Senior Pickleball Report: Era1 Racket Discussion

s here me the senior pickle ball report powered by TNC Network let's get it [Music] going in this week of our people of pickle ball episode we speak with the man who created um pickle ball the arrow1 racket the pickle ball racket yes you guessed it this video caused quite a stir on my channel and it continues to do so so we find out who he is and what he's up to now next and try and get to the bottom of some of the questions that you may have about the arrow one all right folks but before we get to that consider subscribing to the channel check out all the links in description below our sponsor Crown some discounts down there as well and check out our newsletter and merch Pages all right folks let's get to that [Music] conversation all right Johnny jbo welcome to the senior pickle ball report is um obviously created quite a stir on my Channel at least um with the ao1 uh Racket and I think you know the word racket is really what sort of caught people and it is the biggest uh I guess viewed most viewed video I've ever had by well over like 1500 views um and huge amount of comments um back and forth but we'll get into all of that but we need to find out first Johnny really I mean you know you know obviously this sport is captivated uh not only the us but it's starting to Captivate the globe and how did it grab you uh well just want to say first of all sleeves I appreciate um the intro and I just wanted to say as we were talking just before we recorded but um the amount of people that I've had reach out to me directly to my team just talking about you and and the interview that you did has been incredible by far the most um popular reviewer I've had I would say at least ter the responses that people are you have a very passionate following and I love that it's hold really nice I appreciate it but in terms of getting into pickle ball actually it's uh it's a funny story it all happened because my wife kicked me out of our R company not the not the house just a company so my wife and I are serial entrepreneurs and we have a few other companies and um one of them I'm not very good after the first couple of years in any company I kind of get distracted by shiny objects I'm like oo and so for a certain number of years in this company my wife was like you're a bit of a dead weight here you need to get out and do something you're dragging your feet and so she kicked me out of that and just so happened a friend of mine had text me at the same time I was like do you want to come and play pickle ball and I you know played it a few years ago and I thought yeah I'll jump down and uh I picked up a $9 paddle from the local uh TK Max or whatever the shop was on the way over that I found and I got out on the court and uh anyway like everybody else I got addicted to it I love the community I love the people that were playing I love the fact that 72 year olds could whoop on 20 year olds convincingly and uh just the joy that people were having so needless to say my hourong Escapade turned into a six or seven hour uh got lost until the evening and then I came back to my wife and I was like I know what I'm doing we're starting a new company it's going to be a pickle ball and uh so she was overjoyed by that statement imagine just kicked me out for six hours and now I had another company to add to or a plan for a company and really the reason was is because I love the game I love the passion but I didn't really understand probably naively why people were playing with paddles because in Britain what they were playing with with the Honeycomb Core and the cutouts they were very similar to um what we used to play on the beach just Beach tennis and so I just I I don't like weight distribution I don't like how they swing it's more like a push type game and it was a little slower and I love that people were addicted to it but I was talking to some of the guys on the court to like kept going through and and playing for six hours and was like well why are you buying what you're buying and why are you playing with what you're playing with and no one really gave me an answer and no one could really tell me much about how their paddle was constructed so me being me I just basically offered to buy cash all of the paddles that were on the uh on the floor and I bought as many as I people would give them to me and I took them home and jig saw them all open oh and uh just have a look and just to see how they were built you know practically all the same and um and it was interesting because I was like well I love this game I love this sport but why is it so slow like surely it's going to speed up everything speeds up in sports and and also why where are the tennis players these guys would be incredible at this Sport and so that was really the Genesis of the um the whole arm brand it was um building pickle ball rackets basically bringing mini tennis rackets to the game that were I found afterwards I had to be USPA approved so we had to it so that actually pass regulation but the the whole idea was look I think that the tennis players are going to start coming in the game is going to start speeding up there's going to be more passing shots there going to be more crosscourt shots more Top Spin a bit more like tennis and other racket Sports and um basically the players are going to need something different than paddles they're going to want a racket something that they can snap their wrist with something that can drive hard have the feel of a tennis record even though it doesn't have strings and uh so that was that was my play and that was about nine nine months ago and obviously over the last year we've kind of seen the game has sped up a lot of the tennis players are now dominating um a lot of our players that came from tennis um are no longer slowing down their game that's not there's anything wrong with the slow game it's just different and so um when I was talking to the players and researching how to do this a lot of the tennis players were saying you know I my pickle ball coach is telling me to slow down and to bring bring in the game and I was thinking well why not just speed up you've got 15 years on most of us you've got great right right why would you downgrade the skills you already have let me get you a racket and then just take the racket in tennis to pick a ball let's see what happens and so that's kind of where it started and and that's where we've grown now much to my wife's sugarin yeah well I you know when I hit it and um I received it I took it out it is it's like nothing else I've played um it and it does it does feel like a racket I haven't played a lot of tennis but I played enough tennis to know that the what this what the A1 did for me is it made um it was just super Nimble I guess is the best way of putting it for me in my hands like I could manipulate it very slightly and make things happen without trying to ere exaggerate um on a on a shot and actually you could play it a little bit like um a table tennis racket um you know which I got in a back and forth with a guy over the internet on that too because I had to show apparently doesn't know how to Google but there are Parts in the world large parts of the world where they call it a racket in table tennis but anyway I digress IA just literally you know just kind of just maneuvered slightly and it would it it would move the ball so effortlessly and so when I brought it down to my local court and I gave it to people you know it's one of those things you get something and you you you're like oh my gosh you got to try this and then everybody else drives it and they go this wasn't the case everying single person that's ever hit this racket um is gone holy cow this is something different because like you mentioned earlier when you were you know sawing apart and tearing apart the paddles that you had they're pretty much made like sandwiches you know you got the two ends and you got the little honeycomb in the middle and it's kind of boxy and it stick a handle on there and you hit it and you know I get it that's a simplified version but this felt like when we we spoke earlier um this felt like a Porsche just felt like a race car this felt something that you could really maneuver and you could still play the slow game with this because what I noticed is for an edgeless racket um this is the first one that I played where it had an enormous sweet spot that was the knock really for me on edgeless um designs I played with gearbox in the past and I played with Pro kenx and I love them both but the knock for me was if you didn't hit a dead center yeah you were going to get a dead ball in some on some Lev and that is not the case with the arrow one and so you can do both you can really rip it and you can be very precise in your ground strokes but you can be incredibly Nimble at the net in your speedups in your dinks in your uh resets all of the above and I was like I guess the thing that I was a little hesitant of was one The Sweet Spot and two the shape I I was like wow this is wide I'm us I've been playing with a lot of along gated stuff because that was the hot setup so I'm getting a lot of those reviews but I tell you I really like the width um it's it seems more stable um and for somebody who's an amateur like myself I think that's a good thing and it it gives a little bit of confidence because it feels more like a shield and something why that you can get in front and move the ball around um and you can really get it around quick because it's not such an elongated face and a Shor hand handle and I have smaller hands so the you know the people that might want a little longer handle we'll talk about what you're going to do in the future in a little while but for me it's fine because I can get two hands on this thing fine and and rip it so I was blown away by that and um i' like I said I've never played with anything that's um even close to being similar I play with things that are pretty good and very good but this just is this is just in a different place and uh so maybe talk about you know how you got to that because there are some design features here that um you know not a lot of people are are are aware of or using yeah well first of all thank you for the review you know your feedback is I really appreciate it I'm I'm a designer an industrial designer by degree so what we are is massively neurotic on the things that we build because we we want to give out this idea that uh we know what we do is good but we really don't we really just need approval it's like all to create and so we never get tired of just um people saying you know I like what you built and or I like what you designed so I really appreciate but um yeah I mean as as you mentioned there's a lot of great battle companies out there um there's a few that I love I'm a particular fan of the gearbox and everything that they're they're engineering is ambitious and what they've produced is phenomenal and obviously there's there big Brands out there like selur that do a great kind of companywide brand you got the newer guys like carbon and then some of the fly by nights that still make a good um a good padal spotus is one of the uh the ones that come AC recently I I you know I learned about the owner and there just there's a lot of great stuff going on in the Pik ball community so I don't want to take anything away from that um but what for me it was like they're all paddles though they're all designed a certain way it's more for the push game and so when we when we what I wanted to do is move it over to rackets and so the way that we did that and the way that kind of separates the as you said that kind of feel touch a lot of our tennis players say it feels a lot more or they get they can they have confidence in the feeling now because what happens is when you hit it in the middle it's got that High torsional um twist rates like just over seven which is very very high for a pickall paddle and so you have that confidence in the racket in the field and that comes from the perimeter weights and so our our tennis players basically say it feels like a you know Wilson with 45 string tension I know where I'm going to place this I know slight manipulation of the hands gives me tennis likee angles that honestly you can't really create with paddles just because of the nature of how paddles are constructed and obviously as youve alluded to the the rackets are just fundamentally different so very quickly you know paddles are cut out as you said of of a honeycomb and then usually they're either they used to be sandwiched glued together with an edgu and now the more modern one are kind of ther formed which is a lot more stiffer but the edelist have a problem because they don't have a huge amount of perimeter weight and a lot of people kind of inject foam in Corners to create that perimeter weight and you know I was asked the other day by someone like why don't we inject foam we have a little bit to fuse the core into the frame but we don't inject foam um reason being is we actually have that internal racket frame so it's an independent internal frame which creates all of the weight that we need and then we fuse the cor inside so you know if you if you're looking at one of our eror ones um the reason it's double Therma formed is this is not just cut out this whole frame here is an independent if you took this place off as you've alluded to before it's you know it's going to look like a tennis racket with the strings and then we bring that in hexium core we fuse it to the frame and then we thermor the whole thing again now that's the only way you can get that racket feel so when you're hitting with it sleeves and you're you're feeling and you feel that confidence and you feel that Top Spin and that snap and that ease through the air what you're really doing is you're flexing the frame and because it's not a paddle and you know you you got that eror foil which is is allowing it to move through the air quicker so we have a static weight of 8.1 but we have a swing weight of less than 109 so it swing you know very similar to a 7.6 weight paddle which very unusual and that's a lot where the power comes from as well because you're able to swing a relatively middle weight at 8.1 racket but you can swing it like it's a lightweight So that obviously force times acceleration equals power and so you get that power that comes through along with the snap giv to the Top Spin to drive that ball down and so a lot of our tennis players are able to create a lot more speed because they're and passing shots because they're able to get that downward momentum that you need that comes from tennis but with paddles is very very very difficult to do it's it's a different game of a pattle yeah I I think I think what this the the ARA one allowed me to do was to be a little more risty in some of my shots and get away with it um whereas I could not control it as well with um what I would call traditional paddle um I it's specifically like drives like if I want to hit a drive instead of um just kind of going forward and putting my momentum I could kind of flip it a little bit and get that more of that brush feel um and and and count on it to do what it was going to do um and that's I think what I enjoyed the most was um I could flip the ball a little more I could get a little Nifty a little more crafty um and it just felt like I could be I guess the best way of putting a little more creative in some of my sh my shot making which which was great because I'm like um there's a lot of things we all want to try and do and that we're not capable of doing but I I think what this racket allowed me to do was um sort of it gave me the uh I guess the confidence to to be more creative out on the court and um and that obviously just exudes confidence in game as well so I think that's really what I enjoyed yeah it helps and you know when we came into this I wanted to I didn't really like um how a lot of not all but a lot of the paddles felt a little cheap and they didn't feel like they had quality so when we were building the era one I really wanted the whole brand to kind of scale the game of pickle ball because you know you've got tennis and you've got Golf and they have great Brands and they're very upscale and pickle Ball's coming there but we're new you know we're young yeah as a as a sport as an you know identity and we're learning but I feel like um we can upscale what we're doing in the community can kind of move towards that not the tennis necessarily but the tennis and golf style so that you've got that for and so I really wanted to bring that in and and make things that were a little bit more indestructible that felt a bit more Porsche as you know unrate kind of called us the Porsche pickle ball and um I think that that was a testament just what we were trying to do same with the packaging that we we just trying to upscale you said feel confident so one of the nice things we hear about from a lot of people is you know when they pick it up they just feel like they can win and that's a big part of it if you feel confident in the equipment you know that's what Nik does really well when you put on night gear you feel part of that night Rand like you are an athlete and you can perform and you look the part and there's you know there's a real there's a real part of that so we wanted to give that confidence to people so when you grab it this this you know this samurai sword of yours as you go on to the port you feel like this is my Katana I can do something with it and I know there's a there's actually a pickle ball paddle P Katana so I should probably just C that I don't mean that one but um it's that feeling right it's that feeling of confidence in what you're using and so and as you said you know we're able to create different angles I call them tennis angles that you don't typically see because you get more of a risty action you can get the power from it um a lot of the time you get what I call that tennis snap so if you ever seen the tennis players they sort of rise up and they sort of swing through and then they snap their wrists which creates that downward Top Spin Drive PD it's almost impossible to do that with a paddle I mean some of them are a little bit better but just the weight distribution it's it's very difficult to get that rise up and snap but with obviously a racket shape and a racket frame that's what you find yourself doing is that you can actually do these passing shots because you can get that tennis snap but other and you know we we have a pro now who's um who's out who's from a tennis background and you know I don't play him anymore because it's just no fun for anybody yeah I'm okay but compared to this guy just that you know last time we played he was like should we have another game it was about 11 you know what I'm good I'm good yeah this is not fun anymore you're destroying but it's because he's playing mini tennis now like he's had 20 years of playing tennis he's so he has all of those movements down and now he's got a racket in his hand on a smaller pickable court and he uses that to Great advantage and I think a lot of the tennis players that use the era one are finding that it's just a very like I said not for everybody there's nothing wrong with paddles paddles are a great I play with some still sometimes not as often these days but because my preferred style is the racket but I really do think think that the future of pickle ball is going to kind of separate in the into these two categories those that like to play with paddles and the thicker CES and the bit more not necessarily more control but a different type of control more of a push action yeah those that are going to move over to more of the tennis style play and I know pickle ball enthusiasts hate me bringing in the tennis idea I just mean tennis style play this a bit fter lot more Top Spin lot more passing drives a little less time at the net you know a little bit more time honestly a little bit more watchable in my opinion like when you're not it um and I think there's going to be a whole coh cohort of people that move over to that faster game and they're going to need racket frame designs and to be honest you need that internal racket frame you need it to be double thered because you just don't get that feeling that you're talking about right any way you can't just stamp these things out I mean each one of the arrow ones takes 3 to five hours to make because it's a long process and just tennis record it's the same sort of process as a tennis record we just fuse in a core rather than put on strings and it takes time but that's the only way to get the performance that we're looking for and get that feeling that you're talking about right yeah I think the biggest where the feeling stems for the most is it's it comes before you know even before you you um you play with it um and obviously we talked about you know your the unboxing I did um of this uh paddle a racket was amazing I mean your your presentation is phenomenal I mean you you you're getting something pretty special when you open this thing up and you look at it and uh I actually I don't usually bring my wife out to to look at the packaging that comes because she's like oh another one um but I did for this one I go you have to see this um it's just not it's just next level um and I think like you said you're you're really sort of setting a standard for something that's high quality um and when you when you put it in your hand the first thing that everybody notices before they even swing it is the handle um and the way it feels in your hand it just feels different and for me the way I kind of describe how it feels it feels like and I know you know everybody's going unibody and all that stuff but for whatever reason this is the first and actually up to this point the only one that feels like it's genuinely part of the rest of uh the structure and so talk about the handle because I think in the beginning um when you know when paddles were coming out uh the handle was sort of overlooked you know you you had popsicle you stick it on the end and then obviously people were starting to go well the handle's a little more important and uh they started to look to tennis and they started to obviously look to to you know the unibody and all that it being part of the whole piece but I don't know what it is um there's something about this handle is that is just different and when I hand it to somebody right away they always do this they go whoa like this is just and they've never hit a ball yet sure I love it yeah yeah I mean you're you nailed it like um quick kind of History lesson on the on the paddles is originally it was like you said lollipop stick you stick a handle on they kind of glued it together at the sort of joint here and problem the power play started breaking them they would fracture there and then then Along Came this you know unibody type terminology which really just meant that instead of cutting out the face and then attaching a handle they were sort of cutting the shape of the face plus the handle so they would you know if you if you had a a paddle shape they would put it all the way down they would put down here put down into the handle and then obviously then it's just it's just flat it's just one big board and so what they would do is get a piece of wood and they would stick it on both sides wood or Eevee foam or something like that and then they would wrap it and they would like form the shape and they would call it un body which to a degree it was because was all the way down I guess it wasn't it wasn't glued here um but it doesn't feel the same because at the end of the day it's still flat and you're just gluing things on the difference between the arrow one is we're not gluing anything so this Frame that I talked about this this internal frame it's all one piece molded and it comes all the way down and if you unwrap this and I wish I had one with me if you took all the wrapping off it's all carbon all the way down and it's tennet none of this has wood or fo glued down and that's the feeling that you're talking and when you when you say it feels like it's one piece it's because it is one fully independently formed independently Therma formed frame from the handle all the way around and then instead of then we don't glue the inside we actually fuse the core into the racket frame and then th form the materials over the top so again it's all the feeling that you get from a product is all about how it's manufactured and you can't fake it so you can't kind of stamp these things out make them look the same cut a hole out in a paddle like some some do and be like there you go it looks like a racket it's got aerodynamics and it's like yeah I get what you're saying but you're missing the point like you want to create a racket you need a racket frame like there's no other way and if you want to handle like you're talking about that feels different when people hold it they're like oh well this is different that's because it is different it's a completely different way of making it this we haven't cut this handle out we've actually we've got a mold that we formed that handle as part of the racket frame so and people feel it they can't articulate why a lot of the time but they know it's different and they feel confident because this thing you know as I tell people unless you John mackenro this thing into the floor you're not going to break it I mean you might ship it you cosmetic damage on it if you are you know hitting it at 60 plus miles an hour all the time maybe just maybe you'll be able to put a little uh dent in it possibly but so far we haven't but the one thing you're not going to do is you're not going to wail this thing into the ground and snap it into because it would be the same way of you know if you got a tennis racket and wailing into the ground you're not going to snap that into because these things are formed in exactly the exact same manufacturing process as a tennis racket it's longer it's more expensive and it's more time consuming but I think it makes a better product and more longlasting product in my opinion yeah absolutely um I I I love the way it looks so much that I I had to put Edge guard tape on the top because I'm like I want to scratch this thing up you know and I'm giving it to people to hit and I'm like I don't want them to scratch it up either so I just put a little strip on the top of to keep it nice no we actually had a lot of people reach out because um these things you know it's like 5 mm of carbon so you'll never going to break this thing but of course what I didn't rely on and this is silly cuz I really particular about everything that I own um so we've got some particular Edge guards that's coming through I've actually got some samples sitting around that we're working on because that's what people have asked for they want um adds extra perimeter weight that we don't need so we're going to have a particular polymer that's clear that keeps the logo shows that know we have this really nice um 3K carbon that comes all the way around right I want to keep that um and so in fact if you look at one of our ones I'll get it afterwards but you want to keep that kind of look and feel so I'm going to have and we have shark skin overgrips because the handle that you were talking about the feel of it's one thing and then the other thing is the shark skin overgrip so when I was in my 20s I did a lot of diving and I I I did a lot of Shar diving and for was fortunate to be able to look after and touch a lot of shars W very very particular it's a very particular feeling and it's sort of that grippy gritty type it's won't go into the detail but so our sharp skin um grip covers are basically they feel quite like shark skin and what's different about them is um when you hold them they're quite you you feel confident in it it's the shape of the plus that shark skin but then as you sweat and some people are more sweaty than others the more you sweat the more it grips so the polymer kind of grips your hand so it's less slippy and so that I really like and so we've got some sharp skin overgrips to come out that uh have our logo on and everything else but also just you know adds that extra width for for some of the guys that want overgrips and and everything else but um yeah so the the overgrips and the edge guard we know we're working on it because we've had a lot of people reach out for the exact same reason they just don't want to scratch it um yeah that's the biggest thing you know and I did put I did after a few weeks I did put an overgrip on it but I took it off um because I like and I it's rare that I I that I like a grip actually that's sort of my pet peeve is the grip um and there's all you know as you know there's just you name it there's endless types of grips out there but it it it changed the way it felt in my hand when I put that overgrip on so I played with it for about a week with it I took it off I'm like no I like this I'm just gonna I guess I told myself at the time I'm just gonna use this until I wear this grip out and then I'm GNA ask you for another grip something yeah no we will send you one but um that's you're not the only one a lot of people have done the same thing they like playing with an overgrip they put an overgrip on they didn't like the feeling of the overgrip and they wanted the shark skin feel and so I listen to them and we're just we it's a little different to develop it because grips are not the same the grip that you actually put on the production it's a grip yeah it's a grip it's a natural grip with padding and so we had to modify it slightly to make it work but we think got something that works now I have a few samples out with our guys that are using the overgrip and it's got the exact same feel and like you said it's to add a little bit of padding or just protect it like you don't want to wear it out um so we have those in production we hope to have them out soon because as you said people have really liked the shark skin they've liked the handle the feel um and it's it's been yeah surprising um the handle was not the thing I thought people would really focus in on but a lot of people have which I appreciate it's it's one of those things that important tennis players know for sure that that feeling starts with that handle grip and it was just one of those things I couldn't understand when I was when I was jigs saring all of those other paddles up the very first time I went out I started cutting up the handles and realizing that they were just basically gluing everything together with bits of foam and I was like what is going on like how much of these things and then I'm finding out like 2 250 I'm like who is 250 for glued on piece of wood this is insane and you know the rackets at 250 now are thermop form they're a different caliber and that's great back then when I the ones I at least I was playing with I was like wow these are these are a little amateur for the price and so yeah that's kind of what spurned it on yeah yeah I think uh Chris Olen uh pickle ball studi is one of the first people to really point out the flaws within the handles in the pickle ball industry because you know you could still see the polymer if you'd unwrap it on the sides and you could you would feel sort of boxy and sharp on the edges and I think what gets overlooked a lot maybe in the production of something like this is that you know the really the only thing we're touching is the handle and that's the most important thing you know they put so much emphasis on the head and everything else but when it comes down to it the really the only thing that the human contact is happening with is your hand on this handle and so um you knocked it out of the park obviously um and what you is you had the combination with the grip as well um and it's really I I can probably count on two or three fingers the grips and the handle combinations that I've really come across that I like and most of them have come really in the last two to three months so I think there's a trend um at least in the industry where the handle is being looked at a lot more closely which I think is fantastic because it it does make a big difference in the performance yeah and and it needs to it's like you know I have a peeve as a designer you can't help but look at everything in the world and know like I I have a Tesla and I love how Teslas are designed Cy to me is the bits that you touch are plastic rather than you know leather or at least synthetic leather and and some some of the portions of the same and I I never understood that because when you when you study engineering or industrial design which is like design and Engineering you do a lot on ancs and um ergonomics and like how do people touch and feel things and and that was one of those things when we were building the era one I was like this handle doesn't make sense like it's the only part you touch it's what gives you a ton of feel in the game and all of these wood cutouts they're not the same you need to mold them and that's the problem though it's like you you have to have that racket frame because you actually can't mold a handle with a paddle design because it has to be out even the thermaled ones they're still cut out of the core and then therm formed on top right you literally have to move to rackets to move to frames in order to design a mold that will mold that handle out of par and then you can get that perfect ergonomics the amp metrics are there there's a whole bunch of stuff that I can geek out on but we won't do right now but basically this long story short it all comes down to once you run through all those and you have that opportunity you have that ability it's like Tesla not having an engine they're able to do things in that car that other performances can't because they have to deal with over steer and under whereas Tesla doesn't because the battery goes across the entire car it's perfect so they're able to do things other people can't it's the same with arm and the arrow one because we have a racket frame we're able to do things that other people can't and therefore our products are able to have the characteristics of things that others can't and people might not be able to articulate why they like it they just know they like it and right what I'm saying there is the reason you like the handle and others have is because it's molded it's not being cut and that makes a huge difference when it comes to sports equipment yeah absolutely so obviously you know we talked a little bit about some of the things that you've learned um obviously you know develop an overgrip and some edgeu that's clear um and you know putting out a paddle there's in any product you put out you you learn from it and you you go okay when I do something next here's what I want to try and do so maybe talk a little bit about what's coming up for you and some of the things you learned obviously from putting out the ER one yeah I mean some of the the best things I've learned is um this is a great industry I've been in quite a few Industries in uh in my time and this is by far the most fun like the pigle community is full of incredible people and I have never been part of a community or sold a product and I've had a few companies that sold products you don't feedback I mean I have people reaching out to our team daily with recommendations thoughts that they've had re ways that they would do it better and sometimes there ways that they think could be improved and that all of that is great it's just it's incredible to watch how passionate people are they'll reach out and send paragraphs in on how they how it felt and you know I'm kind of like committed to reading each one which is becoming a bit of a problem right now but they write incredibly long emails that I I really appreciate and they're very very passionate about game about the sports about their community and so the first thing that I've really learned is this is one of if not the best um company I've ever you know started or being a part especially the most fun product I've ever designed is simply because the community is so responsive and I love that and you know I hope to to a degree polarize it a little bit but in the best possible way like sure for the benefit of the sport because I really do think pickle ball is going to continue to grow in dominance continue to bring so much joy to everybody that's playing it's just such great opportunity I don't get to play it as much as I used to now because I'm I spend half my time designing stuff but um it's just that's that to say the first thing that's what I've learned and then the second one is um following on from that people will tell you what they want like um they will as we found out in my comments oh absolutely yeah I mean those I I try and get back to those kind of guys as well and uh you know you get you get all sorts of people you and um and people will tell you what they want and what they don't like they will tell you how to spell racket or not spell racket they will tell you Cod a racket or not a racket and they will get incredibly passionate about it the Str they will die on every possible Hill it is uh it's incredible but um but uh you know what they'll do is they'll tell you what they want and so what we try and do here now is we just try and listen to everybody obviously some people come up with some crazy ideas a lot of what people reach out with isn't technically possible for one reason or another maybe it's engineering not technically possible or there are USPA rules that you have to abide by that probably aren't the best for the game but they're the rules they're the ones that you have to play for at this moment you know the usap are doing a great job and kind of trying to grow the sport and and bring it together and they're working through some things but you still have to sit underneath those rules to keep it fair for everybody so there's kind of two technicalities so I get a lot of people reach out with what I should do and I completely agree with him I just can't do it it's either technically not possible or not cost effective or it's it's currently against the rules you know and but there's also some incredible ideas and and the more you talk to people obviously we're coming out with an eror one pro which is an elongated version of the eror one because for those players that are 4.0 and above that um that want that extra reach they've got the two-handed backand and they want that extra half inch so the arrow one pro is in development and hopefully will be out I'm not going to give a time frame so I always do that never quite sure but and it's going to be exactly like the arrow one um same frame we're trying to modify the core to try and extend that sweet spot because as you know as most people know I think now once you get an elongated frame as you tighten up those edges as you bring the the width in you tighten up the spot you make things it's a little less forgiving especially on I'm trying to counter out that was something the stuff that we're working on but for 4.0 players and above you know they're hitting it in the center 95% of the time they don't need that extra forgiveness what they want is the extra leverage and the extra power so we're going to keep our for the most part our product line very very simple kind of follow the Apple mentality of having an arrow one and an arrow one pro for the the 4.0 and above or just those that like to play with an elongated and then an arrow two and an arrow two pro and arrow three we don't really want to spread El too thin and have 50 different that we can't on top of we just want to every year or 18 months or whatever it's well you couldn't keep up with the emails anyways with that well exactly exactly it's hard enough to keep it up with one so we just want to kind of focus down keep it and and make it really simple for people that we're going to put in the very best racket technology that we possibly think in any given year and we're going to make it into that iteration of the eror one or the eror one pro and we know there'll be people that might want it slightly this way or might want it slightly that way and we get that we're just going to do the very best that we possibly can on this one product in these two iterations and then just move from there and just um move forward on trying just like you know the MacBook Pro and the MacBook it's just absolutely done very very well and it's a little less confusing for people because now there's a lot of paddle companies that have 10 20 30 paddles and they're all Nam different things you never is the latest one why that better than this one why that's not I mean we might actually just do an A1 um Evo which is just with an Eva phone cuz I have some out at the moment now that is a rocket ship sure I would not recommend like we'll probably do a limited run it it will not be USPA approved like it is totally illegal you cannot use it in tournament but it is fun to play with because you hit it I mean if you imagine the Eva fo of like the vice which isle shape and then you multiply that by a racket frame with the flex and the snap it is unreal how hard you can hit this thing but you could you could kill grandma with it grandma would struggle yeah don't don't if please no don't put that out there SLE now I'm gonna have more emails coming in like I played with this phone now my grandma's dead I can't have that Weighing on my please every like PSA nobody hit hard against your grandmother play nice yeah play nice with your your qualified partner and opponents absolutely yeah well hey I appreciate your time Johnny I'm really looking forward to what you're doing in the future because you've um you've clearly knocked it out of the park and you know the people that love it the people that hate it um they are engaged and they know um and they know the errow one um regardless and um what's coming from you I'm I'm sure is going to be um exciting it's going to look great it's going to feel great and I really appreciate you taking the time and uh it's it's my favorite racket it is racket but I'll take it it's my only racket but I tell you you know I I play with a lot of different things and um I keep reaching back in there because there are like we talked about this thing just does some stuff that you others don't that's really what it comes down to it and uh I appreciate the opportunity to to play it and uh to sit down and I'm glad you got a chance to sit down and and we can record this we've we've talked in the past but it's nice for some other folks to kind of see where you're coming from and what's coming from M so yeah well I app appreciate it and I hope we uh hope we stick around for a while cuz uh we like it there's a lot of great competition out there but we think we have something that we can really help the industry move forward on so we hope we're we hope we're around for many many years to come and we've got some exciting stuff in the pipeline um so yeah maybe we'll be doing another interview in a year's time with a whole bunch of other stuff that we bring to the market and uh who knows maybe the the the industry will start moving over to rackets as well which will be a good thing you know I I I do think the racket frame is going to be the future so so I'm sure there will be other companies that start doing variations of it hopefully not copying the eror one directly what we do but there'll be variations of it I'm sure and that's a good thing for the sport so we'll see how where it goes it can be uh we can have that polarizing paddles versus racket type pickle ball we'll get all the YouTubers on and see see which side of the line they they fall paddles or rackets absolutely paddles or rackets hey folks all the information you need about am in the ar1 are in the description plus the discount um for the promo code if you want to get uh this racket and I do highly recommend it all right hey Johnny thanks and uh we'll catch up hopefully in a year from now and see what you're doing sounds great take care St hope you enjoyed our interview with Johnny and all things on pickle ball all right Folks at the end of the day hey let's pickle [Music] [Music]

s here me the senior pickle ball report powered by TNC Network let&#39;s get it [Music] going in this week of our people of pickle ball episode we speak with the man who created um pickle ball the arrow1 racket the pickle ball racket yes you guessed it this video caused quite a stir on my channel and it continues to do so so we find out who he is and what he&#39;s up to now next and try and get to the bottom of some of the questions that you may have about the arrow one all right folks but before we get to that consider subscribing to the channel check out all the links in description below our sponsor Crown some discounts down there as well and check out our newsletter and merch Pages all right folks let&#39;s get to that [Music] conversation all right Johnny jbo welcome to the senior pickle ball report is um obviously created quite a stir on my Channel at least um with the ao1 uh Racket and I think you know the word racket is really what sort of caught people and it is the biggest uh I guess viewed most viewed video I&#39;ve ever had by well over like 1500 views um and huge amount of comments um back and forth but we&#39;ll get into all of that but we need to find out first Johnny really I mean you know you know obviously this sport is captivated uh not only the us but it&#39;s starting to Captivate the globe and how did it grab you uh well just want to say first of all sleeves I appreciate um the intro and I just wanted to say as we were talking just before we recorded but um the amount of people that I&#39;ve had reach out to me directly to my team just talking about you and and the interview that you did has been incredible by far the most um popular reviewer I&#39;ve had I would say at least ter the responses that people are you have a very passionate following and I love that it&#39;s hold really nice I appreciate it but in terms of getting into pickle ball actually it&#39;s uh it&#39;s a funny story it all happened because my wife kicked me out of our R company not the not the house just a company so my wife and I are serial entrepreneurs and we have a few other companies and um one of them I&#39;m not very good after the first couple of years in any company I kind of get distracted by shiny objects I&#39;m like oo and so for a certain number of years in this company my wife was like you&#39;re a bit of a dead weight here you need to get out and do something you&#39;re dragging your feet and so she kicked me out of that and just so happened a friend of mine had text me at the same time I was like do you want to come and play pickle ball and I you know played it a few years ago and I thought yeah I&#39;ll jump down and uh I picked up a $9 paddle from the local uh TK Max or whatever the shop was on the way over that I found and I got out on the court and uh anyway like everybody else I got addicted to it I love the community I love the people that were playing I love the fact that 72 year olds could whoop on 20 year olds convincingly and uh just the joy that people were having so needless to say my hourong Escapade turned into a six or seven hour uh got lost until the evening and then I came back to my wife and I was like I know what I&#39;m doing we&#39;re starting a new company it&#39;s going to be a pickle ball and uh so she was overjoyed by that statement imagine just kicked me out for six hours and now I had another company to add to or a plan for a company and really the reason was is because I love the game I love the passion but I didn&#39;t really understand probably naively why people were playing with paddles because in Britain what they were playing with with the Honeycomb Core and the cutouts they were very similar to um what we used to play on the beach just Beach tennis and so I just I I don&#39;t like weight distribution I don&#39;t like how they swing it&#39;s more like a push type game and it was a little slower and I love that people were addicted to it but I was talking to some of the guys on the court to like kept going through and and playing for six hours and was like well why are you buying what you&#39;re buying and why are you playing with what you&#39;re playing with and no one really gave me an answer and no one could really tell me much about how their paddle was constructed so me being me I just basically offered to buy cash all of the paddles that were on the uh on the floor and I bought as many as I people would give them to me and I took them home and jig saw them all open oh and uh just have a look and just to see how they were built you know practically all the same and um and it was interesting because I was like well I love this game I love this sport but why is it so slow like surely it&#39;s going to speed up everything speeds up in sports and and also why where are the tennis players these guys would be incredible at this Sport and so that was really the Genesis of the um the whole arm brand it was um building pickle ball rackets basically bringing mini tennis rackets to the game that were I found afterwards I had to be USPA approved so we had to it so that actually pass regulation but the the whole idea was look I think that the tennis players are going to start coming in the game is going to start speeding up there&#39;s going to be more passing shots there going to be more crosscourt shots more Top Spin a bit more like tennis and other racket Sports and um basically the players are going to need something different than paddles they&#39;re going to want a racket something that they can snap their wrist with something that can drive hard have the feel of a tennis record even though it doesn&#39;t have strings and uh so that was that was my play and that was about nine nine months ago and obviously over the last year we&#39;ve kind of seen the game has sped up a lot of the tennis players are now dominating um a lot of our players that came from tennis um are no longer slowing down their game that&#39;s not there&#39;s anything wrong with the slow game it&#39;s just different and so um when I was talking to the players and researching how to do this a lot of the tennis players were saying you know I my pickle ball coach is telling me to slow down and to bring bring in the game and I was thinking well why not just speed up you&#39;ve got 15 years on most of us you&#39;ve got great right right why would you downgrade the skills you already have let me get you a racket and then just take the racket in tennis to pick a ball let&#39;s see what happens and so that&#39;s kind of where it started and and that&#39;s where we&#39;ve grown now much to my wife&#39;s sugarin yeah well I you know when I hit it and um I received it I took it out it is it&#39;s like nothing else I&#39;ve played um it and it does it does feel like a racket I haven&#39;t played a lot of tennis but I played enough tennis to know that the what this what the A1 did for me is it made um it was just super Nimble I guess is the best way of putting it for me in my hands like I could manipulate it very slightly and make things happen without trying to ere exaggerate um on a on a shot and actually you could play it a little bit like um a table tennis racket um you know which I got in a back and forth with a guy over the internet on that too because I had to show apparently doesn&#39;t know how to Google but there are Parts in the world large parts of the world where they call it a racket in table tennis but anyway I digress IA just literally you know just kind of just maneuvered slightly and it would it it would move the ball so effortlessly and so when I brought it down to my local court and I gave it to people you know it&#39;s one of those things you get something and you you you&#39;re like oh my gosh you got to try this and then everybody else drives it and they go this wasn&#39;t the case everying single person that&#39;s ever hit this racket um is gone holy cow this is something different because like you mentioned earlier when you were you know sawing apart and tearing apart the paddles that you had they&#39;re pretty much made like sandwiches you know you got the two ends and you got the little honeycomb in the middle and it&#39;s kind of boxy and it stick a handle on there and you hit it and you know I get it that&#39;s a simplified version but this felt like when we we spoke earlier um this felt like a Porsche just felt like a race car this felt something that you could really maneuver and you could still play the slow game with this because what I noticed is for an edgeless racket um this is the first one that I played where it had an enormous sweet spot that was the knock really for me on edgeless um designs I played with gearbox in the past and I played with Pro kenx and I love them both but the knock for me was if you didn&#39;t hit a dead center yeah you were going to get a dead ball in some on some Lev and that is not the case with the arrow one and so you can do both you can really rip it and you can be very precise in your ground strokes but you can be incredibly Nimble at the net in your speedups in your dinks in your uh resets all of the above and I was like I guess the thing that I was a little hesitant of was one The Sweet Spot and two the shape I I was like wow this is wide I&#39;m us I&#39;ve been playing with a lot of along gated stuff because that was the hot setup so I&#39;m getting a lot of those reviews but I tell you I really like the width um it&#39;s it seems more stable um and for somebody who&#39;s an amateur like myself I think that&#39;s a good thing and it it gives a little bit of confidence because it feels more like a shield and something why that you can get in front and move the ball around um and you can really get it around quick because it&#39;s not such an elongated face and a Shor hand handle and I have smaller hands so the you know the people that might want a little longer handle we&#39;ll talk about what you&#39;re going to do in the future in a little while but for me it&#39;s fine because I can get two hands on this thing fine and and rip it so I was blown away by that and um i&#39; like I said I&#39;ve never played with anything that&#39;s um even close to being similar I play with things that are pretty good and very good but this just is this is just in a different place and uh so maybe talk about you know how you got to that because there are some design features here that um you know not a lot of people are are are aware of or using yeah well first of all thank you for the review you know your feedback is I really appreciate it I&#39;m I&#39;m a designer an industrial designer by degree so what we are is massively neurotic on the things that we build because we we want to give out this idea that uh we know what we do is good but we really don&#39;t we really just need approval it&#39;s like all to create and so we never get tired of just um people saying you know I like what you built and or I like what you designed so I really appreciate but um yeah I mean as as you mentioned there&#39;s a lot of great battle companies out there um there&#39;s a few that I love I&#39;m a particular fan of the gearbox and everything that they&#39;re they&#39;re engineering is ambitious and what they&#39;ve produced is phenomenal and obviously there&#39;s there big Brands out there like selur that do a great kind of companywide brand you got the newer guys like carbon and then some of the fly by nights that still make a good um a good padal spotus is one of the uh the ones that come AC recently I I you know I learned about the owner and there just there&#39;s a lot of great stuff going on in the Pik ball community so I don&#39;t want to take anything away from that um but what for me it was like they&#39;re all paddles though they&#39;re all designed a certain way it&#39;s more for the push game and so when we when we what I wanted to do is move it over to rackets and so the way that we did that and the way that kind of separates the as you said that kind of feel touch a lot of our tennis players say it feels a lot more or they get they can they have confidence in the feeling now because what happens is when you hit it in the middle it&#39;s got that High torsional um twist rates like just over seven which is very very high for a pickall paddle and so you have that confidence in the racket in the field and that comes from the perimeter weights and so our our tennis players basically say it feels like a you know Wilson with 45 string tension I know where I&#39;m going to place this I know slight manipulation of the hands gives me tennis likee angles that honestly you can&#39;t really create with paddles just because of the nature of how paddles are constructed and obviously as youve alluded to the the rackets are just fundamentally different so very quickly you know paddles are cut out as you said of of a honeycomb and then usually they&#39;re either they used to be sandwiched glued together with an edgu and now the more modern one are kind of ther formed which is a lot more stiffer but the edelist have a problem because they don&#39;t have a huge amount of perimeter weight and a lot of people kind of inject foam in Corners to create that perimeter weight and you know I was asked the other day by someone like why don&#39;t we inject foam we have a little bit to fuse the core into the frame but we don&#39;t inject foam um reason being is we actually have that internal racket frame so it&#39;s an independent internal frame which creates all of the weight that we need and then we fuse the cor inside so you know if you if you&#39;re looking at one of our eror ones um the reason it&#39;s double Therma formed is this is not just cut out this whole frame here is an independent if you took this place off as you&#39;ve alluded to before it&#39;s you know it&#39;s going to look like a tennis racket with the strings and then we bring that in hexium core we fuse it to the frame and then we thermor the whole thing again now that&#39;s the only way you can get that racket feel so when you&#39;re hitting with it sleeves and you&#39;re you&#39;re feeling and you feel that confidence and you feel that Top Spin and that snap and that ease through the air what you&#39;re really doing is you&#39;re flexing the frame and because it&#39;s not a paddle and you know you you got that eror foil which is is allowing it to move through the air quicker so we have a static weight of 8.1 but we have a swing weight of less than 109 so it swing you know very similar to a 7.6 weight paddle which very unusual and that&#39;s a lot where the power comes from as well because you&#39;re able to swing a relatively middle weight at 8.1 racket but you can swing it like it&#39;s a lightweight So that obviously force times acceleration equals power and so you get that power that comes through along with the snap giv to the Top Spin to drive that ball down and so a lot of our tennis players are able to create a lot more speed because they&#39;re and passing shots because they&#39;re able to get that downward momentum that you need that comes from tennis but with paddles is very very very difficult to do it&#39;s it&#39;s a different game of a pattle yeah I I think I think what this the the ARA one allowed me to do was to be a little more risty in some of my shots and get away with it um whereas I could not control it as well with um what I would call traditional paddle um I it&#39;s specifically like drives like if I want to hit a drive instead of um just kind of going forward and putting my momentum I could kind of flip it a little bit and get that more of that brush feel um and and and count on it to do what it was going to do um and that&#39;s I think what I enjoyed the most was um I could flip the ball a little more I could get a little Nifty a little more crafty um and it just felt like I could be I guess the best way of putting a little more creative in some of my sh my shot making which which was great because I&#39;m like um there&#39;s a lot of things we all want to try and do and that we&#39;re not capable of doing but I I think what this racket allowed me to do was um sort of it gave me the uh I guess the confidence to to be more creative out on the court and um and that obviously just exudes confidence in game as well so I think that&#39;s really what I enjoyed yeah it helps and you know when we came into this I wanted to I didn&#39;t really like um how a lot of not all but a lot of the paddles felt a little cheap and they didn&#39;t feel like they had quality so when we were building the era one I really wanted the whole brand to kind of scale the game of pickle ball because you know you&#39;ve got tennis and you&#39;ve got Golf and they have great Brands and they&#39;re very upscale and pickle Ball&#39;s coming there but we&#39;re new you know we&#39;re young yeah as a as a sport as an you know identity and we&#39;re learning but I feel like um we can upscale what we&#39;re doing in the community can kind of move towards that not the tennis necessarily but the tennis and golf style so that you&#39;ve got that for and so I really wanted to bring that in and and make things that were a little bit more indestructible that felt a bit more Porsche as you know unrate kind of called us the Porsche pickle ball and um I think that that was a testament just what we were trying to do same with the packaging that we we just trying to upscale you said feel confident so one of the nice things we hear about from a lot of people is you know when they pick it up they just feel like they can win and that&#39;s a big part of it if you feel confident in the equipment you know that&#39;s what Nik does really well when you put on night gear you feel part of that night Rand like you are an athlete and you can perform and you look the part and there&#39;s you know there&#39;s a real there&#39;s a real part of that so we wanted to give that confidence to people so when you grab it this this you know this samurai sword of yours as you go on to the port you feel like this is my Katana I can do something with it and I know there&#39;s a there&#39;s actually a pickle ball paddle P Katana so I should probably just C that I don&#39;t mean that one but um it&#39;s that feeling right it&#39;s that feeling of confidence in what you&#39;re using and so and as you said you know we&#39;re able to create different angles I call them tennis angles that you don&#39;t typically see because you get more of a risty action you can get the power from it um a lot of the time you get what I call that tennis snap so if you ever seen the tennis players they sort of rise up and they sort of swing through and then they snap their wrists which creates that downward Top Spin Drive PD it&#39;s almost impossible to do that with a paddle I mean some of them are a little bit better but just the weight distribution it&#39;s it&#39;s very difficult to get that rise up and snap but with obviously a racket shape and a racket frame that&#39;s what you find yourself doing is that you can actually do these passing shots because you can get that tennis snap but other and you know we we have a pro now who&#39;s um who&#39;s out who&#39;s from a tennis background and you know I don&#39;t play him anymore because it&#39;s just no fun for anybody yeah I&#39;m okay but compared to this guy just that you know last time we played he was like should we have another game it was about 11 you know what I&#39;m good I&#39;m good yeah this is not fun anymore you&#39;re destroying but it&#39;s because he&#39;s playing mini tennis now like he&#39;s had 20 years of playing tennis he&#39;s so he has all of those movements down and now he&#39;s got a racket in his hand on a smaller pickable court and he uses that to Great advantage and I think a lot of the tennis players that use the era one are finding that it&#39;s just a very like I said not for everybody there&#39;s nothing wrong with paddles paddles are a great I play with some still sometimes not as often these days but because my preferred style is the racket but I really do think think that the future of pickle ball is going to kind of separate in the into these two categories those that like to play with paddles and the thicker CES and the bit more not necessarily more control but a different type of control more of a push action yeah those that are going to move over to more of the tennis style play and I know pickle ball enthusiasts hate me bringing in the tennis idea I just mean tennis style play this a bit fter lot more Top Spin lot more passing drives a little less time at the net you know a little bit more time honestly a little bit more watchable in my opinion like when you&#39;re not it um and I think there&#39;s going to be a whole coh cohort of people that move over to that faster game and they&#39;re going to need racket frame designs and to be honest you need that internal racket frame you need it to be double thered because you just don&#39;t get that feeling that you&#39;re talking about right any way you can&#39;t just stamp these things out I mean each one of the arrow ones takes 3 to five hours to make because it&#39;s a long process and just tennis record it&#39;s the same sort of process as a tennis record we just fuse in a core rather than put on strings and it takes time but that&#39;s the only way to get the performance that we&#39;re looking for and get that feeling that you&#39;re talking about right yeah I think the biggest where the feeling stems for the most is it&#39;s it comes before you know even before you you um you play with it um and obviously we talked about you know your the unboxing I did um of this uh paddle a racket was amazing I mean your your presentation is phenomenal I mean you you you&#39;re getting something pretty special when you open this thing up and you look at it and uh I actually I don&#39;t usually bring my wife out to to look at the packaging that comes because she&#39;s like oh another one um but I did for this one I go you have to see this um it&#39;s just not it&#39;s just next level um and I think like you said you&#39;re you&#39;re really sort of setting a standard for something that&#39;s high quality um and when you when you put it in your hand the first thing that everybody notices before they even swing it is the handle um and the way it feels in your hand it just feels different and for me the way I kind of describe how it feels it feels like and I know you know everybody&#39;s going unibody and all that stuff but for whatever reason this is the first and actually up to this point the only one that feels like it&#39;s genuinely part of the rest of uh the structure and so talk about the handle because I think in the beginning um when you know when paddles were coming out uh the handle was sort of overlooked you know you you had popsicle you stick it on the end and then obviously people were starting to go well the handle&#39;s a little more important and uh they started to look to tennis and they started to obviously look to to you know the unibody and all that it being part of the whole piece but I don&#39;t know what it is um there&#39;s something about this handle is that is just different and when I hand it to somebody right away they always do this they go whoa like this is just and they&#39;ve never hit a ball yet sure I love it yeah yeah I mean you&#39;re you nailed it like um quick kind of History lesson on the on the paddles is originally it was like you said lollipop stick you stick a handle on they kind of glued it together at the sort of joint here and problem the power play started breaking them they would fracture there and then then Along Came this you know unibody type terminology which really just meant that instead of cutting out the face and then attaching a handle they were sort of cutting the shape of the face plus the handle so they would you know if you if you had a a paddle shape they would put it all the way down they would put down here put down into the handle and then obviously then it&#39;s just it&#39;s just flat it&#39;s just one big board and so what they would do is get a piece of wood and they would stick it on both sides wood or Eevee foam or something like that and then they would wrap it and they would like form the shape and they would call it un body which to a degree it was because was all the way down I guess it wasn&#39;t it wasn&#39;t glued here um but it doesn&#39;t feel the same because at the end of the day it&#39;s still flat and you&#39;re just gluing things on the difference between the arrow one is we&#39;re not gluing anything so this Frame that I talked about this this internal frame it&#39;s all one piece molded and it comes all the way down and if you unwrap this and I wish I had one with me if you took all the wrapping off it&#39;s all carbon all the way down and it&#39;s tennet none of this has wood or fo glued down and that&#39;s the feeling that you&#39;re talking and when you when you say it feels like it&#39;s one piece it&#39;s because it is one fully independently formed independently Therma formed frame from the handle all the way around and then instead of then we don&#39;t glue the inside we actually fuse the core into the racket frame and then th form the materials over the top so again it&#39;s all the feeling that you get from a product is all about how it&#39;s manufactured and you can&#39;t fake it so you can&#39;t kind of stamp these things out make them look the same cut a hole out in a paddle like some some do and be like there you go it looks like a racket it&#39;s got aerodynamics and it&#39;s like yeah I get what you&#39;re saying but you&#39;re missing the point like you want to create a racket you need a racket frame like there&#39;s no other way and if you want to handle like you&#39;re talking about that feels different when people hold it they&#39;re like oh well this is different that&#39;s because it is different it&#39;s a completely different way of making it this we haven&#39;t cut this handle out we&#39;ve actually we&#39;ve got a mold that we formed that handle as part of the racket frame so and people feel it they can&#39;t articulate why a lot of the time but they know it&#39;s different and they feel confident because this thing you know as I tell people unless you John mackenro this thing into the floor you&#39;re not going to break it I mean you might ship it you cosmetic damage on it if you are you know hitting it at 60 plus miles an hour all the time maybe just maybe you&#39;ll be able to put a little uh dent in it possibly but so far we haven&#39;t but the one thing you&#39;re not going to do is you&#39;re not going to wail this thing into the ground and snap it into because it would be the same way of you know if you got a tennis racket and wailing into the ground you&#39;re not going to snap that into because these things are formed in exactly the exact same manufacturing process as a tennis racket it&#39;s longer it&#39;s more expensive and it&#39;s more time consuming but I think it makes a better product and more longlasting product in my opinion yeah absolutely um I I I love the way it looks so much that I I had to put Edge guard tape on the top because I&#39;m like I want to scratch this thing up you know and I&#39;m giving it to people to hit and I&#39;m like I don&#39;t want them to scratch it up either so I just put a little strip on the top of to keep it nice no we actually had a lot of people reach out because um these things you know it&#39;s like 5 mm of carbon so you&#39;ll never going to break this thing but of course what I didn&#39;t rely on and this is silly cuz I really particular about everything that I own um so we&#39;ve got some particular Edge guards that&#39;s coming through I&#39;ve actually got some samples sitting around that we&#39;re working on because that&#39;s what people have asked for they want um adds extra perimeter weight that we don&#39;t need so we&#39;re going to have a particular polymer that&#39;s clear that keeps the logo shows that know we have this really nice um 3K carbon that comes all the way around right I want to keep that um and so in fact if you look at one of our ones I&#39;ll get it afterwards but you want to keep that kind of look and feel so I&#39;m going to have and we have shark skin overgrips because the handle that you were talking about the feel of it&#39;s one thing and then the other thing is the shark skin overgrip so when I was in my 20s I did a lot of diving and I I I did a lot of Shar diving and for was fortunate to be able to look after and touch a lot of shars W very very particular it&#39;s a very particular feeling and it&#39;s sort of that grippy gritty type it&#39;s won&#39;t go into the detail but so our sharp skin um grip covers are basically they feel quite like shark skin and what&#39;s different about them is um when you hold them they&#39;re quite you you feel confident in it it&#39;s the shape of the plus that shark skin but then as you sweat and some people are more sweaty than others the more you sweat the more it grips so the polymer kind of grips your hand so it&#39;s less slippy and so that I really like and so we&#39;ve got some sharp skin overgrips to come out that uh have our logo on and everything else but also just you know adds that extra width for for some of the guys that want overgrips and and everything else but um yeah so the the overgrips and the edge guard we know we&#39;re working on it because we&#39;ve had a lot of people reach out for the exact same reason they just don&#39;t want to scratch it um yeah that&#39;s the biggest thing you know and I did put I did after a few weeks I did put an overgrip on it but I took it off um because I like and I it&#39;s rare that I I that I like a grip actually that&#39;s sort of my pet peeve is the grip um and there&#39;s all you know as you know there&#39;s just you name it there&#39;s endless types of grips out there but it it it changed the way it felt in my hand when I put that overgrip on so I played with it for about a week with it I took it off I&#39;m like no I like this I&#39;m just gonna I guess I told myself at the time I&#39;m just gonna use this until I wear this grip out and then I&#39;m GNA ask you for another grip something yeah no we will send you one but um that&#39;s you&#39;re not the only one a lot of people have done the same thing they like playing with an overgrip they put an overgrip on they didn&#39;t like the feeling of the overgrip and they wanted the shark skin feel and so I listen to them and we&#39;re just we it&#39;s a little different to develop it because grips are not the same the grip that you actually put on the production it&#39;s a grip yeah it&#39;s a grip it&#39;s a natural grip with padding and so we had to modify it slightly to make it work but we think got something that works now I have a few samples out with our guys that are using the overgrip and it&#39;s got the exact same feel and like you said it&#39;s to add a little bit of padding or just protect it like you don&#39;t want to wear it out um so we have those in production we hope to have them out soon because as you said people have really liked the shark skin they&#39;ve liked the handle the feel um and it&#39;s it&#39;s been yeah surprising um the handle was not the thing I thought people would really focus in on but a lot of people have which I appreciate it&#39;s it&#39;s one of those things that important tennis players know for sure that that feeling starts with that handle grip and it was just one of those things I couldn&#39;t understand when I was when I was jigs saring all of those other paddles up the very first time I went out I started cutting up the handles and realizing that they were just basically gluing everything together with bits of foam and I was like what is going on like how much of these things and then I&#39;m finding out like 2 250 I&#39;m like who is 250 for glued on piece of wood this is insane and you know the rackets at 250 now are thermop form they&#39;re a different caliber and that&#39;s great back then when I the ones I at least I was playing with I was like wow these are these are a little amateur for the price and so yeah that&#39;s kind of what spurned it on yeah yeah I think uh Chris Olen uh pickle ball studi is one of the first people to really point out the flaws within the handles in the pickle ball industry because you know you could still see the polymer if you&#39;d unwrap it on the sides and you could you would feel sort of boxy and sharp on the edges and I think what gets overlooked a lot maybe in the production of something like this is that you know the really the only thing we&#39;re touching is the handle and that&#39;s the most important thing you know they put so much emphasis on the head and everything else but when it comes down to it the really the only thing that the human contact is happening with is your hand on this handle and so um you knocked it out of the park obviously um and what you is you had the combination with the grip as well um and it&#39;s really I I can probably count on two or three fingers the grips and the handle combinations that I&#39;ve really come across that I like and most of them have come really in the last two to three months so I think there&#39;s a trend um at least in the industry where the handle is being looked at a lot more closely which I think is fantastic because it it does make a big difference in the performance yeah and and it needs to it&#39;s like you know I have a peeve as a designer you can&#39;t help but look at everything in the world and know like I I have a Tesla and I love how Teslas are designed Cy to me is the bits that you touch are plastic rather than you know leather or at least synthetic leather and and some some of the portions of the same and I I never understood that because when you when you study engineering or industrial design which is like design and Engineering you do a lot on ancs and um ergonomics and like how do people touch and feel things and and that was one of those things when we were building the era one I was like this handle doesn&#39;t make sense like it&#39;s the only part you touch it&#39;s what gives you a ton of feel in the game and all of these wood cutouts they&#39;re not the same you need to mold them and that&#39;s the problem though it&#39;s like you you have to have that racket frame because you actually can&#39;t mold a handle with a paddle design because it has to be out even the thermaled ones they&#39;re still cut out of the core and then therm formed on top right you literally have to move to rackets to move to frames in order to design a mold that will mold that handle out of par and then you can get that perfect ergonomics the amp metrics are there there&#39;s a whole bunch of stuff that I can geek out on but we won&#39;t do right now but basically this long story short it all comes down to once you run through all those and you have that opportunity you have that ability it&#39;s like Tesla not having an engine they&#39;re able to do things in that car that other performances can&#39;t because they have to deal with over steer and under whereas Tesla doesn&#39;t because the battery goes across the entire car it&#39;s perfect so they&#39;re able to do things other people can&#39;t it&#39;s the same with arm and the arrow one because we have a racket frame we&#39;re able to do things that other people can&#39;t and therefore our products are able to have the characteristics of things that others can&#39;t and people might not be able to articulate why they like it they just know they like it and right what I&#39;m saying there is the reason you like the handle and others have is because it&#39;s molded it&#39;s not being cut and that makes a huge difference when it comes to sports equipment yeah absolutely so obviously you know we talked a little bit about some of the things that you&#39;ve learned um obviously you know develop an overgrip and some edgeu that&#39;s clear um and you know putting out a paddle there&#39;s in any product you put out you you learn from it and you you go okay when I do something next here&#39;s what I want to try and do so maybe talk a little bit about what&#39;s coming up for you and some of the things you learned obviously from putting out the ER one yeah I mean some of the the best things I&#39;ve learned is um this is a great industry I&#39;ve been in quite a few Industries in uh in my time and this is by far the most fun like the pigle community is full of incredible people and I have never been part of a community or sold a product and I&#39;ve had a few companies that sold products you don&#39;t feedback I mean I have people reaching out to our team daily with recommendations thoughts that they&#39;ve had re ways that they would do it better and sometimes there ways that they think could be improved and that all of that is great it&#39;s just it&#39;s incredible to watch how passionate people are they&#39;ll reach out and send paragraphs in on how they how it felt and you know I&#39;m kind of like committed to reading each one which is becoming a bit of a problem right now but they write incredibly long emails that I I really appreciate and they&#39;re very very passionate about game about the sports about their community and so the first thing that I&#39;ve really learned is this is one of if not the best um company I&#39;ve ever you know started or being a part especially the most fun product I&#39;ve ever designed is simply because the community is so responsive and I love that and you know I hope to to a degree polarize it a little bit but in the best possible way like sure for the benefit of the sport because I really do think pickle ball is going to continue to grow in dominance continue to bring so much joy to everybody that&#39;s playing it&#39;s just such great opportunity I don&#39;t get to play it as much as I used to now because I&#39;m I spend half my time designing stuff but um it&#39;s just that&#39;s that to say the first thing that&#39;s what I&#39;ve learned and then the second one is um following on from that people will tell you what they want like um they will as we found out in my comments oh absolutely yeah I mean those I I try and get back to those kind of guys as well and uh you know you get you get all sorts of people you and um and people will tell you what they want and what they don&#39;t like they will tell you how to spell racket or not spell racket they will tell you Cod a racket or not a racket and they will get incredibly passionate about it the Str they will die on every possible Hill it is uh it&#39;s incredible but um but uh you know what they&#39;ll do is they&#39;ll tell you what they want and so what we try and do here now is we just try and listen to everybody obviously some people come up with some crazy ideas a lot of what people reach out with isn&#39;t technically possible for one reason or another maybe it&#39;s engineering not technically possible or there are USPA rules that you have to abide by that probably aren&#39;t the best for the game but they&#39;re the rules they&#39;re the ones that you have to play for at this moment you know the usap are doing a great job and kind of trying to grow the sport and and bring it together and they&#39;re working through some things but you still have to sit underneath those rules to keep it fair for everybody so there&#39;s kind of two technicalities so I get a lot of people reach out with what I should do and I completely agree with him I just can&#39;t do it it&#39;s either technically not possible or not cost effective or it&#39;s it&#39;s currently against the rules you know and but there&#39;s also some incredible ideas and and the more you talk to people obviously we&#39;re coming out with an eror one pro which is an elongated version of the eror one because for those players that are 4.0 and above that um that want that extra reach they&#39;ve got the two-handed backand and they want that extra half inch so the arrow one pro is in development and hopefully will be out I&#39;m not going to give a time frame so I always do that never quite sure but and it&#39;s going to be exactly like the arrow one um same frame we&#39;re trying to modify the core to try and extend that sweet spot because as you know as most people know I think now once you get an elongated frame as you tighten up those edges as you bring the the width in you tighten up the spot you make things it&#39;s a little less forgiving especially on I&#39;m trying to counter out that was something the stuff that we&#39;re working on but for 4.0 players and above you know they&#39;re hitting it in the center 95% of the time they don&#39;t need that extra forgiveness what they want is the extra leverage and the extra power so we&#39;re going to keep our for the most part our product line very very simple kind of follow the Apple mentality of having an arrow one and an arrow one pro for the the 4.0 and above or just those that like to play with an elongated and then an arrow two and an arrow two pro and arrow three we don&#39;t really want to spread El too thin and have 50 different that we can&#39;t on top of we just want to every year or 18 months or whatever it&#39;s well you couldn&#39;t keep up with the emails anyways with that well exactly exactly it&#39;s hard enough to keep it up with one so we just want to kind of focus down keep it and and make it really simple for people that we&#39;re going to put in the very best racket technology that we possibly think in any given year and we&#39;re going to make it into that iteration of the eror one or the eror one pro and we know there&#39;ll be people that might want it slightly this way or might want it slightly that way and we get that we&#39;re just going to do the very best that we possibly can on this one product in these two iterations and then just move from there and just um move forward on trying just like you know the MacBook Pro and the MacBook it&#39;s just absolutely done very very well and it&#39;s a little less confusing for people because now there&#39;s a lot of paddle companies that have 10 20 30 paddles and they&#39;re all Nam different things you never is the latest one why that better than this one why that&#39;s not I mean we might actually just do an A1 um Evo which is just with an Eva phone cuz I have some out at the moment now that is a rocket ship sure I would not recommend like we&#39;ll probably do a limited run it it will not be USPA approved like it is totally illegal you cannot use it in tournament but it is fun to play with because you hit it I mean if you imagine the Eva fo of like the vice which isle shape and then you multiply that by a racket frame with the flex and the snap it is unreal how hard you can hit this thing but you could you could kill grandma with it grandma would struggle yeah don&#39;t don&#39;t if please no don&#39;t put that out there SLE now I&#39;m gonna have more emails coming in like I played with this phone now my grandma&#39;s dead I can&#39;t have that Weighing on my please every like PSA nobody hit hard against your grandmother play nice yeah play nice with your your qualified partner and opponents absolutely yeah well hey I appreciate your time Johnny I&#39;m really looking forward to what you&#39;re doing in the future because you&#39;ve um you&#39;ve clearly knocked it out of the park and you know the people that love it the people that hate it um they are engaged and they know um and they know the errow one um regardless and um what&#39;s coming from you I&#39;m I&#39;m sure is going to be um exciting it&#39;s going to look great it&#39;s going to feel great and I really appreciate you taking the time and uh it&#39;s it&#39;s my favorite racket it is racket but I&#39;ll take it it&#39;s my only racket but I tell you you know I I play with a lot of different things and um I keep reaching back in there because there are like we talked about this thing just does some stuff that you others don&#39;t that&#39;s really what it comes down to it and uh I appreciate the opportunity to to play it and uh to sit down and I&#39;m glad you got a chance to sit down and and we can record this we&#39;ve we&#39;ve talked in the past but it&#39;s nice for some other folks to kind of see where you&#39;re coming from and what&#39;s coming from M so yeah well I app appreciate it and I hope we uh hope we stick around for a while cuz uh we like it there&#39;s a lot of great competition out there but we think we have something that we can really help the industry move forward on so we hope we&#39;re we hope we&#39;re around for many many years to come and we&#39;ve got some exciting stuff in the pipeline um so yeah maybe we&#39;ll be doing another interview in a year&#39;s time with a whole bunch of other stuff that we bring to the market and uh who knows maybe the the the industry will start moving over to rackets as well which will be a good thing you know I I I do think the racket frame is going to be the future so so I&#39;m sure there will be other companies that start doing variations of it hopefully not copying the eror one directly what we do but there&#39;ll be variations of it I&#39;m sure and that&#39;s a good thing for the sport so we&#39;ll see how where it goes it can be uh we can have that polarizing paddles versus racket type pickle ball we&#39;ll get all the YouTubers on and see see which side of the line they they fall paddles or rackets absolutely paddles or rackets hey folks all the information you need about am in the ar1 are in the description plus the discount um for the promo code if you want to get uh this racket and I do highly recommend it all right hey Johnny thanks and uh we&#39;ll catch up hopefully in a year from now and see what you&#39;re doing sounds great take care St hope you enjoyed our interview with Johnny and all things on pickle ball all right Folks at the end of the day hey let&#39;s pickle [Music] [Music]

Transcript for:Senior Pickleball Report: Era1 Racket Discussion

Transcript for:
Senior Pickleball Report: Era1 Racket Discussion