Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Babe, we're back in the studio.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:00:02] Speaker A: I do. But every time we are, it means more work for me. And I have to edit the audio and fix all the stuff that you say wrong.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna say, well, if you stop making mistakes, we wouldn't have to do so much editing.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: That's probably true. Either way, thankfully, we are.
Oh, it came in slow that time.
That's all right.
I'm here with the lovely Sky. We're at the podcast studio known as the Pod Pod here in Lovely in Anderson, Indiana. Energy Impact Center. Mecca of Pickleball.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: That's what you keep saying, and the.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: More you say it, the more it manifests.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: I don't really believe that, but that's okay. You have brought a special guest to my attention, and I would love to hear more. What. What happened? How did you. How did you meet this guy? And then. And they'd love for you to introduce him.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, we have Jeff and Jeff. I'm not going to butcher your last name. I'll have you say that for us in a second. But I met Jeff through Pickle Play.
He contacted us about, you know, collaboration, and so we love that. And when he was telling me more about his story and about the app, which I'm hoping he'll explain to our audience as well, I was like, I've got to have you on the show. I've got to have. I've got to share your passion with others, because it's pretty cool. And we've talked about health and nutrition and measuring.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Sorry, did you say health and nutrition?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yes, and. And measuring.
You know, what gets measured gets managed. And so that's all along the same pathway as Jeff is going to explain.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: So this time it's not a supplement?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: No, no, no, no.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Because we've had supplement people on before.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: We have.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Absolutely. 5.0.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Duh.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Well, that's.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: That's a hydration, so. You're right. You're right. Right, right.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: All right, we'll bring him in. Sky.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: So I'm not gonna do Jeff justice, so I'm just gonna say, here's Jeff, Here's Jeff, and I'd love to learn more about what you do.
[00:02:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you, guys. Absolutely. Yeah. My last name is pronounced Otano, technically.
Been in America a while, so, yeah, it's Otano. It's fine.
But, yeah, absolutely. I have found Pickleball about two years ago now, and I'm just obsessed.
So, yeah, I built some tech around it because of how obsessed I am.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Welcome.
Welcome to the. We're not a cult pickleball group.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Welcome to the obsession group. Yeah, we understand.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: We caught up a bit earlier, Jeff and I, and he told me that he had to kickstart his morning with pickleball in order to be in the right mindset for today. So he says he's ready to go. What's your first question for him?
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I would just like to learn more about how you found pickleball and how that led you to form this tool for pickleball.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I just start with my background, because I think it'll make sense a little bit as we go into it.
So I spent five years in the Marine Corps in the infantry side. So very fun, very cool. And then I realized, like, hey, I don't think my future is as a police officer or firefighter. I want to do something different, which is the traditional path that you'll see.
So I went into tech and I learned how to code. I didn't really know how to code, but I was lucky enough to join Microsoft on the Outlook team. And so I've worked on their products for a while. And so during that time, when you transition out of the military, nobody makes you work out anymore.
It's not, like, part of your job description.
And so I got pretty unhealthy. And I was like, okay, I have to do something now for myself. And that was actually running. I started running a ton.
So much so that I went from, like, zero to marathon in, like, five months.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Ran a ton. And then I was like, I want to go farther. Cause I'm crazy. So I ran ultra marathons.
Furthest distance was 52 miles. And my wife was like, hey, you're running for, like, eight hours on the weekend, every weekend.
Can you please do something different?
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Did she check you into a clinic or anything? Because that's a sickness if you ask me.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: I think it's awesome.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: Yeah, it was. I mean, it's very cool. Like, you spend a lot of time out in nature, but you're also just struggling the whole time because, you know, 50 miles is a lot.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: It is a lot.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: During that time, I was using Strava, which is a very popular platform for endurance runners and cyclists and all the things. So I really loved having that community. And tracking. Tracking was huge. And endurance sports.
And so a couple years ago, my co founder, Adam, who lives in Seattle, which is technically like the birthplace, right? Bainbridge, he taught me how to play pickleball. I just went to visit him one time, and he kicked my ass. For, like, two hours straight. It was ridiculous. And I was like, dude, I'm gonna come back in a year, and I'm gonna kick your ass. I swear. So.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: You were probably in better condition than him at the time. And it didn't matter, did it?
[00:05:11] Speaker C: It didn't matter. No. Yeah, yeah. He had, like, 30 pounds on me, was still wrecking me.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Knee, braces, ankle.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: Yeah, it was insane and awesome to see that. Like, oh, man. You know, even his mom. We played doubles with his mom, and his mom was kicking my ass, too. And she's, like, in her 60s, so.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: No mom.
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it was. It was amazing. And so I instantly got hooked.
I stopped running, but then I was like, there's no Strava for me anymore. Nobody cares about my pickleball on Strava.
Like, if I hit a sweet ATP and I put that on my log when I track, like, everybody's like, okay, what's an ATP?
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: So that's kind of where the birth of the idea came from, was I want to track, have a community that actually cares. I want my friends to know that I'm playing.
And it's also a way to just engage off the court. Right, Right. So we get a lot of time together, but what happens when you're done? You know, we're just like, hey, I'll see you next time. Maybe it's a group message, but at least I can keep up with what my friends are doing. So that was the birth of the idea. And I. I think I answered your question. I kind of went on for a long time.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: No, that was perfect.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: That's what we call the sign of a good question.
If we can get you to talk a bunch, we don't have to do any work. It's awesome. Those are usually the best podcasts, aren't they?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Exactly. Because people hear from us all the time. They sometimes get tired of us.
So tell us more about your app.
[00:06:33] Speaker C: Yeah, so the app is intentionally named Skiva. Right. Sounds very much like Strava. So Strava Swedish for strive. Skiva is Swedish for slice. So I was like, this is my version of Strava.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: So we built it with the intent of, like, okay, how do I start tracking my pickleball?
And what do you know? Like, Apple Watch has an integration. They track pickleball, and they just go into the health app, and then it kind of just gets dumped into all the other things you do. You're standing and you're walking. So I was like, I just want to focus on this thing. So it Started off with just the feed of all my workouts. And I really wanted to see, because I'm a data nerd, like, how many hours did I play last month? And it was really hard to answer that question off of these other platforms.
So it started off with a bunch of stats, like, Oh, I played 50 hours in January. I played 60 hours in February. And I was like, okay, but how much am I drilling? It's like, not that much because I'm not a good pickleball player, so I should probably be drilling more. So then I started tracking. Drilling.
And big thing when I was running was my shoes. Right. I tracked my shoes. You're supposed to change your shoes at every 250 miles or so. I was like, nobody's tracking gear. Like, how long do I. How long is this paddle going to last me? And how long is the next one going to last me? So I started tracking. That's time against my gear. Right. Like, I know my play style. So my. I had a gearbox for a while. Last me 135 hours. I know. Yeah, yeah. And then I had a. A DIA warrior that would last me, like, 70 hours. And then I had. Now I'm playing on a Eulo Perseus, and this one has lasted me 110 hours. And so all of that stuff, I mean, nobody knows this mostly about their own gear. You just kind of get rid of it when you want to, or you have a hundred different paddles that you play with.
Yeah.
But it was really interesting to start to see this data and then start to see my friends come on and join, and I could like their workouts or comment and say, hey, we should get a game next time.
And one concept that I really enjoyed about Strava was this concept of challenges. You could challenge each other or challenge on a giant group leaderboard.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: And so I brought that to pickleball as well. I was like, you know, not everybody is a 5 0, but who plays the most? You know, let's see who can log the most time in the month of January.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: I might be jumping the gun, but does it get specific as much as to be able to track gameplay? So, like, I lobbed 10 times or I third shot dropped five times or anything like that. Or is it not quite that specific yet?
[00:09:11] Speaker C: So it's not there yet.
I'm sure you guys have heard of PB Vision, so we've had talks with them on trying to integrate the two. Right.
Health data, the gear data, along with the very specific, like, pickleball metrics.
But part of it is there is like a kind of like a journal entry where you can self rate how you felt about your serves, how you felt about your drops. You know, what was your mental game at? Where was your endurance at? And then you can see change over time as well as how you perform with a specific paddle. Right. So, like, I noticed that my drops are better with this paddle than the other one, and so that was really cool to see as well. But it's hard to capture those minute metrics without a camera.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's just an API, Jeff. It shouldn't be that hard.
Mr. Techie.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: So we are entrepreneurs, and when I first learned about your app, and as you're telling me the story, I loved the idea of being able to track certain things.
I had never thought about tracking my equipment. And you even track the ball itself.
So then my mind instantly jumped. I might have even asked you this question the first time we talked. Like, are paddle companies talking to you right now? Are they asking you for your data? Like, I mean, like, if I owned a paddle company or if I owned a ball or most of them do both now. Right. I would be like, okay, I've got to talk to this guy.
Because that would be essential data. Because one of the things that we experience at Pickle Play is we need people to test our.
Test our features, test our.
Pretty much anything that we launch. Because, you know, you got to figure out what's going on with your. With your. Whatever your it is that you do.
I mean, like, there are flaws and balls. There's flaws in paddles, and you don't know that until you've had significant play time with it.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this was like a huge thought of ours, but when you're small, nobody talks to you.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Not anymore.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: It used to be they might not even know. Yeah, they might not even know that we're a thing and we're doing this.
So that's, number one, is hard to get distribution and enough sense of knowledge that this is even happening.
So we started to build our own kind of paddle database of, like, all the paddles that people are using. Here's the metrics around it. Right. So I could tell you if you self rate as a beginner, this is the paddle that's used the most.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:11:47] Speaker C: This is the one that has the most time. Now, that doesn't indicate that it's the best. I can just tell you what people are using and popular. Yeah.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Well, and it's based on availability, too, because not everybody has a sporting goods store.
They Might have a target.
That's true. But when you're walking through and you're like, oh, there's a set of Franklin double paddles with two balls and it comes with a cute little carry.
Yeah. You grab what you see.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: That's true. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, in order to track all that data, we have to know about all the paddles. So we did a lot of work to go and find them all and make it really easy to add into ska.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: That's intense.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: You brought that up. My son came home yesterday upset because he played pickleball during pe. He's in middle school, and he was like, their paddles were so bad.
And I was like, well, like, people don't know that there's a difference between good and bad battles.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Now, especially on a school supply budget.
We, that's one thing that we've done is we have supplied paddles to schools and youth programs from the early on days. We've even flown paddles to where in Africa.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: You don't like to talk about it because you don't like to talk about fun things that we do.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: No, I don't remember, Chad. I don't remember where it was.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: I just don't remember, I don't mind saying. But, yeah, we've had a lot of people, you know, help donate, come together as community, such a community thing, as you all know.
But, yeah, I, I, I, I would guess two things. I'm going to go back to your question about, you know, the data he has on paddles.
I would guess the paddle companies have very good data on their paddles.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Some, not all.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: But here's what they're getting.
Hey, it's been six months, my paddle's broken.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Oh, sure.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: So they're getting a lot of that data, and they're also a lot of them putting it through all these, you know, tests that we don't even have. Right. Because they got the equipment that swings it a thousand times and smacks and does this and whatever.
But I am curious, have you identified any paddles that have, like, like, let's go to balls for a second. The Selkirk S1 lasts forever. Yeah, it just does.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: It does.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Love it or hate it, it turned into a marshmallow. You sit on the shelf and five minutes later it's back to normal. Somehow it's magic.
Are there paddles that you have found that are somehow just ridiculously more durable than other paddles I have seen?
[00:14:14] Speaker C: You might be upset about this. The gearboxes last longer.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: But no one cares if the quality sucks.
[00:14:21] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It lasts long. And I mean, it's also, it's biased because people are going to use what's popular. Right. There's a lot of Selkirk out there. So people just use Selkirk. It's like their marketing is working. People are buying the paddles and so that's what ends up in the app because that's what's in your hand.
So it's hard to tell what the best paddle is as far as durability goes, because I don't have data for every paddle ever.
But popularity wise, like, yeah, Gearbox lasts a long time. Selkirk is extremely popular all the way down the range.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Well, they get the best return policy, literally lifetime return policy. There's literally nothing better.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So, I mean, if you can just get another one, then sure. Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: We don't see them as much anymore. We used to see everyone had Selkirk and now we hardly see any out here.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Really? Yeah. It might be region based too.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: It's all these new gen 3s that are coming out that everyone wants to get a hold of. Or Gen 4 if you're Yola. Right. But yeah, yeah. And then of course, have you seen the Flamingo yet?
[00:15:22] Speaker C: I have not.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Well, trust me, when it gets to Colorado Springs, everyone will want one.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: It's by Proton.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: By Proton.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: And the Kawamoto sisters just switched over to it from Selkirk.
[00:15:37] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's down here. Komodo has been growing popularity.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Because I think they're Colorado based.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Regional. That's right.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's a tendency. I mean, that goes into like ratings as well. They tend to be very regional. It's just kind of like where your pocket is for sure.
Yeah.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Huh.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: So I might ask another question because we could probably talk about this part of what you do all day, but because you are tracking your goals, how did that change your game?
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Great question.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So I. The journal entry was huge for me. So being able to see like, okay, today was open play. Right. I played in the advance this morning. Then I came back, I played two hours session, which is normal time. And so I came back and I rated my drops, my serves, and I realized. So I look over time over the last seven days on how I've rated that and I say, okay, I'm. I suck at my drops this week. Like, that's what I need to drill on next week or I didn't reach my drill time goal. Right. So I set a goal every week to Drill at least an hour or play time in general. And it tends to push me next week until I should go do this thing. This is my focus.
And that's based off of my own journaling, which maybe some people do on paper or in the notes app if they want to, but the app just makes it so easy because it's already attached to the session.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: And my gear, so I can filter by, you know. Oh, I used my bread and butter loco this week. Like, how does my drops feel versus when I use this other paddle?
So just having a really easy way to get insight into how my game is feeling.
But I, I do think that a big part of it is building the habit as well of like, I play at this time every week and I like when other people can see that and they, they engage with it, they like it, they comment. And so it's just building the habit of like, I feel like there's a community even if I don't get to see these friends every day.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: That is powerful.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: It's very true too.
I'm gonna go back to the data because, you know, I'm a stats and facts guy. I just, I love data.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: I'm more of the touchy feely. No, the goal setting and achieving goals. That's true, but that's very powerful.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Has there been any data personal or about the stuff you're tracking that has surprised you now that you've been tracking for a while?
[00:18:03] Speaker C: It's the first thought I had was how much other people play. I think I play a lot.
We had a challenge, I believe it was in February.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: You falling behind, Jeff.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: One player, he logged like 113 hours of play in the month.
And I was like, this is insane. This is a full time job.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: It's literally four hours a day in February.
[00:18:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: My hero.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Was he the winner of your challenge?
[00:18:31] Speaker C: He was, yeah. Yeah, he definitely had the leaderboard. But that surprised me also how many people track. But it goes nowhere. Right. Normally, like, I get requests now for, hey, I want to see my stats this way. And I try to understand why. Right. Why do you care about seeing your play over the last year? Right. Are you trying to reach some kind of milestone?
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:54] Speaker C: Or you just love to see that you've played a thousand hours over the last year. That's crazy. But yeah, right.
It's very cool to see. And yeah, I mean, that's probably been the most surprising thing is, is how much other players are playing and the fact that they really enjoy tracking all the time.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: I think we need to move your threshold on crazy a little higher. It's not.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. What are you at right now?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: I mean, like, weightlifters sometimes say two a days. For Kevin, when you first started playing, you were doing two a day.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: I did two and three a days. It was pretty fun. There was literally times I played in the morning, early in the middle of the day, and in the evening, and I was just on cloud nine. But then my. My business partner was like, hey, you ever gonna make money again for our company? So I.
I had to slow down, I guess.
Yeah. I'm like, I don't know. Do I need to? Like, I'm having a lot of fun.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: The kids were like, where's dad? I'm like, why do you keep asking me?
[00:19:47] Speaker A: The kids were like, where's dinner?
Dad's broke.
He bought 45 paddles. He can't afford to buy you McDonald's.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: It's so true.
[00:19:55] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, that's really been the goal behind the app as well is I love this sport so much that I just want to do it full time. So, like, right now I work as an engineer full time for a startup, but I really just want it to be pickable, and this is, like, my way to do that.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: Build something amazing in the space and, yeah, be able to take the excuse of like, hey, CEOs going to play pickleball. He should be doing that in the middle of the day.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: I love it. Speaking of which, that reminds me, it's time for a commercial.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Okay, this episode.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: This episode brought to you by PB Time Tournaments. It's pickleball time. All right, we're back to our show.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Okay, my next question is, why can't you do business meetings on court? I mean, like, that is starting to be something more and more popular here.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Actually, I'm going to add to that question because I'd love to hear Jeff's answer.
So, Jeff, I do a lot of, like, personal coaching. So I coach executives, coach sales leaders, coach salespeople. Not, like, life coaching stuff. Literally, like business coaching stuff. And. Which is, I suppose, the same thing, but whatever.
We have found that when you get them onto a pickleball court, they're so focused on the game that they open up about stuff they would never tell you in the office.
So back to your question. Why not do it on the court?
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Used to happen with golf. Yeah, same thing.
[00:21:11] Speaker C: I think you should. I think it brings out the competitive side in you, and you start to see, like, okay.
Or I mean, it's also Kind of nice to beat your boss as well, which I've done at some of our off sites. But yeah, I don't see why not. And it's a lot more like time sensitive. Not maybe time sensitive, but it's, it's efficient. It's time efficient. Hey, let's go play for two hours instead of play golf for six, you know? True.
I think we absolutely should. And I mean, maybe at the level, some levels of play, you're a little too intense to chat much. You know, if I'm playing like a higher level tournament, I'm not talking to my opponents.
But yeah, I think it would be amazing. And I think more facilities should try to facilitate that kind of communication because, like, we were just talking about peak.
They have a ton of courts. But I also just want to go hang out there and like, you know, kind of work a little bit and I can play a little bit. And that might facilitate that business relationship a little more.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Oh, completely.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: No, you have a great question.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: I do. Let's take it a step further. There was a company out of Nashville called Technology Advice, and their CEO, Rob Bellefant, he introduced the unconventional method of during the hiring process, asking them about their level of pickleball or of ping pong play and then taking them to a ping pong table and performing at the level they said they were. This guy was like a, or someone on his team was like a world class athletes. So they could play at whatever level and then using that as a part of the process to determine is this person a liar or they tell the truth.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's phenomenal. I mean, that's right. We're kind of trained to bloat your skills on it.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: Right.
So that's a really good gut check.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: So we could do that with pickleball. Be like, are you a 303-540- what are you? Oh, I'm a 425. Let's go find out. Sucker.
[00:23:06] Speaker C: Yeah, let's see. Let's see what your backhand looks like.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: We could create a whole company around the recruiting and hiring process using pickleball as the barometer for a truth telling.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: One company at a time, babe.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: I'm counting on Jeff doing this. He'll launch this on his spare time. He's not running eight hours on the weekends every day anymore, so he's got extra time.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: That's true. That's true.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:27] Speaker C: I mean, I'm mostly doing development now on the app. Eight hours a day if I, if I could, but yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Oh, that's so easy.
[00:23:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Wow. Well, I, I. Do you have any other questions for Jeff?
[00:23:40] Speaker A: A thousand, but go ahead if you've got one.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: No, no, you go for it. I'm done.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: I want to know what you believe.
So I always ask this of our tech guys. We had a gentleman on that, John's his name and he owns a 247 pickleball facility called 247 Dink. And he's a tech guy.
So his objective was create a topgolf version of pickleball. So when you go in, you literally couldn't. Well, it's not quite up and running the way it needs to be yet. He's working on it. But when you go, and you should be able to like on your court, look at a screen and then have a game you can play on your court for real against what the screen says. So if you're drilling and it says hit your serve into this six foot square foot area and you get it in there, then you get 10 points.
You know, you get close, you get five. You don't get close, you get zero or whatever.
And so he shared that with us. But there was some other technology things he was like, I can't tell you about these yet.
So if you can't tell me about what I'm going to ask about Nick, that's okay. But I'd like to know what you think the future holds for your app. For us as people who use your app, like Sky's got it right here on our phone. I was just looking at a second ago.
So what can you share with us that we might see as a new technology that's being embedded into the code and we'll see pop up in the next few months or year?
[00:24:55] Speaker C: Yeah. So one thing when I think about technology like PV vision, that's super cool and it's awesome that you can get these fine grained stats.
But not everybody wants to set up a camera every time they go to play and that's difficult and it can be annoying sometimes and you have to put it in the right position.
So something that we've been working on is how can we do this with things that you already use? How do we track those minute stats even if it's not perfect with devices you already use? And so we started a pickleball watch app so it's connected to ska. Right.
And so you can track on there right now the all the basic metrics. You get a little more than what Apple health gives you. So you can track distance as well, so, like, you know, who knows how many miles you travel in two hours of pickleball? We have found out it's around two to three, depending on how much you play.
And singles is more because obviously you're running around a ton. So that was the first part. And second part, we were like, okay, what else can I get? Can I get court coverage? Right. All these watches have gps.
Can I ping that GPS to give me a heat map of my court placement? So now we're getting into like, very pickleball IQ kind of thing. Right. I need to know where my placement is. And this is all through, like your normal flow. I'm going to start a workout, start my watch. I set it, and forget it.
So that's step two. And we have implemented kind of like a V0 of this. Something that I can see, but not everybody can see just yet.
I think V3 would be the gyrometrics.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: So how can I start to recognize shot types? Based on how your watch is moving?
Right. So when you go to hit a backhand, normally your offhand will move a certain direction. If you're dinking, your offhand's moving a certain direction. Like, there's these patterns that everybody kind of does with these normal shots.
And so that's the next step for us is how do we measure? How do we give you, like, very pickleball specific data with just your watch? I don't want you to do anything else. Start the workout after you're done. I'll tell you. You hit 40 plus backhands, you hit this many forehands, you hit this many dinks, and then you could extend that even further.
To where. If we're tracking court coverage, there's probably a way to tell what the score is based on your movement on the court.
You move forward when the other person is serving, you move back when you. When you're serving, you scored, you switch places or you're stacking or.
Yeah. So stacking. There's a lot we could do with the tools we already have.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:37] Speaker C: And less work on the player. Like, just automate it all, you know.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: I would guess that stacking would throw a monkey wrench into it a little bit.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: Maybe a little bit. But I could still tell that you're.
That you're scoring if you haven't moved forward. Right. And if you have enough people using the app, then it's even easier to tell if they're all talking.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Okay. So the other variables basically rule out or. Or guide where you're currently at. Right.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: So Just like, how much can we do with the watch to maximize the abilities that we already have? Right. Everybody's wearing these super smart watches. Well, sometimes in addition, on Skiva, you can track without a watch. You can just start a timer if you want to.
But yeah, those are the next things that we're kind of working on for players just to make it, like, super cool, super easy to use.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: So what about integrating then with the clubs that are out there, the Picklers of the world. Where were you at this morning? You were at Lifetime, right?
[00:28:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: What about integrating with them? Does Lifetime have built in cameras like Pickler's starting to do?
[00:28:37] Speaker C: They don't. I kind of wish they did, but our philosophy has always been to focus on the player. Yeah, I just want to think about the player experience. What would I use? And so it's been maybe not challenging, but not a huge focus for us to work with clubs in general. Because I don't want to think about the club's needs. They have their own needs. They want to make money. I want to think about the player. And so the app has been free. I want to keep it free as long as I can so that we just give players like the best experience ever in software. So I do feel like there hasn't been a ton of modern tech in the pickleball space.
And so that's also what we're trying to bring is this feel of like a polished app that works really well and does what we need it to do.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Are you subsidized through advertising?
[00:29:25] Speaker C: Nope, it's all self funded. Yeah.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Wow, thank you.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I only paid like 250 bucks a month or so. It's an expensive hobby. It's a paddle a month to keep it running.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: But since my co founder and I are both software engineers, we don't really need to pay anybody. We just build it ourselves.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: The hard part is the marketing and distribution, which I'm not good at. It's just getting people to find out about it, use it, tell me what you hate.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: So, yeah, we will make sure all three of our listeners.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Yes, we have more than that.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: We joke about having three listeners, but we will make sure that at least three. Three listeners. How's that sound?
Are very aware.
[00:30:06] Speaker C: And it's us three in this call right now.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yeah, only if you listen to this episode.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: No, you have more than that, you silly.
But no, we'll definitely put your link, the link to you on our Facebook and Instagram page.
And that. That's probably my final question is, you know, how do people find you?
[00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So Skiva has an Instagram, which I try to keep up with. I also do all that stuff.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: You can always go to Skiva app. So Skiva app has a little breakdown of what the app does and then links to code download.
But, yeah, other than that, I mean, you can follow me on LinkedIn as well. I try to post a little bit here and there about what I'm doing at Skiva. I really prefer to be, like, very open with the process on what we're building and honest. Right. I'm a father. I work full time, and I want to get time to play, and so I just try to fit in. I call it like, the margins of life is when I get time to really build this thing.
So, yeah. Yeah. The goal is to hopefully work on it full time one day and be able to just think about pickleball 24 7. Like, I already do, so.
Yeah.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Well, that's awesome. We wish you the best of.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: We do. We will help spread the word. We are ambassadors for cool things like this, especially tech.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: And we very much appreciate you being with us here today.
Sky, any last words for. For our audience?
[00:31:39] Speaker B: No, but I would say Jeff is definitely ahead of the game.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Oh, that's a good one. We say at the end of every episode, jeff, tell your friends that we're ahead of the game and so are you.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: It's awesome.
