Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Sleeve. 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.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: All right, Scott Phillips from thrive pickleball. Welcome to the senior pickleball report.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: Hey, thanks a lot, Mike. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Hey, great background, man.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: Look at that. Fancy, is it?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: It's very fancy sometimes. If anybody's ever watched some of my interviews, all three people, you get some serious people, will sit in front of windows with no blinds, and they're like, how's this? I'm like, well, I can see your silhouette.
Well done.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: I was pre warned before. All the lights are off. I'm in a black house right now.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: That's right. Hey, and I got the old representative.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: You got the nice hat on. I like it.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Got the nice hat and I got the paddles.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: We'll talk about nice.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: So before we do, obviously, a little bit of background on you. I always start with how people kind of came to pickleball in this goofy ball game. And obviously, you've even jumped a little further because you're a retailer for paddle. So talk about how the game came into your life first, Scott.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Well, I'm probably like a lot of people. I'm a golfer. That's my main background. I played golf almost my whole life. And then Covid hit and there was no golf. And I think a lot of people decided to pick up the sport. Where I live, they just built three courts. So I decided to buy a paddle with my buddies and we started whacking the ball around. And so I guess it would have been 21 and I started playing.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Right on. So the golfing seems a little weird because obviously, outdoor sport, you're walking around, you can be separated somewhat.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Yeah. But during that time, I'm out in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the courses were closed. We had nothing to do at the time.
They allowed us, I guess the social distancing. A pickleball court was fine. So we got a couple of balls, bought a couple of paddles and went at it.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Went at it, right. Like I mentioned earlier, it's one thing to play pickleball, it's another thing to get in the business of pickleball in some level. So how did that leap sort of come from like, I'm playing? This is pretty cool. Hey, let's get into the paddle.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: Been my background in marketing, casino marketing. Of course, being in Las Vegas, that'd be a good profession to be. And I've done it pretty much my whole life. And I've always been kind of an innovator. And with my golf background, I've always been kind of like a golf club geek. I'd buy every golf club, every driver, every wedge, every putter, and always trying to just tweak it and make everything just a little bit better. And when I started with pickleball, I was buying paddles all the time, any paddle. I thought it was going to make me better. I thought, this is different shape, different size, and so forth. So just started buying paddles, and I just realized that all these paddles I didn't feel were great, they'd wear out too fast. And just came up with an idea. It's like, why not just try to see if I can design a paddle, make a paddle? And that's kind of how I at first, got my feet wet and started at it.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Right on. Yeah, and let's get to the paddles right away, because that's what it's about here. And we have the rush and we have the threat, we have the 16 mil threat, and then the rush at 13 mil. And we'll talk about really what makes your paddle company unique is because you really talk a great deal and put an importance on swing weight. So talk to me a little bit about that, because when everybody first started getting into this game and then the paddle market just exploded, it was all about just static weight, which doesn't mean bucky. So talk to me about swing weight, why it's important and how thrive's implemented into their brand.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: Really? Okay, well, like you said, everyone talks about paddle weight, static weight, what it weighs on a kitchen scale or whatever device you have. And like you said, it's meaningless just because paddles, how they're built, they could weigh the same, but feel totally different. Your hand. So knowing that swing weight, going back to geke golf, it's kind of the same thing.
The swing weight of a pickleball paddle is the most important thing. That and the twist weight. So what we decide to do is for every single paddle, it takes a lot of time. I think we're the only company really out there that does it. We weigh every paddle.
And when you purchase a paddle, you can pick your swing weight. And what the swing weight does is once you know what swing weight you like, when you purchase future paddles down the road, you would know that if you, let's say you like a 119 swing weight, the next time you buy a paddle, you buy 119, the paddle is going to feel identically the same, unlike in today's industry. You buy a paddle, you don't know what it is. You may know the static weight. It may be 117. The next one you buy is 123. So there's no consistency. And for playability, it's very frustrating for a lot of players because they're always getting a different paddle. And for us, we like to think that we're the most consistent paddle company out there when it comes to purchasing a paddle.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
I don't have them with me, but like a little card that was on the outside of actually have one right here package.
And it's phenomenal because it gives you all the data that you can geek out on, really. And a lot of people are into that and it explains why the paddle feels the way it does.
I've reviewed dozens and dozens of paddles and I can go to their site and it gives me between seven, eight and eight one in some regard. And some of them are not even remotely close to their parameter that they put on.
There was a paddle that I weighed that was like 7.1 and they were saying, well, it could be up to 81. And I'm like, holy wow. So that's a cool thing. And if people can see, you get these little strips from thrive that give you specific weight that you can add. I mean, you can obviously go out and buy lead tape as well and do that. But if you want to make it very specific, you can put that on there and then talk to me about how you can explain to somebody that has a paddle the weight that they put on and how it will adjust the swing weight for their particular want or need.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. So it's two parts with our whole customization of our weight cards. Like we said, we measure for swing weight, we measure for twist weight, balance, point, head heaviness, and we do have the static weight, just so people know. But the main thing is once you have your swing weight, which you would have on the card when you add the lead bars, as I have a paddle here, there's two here. And if you go to the website, it shows you, if you put the lead bars in certain positions, how it affects the swing weight and more importantly, the twist weight. Not enough people talk about twist weight. And what twist weight is, is how much the paddle twists in your hand on an off center hit.
The higher the number of the twist weight would be, the bigger sweet spot, which would give it more control. So our goal is to get a paddle for a customer and try to build up the paddle as much as we can with weight, so we can increase the twist weight without getting the swing weight so high, where it feels uncomfortable in their hand.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:25] Speaker C: So that's the main thing I tell everyone, if you do not put lead tape on your paddle, you're doing a disservice to the paddle. It makes the paddle better. Unfortunately, a lot of times when people buy paddles, they're so heavy, they can't put lead tape on them because you can't take weight out of a paddle. So I try to tell people like, hey, if you like a heavy paddle, maybe you go for a medium heavy, and we add a little weight to it. Then you'll be where you like to be. If you like a light paddle, get a light paddle. But we'll add a little weight. It'll make the paddle better. And on the website, it will show what happens to the swing weight, how it increases, and what happens to the twist weight when you put the lead in certain positions on the paddle.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Talk to me about the paddle and the weight you like to play with and why and how much you're adding to your paddle.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: Well, for me, I'm kind of a footy player.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: I like to do a lot of.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Backhand rolls and forehand rolls, so it's harder for me to go more up the face. Okay. So what I do is I put 3 grams is basically 0.1oz, right?
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Each one of these is three, right?
[00:08:30] Speaker C: Yeah, 3 grams. These are 3 grams. 3 grams. So it's 0.1. So if you have four of them, it's like 0.4oz. So I basically just put a lead on each side, and I go up about an inch. So I just use kind of like my thumb. I go up an inch, and that's my setup. I start with my swing weight. About 119, 120. Okay. Right around there. Usually about 120 gets my paddle up to about 121, which is right where I want to be. If I go lighter and try to get more tape up, I can feel the twist way getting more, which would be good. But with that, my hand speed is a little slower, so I don't like that feeling.
A perfect example is one of our pro for you. Yes.
I'm kind of a risky player, so for me, I don't like to have a lot of weight going up the sides of the paddle, where most pros do. Most pros. A pro setup would be to try to get the weight as far up the paddle you can.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Right. So that's a good transition. Obviously, you have some pros that you're sponsoring, and talk to me about that approach, because obviously when you start in the paddle game, there's different approaches. You can take. You can go and try and sign players. You can try and build a different sort of culture through whatever your merch is or things like that. What was the reasoning behind the track you followed to kind of pursue the pro game?
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Well, when we first opened, my main goal, I'm from Las Vegas, was to get and define the best players in my town, which is Las Vegas. And they were basically, there's about three or four of the best players. There's Alex Simon, who's the number two ranked senior singles player.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Been on the show a bunch.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Cool dude.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: Yes. Alex, definitely. Great guy. Then there's Lauren Mercado, who is the number three ranked player in the world under the age of 20. She's in Vegas. She's 16 years old. Then there's Patrick Koska, who actually helped me design the paddles. He took up pickleball about a year and a half ago, and he was a professional tennis player and padell player, so he had a really good racket background.
And then we have Reina Ash.
She is a pro. She plays on the PPA and app tours with Patrick and Lauren. So those were the main players in town. There's also. Luke Ness is a pro, Alec Weller is a pro.
So I really just wanted to get the best players in town. If the best players believe in the paddle, then it's a lot easier for other people to believe in the paddle. And of course, I would not want someone to play a paddle they didn't like. But it was pretty easy, once they got the paddle in their hands to switch over from the current manufacturers they're playing with. So I ended up getting of the players I just mentioned. I got all of them. So they're all playing thrive.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: I think it does. It's beneficial that you can go out there whenever and go to the courts and talk to folks and see kind of get their feedback instantly rather than doing email or you've never met the person you're sponsoring them. You kind of get to know their personalities and the things they sort of like. So I like that approach. Nice and small. Start local, man.
[00:11:30] Speaker C: Yeah. So we did that, and then we kind of branched out and we just signed on. Casey diamond, he's out of Charleston, South Carolina. Great name. Ryan Finley, who played in the NFL. Yeah, it is a great name. That's a Vegas name. And then Ryan Finley played in the NFL. He's a professional pickball player out of Scottsdale, Arizona. He signed on. We have another one that's about to sign on right now.
Also in town, we have Cheryl Bond, she plays the paddle, and Courtney Clark. And we just have a good little, small group of good players that believe in the product, and that's kind of what we wanted when we were first starting out.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely.
Congratulations. So that's a great start.
[00:12:07] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Let's talk about, obviously, if you get into creating paddles, you have to deal with the ever moving sort of matrix of what happens to be a legal paddle and what is not a legal paddle, and that could be an entire interview on its own. I understand that. So talk to me a little bit about the ride you've been on since entering this game and trying to figure out where the markers are going to be from week to week.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: Well, it's funny you say that, because we're innovators. I'm an innovator. So we have our two paddles out right now, and we're already working on our third paddle that will be released sometime in the first quarter of 2024. So we have some prototypes right now. And it is frustrating because every day we ask ourselves the same question, like, what's going to change? We're building these paddles. We like them, but next Wednesday is they're going to change to all the rules. Is deflection going to change to this? Are they going to change surface roughness? What are they going to do differently? And what we're trying as paddle builders is building new paddles. You're kind of just hoping that whatever you build gets approved. And then once the pros play it, it gets approved when they play it, because it's two separate entities. I have to get the paddle approved by USA, pickleball, USApA. And then once the players play, there's the app tour and the PPA, and they both have different testing guidelines, so they have to pass another standard. Yeah. So just because it passes USAPA doesn't mean it's necessarily always going to pass for the tour, which is very difficult because our pros want to play the.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. And, you know, people, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it, the standard is set generally with the highest level of players in the world, and then we all just kind of fall in line to whatever that happens to be because that's why we're buying signature paddles and so on and so forth. And we follow particular players. But, yeah, I follow a lot of the podcasts, and obviously it's all over the place at this point. Have you had a chance to engage? You don't have to give me any names, but with anybody who else is in the same game you are and talk shop a little bit about this?
[00:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I've talked to some other paddle builders and just kind of see.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: What.
[00:14:25] Speaker C: They'Re looking at, what they're trying to come up with next. I think everyone's trying to figure out what's 2024 going to bring. We had thermal forming in 2023 and foam injection walls in 2020. So we got all these different things, and it's my belief it's going to be paddle faces. Like, what are you going to put on the face? Raw carbon was the hot topic last year. Everyone wanted raw carbon. What is it going to be this year? We are messing around with some different faces to see which face that we are going to go with. So there's nothing off the board. Every day there's something new, and we want something that's playability for all levels. I mean, I think that's the main thing. Just not the pros.
But for amateurs, whether you're a beginner, intermediate, advanced player, it's very important to us.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: How important when you're developing something and testing it is the ball, because obviously, pros like to use the Dura 40, and most of the amateurs out there at this point are still using the Franklin ball. They're different balls. I mean, probably to the average person that walks out there, they're not going to notice right away they both look similar and you hit it, whatever. But do you pay attention to the type of ball that obviously is coming off the paddle because you're catering towards pros at some level?
[00:15:43] Speaker C: Yeah, for the most part, the pros are going to play whatever ball they're forced to play with.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: If it's a dura, they play Duras because that's what the tours play. I just got word that Dura is no longer going to be part of the PPA tour. They go to Vulcan.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard that as well.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of surprising because Vulcan doesn't have a ball, but who knew exactly which?
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Hey, but part of the question.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Yeah, you got to start with something.
It'll go to the Vulcan ball. Now, the dura is the fastest ball. It also breaks the fastest. It also gets out of the round the fastest. But we play it because we're forced to play it. So, getting back to your question, we test it with all different types of balls, and obviously, we try to get our paddles to the very limit of what is allowable. I mean, if they say your paddle can be this fast, we're going to bring it to that fast. We're not going to go over, but we're going to make it where the paddle is going to pass, but it's going to pass with what our intent is. So if we're building a fast paddle, we're building a fast paddle. We're building a paddle that spins a lot. We're going to bring the surface roughness right up to the limit of 30 and 40.
When the customer buys something, they should be buying exactly what they want. And that's kind of our philosophy behind it. But with the balls, we test them with all different types of balls. I don't think the ball makes that much of a difference for an amateur, like you said.
But with them moving to different balls, it becomes a different game. The game is becoming so much faster with technology.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Right. So we talked a little bit off camera, and if you want to talk about this, we don't have to, but you think ultimately, instead of messing with the paddle so much, we should really start looking at the ball for testing when we have to test so much?
[00:17:24] Speaker C: Well, I think the ball is what you can control. That's the easiest control option you have at a tour event. You control the ball. If you just bring out a slower ball, you have the parameters of the paddle set. Where there's a limit, they don't change, and then you have a slower ball and everyone should be happy. The problem that happens, we have a fastball. One, man. I mean, what happens right now is we have a fastball and crazy fast paddles. So people that have a slow paddle are going to complain about it, and you have this big issue about these fast paddles, but the public wants the fast paddles. So we're kind of in a pickle. It's kind of like with golf, the courses, pro golfers, the courses are too short, but not for me or you. So what do they do? How do they tone down, do you tone down equipment? Well, I don't want to hit the ball shorter. I want to hit it farther. So with the pros, they talk about is slowing down the ball, not making the ball go as fast or as far. So I think that slowing the pickleball down for pros, not for amateurs, for pros, is something that they should look into.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously there's different golf balls. When you're playing golf, you can have a ball that's a little harder and has a little more spin and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, same type of thing. So where do you see it going, Scott, as we wind up here, where do you see testing going? I mean, I know it's like throwing darts at this point, and then ultimately, where do you see technology going for paddles?
[00:18:43] Speaker C: Well, with testing, it's kind of up in the air. Now. We have this new company, I think it's pro player labs. I think that's the name of the company.
And then we have the company that we submit our paddles to for USA pickleball. I think it's in Chesapeake, Virginia. But I don't know what can. I only control what I can control. So whatever they tell me what it's going to be, that's what it's going to be. If I got to tweak a paddle, if I build it and I have to change it just so it will pass, of course I will. I mean, we're not going to put out illegal paddles, but it is frustrating because things change on the fly all the time. So moving forward, I just hope there's more consistency that we all know this is what the parameters are going to be. We all are going to stay within those parameters, and it's not going to be like currently, week to week that things are changing so much.
Yeah.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: And different entities testing.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: Yeah, different entities testing and different testing for different paddles for different players. And it's just, to me, a lot, really convoluted. And I just hope there's more consistency. I think it'll make it better for the industry. It'll be better for paddle companies, better for players, better for amateurs. I think it's just better for the sport altogether.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Right. Okay, so is raw carbon fiber the end all, or is there other things coming?
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Other things are coming. You can't stay stagnant. We're innovating. I think raw carbon is a great surface. I think it serves its purpose. It's going to be around for a long time, but I think moving forward, you're going to see a lot of different surfaces, maybe with raw carbon in them, but you're going to see a lot of different types of surfaces necessarily. They better, not necessarily so much better. They're different. And I think different is what people want, and we're going to give people what they want. And the different services we're testing out are pretty cool. A lot of them have a little different feeling, a little different sound, a little different spin. So what we're coming up with, I know when it comes out in the first quarter, it's going to be something really unique, something completely different, and I think people will like it. That's the whole goal.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Good way to end it. So thrive. Pickleball, this is Scott Phillips. You can find links in the description. Obviously two paddles out at the moment. The threat rush. One's a 16 mil, one is a 13 mil, and you can get it to the exact swing weight you want. Incredible paddle. There'll be a review along with this interview, so we'll have a little bit of my thoughts on it as well. Hey, Scott, thanks for your time. Love what you do and really cool paddle and the way, it's the best setup I've seen out there where you can get exactly what you want. And if you obviously stay with thrive, you can consistently get it every single time. So well done.
