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Hey Padel enthusiasts welcome to Padel Smash Academy, I am Cesc and I am here with Julian and we're all about Padel! Whether you're new to the sport or an experienced player, you've come to the right place. Our goal is to provide you with the best tips & tricks, news, and weekly lessons to help you improve your game and take your Padel to the next level. So grab your Padel Racket and let's get started with all things Padel on Padel Smash Academy.
Hey, Cesc & Julian here at Padel
Smash Academy, and today we have
Scott London at Golden Point.
We are all things Padel.
Hey Scott, welcome to the show.
Thanks guys, nice to see you.
Scott, why don't you tell us a
little bit about yourself and your
background in the apparel industry.
Okay, so, uh, I've been in the clothing
business more or less my whole life.
Uh, I started a private label
knit company years ago, more
or less right out of school.
Uh, I parlayed that into, uh,
branded clothing businesses.
I manufa I, uh, I Developed and started
a brand called Woo Wear, which is
based off of the Wu Tang clan and
partnered actually, uh, with Wu Tang.
That's wicked cool, man.
I like Wu Tang.
Who doesn't like Wu Tang, right?
Yeah, it's great.
And 90s.
This is very cool.
Yeah.
So it was, uh, it was super fun.
And at the same time, uh, I helped
launch a brand called Zoo York,
which was a skateboard brand.
And, uh, I've heard of that.
Yeah, it was, it's
actually, it's still around.
It's something that we sold
to, uh, Mark Echo years ago.
My son is a, is a skateboarder.
skateboarder.
He still rides a New York board,
which is I try to explain to
him that I had something to do
with that, but he's only nine.
So it's lost on him a bit.
Uh, and then I had, I started a brand
called baby fat, which was the women's
divert, uh, division of fat form.
Oh, and that was a worldwide
brand, uh, 160 million in sales.
Uh, I think we had 3, 500 active
accounts at one, at one point.
And I sold that business to a
private equity firm called Oatree
Capital years ago in Los Angeles.
Wow.
You have a lot of experience
in the apparel industry.
Huh?
Yeah.
So how the hell did you get into apparel?
So Well, I Uh, when I, I, this is
when I first met Julian, actually,
I started, this is probably during
COVID or right before COVID.
I started playing at Wynwood.
I was playing a lot of tennis.
I don't remember.
I might have been my friend, Alex.
I'm not sure who, who originally
told me to come check out Padel,
to come check out this game.
And I started playing
at, at Wynwood and, yeah.
I mean, this is really, this
seems like early days of Padel.
It was really, the whole community
of Padel was there, because
it was the only place to play.
There and Real, I guess.
And, uh, I was still playing tennis twice
a week, and then, and even my friends
would, they would tease me because they
knew on Tuesdays and Thursdays Scott can't
play Padel because he's playing tennis.
And eventually, eventually I would
drop Tuesdays, and I'd play Padel on
Tuesdays, and then I'd drop Thursdays,
and now I'm playing Padel every Tuesday.
And the rest is history.
And the rest is history.
It sounds like most Padel players,
you know, coming from tennis, right?
You got hooked into the
sport, and we love it.
It's a very addictive sport.
I've seen you play A Thousand
Times Battle, and then, where, how,
how did you come up with ideas?
That's a good question.
Golden point.
So, well, somehow I convinced
myself, because of the background,
I guess the background of my history
is important in terms of that.
All the brands that I did there was a
sense of community in skateboarding.
There's a real sense of community in
hip hop there was there was a sense of
community and When I was thinking about
doing a brand with for for Padel I
really think that there is a real sense of
community in Padel, you know more so than
in tennis It's more like a skateboarding.
It's more like snowboarding and
then I started thinking about that
Tennis Padel is the tennis what?
What's what?
Snowboarding is to skiing.
There's, you know, when you
go skiing there, there is
that community sort of, right?
But there's more of a
community in snowboarding.
Yeah, you're right.
Right.
And I think with Padel,
it's the same thing.
And you don't.
What's interesting also is when you
go skiing or you go to play tennis,
you put on a tennis outfit, you
put on a, you put on a ski outfit.
When you go to play
Padel, you kind of Yeah.
You, you come with your own
personality, come with your,
you know, your, your, your, your
own being, I guess, so to speak.
And, uh, and I thought when
designing the, the Padel
collection, that's what I need to do.
I, my friend Ronnie, who I, I play
with a lot, I said to him, Oh, I'm
going to do this Padel, Padel line.
And he said, Oh, that's great
because there's nothing to wear.
And I was like, well, you
know, there's a world of tennis
clothes out there you can wear.
It's not really anything different,
but it, but it really did.
it, it, it made me realize that, that,
that the, the path I was on was correct.
It made me realize that there
was something there that people
Padel players wanted to, wanted
to differentiate themselves.
Now, now you now you've been
accustomed to a bigger audience.
Of course, this is a small niche.
So did you think about that going
into the, probably not enough
. , but it's, it's growing though.
It's growing.
It's, it's growing.
You're gonna be pioneer in the beginning,
but it's easy to say that skateboarding.
Was big, but you know now, but back then
it really wasn't it was it was a new
sport It was definitely very grunge It
was something that you know you would
never like vans was something that only
a skateboard or war for the most part
so but if you think about the lifestyle
of Padel and so it's really racket
sports in general, but but in terms of
the in terms of the the The player, the
mentality that the Padel player, uh,
if you think about board shorts now,
somebody in Nebraska is wearing board
shorts and they're not surfing, right?
Um, or New York or Miami or
wherever they're wearing board
shorts as a as a lifestyle.
So I think that if we if we really can,
can capture the essence of, of that,
of that Padel player, then you're
going to want to wear it for tennis.
You're going to want to wear it for,
for pickleball, even though it may
be a dirty word here, pickleball.
But more importantly, you'll
just wear it like this shirt.
I just love wearing this shirt.
You can wear the shirt to the gym.
I always joke around.
You can wear it to Pura Vida,
you know, or playing Padels.
So how does your shirts kind of identify
with Padel besides just being any I
think it's less, how can I describe this?
Because we were always in design meetings
and, and our manufacturing meetings,
we're always talking about this, like
how, how do we capture that essence?
And it's just, it's different than,
than, Then you're sort of in your face
sport garment in terms of the color.
I think the color palette
is a lot more muted.
Um, I think that it's the, the.
The design is just a little more muted.
It's a little more laid back,
sort of like snowboarding.
And now you see skiing is
emulating snowboarding, right?
They take cues from those designs.
So I think that you'll see like in our
new collection, uh, the colors match
more the player, as opposed to like
those in your face sort of tennis colors.
Gotcha.
And in Golden Point, of course,
everybody and Golden Point.
So not a lot of people know what
Golden Point means, but, um, the
reason go Golden Point for us
means make the next moment count.
So not, you know, when some people,
some people know it from, because it
originally started in, uh, soccer, uh,
European football and it was golden gold.
Mm-hmm . And then I guess,
you know, they started playing
Golden Point in, in Padel.
And, uh, it was probably more for time
saving than, than anything else, but at
the end of the day, it's sudden death.
Make the next moment count.
So that's the ethos of our brand.
That's our, that's our just do it.
Make the next moment count.
I, I love that, that, you know,
make the, the moment count.
I think it's, it's great.
And I think you, you are a true, truly
pioneer in the American industry of power.
I mean, I don't think there is
another brand purely exclusively.
Padel oriented apparel brand.
I mean, you have the Bull Padels that
they do a little bit of everything,
but hold on, but you, you guys are
Exclusively Padel and Padel is one
of the fastest growing worldwide.
It's United States It's probably a
few years behind the massive growth
worldwide My question to you is this,
are you guys planning to stay only
with the United States, or are you
planning to expand to other countries?
For sure, for sure we'll go international.
We, we have, uh, we very quickly
reached 7, 000 followers on Instagram,
and a lot of those followers are
from Latin America or from Europe.
You know, we got, we have a,
Lot of requests for Spain.
Uh, on e commerce wise
we get a lot of requests.
It doesn't make sense right now to
ship overseas one piece at a time.
But eventually I'll get a distributor in
these places and sell internationally.
I mean it's so big, you know,
people don't realize it.
When, when I'm talking to the,
to people that don't know Padel
and I'm like, Oh, it's, I feel
like I'm in the movie singles.
I'm like, Oh, it's, you
know, it's big in Spain.
It's big in Belgium.
Like people are like, really?
But it, but it really, it really is.
And I got to say, I love the logo.
I mean, it's a Padel
racket, as you can see.
I mean, it's a lot of people don't
get that very, very, very cool.
I like a lot of people don't put that
in there, you know what I'm saying?
So let's talk about, uh, you've been
in the industry for, for a long time.
The material, you know, uh, why
don't we explain to our viewers
and listeners what is the material?
Why is it Wicked Sweat?
I mean, a little bit
into the details of that.
So it's, it's all high end materials.
I think that's what separates
us than, than some of the
other collections out there.
Um, other than, other than it's a pure
Padel line, like, so we like to think
just to back up to what you were saying
before, we like to think that eventually
the, The player is going to want to wear
a Padel line, just like, just like when
you go in the early days of Lululemon,
like you, it's cool to wear Lululemon to
go to yoga because you were identifying,
you're like, yeah, I'm a yogi.
I know, I know what's going on.
So I think it's the same thing.
Like you see people
wearing aloe right now.
But eventually they're, they're
going to be like, Oh, Aloe's not
showing that I'm a Padel player.
Uh, but in terms of the fabric and
stuff, that's where it all starts.
When you, when you think of a
collection, it starts with fabrics.
You, you start shopping different fabrics.
Um, you start thinking about,
uh, specifically for, for Miami.
Like it gets so hot here that.
It has to be dry fit, it has to be,
uh, moisture wicking, it has to be
antibacterial so it doesn't smell.
Uh, and then you kind of
build, build from there.
So, why don't we explain a
little bit more in detail.
What is the dry fit?
What is the, the, the, uh, chemical
structure of the structure of the, you
know, To be honest with you, I don't know.
Like, I don't know the chemical structure
of it, but the purpose of it is that, so
your shirt, the shirt is drying quicker,
number one, but it's not absorbing like
a regular 100 percent cotton t shirt.
It's not absorbing the sweat, and then
pulling down on you, being heavy, and
you know, sometimes you want to pull
off that 100 percent cotton t shirt.
Having said that, we do have 100
percent cotton, because in, I think,
In Padel more than like tennis people
are wearing their favorite t shirt.
Yeah, right They're not just
wearing the dry fit athletic wear.
Yeah, they are wearing their they're
they're more comfortable shirt
And all your lines are dry fit.
I mean they said that again.
So it's dry.
So we have we have
Two out of the three of our, of our shirts
are, are dry fit, are active wear fabrics.
And one of them is a
hundred percent cotton.
Okay.
Okay.
One's a little heavy.
This is a, a Lyosol blend.
This is the one I say like
you can wear every day.
And then we have one that also
looks like this, the same color,
but it's more active wear fabric.
Explain a little bit what's Lyosol.
Lyosol is a, is a type of material.
That is moisture wicking and
everything we were talking about.
But it has more of a warmer
hand to it, a warmer feel.
It feels very soft.
Yeah, very soft.
To me this is like your favorite
t shirt, but still active wear.
So I can still go to the gym
in it, I can still play in it.
Now, um, let's talk about your collection.
It's for male and female, correct?
Yes.
And how many, how many pieces
do you have in each collection?
So, it varies.
My first collection was a little
bigger than I probably wanted.
Um, and now I've made it a little,
we've just started our second
collection and it's a little tighter.
Uh, I don't want to be
everything to everybody.
I'd rather have, I'd rather
have like hero products.
Like I think our short, the men's short is
talking about fabrics and stuff like that.
The men's short, we did the
pockets specifically for here.
Friend of ours, a guy named
Willie, I was playing with him.
And he, uh, he kept leaving the balls when
he was serving behind him in the corner.
And I was like, what are you doing?
And we're going to trip over that.
He's like, no, I'm sweating too much.
It's better.
I keep it over there.
So we made waterproof pockets,
waterproof from the inside out, you
know, so that, so that the sweat
doesn't get all over the balls.
That's smart.
idea.
Smart idea.
Yeah, it was crazy to me that
no one had done that before.
That's in your new collection now?
That's, that is in the
first collection, actually.
And this collection as well, but
what we started in the first one.
In the men's, how about the women's?
The women's as well.
As well.
That is cool.
It's funny because one of the women
said to me, They were playing outdoors
and, uh, it was raining and they
said, can you put like terrycloth
inside the pocket so the ball dries?
I said, no, you're not, you're just
not supposed to play in the rain.
That's how addictive people are.
They're playing in the rain.
And I see, I see, I'm like, Oh
my God, these guys are crazy.
This morning I got, we got
in two and a half sets, but
then it started pouring on us.
So we stopped.
So what would you say is the
big difference in between?
Golden Point and the other, you
know, Padel brands, manufacturers.
So, I like, like you said before,
I like to think that we're one
of the only pure Padel brands.
We're certainly approaching this
from a high end fashion, sort
of like what a G4 is in golf.
Uh, what Mossimo did, that's
what we want to do in, uh, in
Padel and in racket sports.
Now, who's, who's, who's your market?
I mean, is it just the The, uh,
middle class market, the lower,
or like the affluent, like what's
the price of your average shirt?
Well, our, our, I would say
we are, the price is about 68.
Okay.
So I, I would think that's
still mid tier pricing.
It's definitely, it's not on
the low end for sure, but it's,
uh, it's not on the high end.
Um, it's not the price of
like a chrome heart shirt.
Um, but it's not the price.
It's a little more expensive
than a, than a Wilson shirt.
And, and when you define your lines,
I mean, we were checking out your
website, and it looks like most
of your line is, they're t shirts.
You don't have any polo shirts, or,
or I didn't do any polo shirts yet.
Uh, we didn't, we also, I was going
to do a muscle shirt, but I didn't.
Uh, you know, I try to look to
see what people are playing with,
and And, and cater to what the,
what the most popular stuff is.
And, and t shirts are more
used than, than polo shirts?
Yes.
For your market research.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't see a lot of people
wearing the, the polo shirts.
I see.
I always wear polo shirts.
You know what?
I see, I see the more, um,
yeah, I see like the instructors
are, are wearing polo shirts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So like we would do, we would
do a custom polo shirt for a
club or something like that.
Interesting.
Um, but, but certainly it's an
interesting question, right?
Because when I was in Spain this,
this summer, I said, um, That our
brand is an aspirational brand and
he's like, Well, what do you mean?
It's a Padel brand.
I was like, I know, but in the
States it's it's 300 to play
Padel for an hour and a half.
And he was like, it's 30 to play here.
And so You know, that's
going to change, right?
So right now, most of the
market seems a little bit older
because it's expensive to play.
Um, so I rarely, I'm playing sometimes
with 20 something year olds, 30
year olds, but most of the time
you see it's older people playing.
Yeah.
Um, but that's certainly going to change.
It'll change first here in Miami because
more and more courts are opening.
And, uh, it'll start changing
all over the country, I think.
Excellent.
Yeah.
Okay.
So do you guys do any customizations
for clubs or companies, uh, maybe
white, white, uh, label, mark?
Yeah.
It's a private label.
Branding?
Yes.
We use a distributor called Fromuth.
And, uh, for all the club, all
the pro shop, what they call
the green grass business, the,
the country clubs and pro shops.
And, um, They will, just like when
you walk in, if you went to LaGorse or
you went to Maroon Creek or something,
you buy the Maroon Creek shirt,
but it, but you brought by the Nike
shirt, let's say, but it says Maroon
Creek or it says LaGorse, right?
Um, so same thing.
I think you, you want to
have a trusted product.
You want to know the product is
from a, from a trusted manufacturer,
but you always want to, you
also, it's a souvenir, right?
So here, like at reserve, you would,
you want to buy that trusted product,
but you, but you're in Miami.
You want to say, Hey, I came
to reserve and, uh, in Miami.
So let me buy that shirt.
That's great.
So you guys are sponsoring
any players right now?
No, it's something that
I think about a lot.
We, we haven't yet.
Um, we, we sponsor a lot of pros
like the teaching pros, which are
also playing in the, in the circuits
around the country, but I haven't
sponsored any like big name players yet.
But here in the United States, you,
you sponsor, uh, teaching pros.
Teaching pros by just
by giving them clothes.
Okay.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can you go over some
of the, uh, collection?
Absolutely.
This is the 100 percent graphic tee.
Oh, it's nice in the back.
I like that.
It's cool.
So we just called it Basic
Graphic T, 100 percent Cotton.
So do people get that's a racket?
Some people do.
Some people do, some people don't.
But we definitely get a lot of
compliments on the logo, on the G. It
almost looks like a exclamation point.
Yeah, well it's three to point
and then some of the other was
supposed to be for the golden point.
Right, right, right.
And, and then the racket, it was
neck and then the racket, right?
Yeah.
Just need little holes.
Yeah, exactly.
In the G maybe like that.
I, I, you know, we did a envision
like that and as the main logo it, it,
people started not to see the G. Gotcha.
But I think for sure we
could do a graphic like that.
That would be really cool.
Yeah.
Be cool.
So this with this one is, which one?
This is the a hundred percent Cotton.
Cotton.
Okay.
That's your cotton one.
Lemme feel it.
Is that a good seller?
Yes, it is actually.
And, but, you know, you think like
it's just 100 percent cotton basic tee.
But even a shirt like this,
like, you know, we must have
made 10 samples of this.
Until you get everything right.
The stitching, the fit.
You know, some people are like,
oh, I want my biceps to show more.
You know, so you gotta try to like
figure it out what people really like.
I always, honestly, I always like the
V. I could never do the whole, I feel
like I'm being strangled all the time.
So that's why I wear polos, because
I don't make V1s too much, man.
Yeah, you know, but I actually like V
neck, so that could be in our future.
Me too, it's my favorite.
Yeah, that could be in our future.
That's great.
Okay, let's go to, and
this is a men's, right?
Yeah, we have men's and women's here.
This is more of that activewear fabric.
I love that color, man.
Thank you.
Yeah, I love that color.
This is very Miami color.
No, that's your, that's just you.
I agree.
What do you call that color?
Lilac.
Lilac.
Yeah.
Okay.
We call it lilac.
I love it.
Yeah, it's great.
And what material is that?
This is, this is the active
where we were talking about.
And you have the vent on the side.
Yeah.
It's a nice one.
The vent's right here.
Yeah.
Is that your most popular seller?
I think between this one and the one that
I'm wearing is our, is our most popular.
And then the shorts are, are, I think
the, These three things are probably our,
our hero products for the, for the men.
The shorts people really love.
I think the shorts, the
fit of the short is great.
The fact that the, the
waterproof pockets are great.
So this, this short is a more, a more
constructed short than our first short.
The first short is still online.
I love that it has the, uh.
That waxy sort of feel.
The holes in the back.
Yes, yeah, for sure.
I've never seen anything like it.
And you have the pocket on the back here.
Good.
and then, uh, so these
pockets are waterproof?
Yes.
I have so many friends that they, they
don't want to put their balls in the
pockets because they get so heavy.
Wet, get, yes.
And I love this.
You know, it's funny, it's, it, it wasn't
a thing with tennis that I remember.
Like I never, I don't know, you know,
and people are always comparing tennis
and Padel, like, are is it more active?
But I think Padel's more active.
'cause you're running
back and forth, right?
It is, but it's also, you have the,
the, the line on you and then like.
Like all the sweat goes to that.
Yes, it goes down your arm.
You know, it's almost like I don't know
like I love the quality of this Yeah,
this is this is a great a great creature.
It's it's yeah, it's really nice
We'll start backwards with the women's
in terms of this is our first at
leisure piece so Yeah, this is Um,
this is also an active wear garment.
It's a little bit heavier.
Now we're going through our
winter here in the whole country.
For us, it's 50.
The rest of the country is like, uh, 10.
We had a good winter.
We had like three weeks almost
of cold months down here.
Yeah, it's over though.
It's over.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and then here's a skirt.
Oh, and I'll just, I'll grab, uh, Is this
your only skirt you guys have for women's?
This, in this season, this is
our only skirt that we have.
This is actually the back.
This is the front.
This is our tank.
For the women right now.
It's a nice set.
And how is that selling?
Selling really well.
It's a great fit.
And the, there's double entry for
the pockets on both top and bottom.
And this is waterproof as well.
Whoa.
And how's the fit?
Is it true to size or
is it a little bit big?
It's true, it's true to size.
I actually are, so it's something that I
thought about because a lot of the, uh,
athletic companies, they make like this
shirt and then the, and then the other
one, the, the more active fabric one.
Um, are kind of different sizes.
So it's just annoying, right?
You, so you think like, Oh, and Nike I'm
this, and in this, and Adidas, I'm this.
So I tried to just streamline
it a little bit more.
So if you're a medium top in, in this
garment, you're a medium top in the other.
So that's great.
That's great.
I hate that.
Usually ordering stuff and they order one.
It's like, what the heck?
This is the one size down or one size up.
None of us want to try things on
anymore and everybody's ordering online.
So you want to, you want
to kind of nail that.
Yeah.
So he, he is a triple
eggs and certain ones.
And this one's extra small
and other, other ones.
So, all right.
So what's the goal here?
Uh, future goals.
I mean, is it just this small collection?
Are you thinking, Expanding to other
other types of collection or other items.
Other?
Well, I like to think of it as well.
Well, other lifestyles, right?
So when I think about golden point,
I think make the next moment count.
Uh, my wife on the Ran
the marathon this weekend.
I think you know, she was wearing
golden point and I thought it was you
know It's not like she was wearing a
tennis Outfit, you know, she's wearing
something make the next moment count.
So it works for for the marathon, right?
It could work in football or
tennis or Soccer or anything.
It's more.
It's more of that lifestyle brand.
It's more of saying, you
know what you represent.
So I see us expand.
It's just like if you think
about yoga, it's the same thing.
Like I'm I'm wearing Lululemon right now.
Uh, they're just a comfortable
lifestyle type pants.
So I'd like to do the same
thing with golden point.
Now, are you going straight
to consumer or are you, uh?
Right now we're direct to consumer,
but we do, we also do, like I was
talking about with FromWood, we do
this green grass business, which is
in the country clubs and pro shops.
It's, you know, as we know, there's,
it's only a handful of clubs, uh,
That, that have Padel right now.
Some pickleball places are actually
asking us to carry the line as well.
I think tennis will,
will get there as well.
So explain to us how that works, for
people who are not familiar with that.
Do they go there and there,
there's a minimum they have to buy?
Is there a custom thing?
Do they make, like, some
type of, uh, a discount?
Do they get some type of discount?
Is it for wholesalers or
is it just for the club?
So, when you sell, I sell
wholesale to a, to a club.
Okay.
And it depends on like their markup.
It's always different.
So there's, there's markups for,
for department stores and there's
markups for, for specialty shops.
Um, but for the most part,
it's somewhere around 50%.
And, uh, and the
wholesaler gets 50 percent.
And if somebody wants to purchase your
items or wants to do a wholesale, they
can reach you on your website, correct?
Yes.
Um, alright, Scott, is there anything
you want us to go over that we missed?
No, I'm excited to be here.
Uh, I'm really excited about this.
You guys are doing great with this and,
you know, bringing Padel to everybody.
We're pioneers like you are.
Yeah.
You know what, man.
Alright, Scott, you know, we
wish you all the luck, okay?
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.