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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.
Hello everyone, this is Julian
and Cesc, and today we're having
coffee at the Potter Club.
Yeah, with a little bit of gossip.
With a little, I like it, gossip time.
We are All Things Padel.
We're here, Pura Vida, enjoying
this delicious macchiato, and
he's having a café con leche.
Yes.
Yes.
The way I like it.
Well, let's talk a
little bit about Padel.
You know, I think I think this
Padel is kind of crazy, right?
The business, uh, what's
going on investors.
Um, the Padel world, the
Padel world in the USA.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, the growth has been like, it's
crazy this last couple of years, right?
Everybody wants to open up a club, right?
Everybody comes down to Miami and
comes to a club, gets addicted.
And they're like, I want to
open up a Padel club, right?
How many times have we
had calls about that?
Right.
Gasillion times.
I mean, where is the, you know, the
industry it's estimating that by the
end of 2025, This year, they're going to
build over a thousand Padel clubs, and
we got that, that data from, uh, from
a very reputable source of, uh, Padel,
different Padel, uh, companies, Padel
manufacturer accords that those are the
orders they have for this upcoming year.
I mean, it's, it's just crazy
what's happening with Padel.
And I mean, and what we tell them
is, you know, investors want to see
three basic things, a little bit more,
but these are three basic things.
One, of course, is location.
Do you have a location?
You know.
Uh, demographics, right?
Is it the right location?
The other 1 is going to
be some seed money, right?
Some type of money.
So they're vested into this project, you
know, I think that's kind of a big deal.
And the other 1 is going to be experience.
Are you an operator?
Do you have experience?
You know, in in a sports facility,
not only you're talking about having
the right coaches and programming.
I mean, it's the whole structure.
We see so many amateurs coming into
this, this, this ecosystem of Padel
that they don't know what they're doing.
And, um, you know, we had a Padel smash.
We're trying to guide them on and
consult them the best possible
way because we have experience.
We have the business.
Accolades and the Padel experience
that we want to guide him into,
into, uh, into the right way.
And, and, and the other, the other see
that, that we, we, the other mistakes
that we see huge, very, very important
Padel brands coming into this market,
which the American market is huge.
Yeah.
It's not because you're successful in
Spain or a smaller country with your
brand, you're going to be successful here.
You have to know the market and you
have, and the American market is not
the same thing as European market.
They're very different.
And the Spanish market is not the
same thing as the Italian market,
you have to know the market.
And we see that left and right, we
jump on calls and we said, Oh, gee,
you know, these guys, they have no
clue what they're getting into it.
And the thing is, we've been so
involved in Padel for a little while
now, and we kind of see the pitfalls
and mistakes that people can make.
So, you know, we're there to
try to help them avoid those
pitfalls and mistakes for sure.
But you're right, we see a lot
of companies, brands, investors.
You know, they're trying to get
into the American market because
it's growing, it's growing.
Um, but it's trying to avoid
stern mistakes is what's key.
And sometimes they're
jumping in too quickly.
You know, putting together a great
business plan on paper looks great.
But, you know, in reality,
sometimes it doesn't work out
the way one thinks it does.
You know, you come to
Miami, you open up a club.
Yeah, people are just going to
fill it up, you know, especially
in the right locations.
Outside of Florida.
It might be a little tough
and look not only I mean
What are you doing stealing my
cookie what the heck man this guy is
trying to You know, lose some weight.
And then it still, it's still in
my, you wanna lose some weight?
I was waiting for you to, that's
why doing, I was waiting for you to
finish my coffee to have that cookie.
I'm doing a favor, my man.
That's all.
I'm sorry guys, but
this is, uh, incredible.
I mean, I gotta deal with
this every single day, man.
You know, it's like, I feel
like I'm surrounded by hyenas,
, trying to eat my, my food.
But anyways, let's go
back to the topic here.
It's, uh, You snooze, you lose, my friend.
You snooze, you lose.
Each community is different.
Not only because your business is
successful in Miami, it's going to
be successful in, in, in Wisconsin,
Minnesota, or the West Coast.
You have to know the demographics.
And you know, you have to know how to
target those demographics the right way.
You have to be the right team.
It's budgeting for marketing.
Yeah.
Um, you know, you, I mean, you're going
to be, You know, what, uh, 16 to 24
months, you're hemorrhaging some money,
you know, getting into the black.
Uh, so you're gonna need a budget
there for that, and you're gonna
need a budget for marketing, you're
gonna need to get into the community.
I mean, really cement
yourself in the community.
Now, people talk about it all the
time, what does it actually mean?
That means you gotta, you gotta, you
gotta get these business owners, small
business owners, corporate owners, get
in there, get involved, talk to them, get
them to come to, you know, to your club.
You know, get the employees to
come to the club, even for free.
I mean, it doesn't really matter.
You just need exposure to the sport
and you have to do that all the time.
I mean, this is what we focused on growth.
Pornhub is the same, same model.
And I just don't think people maybe don't
understand or they do understand it,
but they're not executing it directly.
You know what I'm saying?
And we see, I call these the The
Padel gold rush, but in reality
it's not a gold Padel rush,
it's more a Padel gold marathon.
It's, it's a long way.
You're not going to see your return
on investments in a year or two years.
You have to, it's a long
term, this is a marathon.
You have to hit the right
marks for you to be successful.
And if you don't know You have to hire
the right people and that's why we're
trying to do our best for for our
clients Are our viewers and listening
and listeners to guide them the right
way and what to do And if you're trying
to bootstrap this you've got to create
a budget for that, you know, 16 to 24
months Yeah, half if not, you'll be
down the tubes in less than six months.
Yeah, you know, it's very if you're
not incorporating that marketing
budget And, you know, and the cost
of, of hemorrhaging money every single
month for that eight, 16 to 24 months,
you're, you're going to be in trouble.
Uh, you're going to have to
compromise on your model.
You're going to, you're, you're going
to be looking for other investors.
It's going to be a, a problem.
You know, we've seen it, you
know, a few times already.
Um, a few times more than once, man.
I mean, it's just crazy.
It is crazy.
So let's talk more about
the, the, the brands.
I mean, right now.
We see brands, uh, we see certain
American brands, or at least,
uh, American known brands.
So let's talk about that, like
the Wilsons, the Fitas, the
Bevs, Babelot, the Head, right?
And then you have other brands that are
not so known, but really largely known in
the, in the Padel community in Europe.
In European market, yeah.
Like the Padelnox,
Sukes, things like that.
They're also wanting to get into
this industry, not only with
rackets, with pickle, with other
racket sports, and also with courts.
Um, so they're trying to get, cement
themselves in the American market
because they've seen it in Europe
and they've been successful there.
And now they're trying to apply
the same thing here in the U.
S. And it may not be the same.
Their model there and what worked
there may not be the same here.
Because again, this is the U.
S. It's a little bit different.
And so, I think they're starting
to realize that a little bit.
And a pivot and a change
is what was needed.
To be successful in cementing their
brand here in the U. S. A. And working
with the right with the right people.
I think that's kind of not jumping into
into a marriage so quickly without vetting
the personnel, you know, understand,
doing the diligence and understanding
what their vision is, what the person's
vision is and and who they're reaching.
Yeah, and I think that's kind
of what's going on right now.
What we kind of see.
Yeah.
And I tell you, uh.
And the big difference between
the Wilsons, the Heads, and the
Babelats, they've been in the
American market for over 40, 50 years.
They already made all the mistakes
necessary for them to succeed.
They're huge brands.
I mean, it's Wilsons,
the Heads, the Babelats.
I mean, they have headquarters, they have,
you know, over a couple of hundred people
working on each, on, on departments,
on different departments, they have
distribution centers all over the country.
I mean, it's, it's, they're so
massive and they know how the
market works because they've been
doing it for 10 years, for forever.
So, so the key here for, for
you as a brand to come over.
Can I have some more cookies?
He's only more cookies.
Can you see this guy?
This guy ate my cookies.
Oh my God.
Can you bring me another cookie, please?
Please.
Sorry about that.
You know, it's, it's, yeah.
I feel bad I took his cookies.
I have to ask for another one.
Alright.
He's crying so much about it.
So, going back to what you guys,
what I was saying is that, uh, you
as a successful brand in a different
continent or a different country,
you have to know exactly what are
the benchmarks that you need to do.
Distribution is crucial.
Having the right marketing.
Um, you have to have sales people by
region, you know, you mean someone in the
West Coast, someone in the East Coast.
The East Coast is huge, Northeast,
Southeast, um, the middle of the country.
I mean, this country is huge.
You can't have one, you cannot have just
one sales rep for the entire country.
It's literally impossible.
I mean, the, the, the, the,
the country is too big.
So you have to distribute that.
And for that, you need to have
a budget without the budget.
Your growth is going to be so much
slower and you need to find e commerce
partners, which they're going to help you
distribute through the e commerce, uh, uh,
ecosystem much faster that they're already
established here in the United States
because it's, this is a cutthroat market.
Uh, and, and when you're dealing with
these big Wilson's, I mean, their budgets
are huge compared to the European brands
that are trying to get into these markets.
Yeah, yeah.
But I, I think they're.
They're slowly getting into the market.
They're not rushing into it.
I think they're assessing every
year the market and increasing their
marketing and what they're doing.
So they're kind of like,
they have that experience.
They have those deep pockets for that.
Yeah, I mean some of these other
smaller companies are maybe pretty
big and thank you very much.
Here we have the famous cookies.
This is it.
See, he doesn't know how to eat this.
First of all, you dip it on the coffee.
You buy the top.
It looks like you're doing that too.
You know, how do you do that, man?
I don't know, man.
I don't know about that, Julian.
And the way you drink the
coffee is with a little pinky.
That's the wrong type of,
uh, uh, you know, podcast.
Mmm.
When you mix the bitterness
of the coffee with the cookie,
the sweetness of the cookie.
Delightful delicious.
But anyways, yeah, so I think, I think the
bigger companies are kind of doing right.
They're assessing each year seeing, you
know, how the year went, you know, the
growth and how much more money they're
going to be marketing into the Padel.
I think they're doing the things
the right way, but let's talk about
distributors and what, what their jobs
are responsibilities and does it work?
You know, um, the way they, their model
and you see distributors jumping all over
the place, you know, this month, it's this
guy, a distributor for this brand, six
months from now, it's another distributor,
why it doesn't work and why are people
jumping around, things like that.
Well, I mean, the
distributor is very simple.
The European brand is going to ask you
for, um, uh, a fixed amount of purchases
from the brand on a monthly basis.
You need to have a warehouse, definitely.
You have to have a distribution center.
So somebody has to be there 24 seven,
especially if you have an e commerce to be
shipping out orders to the clubs, to the,
to the pros, to the e commerce, logistics,
logistics, you need to have the logistics.
Uh, you can, uh, have a, uh,
another company to do those, but
it's going to cost you money.
So.
Bottom line, it's, it's
what are your margins?
It's crucial for you to know all those
details before you jump into representing
a brand and buying a couple of hundred
thousand dollars worth of inventory.
And then what do you do?
And then, you know, the brand may not
have a budget to market to help you
push that, you know, those rackets.
Yeah.
And sometimes, you know, as a distributor,
you're not creating any value.
You're just a distributor making
money at that time, right?
So a lot of times you see
them jumping on to different,
different places because of that.
There's no like footing or
there's no building of anything,
you know, unfortunately.
And not only that, I mean, you
have to really be careful with
the brands, um, just to name some.
Every, every, some, each brand
is different, but every four to
six months, uh, or every year,
they come out with a new model.
So let's say you purchase the Tapia
racket from Knox, uh, from last 2024.
Now you're, you know, you purchased a
couple of hundred rackets, you saw 100.
Now you're stuck with 100 old
models from, from last year.
So what do you do?
I mean, you're committed by
thousands and thousands of rackets.
So you have to pretty much sell it at
a cost or, or literally give it away.
So you can start selling the 2025 model.
So you have to be very careful with that.
And the brand has to.
Uh, let you know, so you know how much
rotating equipment that you need to have.
And it works the opposite way.
Yeah.
Like, we do a review on a racket that we
really love, and boom, it's out of stock.
Yeah.
And that distributor didn't
know it was going to be out of
stock, and they're losing money
because people want it, you know?
So it is not an easy, it's not an
easy gig, I would say, you know,
there's not a lot of Well, let's
talk about what happened with, with,
with Knox, the, uh, Ausberger saga.
Yeah.
Another one.
I mean, you know, leave an Ausberger,
you know, there, there were Knox
players for, for quite a long time.
They have a contract still
for another couple of years.
Yeah.
They had a contract and then
suddenly they switched to suits.
Let's say you purchased the
Ausberger rocket, which.
It's spectacular racket.
The racket was about to come out.
The racket was about to come out, you
know, and the next racket, they did
R and D specific rackets for them.
It was about to come
out the following month.
And we were like, Hey, let's
put in these orders for these.
And boom.
So all those rackets, what
do you do with those rackets?
You have an inventory, right?
You have to give it away or put
us a demo rackets in a cloud.
So it's, and then we're
also talking about.
You know, defects, right?
When you make a racket, let's say for
100 rackets, you may get anywhere from
10 to 25 percent defects that, you
know, you can't use, which is a waste.
Uh, something you can do as
testers or what have you, but
some of those leak through.
And then you have to deal with
rackets that are defective, cracked,
you know, cracked somewhere.
I mean, and then You return policy.
Let's say I'm playing with
your racket and it breaks.
So are you going to take it
back as a distributor or not?
Uh, the e commerce store
needs to have a return policy.
What, what, what can you do?
You can do because now you ended up if
it becomes defective, like you said.
It's happened to me.
It happens.
It can, a batch comes defective.
And now you're responsible 100 percent
and then you have to deal and your
e commerce store, you know, their
customer doesn't want to hear that.
Hey, you have to get
permission from the district.
They don't want to hear that.
Yeah.
They just give me a note.
Yeah.
And you know, you want to
have some good reviews.
So, you know, you risk
taking the loss there.
Yeah.
So, and that's just rackets, you know,
and now, now you have, you know, courts.
I mean, things are starting to more
companies starting to make the courts.
You know, um, where they're coming from
the logistics on that, uh, how to hold
them, where are you going to hold them?
You need any space for them, you know,
uh, broken things when they come in.
Oh man.
It's just what it happened to your club,
I mean, you received the cord with four
broken glasses, four broken glasses,
where in the world in Connecticut,
you get four Padel, you know, panels.
I mean, so fortunately,
fortunately we weren't.
We weren't in a rush.
We weren't like, okay, we're going
to put it up and we're opening.
So, fortunately, we're in that situation.
But a lot of clubs are.
A lot of clubs are like, they need to
get going because they're paying rent.
Yeah.
Fortunately, I own the building,
so it wasn't that big of a deal.
But for somebody to wait a month
or, you know, a month and a half
for a glass, that's, that's killer.
And glass breaks like that, you know.
I mean, it's heavy.
Just to give you a rough number.
because I deal with that every day.
It's, uh, uh, uh, uh, each outdoor court
gives you an estimate of 20, 000, you
know, of, of rentals a month, give and
take here in Miami for each day, your
clothes, because your glass is broken,
you're losing money and you could be
losing thousands of dollars just because
so, so this is a good, good thing you're
saying, because anybody who gets courts,
they should buy one or two Glasses,
extra and just keep them in the back
because it's, it's going to happen.
But, but let me tell you one, another
mistake, glass breaks, where in this
world you get an installation or install
is a guy who can install these glasses.
They're not easy.
They are extremely heavy and you
need at least four people, five.
I can do it.
I've done it.
I put it, I put it, no, five people.
You need five people.
Yeah, watch my video
on putting up a court.
I mean, it's uh, it's not that difficult
But you have to know you have to
know yeah, there's a lot of tricks.
I mean that video should help you
out Um, but handling the glass
is something it's nerve wracking.
Yes.
They weigh almost 400 pounds.
Yeah And, you know, you drop it.
That's it.
You're not going to get
one for a couple months.
So, you know, it's, it's really,
uh, important handling like that.
But most, most people are going
to have, uh, professionals
come and install it, you know.
But it's not something that you can't do.
I mean, if you got one core going and
you're in your home or one core just,
it's something you, you can handle.
But you, again, you're
going to need five people.
Uh, to handle that, that, that class and
you're going to need like two or three
people just to do the rest, you know?
Yeah.
And look guys, we, you know, we're
going to start doing these more,
uh, these episodes of, uh, coffee
and chill on the Padel club.
Uh, and we're going to just talk about,
uh, I hope this, this was helpful to
you guys and, uh, we're here to help.
Uh, we know the market, we have, we
have the, you know, the business part,
we have the Padel part, reach out,
reach out to us, reach out to us,
reach out to our helper, and we'll,
we'll, we'll help you, you know,
guide you the best we can into this
beautiful Padel journey, and remember,
Padel is beautiful at Padel Smash.