 Welcome to start up the storefront presented by Aura Bora All right, welcome back to the podcast and we're back with Swapno from Swing Vision. Thanks for coming back Yeah, thank you for having a nice exciting Gradulation to just close six million dollars During the probably some of the worst financial crisis time ever. So congrats on doing that. Yeah. Thank you Yeah, it's a definitely a tough time. How's the business doing? What's going on? What can you tell us? Yeah, it's doing well I mean we've just been continued to iterate on the tennis product as you know and just making it more accurate getting more into Official line-calling at the USTA level now, which is really exciting. So we have some pilots planned for later this year Hopefully that's awesome like during tournament play. Yeah, exactly for like a junior tournament. So that's gonna be our first pilot We're gonna try to do that a junior event and have it all officiated with swing vision So like no umpire is nothing players just go up to an iPad and like hit a challenge button And that's we should tell people why this is a thing and so and so in the juniors division in tennis All the juniors cheat pretty pretty bad It turns out and so what your app is gonna do is give people a window into being able to do line calls And be correct about those. Yeah, I mean well It's crazy like it's not even juniors even going all the way to adults even division one college tennis is like called by the players It's insane. There's no wrap or anything. Yeah, there's just cheating is rampant and then even if you aren't cheating It's just really hard to like call the ball accurately You know, it's not like a basketball where you have a ref there for you Even there are those issues, but you know at least this is gonna be like much worse if you just the players doing it So it's really an issue that affects all the sport juniors probably where it's the worst And that's where like people tend to drop out of the sport because it's just like it gets so messy You have like parents coming on arguing about calls and stuff So that's where we wanted to start But we do want to move it up to college tennis eventually and then even adult week tennis It's an issue kind of everywhere. It is an issue everywhere. Let's give people a window So if you didn't listen to the episode, which was almost like a little over a year ago now Swing vision is basically an app that every tennis player should have Part of their trying to get better records them gives them data on their forehands backhands miles per hour on serves Lion calling now and you can have singles or doubles play and it tracks all of your data, which is great And you guys want to design a word again. That's right. Well, this is the first time Yeah, we went and designed a word from Apple so they give that to six apps every year So this year is like do a lingo and like a few other companies, but yeah We were one of them so that was really cool and you get featured during the DWC is that how that works It's a bit of both so you get featured during DWC But you also get this award this like nice like shiny little cube called the apple like design award Yeah, and just a lot of a lot of like press obviously talked about us too around that time too So it was cool. But yeah, it's definitely like one of the hardest recognitions. I think to get from Apple So it's always like every app developer's dream. So that was cool. Congrats on that when you guys win the award What do you see if anything as it relates to like an uptick because obviously it's a lot of marketing Yeah, it's a good amount of press but specifically from Apple Do you guys see a big spike in in downloads or engagement? Definitely because they do promote us on their website. They have like a dedicated section about the winners They promote us on the app store as well for about a week or so after that So definitely I think the week or two after the word happened It was probably like a 3x spike in daily downloads. It was a lot. It was quite significant actually So yeah, I mean obviously it doesn't last forever, but like for that time window It's pretty good and June was basically our best month this year still we haven't beaten it yet actually well congratulations And so then you're launching in a pickleball now. Yes, give us a window into this. Yeah So this is I mean, you know with swing vision We've built this amazing solution for tennis and we want to bring it to more sports And it kind of made sense as the natural next sport to do the one that's the fastest growing one in the US And also very similar to tennis so Pickleball is kind of like the you know younger sibling there, but quickly growing so we're gonna build the exact same experience It's all gonna be within the same app So kind of like a Strava where you can just choose what sport you're playing Okay, okay, or like dueling go re choose what language you're learning It's gonna be the same thing so you can just choose tennis or pickleball and you have all the same experience You're gonna get the line calling and get all the stats the highlights. Is it easier because it's a smaller core Or is it more difficult because it's a smaller core? Yeah, that's a good point So it is certainly easier from a line calling perspective because the ball is bigger It's moving slower at the court is smaller But then some of the stats are a little bit harder to track because like you do have a lot of players like covering The ball sometimes so even things like speed might be a little bit harder potentially You know with calculating the speed it's really important to know exactly when the ball hit the racket That's actually hard to do because you can't see through the paddle the paddle is not transparent Whereas tennis strings you can see through it So there's there's some ambiguity from behind exactly when it's happening So small little things like that actually do make it a little bit complicated But in terms of the ball bouncing we see that pretty well So it'll be interesting to see how that develops and in terms of the rollout like I know obviously tennis people are Generally obsessed with trying to get better. Yeah in pickleball We could say, you know, we can make the argument people just want to play then they want to have fun Yeah, it's a little bit less a little bit more chill. Let's say for sure Are you seeing what are you seeing in terms of rolling it out in terms of getting people? Analytically focused I guess about their pickleball game. Yeah, I mean honestly It seems like people are really intense about it obviously It's it's grown so quickly because of how easy it is to start playing But like people get really intense about it They really want to improve the line calling is a big issue So I think that's gonna be a big pinpoint that we're gonna be solving there And as we saw with tennis actually like the most popular feature for swing engine has actually been like the highlights like being able to create video of your Match shared on your story or whatever that is I think that's gonna be a part that really appeals to this more casual audience on the pickleball side Yeah, it's gonna be exciting and it's the hard part where they put it in terms of the camera because they have to probably place it Behind them we're on a tennis court. You're usually locked into a fenced-in box A rectangle and so in that case you can just put it on the fence Is that harder because it's kind of floating on a tripod? I assume. Yeah, it could be a little bit harder The good thing is there's a lot more dedicated courts being built now So if it's like a dedicated pickleball court They typically have some fencing behind it even the indoor ones are already kind of planning for that But you do have still the situation of like a pickleball court That's like made on top of a tennis court and so in those situations You won't necessarily have like the best area to set up your phone And so you'd maybe have to use a tripod for those cases But you can do it either way it's gonna end up being roughly the same height because like even when there is a fence Behind a pickleball court, it's not that high. Yeah, so it'll be pretty similar But we're designed it to work with kind of both both ways whether it's a tripod or or just on top of the fence And are you like trying to partner with any of these new pickleball teams organizations leagues? I mean it feels like there's a new one every day. Yeah It's it's kind of crazy how fast the sport is changing and like the rules seem to be changing as well But we are talking to kind of like MLP PPA those kind of bigger organizations as well because even the pro pickleball organizations They do also have the amateur events as well like they just do this all-out experience where if you go to a pro pickleball event They also have simultaneously like an amateur tournament happening at the same time at the same facility So it's just kind of everybody goes there to both watch and play So we're trying to partner with them both on the amateur side and the pro side because they don't have anything like Hawkeye For example at the pro space So I think we have like the entire sport that we could go after there which is kind of interesting So that that makes a little bit different from tennis Have you spoken to people like chicken chicken and what is it chicken and pickle or some of these more like recreational real estate development plays There's one called crush it. I don't know if you've seen it They have a location and it's really tech forward in the sense of like Everything's automated so the break you have a bracelet to get beer things like that And so it's a very like tech first approach to the Let's call it a more seamless less human, you know, there's no waiter really It's just like you just tap tap your thing your bracelet get a beer blah blah blah. Oh, that's super cool Yeah, I mean we haven't spoken to a lot of those guys yet, but it seems like that'd be a natural integration too I think for those type of companies It's probably better where it's like a fixed solution like the cameras just permanently there probably and you just come in and like Scan a QR code or something like that's probably where the solution will go Which is something we do want to build eventually but right now still more focus I'd say on the consumer side So kind of just like direct to consumer Individuals download the app and set it up themselves when you first started the company was pickleball a thing I mean technically it's been around for a long time But it but it certainly wasn't like spreading as quickly as it is today I think the pandemic is really where we saw it like really pick up and you know We launched just before that hit like late 2019. So yeah, this wasn't even a market like certainly wasn't a market We were considering at the time We were thinking like maybe we'd do paddle because that's been growing really quickly in Europe But this just sprung out of kind of nowhere essentially And now it's a better market for us than paddle right now because we're still focused on the US So it's actually great. When did you guys set out to raise your your a-round? I mean it was actually towards the end of last year, you know kind of started having some conversations definitely it was I think a longer process than Most series as would have been Definitely saw that it seemed like investors were just taking a lot more time with making decisions being a lot more cautious Digging a lot more into like the data room and all that stuff So just going through a deeper diligence process given how crazy things were in 2021 where people were just like investing super quickly And you know, he's like ridiculous valuations like hundred X valuation multiples and most crazy stuff, right? Which is not sustainable So I definitely saw a different change in the market there But yeah, so it was a lengthy process and we did close it like a bit earlier this year But you know announcing it now, but yeah, I think it was definitely challenging I would say but it did help that we had kind of good traction already We had the recognition from Apple which helps but thing as a business too were like growing quite well at that time And so all that kind of was in our favor Like a steady ARR things are moving well in that scenario. Yeah. Yeah, things have been going well there And you know, it'll be exciting to see like how that changes with pickleball It seems like it's gonna be an inflection point and sort of like change the slope of the curve So that's really exciting. Do you price it different? We aren't planning to right now It's gonna be the same subscription price and you can just you know The way we do our subscription It's based on like how much you can record per month And so it's just kind of up to you like if you want to do that hundred percent pickleball Or do like half pickleball have tennis like whatever you do that's up to you But we're gonna have it the same pricing And it just gives you access to like all the features of the app But it's obviously capped at how much you can record because that costs us money to store your videos Sure And how do you go about getting like these these Lindsay Davenport's of the world some of these big-name investors that are obviously Part of the sport and so just having them associated Helps you move your mission along a lot faster for sure. Yeah I mean with Lindsay in particular it was nice because Andy Roddick is really good friends with her and Andy Roddick was one Of our first investors and so that's we're having someone like that early on as like a champion for you Andy's a good strategic investor for you. Yeah, I would say so I mean, he's he's definitely brought on a lot of additional investors to the team and I think there's a Forbes article that's what she said He's like when Andy talks I listen right and like I think that's what most the tennis community probably shares that sentiment You know, he's the last like man to win a Grand Slam in the US side So I think like people definitely listen to him So, you know that helps a lot and then Lindsay with her it was cool because he had already talked to her about it Maybe like a year to go actually and her son had started using it So her son just got recruited by TCU, which is pretty cool and he's like only like a sophomore So he still has like two years of high school, but he's really good He plays internationally He goes to like New Zealand all around the world and he's been using swing vision to record his matches So she kind of was already sort of personally using it with her son Then you have that, you know, Andy's talking praise about it and then the company's been doing well So it was kind of like a natural, you know investment for her. But yeah, we're super excited to have her I mean, she's such a legend three times slam winner and everything It's crazy and She's been super supportive and she's actually now gonna be the captain of the Davis Cup team later this year for the US So she said she might try to use swing vision with some of their training that they're gonna do with the pros So I think it's gonna be cool because she's still very actively involved with the pro side Also actively involved in the junior side with her son playing So I think that yeah, she's just an excellent add-on to the team and like awesome. We'll see where it goes I remember last time we met we were just riffing on this idea of like There's so much of an opportunity when it comes to media and tennis where it's like there's really no I mean that the US Open was probably a good example of that Actually every tournament where it's like some things are on ESPN some things are on the tennis channel And if you don't have basically three some ones on spectrum, and so you don't have like three Versions of some cable outlet. You don't get to watch all the matches Do you still see a part of that for the future of swing vision where you could play? Maybe in junior tournaments at the beginning or some sort of streaming and video game fine twitch-ifying Tennis sure hundred percent. I mean yeah that so professional tennis is like super broken very fragmented like you said there was even a Russian player Daniel Medvedev who said like he was just watching it on like a torrent Website like or like a pirated website because like he couldn't even get it on his hotel room like literally at the US Open He couldn't get it's insane. So yeah, it's it's really bad We did launch live streaming actually with a few colleges this year So it's been very early But some colleges have started streaming their matches with swing vision and that is the long-term goal there is to become like a twitch Like you're saying where do they stream it they just it's right now It just streams within the swing vision platform So like on our website you could watch it But eventually will allow you to kind of you know push it out to whatever you want put it on YouTube put it on Instagram whatever you want so that's kind of the long-term goal. That's part of that you raise this capital in the A Around and you're trying to build out this Platform yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think we want to you know Definitely improve on the officiating side and become kind of like the way that you get your line calls But then at the same time we want to also capture all the content that we're doing too You know that you're playing on the court And so that's part of the goal is that like every match should be recorded should be officiated But also should be streams by swing vision and you know that's gonna start probably at the college level And then maybe the junior will come next there's a big demand We're already seeing on the junior side a lot of parents can't go to these matches with their kids And so you know the ability to watch that remotely is huge for them And so you could imagine it starts to become like a swing TV almost where you can watch like any level of the sport Which I think it's really exciting and who knows maybe someday We will go into the pro space to and help just like you know fire. Yes. Yeah, it seems natural, right? So we'll see maybe we'll even do officiating in the pros someday. I mean, it's All kinds of things are possible. Who knows yeah, especially as hardware develops and all a lot of the coaches are So using you Brad Gilbert doesn't use you, but we should get them to yeah We got to get Brad Gilbert to start using it with Coco for sure But yeah, we have some some pro coaches using it You know of some players, but it still hasn't spread in the pro market quite yet But certainly the college market it's done really well, you know, we have like a hundred teams now That are because it's really part of their program and how they do things and is adding instruction part of at all on the Road map or is that just entirely too difficult in terms of like you see you can watch a certain thing and maybe say Oh, this movement wasn't correct. Yeah I think long-term we can start providing some of that hard right advice It's certainly really hard some of its objective Some of it's just hard to see from the angle that we're capturing it But again there like you could imagine as AI gets better We might be able to generate some of that feedback automatically The first step of that is actually to just pair you with a human coach So that's something we're gonna release next year is a remote coaching platform And so you could like film a match go to sleep wake up the next morning Like you already have feedback from a coach from like somewhere else in the world potentially like a really top coach Wow That's that's what we're trying to get to and how do you broker that how what's the well We're gonna have to build like a coaching marketplace essentially Yeah, these like verified coaches, you know like ITF certified or us to us PTA, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah That's really what we're gonna try to get it. You can put me on there as like a bad coach Yeah, yeah, it was free You can choose your tier of service, but I think that's basically the plan here's my advice quit tennis that Just don't say that That's funny. That's really interesting. That's really smart. Yeah, yeah, probably difficult to do Yeah, definitely difficult to do but the good thing is like, you know companies have done it before It's just another sort of like gig economy type of product I mean UTR kind of does it in the sense of like they try to pair you with someone of a certain UTR And so this is a pairing of a coach. Yeah, exactly So it's it's similar but you know that we have we have all this content Like we have all this match matches being recorded every day And so it's like it's all just up there for grabs So when is the swing vision tournament? When do we start to see a tournament that happens? You know around like December in that gap between the Australian open. Oh, I know. Yeah, we got to do that I mean the line calling has got to get better But once it does and we can we can build out everything in terms of like actually streaming it ourselves You know doing the line calls generating all the stats maybe even generating the commentary automatically who knows How do you do that? Well, I mean now yeah, yeah with language models. It's it's it's it's pretty easy now. Yeah, like who would you have to like Morgan Freeman? Commentating tennis. Yeah, I mean you could choose whatever suburb you want, right? I mean, I mean you could get it to the point where like we'll just generate that's funny Yeah, the viewer can decide like who you want to say it like do you want Mackinac or do you want like Morgan Freeman? Like yeah, exactly like a GPS I know like Roger Federer is doing GPS on like Weyma or whatever it is our ways Yeah, so, you know, it's just like you choose your character It's gonna be a crazy world with like the future of AI, but I could see us doing that and then that would be a really cool tournament We just got to get some top players in it Yeah, any desire to do sponsorships of any kind for players is that pencil for you guys? Definitely probably not with this round That's probably another another funding round away, but I think that's gonna have to be the long-term goal We've seen other companies like whoop do a really good job of that working with you know professional athletes So I think if we can get it into their routine and they're actually just using it organically Then that's probably a natural, you know avenue there to then take that up to a sponsorship level And that's you know, maybe part of what we try to do with Lindsay's help You know giving the fact that she's like actually working with the pros directly It would seem simple to put like a the logo on a hat or swing vision on a hat Yeah, and you're not competing obviously with the likes of a Nike. Yeah, or anyone in the game. Definitely. Yeah, it's expensive But yeah, it is expensive. You got to catch them early. Yeah, exactly You got to catch them early and you know, ideally they're using it too So they're actually like providing content for you as well, you know And it's it's more organic of a use case and then it's more convincing I guess to potential customers, right? So we want to try to try to make it authentic, but well, I think we'll get there Do you work with the Apple team at all on doing simple things like battery optimization? Or is there like a feedback loop as it relates to just capturing video? But you know your phone not overheating. Is there any I don't know Do they there is definitely something there is some back-and-forth we have with them on that and I wouldn't say we have Like direct access to the engineers, but we definitely have somebody there that we can let them know if there's any issues that arise And like if we need to get into those conversations We can and thankfully like it's been really great on the Apple platform, but on the Google side It's been a little bit more of a struggle But we haven't working directly with Google engineers on it and we've been trying to bring it to Android But the performance just isn't there quite yet. Why what's the what's missing on the Google side, honestly So most of the chips just haven't been able to process the video at the frame rate that we need So we're processing video like 60 frames per second Which is necessary to like see the ball accurately and so most Android devices will actually overheat if you do that So like the latest pixel from last year for example in like 10 minutes I'll just overheat and that that's not enough for a tennis match And so you know the new pixel just came out the 7 so we're gonna try it out Hopefully, you know, it's better and then on the Samsung side like they don't even let us access the video at 60 frames per second They just cap out at 30 which is really weird So like they don't even let third so it's not a sensor thing It's not a sensor thing because we're just using cameras and I mean Android have great cameras It's really just more the AI processing itself the hardware the chips That's what the limitation is and we've literally worked with the Google engineers and like half the time the response will be like Hey, can you guys just make this work at 30? And I'm just like no like you physically cannot see the ball bounce when it's like 30 frames per second Like we have to do 60 I guess that makes your life simple in some way because then you just put all your eggs into Apple and that seems to be working and that partnership is yeah It's been working well so far and honestly like a lot of Android customers will just buy an iPhone just for swing vision Like it happens all the time, but I think you know long term We need to be an Android and it's gonna happen sooner later, but I think it's just it's kind of out our hands I'd say it feels very much like an investor question. It's like, okay How are you doing on both platforms? Yeah, and if yeah, and on one side you're limited. Yeah for sure I mean, I think it's good and bad good and bad because investors like that it narrows our focus Totally and ultimately like most the revenue is gonna come from the Apple side anyway Because that's just where most subscription revenue comes from for any business But I think at the same time you don't want to be dependent on one platform, right? So, you know, it's definitely good to do there's a growth opportunity. I guess is the way to simplify that right? That's probably how you spin it in the pitch conversation. Yeah, it's like hey We haven't even done Android yet. We still got that in the back pocket, right? So yeah, so when you come back next year So a year from now when we're chatting 2024 q3 q4. Oh man. What does it look like? I mean, I think we'll be in three sports. So three yeah, or what would be yeah paddle Yeah, or peddle. I'm not sure exactly the right way to say it But I played that for the first time actually in South Africa randomly this summer, but that's a really cool sport You know, it's like tennis but squash combined and very athletic. So that's the fastest growing sport in the world It's like shooting and growing it faster than pickleball. It's just taken over Europe There's like more pals paddle courts than tennis courts in Spain, for example It's just insane like the growth and then all the all throughout Latin America. It's like all paddle now So that's really where we see a huge opportunity I think Android needs to come for that but you know crossing my fingers. We're an Android by that time next year as well We'll be in paddle and there'll be some USDA events. Hopefully being officiated by swing vision as well Those would be like three great outcomes I think for us from your from now the paddle is interesting when you think about it because it's like because of the box You could almost have a perfect spot for the phone. Yes, right. That's right. And it's like it's like completely integrated Yeah, you can even have a charger there in theory. Yeah, you can have a charger or put like solar panels if it's outdoor, right? So I feel like there's definitely opportunity there to just do like a permanent solution. So yeah, that's that's super exciting It's interesting when I see these things. So I was in like to loom and to loom There's like a track of soccer fields obviously to tennis courts and then there was a peddle court I was like that's that seems like a lot of infrastructure to be to be built for this thing, but Yeah, it's public recreation. Yeah, that's surprising I mean, especially even like with the glass wall as it seems really expensive But I think it's like very low maintenance and the surface that uses not cement like like a hard court So that also doesn't need to be like repaved every, you know, few years or whatever So I think some of that makes the economics work for it probably But yeah, it's interesting like it's actually started in Mexico and like it just like spread throughout the world But it's very interesting So if you were on the board of a tennis club and you had to make a decision to do pickleball or Fidel What would you do? Oh man? Oh, that's a good one It's a real it's a real question right now. It's like obviously the explosion of pickleball is your own Your company has shifted or has taken it as an initiative. Yeah, where do you bet on if we're looking for 10 years from now? That's a good point. Yeah, it's hard to say like I would I would feel like peddle might even overtake pickleball in the long term I think you're right. That's probably my gut feel just given how much is it the same size That was wider. It's it's wider. It's like in between a pickleball court and tennis court in terms of size It's kind of like medium So if you consider tennis court large, yeah, that's that's kind of where it is So pickleball is still the best short term investment wise and in real estate wise too You're gonna be able to put like four in the space of a tennis court So that's probably where you'd want to go short term But if you're thinking 10 years if you're thinking in like decades then like paddle Sorry is actually the one that's that's going to be probably the one you want to go for I think especially the fact that It's overtaken tennis already in a country like Spain That's massive because Spain is historically like one of the best countries for tennis like little Raphael Nadal and now Carlos Agra is like it's like the best country for tennis in the world And they already have more paddle and yes pickleball is great, but it hasn't overtaken tennis yet It's still far behind tennis so like that rate of growth which also probably happened mostly through the pandemic But a little bit before that is very impressive to me And I think that's really where it will go eventually. So that's where you're gonna go next year But that's where we're gonna go next. I gotta figure out it says it tells a paddle. I've heard both I've heard both. I've heard Europeans say both. I've heard Spanish people say both. So I'm like really confused Yeah, yeah, that's why that's why people say that's probably the only correct way to say it actually Yeah, that makes a lot more sense actually they're saying by the Americans like oh Padel and it's like no Yeah, okay, that makes perfect sense. And how much is a subscription people don't know still yeah, so it's 149 a year It's basically like, you know, $12.50 a month. So most people just buy the annual because it's just you're gonna say Yeah, you can buy it monthly for 25 a month But like I think it just just got the annual and now the annual actually gets you like a free swing stick as well Which is what you used to set up your phone. So, you know, that's like the easiest way to set it up And what are you seeing on the on the retention side? So you're one more year in from last year What are you starting to see on that? Yeah, definitely seeing pretty good improvement in retention there You know, we'd like to be kind of at the 80 percent level. We're not quite there yet But certainly has improved from like a year ago. I think we were like annual retention was like just short of like 50 So, you know, I think now we're like in the us like north of 60 So we're kind of like, you know, getting up towards 80 until your growth is exceeding essentially the churn Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I would imagine. Yeah, the growth is definitely exceeding the churn So we're like continuing to grow obviously it's hard to like continue to maintain the same like percentage growth a month every month That's like the challenge that we're running into now You know, how do we like get out of like linear growth and like continue to be exponential go on chart tank Yeah, go on short wind design awards. Yeah wind design awards. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the marketing the press Yeah, that's the hard part. Yeah, and I mean, it's also like new verticals You know like like pickleball and like new revenue streams like remote coaching is going to be an entirely new revenue stream probably for us You know entirely so I think that's also going to be exciting But we know we'll we'll see where all that goes. We'll tell people where they can find you where they can download Yeah, you can just find us on instagram. First of all swing vision app Is easiest way and um on the app store just search swing vision one word It should be the top results and that's pretty much how you find us and on our website if you go swing dot tennis You'll get the bundle which includes one-year subscription as well as the swing stick for free So that's the best on the website. Yeah, good deal. We'll see you in a year. Thank you. Sounds good. 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