Episode:#49 Shaun Boyce & Bobby Schindler
In this episode we talk to Andres Robelo, CEO and founder of playbypoint a software service for club management. With a consistent focus on helping clubs connect directly with their audience, playbypoint offers the ability to personalize the service to each club’s needs.
For more: https://www.playbypoint.com/
More about Andres: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andresrobelo/
https://www.facebook.com/playbypoint
https://www.instagram.com/playbypoint/
Shaun Boyce USPTA: [email protected]
https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾
Bobby Schindler USPTA: [email protected]
https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾
Geovanna Boyce: [email protected]
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Transcript
(upbeat music)
Speaker:Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.
Speaker:Every episode is titled, "It Starts With Tennis"
Speaker:and goes from there.
Speaker:We talk with coaches, club managers,
Speaker:industry business professionals, technology experts,
Speaker:and anyone else we find interesting.
Speaker:We wanna have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.
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Speaker:- Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,
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Speaker:at 25% off for paid members.
Speaker:In this episode, we talk to Andres Robelo,
Speaker:who is the CEO and founder of Play By Point,
Speaker:a software platform for club management.
Speaker:Their mission is to empower clubs
Speaker:to connect directly with their audience,
Speaker:which probably influences his king of tennis answer
Speaker:toward the end of the conversation.
Speaker:Have a listen and let us know what you think.
Speaker:(soft music)
Speaker:- So my name is Andres, right?
Speaker:A, you know, originally born in Miami,
Speaker:but grew up in Nicaragua, so Latin America,
Speaker:or Central American, in this case.
Speaker:How it relates to you guys, you know,
Speaker:been tennis player in my whole life.
Speaker:So obviously tennis has always been in my bloods,
Speaker:it's created a lot of opportunities for me
Speaker:in terms of friendships, relationships, fitness,
Speaker:all that, so it's always been a part of it.
Speaker:And I'll start with that way,
Speaker:just because it's interrelated to how we got to Play By Point.
Speaker:And, you know, once I graduated high school,
Speaker:I went to college in the US, played D3 tennis, right?
Speaker:Nothing too good per se in that case,
Speaker:but it had fun, I always kept kind of my tennis blood in there.
Speaker:After that, I went to a small liberal arts school
Speaker:in Pennsylvania, and then a transfer to the University of Miami.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:My focus was never around technology,
Speaker:it was more oriented in finance.
Speaker:You know, I worked for, you know, private wealth management firm,
Speaker:then when I did that, I was still in college.
Speaker:And, you know, I said, I don't wanna do finance,
Speaker:you know, that's something that I'm not too passionate about.
Speaker:I feel like I'm not producing anything,
Speaker:so I need to go into operations.
Speaker:And that led me to my first job out of college,
Speaker:which was in an operations role in a restaurant industry.
Speaker:Right? And part of the training is that we have to spend
Speaker:the first six to eight months at the actual restaurant
Speaker:handling the whole operation, right?
Speaker:And I'm saying this because that was my first interaction
Speaker:with the point of sale system, which is what we are today, right?
Speaker:And that experience of being on a day-to-day,
Speaker:learning how this little computer was essential,
Speaker:not essential, but critical to the quality of the customer service
Speaker:and customer care, and most importantly,
Speaker:the experience of the staff, right?
Speaker:And how a bad design product could really make your life miserable
Speaker:or enjoyable, right?
Speaker:Per-sham that case.
Speaker:So that began kind of my, you know, kind of what planted the seed.
Speaker:And there's always been an affinity.
Speaker:This was 2012.
Speaker:And, you know, technology, I've always, you know,
Speaker:always loved technology, you know,
Speaker:always been passionate about it.
Speaker:And after that, I took a job at more
Speaker:an investing role in technology.
Speaker:And when I was living in Miami, I couldn't get a court, right?
Speaker:I was trying to book a court, not even book a court,
Speaker:I was trying to go play, right?
Speaker:And whenever I would just try to find a court,
Speaker:I would have to go in there.
Speaker:Usually as a lot of, you know, at public parks,
Speaker:Per-sham that case, and we'd have to wait
Speaker:for a year or so, Per-sham that case, right?
Speaker:So I would get out of work at 7 or 6.30, change, run, drive.
Speaker:I would get to the court, and I wouldn't plan till 9, right?
Speaker:And that happened over enough times
Speaker:that it stopped playing tennis, right?
Speaker:It's like, look, I don't have, I'm not saying I don't have time for this,
Speaker:but it's very, you know, very cumbersome in that case.
Speaker:And I stopped playing tennis for about three years.
Speaker:And then, you know, it's on and off, right?
Speaker:I used to play three times a week, et cetera.
Speaker:And then, you know, I kind of stopped that cadence, Per-sham that case.
Speaker:And that kind of led to the, not the likeable moment
Speaker:because it doesn't come that way, but it came to look, you know,
Speaker:sport, I love, you know, half of my friendships are through tennis,
Speaker:growing up, you know, it kept me physically active,
Speaker:helped me deal with a lot of life, you know,
Speaker:when you're in a match and you're down to set,
Speaker:you need to come back.
Speaker:So again, there's a lot of analogies that even being as an entrepreneur,
Speaker:a solo entrepreneur, right?
Speaker:Most importantly, I've been able to draw from, right?
Speaker:Where, as you guys know, right, the physical part of tennis is obviously important,
Speaker:but the mental is really what takes you across, you know,
Speaker:from being good to great Per-sham that case.
Speaker:So, with that passion and all those analogies in mind,
Speaker:I said, you know what, let's, let me come up with something,
Speaker:you know, we, you know, I, we think we, we, there's an opportunity here.
Speaker:This was 2015, Per-sham that case, Uber was coming up,
Speaker:Airbnb was coming up, I could pay with my parking on my phone,
Speaker:and I'm like, guys, what, you know, I,
Speaker:why can't I just book my court?
Speaker:It's simple, like it's, it's, it's, it's that simple.
Speaker:And obviously, I knew nothing about the business, right?
Speaker:So, and that was kind of the biggest revelation.
Speaker:I knew nothing.
Speaker:And I, and I started that process and I made two big mistakes.
Speaker:One is I chose my first, I, first I looked how I was going to build this, right?
Speaker:So, I, I went out, I looked for a team and we set out to build what they call an MVP.
Speaker:Let me build something based, but before I got and build it,
Speaker:let me get the first client, right?
Speaker:Let me get the first customer because if not, you know,
Speaker:I'm not going to build something and then they're going to come.
Speaker:That, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker:So, little did I know I chose my first customer to be a city, right?
Speaker:Again, I used to play, I used to live by, or work by Coral Gables.
Speaker:So, I got Cedal Coral Gables.
Speaker:There's a bit more Salvador Park where the junior orange ball is held.
Speaker:And we, you know, I spent eight months going to the commissioners telling them,
Speaker:I'm here advocating for us tennis players that we need a technology solution
Speaker:to just make the booking experience better.
Speaker:So, after, you know, I would, you know, wake up early,
Speaker:be at 7 a.m. at the commissioners office and trying to get a meeting with all four of them,
Speaker:try to convince them, spend eight months, and finally, one commissioner told me,
Speaker:let me get you a meeting with the tennis director and IT.
Speaker:And that was kind of the, the beginning of this process.
Speaker:And then from there, it was another six months trying to convince IT,
Speaker:why they should do it?
Speaker:We told them, guys, it's going to be free.
Speaker:You know, right now when you go to the club and people, you know, it's 20 or 2023,
Speaker:and in 2016, you know, and if you obviously you guys know how things used to be run,
Speaker:but the way they were ran at this park, and that was, um,
Speaker:prevailing across all most tennis clubs, right?
Speaker:Not all of them because the technology wasn't there yet.
Speaker:Everyone would call in at 7 a.m.
Speaker:They would leave a voicemail because they're not answering at 7 a.m.
Speaker:Then all the lines came up, then the lady that worked there, right?
Speaker:That you know, the front best staff that are dear to all our hearts because they're the,
Speaker:they're the heart of the operation, right?
Speaker:We know them, they become our friends, and they're part of the experience.
Speaker:They come in there, they spend two hours listening to the voicemail,
Speaker:putting it on a piece of paper.
Speaker:Once it fills up, they start building the queue,
Speaker:and go on and so forth, right?
Speaker:So if you cancel, you know, so then that's all that that probably then
Speaker:back was, hey guys, let me help you, right?
Speaker:And and that began kind of our journey and that was how
Speaker:played a fun fact.
Speaker:Pay by court was born, okay?
Speaker:So we've had three name changes or two name changes in our history.
Speaker:So that's how pay by court came to be.
Speaker:And we launched in January of 2017,
Speaker:with the help of, you know, the city of Coral Gables, I'll do a mention, Robert Gomez,
Speaker:over at the Billmore and Salvador, and they they bet on us, right?
Speaker:They they gave us that trust to go in there and try to help out the tennis community.
Speaker:And and the whole spirit and the birth of the, I'll start with the idea, but of the company now is
Speaker:we want to enrich people's everyday lives, right?
Speaker:Whether it's be the player, the staff, or everyone that touches our product.
Speaker:And that and at that time it was, we want to keep that keep the sport alive, right?
Speaker:The sport that has given all of us and I assume people that are in the industry were here because
Speaker:there is a passion for the sport and it has given us opportunity and and it's something that just,
Speaker:you know, goes through your blood soon, you know, from the first time they put in raggedown use.
Speaker:So the whole ethos was we want to expand the playing opportunities, right?
Speaker:We want more people to go on court, make it a better experience, and our bet was that through
Speaker:easier technology, we could do our small part and and all and kind of disengagement with that.
Speaker:It our small part is just one piece of a larger equation of what it takes to build a successful
Speaker:tennis club tennis program that you guys, I'm sure have covered through your podcast with other
Speaker:speakers. So we just play a small part, small part in it. We think obviously very important,
Speaker:but we just do, you know, we're just the, you know, the assistant coach if you want to call it that way.
Speaker:And that keeps. All right, well, I'm good. Bobby, thanks for coming.
Speaker:I want to know what was in the water in 2015 that everybody got the same idea at the same time.
Speaker:There's, yeah, and it's funny because court reserve came came to be in that same time. Yeah.
Speaker:Forts, which you're you you were involved in and Waleed and, you know, great people. We have great
Speaker:relationships with them. And really the, the old G's as I call it, used to be tennis bookings,
Speaker:which is no longer with us that way with Paul. He did a great job as well.
Speaker:Then, and then you had a couple other players that you probably knew, right, that that we're doing it
Speaker:from from a long time. But I think what changed in 2015 or 2016 was you had a targeted effort to
Speaker:instead of building, you know, a developer trying to build a homemade solution, someone trying to,
Speaker:I'm not going to say build a business, but try to take it to more clubs at a higher scale. And
Speaker:I don't know what happened in that year that there's a couple theories across ideas that ideas are not
Speaker:born within the person, but that they're flying around. And, you know, you can catch them,
Speaker:for sure, in that case. So maybe that's the theory we can, we can abide by, but I think there was a big
Speaker:thing. I would say it's strike. Showed up when strike became a thing when we could take payments
Speaker:easily. And people could put together a website because we had what we had reserve my court for
Speaker:20 years. I mean, he was, he was ahead of the curve on that one with just a simple click-a-button,
Speaker:get it done, no bells and whistles, you know, get us started. But when Stripe showed up and we started
Speaker:being able to implement, taking the payments, I think we were able to figure out how to monetize these
Speaker:things. So there was some incentive to get into the industry. Yeah. Tennis source was another one.
Speaker:No. No. I think we had three of them here in Atlanta coming out of Georgia Tech. We had like
Speaker:three different groups. They were not doing something very similar. Yep. That's true. So what's, and
Speaker:here's my favorite leading question in this, in this concept, Ardoros, which is, you know, why are
Speaker:you special? So you say you're, you're a small piece and we talked to everybody about it and everybody
Speaker:says, okay, well, here's, here's what we do. And one of the things Bobby and I have realized of our
Speaker:combined millions of years of experience here are, is realizing that not every club is the same. And
Speaker:there is no, there is no system that's just going to be for everyone. You've got to find the right
Speaker:club. You got to find the right facility that fits what you're offering as opposed to just blank
Speaker:it and saying, why isn't everybody using my system and changing their business model to the way
Speaker:we do things? So what's, what's yours? What's your target? Who specifically are you helping?
Speaker:Great question. So I'll continue the story that I was telling you that ties into that.
Speaker:So we came in and I think everyone had this similar situation where, you know, the idea is,
Speaker:look, I'm going to do a booking system and it's going to work for everyone, right? Same thing as
Speaker:all these things. And I said before, little, little did I know, I had no knowledge on the industry.
Speaker:Right? So it was when people asked me why we started this and the answer I always give, I was naive.
Speaker:That's it. Plane and simple. I was naive. I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
Speaker:So we launched in 2017 and everything we thought how the club operated was wrong.
Speaker:Right? So we're, oh my god, we thought you did this way. No, it's this way. And then,
Speaker:and then that was a big revelation at the beginning. But we took it from a point of view that
Speaker:we were in no hurry. We really wanted to understand what the club was going through, what the staff
Speaker:was going through on a day to day. I would go to the club every morning to really understand what
Speaker:the, you know, what the folks, Maddie and these clubs were going through on a day to day basis,
Speaker:right? And also that came to the why, for sure, in that case. Why wasn't there a good system that
Speaker:everyone can have? And the reason is that bookings, right? And that's, that was our, not wrong
Speaker:approach, but that was part of the learning. And as you guys know, it's just a small component
Speaker:of the tennis business at the clubs. You got lessons, you got junior programs, you got the pro shop,
Speaker:you got memberships, you got a bunch of other stuff that tie it in, right? And bookings,
Speaker:revenue wise is very small, right? So why, so that, so why hasn't there been a solution for that? Because
Speaker:there's more important stuff, right? For sure, in that case. So part of our biggest revelation in
Speaker:the beginning was, look, all these clubs, the problem is not bookings. The problem is that all these clubs
Speaker:are using a golf software to manage their tennis operation, a spa software to manage their operations,
Speaker:a yoga software, a government software. So then we, we set, and we made a pivot back then, very
Speaker:consciously, to change from being a booking system to being a management and point of sale solution.
Speaker:Right? That includes, yes, it does include bookings. Yes, it does include all the things that you
Speaker:need, right? So interact. And, and that was the first revelation. The second one was, I was,
Speaker:laser focused on building for, you know, for that customer I thought that everyone was the same.
Speaker:And then I got my third, my second customer. And then I go to, to my other customer in Dorao,
Speaker:my god, these guys are doing everything different. What is this? Nothing that I did here,
Speaker:is the same here. Okay, well, I got to go set it up the way they do it here. Perfect. Boom. And
Speaker:everything we did from day one, we built our technology in a way that it's customizable to each
Speaker:individual club, right? And we started learning that in our pitch till this day is every club is
Speaker:different. Every club has its unique way of operating. Every club has its unique set of rules.
Speaker:And the way we built our technology is that it's extremely easy to customize it to your needs.
Speaker:We take care of all setup. We take care of onboarding. And we make sure that the solution fits for
Speaker:your club. A famous phrase that I always say is the, the, the software, the, the software, you
Speaker:shouldn't accommodate your business by the software. It should be the other way around, right? So
Speaker:what we did throughout many years, we, we had that philosophy and that approach. And we would
Speaker:literally just build that specific need for that customer because that got me that one customer.
Speaker:And that another customer. And, and, and that was our journey from 2017 to 2020, you know,
Speaker:we were just trying to build these partnerships with these clubs. And, and if, you know,
Speaker:Karen at North River Shores had this problem and she did it this way, then we would build it for her.
Speaker:And no additional cost and no setup, no commitment, nothing because we thought that that would help
Speaker:eventually the whole ecosystem. So it got to a point that we got to, or, you know, our 100th
Speaker:club or 100. And we have seen so many of these cases already that today, we offer, in my opinion,
Speaker:one of the most flexible platforms out there in the market where you were not telling you how to
Speaker:run your business, the, the platform adapts to your unique needs for Shandakis. And if we don't have them,
Speaker:we'll build it for you, right? And we keep that promise to this day, Nakhir's.
Speaker:So the only way you can do that is to monetize usage rather than monetizing, you're,
Speaker:you're going to monetize the traffic and the activity rather than monetizing the usage is kind of
Speaker:the way I would put it. Because if you're going to, you're, if you're going to say, okay, I'm going to,
Speaker:I'm going to build it specifically for you. That gets expensive fast from a development point of
Speaker:you. So how are you able to pull off all of this customization? I mean, I'm just picturing 97
Speaker:different drop downs as to how I'm trying to figure out how this fits into my club.
Speaker:Great question. You know, we got one, our technology team is one of the best, right? So everything
Speaker:the way we structured our software and, and that's another piece where we're different. If you look
Speaker:at our software and that the, the player experience and the management experience is completely
Speaker:different from what you have out there in the market. Everything out there from I'm not going to
Speaker:mention names, they all look the same. They're all the same, right? We made one key, not one key
Speaker:difference, but what is one example? The, our, our calendar, our quarter on the left and our times
Speaker:are on top. And I'll, I'll start there. And just because we think about things differently, right?
Speaker:In terms of how the staff should engage with them and, and what that's done is it creates, to
Speaker:point how we're different. What my claim is I can train your staff in 10 to 15 minutes. Our system is
Speaker:very easy to use, very easy to get them up and running. And that brings it back to my experience
Speaker:that I started earlier over at the restaurant business that you got people rotating, you don't
Speaker:have time to train you're from that staff. Some days someone's covering one shift. And if they don't
Speaker:know how to use the system or they got it, they got to take in, you know, a master's degree to learn it.
Speaker:It's not going to work, right? And I think that's the mistake that a lot of other folks did that
Speaker:we put a lot of effort into making not only the player side look nice, which is amazing on our end,
Speaker:but the admin side look beautiful and not only look beautiful, up great in a way. So how did we do it?
Speaker:That all that customization, um, luckily enough. Or I don't, you know, you, we can, I'll call it
Speaker:luck, for some backcase, right? Where each feature we built, brought me the next customer and the next
Speaker:customer used that feature. I was just going to interrupt, I was just going to interrupt and point
Speaker:that out as I'm, as I'm looking through everything because you're not monetizing the traffic, your
Speaker:monitor, your monetizing the feature, which, yeah, however that works, but you say, okay, hey, I need
Speaker:this feature to do this thing. And you say, sure, I'll build it because some other club is going to
Speaker:need it. And I'm going to add it to that list. And they're going to pay for the advanced version,
Speaker:or the, the maximum version or whatever, because they're going to need that feature too.
Speaker:All right. And also look the way I look at it is we're lucky enough to get that valuable feedback,
Speaker:right, where clubs are collaborating with us and telling us, look, Andres, these are my needs.
Speaker:I need this. This is my pain point, um, pain point. That's Bobby's phrase. Like, find
Speaker:their pain point. We can help. Yeah. And, and, and that's what really, that's why I looked at, I
Speaker:didn't even look like it was expensive. We were learning from them. I was, again, I go back to the point.
Speaker:We need nothing, right? I thought, and I think there's a mistake that a lot of people from the
Speaker:outside say, and even when I talk to my non tennis or people that are in the racket sports industry,
Speaker:managing a racket sports center, it's easy, right? I think that's kind of the, the outside and
Speaker:little do they know the intricacies of the job of the operations, the challenges, not only on court,
Speaker:right? That's in a whole nother dimension, but also off court, right? And, and I think for us,
Speaker:what makes us different is that we, we live, breathe, and understand the pain point to Bobby's point
Speaker:of the operator, right? So we, we've built a wonderful great solution, um, you know, in, in my opinion,
Speaker:it's to have someone, you know, invest, you have an R&D team, right? A group of scientists who
Speaker:got to put it that way, making this industry better, right? And that's the way we look at it. If we can make
Speaker:operations for, and what I said, if we can make the operations clean and people are making money,
Speaker:and they're, they, they're efficient, we can then take care of the rest, right? The other problems
Speaker:that we have in the industry, in that case. And I think Bobby is going to agree with this. So
Speaker:I'm going to let him talk about it for a second, but we, we talk between amongst ourselves,
Speaker:I like using the word amongst, it's just fun. Amongst ourselves about the, the fact that we've got the same
Speaker:old people running tennis. And when some, you know, some young person comes out of LA and they've got a
Speaker:new app that's going to fix everything, the, the arrogance of that, and everybody says, no,
Speaker:we're not going to happen. But Bobby mentions all the time, Bobby, you talk about needing fresh eyes,
Speaker:get somebody who doesn't know how to run a tennis club or hasn't been doing it for thousands of
Speaker:years to come in and say, well, wait, it's just like this other thing. Why don't we just do it this way?
Speaker:Yeah. Well, I think that's a lot of interest. And I think that's part of the, the 2016
Speaker:Proletoration. Everybody was looking at book, you know, book a table. It was starting to come around
Speaker:all about in, on other aspects of life, why isn't it in tennis? The fascinating part of it, and I
Speaker:love what you're saying, Andreas, obviously you survived and you said it out loud mistakes.
Speaker:That's a difficulty for a small company. So was, I mean, you, and you talked about the
Speaker:collaborative, was the development and the financing done by the city, the government, or, you know,
Speaker:because we're talking money here. That's, that's the hard part with any startup is being able to
Speaker:survive early misjudgments. We wouldn't call mistakes because I remember when I spoke to courts,
Speaker:and they were like, God, I really wish we would have spoke to you two months ago before, you know,
Speaker:that we came up with this idea. And I was like, well, you know, you're coming to Atlanta,
Speaker:whole different ballpark because we're HOA driven. We're not the traditional clubs. You know,
Speaker:you got a lot of people playing tennis, but most of them are playing out in neighborhoods.
Speaker:If you, you're not going to make a living off of the five clubs in Atlanta, like you said,
Speaker:that aren't going to use the software already provided by golf or make it affordable where they
Speaker:can switch. So, you know, how did you survive early on from a financial standpoint,
Speaker:why are you going through this journey? Great question. Let me start with the first comment that you made
Speaker:at, there's all these young guys trying to come up with a flashy product, and the few of us that
Speaker:survived are the ones that were humble enough to realize that the most important thing is listening
Speaker:to the customer, right? And not trying to impose our will or our vision onto them, right? And I
Speaker:think that's something that, you know, today there's few players, right? And I think the ones that
Speaker:guided their product and their development through that lens are still here today, right? And
Speaker:that is my friend, but you're right. He got stuck out of path and he couldn't get off of it.
Speaker:Exactly. So, what something that we did is I always knew that as long as we, you know, we're here
Speaker:trying to solve the clubs need, right? And that's something to go back to. The player, yes,
Speaker:they are important, right? We can build all these fans. And everyone was going after the player,
Speaker:for example, in that case, and we said, no, first we got to, we got to, and I go back to first we got
Speaker:to digitize the clubs. Then we can take care of the rest. And that was our mission to digitize
Speaker:the industry, right? And how would we do it by capturing 100% of everything that goes on at the club?
Speaker:Right? So again, covering not only court reservations, going back lessons, lesson packages,
Speaker:academies, and then you got junior signups and you got junior cams. Then you got juniors that they do one
Speaker:day a week, two days a week, three days a week. And I can go on and on and on about all these things,
Speaker:right? You some clubs have a lottery system that, you know, on HOAs. So again, all these things that
Speaker:we were completing, really, you need to tie in the whole ecosystem, right? It's a long time to build
Speaker:that out, right? So it's seven years and that's why when someone tries to come in today's world,
Speaker:in today's mark, and they say, it's easy a booking system. You know, I wish them luck, right? Just
Speaker:because of that. So that's on that side, right? So I think the the ones that were focused on helping the
Speaker:clubs were still here for sound that case. In terms of the financing, no, we gave our first pilot for
Speaker:free, right? So a lot of the the the initial, you know, we never went out and raised outside money,
Speaker:you know, we this was, you know, I said, look, let me, I got a, you know, one one of our my CTO, right? We
Speaker:we worked together since day one and he's still with us. And we kept the lean team, right? At the
Speaker:beginning, as we were developing the product, great technology person, a partner in the business. And
Speaker:the first three years, I was working full time, right? So I was working my full time job. I would go
Speaker:from 6 a.m. to 8 30 to the court, which is already active, then go to work, lunch, go back to the club,
Speaker:learn more, and go back to work nights, boom, and, and we were self funding the whole operation for
Speaker:a very long time for sound that case. And I think the, you know, in hindsight, if we would have gone,
Speaker:and I came from an, from a finance and investing background, and I knew that if you raised outside
Speaker:capital, you were just going to burn out because the scalability wasn't there, right? I learned early on
Speaker:that, you know, every club was different. So how are you going to sell an idea that I was going to be
Speaker:in a thousand clubs if it was difficult, right? So what we, we made in going back to your point,
Speaker:on the business model, we kept it simple, right? Because we saw everyone trying to do,
Speaker:hey, let me charge a percentage of the revenue of the fee and, and pros and justifiably so,
Speaker:you don't like getting another tax, right? On top of your business. So we, we kept it simple,
Speaker:right? And it's a, it's a SaaS tool software as a service. You pay a monthly fee depending on the,
Speaker:on the products you're looking for. And, and that's it, right? We keep it simple in that case. And,
Speaker:and, and that was our, our business model because our, our first goal is to digitize the industry,
Speaker:right? And that case, so get is more, we, we, it obviously took us a long time to, to customize
Speaker:everything. And we're still not there yet, by the way, right? But there's still things that pop up
Speaker:here and there, less now, less, now, but there's still things that we get at, at a, at a random club
Speaker:that those things differently. But, you know, we just held on, right? And, and, and what I say in
Speaker:entrepreneurship is, you know, it's, it's, it's, there is no failure. There's just when you give up,
Speaker:right? So, and you, and you do everything to keep it alive. So, and, and that was our journey, right?
Speaker:They, thankfully, obviously, I remember my first 50 customers, right? Because those, you know,
Speaker:a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, whatever dollars they paid us a month, that kept us going,
Speaker:right? Even at very lean, but that's why I, you know, I still speak to them today, right? We still
Speaker:support them and, and that's, you know, those are the true heroes of our journey, right? For sound
Speaker:actions. When we find not everybody wants to be first. So, when you come in and say, Hey, I got,
Speaker:I got an idea that's going to help you, especially in this industry, one of our first podcast episodes
Speaker:was titled, You Still Use a Pencil. Yeah. And it's just insane to me, but we still have it. And you,
Speaker:and it's probably going to be a really long time before pencils go away, but changing the culture a
Speaker:little bit is where everybody was in 2016. And maybe that 2017 timeframe, where everybody was a little
Speaker:more, maybe not everybody, many were more susceptible to the idea of digitizing and saying, ah, you know
Speaker:what? Yeah, we could, we could probably modernize a little bit and stop using Lotus Notes. You know,
Speaker:we hopefully updated. Yeah, I, by the way, we've never done sales. Everything has been word of mouth,
Speaker:all inbound. And I gave up on that at the big, at first two years, because I would, we would,
Speaker:I would drive all across Florida, um, knocking on clubs doors, tell them, Hey, you know, with the same
Speaker:pitch, right? Why is he painted paper? And we got, you have an idea how many knows, right? And just
Speaker:people, they didn't get it, right? So I said, you know what? Not that we just kind of turned back and
Speaker:say, look, I'm going to focus on the people that see the value. I'm not, I'm not here to change people's
Speaker:minds, right? And, and that's, I just, I gave up on that tennis pro, right? I'm not going to hear
Speaker:to try to convince them on that, because then he needs to go to his board and then convince,
Speaker:and then I'm like, okay, the people that see the value, then you, we hold you dearly. And we appreciate
Speaker:you and, and we'll support you with, with our, all our efforts for sound that case. And we just
Speaker:start to focus on the, on the, on the clubs that matter in that case. And, and really be myopic
Speaker:in the sense that we need to build the best solution. And, and that was our mission. We weren't
Speaker:thinking about, Oh, I need to get this club, that club, let's just keep making the best product.
Speaker:And we're taking a leap of faith that, um, that win, that ultimately gets us to the finish line.
Speaker:Bobby's got the same feature for his coaching business. He's secretly the best coach in the area,
Speaker:but nobody know. He didn't tell anybody. He just keeps it to himself when people figure it out,
Speaker:all of a sudden, it's just all incoming. Um, so, Anders, what's your, what's your footprint here?
Speaker:That's a fun, what's your footprint in Atlanta? What, uh, how do I ask that question? What kind of
Speaker:corporate buzzword can I throw in to ask? How many clubs you got here? Who are you working with?
Speaker:So low, we work with all the city of Atlanta locations. Um, I forget the names to be honest,
Speaker:but Pete, we know the ball, Pete, not bitty. Yeah, all those. And then we got some H O A's country clubs.
Speaker:I mentioned, you know, Dunwoody's one we just, just got, but I'll share that list after I tell you
Speaker:because we, you know, thankfully in the past two years, you know, obviously our growth has accelerated
Speaker:immensely. And, you know, I think our footprint today and the company were, you know, across the
Speaker:all 50 states, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Philippines, Dubai, Hong Kong, um, you know, the
Speaker:Dominican Republic, Ecuador, um, Hawaii. So, so again, our footprint has expanded. So I need to go
Speaker:look at my notes now and, you know, to get kind of certain in geographic area. We keep that obviously
Speaker:on a tight, um, tight ship, per se on that case, because again, we just focus on the club, right? So
Speaker:we're not a marketplace. Um, every club is unique. Every club has their own way of, um, working
Speaker:their, their operation and, and that's how we roll. Interesting. So your city, the city of Atlanta,
Speaker:you have all of those, that's not a piecemeal thing. Like you went to the city of Atlanta and said,
Speaker:hey, great, use this and they said great, have all our clubs. And, well, not like they came to us.
Speaker:It's a short version. I'll just, yeah, I'll get the short version. Maybe. So if Bobby was in, so
Speaker:yeah, the backstory there. Yeah. So the backstory, the true backstory there is, um,
Speaker:courts had those clubs. They got acquired in 2021 or they got, you know, whatever they got,
Speaker:done. And then the new acquiree didn't have a solution for all these clubs. So then
Speaker:when they're starting looking around, hey, you know, you don't have a point of sale, you know,
Speaker:we got to use, we got to use something and we just picked up all those clubs per se on that case. So
Speaker:really from the courts acquisition, um, we picked up half, right? Or give everything or a little
Speaker:bit more from, from all the clubs that were left stranded, right? In that case. And the same thing.
Speaker:Yeah. No, and I agree. And that, to me, that's, that's my, my next question is where do you see
Speaker:the future of this? Because the funny part about technology is it takes a long time for people to
Speaker:job on the, the wagon. And then once they're on it, well, what else are you going to do for me? How do
Speaker:you keep up? What, what do you foresee? You know, in your mind, the future, because I always looked at
Speaker:this and one thing I pushed and what we try to do with, with our website, I loved the open concept
Speaker:of courts, the ability for you to see the entire area and the sharing of drills and just an open
Speaker:source for tennis players could find other tennis players type thing. But I also looked at it from a
Speaker:director's perspective, I want something that's going to help me facilitate my communication with my
Speaker:members, make it easier where if I do a drill, I wanted to incorporate text messaging right into it. And
Speaker:once they got on the list of, well, yeah, that's on our list, but it's not number one on our list.
Speaker:You know, where do you foresee what, what features you're going to add? And I apologize, I've just
Speaker:been looking at you. What is the TV pricing? That, that has me. What, what is that? What do you
Speaker:go for? Is that, that sounds pretty flashy. No, so the TV is, you can display your courtsheet on a
Speaker:TV monitor, right? Oh, so you, well, because we tried to do that, we had to go to an outside software
Speaker:provider and it, he turned out to be a bomb. And, you know, so I have a TV thing, so I would love to be
Speaker:able to do that again. Yeah, I know. You said on my window that does nothing. Yeah, no, you're,
Speaker:your courtsheet, we got us, we send you a fire stick, you plug it in and then it's going to show
Speaker:your whole courtsheet right on the TV screen and it rotates. It's not the whole, it's not a copy
Speaker:of the court sheet. It wrote, it just keeps a four hour timeframe where you can choose the timeframe
Speaker:and as the day goes by, your, your court sheet shished over automatically. You should, I found your,
Speaker:your next name change is court guide. Because you're basically, what you're describing, I'm absolutely
Speaker:picturing what it looks like on those guides on the television where it scrolls because you moved
Speaker:the courts and the time and it moves. That's like a TV guide, right? Nope, I hear you. That's a great
Speaker:way to view it. I like that. Yeah. Now, do you do with that? And I love that idea again. Would you,
Speaker:because the other thing I was trying to incorporate, how do you make it for the neighborhoods? Because
Speaker:that's more of what we're doing here. And then go to them and say, yeah, look, this sounds like an
Speaker:expense. It's 1200, let's say my, my current subdivisions got 16 courts. Yeah, we were with courts on
Speaker:the, on the family rate. And then we started looking around and court reserved by the time we
Speaker:added anywhere near the amount of future features that we had similar, the price was astronomical.
Speaker:So then you take a step back and you go to something local that you hope over time gets to where you
Speaker:had it's, you know, balancing for the club, you know, the guys like me, how could you put an ad
Speaker:on that rotating court sheet where I could go to local neighborhoods and say, hey, you're going to
Speaker:be honest for $50 and I can go to my H.O.A. committee and say, look, it's going to cost is $1500,
Speaker:but I can make $750 of the back. I think. Yeah. So let me answer your two questions or
Speaker:a couple questions before that. I've been three. Who knows? Yeah. So on the, on the open concept for the
Speaker:player, look, the reality is that the club access is really a problem in the United States, right?
Speaker:Where yeah, we have all these facilities, but half of them are not even half a third. I don't
Speaker:know what the actual statistic is, but you can access. You can't just go in and play, right? So to create
Speaker:an open model, it's hard to do, right? The supply dynamics are not in there. The incentives are not in
Speaker:there. Why would an H.O.A. allow someone from the outside to go in? So there's a lot of barriers that
Speaker:it just doesn't make sense, right? So to that question, I think that's a, that's a mute point, at least from our
Speaker:opinion. So we focus at the club level, right? Where every club or every court, for sure, in that case,
Speaker:is a community, right? And at the end of the day, tennis, yeah, booking is just a tool, right? To get
Speaker:on the court, but at the end of the day, it's, you know, why do we play tennis? You know, there's a
Speaker:loneliness epidemic in this country. We want relationships, you know, we want to go in there,
Speaker:get interactions. If, you know, if I'm locked into my office all day, it doesn't bring, you know,
Speaker:too much enjoyment. So that's part of, we do this because it's a hobby, right? It's a sport.
Speaker:And I think that that's the number one component we should always keep in mind, right? And the pro
Speaker:has been central, is central to that. As, you know, right? The pro in getting the ladies leagues
Speaker:up and running, the ladies clinics, the, you know, getting the guys that book and connecting them with
Speaker:what used to be a sheet on the wall and people writing their names with their levels. So what the
Speaker:future holds on the software side and I'll kind of answer that question first. And what I tell people,
Speaker:is first we're trying to figure out how to run these things, right? We had all these operations,
Speaker:we were trying to see how we can, we can, you know, handle clinics, handle wait lists, handle the
Speaker:bookings, the rules and all that. And then the next phase in the future is how do we reduce the friction
Speaker:of the heart of the club, which is the director to make those interactions easily, right? So
Speaker:I think doing all the social pieces is going to be critical, right? Building leagues, you know,
Speaker:that's within the app that's easy to do. Tournament sign up a community chat, right? Where people can
Speaker:join and can post and all those aspects around that, that level for sound back to you. So that's where
Speaker:we, we're going towards to and then the other piece that I tell all my clients is, look, the booking
Speaker:is just the utility, right? When I never describe myself as a booking platform, we're a commerce
Speaker:platform, right? When you look at our booking system, the way we approach it and we'll send some
Speaker:fault material after a podcast so you can see, we're different. And in the case that when you look at
Speaker:every other system and I go back to that point, how does the booking journey start? And that's a question
Speaker:for both of you. I look at like how far back you go? What are they looking at? What are they looking at
Speaker:first? I'm looking at a monitor, a phone or a computer and a court sheet, right? You just, you look the
Speaker:whole court sheet. I went too far back, sorry. Yeah. So you're looking at the whole court sheet.
Speaker:That's my biggest critique of not critique, but in general. Why does a person want to look at the whole
Speaker:court sheet? No, right? You need to show them what they want. So the way we interact our customers is
Speaker:they go in and download our app and really take it for a spin and you can see that what we're building
Speaker:is a commerce platform where you can put banner ads to your point, right? We got banner ads on our
Speaker:under format. You can upsell them, you can charge partners for it. You have a shop section where
Speaker:you can put your pro shop items on the app, people can buy them online and pick up on site. We got our
Speaker:game match feature where you can create those matches post them on post them on a board, people can
Speaker:join it. That inspiration came from way back when on the paper sheets that were posted on every
Speaker:tennis shop, right? Here's my name and my level is 101 of play. Same concept, right? So, you know,
Speaker:be again, and the way when we look at in steps, first we got to take care of business.
Speaker:Now we're going to take care of the player and not the player as a general, the club player, right?
Speaker:The player that belongs to their club, because that's another thing, right? From the pro perspective,
Speaker:you spent a lot of time, you know, creating building your community, right? These are your customers
Speaker:in some way. These are your students. These are your leagues. And not that it's not in, I'm not saying
Speaker:it's not in your best interest, but you want to try to create loyalty to the club, right? Or to
Speaker:your to that pro. So that's kind of our scene. And then the last piece to that point is we got all
Speaker:this data. Now we need to make it actionable, right? So, and all tennis directors can relate.
Speaker:Good thing. We haven't had a demand problem historically, right? And I think that's what's really
Speaker:led to a to us getting lazy and, you know, I'll put us in the tennis, as a tennis industry, because
Speaker:we haven't had a demand problem. That's what people from the outside think. There's not a demand
Speaker:problem. We're all clubs are packed and you can find all these, what I call them, all the addicts
Speaker:coming in there and playing every day. And we actually, we need to do the reverse of demand. We
Speaker:got to limit them in that case. So what we're, you know, what we're guiding towards is building that
Speaker:community, first and that case, right? And trying to make it better. So, and the last piece is how do we
Speaker:make all that information actionable? You know, Bobby came in for the first time, sent them a little
Speaker:text automated text, say, Bobby, thanks for coming in today. Why don't you come in and stop by our
Speaker:clinic next time? So that's where we think the future is going. So we can become smarter. We can
Speaker:instead of, you know, I remember my coach used to have a, a pad, all his clients names, right? And
Speaker:all his lessons. So that we're digitizing all aspects of it. So I think that's where we're going
Speaker:in. And, and these are different, you know, there's, if it existed, if we knew what it looked like,
Speaker:you know, someone would be doing it already, right? So I think you can only discover that solution
Speaker:through an iterative process, if we're saying that case. But it's, it's interesting to be here,
Speaker:you talking, it goes back to the, the difference between the rest of the country and Atlanta.
Speaker:We have so many leagues. We have, you know, all that is built. It's, we are the other side of what
Speaker:you're talking about. We have a bunch of middle-aged folks looking to find a community outside of,
Speaker:you know, as you get older, finding that thing that you share that you build off of, you know,
Speaker:when you're a kid, you have your sports, you have your school, you've very stages of your life. As
Speaker:you get older, what is the commonality? Tennis has became a commonality throughout, uh, you know,
Speaker:subdivisions are built in Atlanta with at least two tennis courts, a situated bathroom and country
Speaker:club, caliber lights. So you can get certified to play out there. So we're so different in so many,
Speaker:because I always felt against something I pushed to, to, while lead was the pros themselves. We have
Speaker:so many independent pros that should be using a system to legitimize themselves that look at it and
Speaker:are afraid of it because they're not a club or they don't feel like could you set something up for
Speaker:a guy who's at five, I mean, Sean has his business. He goes to several different neighborhoods. Could
Speaker:you set something up? Sean's specific to show his clients. Okay, Sean's at Windomere on Wednesdays. He's
Speaker:here on Fridays. Are you that customizable? Um, no, right? So not even customizable, but I'll go
Speaker:back to, to look the, focus, right? So you got to pick your battles for, say, on that case and every
Speaker:if you really want to be the best, right? Which is our intent. You got to focus for you're going to be
Speaker:the best in, right? And then slowly we'll tackle other areas, but, you know, managing leagues,
Speaker:so whole different animal, right? Managing the independent pros operational process. So whole different
Speaker:journey, right? And, and, and all these other steps that happen offline, um, you know, require a lot of
Speaker:focus and effort and time and investment to really come up with a good solution, right? Not saying it
Speaker:can't be done, but, you know, you got to, you, at least steps are perspective, right? We got to,
Speaker:you know, there's, you got to focus on, on one thing, be the best. And then we can start tackling the
Speaker:other items one at one, right? So that's kind of how I see it. So for that player that you mentioned,
Speaker:that five, oh, again, we focus on the club, right? And I go back to that. That is our, our, our, our,
Speaker:our north star. Um, maybe down the road, you know, we will build solutions around that, but for
Speaker:now, we, we got, we got more wood to, to chop up or sound back in. Oh, I understand. But again,
Speaker:that's what makes it land us so unique, you know, and difficult for you guys coming in because it's
Speaker:just a different market. We are not club based, you know, there might be, there might be two,
Speaker:three standalone tennis only clubs in the entire city. But you got courts, right? You got
Speaker:individual facilities and they should be run by a scheduling platform in order to organize
Speaker:all these events going on. Well, one thing I think that hopefully you learned early, because it
Speaker:was always funny dealing with municipalities was always the biggest pain in the neck alive,
Speaker:because of the bureaucracy. But that's where you, you got your teeth sharpened. So hopefully, you
Speaker:know, that, that could be a big thing because you're right. I mean, certainly where I live in Forsyne
Speaker:County, some of the most spectacular parks, you'll find anywhere and they're not managed. It's
Speaker:drive up in, see, because it's, you know, again, it's just different. Most people don't play out of
Speaker:parks because they can play in their neighborhood. So the parks are dramatically underutilized. And
Speaker:I think we, we focus on Atlanta. So I'd like to hear what other people are doing just to see what,
Speaker:what is transferable? What can we, you know, what, what can we learn from you and what you're doing?
Speaker:And I think what you're saying is absolutely right. Stay with, you know, show me the money is always
Speaker:a good way or follow the money is always a good indicator of where people's interests are. You know,
Speaker:where they're using it. That's where their interest is. Yeah. Exactly. And that's why,
Speaker:yeah, it's a different, you know, different problem, not a problem to solve, but you got free
Speaker:tools out there, right? And what's been proven in the market is that that kind of club, they'll just
Speaker:buy from my dear friend from hold my court is one, right? It's a pre-solution. It's got ads. It's
Speaker:I'm not saying it's, it's very clunky, very old school, but it works, works, you know, and,
Speaker:and that's okay, right? That's okay. I think it hurts the community at large because we're not
Speaker:organizing ourselves, but, you know, that's why we focus on the clubs that are
Speaker:and they have a deep need for that, this solution for sell that case.
Speaker:On the court and the court system that is free, and we got the HOAs that are building their own,
Speaker:no, we're going to go over there in the house that can build us one real quick. And I take that as a
Speaker:good step because at some point, they're going to realize, okay, we've got a crappy product, you know,
Speaker:Bob built it for us. We really appreciate your Bob. But we got a call on dress. We got to get,
Speaker:we got to get this. But what it did was it got him off the pencil. It got him out of that manually
Speaker:writing things down and the phone calls. And it's one step closer to where we want the industry to be,
Speaker:which is automated and digitized for you. Yeah, the biggest shift as well, and just thinking
Speaker:of step back is the big is COVID, right? So in 2020, you know, prior to 2020, and we forget, right?
Speaker:Now it's only been three years, but prior to that, I was selling why you should use the technology
Speaker:solution and then that kind of forced that kind of accelerated the curve five years, right? Where my
Speaker:discussion changed, right? Why are you better? Why should I use you? Right? Percent on that case. So I
Speaker:think COVID did bring a lot of that demand forward because there was no option. They had to. And then once
Speaker:they implemented it, then it, then a lot of people kept it for sound that case. So I think that was a net
Speaker:positive for us. And also made the, you know, certain parts of the industry realize that it can,
Speaker:it could really save you a lot of time. Well, yeah, $200 a month is a lot cheaper than hiring
Speaker:somebody to work the front desk. When the front desk is an app on your phone, you can do a lot more.
Speaker:Yep, exactly. Yeah, that's fantastic. So Bobby, I want to ask him the King of Tennis question,
Speaker:because you pushed a little bit asking for something from the future. And he points out that the,
Speaker:he does not have that kind of hubris. I'm going to ask King, King of Tennis anyway, Bobby, you got
Speaker:anything else you want to talk to him about before we go there? No, no, I'd look forward to following
Speaker:up on a club basis, Andreas. Awesome. No, no, I would love to. Yeah, Bobby's, Bobby's always looking
Speaker:for the next best thing. They might be you. We'll see. I think, I think we are. Well, you're biased.
Speaker:We know that. So, Andreas, our King of Tennis question, which hopefully you know is coming. We ask,
Speaker:everybody we talked to, except Patricia Jensen. I think she was the only one we didn't ask,
Speaker:because that's obvious. She's just going ahead and doing it. But if you were King of Tennis and whether
Speaker:it's Miami, Florida, the world, the universe, whatever it is, if you were King of Tennis and could
Speaker:change something or add something or even some people were out there trying to, trying to subtract
Speaker:some things from the tennis world, is there anything you would do or change? Um,
Speaker:so the answer is yes, right? To in preparation of the question. And, and my answer is going to be biased,
Speaker:right? Obviously. So I need to come from the perspective of the solution I'm trying to solve.
Speaker:But to me, what I would change is accessibility. Right? I think in the consumer market,
Speaker:there's a lot of confusion as to how do I approach the sport today? And we need to start bringing
Speaker:all those barriers down to make it easy and accessible. Obviously the USDA has done a lot of efforts
Speaker:in that avenue, but I think it needs to start from a, from a grassroots perspective, right? From
Speaker:the individual pro. And I think technology will play a small part of it in the sense that, you know,
Speaker:we're, you know, it's 20, 23. Everyone has a phone in their hand. And the moment that you make me call
Speaker:to go do a clinic or to me, you make me drive to the park, you've lost me as a customer because I'm
Speaker:going to go to Orange Spearie or whatever Jim Boutique out there that's popping up. So I think as an
Speaker:industry of all and, and from the pros operating these individual sites, we need to accelerate
Speaker:the accessibility at the sport from awareness, education, ease of purchase, and getting them in the
Speaker:door, right? Because one thing I do believe is that once you get someone in the door and you give them
Speaker:a good treatment, you know, it's a great sport. That's why, you know, that's why we're all here. So
Speaker:that's what I would focus my efforts in. And in ways to, to make it more accessible, easy to,
Speaker:easy to join, easy to play and not create too many territorial wars that you find at the neighborhood
Speaker:level, right? The, you know, the group that always plays at 7 a.m. and you can't touch them because,
Speaker:you know, they got the special deal with the HOA or with the city or not with the city, but with the
Speaker:court, court, and all that. So I think if we can set up a ground level rules across the nation,
Speaker:then I think it'd be net, net positive. And, and one thing that I like to advocate is to the tennis
Speaker:people. And, and I think, you know, and this is going to be my, my, you know, we're not competing
Speaker:against other tennis coaches or facilities, right? We're competing for time and for fitness activities,
Speaker:right? And, and, and the, the consumer today or the player today, if it's easier for them to go to
Speaker:a Pilates class or a gym class or a gym studio, we're competing against that today. And that's
Speaker:something I think the industry hasn't caught on. And, and now you know, you, you have two big waves
Speaker:coming to market, which you guys are very familiar with, right? You got the explosion of pickleball,
Speaker:you got Padel, you got other racket sports coming to market, then I think can work together,
Speaker:right? With tennis, that you, we got a, you know, I'm not going to say defender turf, but
Speaker:you have to keep it engaging and fun and accessible. Because if not, we're going to see a huge decrease
Speaker:in player participation. And he's already started to see it across the nation, right? You don't,
Speaker:you don't, you, you can't hide that, you can't hide that fact, right? Tennis clubs are being converted
Speaker:to pickleball. Um, and, and I love pickleball, right? So they'll get me wrong. I think it's great.
Speaker:Um, but from a tennis point of view, given the Quincy and Sking of tennis, I think as, you know,
Speaker:tennis directors and, and pros and industry players, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's a capitalist
Speaker:country and, and we need to compete and we need to, to really bring people back to the sport,
Speaker:right? I'm bullish on the sport. I think it, you know, it's, it's been for hundreds of years.
Speaker:I don't think it's going anywhere, but we need to reinvigorate it, right? Because if not, we run the risk,
Speaker:and it's not an existential risk, but we don't want to become a forgotten sport, or sound that case.
Speaker:So I, I would just put that sense of urgency, you know, I might be too catastrophic, but I think that
Speaker:might get us in the industry to really try to, try to make things better, right? Try to get the first
Speaker:person in the door and, and get them to play it, right? So if, at least here in Miami, it's, you know,
Speaker:my, my wife, I was asked, "No, I want to go play tennis." I don't know. I work in the industry. I don't
Speaker:know a single place where I can recommend she start at, right? Where it's easy and they can just go in
Speaker:and play. I don't know, right? So that's a problem.
Speaker:- It's a, Bobby, they just don't have tennis courts right next to their house like we do.
Speaker:- And that's another problem. Yeah, and that's, I agree. Right? So again, and yeah, that's, that's the other problem.
Speaker:- Can I add anything? - We run the same, we run the same issue. I mean, it's always tough getting people.
Speaker:It's, I completely agree with what you say. And like you said, I don't look at Pick-A-Ball as a thread.
Speaker:I look at Pick-A-Ball as an opportunity. Take the money that's being created by Pick-A-Ball to elevate
Speaker:the tennis. Yeah. Get people programming as far as cameras. I mean, like you said, let's, let's make
Speaker:this thing grow it by getting the, the, the, the, the, the, in flesh of cash where you, you offered more
Speaker:things to people to get them excited. We know people like to watch themselves. Go videoteers.
Speaker:Now a video tape lesson is the same cost because I don't need to make a margin because I make
Speaker:an margin someplace else. Look, and you know, this is on the heels of Atlanta just lost our tournament
Speaker:again. Our 250 annual tournaments, it's going away. And I'm reading all the, "Hosan is online from
Speaker:the people that have been involved from day one." I'm like, "You've been involved through day one.
Speaker:This is the third time the tournament is left. Don't you think we need somebody other than you
Speaker:is being the messenger of because you're two not, you're seat, like you said, you're selling it as tennis.
Speaker:We're not competing against tennis. We're competing against the movies, swimming, going out to dinner,
Speaker:being a tier one city that just like Miami, we got a lot of options on what to do with our disposable
Speaker:income. And everybody holding on to this idea that tennis, that's what kills this sport.
Speaker:Yeah. It's a part. It's, it, you cannot sit different or you're set yourself apart and say,
Speaker:"Oh, what, you need to play tennis." Yeah. Now I agree. And look, I, I agree with you, right?
Speaker:My biggest, not critique, but we, you know, when, you know, it takes, as you say at the beginning,
Speaker:you know, a lot of effort to, you know, dedicate your life, right? To a sport, to a solution in the sport.
Speaker:And at least my sentiment, being out there and trying to sell is that we were always getting the
Speaker:borscht, right? And, and obviously it's a bias approach in the terms of, you know, it's part of
Speaker:building a company, but we felt that it was hard to get support from stakeholders, right? And you
Speaker:know who they are, right? Big organ is it, we're always competing against them. And we're just
Speaker:doing R&D for the industry, right? And, and we're, and we always, not to have to be
Speaker:watching our backs, but, you know, the door was shut on a lot one. We're just trying to help
Speaker:the industry, right? So I think that ethos needs to change, right? Whether it be our competitors,
Speaker:right? And that's why we never speak ill of our competitors, right? We, we love what they're doing,
Speaker:right? And, and that's how, how the whole industry should wake up. So I like your introduction
Speaker:to the beginning of starting with that, because that's kind of why we exist for sure in that case.
Speaker:And, and we tend to forget that this is, it's a hobby. We need to have fun.
Speaker:That would be the point. So wait a minute. What you're telling me is your, your system is better
Speaker:than the USDA's free tennis management saw? How could that possibly be? I've been in, I've been in
Speaker:insane, I've been in insane, I've been in insane names. But, you know, it's, uh, well, Andreas, I appreciate
Speaker:your time. You got anything else? Got anything exciting coming up? Got any, any scoop? Anything you
Speaker:want to share? Or should we? No, so look, I would, my message for everyone is come, take us out.
Speaker:If you haven't heard of us, you know, there's, um, you know, look, look us around your local clubs.
Speaker:Maybe we got a club around there. If not, or, you know, our website is playbypoint.com,
Speaker:download our app and kind of book a demo, right? And, and just learn why, right? So no commitment.
Speaker:And you'll see that, you know, why clubs that work with us are really making a difference there
Speaker:at the cutting edge of future of racket sports, right? I'll, I'll say it that way.
Speaker:[Music]
Speaker:Well, there you have it. We want to thank Rejovenate.com for use of the studio. And be sure to hit that
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Speaker:you're there, check out our calendar of tennis events, the best deals on technic fiber products,
Speaker:tennis apparel, and more. If you're a coach, director of any racket sports, or just someone who
Speaker:wants to utilize our online shop, contact us about setting up your own shop collection to offer your
Speaker:branded merchandise to the Atlanta tennis world. And with that, we're out. See you next time.
Speaker:[Music]
Speaker:[нойne's entrant voice]
