Returning to Idaho

This year has been the most I’ve traveled in a single year. Ever.

Brands in Pickleball are willing to increase their budgets towards media events, product releases, and brand campaigns and projects. At the core of it all, building relationships. Or at least that’s what I think the successful ones do. I remember distinctly one event where the employees were using the downtime to tell creators about the product, repeating what we already saw on the projector screens, in the emailed presentation decks, and social posts. Rather than asking questions. Rather than inquiring about the individual, their process, etc. They wanted to be understood more than they wanted to understand.

This second round to Coeur d’Alene to visit Selkirk was not one of those trips. While I’ll get into the Boomstik (including my personal thoughts, no tech specs or release dates yet) and the trip as a whole, let me tell you about why the content looked different this time around.

Each trip starts with an objective. Objective with the brand and my own personal goals as a creator. So, what was the objective with this trip?

• Use the iPhone as much as possible. Everything posted to Instagram, YT Shorts, and TikTok has all been on my iPhone. In fact, the only time I used my Sony FX30 was to film game-play footage and the podcast (my back is really questioning my decision). As technology and social platforms advance, iPhone usage and content has become more practical, raw has become more real and relatable (than a production), and speed kills. So what would happen if I could just pull my camera from my pocket rather than my bag, film with 1 hand instead of 2, and edit immediately from my phone rather than my laptop? You begin to learn about simplifying. But of course there’s also drawbacks of using the iPhone vs a camera like the FX30: low light, lens distortion, more precise and adjustable camera settings.

  • A lot of it is contextual. I don’t feel comfortable using an iPhone on client projects, yet. I still have a long way to go and plenty to learn. If you’re curious about the iPhone camera settings I use, just send me a message.

• The algorithm. As a creator and based on the current creator climate, much of the content we see is optimized for the algorithm. Whether or not it all works is besides the point, the metrics influence all of us. You can’t post something without seeing the number of views, shares, comments, or saves. After I’m done writing this email, the platform will later send me an email indicating how many people opened the email, clicked on it, subscribed or unsubscribed, etc. I’m guilty of it. I experiment with the algorithm all the time, I’m fascinated by it. Fascinated by the human psychology of it all. And at the end of the day, positive metrics mean a larger portion of the bills get paid.

  • My goal for this trip was to post as much content as possible, disregard beliefs about how many posts you can put in a day, not hoarding content/ideas, and just letting it all go.

  • I thought about how I could go a different direction from the previous trip. I figured more short form than long form would be fun to explore.

• I love brainstorming and ideating as much as the next person, but I want to release every thing so I can just move on to the next thing.

Additional takeaways:

• While I had to front load a lot of the work and planning ahead of the trip, I will say that I have a lot less on my plate coming back… I think there’s something there that I need to unpack.

• Filming with your iPhone is a lot easier to execute ideas on the go.

You can catch all the content from the trip here:

Learning From Top Pickleball Creators

You can look at their social pages and make a lot of assumptions about what makes them so successful. However, once you spend time with them and ask questions, you realize most of your assumptions were wrong.

Shea Underwood.

When I first started watching Pickleball content I would see this content appear on my feed about how to ace people with your serve, the spin serve, trick shots, etc. Fast forward a year or two and the creator is still there, however, the content has changed and evolved immensely. And so have the numbers.

If you had 10 minutes to spend in the car with this guy, what would you ask?

iPhone, AI, automation

What I learned from Shea is that his background in industrial engineering, where he relied heavily on systems and optimization, later became the model for how he’d operate his business.

1. Create an ecosystem that constantly refreshes your core audience with your content. Deliver what they want to them.

2. Rely on AI, automation, and delegating to others to streamline the workflow.

Kyle Koszuta.

James Clear recently wrote a newsletter article:

And one of the points really stuck with me:

“Cheerful. You are pleasant to work with and generally raise the level of energy in the room.”

This is the perfect summary of Kyle Koszuta (ThatPickleballGuy). Hanging out with him, Shea, and Ty Butson, made this trip what it was. There was never a dull moment around them. In fact my abs and lower back are still sore from laughing so much.

Boomstik

The long awaited Boomstik. There were murmurings in the past about this project. It’s here now (almost).

Due to NDA’s and embargo’s, I can only discuss my playing experience with the paddle.

2 words: soft power.

At this point we can safely assume that any paddles that come out, will be iterated on by another brand. For consumers, it’s a great thing. Because in my opinion, power paddles in the past were very stiff, less controllable, small sweet spots, and difficult to “feel” (resets, touches). But with each release from a different brand, ideas become merged and/or refined.

This paddle without a doubt has the power. When the ball strikes the paddle it feels like its being absorbed, bouncy, like a cushion versus a stiff board (personally, I never liked the feel of those types of paddles). The resets felt as expected, the spin was great, and the weight setup they have felt right in regards to swing and twist weight.

Granted, with great power comes great responsibility (shout-out Uncle Ben), so some players will notice they have to adjust their swings and motions, likely shortening their swings. You don’t have to do a lot to get a lot. I had some drives sailing high and far. Paddles like this do make me think about power paddles in general and how they impact the lower skilled players and learning to adjust their movements and possibly doing less, versus years ago you really had to swing through? Curious about how that impacts shaping the ball.

Thanks for reading.

Oh yeah, I updated the website: https://www.buildingpickleball.net/