Nathan Latka

100% distribution, etc.

So hey, quick things I want to wrap up with you rapid fire if we can just three questions here.

Number one, you're building ghost gyms.

I mean, they're sports facilities with zero staff, right?

Is this the future of fitness in your opinion?

Or are we just sort of willing to kill the social aspect of sports in terms of the admin staff for the sake of higher margins?

All right, two more here.

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the world.

Many people would say this, but a lot of clubs are losing a bunch of money on real estate.

How do your customers actually make the math work without charging 100 bucks an hour?

All right, last one here.

If I wanted to open an autonomous pickleball court tomorrow, what's the hidden cost that will kill most founders before they even open their doors?

Ben, on that note, if folks want to follow your stories, you keep running the community and the software and the hardware, where's the best place they can find you online?

Guys, there you have it.

Ben Borton launched physical ping pong communities back in 2020.

Then COVID hit, shut it down, reopened in May in New York City, did a couple hundred thousand bucks in revenue that first year by renting out courts by the hour, about 30 bucks per hour, 70% utilization on those physical courts they had to open.

Really good first year as it continued to scale.

Now by 2023, they said, man, how do we get more into the software world?

They wrote code that is now called Podplay and they spun it out officially in 2025 this year with an $8

in Series A, you know, sold the typical amount you sell in a Series A. Now they're scaling.