You could look at PaddleSmash as just another game played with a net and game balls, but for many families it has become much more: Designed for group participation and entertainment, PaddleSmash has become a team-building exercise that creates a sense of togetherness and allows families to build from their shared experiences.
With some combined elements of both Pickleball and Roundnet, the game got its inspiration from Pickleball, a game of two to four players played with a pickleball across a pickling net. With PaddleSmash, however, families and groups get an easily accessible sport with an uncomplicated and quick setup. You don’t have to spend a small fortune building a Pickleball court in your backyard nor do you have to walk or drive twenty minutes or more to the nearest court.
Now, whether during an extended holiday or casual get-together – or even during a pandemic – it’s easy to stay engaged and entertained in a safe environment without leaving the backyard.
PaddleSmash was founded by Tim Swindle and Scott Brown. In a recent interview with Hot New Game, Tim speaks extensively on the sentimental value of the game and how the product came into existence.
Tim’s ten years of experience in the game space afforded him the intuition to spot gaps, watch trends and come up with solid game ideas. Based on these trends, the game master noticed the rise in Pickleball and how a game with not much notoriety began gaining traction to eventually enter the spotlight and earn mass appeal. He also observed that outdoor games were fast becoming a growing category in Toys and Games.
Together with Scott, his co-founder and a Pickleball player himself, Tim started to sketch a game that had some Pickleball traits to it.
Shortly after this, the duo was introduced to Joe Bingham, a father of seven children and an inventor and structural engineer who lived in Utah. Joe’s family seemed like the perfect target market for the yet-to-be born PaddleSmash idea. Six of his children were boys who loved playing games together, particularly Spikeball, and Joe’s family had also taken an interest in Pickleball.
Unfortunately, the nearest Pickleball court was twenty minutes away from Joe and was frequently crowded. But Joe, channeling his inventor traits and engineering skills, decided to mesh the concepts of Pickleball and accessibility to create a low-budget backyard sport. PaddleSmash was born.
Tim and Scott then licensed the game from Joe and worked to bring it to market.
The engineering of PaddleSmash brought some complications, however. The vision for PaddleSmash was to be a portable and lightweight product. Its design also needed to be mass-producible and mass-scalable to meet market needs. Though Joe had created a prototype, it wasn’t yet a built-for-mass-market-ready prototype. So Tim and Scott took it, quite literally, back to the drawing board.
Once they were satisfied that their fine-tuned design and high-quality manufacturing would meet the needs of the market, they turned their attention to the marketing side of the business.
For most new businesses and products, an early and large hurdle is building awareness around a new product. Things were no different this time for Tim and Scott. In this case, Tim acknowledges that social media has been the biggest amplifier of the game. PaddleSmash has accounts across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube that are active and ideal for a visual game like PaddleSmash. The co-founders intend to explore influencer marketing to better gain exposure, and are also constantly engaging the game space and its patrons.
A remarkable point in the PaddleSmash business journey was when the founders set their sights on retail. PaddleSmash was first intended to be a B2C product that one would find on Shopify or Amazon Storefront, purchase and have delivered for home setup; but when a cold email got through, the B2B part opened up. That somewhat-on-a-whim cold emailing happened to be addressed to Dick’s Sporting Goods and Scheels, the two largest sporting goods retailers in North America. The B2B deals were sealed.
“They saw the value of the product,” Tim explained. “But our initial plan was to go direct to the consumer. We didn’t think through the retail packaging and the way it’s going to sit on shelves. Now there’s a large image of people playing, and having fun on the beach.”
To stay on top of their own business game, the PaddleSmash creators ride their operations on customer feedback and research that they carry out regularly. They make sure to tweak the product to fit the needs of the market while maintaining a quality experience for individuals and families.
PaddleSmash is a safe, family-centered outdoor game designed for most ages, from young teens on up, that combines fun while building family togetherness. It’s a solid, quality recipe for a society that values team-building concepts and strong families.
