Episode 45 Building Pickleball Community Through Smart Matchmaking — Featuring Anneliese Niebauer, Founder of PickleMatch.co

Thank you for joining in. I'm Mike. I'm Kishanna. We're the Pickleballers Next Door. Every professional athlete, from football to tennis, relies on electrolytes to stay strong and recover fast. Why? Because sweat takes away more than water. It drains essential minerals like sodium and potassium. Without them, your body slows down and your game slips. Pickleball is no different. That's why HOLI is packed with the electrolytes you need to stay sharp, fueled and ready to play longer. Visit HOLIPerformance.com. That's H-O-L-I-Performance.com. And use code NEXTDOOR for 20% off your order. Hello. How are you doing today, Kishanna? Good. How are you, Mike? I'm good. I'm good. I'm a little tired today. I don't know why. I just have a little tired. Are you tired just because we're always running around? It could be. I feel like I'm going 100 miles an hour but getting nowhere. It's the treadmill effect. Yeah? Yeah. There's a carrot there. You're one of those little mouse. Yeah. It's not a carrot. Mine would be like a ding-dong. Then I run really fast. Okay. Carrot, I wouldn't run so fast. I'd be like, I can get a carrot later. Yeah. Anytime. Ding-dongs are good. We're pretty excited. I mean, we are heading out tomorrow, which is heading out to the Golden Ticket. San Diego. San Diego, the USA Pickleball. Golden Ticket. Nationals. Nationals. Yeah. We're excited to just go in a way, right? I really am. I need some salt air running through my hair. Yeah. I don't have much of it, but it'll feel good, the little bit I have. Yeah. Well, can't you just take a salt shaker and do that? I could. I could. But it's not the same. But no, it's exciting. And you know the funny part of it? There's weird things. Just like we were at rallies and I think about hitting the hot dogs. Every time we say Golden Ticket, don't you think of Willy Wonka factoring? Yes. In the chocolate bar. And it's kind of that way, really. I mean, I think maybe it is played off of it. Nobody's said that. Yeah. But it's kind of funny because you have to get a Golden Ticket to go to this tournament. Yeah. And only one, right? Only one. Only one to get there. Only one. You have to place in a tournament to get in gold. And then you've got to qualify. There are other people that aren't. I guess there's a lottery. We've kind of asked some questions in some of our other podcasts. When we talked to Jose. Yeah. But it's kind of neat. I mean, I don't know. Words do weird things to my brain, right? I mean, it takes me back. This is what happens when you get old, right? Yeah. Memories. Memories, yeah. But I'm excited. 50 courts. I mean, can you imagine 50 courts going on at the same time? Crazy. We'll get a lot walking in. Now, rumor is it is raining out there. So they've had some delays, but I'm hoping when we get out there, we bring the sunshine. Or snow. Yeah. It'll be the first time it ever snowed in San Diego. Or here. You know, it will snow here while we're gone. Let's just hope, right? But I'm excited. I mean, I think this is a big event for us. You know, we were asked to be here to be the media, which is really exciting for us. We are going to be live some on Friday and Saturday this coming up. So we're excited about that. If our cameras stay charged. I know. I know. Okay. I know. No, it's this. This is like, you know, you almost have to have a degree in all this electrical stuff. Like we just had a malfunction a minute ago. Yeah. I know. It's just it's. And we've had some that we record and they're gone. So, yeah. Yeah. We're learning. Sometimes that's Mike, but I won't tell him that. It could be me. Occasionally. Yeah. Hit the right button. Yeah. But we have a special guest on today. Yes, we do. Yeah. I mean, when they, when you think paywall can't go another direction, it goes another direction, right? And so Annalise is going to be from pickle match. That's who we're going to interview today. And she's just one of the sweetest people you have ever met. And a go getter. Yes. I mean, she, I don't know her. I wonder what she's chasing on the treadmill because I want some of that. Yeah. It's like, she's got a red bull and another energy drink. And there's a nice steak in front of her. And she's going 150 miles an hour. Well, and I know coming up, there's like one on December 12th here in Colorado, which I'm kind of, it'll be fun to kind of go and see what it's all about. Yeah. She'll tell us today, but just to see it. I'm probably old and I've been married a long time, but I just kind of wondering how that looks like. Do you not pay attention to the pickle ball no more? And you're just glancing at the eyes of the other person on the other side? Maybe. Or maybe they're just trying to get their pickle match, you know? The one that actually is their, you know, their doubles that, you know, maybe they won't have the divorce line or they won't, you know, I don't know. Well, what if you, you know, like them, you just body bag them and that just kind of ends that situation? Then, then you just, I guess you swipe left. I don't know. I guess that's what. We're going to learn today. Yeah. We're going to get a little insight of this and, but she's a ball of fire. I think this is going to be a great interview. Guys, you got to stay tuned too. We have a lot of stuff coming up next year. Oh my gosh. We have a calendar that is basically all year that we're booking up. And I don't even know how we're going to fit in, how to, when to go to sleep. Yeah. But it will be fun. It'll be really fun. When it comes to pickleball. Oh yeah. I mean, who can complain when you got to roll out of bed and I got to go play pickleball. Yeah. Right. What a problem. I got to do a podcast. This is a fun. It's fun for me. This isn't work. It's not work. A lot of fun. And we get to bring information and news to people that play pickleball, but don't get to do the things that we get to do. I mean, we are at every grand opening. We're at events. We are on charities. We're going to huge event. We're going to a giant golden ticket here with USA pickleball. I mean, so we get to kind of give you live vicariously through us and the pickleball world, which is exciting. It can be exciting. Yeah. We'll have some pictures. We'll have a video. Yeah. Follow us on all of our Instagram, YouTube, everything. We also are going to be having some special guests that I'm looking at across from me. Yeah. I'm Saspo and yeah. And Pecky. Yeah. Pecky here. Yeah. Who are they? Yeah. You're going to see. They're funny. So, but how about anything else? Anything that you can think about before we get into our episode? No, I'm just really excited to talk with Annalise and see how this works. You know, you hear about other dating, like, you know, and how hard it is when we were younger and I'm not going to try to age you. When we were younger, you know, you actually would go and meet people, grocery store. You could go to a bar. Yeah. Now you have to have fill out an application. My sons, this is going to be funny because I'm going to, I have two sons that are single right now that are looking to date and they like to play pickleball. So I'm going to get them involved. And then we'll interview them and we'll interview a lot of the people when we go December 12th, we'll interview people and see how they feel. Yeah. You know, is the pickleball where you're going to find that love of your life forever. Right. Right. And I found mine, but I didn't find it through pickleball. No, I found mine in a bar. Oh, yeah. See? Yeah. See, there you go. But, but yeah, we, uh, it's interesting. I talked to my, I have five children and they're all older from 32 to 40. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And about my 40 year old, still single and you know, but I, he tells me about these dates they go on and it's almost like an interview. They're, they're, they're not, they're not like glazing, you know, whatever. I can lose them. I glaring, glaring. That's the word glaring into each other. It's like gazing or something. It's an actual application. Where do you work? How long you've worked there? What's a, how much do you make? Um, let me see your credit cards. Okay. Are they, are you in debt? Oh my gosh. He, both of my sons, these are two separate dating. Oh wow. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I just think that when you, I don't know. We'll have to see how this goes. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited to see how it works and see how many people have actually, um, found their spouse or, uh, doing this. Well, I'd love to have a, I want to see a pickleball wedding. Wouldn't that be freaky? I think Amber up at the pickler and Thornton was like, I want to be the first one to do a pickleball wedding. That'd be incredible. It'd be so fun. Yeah. But I think the idea of this, of doing it with pickleball because it's such a community. Yes. It's, you talk to people in this sport. It's one of the sports that you play, but you always can meet, can we laugh? You communicate, you get off the court, you make so many friends and so fast. And I don't know any other sport that you can do something. Even golf. You think golf, unless you're riding with one of your partners, but by the time you hit your ball and if you suck like me and I hit, I'm usually planning on another course. Well, my buddies are finding my ball. Yeah. It's not fun. I mean, here you are in a court with four people. You can't get away. Well, and then you also get all the other people on the other courts that they're done. And you kind of, I mean, everybody's so friendly. I feel like for the most part. I think, I think this is a great idea, but like I said, I'm just pretty soon. There's going to be a pickleball food, you know, a cooking show show. Yeah. Well, I want to do something with this doctor. Remember? Yeah. Oh yeah. But we'll see. But okay. Well, we're going to have her on shortly. And like I said, she's great. We'll have her shortly. And we'll introduce her. Yep. See us guys soon. Okay. Bye. Okay. So here we are with pickleballers next door. We got, um, Annalise knee Bauer. She is from pickle match. And, um, she's here with us for our podcast. How are you? Annalise? I am doing so well. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is exciting. This is exciting. So like we said before, we were on here a few minutes ago and we said, what's, what's next on pickleball, right? What's, what can they add any more to pickleball? And you've done it, right? Uh, we like to think so. We hope so. Oh, I think you do. I mean, your energy. I mean, we've, we got to go to an event with you that you put on, which was incredible. Yeah. Around table tennis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was incredible round table, round table, a bunch of these, uh, bigger companies, pickleball companies to kind of work together, which I never thought you could do smart. They, they like to arm wrestle and battle each other. And it was amazing. I, I had the best energy at that event. I feel like the, um, it was so cool to bring all of the clubs, the different brand owners, y'all, um, other content creators together because. There is definitely an opportunity to improve how pickleball, uh, kind of like how, like the feeder system into pickleball, like the, the youth in pickleball high school, college. And there's an ability for us to like work together on some really cool initiatives. And I just felt so much momentum from that group. Yeah, it was very good. We were, I was very proud. I mean, I was like, wow, look at what you did. It's like, no, I don't like them. No, no, no, no. And the funny part is we've all played together when we back up in this scene. The really funny part. Did you see us all hugging high fiving? We're all friends. Like we're all of a sudden it was like bringing a bunch of high school kids back together. It was exactly like that. Everyone walked in and knew everyone and it was like a big reunion. And then it was also really cool to be like, okay, yeah, we compete in certain areas, especially the clubs compete, but growing pickleball is good for all of us. And growing all aspects of pickleball competitive social youth. Like, so there's so many things that we could do if we work together. Yeah, definitely. That I, I love that. So energized. You did a great job putting it all together. It was in this club. You took us to, oh my gosh, this place that's opening is wow. It's huge. We can't wait to see it done. It's, it's epic. Like I've, um, I went to the, the location, uh, when Justin, one of the owners first got it and it was like a huge warehouse and he was driving the vision. I was like, good luck. Like to see the transformation is unbelievable. It's crazy. It is. It's going to be gorgeous. I mean, 12 courts, um, six in six out, um, and then a huge bar. And we're, so we're talking mood swing. Um, right. What a name too. I like that too. But, uh, yeah. Bars. I mean, they have all the, uh, golf simulators. It's for everybody. So they kind of, yeah, they have a pizza area for just, they have the, one of the stove, the cooks, what do you call those things? The stovetops or the outside brick, fire, fire, um, grill pizza. Yeah. I think. Yeah. And they have, um, tons of event areas, TVs. Like I think the, the, we have a lot of, you know, like improper city and Rayback. And so they're very good at event spaces and like community building and you know, big spaces where people come together to just meet. Oh yeah. They've got these little city areas that are just so neat. They're kind of like dug down. They got little areas you can set up, but you're going to have 2030 people in these little areas. I mean, he was like talking about some of the outside space was a thousand people for the concerts, for the concerts. And I mean, it's really incredible. They've done a great job. There's a way to go there. I know. So very, very cool. But tell us about you. Yeah. Yeah. Let's hear that. Let's hear about the match, how you kind of got it going. Yeah. So pickle match is a dating app where your first date is pickleball. So the concept of pickle match came from, obviously I, I have a crippling addiction to pickleball. I started playing like a year and a half ago. Probably around the time that I got out of a decade long relationship. So I got into pickleball to re build community and to obviously meet people, make friends. And then, you know, I was ready to start dating again. I got on the dating apps and my experience was like, I really thought because I, you know, I got together with my ex quite young. I thought that dating was supposed to be fun and I was like excited to get back out there. And it was so brutal being on the dating apps because it's so much admin and people are very transactional with each other and the profile creation process is boring, repetitive. You know, I feel like that topic, everyone who's experienced knows that there's a pain point there. And then I actually, we, we kind of came up with the idea in a joking way. I was hanging out with my friend who he's one of my best friends. I met at pickleball. He's a really good software engineer. And I was like looking through duper and like clicking through like people he had played and people they had played and was like, Oh, who's this person? You should introduce me. And he was like, he was like, you're using duper like it's a dating app. And I was like, it should be a dating app. And that's where the idea was born. We started with like a wait list and the launch party just to see if there was like any interest and 150 people showed up to our launch. We did not have enough of literally anything. We didn't have enough courts swag. We were so blown away by that. That's great. That's, um, and then we're like, okay, there's clearly something here. So we decided to open up like a website and an official wait list and everything. And now we have a 1200 people between like the wait list and the app downloads. We launched the app in September and we are currently live in Colorado and in LA. And we plan to be live nationwide next year. We're still obviously trying to make sure the app is an amazing experience. We're still working on the development of it. But um, yeah, I mean, one of the other things we found as part of this business is that there's a huge demand for the events, which is what you guys were talking about. Like we organize at least once a month, a singles party, um, where we usually rent out a club and those are so fun. We basically have singles, um, mostly of all ages and all levels. We have courts by level and we do, uh, pick a wall speed dating, which is like timed matches of double rotating partners on a ladder. It's so fun. Um, and then the highlight for me is obviously the end of the night when we have to like kick people out. You always see people at the front like exchanging, Oh nice. How fun is that? Get to feel like a little matchmaker, which is nice. I think, I just think it's a great way. And with pickleball anyway, that's what we were just talking about a few minutes ago was the community. It's a community anyway. And how, what a great way to bring people. And how about the people that are a little more introvert or shy? It just, you don't have to write away, like tell your whole life story. You know, just hit a little plastic ball and look at each other and see if the little sparkles happen. So you don't like him, give me body back. Right. No. And honestly, like I think that at least my experience with dating in the past or the people that I've been with in the past, like it starts as friendship typically. And so dating apps like kind of force people into artificial romantic situations too early in my opinion. And I feel like when you start playing pickleball with someone like a spark will ignite or it won't, but either way you like have fun with them and yeah, absolutely. I don't think I have a friend. Yeah. If not, if not, and you're not going to walk up, how many dogs, how many kids you want to have? Where do you work? I mean, you're going to hit a ball and you don't get to have that opportunity. You got to walk on and kind of just see if it matches, you know, like you're kind of like you look in their eyes and like, Oh, you know, or just that's the person that feels good. You know, I don't know what happened. We're, I'm older, so I've been married a long time, but I have five children that are from 30 to 40 and they tell me this story of the swipes and the meetups and I have some boys that are just, they're almost, they'd rather not date. They'd rather not date than to go do it one more time. How sad. You know, there's, it's not love. It's, it's just instant. Where are we going? Are we going to be married? I don't want to be married. You know, I mean, what the heck? How much money do you have? I mean, it's, it's an application. I mean, one of the first nap dates I went to before I discovered pickleball as your first date is, uh, people would plan things right afterwards. They would like, you would go and you'd be like, okay, I have 30 minutes for this coffee. I was like, okay, that's it. Huh? That's all I get. Wow. Wow. That's amazing. Well, in most pickleball, an hour is nothing. So a couple hours, you need a couple hours of pickleball. I mean, an hour is going to go by. That's warm up. That is warm. For me, that's warm up. That's warm up before I start hitting some good ball. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but no, it's been really special to see. And I think the feedback we get from people is like, it's nice to be in a, an environment with a bunch of singles where people are open and like, I think also safety to feel safe. You're in a place with a lot of people, a lot of cameras. I got to feel that if you're a lady, maybe a man, but it most of the time, a lady that you're, you know, going to some of these bars or even a coffee shop. I mean, it's gotta be a little intimidating because those bars, I mean, people getting roofie, there's all kinds of weird things that. I think also like the, the biggest hack that you alluded to is like, it's inherently a group date. It's inherently a double date or a triple date or like, because you're not playing singles on a date unless you get super sweaty. But so like, I think that, uh, having a group setting for your first date is really nice. It like eases the tension a lot, but it also like shows you a lot about the person because it's easy. A lot of people who date frequently will have kind of like their canned lines and their canned things that they know work, but you can't really hide on a pickleball court. Like on a pickleball court, I get to see how you interact with other people. I get to see how you interact when we like hit it into the net, uh, when we're down, you know, Oh yeah. How about even zero? Oh yeah. How about anger if it comes out? Right. And men's testosterone. I mean, you get a little, see, Whoa, you know, like, Hey, exactly. Or the opposite. You see someone be so sweet and lovely to like, you know, someone who's older or someone who is not as good. And I, I feel like for me personally, you know, I've seen, or I felt attracted to people that I probably wouldn't have swiped on the dating apps because I've seen them be so kind. Yeah. Yeah. And then it is a pickleball place. And I love teach. I'm a coach too. my best feelings when I see the smiles and people having fun. I love it. I mean, it is so fun. I mean, but I, I think what you're doing now, this is for all ages too, right? It's from young and old. So it doesn't matter what age you are. If you play pickleball and older. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And do you, um, I had a question. Do you guys, um, match the pickleball play? Like, do you have, okay. Do you have a preference for that? Or I just curious. So we, so right now you put yourself in a bucket, um, uh, like beginner, lower intermediate, upper intermediate, advanced, uh, et cetera. We are also working on an integration with duper, which will be coming soon. And that will help us get some exact ratings in there for those that are duper rated. Um, but then you can also state your preferences when you sign up for the app. So you can say what levels you're open to being matched with. Um, and then you can also state your like preferences around age range locations. Um, and we're working on some pretty cool features that will help basically where you match. And then the first interaction is like, here's some times I'm free to play this week and some places I'd like to play. And then you can like quickly coordinate. So we're hopefully going to get rid of that awkward likes. Yeah. The next, the second date or the, yeah, yeah. That's gotta be the tough one. Um, nice playing with you, you know, you know, it's easy guys, girls, you know, and, and it's easy when you're in that setting, you don't have to talk. Yeah. So that's has to be a little, you know, it's that when you go off the court, you have to kind of like, Hey, you know, would you like to do this again? You know? Totally. So I like that you're doing that. You're getting it to make it so that it's almost, it's just sign up here. You're ready to go. We got you on your next date and you get a discount or you get some kind of spiff, you know, you're helping them out and you're helping the clubs too. I mean, we got to put this towards the clubs. We got to fill up the space. Oh yeah. There's a lot of clubs here in Denver. And how does it work? Like on a payment to you guys is a membership monthly and then you pay for events. How does that work with you guys? Great, great question. So today the app is free to use and we don't take care of booking the court. So we put both like free public courts as well as like membership courts on the app and then people can choose their preference of where they want to meet up and play. We do ticketed events and have sponsors for our events. So the events today basically we run at least one in a city, but we're working on having kind of multiple going on at all the time. We work with the clubs to kind of negotiate a package around alcohol, courts, etc. We have sponsors for our events and then we have the events be ticketed. So today everyone is just buying tickets for each event. We definitely want to work on a membership where if you're a member you get either free or discounted tickets, but that's something that will I think come next year. Yeah. So you're probably, you do the membership. I'd like to play pickleball so much. Mike, you're married. I know, but I'm going to play some pickleball. You've got good events. I want to come. Now is that the case? Some people are married? Definitely. So at our events, we definitely have people of all relationship statuses because you have wingman, you know? Oh yeah. Oh, there you go. I like the wingman. You know, there's not a single person who's got to bring their crew. So we're actually at the next event going to pilot this. We haven't done it yet, but we're going to pilot wristbands of different colors that indicate if you're open to being approached romantically or not. I like it. So that people that are, that are taken can come to the events and feel not out of, uh, out of place. Right? Out of place. I love it. Well, I think we're going to your next event. I hope we're going to be there. I think it's December 12th, correct? December 12th. Tell us about that. Okay. So we are hosting our next event at Third Shot Wheat Ridge, December 12th, um, from seven to 9 PM. That event, we've booked out the whole venue, uh, we'll probably cap tickets around a hundred, 115. Um, and that event is going to be kind of like our last event of the year in Colorado. Um, and we want it to be definitely a party vibe. We're going to have, uh, music, we're going to have podcasters are going to be there. Some weird podcasters. We'll have a lot of swag giveaways. Um, and then we have a few things that are like fun and designed for ice breaking. We do, um, pickleball, bingo, ice breaking, where when you show up, you get a bingo card and then you have to meet people that like meet the criteria on the bingo card. Like, you know, I was born in Michigan or, you know, that way they've talked to each other. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah. And then you'll be like, okay, and that's what I mean. Run out, you know, okay. You know, the shy one has to talk a little bit. And then we have different courts by level, uh, and we do this pickleball speed dating. So mixed doubles on the courts, um, fast paced games, timed games. When the game is over, you either move up or down, you split. Nice. So yeah, you have to, you have to keep meeting people. Yeah. I like it. And then, um, we always also have beginner courts. So something fun about our events is like 15% of the people that show up have never played pickleball before. So we usually have at least a few courts that are like learning to play pickleball. Well, I hope to be, I could be a coach for you. I can help you. We should talk about that. We need to talk. Yeah. That's a good idea. That would be really awesome. Then Mike would go, okay, that guy, you should go with that. You go over there. You're here. You're good. You know what? I think you, oh, I can hook you up. I can hook you up. Come over. Yeah. Funny. My favorite thing is we have some guys who are like really good and it's, I mean, this could be a self rated thing, but I think it tends to be the case that at our events, like there's more, um, women who have never played before and more like very advanced men. And so sometimes you'll look over and you'll see a guy, you know, is like a four or five duper on the beginner court because they like the beginner that they wanted to play with. Yeah. Let me show you. Yeah. I love it. Oh, you're doing so well for your first time. What I love. This is coming from your heart. You actually experienced this situation. You, you, you love pickleball, which we all do. Who can not love pickleball and you're, and you're bringing more people to the sport, which is really another neat facet to it all. A lot of people are scared of the sport, like any sport, right? Never played any sports in their life, but you're bringing them to something like, well, I've heard about it because the, the, the things out there, you got to try this. You have to try it. You know? I think it's awesome. I, yeah, I get so much energy from it. I never really, uh, knew I had a desire to be a matchmaker, but like truly when I connect two of my friends who are single through pickleball, there is no better feeling. Yeah. Um, and I think you said it well, which is, it's not even so much safety in the courts, but it is so powerful to meet someone that's part of a community that you share. I think that's like a great thing for a relationship and I've, I know so many people that have met their significant others at pickleball and I do think the community helps them stay together. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's something to do. I tell it, you'll hear this a million times on my podcast. When I walk on a court, I leave all my problems, family, business, I'm there to play pickleball. I get to exit the world and then I think in the dating world, I think it would be the same thing. You get to walk on all the noise, all the swiping, all the weird stuff that you have to do to dating disappears because you've got to kind of concentrate on this ball that's coming at you, you know, and you're, you're, and I think it's awesome. I really do. I like it a lot. So have you met anybody? That was my question too. I know. I'm just curious. Okay. Yes. So, um, yes I have, but I'm currently single, um, but I have guys currently single, cute. She's really cute. Just going to say, but, um, I have dated people that I met playing pickleball and, uh, I'm still friends with all of them, which I think is another benefit because when the relationship ends, you know, you're going to still can go play with them. Yeah. You don't just, yeah. It doesn't go the ghosting thing. Right? No ghosting. I hear that from my kids all the time, ghosting, you know, I'm like, when did this start? You know? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's actually like a low key side benefit of pickleball dating is you're forced to, to end things in like a very cordial and nice way. And like, then you play together like a few times and you're like, okay, cool. We're friends now, which is rare I think. So funny. I was telling my wife about this podcast and she's, and we're talking, my son's single and he's, he's a great kid. We always think our kids are great. Right. And, um, I was telling her about it. I said, her energy, she's awesome. And she's like, well, can you, is there, you know, you know, where can he like, I said, I got to come play pickleball. You got to save the little, the clicks there. Yeah. I got to see the spark. And so is that kind of a rule? They have to come and play pickleball. They can't like sit on the sidelines staring. I mean, I'm just curious. Is that a, you know, especially with the beginners, they come and play, they learn. I think some people, so especially at the events, I think there's some people who are open-minded enough to try it and they try it and you know, it doesn't catch for them right away. Um, which, you know, I think that they should just try again, but, um, I think that's fine. I think that's already a good quality in someone that's like open-minded, active, definitely put themselves out there. So no one is forced to play pickleball at the events, but I think, um, it's kind of, it kind of like get the energy level. So even if you're a person who goes on the court for like two games and then you sit out, I think there's something about just the energy of everyone played that it makes the interactions really fun. Well, and pickleball has so many levels. There's rec level, just a fun birthday party level. You just come for a birthday once in a while or event, um, and you can take it all the way to pro, you know, I mean you can take it whatever level you want and that's what I like what you're doing too, is that you don't have to be a, you don't have to be an athlete to come do this. And I know volley just, it's the most special thing about the sport, which is, is there any other sport that like on a work offsite, you'd be like, let's go play tennis or like, no, no pickleball is so accessible and it, for, for many people that play, they don't view it as a sport because it's an activity. But then, you know, when you turn it into, oh, here it comes. Now it's happening. Yeah. And then you play singles for two hours and you're like, and that's what you just did. Right. That is what I just did. I, I unfortunately, um, one funny thing about this event is we've stopped calling them pickleball singles events because a lot of people will sign up and then like come and be like, oh, I didn't think about that. I am putting my stake in the sand right now. We will do a singles, singles event at some point, singles, singles, but that's a, that's a different breed of crazy that will come to that. I think that's, you could have that court. That's that's that two people that want to have that, that, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm right here. I'm with you. Yeah. Hey, we're going to do a, you want to go to the singles court and just have a little bit more together. Yeah. Yep. That'd be good. Very good. Yeah. That's a great idea. Like fast in and out. Do that. What you're doing right now with the, yeah. I love that idea actually. Because, um, yeah, I don't know. Singles is a weird addiction. It's a, yeah. I just got into and yeah, you, what do you like better? Oops. Go ahead. What do you like better? Singles or doubles? I love mixed doubles. I think that will always be my, um, there's just something about mixed doubles. It's like slightly more competitive and the strategy is interesting, especially depending on the partner. And I love like the teamwork aspect of pickleball and the strategy aspect. Singles is like, is like the thing you could like play. And if it wasn't so exhausting, you could play for like hours and hours. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. I mean, having that to your partner and sometimes it's silent, like you play, but when you get to find a good partner, it's incredible. Like I have a couple of people I play with, some ladies and guys, we don't communicate, but I know where they're going to be. What's going to happen. I mean, we are on, you know, it's, it's incredible. I think that's because you're on the court and you take the whole court, right? You're not your partner out of the court. I mean, I'm just saying. Yeah. We play, I get a little crazy. That ball's like the, it's like catnip for me. Where is it? I know. And I'm like, I'm running around in circles, but I love it. I mean, if like, so don't be scared if you guys are listeners out there and you want to come to our dating, uh, come out to the dating is don't be scared to pickleball. It's for everybody. Yeah. Especially since you're doing beginners all the way up to totally, yeah. You'll learn a new life skill at least, which is pickleball and have a community and give. And if you're looking for, you know, that a special someone that's great, but you can make friends with this too. It's not just dating. I will say like one thing I noticed, especially amongst my women friends who play pickleball is there's a very strong correlation between people who are kind of like either just moved or recently divorced or newly single or some big life change coming to pick a wall for their community. So you're going to find so many like-minded people who are like in the head space to also have a new community, which I think is what makes it easy to meet people. It does. It really does. It really does. And you get out of your, you get out of your norm so really fast. So give us a little bit more. I know that you've been on some shows. I mean you, you are all over, like we were just looking up, we were looking at your website So you said that you mentioned something about the Jimmy Kimmel. How, how, how did that go? So what happened there? I think the trajectory of this company has been crazy. We did this, like, as I said, kind of a launch party to see if there's interest. There was clearly interest. After that we started like doing a little hype, like putting out a wait list and stuff. And I think the first PR we got was from Denver seven, a shout out Denver seven. And they came out and like filmed me and my co-founder, filmed us playing pickleball. That article, or that like news publication got syndicated. So then we were like, all of a sudden I'm like Yahoo and like a bunch of other national news and the radio. And then randomly, so I have a wait list where I was like collecting, how did you hear about us? Yeah. And one morning, because like, I don't know, I'm toxically addicted to, to this company. I like, it was like six a.m. and I was going to work out and I open it and, and one of the places like people said that they heard about us was Jimmy Kimmel. And I was like, no, but it was like, it was like a lot of people had just signed up on a wait list and wrote Jimmy Kimmel. How fun is that? And I was like, wait, what? So I go on YouTube and I like had to watch through all of the, the show. And then when they mentioned, I was like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. So then of course, you know, I woke up my co-founder and told him and he was like, what? And so that was kind of, I think one of the more surprising things that's happened since then. We also were on Nightline and a few other like fun segments. And I think once we're ready to go national, we'll like intentionally hit PR. I think the PR we've had so far has been like happenstance and we're, we're welcome. But like, I think we'll, we'll do a much more intentional PR and marketing strategy once we're ready to launch nationally. But we also like personally, so my background is in tech. I was at Uber for a long time. And one thing I really valued about the way Uber grew was like they did city by city launches. They had teams on the ground. And at least in my small experience with launching this in LA and then also doing like a soft launch in Vegas is, it is really powerful to be in all the places that you're live because Pickleball is really different everywhere. Yeah, it absolutely is. The norms are different and the community is different. And so while we are definitely going to be like nationally, you know, on the app store and everyone can use it, I think we'll, we'll definitely make an effort to go to every state and play Pickleball next year. That's my personal goal. I like it. I love it. You're like a little personal. You want to do that anyway, right? That's a little personal goal. But yeah, that's good. Well, you piqued my interest. You said Uber. So was that movie really close? You know, I had to ask. Come on. I bet everybody asks you that. What movie? What movie? Where are you been? You've been on the other, on the moon? You know, I just work. Okay. No. So is there a Uber dating? No. There was like a, uh, against Lyft and it was Uber and Lyft. It was a movie. I love business movies. I like that. Like I just get crazy about them. I mean, but, uh, some of us don't want, but anyway, but, uh, I just, you knew more about that insight. You know, it was a good movie. I mean, it was really a good movie. It was good. And I think, I don't, I think that it was definitely different on the inside. I also was like based out of the UK market. So like I never was in our San Francisco headquarters when we were there. So like, you know, for many reasons, I don't feel like I experienced the experience described in that movie. But I also think that, um, something missed slightly in that movie was that like in definitely everyone in like big companies like that does drink the Kool-Aid and as like a lot of rah-rah, but like we also were really excited about what we were doing and like really saw the ability to like help like the drivers and the riders. And I was on Uber Eats too, so like the restaurant owners. And so I think the, they do tend to have really community focused people there. Yeah. You got to look what they're doing. I mean, I mean, crazy. I mean, look at the, all these, the companies, these cars are driving themselves. Now we're getting here in Denver, they're, they're in Vegas, they're in Vegas and they're in California and they're coming here. When I was in LA, I took everyone, I was, I was that weird. I mean, I've never been, did you do work while you're driving while people were driving? The most recent road trip, I, the most recent trip I did to LA for like our official launch party, I road tripped there. So I went through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and got to LA and I used my Tesla's full self driver. Oh, nice. Nice. That's good. So I was like, I have a robot driving me to LA. You're working. Yeah. It was great. Those are great. Those cars are crazy too, but they'll, they'll punish you. I just had to, but yes, I had a friend, she was driving to a pickleball thing and she went, told her not to do something, turn or slow down. And she's just said, no, I'm doing what I'm doing. It slowed her down and made her like it, it, it took over the car. I mean, she pretty much had to do what it wanted her to do. If you, if you text and drive, it will give you like a strike and you can't use it for the rest of the day. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. It's, they're smart cars. You've got to be paying attention even though the robot is driving. But it's crazy though, right? I mean, they love it. My, I have a friend that's a businessman and he drives, he says, I just pretty much get my, you know, I'm, I'm, I do it smart, you know, he's smart. Yeah. We're at this other place where the, we do this with pickle courts with Scott Winters. Yeah. He has these courts, portable courts, and he's at this place where this warehouse, we go pick up these courts, like the one hours to be delivered to San Diego, they, uh, there's these semis picking up the trailers and moving around. There's nobody in them. And those are nuts. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, when you see like trucks driving themselves across the country, oh gosh, that is, it's a little scary. You know, it might be good because everybody's, they drive so close, right? If there, if it was somebody else, it would stop you from driving so close, erratic driving. You know, I mean, you, I think it could be a good thing. I mean, even though I do like control well along the satellites, stay good and everything's good. And then all of a sudden it doesn't, then boom, but there's definitely a lot of stats that like, if everyone was driving self-driving, there would be less accidents, just so many, so many less human errors. This is probably a movie you've seen, remember the appliances and everything went crazy. Everything like the internet, the electrical explosion and not explosion. What is it where all electric is out? So all cars, everything, you can't do anything. Is that the one? Yeah. Yeah. That was a long time ago. Yeah. So you'd remember, I don't remember that because I was younger. Yeah. Well, okay. So I want to go back to the Uber thing real quick. That's cute. I just saw a video of a guy that brings his dog and the dog sits in the passenger seat and every time somebody gets in there, like girls especially, they're like, Oh, so cute. And he's so popular because he brings his dog with him. That's smart, man. Yeah. He knows how to get his five stars. Yes. And he's like, I think he's got like 6 million views on this video. We need to make a call. We need that on our podcast. I was like, okay, well I guess I need to be an Uber driver and have a cat or a dog. A low key pro tip for anyone looking to date in Pickleball, bring your dog to the court. Park your dog outside the court. That is a great way to meet people. People love it. Yeah. How can you resist a puppy? I know. I can't bring a cat, but maybe. Some people are. Yeah. A Pickleball cat? I mean, I would like to see it. Well, we love what you're doing. We love where you're going. We love that you're bringing, making us part of it. We love it, love it, love it. Tell people how they can get in touch with you and how they can connect with you. Absolutely. So the website is picklematch.co and you can find us on the app store Pickle Match. And then our Instagram is picklematchapp. So any of those things. Super simple. I mean, you can't. Not hard to remember. No. Yeah. So, and Pickleball. I mean, it's all about this Pickleball. Absolutely. And find me at a court. I will play with you singles or doubles. I love it. I can't wait. I'm going to play. I'm going to go. So I have a question. How good are you? What is your duper score? Oh my gosh. I'm actually not good, by the way. Like, do you have a duper? Yeah. So my duper is 3.1, but I started at 2.7. So, you know, making progress. Nice. Good. I don't even know what I am. But I feel like a 3.5 level, I would say. Like I'm, I am extremely average. I am the average Pickleball player in America. But you have fun, right? Yeah. Isn't that what it's all about? And you get some great exercise. you better have some energy, though. Yeah. Keep up. I mean, that's what I told my wife. I said, my boy won't be able to keep up. She's gone. Sorry. I made my, I'm just, you're, you're on fire. If you're willing to come and drill with me on a regular basis, I'm looking for a boyfriend slash drill buddy. There you go. So she's smart already. She knows how to get better at this sport right away. It's all about drooling, not playing. Drooling. Drooling. That's what it sounds like. Drooling. Yeah. You can drool too, if you like. Well, we thank you so much for being on our podcast. Incredible energy. We can't wait to see where you're going. I mean, it's going to blow up. Yeah, I know. It's just you. You're going to make it blow up. And your partner. And my co-founder. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But her energy is just. Oh yeah. Definitely. Definitely. I appreciate you guys so much. And I love what you're doing. Putting voices behind the stories in pickleball, I think is something that we need to do more of because again, I also love tennis by the way, but that's the thing that makes it different. That's the thing that makes us different than tennis. Sorry. Sorry, guys. She's bad. I got to take the equipment away from her sometimes. He tries to, but no. So I love it though. No, it's good. Pickleball. I mean, that's why the play has changed so much because of all the tennis players. It's like hard play. What's dinking? What's dinking? Yeah, they're good. They come in really quick. Yeah. Yeah. And they get humbled a little bit when someone brings them to the kitchen, which is nice to see. I like it. I like it. That's good. Well, thank you so much. We're going to see you soon. And guys, find her. She'll love her. She's got more energy. Sweet. Sweet. Beautiful smile. Yeah. See what we're doing here. Appreciate you guys. Yeah. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.