On this week’s episode of the Area of interest Pursuits podcast, Ben Borton and I talk about how PodPlay grew from working sports activities venues right into a software program and {hardware} firm serving a whole lot of places. Ben shares how issues inside PingPod led the crew to construct instruments for reservations, entry, video, funds, and venue operations. These inner options quickly attracted curiosity from different operators dealing with related challenges.
The dialog then strikes into the expansion strategies that adopted, together with founder-led gross sales, natural search, buyer referrals, and video distribution partnerships. Ben additionally explains why PodPlay retains publishing opinionated content material whilst AI-generated search solutions change how prospects uncover and consider software program.
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Turning an Working Drawback Right into a Software program Firm
Ben’s entrepreneurial background stretches again roughly 20 years, when he ran a enterprise capital pool that seeded startup hedge funds. He later joined a kind of corporations as a companion and helped develop it to a number of hundred million {dollars} in belongings.
That work finally led Ben and his longtime enterprise companion, Max Kogler, towards companies the place they felt a stronger connection to the top product. Max later based PingPod, a community of autonomous desk tennis golf equipment, and Ben grew to become its first exterior investor.
PingPod opened its first New York Metropolis location in February 2020. One month later, COVID closures compelled it to close its doorways.
The enterprise had a number of options that unexpectedly made it well-suited to reopen throughout the pandemic. Contactless entry, no staff on website, socially distanced exercise, and detailed monitoring of who entered every location helped PingPod reopen in Could 2020, effectively earlier than many different leisure companies.
- PingPod finally grew to twenty places.
- Its golf equipment may function 24 hours with out counting on meals or alcohol income.
- Know-how lowered the labor burden that usually makes smaller sports activities amenities troublesome to function.
- The crew constructed its personal programs as a result of appropriate off-the-shelf software program existed.
As PingPod grew, the interior expertise grew to become extra refined. Then operators in pickleball and different sports activities started asking whether or not they may use the identical system.
These market requests led the crew to create PodPlay as a separate enterprise. Ben joined as a co-founder in 2022, and PodPlay formally launched as a completely owned subsidiary of PingPod in the summertime of 2023.
Increasing the Product Past Courtroom Reservations
PodPlay is now a platform for managing trendy sports activities venues. Its software program covers most of the capabilities an operator would count on, together with courtroom reservations, memberships, occasions, funds, and training. The corporate has grown to 290 places signed up on the platform, serving greater than 1.8 million finish clients.
The product’s extra distinctive aspect comes from its {hardware}. Greater than 60% of PodPlay clients use hardware-enabled tiers that may embrace courtroom displays, iPads, replay cameras, and automatic entry programs.
- Gamers can seize prompt video replays throughout a recreation.
- Longer recordings can cowl a complete match.
- Newer options add AI evaluation to video footage.
- Screens can operate as digital scoreboards.
- Some venues use built-in door entry and safety cameras to function autonomously.
PodPlay now has greater than 60 places working with autonomous options. These amenities span pickleball, billiards, golf simulators, and different actions.
Ben sees automation as greater than a approach to scale back staffing prices. It lets membership homeowners put extra sources into group occasions, buyer relationships, and programming as a substitute of staffing a entrance desk throughout each open hour.
It will possibly additionally make low-traffic durations extra economical. A membership can stay accessible early within the morning or late at night time with out including the total labor expense that historically comes with these hours.
Utilizing Founder-Led Gross sales to Construct Early Belief
When PodPlay entered the market, it was competing in opposition to firms that had been round seven or eight years longer. That created a credibility hole {that a} polished web site or a gross sales rent alone couldn’t clear up.
Ben’s reply was founder-led gross sales. A prospect contemplating software program from a younger firm could have questions on reliability, assist, options, and the corporate’s future. Listening to straight from a founder who has operated 20 sports activities venues creates a really completely different dialog from listening to a scripted pitch.
- Ben may discuss operator-to-operator with potential clients.
- Early clients have been invited to assist form the product’s course.
- Direct gross sales conversations doubled as a supply of product suggestions.
- PodPlay centered closely on making its first clients seen and referenceable.
The primary 10 clients have been particularly necessary as a result of sports activities venue software program carries geographic social proof. Somebody opening a pickleball facility is probably going to have a look at what profitable golf equipment close by are utilizing.
CityPickle grew to become one in every of PodPlay’s earliest main reference clients. The corporate operates extremely seen pickleball places in New York Metropolis, together with courts at Central Park, giving PodPlay a recognizable buyer that different operators may see utilizing the platform.
Founder involvement additionally gave Ben direct publicity to objections and have requests. That info may circulate again into the product a lot quicker than if a number of organizational layers separated gross sales and product growth.
Measuring Development By means of Gross sales Effectivity
PodPlay intentionally spent extra closely on analysis and growth whereas preserving gross sales and advertising prices comparatively lean. Ben tracks that effectivity by evaluating every greenback spent on gross sales and advertising with the recurring income it produces.
At sure factors, PodPlay generated as a lot as $4 in recurring income for each $1 spent on gross sales and advertising. As the corporate has grown, its goal has moved nearer to $2 for each $1 spent.
Ben contrasted that with public SaaS firms the place the determine could be round $0.50 in recurring income for each $1 spent. His level wasn’t that each firm ought to copy PodPlay’s spending mannequin, however somewhat that low-cost acquisition channels gave the corporate room to take a position extra aggressively within the product itself.
A number of channels contributed to that effectivity:
- Referrals carried little direct acquisition price.
- Natural content material continued attracting prospects after publication.
- Product utilization created materials to distribute on social media.
- Early clients generated credibility for later gross sales conversations.
That method is very related for smaller firms competing with established manufacturers. When a enterprise can’t spend greater than its rivals, it may well search for channels the place helpful work retains producing worth lengthy after the preliminary effort.
Turning Buyer Video Right into a Distribution System
Video is the place PodPlay’s product and advertising technique join. Gamers already need to save memorable factors, humorous moments, and nice photographs that historically required putting a telephone close by, asking somebody to document, or establishing a tripod.
PodPlay eliminated a lot of that effort. The system already is aware of who reserved the courtroom, and the cameras are already recording, so the participant can seize a replay with out making a separate account or interrupting the sport.
The corporate then requested a second query: what occurs to all these clips after they’re created? PodPlay started turning particular person buyer clips into recurring media sequence. It created a “Better of Pickleball” format, then started supplying footage to bigger pickleball media manufacturers with far higher distribution.
- PodPlay partnered with The Dink on its ClipTHAT sequence.
- It partnered with The Kitchen Pickleball on High 10 Beginner Pickleball Highlights.
- It labored with DUPR on weekly highlights and bloopers.
- Month-to-month programming now contains each high performs and bloopers.
These relationships have produced vital attain. PodPlay says replay-related content material has generated greater than 24 million views. Six million of these views got here throughout Q2 alone. On the time of recording, PodPlay had already generated one other six million views in Q3 despite the fact that the quarter was solely round midway full.
Making Content material Submission A part of the Product
Because the variety of captured movies grew, PodPlay confronted a brand new downside: sorting by way of the footage. The corporate has now served greater than two million replays. Manually asking golf equipment to submit their greatest footage grew to become troublesome as that library expanded.
PodPlay responded by including a “Go Viral” characteristic on to the product. Gamers can submit a clip for social distribution, add their social deal with, approve publication, and even counsel a hook. That single change had a serious impact:
- Submissions elevated by greater than 10 instances.
- Ben estimates round 90% of the submitted clips are prime quality.
- PodPlay now receives extra usable footage than it has distribution channels for.
- Beginner gamers get an opportunity to seem alongside content material from main pickleball media firms.
This creates an fascinating distribution benefit for PodPlay. The corporate can present giant publishers with a steady provide of beginner pickleball footage that might be arduous for these publishers to collect on their very own.
Ben’s broader lesson is to search out one thing your organization can present to a companion with higher attain. If that contribution is helpful sufficient, a smaller firm can acquire entry to distribution it may by no means reproduce economically by itself.
Constructing Search Content material Round Real Experience
Video is just one aspect of PodPlay’s content material technique. The corporate has additionally invested closely in written sources designed to draw folks researching the best way to construct and function sports activities amenities.
One in all its most profitable items is a information to making a pickleball enterprise. Ben and his crew noticed that search outcomes have been full of broad recommendation whereas operators needed numbers, frameworks, and particular working info.
PodPlay had a bonus as a result of its crew had already operated 20 places. The information may draw from direct working expertise somewhat than summarizing generic enterprise recommendation.
- PodPlay first printed the information in 2024.
- The corporate has up to date it in 2025 and 2026.
- It receives roughly 8.6 instances the site visitors of PodPlay’s subsequent most-viewed piece, by one comparability Ben cited.
- One other comparability put its site visitors at about 10.5 instances the subsequent article.
PodPlay has by no means spent cash on paid search, in response to Ben. The corporate made an early option to concentrate on natural materials that might earn search visibility by way of usefulness and authority.
That guess can be carrying into AI-generated search outcomes. Ben mentioned PodPlay’s information now seems regularly in Google’s AI Overview for searches associated to pickleball enterprise planning.
Utilizing Content material to Pre-Promote Prospects
Search site visitors issues to PodPlay as a result of its principal conversion occasion is a booked demo. As soon as a prospect books one, the corporate converts roughly 40% of these demos into clients.
Ben attributes a part of that unusually excessive conversion charge to what occurs earlier than the gross sales name. Prospects can spend time studying articles, watching movies, studying concerning the product, and seeing PodPlay clients utilizing it earlier than they ever converse with the corporate.
Ben calls this the “rabbit gap take a look at.” If somebody turns into focused on an organization and begins researching it deeply, is there sufficient high-quality materials to maintain them studying? PodPlay has deliberately created that depth by way of:
- Detailed business guides
- Founder commentary on LinkedIn
- Product movies and replay footage
- Buyer examples
- Clear opinions about how sports activities venues ought to function
Ben recurrently hears prospects reference PodPlay materials throughout demos. Some even repeat frameworks from the corporate’s articles again to him, which alerts that a lot of the training course of has already occurred.
That modifications the position of a gross sales dialog. As an alternative of introducing the corporate from scratch, the decision can begin with a prospect who already has context and a cause to have an interest.
Adapting Written Content material for AI Discovery
The rise of AI-generated solutions has not satisfied Ben to desert written search content material. Google search stays PodPlay’s primary supply of demo discovery, whereas AI search has turn out to be a rising class.
He believes AI makes common content material simpler to supply, creating rather more competitors within the center. The chance shifts towards work with unique information, clear opinions, direct expertise, and knowledge generic summaries can’t simply reproduce.
That favors firms with real topic experience. PodPlay can write about working sports activities venues from the attitude of a crew that has run them, bought expertise to a whole lot of places, and picked up information throughout a big buyer base.
The technique going ahead is not centered on producing the best doable quantity of articles. It is centered on publishing materials price citing, sharing, and researching in depth.
Scaling Past Founder-Led Gross sales
Founder-led gross sales helped PodPlay attain its early stage, but Ben finally hit a transparent constraint: his calendar.
Till the corporate raised a Sequence A in October 2025, gross sales remained closely founder-driven. PodPlay had carried out no outbound gross sales and spent little time at conferences, relying totally on inbound curiosity, content material, referrals, and phrase of mouth.
After the funding spherical, Ben started handing extra gross sales accountability to Ryan Weinbach. Ryan introduced deep ties to the pickleball business, serving to PodPlay protect the peer-to-peer really feel that made Ben’s early conversations efficient. The corporate has since added one other salesperson with an analogous background:
- She had been a PodPlay buyer.
- She operates a pickleball facility.
- Her skilled background contains SaaS gross sales.
- She approached PodPlay about becoming a member of the crew.
That shift has given Ben extra time to work on content material whereas preserving gross sales carefully linked to the shopper’s business. He has additionally used Claude extensively to increase his potential to analysis, manage concepts, and produce work that beforehand took much more time.
Remaining Ideas
PodPlay’s story exhibits how a distinct segment enterprise can develop from an issue the founders skilled firsthand. The crew operated venues, constructed expertise for its personal wants, and solely later realized different operators needed the identical instruments. That sequence gave PodPlay product perception, credibility, and buyer suggestions earlier than it grew to become a standalone software program firm.
Since then, progress has come from founder-led gross sales, seen clients, helpful search content material, and video that clients need to share. With 290 signed places, greater than 1.8 million finish clients, over two million replays, and 24 million replay-related views, PodPlay exhibits how product high quality, proof, and distribution can compound over time.
