Andreas Katsaounis, AlphaOmega Paddles

Thank you for tuning in. I'm Greg. I'm Mike. And we are the Pickleballers Next Door. We are for the Joes and not the pros. Your courts, our court. Thanks for tuning in to the Pickleballers Next Door podcast, where we come out to you, play with you, talk to you, talk about you, interview you, because your courts are our courts. Yeah, your courts are ours. I'm Mike and I'm Greg, and we are the Pickleballers Next Door. It's what we do. It's what we're doing. Get used to it because we'll be out where you're at at any given time. So we have a guest today. We met him out at Pickle Con. His name is Andreas, and I'm going to let you introduce yourself, Andreas, because I am going to butcher the shit out of your name. You don't even want me to dare trying it. Hi, I'm Andreas Katsounis. I'm the founder of Alpha Omega Pickleball. It's a pickleball paddle brand. I'm the youngest person to start a pickleball paddle company. I started it when I was 17 years old, and I've been in business for around 11 months now. Nice. And how's it going? It's going really well. I currently have three paddles on the market, as well as a trainer paddle, which are all available on my website. I have that trainer paddle. I got hit in the nuts from it. It makes me laugh when he's playing with it. If you remember, he's a large man with a little paddle. It's a hard paddle to use, for sure, but it takes some time getting used to, but it definitely really improves your skill significantly. There's no doubt. I love practicing with it. What made you decide to get into making paddles? I started playing pickleball recreationally, maybe my sophomore, junior year of high school. I was just using really cheap Amazon paddles. I wanted to get a better paddle, but all the high-quality paddles were $200. At 17, I didn't want to spend $200 on a pickleball paddle. At 47, I don't want to. It's extremely expensive for those high-quality paddles, so I thought, what if I can make a high-quality paddle but at a more affordable price, so people like me who don't want to spend the $200 can buy a more affordable paddle, but yet it's still a high-quality paddle. During my junior summer going into senior year, I just did a lot of research and studying of paddles, materials, how they should be made. I went through some prototypes, had some people in my community test out the prototypes, so I found a good paddle. I was able to sell it to a lot of people in my community, and it sold out pretty fast because it was a high-quality paddle, but it was only $99, which it's hard to find a good paddle for that price range. Right, because when I think of a $99 paddle, I'm thinking like super beginner. Yeah, I'm thinking something they took out of the woodshop. Exactly, and that's kind of the problem with the pickleball industry that I wanted to solve is making those good paddles but at affordable prices for those intermediate players who are wanting to get advanced, and they don't want to spend $200 on a professional level pickleball paddle. There was no really good intermediate paddles that were good quality and will actually help you improve your game. And I think it's a great paddle, if you remember how I actually had to get a paddle because we got beat by your sister and your dad, if I remember correctly. My sister and my mom, actually. I don't know, I think it was your dad. No, I seriously think it was your dad because he was very quiet, but your sister loves to talk a little trash, huh? Yeah, she was great and what an athlete. She put a whip in on us. She kind of pretended like she didn't know what was going on, and then when it came down to getting the paddle, but I do love the paddle. It really plays well. I remember Mike walking off in a huff. I was pretty upset. He went and cried in the bathroom for like 20 minutes. I did. For real. I really did. But you are great. I mean, I love your enthusiasm, who you are. I mean, just props to you. I mean, we're really, and that's why you're on the show today is we want to, we love people as yourself that are getting into the sport and doing great things. Help push you along. Tell us a little bit about the three paddles that you have, not the Cyclops, which is the training paddle, but tell us about the three other paddles that you have. Yeah, absolutely. So the first paddle I released is called the Poseidon. The Poseidon is the $99 paddle. It's made out of T700 carbon fiber, and then it's a thermoformed paddle, has an elongated handle, has EVA foam in the edge wall of the paddle to widen the sweet spot, and it's got the polypropylene honeycomb inside the paddle. It's a 16 millimeter paddle, and it's about 7.98 ounces in the weight. Nice. It has a hybrid standard face shape, and then it also has, as Fox mentioned, the T700 carbon fiber. It has three layers of that inside of the paddle. Oh, nice. So that was the first paddle. It's also USA Pickleball approved now. And you said it was thermoformed? Yes, it's thermoformed as well. And I just started sponsoring a player, a local player here in Omaha. Nice. And that is currently his favorite paddle as well, is the Poseidon. That's what he plays with. Nice. And he goes to your school? No, he does not go to my school. He's not in college, but he plays like, not professional pickleball, but he's like almost a 5.0 pickleball player. So he's very good, and he does tournaments and stuff. Amazing. Can I ask you, how do you come up with these names for the paddles? I'd like to know how you came up with them. Oh, yeah. So the whole brand is Alpha Omega Pickleball. My dad is from Greece, so I based it off of my heritage, but also my faith. I'm a Christian, and so Alpha Omega is part of some Bible verses. And so I kind of mixed my faith and my heritage. And so that's how I got the brand name. And then each paddle name is named after a different Greek mythology character kind of playing off my heritage. Love it. So the Poseidon. And then the next paddle I released is called the Ares, which is a Kevlar paddle. And then the paddle I just released a few weeks ago is called the Cronus, which is a titanium carbon fiber weaved paddle. And then the trainer paddle that you guys mentioned is the Cyclops. Yes. I have the Cyclops, and Mike has the Poseidon, and you have the Ares. The Kevlar one or the carbon fiber? Carbon fiber. Okay. So he has the Poseidon. The Poseidon. Yes. That thing hits really nice. Really nice. It hits really nice. What's your favorite to play with? See, everyone asks me that, but it's like having kids. You can't just pick a favorite. No, no, no. You can. You can. You can pick a favorite. Yeah, you just don't tell them. Yeah, it's looked down upon. Yeah, I love all of my paddles, though. I'll switch off between them randomly. I can play well with any of them. They're all different playing styles for sure, and I tried making them in a way that they can have a balance of everything, power, control, spin. And so I feel like anyone who uses them, it kind of matches their play style. It just depends on how they play. No, that's great. They're great paddles. Aesthetically pleasing as well. You have a little bit more challenge where you live. Let people know where you're from. Yeah, so I'm from Omaha, Nebraska. I'm living in Lincoln, Nebraska right now because I'm a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. And, yeah, so it's a good pickleball community here. It's definitely I think there's more people in the pickleball community in Omaha than in Lincoln, but Lincoln still has a good community. But I'll frequently go back to Omaha. It's like an hour away. And I think you said we haven't got the invite yet, but there's a tournament or something come up that we're going to get invited to possibly? Yeah, so that is I can't remember the dates off the top of my head, but it's like a Omaha Council Bluffs tournament. I want to say it's March or April. I believe I can send you the information on that. Yeah, please do. Please do. We'll be there. We'll be there. And what's the weather like there right now? Because right now where we're at, downtown Denver, it is snowing. Oh, yeah, we have not gotten any snow yet. It's pretty cold. It's about 40 degrees right now. Okay. But no snow yet. We had a few rainy days though. Okay, still hard to play pickleball in the rain and in the 40 degrees. Yeah. But I'll do it. I mean, I can manage the 40 degrees, but it's a problem when there's like rain and wind. That's when it's not fun. 100%. I will play in the 40 degrees as well. Yeah. So tell us about your experience with these collegiate nationals that you just went to. Yeah, so the UNL Pickleball Club, it's our first year as a competitive club, and we made it to nationals in Dallas. We were just there last weekend competing. We did not do the best, but being our first year as a program and being one of the smallest programs, if not the smallest program at nationals, it's still very impressive that we were able to get there in our first year being a program. That's incredible. And I think just having that experience, getting to play at that high level, we'll know what to expect next time and we'll be able to do better at the next nationals, which I believe there's one in the spring as well. Awesome. That is awesome. So where was it? In Dallas. Was it at Farmer's Branch? That sounds familiar. That's where the PPA is playing right now? Yes, yes, it was. They had the PPA tournament going on there as well. It was at the same facility. Copy. I was just trying to figure out exactly where you're at. Perfect. Yeah. That's awesome. The collegiate tournament was inside and then the professional tournament was outdoors. It was an absolutely beautiful facility and nothing like I've ever seen before in any pickleball tournament. It was really awesome. That's good. It's fun to play on nice courts. Yeah, oh, yeah. I saw a few professional players as well that were walking around. I didn't recognize some of them, but a lot of my teammates recognized them and pointed them out, which was pretty cool as well. Yeah. I took Mike to his first PPA. He did. At the Pickle Con. I had a good time. I mean, I have a new respect for the PPA. I thought it was like all other sports where the players were off and wouldn't talk to you and it was really what a good experience it was. So what's your future look like in the pickleball world? Well, I've just released the Cronus and before that was the Cyclops. So I'm working on marketing those and selling those a lot on my website. I'm starting to get into some advertising on Facebook. I've fully funded the whole business with my own money that I saved up. So I've just been pretty conservative with spending money on advertising. But now that I've been doing better, I've been making some more profit and I've just reinvested all of it into the brand to make more paddles. And now I'm working on the advertising part of it as well as working on another prototype, which the next paddle will be called the Zeus. It won't be coming out till next year, most likely. What's that going to be? What's that going to look like? What's that going to be made out of? So I don't know all of that yet. The goal is to make it more of like a power paddle, but I'm not exactly sure. I mean, Zeus is a fitting name for a power paddle. Yeah, it definitely is. I definitely want it to be more powerful than my other paddles, but the problem with that is there's new rules with the USAPA that's kind of limiting the power of paddles. So paddles like the Gearbox Power Pro sounds like it's going to be banned next year because it has too much power in it. So I don't want to make it that powerful, but I want to make it up there in power levels because it definitely seems like the power paddles have changed. They've become a lot more powerful. So I want to create something like that too. Have you ever played against one of those Gearbox Pros? That's not fun. It's definitely not fun. The ball's on fire. It's unbelievable. There's like two or three people on my club team that use them, and I'm very happy they're getting banned next year because they're not fun to play against. Yeah, they're bad. And you play using sound more than you realize, and those don't make a very loud sound. No, but they did a serving speed on them, and an average serve is 36 to 40. Those were serving at 50-plus. I saw that. Yeah, that's just nuts. Unbelievable. I did lose the serving thing at the Pickle Con. Yes, I beat them. But anyway. Why don't you give us a shout-out to where these people could get this great paddle and go to your website and stuff. Yeah, so the three paddles, as well as the practice paddle, and also some pickle balls are all available on alphaomegapickleball.com. Also, my Instagram is just alphaomegapickleball, and then I have a Facebook page and a Facebook group, all alphaomegapickleball and the alphaomegapickleball Facebook group. And you can see me using the Cyclops on his Instagram. Yes, there is a video posted using the Cyclops. And also, on the Facebook page, I posted it on an Instagram story, but I just started an ambassador program yesterday, actually, so that has some cool benefits. If you join it, you'll get a code, and you get to pick out one paddle to be bought at a wholesale price from us. And also, you get 10% commission on any sales that people use when checking out with your special ambassador code. And if you sell two paddles, you get a free shirt. If you sell five paddles, you get a $25 coupon. And 10 paddles, you get a $100 coupon. And then as we go, there's going to be some more benefits as well. Well, congratulations on that. That's a big step. That's huge. That's giant. I have to say something really quick, though, just because now that we've talked about the Pickle Con and that competition, will you let your sister know and your dad know that I want a rematch? And when that tournament comes up in March, I will pay for her ticket to come to visit you so that we can have that rematch. It's just sitting here, like sitting inside me. I'll let them know. Please do. I just want to say thank you to A Sweet Sip for supporting the podcast. A Sweet Sip is a very delicious CBD drink, non-alcoholic, four great flavors. It helps me take the edge off when I'm going to play in a pickleball tournament. If you want to get some, check them out at DrinkASweetSip.com.