Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Sleeve's senior Pickleball report is brought to you by TNC Network. Get ready for an exciting episode of People of Pickleball with Mike Sliva. We're about to dive deep into conversations with influential figures from the world of Pickleball. So let's get it going.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Okay. Today I talked with Kara and Andrew from Miles Jane Pickleball. They do hats, really cool hats. So we had a great conversation and lots to get to. But first, obviously, hey, consider subscribing to the channel if you like our content, you like our interviews, you like our paddle reviews, or you like our playing tips? Also, check out all the links in the description. So much down there, discounts all kinds of fun stuff. And subscribe to our newsletter. Get your daily dose from the Pickleverse. All right, let's get to that interview with Kara and Andrew from Miles, Jane, Cara and Andrew. Welcome to the Senior Pickleball Report. Miles Jane, the hat Company. Right here. Back here.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Thanks for being here. Thank you for having us. Super excited.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, you're a group that has really sort of right out of the gate. When I met you all, there was a lot of networking going on, and you introduced me to some folks, which I've interviewed and finally have gotten to the chance here to speak with you both. But before we get into any of that, obviously this game of Pickleball, for those who are not involved in it yet, they soon will be. It is taking over the damn planet. What got you two into this goofy ball game?
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Oh, geez. My wife did. I did not want to play. I have a tennis background. We had only four courts. We live in a barrier islands here in the Bay Area are right across the street. So we saw them all the time. We walked past them and she's like, let's play my knee. I can for knee replacement. Both knees. I can't play basketball as much. Tennis was getting hard, and I wouldn't do it. I'm like, no, just pickleball.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Just the word that name is ridiculous.
[00:02:34] Speaker C: Something better, like Paddleball or.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: But she bought a set.
[00:02:40] Speaker D: Well, I bought a really cheap set on Amazon, like we all do.
We'll just try it, and if we hate it, we won't do it anymore. And we actually went a couple of times and there were people there. And I was like, I turned around, left.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: We waited until it was dark.
[00:02:57] Speaker D: It took a long time to get the nerve to do it.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: And we were. The community you mentioned earlier, the networking. I mean, that's part of this, is everyone has been so nice.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a little scary nice. I keep waiting for that bubble to burst, but it hasn't yet. It's weird. Like everybody's super supportive.
[00:03:17] Speaker C: No. Is this real? And when you watch, we've got 65, 70 year olds playing with people in their 30s, late twenty s, and they're laughing and they're having fun. And as parents or children, that's just a full experience, just to have that wide swath of the demographics involved community, which is really.
[00:03:39] Speaker D: It feels good to have that, especially after the pandemic and everyone's so separate, to sort of be able to come together and relax and have fun and play and not worried about everything all the time.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: That's a great point because obviously the pandemic took this game to another level. It's been around a while. Obviously, it's been over 50 years. So pandemic hits.
I found it just like anybody else during the pandemic. And I noticed right away from the first few months playing just like you all, that everybody was really pretty chill and cool, and it was nice to go to a space where we could just play pickleball and we didn't have to talk about everything that's going on in the world around us all the time. And it was sort of this, I don't know, for lack of a better term, a safe space to do some things that were fun. But it's one thing, obviously, to play the game and to meet people, and then there's another thing to go, you know what? I'm going to start a business, and I'm going to do hats, and I'm going to get on board and I'm going to start networking. And you're pretty well known, actually. I don't know if you know this, but I talked to a fair amount of folks, and they know about Miles Jane.
You're connected. So talk me through that idea, first of deciding you're going to do this and then what it takes to get there, because not all of us can just design something. There's got to be some background here.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Yeah, let's get to that. I'll let you. What started with, we had the infrastructure of a hat company, if you will, already in place, named Miles Jane, after our two oldest children. Their middle names.
[00:05:31] Speaker D: Their middle names.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Oh, I like that.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: I wanted to wear hats. I wanted her to design hats for me to wear at concerts. I go to a lot of live shows. I keep a spreadsheet of how many.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Concerts right on, man.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: Been to and so it was really like a website for him. For me.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: Yeah, he was shopping. I had to design it and then he would go buy.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: That had been sitting there for a couple of, you know, we walked over to the law court. We're like, everyone's wearing a hat. Everyone needs hat out in California and Florida.
So we wanted to do something cooler.
[00:06:06] Speaker D: Yeah. Because some of the hats, and I'm not bashing it, but some of them are corny.
And I thought it'd be fun to wear a hat that represented what we're into without being overt or cheesy.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, super cheesy. Because if you look at this, this is a beautiful hat, by the way. I mean, the one I have on, I love too. But look at this.
That is really cool stuff.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: Tell who was behind which design?
[00:06:39] Speaker B: No, but I mean, that's what I like. I love the varieties. You have different sets to choose from and different lines to choose from, depending on the kind of style you like. So there isn't just one style that you all have. That's kind of what I dig about it.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Well, the demographic is so wide, there really wasn't a target audience per se.
[00:06:59] Speaker D: It's hard to figure out. Yeah. Because there's so many different types of people, we wouldn't be able to sort of design one hat to fit all of them.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Right.
So who's got the skill set here? I mean, this is great stuff. So what's your background?
[00:07:16] Speaker D: I'm a print designer.
I've been in print design for over 20 years, but More textile.
And then, yeah, we sort of pandemic hit. Things sort of changed and pivoted and I had a chance to sort of design something that was for me finally, or something that I, and it just sort of evolved from that.
I wanted to kind of do my own thing as well as work with this guy. And it really kind of came together pretty naturally and pretty quickly, though.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: Our office is actually sort of this big space with our bedroom behind the curtain too. Wake up and we walk into our office and we're here all day with probably a lot of 1012 hours days.
And then, yeah, this is just what we've been doing for about five months, I guess. And we've only been playing pickleball for about six. It was very quick.
The move was really quick to decide to.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, same with me. I think I was playing about five, six months when I just started. You know, I decided, oh, I'm going to start a channel.
But that seems to be sort of the trend.
I've been speaking to a lot of people that are in businesses and apparel and same thing. They were playing a few months, and it just takes over somehow.
You want to play, but you want to do more and you want to talk about it and you want to wear the stuff.
[00:08:53] Speaker D: You want to force your friends to play with you, and they're like, man, trust me, you'll like it.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes you got to trick them, but whatever.
Yeah. It's one of those things. So obviously, you have a presence online, and we talked briefly before we came on. I love the storyline that's going on for those who do not know, going on with the reels. So let's talk about that because that's super fun, it's super casual, and it's something that other people really aren't doing. There's a lot of people doing kind of fun, cool things. She developed a character, and so let's talk about it. To me, I have to watch them a couple of times because there's things that I pick up the next time. I generally watch it. But let's start with the idea of, like, we're going to do something that's a little different outside the box and a little crazy. So how did this come to be and describe to people? Because I'm not going to describe it. Describe what it is.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: As a small family owned business. Our resources can be.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: And social media, our presence there, we had done a couple of months ago, right. Conversations with some big players, really nice folks in the pickleball space. And the feedback we would get is you need some kind of an online presence.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: I didn't even have Facebook Instagram before this. I just not social media person, but now I am.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: I check it.
I feel you, man. I feel you. I live in a tent.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: It's a great way to cross promote and meet other, others as well. Most of the folks that we've spoke to, we've met through social media in some manner. I think.
I think you're referring to Dinkus.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: I am referring to Dinkus. And who is Dinkus? Or you're not probably allowed to say that. Going to Disneyland. Nobody knows who Mickey is.
Tickle of mystery, right?
[00:11:07] Speaker C: I'll tell you, it is really humbling to put the costume on in public. I will toss that out there.
And our kids are like, do not come to school. Dress like that.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Don't pick us up.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: And Dinkus has a sidekick coming out soon.
[00:11:29] Speaker D: We have to see if we can talk one of the kids into donning the Cape.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: I think we wanted to play a little bit on the tennis versus pickleball.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Right. Which is a big deal right now.
[00:11:43] Speaker C: And have fun with it, though.
[00:11:45] Speaker D: Actually, we had, in the very beginning, when we were trying to hide and play pickleball, we had gone to some tennis courts, and they got really mad at us, and they're like, you can't play here. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I can't believe they're so upset about this. And that's when it's sort of the idea of Dinkus, like, rightying the wrong, going after the tennis player.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: It's true.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: I mean, I live in the middle of nowhere. I live in a valley that has probably 350 people.
And we have some dilapidated tennis courts that are about five, 6 miles from my place. And so we just put down some pickleball lines. And most of the tennis guys were fine with it for a whiLe, but then one guy wasn't, and the tennis group sort of just imploded because one guy could not just handle us playing Pickleball on the court next to them. And so literally all the tennis guys except for one that just a guy actually, who's my neighbor and just loves tennis. He just likes to hit balls. He doesn't care. He's 80 some years old. He's like, it took me 35 years to learn how to play tennis. Not taking up something new, but the other guy just went and played somewhere else, and then the rest of them just came and played pickleball. So I was like, it's really OD how people are so.
I don't know, so threatened by it.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah, there's a lot of racket clubs that are giving a percentage of their quartz. They're converting them to pickleball courts, but it doesn't feel like they're taking away quarks that are in use. From our conversation for various clubs, it's like, well, we have these extra three quarts. They just sit there.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Until you use them. And then people go, hey, yeah.
[00:13:20] Speaker D: It's so strange. It's like, oh, sorry.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, and I played tennis. I mean, I played recreationally and stuff like that. But, yeah, it's a little OD. But I think once the infrastructure of this game sort of gets to a place where maybe it's going to take a while because the demand is so high, maybe that kind of goes away a little bit. That's what I hope, at least.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Well, it feels like we all take ourselves too seriously, too. And this is one of those opportunities to really kind of laugh about something that exactly kind of funny that this exists and there's this kind of debate, in the worst case, anger towards one another. But yeah. So it was really just kind of a funny approach to looking at what's going on around us.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And it is super fun. And I'm going to try, with permission, of course, to get a little clip within the interview here so people know what the heck we're talking about too. I think it'll be super fun. New paddle company Pickle PCKL Great paddle line, great price point. Anything you want, from starter paddle to intermediate to a pro series high level paddle, check them out. Get 15% off using my discount code. Pickle is the future.
[00:14:42] Speaker E: Are you looking to stay up to date on the latest Pickleball news and tips? Look no further than the sleeve. Senior Pickleball Report newsletter Get the scoop on the sport, learn how to stay healthy while playing, and find out about upcoming tournaments. Subscribe now to get all the Pickleball info.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: You you know, obviously I've done most of my exchanges with Andrew here, but you all are really connected in a short period of Time.
Obviously, I've talked to people who are writing screenplays and doing mockumentaries. I have talked to people who have started a Retail business online and selling everything from clothing to paddles. And that's because you've connected me with them. So talk about like when you got into this, how did you go about meeting folks and Connecting with like minded people? And Obviously we talked about everybody's so nice. So walk me through a little bit of that.
[00:15:45] Speaker D: That's his area.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: He's good at it.
[00:15:48] Speaker C: Mantra about not working with assholes. Can I say that?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: No, absolutely. I get it.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: And I think we're lucky in this space that we haven't found many.
And when I just feel like we're at this point where if we can help someone else and it feels good, I guess my background. I'm a psychologist, I guess so. I think just being able to connect individuals, the right resources, see people grow and we're all kind of in this boat together. This is very new. This is new territory, right?
A lot of this. I don't know how many emails I've sent or people I've contacted. Probably some nights like hundreds.
[00:16:35] Speaker D: So good at it though.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: He is good at it. I knew right out of the gate, literally, I talked to him and I'm not kidding, within the 24 Hours Period he had me Hooked up With some Folks and I had some Interviews. I'm like, this guy's got it. He's good.
Because I talk to a lot of folks like you do, but most of it's sort of a one off, and then maybe I'll get Introduced to somebody else. But you are about Networking, and I do appreciate it because obviously that's what this sort of is all about. That's what I love about it. And we keep coming back to it. Is the community part of it?
I do appreciate it.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: The more friends, the merrier. It's just a lot of fun meeting individuals out here doing similar things.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Right on.
[00:17:23] Speaker C: I mean, everyone's doing something cool and new.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And nobody seems to be sort of threatened by somebody else's existence in a space either. So it seems like there's plenty of opportunities, plenty of niches, and plenty of thing we haven't even, probably even touched upon yet in this game that we could all be doing. So where do you want to take this? Obviously, great start.
You're rolling. A lot of people know who you are. You have a character out there already.
Maybe there's a movie deal in it for you guys because somebody comes across this and goes, we're open.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: We're open. He can become a pickleball mascot of.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: What do you. What do you hope this becomes for you?
[00:18:05] Speaker C: Well, we run a mobile meals program to feed homeless in the Bay Area. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about us. It's us. It's still us. We pack up our minivan and we've got it down to a well oil machine. We have our checklist, and we go drive to an encampment and we cook with four kids. I think it's really important that they not just see that, but really they're there in the mix of it and understand.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[00:18:39] Speaker D: This was like something totally aside. This was something we've been doing for years. And it made sense to sort of have these two kind of coincide and live together where we're doing this thing that we love to do with the pickleball, with the designing.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:57] Speaker D: And also it could be a part of a community and help sort of funnel into us helping other people, and a big part of it is our children and showing them that this is important, that community is important, that empathy. And you're always able to help. No matter who you are, you can always help. And for them to take that and run with it and see it in acTion, it's really important to both of us, I think.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we hope people.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: Sorry.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: I was going to say we hope to expand the program. I think that's the big driver behind.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: So when folks buy a hat, that's kind of how it works. Is that right? Am I right?
[00:19:43] Speaker C: Exactly. I mean, it's completely self funded up to this point and still really.
But the hope is that the more we sell, the more we can expand the program.
[00:19:54] Speaker D: Do it more frequently, make it a bigger thing.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker D: Because we're never not going to have a need for it in our area. So I feel like, yeah, the more we can build this and the more people we can help. I think that.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: And these encampments are like cities. Absolutely. It's fascinating to speak with and get to know the folks and see with the limited resources that they access, they build these cities. And it's California in the Bay Area specifically.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that you've hit it on the head. The awareness of, I guess, folks that don't live in major metropolitan areas, I don't think have any idea on some level what's necessarily going on and to bring some sort of awareness to that. And I think that's what I've enjoyed in the conversations that I've been having with people lately who have started businesses like yourself. They are reaching out to the community, and it's not just about making the buck. I talked to a guy yesterday who's got a paddle company, and he's donating money to bee farmers because of pollination, obviously, no bees. We're not making anything because we're dead, but things like that. And he mentioned that he goes when he's been in pickleball playing for over a decade, and he said that's kind of what it was about in the beginning, a little more with the tournaments. There was always proceeds going towards this and that. And so the pro game has kind of come along and gotten a lot of attention. And he goes, and I hope it can remain where we're all doing things, kind of not only to push the game, but to push the betterment of just life on this planet and things like that. So When I talk to people like yourselves and like him and a host of others, it's good to see because it's not just a good feeling that we're all playing pickleball together.
We're out there doing some things.
I applaud you both for doing that.
So what?
Obviously you got the meals on wheels and you're doing that. Where do you see the company going? Are you going to stay with hats? Do you want to expand a little more? I mean, if you have enough in your plate. You have four kids. I get it.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: We initially thought, okay, let's go sportswear, let's go apparel. And after a lot of conversations with other, I don't know if you call them mentors or just partners, right. Thought to focus on one thing at this point, what we're good at, what she's good at, and that were the hats. There just wasn't anything. And the designer sort of had pickleball. There just wasn't any competition or anyone really doing that.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: So we decided to really stick at this point with hats.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: You're doing it well, so, yeah, why not?
[00:22:47] Speaker C: I could see us moving in other directions where we expand over time.
At this point, really, our marketing and ads, it's through professional players and social media. So we recently began some collaborations with some professional players.
We are not the place where we can endorse you now, but you work with Cara and we'll design hats specifically for you, branded for you, and you wear them for us.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. I mean, Jennifer Dawson's wearing your cool.
[00:23:20] Speaker C: Right off of talk to Spencer Smith, Connor Garnett, and it's really Andrea Coop.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Andrea Coop. Yeah. Coop is no joke. Those are big names. And obviously Dawson's a Hall of Famer.
[00:23:35] Speaker D: It's kind of like overwhelming for me to be like, oh, my gosh, those are really big.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
And that's the thing. I think that's why I keep coming back to in a very short period of time. I think part of that is the dynamic of the two of you. You have different talents that are necessary to kind of push this, whether it's the designs and the networking and obviously it's paying dividends really fast.
I don't know if I've seen anybody in pickleball business wise who's done really made an impact as quickly as Miles Jane, actually, to be honest, we hope we true. I mean, you have pro people wearing your stuff in a few months.
That's not easy to do considering you weren't pro players already. It's one thing to start a business in a company when you have a reputation in the game, and I've seen people do that, but to come out and go, hey, we just started playing and we're going to do this. Bravo. Because you've made some headway and you've done it by building relationships really fast and people like you. So that's cool.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Word of mouth is important and I think we really want to get out to tournaments more. We have a first tournament we're going to sponsor in the Bay Area.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Fun.
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Actually, two, I believe. But if we could get at the PPH and know live, I think that's sort of where we'd love to go, just to be out there and to have conversations face to face. I mean, this is wonderful, but it's awesome to actually be there in person.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:25:19] Speaker D: Just being able to talk to people.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: I think part of it is, too, because when people meet you, too, you're easy to talk to, you're very approachable, and obviously you have some talents that are really making headway in the industry. Well, you too, young man.
You're sending off 10,000 emails a day. Come on.
[00:25:42] Speaker C: If it was up to me, we would have a really skewed counterculture sort of design apparel wear here. And she has come in and really cleaned it up.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:55] Speaker C: We can't have skeletons and aliens on everything, Andrew.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Oh, you have Dinkus.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: We haven't done that yet, actually.
[00:26:04] Speaker D: I know that's sort of coming about how we can get him into the hat.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:26:10] Speaker D: Yeah, we'll see.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: I totally want one of those, man.
Signed, by the way.
[00:26:18] Speaker D: Of course.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Hey, so you mentioned the tournaments coming up. Anything else that you're excited about coming up? Before we let you go here?
And obviously we have links in the description to go to their website and check out anything you want to check out from them. But, yeah, as you take us out of here, anything you want to talk about before we go?
[00:26:38] Speaker C: The collaborations with the players, I think is really exciting because she's working really closely and it's a blank slate. Tell us what you want on your hat and let's do it.
[00:26:48] Speaker D: And then also being able to bring it to the store and it would be a collaborative hat with this person, and then you can buy that hat.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:59] Speaker D: I think it's cool. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the biggest part. I think it's cool and it's fun. And as long as it stays like that, it's one of those things.
How much do you want it to grow to a point where maybe it's not as fun? And so that's the kind of the balance that I'm trying to keep, too.
It is becoming a job, but at the same time, I'm still having a blast. Yeah.
[00:27:19] Speaker D: I mean, I think so long as you enjoy, you wake up and you are excited and you have a whole bunch of things you got to do and you're not like, oh, then you're winning.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: It's a good indicator when it's 12:00 at night and you're still sending emails and she's sitting there designing and we're like, hey, we actually enjoy this.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Right on. Well, hey, thank you both for your time. Andrew and Carl from Miles Jane and check out their hats. Check out the links in the description. Go through all the different lines they have because there's a ton to choose from, colors and designs. So thank you again, and maybe someday we'll meet you at a tournament in person, hopefully. Thank you.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: We appreciate it.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: You bet.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: Honored.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Hope you enjoyed our interview with Kara and Andrew from Miles Jane. Check out again all the links in the description. Discounts galore. And hey, don't forget what it's all about. Let's pick it. Hey, if you're looking for very, very comfortable court shoes, in fact, the most comfortable court shoes I've ever worn, and I've worn a lot of them over the years playing different sports, try Fitville. We have a link in the description that gets you $20 off your purchase.
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