BIZZ BUZZ
Paddletek—
Innovation
That Sells
Itself
THE DRIVE TO SOLVE
PROBLEMS FOR
PLAYERS AND NOT JUST
FEED THE BOTTOM
LINE HAS BEEN THE
KEY TO PADDLETEK’S
SUCCESS SINCE
THE BEGINNING.
Curtis Smith’s introduction to
pickleball was a reluctant one. An
advertising and marketing executive
who worked for a large department
store, he’d never played the game that
his brother, Cody, was so passionate
about. But, like many family business
stories, when one family member has
an overwhelming drive, the others
tend to follow.
“Cody kept asking me to work with
him, and I said no because I had no
idea what pickleball was, and it wasn’t
my primary business,” Curtis explains.
“Then, Cody needed help making 60
paddles for a coffee demo event, and
he couldn’t go because of his day job,
66
so I helped him out. I thought maybe
30 people would show up.” Curtis
never made it to his vendor’s table that
day. “There were more than 200 people
at the event. I was swarmed with
people pulling paddles out of the boxes
for two hours,” he says. “I went home
and told Cody that if he gave me half
the company, I’d run it.”
Paddletek’s polymer paddle was
revolutionary at the time. Now
used by 80 percent of the market,
polymer designs were the solution to
a problem pickleball players had been
facing for years—finding a durable
paddle that responded to the needs
of the player. “It changed the sport.
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Old Nomex paddles wore out and
aluminum paddles dented over time,”
Curtis recalls. “Polymer paddles were
intuitive. They change in response to
the situation. They were meant for
pickleball.”
Since those early days, Paddletek
has remained committed to its
designs. Where some companies focus
on trends and “latest and greatest,”
Paddletek is focused on durability
and the needs of the player. “Rather
than us change our recipe, we want to
simplify the message for consumers,”
Curtis says. “We could make a paddle
an ounce lighter, but when you change
the weight by more than half an ounce,