One of my favorite parts of PickleCon has nothing to do with shopping. It's all about meeting the masterminds behind the madness. That's where we met Tony and Ryan from True Spin. Great energy. Great people. And then they showed us PicklePops.
Look... you already know my feelings about drilling. I'd much rather make the same mistake organically for six months. But PicklePops? I can get behind this.
So What the Hell Is a PicklePop?
It's a small target that sits right on top of the pickleball net. The genius idea came from co-founder Ryan Haile. He wanted a better way to practice hitting low, non-attackable shots and started tinkering away with a 3D printer in his basement. Eventually, he teamed up with Tony Skauge and Matt Beenen to bring the PicklePop to the masses.
You put the PicklePop on the net and aim for it while practicing dinks, drops, and resets. It sets up in seconds and gives you an actual target instead of just mindlessly hitting balls back and forth and calling it "drilling." They even created DinkOff!, a mini-game that turns the training into competition.
Now we're talking. Trick me into practicing by making it a game. Apparently, that's what it takes.
But This Is Why We Love PickleCon
You can buy pickleball stuff online all day. PickleCon is different. You meet Tony and Ryan. You hear how the product started. You put your hands on it. You try it. You discover something you didn't even know existed 20 minutes earlier.
And somewhere along the way, these companies stop being logos on Instagram and become actual people. We interviewed them — go watch it That's the part of this pickleball boom I hope we don't lose. People building weird little things in their basements because they love the same stupid plastic ball we do.
So go check out True Spin.
And apparently... I drill now. Gross.