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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, Padelist here.
We have Pablo Carro from Playtomicmic The
Vision, the Mastermind behind this,
uh, very, very successful platform.
Pablo, welcome to the channel.
Uh, tell us a little bit who is
Pablo Carro and what is Playtomicmic?
Thanks for
the invite guys.
Uh, it's a pleasure.
So, well, I would say that the first
thing, uh, to be mentioned is that I'm
super passionate about Padel, right?
I mean, I love this sport.
Uh, the other day they were asking me if.
I was playing Padel since I was, uh,
born and I said no, the PAL did not
exist when I was born, but I started
to play palette, um, at high school
more or less, and I left tennis.
Uh, so you played tennis before?
Yeah, I played tennis before.
I was not pretty tennis player, I say
was an average tennis player, but I
tried PAD and I was persuaded by the.
The way that the, the, the, the thing is
being built right as a, as a sport, as a
fan game and as a social activity, right?
The, these three components
that we always speak.
What and, and how did Playtomic study?
Well, um, it all started.
Because we, uh, were extremely
connected to the PAL world.
Uh, as I said, I was, I was playing
since, since I was 18 years old.
And then I started to build, uh,
competition, an online competition
in the northwest, uh, side of Madrid.
Then I, I did the same with Mar
the newspaper, the, the national
newspaper, the sports newspaper, um,
which was a kind of, uh, media for
equity model in which they, they.
They put the, the advertising, uh,
investment, and I, and I did the rest.
Uh, then we realized the importance
of the bookings, uh, and the
connection with the club because
I was organizing, uh, thousands of
matches, but there was no connection
on real time with the club itself.
And at that time, did they, were
the clubs using something else
on a different type of platform?
Well, or did somebody try to
create their own platform?
What were they using at that time?
No, that's interesting.
Spain at that point wasn't.
Wasnt very digitized.
The industry.
Indeed.
I was gonna say that when I, when I met
Felix and Pedro, the fact is that you,
you were able to order food with the app.
You were able to, uh, buy, uh.
The cinema tickets or, uh, the holidays,
planning the holidays using an app.
But if you wanted to play tennis or Padel
at that time, uh, through technology,
it was, it was completely impossible.
So there, there was a pain there.
And, and the thing is that we
realized that this pain must be
fixed as well as it was, it was
fixed for the rest of the industries.
And, and we started the process.
Uh, in these eight years, it's been
amazing because we have been acting
like a, a bit of a driver of, of the,
of, of the sport in the sense helping
the, in, facilitating the sport, uh, to
absolutely everyone and, and, and, and
empowering the social aspect as well.
So what year was that when
you guys decided, Hey, we're
gonna develop, this company
was released in mid 2017.
And, and yes.
I mean, it was, it was, it was a simple
way of connecting clubs and players.
How was it, was it easy to, uh,
approach clubs, uh, because they
didn't have any other, uh, options
at the time or, well, I barely
remember, uh, at that time, uh, how
it went, but yes, we, we needed to.
Convince and educate
clubs to be digitized.
Right.
And that, and
that was in Spain mostly, or?
Yeah.
We started in Spain and then rapidly
realized that the opportunity was, was uh,
uh, emerging in the rest of Europe just
before, say, just before Covid time, 2018.
And we started to take flights, uh, to
the Nordics and, and to the et cetera.
Because normally, um.
Uh, a marketplace like us tend
to focus on the main market,
on the on, on the first market.
And then after several years they
started to become international.
But we did the opposite.
Um, we started the business in Spain,
obviously because we're Spanish guys,
but at the end of the day, we, we saw
the opportunity in the be looks first.
After that in the Nordics, and we
decided to, to try to get the, and to
take the first move at advantage, right?
If you are the first move at, you
have more chances to win and to stay
as the, as the winner of, of the tech
pacing
industry.
Sure, sure, sure.
And, uh, software, software development,
has it progressed since 2017?
Well, uh,
absolutely.
I
mean,
uh, it was, it was harder to
develop, uh, software before.
Then, uh, then now, I mean, um, if you
talk to our C or CPO, they, they, they
feel much more comfortable building
teams and developing technology, right?
And testing a lot of testing, right?
These AB testing and
validating hypothesis, uh.
I don't know,
man.
I mean, this, this is prints in every,
every, so let's talk about platonic
and the different sections that it has.
Uh, I know it has, uh,
scheduling management.
Uh, it also has the, the levels, right?
Mm-hmm.
And the, um, the, the
thing, the reliability.
Hmm.
Uh, I want to talk a little bit about
that 'cause some people don't understand.
Yeah.
Uh, the PO system, I mean, you guys
have that integrated in Europe,
and do you have that here as well?
Mm-hmm.
Um.
And any other features that PLA may have.
Okay.
So if we, if
we start with open matches that
you've just, uh, mentioned.
The, the thing is that following our
vision, um, based on facilitating to
absolutely everyone, the social joy of
the sport, our central feature for doing
that is, is the open matches, right.
Open matches right now represents almost
20% of the total number of bookings
that we, we manage, uh, uh, per month.
J just for giving you an example, uh,
EC example that you would understand
in the, in the uk, uh, we, we tend to
think that it's less social that, that
Spain, Italy or, or the Netherlands,
or South Africa or Mexico, which
we operate, but we, we were wrong.
I mean, uh, right now
the UK has the largest.
Open match radio compared to
any other country in the world.
Oh, wow.
So it means that they have almost
a 30% of the, of the bookings are
related, associated to an open match.
Match is in between strangers
with a leveling associated.
Right.
I mean, um, if I wanna play with
you, I have to have similar level.
So we make sure that the, the, the
matches, let's say, uh, balance right.
In any case, this sport has the
capacity to, to, um, generate
matches and fun matches that are not
exactly or extremely balanced, right?
I mean, this, as I said, it's a
sport, but it's, it's also a fun game.
And then so, so social activity.
So maybe I can play bit better than
than you, but it doesn't matter.
I mean, the tennis match
is much more complicated.
I mean, if you don't have.
Almost the same level.
Sure.
It's gonna be complicated.
We both have fun.
Right, right.
But has these other two components
that make it fun no matter the
level at the certain rates.
You know what I mean?
Okay.
So yes.
Uh, we, we offer these open
matches feature to 6,000 clubs
and 1.8 million active users
per month, uh, in 60 countries.
So yeah, we, we are extremely.
Um, motivated by the fact that new and
emerging countries are adopting m matches
as the, as something like they love.
Uh, and it's our central, um,
I mean, is the, is the central
message of our, of our vision.
Right.
But so explain a little
bit how the leveling works.
Hmm.
How do you become from
intermediate to advanced?
Yeah.
How, how does that work?
I.
So you, you download the app,
you'll download Plato io, uh, from,
uh, apple Store or Google Play.
So immediately you will be
invited to onboard yourself.
That onboarding process, which is
very easy, uh, will imply that you
have to answer a few questions.
Very simple.
'cause it's about your
initial level, right?
You're gonna be assigned, uh, to
a level, but that level is not.
Reliable, as you said, right?
Until you play a certain
level of matches, right?
So at the very beginning, you start
playing and your level goes up and
down, um, quite dramatically, right?
Depending on your resource, depending
on, on who you play with, depending
against you, uh, playing, um, uh, against.
And the score, obviously.
So at the very beginning,
the, the, the level is very
sensitive, let's say very touchy.
But once you get the uh,
uh, high reliability.
Your level is solid.
So it's all about playing more matches
and then going up and down in, in.
So let's talk about
reliability.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm, I'm not sure if people
would understand what that means.
Yeah.
Like how do you get, how are
you more reliable the less
reliable you need to play?
You need to play.
So the more games you play.
Yeah.
You need to play assistant.
You are,
or you need to be certified.
Certified by a club that has
arranged leveling sessions.
Oh, interesting.
So you can, you can increase your
level or maybe decrease your level
depending on, uh, certification
that a club can give you.
So we train coaches with a
certain methodology and that that
methodology, uh, I allows the
club to, uh, to change your level.
So, so, and what is the minimum of matches
that I need to play for me to get an.
Estimated level.
The
algorithm is not like drastic, so
it consists different variables.
But let's say that, uh, after 10 matches
you, you start getting a reliable, um,
so the more matches you play, the
more reliable you're gonna be.
'cause you're more consistent.
Ah, absolutely.
You are consistent.
Yeah.
You have already tested with
other players, uh, your level,
uh, and you've competed against.
Different bit.
So the more accurate and the
more solid is, is your level is
considered.
Yeah, I think, I think that's, uh, that's,
that's the only thing we really have.
I mean, there's other, uh, companies,
other platforms that are kind of
simulating that or trying to copy that.
Mm-hmm.
But I remember for a while
that is, was the only thing
that we were able to use Yeah.
To figure out your, your, your level.
Yeah.
So, um, the good
thing about this is
that, I mean, I mean, uh.
As you can imagine in operating
60 countries, 1.8 million
active users mil per month.
Active means that, that they use the
app for, for range in a match per month.
That means that there are, I mean,
thousands of Spanish Italians, those
guys around Miami area, or they travel
to London every single week, commuting,
uh, going, going to the office, or they,
they travel to Amazon for, for vacations
or whatever, or, or Cape Town or Mexico.
They have, and they can play.
That's beautiful.
They can find, they can find
balance matters.
So let's say I'm a, I'm a new
club here in the United States.
Mm-hmm.
What are the specific features that
Platonic will offer to my club?
Unique,
unique features?
Let's say unique features.
Well, you, I mean, let, let, let's
start from, from, from the basics.
I mean, with Platonic Manager,
as a club owner, you will be able
to run your facility, uh, as the
other 6,000 clubs, uh, do, right?
I mean.
It's like, is your, it's
gonna be your brain.
It's extremely intuitive.
It is extremely user friendly
compared to other products.
It means that for you to train in the,
the front desk team, it's gonna take
less time than with other platforms.
That, that's important because if you
wanna train different, different teams,
et cetera, I mean, it takes time.
And if the, if the, if the
server is very complicated.
It, it, uh, the effort is, is huge.
So we've built the, the, the club
product based on, on, on, on, on
these, uh, user friendly approach and
this intuitive, uh, component, right?
Specifically about the club product.
You, you can find, uh, an
extremely, let's say, uh.
Uh, productive or, uh, user
friendly as well as schedule.
I mean, the way that you can
move reservations, you can change
things related to reservation
is, is, is very easy to use.
Also, these open mats, um, these
open mats, let's say, uh, module.
Uh, we'll help you to communicate with
users to, to see which mats are played.
I, I mean, do you have a chat?
So you can, you can say guy.
Hey guys.
I mean, um, uh, the, uh, uh, the
communication you have the, the boards
ready for, for, for, for at reception.
Whatever you want, you can communicate
with the users and very lately,
we, we've recently launched.
The Academy, which is extremely nice.
Academy means in, in the US we, you
mentioned it in a different way, is like
these courses that you can organize.
I saw that.
Can you talk to me a
little bit more about that?
Yeah.
It's,
it's, I mean, it's something that's very
common in Europe, but it's less common
in the us, which is, um, a beginner.
I wanna play it Monday, Tuesday, and
Thursday from, uh, 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM
every Monday, uh, Tuesday and Thursday.
So we have the capacity to enroll you.
In a very, in a very easy way.
From, from, from the cloud perspective
and from the, and from a user perspective
is, is is something that helps a lot.
The cloud management also, I think you
ask about this, we are about to deliver
the POS, which is only using the POS.
It is a feature that is specifically
demanded by the, the US market.
And none of the market has been
demanding, which is the, the
POS with the card on file thing.
We are about to launch it.
It's interesting because we are
learning from the US market and we
are gonna transfer that knowledge
to other, so you're telling
me you don't do that in
European, uh, market right
now?
It is not offered, but we are.
Isn't that
another vertical for you guys?
Uh, well, it's not a
vertical, it's inside the product.
I mean, it's, no, no meaning revenue wise.
I mean, you have a payment gateway
that a fee it Well, it is, it will
increase the volume that we transact.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Because I mean, you sell the booking, but
also you're able to offer kind of balls.
You have the towel, no
meaning like the processing
through credit cards.
Well, we, we process.
That's another vertical.
It is.
Most
companies, that's their objective.
That's where they're
getting the most revenue.
I assume it's with your
as well.
Yeah, it's, but it's associated to
the user, the player experience.
In this case, because I booked the court.
But, but then when I go to the, to the
club, I can consume more products and
as I've already saved my credit card
in the app, front desk can charge me.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Right, right, right.
So that, that's something very interesting
and we've learned from, from other
products that are here in market and,
and we are developing a better version.
In, uh, in, in a few weeks.
So it, it's, that's, that's a great
involvement of our product that we've
been using intensively, the, from the UAE
to Mexico to, uh, to Europe, of course.
And we got offer to those markets.
This, that the US is very intense.
Right.
So, so, so ome efforts, um, sketch
scheduling, scheduling match setup.
Yeah.
Academy.
Academy, yeah.
Now has, it will have a POS system.
POS system.
Yeah.
POS system.
So reporting.
Yeah.
Yeah, reporting.
That's a big one.
Yeah.
Reporting's crucial.
Analytics.
Yeah.
Analytics and all that.
And all related to the payment lease.
Customer.
I mean, can I, can I organize tournaments?
You can organize tournaments.
You, I mean, basically you
can sign up for a tournament.
You We can, we can.
Very efficiently.
We can.
We can sign up and pay.
For any activity, let's say a tournament
Americano, or let's say a private
class or whatever, but we've not
developed yet the, the brackets or
the specific, let's say the specific
dynamic of the specific tournaments.
Because if, if I go to Finland, the
way that they organize Americanos
or, or the tournaments is completely
different than the way that
they do it in Italy or in Spain.
So if I want to organize as a club
owner or as a club manager in this case,
Hey, we have a, a competition here.
And we've decided to offer, uh,
to the users the ano format or
whatever, or in Spanish it is called.
It's a different way.
So we can get crazy trying to
develop every single format
so it's not our focus, right?
Um, but you can do it all in the app.
You can do the same app and payment
related to the event, let's say.
Okay, but not the organization of
the specific tournaments, but leaks.
We can organize club leaks.
Wow, that is very, which is rankings.
So I mean this, this about participating
in a group level B, and then I play
against every single team and then I
qualify, and then I change the group
because I go up and down that that we
can do it, but it's the only format that
we decided to develop because of that.
Because every country has
different ways of organizing.
Events and competitions, right?
Yeah.
So when I go to Europe, or when I have
gone to Europe, um, and I look for
clubs there, most places use platonic.
Yeah.
And, uh, and that's where, and that's
where I, you know, I downloaded app.
Yeah.
Because everybody, that's what people use.
Hmm.
Uh, here as coming here, I remember
there's a couple clubs that, that used it.
Um, uh, real Padel.
And open Padel.
I remember.
You know.
Um, so let's talk about
platonic in the USA.
Okay.
And its competitors.
Okay.
Yeah.
But let, let's talk mainly what
is the vision of, of, of platonic.
Now you are coming here a hundred percent.
Okay.
So what, what is, what is
your, the, the vision of pla?
So
platonic, USA, let's say
guys, um, we've learned a
lot, uh, in these eight years.
We believe that we have a
deep understanding of the
sport, their dynamics, and.
Not only the dynamic of the play,
but also the dynamic of of the
club management, uh, perspective.
We've succeeded in Europe lately
in the uk, Germany as well, apart
from UA Mexico or South Africa.
So we can say that we are, uh, the
category leader in the tech space of the
sport, um, with a certain difference,
uh, with the, with the next one.
So you're talking about USA?
No.
Now it's time for the us.
I mean, we have, we had almost no s
in the US because we were concentrated
on the other markets, right?
Two years ago, I came here and I
saw the, the dynamic of the market
and, and I decided, we decided as a
company, we needed to wait because
there were other countries that
they were going to emerge faster.
The UK is an example, right?
150 clubs active pure public clubs
in the uk, which are generating
a lot for, for the, for every
stakeholder in the industry.
So we decided to wait, but
now it's time for the us.
Why?
Because we estimate that most probably
this year, uh, if you talk to a, to,
to the code manufacturers and, and you
aggregate numbers, you can, you can
rapidly realize that maybe 1000 cores are
gonna be delivered, uh, in the next year.
Yeah.
This year, this current year.
So six months ago, well, I would say
that nine months ago we decided to
invest heavily in the US marketing,
helping the industry to grow.
Indeed, one of our initiatives,
one of the first initiatives was to
announce that we're gonna help other
entrepreneurs to finance their facilities.
And we've already financed selected clubs.
So we help them to build their own clubs.
Wow.
That's great.
What, what, what location,
what areas in the, we have
clubs in, in, in, in Florida.
We have clubs in Texas.
We have clubs in California
that have been financed.
So finance, meaning as finance?
The whole club?
Finance.
It's the courts.
The courts.
Okay.
So explain that a little
bit.
Yeah.
Well, it's basically, um.
They decide which court
they wanna, they wanna buy.
They discuss with every court manufacturer
and, and once they've decided which score
they wanna, they want to use, we offer to
select selectively the clubs in which we
say, okay, now we buy the courts as omic.
We put them at your
facility and you will pay.
It in three years time, basically.
That's, that's a, it's a lease,
it's a kind of court lease.
So it's a lease to own or is
it just uh, no, it's lease to
own at the end of the period.
Okay.
They, they have the courts, uh, they own
their courts said that this is important
because it's something that, it proves
that the tech, I mean the, the category
leader is helping the industry to grow.
We also hire seven people that are
already working for playtime in us that
are already working today, Miami area.
Uh, for Concur in the market.
We've hired, let's say 15 or 20
engineers more, uh, more up to
the 250 employees that we have.
20 engineers more with a hundred
percent focus on concurrent
market because the scale is huge.
You can imagine as if, if this
new generation of pilot clubs,
they succeeded, they perform well.
Yeah, there's no doubt that this
market has the capacity to, uh,
to triple it very, very fast.
So, and we wanna be the, we wanna be
the, the, the leader in this, in the
us This is why I, I'm living here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And my co-founder Felix as well.
So your strategy here is to get
people to use the, the, the platform
is offering, uh, finance when
it comes to the, to the court.
That's specific's part of
core value proposition for
selective clubs.
But more importantly, we've
built a product that we know.
That understands extremely well that
the, the sport, the dynamic of the
player, the dynamic of the club.
And we know that it's the, it's the,
it is the win and value proposition
for both players and class because
it's been in the other markets.
It has, it has happened in other markets.
And this is the
sport I speak becoming globally.
Right.
I mean, I, I've used platonic.
Yeah.
You know, when I'm in Europe and.
S and sometimes here when
it was real Pat Padel.
Yeah.
And I, I, I do like that it's, you
know, you're almost forced to put
in your scores and stuff, and you're
starting to get a level, I, I lemme
explain it was, it was the only
platform that kind of made you do that.
You know what I'm saying?
Which I think was, is it
was a good thing guys,
if, if we really wanna compete with other
types of entertainment, we definitely need
the players to open the app constantly.
Yeah.
Because the more they open the app.
So how, how, the more probability
we have as an industry to, to
drive them to the court again.
So how are you gonna do that with so
many apps, developing entertainment
apps that people are scrolling through.
Social, the social
aspect of the app, the social
features that we have in the app, as
you mentioned, uploading the score,
taking a picture of the sport, the
leveling associated to your profile.
Uh, chatting with other players,
uh, having the capacity to, to share
your booking in any social platform.
Deep links for open matches, all of that.
It, it really strengths the
social aspect of the sport.
Definitely.
I mean, we've not invented the social
aspect of the sport, the socially itself.
Yeah.
You're engaging into, but we
are as, as following our business, we are
facilitating, we are facilitating the, the
social joy of racket, sporting battle in
this case.
Any strategies to try to
get people to engage more?
Correct.
I mean, I'm asking you, is there
any strategies that you have?
I mean, or
the, the, the, the obsession, uh, from a
pro perspective is to make you play more.
I wanna, I wanna, I, I I want you
to, to play more no matter if, if,
if it is with, with if at this club.
But in that club, I mean,
we are obsessed with that.
We definitely need to generate
the same traction that we've
done in Milano, um, am.
And, and this is what we what,
and we know how to do it.
So, s one thing, um, I, I come more from,
from as, as, as you know, I'm more into
the day-to-day operations of the club.
Yeah.
One of the issues that we have
is that the member mm-hmm.
Or the customer has a very
hard time booking a lesson.
Hmm.
You guys have that option where I
can go into the app and let's say
I want to take a lesson with, uh,
Pablo, uh, uh, coaching Padel.
You know what I mean?
Do I have that option there?
Yeah, you can, you can
definitely sign up for a.