Episode:#49 Shaun Boyce & Bobby Schindler

In this episode we talk to Andres Robelo, CEO and founder of playbypoint a software service for club management. With a consistent focus on helping clubs connect directly with their audience, playbypoint offers the ability to personalize the service to each club's needs.

For more: https://www.playbypoint.com/

More about Andres: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andresrobelo/

https://www.facebook.com/playbypoint

https://www.instagram.com/playbypoint/

Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com

https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾

Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net

https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾

Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.com

https://regeovinate.com/ 💪🏼🏋️

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(upbeat music)

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In this episode, we talk to Andres Robelo,

who is the CEO and founder of Play By Point,

a software platform for club management.

Their mission is to empower clubs

to connect directly with their audience,

which probably influences his king of tennis answer

toward the end of the conversation.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

(soft music)

- So my name is Andres, right?

A, you know, originally born in Miami,

but grew up in Nicaragua, so Latin America,

or Central American, in this case.

How it relates to you guys, you know,

been tennis player in my whole life.

So obviously tennis has always been in my bloods,

it's created a lot of opportunities for me

in terms of friendships, relationships, fitness,

all that, so it's always been a part of it.

And I'll start with that way,

just because it's interrelated to how we got to Play By Point.

And, you know, once I graduated high school,

I went to college in the US, played D3 tennis, right?

Nothing too good per se in that case,

but it had fun, I always kept kind of my tennis blood in there.

After that, I went to a small liberal arts school

in Pennsylvania, and then a transfer to the University of Miami.

Right?

My focus was never around technology,

it was more oriented in finance.

You know, I worked for, you know, private wealth management firm,

then when I did that, I was still in college.

And, you know, I said, I don't wanna do finance,

you know, that's something that I'm not too passionate about.

I feel like I'm not producing anything,

so I need to go into operations.

And that led me to my first job out of college,

which was in an operations role in a restaurant industry.

Right? And part of the training is that we have to spend

the first six to eight months at the actual restaurant

handling the whole operation, right?

And I'm saying this because that was my first interaction

with the point of sale system, which is what we are today, right?

And that experience of being on a day-to-day,

learning how this little computer was essential,

not essential, but critical to the quality of the customer service

and customer care, and most importantly,

the experience of the staff, right?

And how a bad design product could really make your life miserable

or enjoyable, right?

Per-sham that case.

So that began kind of my, you know, kind of what planted the seed.

And there's always been an affinity.

This was 2012.

And, you know, technology, I've always, you know,

always loved technology, you know,

always been passionate about it.

And after that, I took a job at more

an investing role in technology.

And when I was living in Miami, I couldn't get a court, right?

I was trying to book a court, not even book a court,

I was trying to go play, right?

And whenever I would just try to find a court,

I would have to go in there.

Usually as a lot of, you know, at public parks,

Per-sham that case, and we'd have to wait

for a year or so, Per-sham that case, right?

So I would get out of work at 7 or 6.30, change, run, drive.

I would get to the court, and I wouldn't plan till 9, right?

And that happened over enough times

that it stopped playing tennis, right?

It's like, look, I don't have, I'm not saying I don't have time for this,

but it's very, you know, very cumbersome in that case.

And I stopped playing tennis for about three years.

And then, you know, it's on and off, right?

I used to play three times a week, et cetera.

And then, you know, I kind of stopped that cadence, Per-sham that case.

And that kind of led to the, not the likeable moment

because it doesn't come that way, but it came to look, you know,

sport, I love, you know, half of my friendships are through tennis,

growing up, you know, it kept me physically active,

helped me deal with a lot of life, you know,

when you're in a match and you're down to set,

you need to come back.

So again, there's a lot of analogies that even being as an entrepreneur,

a solo entrepreneur, right?

Most importantly, I've been able to draw from, right?

Where, as you guys know, right, the physical part of tennis is obviously important,

but the mental is really what takes you across, you know,

from being good to great Per-sham that case.

So, with that passion and all those analogies in mind,

I said, you know what, let's, let me come up with something,

you know, we, you know, I, we think we, we, there's an opportunity here.

This was 2015, Per-sham that case, Uber was coming up,

Airbnb was coming up, I could pay with my parking on my phone,

and I'm like, guys, what, you know, I,

why can't I just book my court?

It's simple, like it's, it's, it's, it's that simple.

And obviously, I knew nothing about the business, right?

So, and that was kind of the biggest revelation.

I knew nothing.

And I, and I started that process and I made two big mistakes.

One is I chose my first, I, first I looked how I was going to build this, right?

So, I, I went out, I looked for a team and we set out to build what they call an MVP.

Let me build something based, but before I got and build it,

let me get the first client, right?

Let me get the first customer because if not, you know,

I'm not going to build something and then they're going to come.

That, it doesn't work that way.

So, little did I know I chose my first customer to be a city, right?

Again, I used to play, I used to live by, or work by Coral Gables.

So, I got Cedal Coral Gables.

There's a bit more Salvador Park where the junior orange ball is held.

And we, you know, I spent eight months going to the commissioners telling them,

I'm here advocating for us tennis players that we need a technology solution

to just make the booking experience better.

So, after, you know, I would, you know, wake up early,

be at 7 a.m. at the commissioners office and trying to get a meeting with all four of them,

try to convince them, spend eight months, and finally, one commissioner told me,

let me get you a meeting with the tennis director and IT.

And that was kind of the, the beginning of this process.

And then from there, it was another six months trying to convince IT,

why they should do it?

We told them, guys, it's going to be free.

You know, right now when you go to the club and people, you know, it's 20 or 2023,

and in 2016, you know, and if you obviously you guys know how things used to be run,

but the way they were ran at this park, and that was, um,

prevailing across all most tennis clubs, right?

Not all of them because the technology wasn't there yet.

Everyone would call in at 7 a.m.

They would leave a voicemail because they're not answering at 7 a.m.

Then all the lines came up, then the lady that worked there, right?

That you know, the front best staff that are dear to all our hearts because they're the,

they're the heart of the operation, right?

We know them, they become our friends, and they're part of the experience.

They come in there, they spend two hours listening to the voicemail,

putting it on a piece of paper.

Once it fills up, they start building the queue,

and go on and so forth, right?

So if you cancel, you know, so then that's all that that probably then

back was, hey guys, let me help you, right?

And and that began kind of our journey and that was how

played a fun fact.

Pay by court was born, okay?

So we've had three name changes or two name changes in our history.

So that's how pay by court came to be.

And we launched in January of 2017,

with the help of, you know, the city of Coral Gables, I'll do a mention, Robert Gomez,

over at the Billmore and Salvador, and they they bet on us, right?

They they gave us that trust to go in there and try to help out the tennis community.

And and the whole spirit and the birth of the, I'll start with the idea, but of the company now is

we want to enrich people's everyday lives, right?

Whether it's be the player, the staff, or everyone that touches our product.

And that and at that time it was, we want to keep that keep the sport alive, right?

The sport that has given all of us and I assume people that are in the industry were here because

there is a passion for the sport and it has given us opportunity and and it's something that just,

you know, goes through your blood soon, you know, from the first time they put in raggedown use.

So the whole ethos was we want to expand the playing opportunities, right?

We want more people to go on court, make it a better experience, and our bet was that through

easier technology, we could do our small part and and all and kind of disengagement with that.

It our small part is just one piece of a larger equation of what it takes to build a successful

tennis club tennis program that you guys, I'm sure have covered through your podcast with other

speakers. So we just play a small part, small part in it. We think obviously very important,

but we just do, you know, we're just the, you know, the assistant coach if you want to call it that way.

And that keeps. All right, well, I'm good. Bobby, thanks for coming.

I want to know what was in the water in 2015 that everybody got the same idea at the same time.

There's, yeah, and it's funny because court reserve came came to be in that same time. Yeah.

Forts, which you're you you were involved in and Waleed and, you know, great people. We have great

relationships with them. And really the, the old G's as I call it, used to be tennis bookings,

which is no longer with us that way with Paul. He did a great job as well.

Then, and then you had a couple other players that you probably knew, right, that that we're doing it

from from a long time. But I think what changed in 2015 or 2016 was you had a targeted effort to

instead of building, you know, a developer trying to build a homemade solution, someone trying to,

I'm not going to say build a business, but try to take it to more clubs at a higher scale. And

I don't know what happened in that year that there's a couple theories across ideas that ideas are not

born within the person, but that they're flying around. And, you know, you can catch them,

for sure, in that case. So maybe that's the theory we can, we can abide by, but I think there was a big

thing. I would say it's strike. Showed up when strike became a thing when we could take payments

easily. And people could put together a website because we had what we had reserve my court for

20 years. I mean, he was, he was ahead of the curve on that one with just a simple click-a-button,

get it done, no bells and whistles, you know, get us started. But when Stripe showed up and we started

being able to implement, taking the payments, I think we were able to figure out how to monetize these

things. So there was some incentive to get into the industry. Yeah. Tennis source was another one.

No. No. I think we had three of them here in Atlanta coming out of Georgia Tech. We had like

three different groups. They were not doing something very similar. Yep. That's true. So what's, and

here's my favorite leading question in this, in this concept, Ardoros, which is, you know, why are

you special? So you say you're, you're a small piece and we talked to everybody about it and everybody

says, okay, well, here's, here's what we do. And one of the things Bobby and I have realized of our

combined millions of years of experience here are, is realizing that not every club is the same. And

there is no, there is no system that's just going to be for everyone. You've got to find the right

club. You got to find the right facility that fits what you're offering as opposed to just blank

it and saying, why isn't everybody using my system and changing their business model to the way

we do things? So what's, what's yours? What's your target? Who specifically are you helping?

Great question. So I'll continue the story that I was telling you that ties into that.

So we came in and I think everyone had this similar situation where, you know, the idea is,

look, I'm going to do a booking system and it's going to work for everyone, right? Same thing as

all these things. And I said before, little, little did I know, I had no knowledge on the industry.

Right? So it was when people asked me why we started this and the answer I always give, I was naive.

That's it. Plane and simple. I was naive. I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

So we launched in 2017 and everything we thought how the club operated was wrong.

Right? So we're, oh my god, we thought you did this way. No, it's this way. And then,

and then that was a big revelation at the beginning. But we took it from a point of view that

we were in no hurry. We really wanted to understand what the club was going through, what the staff

was going through on a day to day. I would go to the club every morning to really understand what

the, you know, what the folks, Maddie and these clubs were going through on a day to day basis,

right? And also that came to the why, for sure, in that case. Why wasn't there a good system that

everyone can have? And the reason is that bookings, right? And that's, that was our, not wrong

approach, but that was part of the learning. And as you guys know, it's just a small component

of the tennis business at the clubs. You got lessons, you got junior programs, you got the pro shop,

you got memberships, you got a bunch of other stuff that tie it in, right? And bookings,

revenue wise is very small, right? So why, so that, so why hasn't there been a solution for that? Because

there's more important stuff, right? For sure, in that case. So part of our biggest revelation in

the beginning was, look, all these clubs, the problem is not bookings. The problem is that all these clubs

are using a golf software to manage their tennis operation, a spa software to manage their operations,

a yoga software, a government software. So then we, we set, and we made a pivot back then, very

consciously, to change from being a booking system to being a management and point of sale solution.

Right? That includes, yes, it does include bookings. Yes, it does include all the things that you

need, right? So interact. And, and that was the first revelation. The second one was, I was,

laser focused on building for, you know, for that customer I thought that everyone was the same.

And then I got my third, my second customer. And then I go to, to my other customer in Dorao,

my god, these guys are doing everything different. What is this? Nothing that I did here,

is the same here. Okay, well, I got to go set it up the way they do it here. Perfect. Boom. And

everything we did from day one, we built our technology in a way that it's customizable to each

individual club, right? And we started learning that in our pitch till this day is every club is

different. Every club has its unique way of operating. Every club has its unique set of rules.

And the way we built our technology is that it's extremely easy to customize it to your needs.

We take care of all setup. We take care of onboarding. And we make sure that the solution fits for

your club. A famous phrase that I always say is the, the, the software, the, the software, you

shouldn't accommodate your business by the software. It should be the other way around, right? So

what we did throughout many years, we, we had that philosophy and that approach. And we would

literally just build that specific need for that customer because that got me that one customer.

And that another customer. And, and, and that was our journey from 2017 to 2020, you know,

we were just trying to build these partnerships with these clubs. And, and if, you know,

Karen at North River Shores had this problem and she did it this way, then we would build it for her.

And no additional cost and no setup, no commitment, nothing because we thought that that would help

eventually the whole ecosystem. So it got to a point that we got to, or, you know, our 100th

club or 100. And we have seen so many of these cases already that today, we offer, in my opinion,

one of the most flexible platforms out there in the market where you were not telling you how to

run your business, the, the platform adapts to your unique needs for Shandakis. And if we don't have them,

we'll build it for you, right? And we keep that promise to this day, Nakhir's.

So the only way you can do that is to monetize usage rather than monetizing, you're,

you're going to monetize the traffic and the activity rather than monetizing the usage is kind of

the way I would put it. Because if you're going to, you're, if you're going to say, okay, I'm going to,

I'm going to build it specifically for you. That gets expensive fast from a development point of

you. So how are you able to pull off all of this customization? I mean, I'm just picturing 97

different drop downs as to how I'm trying to figure out how this fits into my club.

Great question. You know, we got one, our technology team is one of the best, right? So everything

the way we structured our software and, and that's another piece where we're different. If you look

at our software and that the, the player experience and the management experience is completely

different from what you have out there in the market. Everything out there from I'm not going to

mention names, they all look the same. They're all the same, right? We made one key, not one key

difference, but what is one example? The, our, our calendar, our quarter on the left and our times

are on top. And I'll, I'll start there. And just because we think about things differently, right?

In terms of how the staff should engage with them and, and what that's done is it creates, to

point how we're different. What my claim is I can train your staff in 10 to 15 minutes. Our system is

very easy to use, very easy to get them up and running. And that brings it back to my experience

that I started earlier over at the restaurant business that you got people rotating, you don't

have time to train you're from that staff. Some days someone's covering one shift. And if they don't

know how to use the system or they got it, they got to take in, you know, a master's degree to learn it.

It's not going to work, right? And I think that's the mistake that a lot of other folks did that

we put a lot of effort into making not only the player side look nice, which is amazing on our end,

but the admin side look beautiful and not only look beautiful, up great in a way. So how did we do it?

That all that customization, um, luckily enough. Or I don't, you know, you, we can, I'll call it

luck, for some backcase, right? Where each feature we built, brought me the next customer and the next

customer used that feature. I was just going to interrupt, I was just going to interrupt and point

that out as I'm, as I'm looking through everything because you're not monetizing the traffic, your

monitor, your monetizing the feature, which, yeah, however that works, but you say, okay, hey, I need

this feature to do this thing. And you say, sure, I'll build it because some other club is going to

need it. And I'm going to add it to that list. And they're going to pay for the advanced version,

or the, the maximum version or whatever, because they're going to need that feature too.

All right. And also look the way I look at it is we're lucky enough to get that valuable feedback,

right, where clubs are collaborating with us and telling us, look, Andres, these are my needs.

I need this. This is my pain point, um, pain point. That's Bobby's phrase. Like, find

their pain point. We can help. Yeah. And, and, and that's what really, that's why I looked at, I

didn't even look like it was expensive. We were learning from them. I was, again, I go back to the point.

We need nothing, right? I thought, and I think there's a mistake that a lot of people from the

outside say, and even when I talk to my non tennis or people that are in the racket sports industry,

managing a racket sports center, it's easy, right? I think that's kind of the, the outside and

little do they know the intricacies of the job of the operations, the challenges, not only on court,

right? That's in a whole nother dimension, but also off court, right? And, and I think for us,

what makes us different is that we, we live, breathe, and understand the pain point to Bobby's point

of the operator, right? So we, we've built a wonderful great solution, um, you know, in, in my opinion,

it's to have someone, you know, invest, you have an R&D team, right? A group of scientists who

got to put it that way, making this industry better, right? And that's the way we look at it. If we can make

operations for, and what I said, if we can make the operations clean and people are making money,

and they're, they, they're efficient, we can then take care of the rest, right? The other problems

that we have in the industry, in that case. And I think Bobby is going to agree with this. So

I'm going to let him talk about it for a second, but we, we talk between amongst ourselves,

I like using the word amongst, it's just fun. Amongst ourselves about the, the fact that we've got the same

old people running tennis. And when some, you know, some young person comes out of LA and they've got a

new app that's going to fix everything, the, the arrogance of that, and everybody says, no,

we're not going to happen. But Bobby mentions all the time, Bobby, you talk about needing fresh eyes,

get somebody who doesn't know how to run a tennis club or hasn't been doing it for thousands of

years to come in and say, well, wait, it's just like this other thing. Why don't we just do it this way?

Yeah. Well, I think that's a lot of interest. And I think that's part of the, the 2016

Proletoration. Everybody was looking at book, you know, book a table. It was starting to come around

all about in, on other aspects of life, why isn't it in tennis? The fascinating part of it, and I

love what you're saying, Andreas, obviously you survived and you said it out loud mistakes.

That's a difficulty for a small company. So was, I mean, you, and you talked about the

collaborative, was the development and the financing done by the city, the government, or, you know,

because we're talking money here. That's, that's the hard part with any startup is being able to

survive early misjudgments. We wouldn't call mistakes because I remember when I spoke to courts,

and they were like, God, I really wish we would have spoke to you two months ago before, you know,

that we came up with this idea. And I was like, well, you know, you're coming to Atlanta,

whole different ballpark because we're HOA driven. We're not the traditional clubs. You know,

you got a lot of people playing tennis, but most of them are playing out in neighborhoods.

If you, you're not going to make a living off of the five clubs in Atlanta, like you said,

that aren't going to use the software already provided by golf or make it affordable where they

can switch. So, you know, how did you survive early on from a financial standpoint,

why are you going through this journey? Great question. Let me start with the first comment that you made

at, there's all these young guys trying to come up with a flashy product, and the few of us that

survived are the ones that were humble enough to realize that the most important thing is listening

to the customer, right? And not trying to impose our will or our vision onto them, right? And I

think that's something that, you know, today there's few players, right? And I think the ones that

guided their product and their development through that lens are still here today, right? And

that is my friend, but you're right. He got stuck out of path and he couldn't get off of it.

Exactly. So, what something that we did is I always knew that as long as we, you know, we're here

trying to solve the clubs need, right? And that's something to go back to. The player, yes,

they are important, right? We can build all these fans. And everyone was going after the player,

for example, in that case, and we said, no, first we got to, we got to, and I go back to first we got

to digitize the clubs. Then we can take care of the rest. And that was our mission to digitize

the industry, right? And how would we do it by capturing 100% of everything that goes on at the club?

Right? So again, covering not only court reservations, going back lessons, lesson packages,

academies, and then you got junior signups and you got junior cams. Then you got juniors that they do one

day a week, two days a week, three days a week. And I can go on and on and on about all these things,

right? You some clubs have a lottery system that, you know, on HOAs. So again, all these things that

we were completing, really, you need to tie in the whole ecosystem, right? It's a long time to build

that out, right? So it's seven years and that's why when someone tries to come in today's world,

in today's mark, and they say, it's easy a booking system. You know, I wish them luck, right? Just

because of that. So that's on that side, right? So I think the the ones that were focused on helping the

clubs were still here for sound that case. In terms of the financing, no, we gave our first pilot for

free, right? So a lot of the the the initial, you know, we never went out and raised outside money,

you know, we this was, you know, I said, look, let me, I got a, you know, one one of our my CTO, right? We

we worked together since day one and he's still with us. And we kept the lean team, right? At the

beginning, as we were developing the product, great technology person, a partner in the business. And

the first three years, I was working full time, right? So I was working my full time job. I would go

from 6 a.m. to 8 30 to the court, which is already active, then go to work, lunch, go back to the club,

learn more, and go back to work nights, boom, and, and we were self funding the whole operation for

a very long time for sound that case. And I think the, you know, in hindsight, if we would have gone,

and I came from an, from a finance and investing background, and I knew that if you raised outside

capital, you were just going to burn out because the scalability wasn't there, right? I learned early on

that, you know, every club was different. So how are you going to sell an idea that I was going to be

in a thousand clubs if it was difficult, right? So what we, we made in going back to your point,

on the business model, we kept it simple, right? Because we saw everyone trying to do,

hey, let me charge a percentage of the revenue of the fee and, and pros and justifiably so,

you don't like getting another tax, right? On top of your business. So we, we kept it simple,

right? And it's a, it's a SaaS tool software as a service. You pay a monthly fee depending on the,

on the products you're looking for. And, and that's it, right? We keep it simple in that case. And,

and, and that was our, our business model because our, our first goal is to digitize the industry,

right? And that case, so get is more, we, we, it obviously took us a long time to, to customize

everything. And we're still not there yet, by the way, right? But there's still things that pop up

here and there, less now, less, now, but there's still things that we get at, at a, at a random club

that those things differently. But, you know, we just held on, right? And, and, and what I say in

entrepreneurship is, you know, it's, it's, it's, there is no failure. There's just when you give up,

right? So, and you, and you do everything to keep it alive. So, and, and that was our journey, right?

They, thankfully, obviously, I remember my first 50 customers, right? Because those, you know,

a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, whatever dollars they paid us a month, that kept us going,

right? Even at very lean, but that's why I, you know, I still speak to them today, right? We still

support them and, and that's, you know, those are the true heroes of our journey, right? For sound

actions. When we find not everybody wants to be first. So, when you come in and say, Hey, I got,

I got an idea that's going to help you, especially in this industry, one of our first podcast episodes

was titled, You Still Use a Pencil. Yeah. And it's just insane to me, but we still have it. And you,

and it's probably going to be a really long time before pencils go away, but changing the culture a

little bit is where everybody was in 2016. And maybe that 2017 timeframe, where everybody was a little

more, maybe not everybody, many were more susceptible to the idea of digitizing and saying, ah, you know

what? Yeah, we could, we could probably modernize a little bit and stop using Lotus Notes. You know,

we hopefully updated. Yeah, I, by the way, we've never done sales. Everything has been word of mouth,

all inbound. And I gave up on that at the big, at first two years, because I would, we would,

I would drive all across Florida, um, knocking on clubs doors, tell them, Hey, you know, with the same

pitch, right? Why is he painted paper? And we got, you have an idea how many knows, right? And just

people, they didn't get it, right? So I said, you know what? Not that we just kind of turned back and

say, look, I'm going to focus on the people that see the value. I'm not, I'm not here to change people's

minds, right? And, and that's, I just, I gave up on that tennis pro, right? I'm not going to hear

to try to convince them on that, because then he needs to go to his board and then convince,

and then I'm like, okay, the people that see the value, then you, we hold you dearly. And we appreciate

you and, and we'll support you with, with our, all our efforts for sound that case. And we just

start to focus on the, on the, on the clubs that matter in that case. And, and really be myopic

in the sense that we need to build the best solution. And, and that was our mission. We weren't

thinking about, Oh, I need to get this club, that club, let's just keep making the best product.

And we're taking a leap of faith that, um, that win, that ultimately gets us to the finish line.

Bobby's got the same feature for his coaching business. He's secretly the best coach in the area,

but nobody know. He didn't tell anybody. He just keeps it to himself when people figure it out,

all of a sudden, it's just all incoming. Um, so, Anders, what's your, what's your footprint here?

That's a fun, what's your footprint in Atlanta? What, uh, how do I ask that question? What kind of

corporate buzzword can I throw in to ask? How many clubs you got here? Who are you working with?

So low, we work with all the city of Atlanta locations. Um, I forget the names to be honest,

but Pete, we know the ball, Pete, not bitty. Yeah, all those. And then we got some H O A's country clubs.

I mentioned, you know, Dunwoody's one we just, just got, but I'll share that list after I tell you

because we, you know, thankfully in the past two years, you know, obviously our growth has accelerated

immensely. And, you know, I think our footprint today and the company were, you know, across the

all 50 states, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Philippines, Dubai, Hong Kong, um, you know, the

Dominican Republic, Ecuador, um, Hawaii. So, so again, our footprint has expanded. So I need to go

look at my notes now and, you know, to get kind of certain in geographic area. We keep that obviously

on a tight, um, tight ship, per se on that case, because again, we just focus on the club, right? So

we're not a marketplace. Um, every club is unique. Every club has their own way of, um, working

their, their operation and, and that's how we roll. Interesting. So your city, the city of Atlanta,

you have all of those, that's not a piecemeal thing. Like you went to the city of Atlanta and said,

hey, great, use this and they said great, have all our clubs. And, well, not like they came to us.

It's a short version. I'll just, yeah, I'll get the short version. Maybe. So if Bobby was in, so

yeah, the backstory there. Yeah. So the backstory, the true backstory there is, um,

courts had those clubs. They got acquired in 2021 or they got, you know, whatever they got,

done. And then the new acquiree didn't have a solution for all these clubs. So then

when they're starting looking around, hey, you know, you don't have a point of sale, you know,

we got to use, we got to use something and we just picked up all those clubs per se on that case. So

really from the courts acquisition, um, we picked up half, right? Or give everything or a little

bit more from, from all the clubs that were left stranded, right? In that case. And the same thing.

Yeah. No, and I agree. And that, to me, that's, that's my, my next question is where do you see

the future of this? Because the funny part about technology is it takes a long time for people to

job on the, the wagon. And then once they're on it, well, what else are you going to do for me? How do

you keep up? What, what do you foresee? You know, in your mind, the future, because I always looked at

this and one thing I pushed and what we try to do with, with our website, I loved the open concept

of courts, the ability for you to see the entire area and the sharing of drills and just an open

source for tennis players could find other tennis players type thing. But I also looked at it from a

director's perspective, I want something that's going to help me facilitate my communication with my

members, make it easier where if I do a drill, I wanted to incorporate text messaging right into it. And

once they got on the list of, well, yeah, that's on our list, but it's not number one on our list.

You know, where do you foresee what, what features you're going to add? And I apologize, I've just

been looking at you. What is the TV pricing? That, that has me. What, what is that? What do you

go for? Is that, that sounds pretty flashy. No, so the TV is, you can display your courtsheet on a

TV monitor, right? Oh, so you, well, because we tried to do that, we had to go to an outside software

provider and it, he turned out to be a bomb. And, you know, so I have a TV thing, so I would love to be

able to do that again. Yeah, I know. You said on my window that does nothing. Yeah, no, you're,

your courtsheet, we got us, we send you a fire stick, you plug it in and then it's going to show

your whole courtsheet right on the TV screen and it rotates. It's not the whole, it's not a copy

of the court sheet. It wrote, it just keeps a four hour timeframe where you can choose the timeframe

and as the day goes by, your, your court sheet shished over automatically. You should, I found your,

your next name change is court guide. Because you're basically, what you're describing, I'm absolutely

picturing what it looks like on those guides on the television where it scrolls because you moved

the courts and the time and it moves. That's like a TV guide, right? Nope, I hear you. That's a great

way to view it. I like that. Yeah. Now, do you do with that? And I love that idea again. Would you,

because the other thing I was trying to incorporate, how do you make it for the neighborhoods? Because

that's more of what we're doing here. And then go to them and say, yeah, look, this sounds like an

expense. It's 1200, let's say my, my current subdivisions got 16 courts. Yeah, we were with courts on

the, on the family rate. And then we started looking around and court reserved by the time we

added anywhere near the amount of future features that we had similar, the price was astronomical.

So then you take a step back and you go to something local that you hope over time gets to where you

had it's, you know, balancing for the club, you know, the guys like me, how could you put an ad

on that rotating court sheet where I could go to local neighborhoods and say, hey, you're going to

be honest for $50 and I can go to my H.O.A. committee and say, look, it's going to cost is $1500,

but I can make $750 of the back. I think. Yeah. So let me answer your two questions or

a couple questions before that. I've been three. Who knows? Yeah. So on the, on the open concept for the

player, look, the reality is that the club access is really a problem in the United States, right?

Where yeah, we have all these facilities, but half of them are not even half a third. I don't

know what the actual statistic is, but you can access. You can't just go in and play, right? So to create

an open model, it's hard to do, right? The supply dynamics are not in there. The incentives are not in

there. Why would an H.O.A. allow someone from the outside to go in? So there's a lot of barriers that

it just doesn't make sense, right? So to that question, I think that's a, that's a mute point, at least from our

opinion. So we focus at the club level, right? Where every club or every court, for sure, in that case,

is a community, right? And at the end of the day, tennis, yeah, booking is just a tool, right? To get

on the court, but at the end of the day, it's, you know, why do we play tennis? You know, there's a

loneliness epidemic in this country. We want relationships, you know, we want to go in there,

get interactions. If, you know, if I'm locked into my office all day, it doesn't bring, you know,

too much enjoyment. So that's part of, we do this because it's a hobby, right? It's a sport.

And I think that that's the number one component we should always keep in mind, right? And the pro

has been central, is central to that. As, you know, right? The pro in getting the ladies leagues

up and running, the ladies clinics, the, you know, getting the guys that book and connecting them with

what used to be a sheet on the wall and people writing their names with their levels. So what the

future holds on the software side and I'll kind of answer that question first. And what I tell people,

is first we're trying to figure out how to run these things, right? We had all these operations,

we were trying to see how we can, we can, you know, handle clinics, handle wait lists, handle the

bookings, the rules and all that. And then the next phase in the future is how do we reduce the friction

of the heart of the club, which is the director to make those interactions easily, right? So

I think doing all the social pieces is going to be critical, right? Building leagues, you know,

that's within the app that's easy to do. Tournament sign up a community chat, right? Where people can

join and can post and all those aspects around that, that level for sound back to you. So that's where

we, we're going towards to and then the other piece that I tell all my clients is, look, the booking

is just the utility, right? When I never describe myself as a booking platform, we're a commerce

platform, right? When you look at our booking system, the way we approach it and we'll send some

fault material after a podcast so you can see, we're different. And in the case that when you look at

every other system and I go back to that point, how does the booking journey start? And that's a question

for both of you. I look at like how far back you go? What are they looking at? What are they looking at

first? I'm looking at a monitor, a phone or a computer and a court sheet, right? You just, you look the

whole court sheet. I went too far back, sorry. Yeah. So you're looking at the whole court sheet.

That's my biggest critique of not critique, but in general. Why does a person want to look at the whole

court sheet? No, right? You need to show them what they want. So the way we interact our customers is

they go in and download our app and really take it for a spin and you can see that what we're building

is a commerce platform where you can put banner ads to your point, right? We got banner ads on our

under format. You can upsell them, you can charge partners for it. You have a shop section where

you can put your pro shop items on the app, people can buy them online and pick up on site. We got our

game match feature where you can create those matches post them on post them on a board, people can

join it. That inspiration came from way back when on the paper sheets that were posted on every

tennis shop, right? Here's my name and my level is 101 of play. Same concept, right? So, you know,

be again, and the way when we look at in steps, first we got to take care of business.

Now we're going to take care of the player and not the player as a general, the club player, right?

The player that belongs to their club, because that's another thing, right? From the pro perspective,

you spent a lot of time, you know, creating building your community, right? These are your customers

in some way. These are your students. These are your leagues. And not that it's not in, I'm not saying

it's not in your best interest, but you want to try to create loyalty to the club, right? Or to

your to that pro. So that's kind of our scene. And then the last piece to that point is we got all

this data. Now we need to make it actionable, right? So, and all tennis directors can relate.

Good thing. We haven't had a demand problem historically, right? And I think that's what's really

led to a to us getting lazy and, you know, I'll put us in the tennis, as a tennis industry, because

we haven't had a demand problem. That's what people from the outside think. There's not a demand

problem. We're all clubs are packed and you can find all these, what I call them, all the addicts

coming in there and playing every day. And we actually, we need to do the reverse of demand. We

got to limit them in that case. So what we're, you know, what we're guiding towards is building that

community, first and that case, right? And trying to make it better. So, and the last piece is how do we

make all that information actionable? You know, Bobby came in for the first time, sent them a little

text automated text, say, Bobby, thanks for coming in today. Why don't you come in and stop by our

clinic next time? So that's where we think the future is going. So we can become smarter. We can

instead of, you know, I remember my coach used to have a, a pad, all his clients names, right? And

all his lessons. So that we're digitizing all aspects of it. So I think that's where we're going

in. And, and these are different, you know, there's, if it existed, if we knew what it looked like,

you know, someone would be doing it already, right? So I think you can only discover that solution

through an iterative process, if we're saying that case. But it's, it's interesting to be here,

you talking, it goes back to the, the difference between the rest of the country and Atlanta.

We have so many leagues. We have, you know, all that is built. It's, we are the other side of what

you're talking about. We have a bunch of middle-aged folks looking to find a community outside of,

you know, as you get older, finding that thing that you share that you build off of, you know,

when you're a kid, you have your sports, you have your school, you've very stages of your life. As

you get older, what is the commonality? Tennis has became a commonality throughout, uh, you know,

subdivisions are built in Atlanta with at least two tennis courts, a situated bathroom and country

club, caliber lights. So you can get certified to play out there. So we're so different in so many,

because I always felt against something I pushed to, to, while lead was the pros themselves. We have

so many independent pros that should be using a system to legitimize themselves that look at it and

are afraid of it because they're not a club or they don't feel like could you set something up for

a guy who's at five, I mean, Sean has his business. He goes to several different neighborhoods. Could

you set something up? Sean's specific to show his clients. Okay, Sean's at Windomere on Wednesdays. He's

here on Fridays. Are you that customizable? Um, no, right? So not even customizable, but I'll go

back to, to look the, focus, right? So you got to pick your battles for, say, on that case and every

if you really want to be the best, right? Which is our intent. You got to focus for you're going to be

the best in, right? And then slowly we'll tackle other areas, but, you know, managing leagues,

so whole different animal, right? Managing the independent pros operational process. So whole different

journey, right? And, and, and all these other steps that happen offline, um, you know, require a lot of

focus and effort and time and investment to really come up with a good solution, right? Not saying it

can't be done, but, you know, you got to, you, at least steps are perspective, right? We got to,

you know, there's, you got to focus on, on one thing, be the best. And then we can start tackling the

other items one at one, right? So that's kind of how I see it. So for that player that you mentioned,

that five, oh, again, we focus on the club, right? And I go back to that. That is our, our, our, our,

our north star. Um, maybe down the road, you know, we will build solutions around that, but for

now, we, we got, we got more wood to, to chop up or sound back in. Oh, I understand. But again,

that's what makes it land us so unique, you know, and difficult for you guys coming in because it's

just a different market. We are not club based, you know, there might be, there might be two,

three standalone tennis only clubs in the entire city. But you got courts, right? You got

individual facilities and they should be run by a scheduling platform in order to organize

all these events going on. Well, one thing I think that hopefully you learned early, because it

was always funny dealing with municipalities was always the biggest pain in the neck alive,

because of the bureaucracy. But that's where you, you got your teeth sharpened. So hopefully, you

know, that, that could be a big thing because you're right. I mean, certainly where I live in Forsyne

County, some of the most spectacular parks, you'll find anywhere and they're not managed. It's

drive up in, see, because it's, you know, again, it's just different. Most people don't play out of

parks because they can play in their neighborhood. So the parks are dramatically underutilized. And

I think we, we focus on Atlanta. So I'd like to hear what other people are doing just to see what,

what is transferable? What can we, you know, what, what can we learn from you and what you're doing?

And I think what you're saying is absolutely right. Stay with, you know, show me the money is always

a good way or follow the money is always a good indicator of where people's interests are. You know,

where they're using it. That's where their interest is. Yeah. Exactly. And that's why,

yeah, it's a different, you know, different problem, not a problem to solve, but you got free

tools out there, right? And what's been proven in the market is that that kind of club, they'll just

buy from my dear friend from hold my court is one, right? It's a pre-solution. It's got ads. It's

I'm not saying it's, it's very clunky, very old school, but it works, works, you know, and,

and that's okay, right? That's okay. I think it hurts the community at large because we're not

organizing ourselves, but, you know, that's why we focus on the clubs that are

and they have a deep need for that, this solution for sell that case.

On the court and the court system that is free, and we got the HOAs that are building their own,

no, we're going to go over there in the house that can build us one real quick. And I take that as a

good step because at some point, they're going to realize, okay, we've got a crappy product, you know,

Bob built it for us. We really appreciate your Bob. But we got a call on dress. We got to get,

we got to get this. But what it did was it got him off the pencil. It got him out of that manually

writing things down and the phone calls. And it's one step closer to where we want the industry to be,

which is automated and digitized for you. Yeah, the biggest shift as well, and just thinking

of step back is the big is COVID, right? So in 2020, you know, prior to 2020, and we forget, right?

Now it's only been three years, but prior to that, I was selling why you should use the technology

solution and then that kind of forced that kind of accelerated the curve five years, right? Where my

discussion changed, right? Why are you better? Why should I use you? Right? Percent on that case. So I

think COVID did bring a lot of that demand forward because there was no option. They had to. And then once

they implemented it, then it, then a lot of people kept it for sound that case. So I think that was a net

positive for us. And also made the, you know, certain parts of the industry realize that it can,

it could really save you a lot of time. Well, yeah, $200 a month is a lot cheaper than hiring

somebody to work the front desk. When the front desk is an app on your phone, you can do a lot more.

Yep, exactly. Yeah, that's fantastic. So Bobby, I want to ask him the King of Tennis question,

because you pushed a little bit asking for something from the future. And he points out that the,

he does not have that kind of hubris. I'm going to ask King, King of Tennis anyway, Bobby, you got

anything else you want to talk to him about before we go there? No, no, I'd look forward to following

up on a club basis, Andreas. Awesome. No, no, I would love to. Yeah, Bobby's, Bobby's always looking

for the next best thing. They might be you. We'll see. I think, I think we are. Well, you're biased.

We know that. So, Andreas, our King of Tennis question, which hopefully you know is coming. We ask,

everybody we talked to, except Patricia Jensen. I think she was the only one we didn't ask,

because that's obvious. She's just going ahead and doing it. But if you were King of Tennis and whether

it's Miami, Florida, the world, the universe, whatever it is, if you were King of Tennis and could

change something or add something or even some people were out there trying to, trying to subtract

some things from the tennis world, is there anything you would do or change? Um,

so the answer is yes, right? To in preparation of the question. And, and my answer is going to be biased,

right? Obviously. So I need to come from the perspective of the solution I'm trying to solve.

But to me, what I would change is accessibility. Right? I think in the consumer market,

there's a lot of confusion as to how do I approach the sport today? And we need to start bringing

all those barriers down to make it easy and accessible. Obviously the USDA has done a lot of efforts

in that avenue, but I think it needs to start from a, from a grassroots perspective, right? From

the individual pro. And I think technology will play a small part of it in the sense that, you know,

we're, you know, it's 20, 23. Everyone has a phone in their hand. And the moment that you make me call

to go do a clinic or to me, you make me drive to the park, you've lost me as a customer because I'm

going to go to Orange Spearie or whatever Jim Boutique out there that's popping up. So I think as an

industry of all and, and from the pros operating these individual sites, we need to accelerate

the accessibility at the sport from awareness, education, ease of purchase, and getting them in the

door, right? Because one thing I do believe is that once you get someone in the door and you give them

a good treatment, you know, it's a great sport. That's why, you know, that's why we're all here. So

that's what I would focus my efforts in. And in ways to, to make it more accessible, easy to,

easy to join, easy to play and not create too many territorial wars that you find at the neighborhood

level, right? The, you know, the group that always plays at 7 a.m. and you can't touch them because,

you know, they got the special deal with the HOA or with the city or not with the city, but with the

court, court, and all that. So I think if we can set up a ground level rules across the nation,

then I think it'd be net, net positive. And, and one thing that I like to advocate is to the tennis

people. And, and I think, you know, and this is going to be my, my, you know, we're not competing

against other tennis coaches or facilities, right? We're competing for time and for fitness activities,

right? And, and, and the, the consumer today or the player today, if it's easier for them to go to

a Pilates class or a gym class or a gym studio, we're competing against that today. And that's

something I think the industry hasn't caught on. And, and now you know, you, you have two big waves

coming to market, which you guys are very familiar with, right? You got the explosion of pickleball,

you got Padel, you got other racket sports coming to market, then I think can work together,

right? With tennis, that you, we got a, you know, I'm not going to say defender turf, but

you have to keep it engaging and fun and accessible. Because if not, we're going to see a huge decrease

in player participation. And he's already started to see it across the nation, right? You don't,

you don't, you, you can't hide that, you can't hide that fact, right? Tennis clubs are being converted

to pickleball. Um, and, and I love pickleball, right? So they'll get me wrong. I think it's great.

Um, but from a tennis point of view, given the Quincy and Sking of tennis, I think as, you know,

tennis directors and, and pros and industry players, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's a capitalist

country and, and we need to compete and we need to, to really bring people back to the sport,

right? I'm bullish on the sport. I think it, you know, it's, it's been for hundreds of years.

I don't think it's going anywhere, but we need to reinvigorate it, right? Because if not, we run the risk,

and it's not an existential risk, but we don't want to become a forgotten sport, or sound that case.

So I, I would just put that sense of urgency, you know, I might be too catastrophic, but I think that

might get us in the industry to really try to, try to make things better, right? Try to get the first

person in the door and, and get them to play it, right? So if, at least here in Miami, it's, you know,

my, my wife, I was asked, "No, I want to go play tennis." I don't know. I work in the industry. I don't

know a single place where I can recommend she start at, right? Where it's easy and they can just go in

and play. I don't know, right? So that's a problem.

- It's a, Bobby, they just don't have tennis courts right next to their house like we do.

- And that's another problem. Yeah, and that's, I agree. Right? So again, and yeah, that's, that's the other problem.

- Can I add anything? - We run the same, we run the same issue. I mean, it's always tough getting people.

It's, I completely agree with what you say. And like you said, I don't look at Pick-A-Ball as a thread.

I look at Pick-A-Ball as an opportunity. Take the money that's being created by Pick-A-Ball to elevate

the tennis. Yeah. Get people programming as far as cameras. I mean, like you said, let's, let's make

this thing grow it by getting the, the, the, the, the, the, in flesh of cash where you, you offered more

things to people to get them excited. We know people like to watch themselves. Go videoteers.

Now a video tape lesson is the same cost because I don't need to make a margin because I make

an margin someplace else. Look, and you know, this is on the heels of Atlanta just lost our tournament

again. Our 250 annual tournaments, it's going away. And I'm reading all the, "Hosan is online from

the people that have been involved from day one." I'm like, "You've been involved through day one.

This is the third time the tournament is left. Don't you think we need somebody other than you

is being the messenger of because you're two not, you're seat, like you said, you're selling it as tennis.

We're not competing against tennis. We're competing against the movies, swimming, going out to dinner,

being a tier one city that just like Miami, we got a lot of options on what to do with our disposable

income. And everybody holding on to this idea that tennis, that's what kills this sport.

Yeah. It's a part. It's, it, you cannot sit different or you're set yourself apart and say,

"Oh, what, you need to play tennis." Yeah. Now I agree. And look, I, I agree with you, right?

My biggest, not critique, but we, you know, when, you know, it takes, as you say at the beginning,

you know, a lot of effort to, you know, dedicate your life, right? To a sport, to a solution in the sport.

And at least my sentiment, being out there and trying to sell is that we were always getting the

borscht, right? And, and obviously it's a bias approach in the terms of, you know, it's part of

building a company, but we felt that it was hard to get support from stakeholders, right? And you

know who they are, right? Big organ is it, we're always competing against them. And we're just

doing R&D for the industry, right? And, and we're, and we always, not to have to be

watching our backs, but, you know, the door was shut on a lot one. We're just trying to help

the industry, right? So I think that ethos needs to change, right? Whether it be our competitors,

right? And that's why we never speak ill of our competitors, right? We, we love what they're doing,

right? And, and that's how, how the whole industry should wake up. So I like your introduction

to the beginning of starting with that, because that's kind of why we exist for sure in that case.

And, and we tend to forget that this is, it's a hobby. We need to have fun.

That would be the point. So wait a minute. What you're telling me is your, your system is better

than the USDA's free tennis management saw? How could that possibly be? I've been in, I've been in

insane, I've been in insane, I've been in insane names. But, you know, it's, uh, well, Andreas, I appreciate

your time. You got anything else? Got anything exciting coming up? Got any, any scoop? Anything you

want to share? Or should we? No, so look, I would, my message for everyone is come, take us out.

If you haven't heard of us, you know, there's, um, you know, look, look us around your local clubs.

Maybe we got a club around there. If not, or, you know, our website is playbypoint.com,

download our app and kind of book a demo, right? And, and just learn why, right? So no commitment.

And you'll see that, you know, why clubs that work with us are really making a difference there

at the cutting edge of future of racket sports, right? I'll, I'll say it that way.

[Music]

Well, there you have it. We want to thank Rejovenate.com for use of the studio. And be sure to hit that

follow button. For more tennis related content, you can go to Atlanta tennispodcast.com. And while

you're there, check out our calendar of tennis events, the best deals on technic fiber products,

tennis apparel, and more. If you're a coach, director of any racket sports, or just someone who

wants to utilize our online shop, contact us about setting up your own shop collection to offer your

branded merchandise to the Atlanta tennis world. And with that, we're out. See you next time.

[Music]

[нойne's entrant voice]