have so much going on for you, and it's been really fascinating to listen to your journey. Can you tell our listeners more about where to go, where to learn about Paddle Smash? Where would you like them to go?

Scott (29:00): Yeah, paddlesmash.com is the website, is our website. We also have a site on Amazon, so you just can search Paddle Smash on Amazon and you'll find it there. Links to all the supporting goods retailers on our website, so you can find quickly the product listing on those. But those would be the main places to find it. We're only in the US right now. We do have plans to spread outside the US in 2024, but for 2023, it's a US based business.

Sam (29:30): Perfect. Well, we'll put those links in the show notes. And I want to thank you again, Scott, for taking the time to join us today and all the best in the future with Paddle Smash.

Scott (29:39): Thanks, Sam. And I would just throw out there a promo code that your listeners can use if they would like to buy on our website. Just say, what do you think? It's Sam, should we go Sam 15? Let's do it. Sam 15. We'll get them 15% off purchase. So yeah, we'll throw that out there and I'll have that live.

Sam (29:57): Perfect. Thanks so much, Scott.

Scott (29:59): You bet, Sam. Thank you.