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Hey, everyone. We're here in LA and now we're visiting LA Padel Club, an upcoming Premium Padel Club here in LA. Come with us to check it out. So we're here with Steve and Jennifer. Please tell us how this crazy idea.
Speaker 1:How did you came up?
Speaker 2:Fell in
Speaker 1:love with Padel. How did you start doing this beautiful project?
Speaker 3:So like so many people, I a tennis player. So I we live across the street from a tennis club, but I love playing live ball. I love the energy, the music, like, the speed, the social aspect of it, so I didn't play too many tennis matches. And I had a good friend who lived in Miami, said, gotta try Padel, you gotta try Padel. Like most people, it's like, whatever, it's something else.
Speaker 3:And then I saw a private court in Beverly Hills across street from the Waldorf, just in a parking lot, and I know the owners of the hotel, and I called and I said, hey, what's up with this court in this parking lot? I wanna kinda play. Everyone keeps talking about it. And I said, well, we've got the keys to the court. We built it for a guest that is only here a few weeks out of the year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go out and play. Started hitting, fell in love with it right away, and then I said, well, where else is there to play? In LA, because I can't play on that every day. I would, but, there wasn't anywhere, and I saw that there's not very many opportunities, and it's hard to build here. Land, expensive, permitting, all the issues of building in LA.
Speaker 3:That's my world, hospitality, real estate, development. I said, I'm gonna figure this out as a passion project. I wanna create, like, a family club.
Speaker 2:And Jen, what did you think? He's like, what are you, crazy?
Speaker 4:Calling. As he was saying that, was like, what was I thinking? Yeah, I'm like, oh great, another
Speaker 2:Project.
Speaker 4:But listen, I mean, really good to follow your passions, like, that's what makes something successful, right? So, he found something that he loved, and he admitted, like, I don't know about this thing, I had the same reaction, it just took me a little longer, And I think the the moment that changed for me was when Arielle Versaun started tagging along to your weekly games at that Beverly Hills court, and you would start playing with him, you know, for the forty five minutes or an hour before you met with other guys, and I started seeing my younger son just, like, get obsessed and fall in love with it. And, yeah, he's a natural athlete, but he didn't really have a tennis background. Like, maybe he did, like, a camp once one summer for like a week, but, you know, it was really interesting seeing that. So as a mom, now I'm starting to pay attention, and I don't have a tennis background either, so I just kind of, again, limiting myself to say, well, that's not for me, but I'll support, you know, the guys.
Speaker 4:And I think that's what's unique about, you know, having different people in the ownership that have different experiences and have come to the sport in different ways, is now I have that perspective that is going to make it easier for other people because I ended up falling in love with it and I found that I can do this too, and I'm having fun and meeting people. So, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what did you guys do before this? Before battle. Professionally?
Speaker 1:Yes. Well, no. Let's go back. Off camera you guys told us that you guys met in Russia. So that was super interesting.
Speaker 1:Don't you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Was that the Cup? Or
Speaker 3:No. This was this was before this. So I'm I was born in Ukraine, in Kiev. So I grew up speaking Russian, came to America when I was one. Always, I was working at PricewaterhouseCoopers at the time in San Francisco out of this is my job, out of college.
Speaker 3:Always wanted to travel internationally, live somewhere abroad. Never did I expect that it was gonna be Russia, like, of all places, but the opportunity came up. I speak Russian. I the type of consulting I did for PricewaterhouseCoopers was needed there, and they said, hey. Do you when I was 28 years old, 27, I was young, they said, you know, I know usually people move later in their career, but you speak Russian, and no one else does.
Speaker 3:So do you wanna go and live there? And I said, yes. And Jennifer was there.
Speaker 4:About a couple months before me. At six Yeah. I made my way over.
Speaker 2:How did you make your way to Russia too?
Speaker 4:I'm not Ukrainian or Russian. I not grow speaking Russian.
Speaker 3:So you're born here in The US, you're born here in The US. You're Russian than I do, but I did. But you were born here
Speaker 2:in The US.
Speaker 4:I was born in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:My grandmother was a travel agent.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:She had a travel agency, actually. And so, I grew up going to her home, seeing all her National Geographics, poring through them, looking at all of her, you know, safari photos, and just really fell in love with the idea of, like, visiting and traveling and learning about other cultures, so that was my foundation. And so in college, I was studying psychology, a class on, took a class on the kind of issues of post institutionalized children, and took that information over into Russia to do a volunteer stint there for.
Speaker 2:So, as a volunteer to Russia?
Speaker 4:So, I started out going there to volunteer in some local orphanages and shelters, and just like fell in love with it, because I'm like halfway on the other side of the world, and there was so much familiarity, but there were so many differences, and there was this, it was like this no man's land, so it was just very intriguing for me, plus I was like, okay, I get to learn something cool in a language that not everyone else learns, so you know, everyone's learning Spanish or French or German maybe, but like Russian, I don't know, like this is very cool, so the language, I took to it very easily, my accent's fairly good and like, I can say that because I tried learning French and my kids who speak French said, you speak French like a Russian, so I cannot do any other accent, but apparently I can do a Russian accent really well, so I guess it was just meant to be. So yeah, so we met over there at a mutual friend's birthday, so I went to Russia, I volunteered, came back, went back again, decided to study, met somebody there.
Speaker 2:Study in Russia? Mhmm. Wow.
Speaker 4:So I started to study, and then I met somebody, I feel like the source to really long for our cattle podcast, but maybe you guys could cut a doubt. But I was there, I decided to become roommates with this American girl who had been living there for a long time, and she was very like, Russianized, and so we became fast friends, and then when we moved in with each other, we went out one night, and there were these American guys, and they invited us to a birthday party later, and that's where I met Seed. And he had just come back from Kazakhstan, and this is like the time period of like, Borat in Oleg.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's where he's from, right? Yeah. In movie, at least.
Speaker 4:So, we were laughing about Borat in Kazakhstan or whatever, which by the way, separately, is a very beautiful country, like, it's on my list of places to go, but it was just and I was complaining about some guy that I had met who had ghosted me, so you gave me advice and then quickly, like, within five minutes, was like, wait a second, who are you?
Speaker 3:I was a jiu jitsu here. I knew what I was doing. Knew what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Well, so let's fast forward. So now we're here at the LA Padel Club. This facility, it's absolutely beautiful. Why don't you take us a little bit about this historic Well, let's talk about the first step, right? I mean you guys fall in
Speaker 2:love with Padel, okay? Now you got to take the next step of creating a business plan, looking for investors and getting the real estate. Mhmm. Yeah. So let's talk about those three elements.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. What come what came first? So the first thing
Speaker 3:I did, like, when I dive into a business, I'm like, I get into the business of it because I know while something may look flashy and nice on the outside is, can something make money? Money. Right. Right? And how do you make money around something that requires real estate, which is scarce, expensive, and hard to get?
Speaker 3:So but that's my world. Actually, the first thing I did two things initially. The first thing I did is I just went online, and I cold called and emailed people that were in Padel business. So I picked up the phone, and I got in touch actually, like, LinkedIn, I got in touch with, Chris Ishu. And he's you guys know him.
Speaker 3:He's such a warm individual. I mean, he, like, replied to me, like, instantaneously, and we were on the phone, and we connected right away. So with that, we really I got ingrained in learning about the prospects of everything from courts to PPO to padel to clubs. And then the other thing that we did, we actually we went to the very first Racket X. So this was right around when this all started.
Speaker 3:I think I went to Racket X even before I met Chris, but we met, Marcos Del Pilar Mhmm. On court with our son, and we saw how energetic and how magnetic he was and how he was bringing so many people on court to have fun. And and then that's when we saw that this game is just there's a there's a magnetism to it. Yeah. Then I later learned that they're they're very close.
Speaker 3:They're partners, so the two of them. So we started working together, and he told me for years he's been coming to Los Angeles to figure out a way of how to open a car. Chris. Chris. Okay.
Speaker 3:And he said, just everyone the numbers don't work. People don't know. It's too hard. And I said, listen. I don't know if I'll be able to, but if anyone can, it'll be me.
Speaker 3:Wow. So that's kind of so then we went on this journey of very specific parameters, number of courts is very important for me, this isn't just let's do all this work, but we only do it for two or three courts. Location was very important. I wanted to make sure that we were in a space that I knew would attract initially enough players demographically, internationally, people that can afford Padel. I wanted that.
Speaker 3:The zoning, can we build what we wanna build? All those things had to fall into place at a long enough term lease. I don't wanna do something where it was more of a pop up where we spend two or three the first two years is hard. Right? People think you open up a paddle club and the people are gonna walk through your door.
Speaker 3:Alright. No. Right. No. This is like the first two years is you got to it's hard.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And then if you only have a through like a five year lease, it's like you do all this work and then what are you supposed to do when they wanna build a high rise on your lap? So, I needed something that we could lease for more than ten years. So, yeah, so we started looking How long did
Speaker 2:it take you to find this location? And is this a lease location, or did you acquire it?
Speaker 3:We have a a twenty year lease. That's a lot. So we have an ability to purchase if we want, which was also important. At any time? The first there's a parameter, in the beginning, we can we can purchase it.
Speaker 3:So twenty year lease, it took you know, it it was fairly efficient. I probably searched really, really, like, kind of focused for less than six months. Oh, that's So Right. When I I very quickly saw it is nearly impossible financially to make things work indoors in LA, nor is it required or desired.
Speaker 2:So did that was that one thing that I mean, you're doing it's outdoors. But was that one thing that you would have changed, finding something indoors? Because no. Okay.
Speaker 3:It wouldn't. There's nothing financially indoors in the parts of LA that we wanna be in now That would work. That I could tell you, you will ever make money on. Gotcha. I mean, the the I mean, some I will pay someone if they can show me that, but but at at, like, a scale, so you have to do what we're doing, or it's a little bit of a development project.
Speaker 3:True. Because, yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 2:you have your formula, and, you know, per square foot has to be this cost because it's what you're gonna charge. And if it's not, it's not gonna work.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I have a good sense of what someone could pay per month in rent on a per court basis to to make sure that you're not gonna and listen. People want clubs to make money.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, you want clubs to be successful, to thrive, to make money so that people can keep coming to the place they love.
Speaker 2:So now you have a business plan. You found the location. Now you're investors. How did how did you raise funds, or do you have certain amount of investors? How did that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean Well, Chris was one. Right? Of course.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The the first was me and Chris. So the the the the best thing anyone could do when raising money is put a lot of their own money in. Of course. You're right.
Speaker 3:So so that boat of confidence. So I said, Chris and I said, we're gonna we're gonna put her in our own money until we basically get the property secured and all of our permits pretty close to being done so that when we bring in outside investors, there's very little risk in terms of can we build it? It's easier. Can we build it? Yeah.
Speaker 3:There's always execution risk. There's business risk, but I wanted to make sure. So then we started to bring in, you know, a little of everything. Everything from, you know, this we're not raising tens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 2:That was the next question. What was your budget? Well, how much money did you want to raise, you know, to build this club? And how what was the total amount?
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you you don't mind just Yeah.
Speaker 3:I won't disclose it. I won't disclose all of that, but we it modest, and we didn't mean, I think it's modest for what it Especially
Speaker 4:when you hear about other Padel projects, and with, you know, big developer projects, and you're thinking, I mean, that's wonderful, and it looks amazing, but, you know, how is this making money? Or how will it make money? When will Well, it make
Speaker 3:I'll say this because this is what I, like, we put in, we put in, like, basically the first half million dollars. Okay. Right? And that was a substantial amount, and then when we started to raise money, there was everything from friends, and friends of literally paddle players, people that I play paddle with that were in LA over a summer that live in Miami or Dubai, they're like, wait. You're opening the first paddle club in LA or the first big one?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'll put in 25 or $50. I just wanna be and you put in how much? Yeah. I you you don't wanna lose that money, and I see what you're doing, and I trust you, so we've had investors like that.
Speaker 3:We've had a couple we've had three former NFL players, a gentleman named Trey Boston. I don't know if you guys have met Trey. He just become a great Padel player, I think a great voice for the game. He brought in two of his friends, Steve Smith, who was a Pro Bowl receiver for the Panthers, and Jonathan Stewart, also Pro Bowl running back. They're both getting into Padel.
Speaker 3:We brought in, some venture capital, investors, not from their fund, they're just venture they have venture capital funds. Just like Padel, we have very a high level managing director at Goldman Sachs who's investing in sports businesses. Again, personally not from Goldman the fund, it's so important to get the right investors because that in essence is also gonna help create your brand. Okay.
Speaker 2:So you raised the funds you needed and you're in this process of building this club, I mean, I'm looking at it, it's nice to see money. A lot of money. So you know what I'm saying? So I mean, are you guys do you think you're gonna exceed that budget or you think you're gonna you're meet it?
Speaker 4:Well, I wanna say something first. When you say I see money, I think that that that's the like value add on of the space inherently. Yeah. Like, it screens that but it's because this wood paneling that already exists, not the money that we put into it.
Speaker 2:Right, but you have to be consistent on the furniture and everything else that is the same style, you know, which usually costs money. It's not like you can go to Kia and start putting stuff out there that a lot of some lease clubs do it.
Speaker 4:And we a little bit about this with like, you know, selecting commercial grade hospitality brake products. Like, you need to bring that in for a variety of reasons, but it can be a little difficult with a small scale operation. So it can translate to being a little bit more costly. So again, going back to this puzzle, this grand puzzle of we wanna make sure that we're building something that's sustainable, you can always have refreshes and swap outs and upgrade, you don't wanna get too ahead of yourself.
Speaker 2:Very
Speaker 4:right. You wanna be really smart about your choices, but you also wanna, you know, reflect what you believe. You believe that this is gonna be a successful business, and that investment that you put in, you know, has to, you know, speak that language and be a part of that, but, yeah, it's I always say it's just a puzzle, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the maintenance, finding contractors can actually do the work of repairing some of these things, and sometimes it's a little difficult to find, you know? And not any any carpenter can come repair one of the trim pieces, you know?
Speaker 4:When do you want to touch coming or Right. Worried about what's behind those walls? Let's open them up. Let's look at them. And you know, we've been fairly lucky because this building was existing already as it were, you know, a place where our business was operating.
Speaker 4:So they already built in these some of these systems, like Steve mentioned earlier, the Moux Zurich and Nerv Torah, the sprinklers, things that we would be required to put in, which would have been an
Speaker 2:So the sprinklers were already here already and calm because it's the
Speaker 3:unusual office. Basement. So a lot of
Speaker 2:the work has been done.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Mean, it's really been you know, from a from a commercial system standpoint, I feel like it's been a little turnkey when it comes to, like, refreshing, updating
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 4:Telling the brand story, adding the touches, you know, yes, that's where we put in the money. But we I feel like we've been fairly lucky.
Speaker 3:I think the part that costs more is the time, and that's I would tell anyone building anything but a club is it's just gonna take longer. And, you know, once you're depending on your lease arrangement, it's eventually, very rarely is a landlord gonna say, I'm just gonna wait for you to finish because, you know, so your lease is gonna start and you're still gonna be building.
Speaker 2:So did that happen? Of course, yeah. Yeah. So we had a Rent of or anything.
Speaker 3:We got it, but it takes Correct. Store takes longer. So, like, so you have to factor that in, that cushion of your burn before you actually open your doors generating It
Speaker 2:doesn't still another burn until you get people in here. Exactly. So that's
Speaker 4:Even when we open, right? Like, there's gonna be that ramp up phase and, like, bringing people in.
Speaker 2:Educating people.
Speaker 4:But then that can be added time and money on special consultancy fees because it is in store property. Like, you have to have multiple conversations with the architect at this rate, or, you know, they have to go back and talk to the city about this, and But I mean, this property was designed for this business. Yeah. You know? Commissioner, You couldn't pick anything better, so you have to go through that, you know?
Speaker 4:And again, like I said before, like, it's like, I personally feel like we're doing a service for the city because this is a historical home. I feel like a sense of duty. I I think Steve says the same thing too, that that we're not just building a business for ourselves, we're building something for the city, and we are really giving a gift back by giving this home, like, the life that it deserves.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's open to people to enjoy. I mean, was a plumber's office before, so who got to see So
Speaker 1:why don't you tell us a little bit about the history of the building and what will be the layout? You know, what's inside, what's outside? How do you envision this?
Speaker 4:So the history of the building is called the Collins Firthman Mansion, and it is part of the historical registry. It's a nineteen twenties neoclassical mansion. The family that lived here, they had about three children, as I can tell from the photos. They also raised horses here. So this was all farmland around here, and again, we have the photos to reflect what the area looked like, which is really neat, and and this was just kind of the beginnings of Hollywood really did exist here in Culver City before, you know, people imagined it over there in Hollywood, this really was where the studios were.
Speaker 4:In fact, between here and our neighborhood where we live, which is about an eight minute drive in Cheviot, you have Sony Studios, you have Fox Studios, used to be Century
Speaker 3:Twentieth Century Fox.
Speaker 4:Twentieth Century Fox, but even before that was
Speaker 1:an
Speaker 4:Indian. Anyway, the street that goes between, or kinda goes down this direction down the Sony, is called Motor, And back in the day, the producers between these two studios used to live in Cheviot, and they would motor up and down between the two studios. So this really is the hub of LA.
Speaker 3:Well, for entertainment. Yeah. And now we have Amazon Studios, which is now where Culver Studios is, which is less than a mile away. A great demographic for the club, but also just great legacy. And Apple Studios is also here in Culver City.
Speaker 3:So this is a very, yeah, originally historic, like
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Entertainment op ed.
Speaker 4:And this is also, like, we are, you know, this last tract of commercial property. We have these warehouses next to us, and then we get into residential, so we get the best of both worlds. But this tract of commercial space here is right next door to another tract. It's actually called Hayden Trapped, and you have a lot of really great businesses in there. You have people that are coming in, and they're young people.
Speaker 4:They're working in architecture and a lot of creative space, and they're going to the cafes, and it's a really urban, exciting space right around the corner from here, and that's even before you get to Culver City downtown Cropper, which I recommend you highly go to, highly recommend that you go to because it's just really beautiful. You'll get a bigger, like, robust picture of of the history of this area.
Speaker 1:So on the layout, I will be inside and outside.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So we have the club room. We have a bar and cafe that is coming down the pipeline that is actually cost from a club room, so you'll able to, you know, grab a cocktail or early morning grab a coffee, come sit in here. We have our pro shop behind us. On the way out, we have an area before you exit to see the courts, it's a grab and go, so we'll have some, hopefully, we're exploring some of these, like, RFID, like, self serve kiosks where we'll have freshly stocked grab and go items as well, and drinks.
Speaker 4:And we have two powder rooms downstairs, and a third bathroom that has an ADA shower, and then upstairs, you saw our beautiful landing. It's not technically a room, but it's a really gorgeous space that overlooks the course where you can sit and, you know, with a book or with your computer or just sit there. And then, the two locker rooms, men's and women's locker room, the coaches lounge, which will be back of house for coaches operations, event operations, and also where our members who are at a certain membership level will be able to book time off court with coaches, and get a little bit of, you know, like bodywork, we have a chiropractor table there. We have co working and a conference room, so in our co working, I know that Steve and his other business, that there's a lot of value in having those phone booths where people can have private calls without feeling like they're disturbing somebody or they have to leave and go somewhere else, so we really, really feel that the space helps people stay and enjoy and not just feel the need to, like, just come and go. And
Speaker 1:How about outdoors?
Speaker 4:Outdoors, he has done in courts.
Speaker 2:Manufacturers you guys
Speaker 4:AIP Okay. Adidas are courts, and two of them are cranium ones. For our pros, whenever we have tournaments, they have not only kind of the required run outs, they extend beyond the very large run outs. So seven courts, and then outside on our side yard, we have cafe seating, we have lounge seating, and we'll have a coffee cart out there as well, and then a private area on the other side of that that is for our members, that is a little Zen wellness area with plunge cool sauna
Speaker 1:the Sounds exciting. Let me tell you.
Speaker 4:Hopefully, down the road soon, we will also be putting in a storage container outside and on the flex spaces where we can do kind of an indoor outdoor gym space.
Speaker 3:And then
Speaker 2:you have parking there. How many parking spots do
Speaker 3:you Yeah. 12 spots on premises on the property. Street parking is available, and then because we're kind of in this at the end of this warehouse district, a lot of the businesses stop at about 3PM during the week, are closed on the weekends, so there's a lot of off premises but very close walkable parking that we have arrangements with with our neighbors. But it is for LA, it's a very convenient parking So
Speaker 1:after listening to these, our listeners listeners and viewers, we will we will love to know when are you guys gonna open or what is the estimated time to open. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We wanna have a soft opening in in March, so we're gonna hopefully have, at the very least, our, three
Speaker 2:of our courts up. How do think we'll get a COO? If don't
Speaker 3:we'll have our COO in March, but we'll start doing some engagement events, some private events, some activations, you gotta get people playing on the courts to get them to settle, to get the turf to official opening, you think? Yeah. Mean, would love to, March, April to kind of really have an official opening. You know, I think PPL just announced their schedule. They wanna do a I think it is public.
Speaker 3:They they they have a date in August in LA. We would love to be whether it's here or do some activations here around PPL. Right. I'm sorry. That's in August.
Speaker 3:That they're they're gonna do the LA they want to do the LA stop in August.
Speaker 4:We have people reaching out about World Cup events. We've already discussed this with, like, our Adidas partners, but we also have private individuals, some, you know, podcasters and former athletes that are wanting to get involved with World Cup events. So, yeah, we're we're very We can't wait for this to be over, because there's so many exciting things happening in around the future, a lot of outreach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're wanna make I I know it's kinda hard being in LA, we do like the rain, but we do want I
Speaker 2:was gonna ask that there's no
Speaker 3:rain here a lot? What is it No, but it did now. No, right, of course. No, it doesn't. So our courts are, rains usually less than thirty days a year in L.
Speaker 3:And the rain is never prolonged or enough where it's like, you know, you're you're flooded, obviously, except just now. So, yeah, we have mostly sunny days. The weather's great. I mean, getting open by spring would be pretty incredible where, like, the permits are all there. It's really a matter of execution.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So making sure that the teams are just everything is going appropriately, and then weather.
Speaker 4:More surprises. No more pools.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Expand the pool.
Speaker 1:So, Steve, why don't you tell us a little bit how do you envision it's gonna be a members only club? A hybrid member pay to play? How how do you guys envision And the pricing. The pricing too.
Speaker 3:So in terms of membership, it's gonna be a hybrid model, very similar to to most clubs where anyone could come and play. There's gonna be nonmember kind of rates. What what what are you thinking of? Did you Were
Speaker 2:you gonna have those numbers yet? Or I'm sure you did, but
Speaker 3:It's gonna average for nonmembers an hour for the court is about a $100. So $25 a person for an hour on average. We have off peak, we have on peak, but that's kind of the average. It's it's gonna be very competitive for Los Angeles. It's very competitive.
Speaker 3:And then, we're gonna have likely two tiers of of membership, a general membership and then a premium membership. Member amenities will include, obviously, access to, like, the upstairs locker rooms and showers, the coworking space is members only, the wellness area is members only. We are gonna have a couple, inclusive hours during the day for members only. We will have a Volley machine that members will get to use us for a number of hours.
Speaker 4:To events. Yeah. Part of this too is creating community beyond the paddle court, so we're looking at some really interesting ways to do that. So whether it's, you know, an interesting guest that comes in and we've created an event around that, or, you know, just some additional events around food and beverage. Sure.
Speaker 4:So, yeah.
Speaker 2:So how much is the membership then? Are you considering the membership here?
Speaker 3:We're gonna the membership's gonna be on a monthly basis. The the the general membership is gonna be in the $250 a month range. Oh, is it different tiers or just that? And the higher tier is gonna be higher than that. But those are there's gonna be two tiers.
Speaker 3:So the the basic membership is gonna be about 200
Speaker 2:Have you figured that out yet, or are you guys still kind
Speaker 3:We are we're gonna officially announce that within the month. So it's gonna be very close. We're gonna roll it out. We're gonna start with, like, our founding executive members.
Speaker 4:Plus the initiation fees too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh, the initiation fees. Yeah. So we're gonna have an element there. We want we would obviously like to have mostly members playing here.
Speaker 3:We want a lot of people to become members. We we do want it to also be inviting and inclusive. We don't want to we all know Padel is still new. Yeah. Right?
Speaker 3:You ask 10 people on the street what if they know what pad and we we have done this. Jen has done a cool little post about it. Nine people will still not know what it is. Right. So our job is to the the sport we all love is to get people there's nothing like getting people on court and playing.
Speaker 3:So we wanna make sure people feel comfortable playing. So whether it's youth programming, women's playing, getting more collegiate, kids playing, helping start this collegiately, and getting creative with getting people on court.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, that's a really good point he brings up, that we are really excited to help facilitate the collegiate league. So, I know that USPA has started that initiative as well, and Steve's an alum of USC, and we are reaching out to the other colleges, and we wanna be that space where people come and play here in the collegiate league.
Speaker 1:We need Padel Nica. Wow. It's super exciting. We can't wait for us to see this place alive and kicking with paddle players. But guys, I mean, congratulations.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else you guys wanna add to this?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think I mean, this started out as like a passion hobby. Was like basically like it'll be like a backyard club, family a business, and it still is, but it has grown into now something I think even a little more serious than I initially expected. We have another location in the pipeline.
Speaker 2:Wow, another big thing we had in Wow. So are you
Speaker 3:guys gonna do this full time 100% then? I mean that's, we're gonna make the time to be, we're gonna find more percents
Speaker 4:We're never vindication again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's That's Miami. But bringing building out, like, a scalable way, you know, so much of this business is becoming an operator in the management side of the business. You know, you can't just keep leasing spaces. So you're thinking ahead of a new location. Is it gonna be in LA or is it in LA as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Other parts of Los Angeles that
Speaker 4:It is it's already being vetted right now. We've been going through the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Still still same kind of model or It's
Speaker 3:a little bit different. I mean and, again, you have to get creative with your leases or even more creative with your financial arrangements with the owners, and and that's where we need all
Speaker 2:of that for Padel to grow. The same the same investors are are backing into this as well, or different investors?
Speaker 3:It could be different. We we have a management company that's the holding structure. Those are the original investors. That's the benefit of those that have invested early with Los Angeles Padel Club is that it'll be, you know, like the the Marriott of Padel. It'll run the other facilities, and then depending on who we work with in the real estate, that could be separate investors.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think that's what's that's where this you know? And there's a few people doing this, but you have to be smart about this business. Sure. How to grow and be be scalable, and real estate is expensive and hard.
Speaker 3:So you have to be very creative with it, but operating padel clothes is hard. Beautiful. You have to like yeah.
Speaker 1:We're looking forward to, come back when you guys are fully open and
Speaker 2:A 100.
Speaker 1:100%. Yes. But thank you so much.
Speaker 2:You can send a private plane. Yeah. Right? Congratulations, Steve. Congratulations.
Speaker 2:Good day. Thank you. Congratulations.