How one Kansas Metropolis firm used many years of baseball product expertise to resolve one among pickleball’s most enduring issues: translating paddle jargon into measurable efficiency information
Shopping for a pickleball paddle was once easy. Then the game exploded.
Now? It’s overwhelming.
A whole lot of manufacturers. 1000’s of fashions. Countless shapes. Efficiency buzzwords claiming superiority in each conceivable metric. It seems like everybody claims to have the proper paddle.
Most gamers, particularly leisure ones, are left guessing.
That’s the issue JustPaddles is attempting to resolve. For the on a regular basis pickleball shopper, sure. But additionally for the game as an entire.
With so many new paddles hitting the market every single day – manufactured by everybody from international behemoths to one-person manufacturers primarily based in a storage – how can we inform the distinction between promise and efficiency, imitation and innovation, inaccuracy and authenticity?
Their resolution isn’t one more paddle or extra mindless advertising jargon.
It’s information.
On the heart of JustPaddles’ strategy is the Paddle Lab — a proprietary, in-house testing system designed to convey goal, measurable efficiency information into an area lengthy dominated by opinion and conjecture.
“The barrier to entry with paddles is so low,” stated Andrew Dowis, CEO of Professional Athlete, the mum or dad firm behind JustPaddles.
“Individuals can spin up a paddle of their storage and have a model inside per week.”
That explosion of manufacturers has created what Dowis calls “volatility” — a market the place hype can typically outpace efficiency.
“So we simply thought, what wants to come back in and neutralize this and clear it up?” he stated. “As a substitute of opinions driving this, what about information?”
From that, the Paddle Lab was born.
Based mostly in Kansas Metropolis, JustPaddles didn’t begin in pickleball. Its DNA comes from many years of specialization in different sports activities.
The corporate’s mum or dad enterprise, Professional Athlete Inc., constructed its status by means of centered baseball and softball verticals (named, you guessed it: JustBats and JustGloves) — platforms designed to be product specialists, not generalists.
“One benefit is we laser concentrate on one product,” Dowis defined. “As a substitute of going to a retailer the place you’re speaking to a generalist, you’re going to name us and we’re going to know every part about it.”
That philosophy carried over to pickleball. However experience in a fast-moving, innovation-heavy sport isn’t constructed on expertise alone.
And in contrast to some sports activities, the overwhelming majority of paddle purchases are accomplished on-line, sight unseen.
To do pickleball proper, JustPaddles wanted a digital infrastructure.
“The Paddle Lab is the catalyst to being the specialists,” Dowis stated.
Available in the market for a brand new paddle however do not know the place to start out? Strive the Paddle Lab — unbiased, unbiased efficiency information on greater than 500 paddles.
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This isn’t a advertising gimmick. It’s a full-scale testing operation.
Each paddle that enters JustPaddles’ stock is put by means of a standardized testing course of, guaranteeing the info displays the efficiency output that prospects really really feel on the opposite finish.
From there, every paddle undergoes six core checks:
- Exit velocity (energy): Exit velocity is the pace at which the ball leaves your paddle after contact.
- Swing weight: How heavy a paddle feels throughout play, which might differ from its precise static weight.
- Spin price: Measured in rotations per minute (RPMs), demonstrating how a lot spin a paddle generates on the ball.
- Twist weight: Measures the steadiness of your paddle once you strike the ball off-center.
- Stability level: How weight is distributed in your paddle.
- Consistency: How evenly a paddle performs alongside its vertical axis—from the deal with to the top.
Every take a look at is designed to simulate actual gameplay, not lab-induced extremes.
“The outcomes that you simply’ll get from our exit velocity is extra of an in-game efficiency,” stated lead purchaser Jason Schulz.
“It’s not simply attempting to maximise the facility… however to offer you extra of what an in-game expertise can be.”
The method is intensive. Every paddle takes roughly 90 minutes to 2 hours to check.
Since launching Paddle Lab about six months in the past, the JustPaddles workforce hasn’t stopped testing paddles, constructing its database to greater than 500 paddles and counting.
Pickleball gamers don’t lack data. They lack readability.
Scroll by means of paddle evaluations and also you’ll discover infinite subjective scores:
- “9/10 energy”
- “Nice management”
- “Excellent mix of really feel and pop”
- “Superior dwell time and suggestions”
However what how is any of that helpful to your personal sport, your personal expertise?
“There may be loads of advertising jargon on the market,” Schulz stated. “You may see someone says the paddle’s 9 out of 10 in energy. What does that imply?”
The Paddle Lab replaces that ambiguity with measurable benchmarks.
- Need energy? Take a look at exit velocity.
- Need spin? Test RPM output.
- Need forgiveness? Research consistency metrics throughout the paddle face.
“For those who’re on the lookout for a superpower paddle, search for one thing with excessive exit velocity,” Schulz defined. “That’s going to be your finest wager.”
It’s not telling you what to purchase.
It’s supplying you with the instruments to resolve.
Energy and spin get the headlines. However one of the revealing metrics within the Paddle Lab is perhaps consistency.
This take a look at measures how a lot efficiency varies throughout the paddle face vertically from the tip, by means of the candy spot, and right down to the throat.
- Increased consistency permits you to belief your paddle to reply predictably, even when your contact isn’t good.
- Decrease consistency means efficiency might fluctuate primarily based on the place you strike the ball.
Paddles that rating on the high of the consistency listing embrace the Six Zero Coral, Gearbox GX2 Energy, and CRBN TruFoam Barrage.
And whereas it is pure to need to align a metric like consistency with softer photographs like dinks and resets, do not be so fast to guage.
This measurement can also be important for gamers looking for dependable efficiency throughout fast-paced exchanges or when stretched out of place.
One of many smartest and most actionable parts of the Paddle Lab is the way it’s offered.
The info isn’t buried behind dense, technical dashboards. It’s built-in immediately into the procuring expertise.
“I feel the lab may serve two totally different demographics,” Dowis stated. “The typical particular person… it’s proper there to simply give them that increase to both purchase that one or purchase this one.”
However for many who need to go deeper?
“If you wish to geek out on it, you’ll be able to geek out on it,” he added.
That dual-layer strategy is important. It meets gamers the place they’re—whether or not they’re shopping for their second paddle or their tenth.
Maybe a very powerful—and underrated—facet of the Paddle Lab is independence.
JustPaddles doesn’t manufacture paddles. It sells them.
That distinction issues.
“We don’t actually care what paddle you purchase,” Dowis stated.
“We simply need you to purchase the best paddle for you.”
That neutrality permits the Paddle Lab to perform as one thing uncommon in pickleball: An unbiased supply of efficiency information.
It additionally opens the door to deeper collaboration with manufacturers.
“We’ve positively examined some prototypes for manufacturers… to offer suggestions and sort of the place it stacks up,” Schulz stated.
In different phrases, the Paddle Lab isn’t simply serving to shoppers.
It’s quietly influencing product growth on a deeper, extra analytical stage.
It’s essential to grasp what the Paddle Lab is just not.
It’s not a governing physique. It’s not a certification system.
“This has nothing to do with certification,” Dowis stated. “These are performance-based metrics that will help you get one of the best paddle to your sport.”
That distinction is essential.
Certifications inform you whether or not a paddle is authorized. The Paddle Lab tells you the way it performs.
And in a sport the place governing our bodies don’t publish detailed efficiency information, that hole will be huge.
Available in the market for a brand new paddle however do not know the place to start out? Strive the Paddle Lab — unbiased, unbiased efficiency information on greater than 500 paddles.
BUY SMARTER
Zoom out, and the Paddle Lab represents one thing larger than a greater procuring expertise.
It’s an try to lift the usual throughout your complete trade.
“The thought was it will hopefully elevate all of the manufacturers,” Dowis stated. “I’ve obtained to provide actually good paddles, or it’s going to be apparent due to this information.”
That’s the true unlock.
When efficiency is measurable and clear, advertising claims develop into testable. And when claims develop into testable, merchandise get higher.
Dowis put it extra merely: “That is our present to the sport.”
Pickleball isn’t slowing down. Neither is innovation in paddles.
New supplies. New cores. New floor applied sciences. Extra noise.
For gamers, the problem isn’t discovering choices. It’s choosing the proper one.
The Paddle Lab doesn’t eradicate that call. Nevertheless it does one thing much more priceless: It replaces guesswork with readability.
“We would like prospects to really feel assured within the paddles that they’re utilizing,” Schulz stated.
In a market constructed on opinions, that is perhaps probably the most disruptive concept of all.
