PaddleSmash

Two game entrepreneurs made a deal with Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec on Shark Tank in 2023, $250,000 for 20 percent of their company, and then backed out after reading the rest of the contract. The game was PaddleSmash, invented by a structural engineer in Pleasant View, Utah, and sold by a company whose mailing address is in Alpine.

Joe Bingham has seven kids and a day job in structural engineering. His family had taken to pickleball. A backyard court was not feasible, and the crowded public courts were a 20-minute drive away. His kids already loved Spikeball, so he tried crossing the two. The early prototypes were sheets of plastic and netting, and a few failed before he landed on one his kids loved playing. Word spread around the neighborhood.

Scott Brown makes toys and games for a living, and he told the Daily Herald that people often introduce him to friends and relatives with a game idea. When he played Bingham's version he thought there was something real in it. He called Tim Swindle, who flew in from Nashville to try it at a local pickleball court, and the feedback was "overarchingly positive." The two then spent a year turning the prototype into something "lightweight, portable, mass-producible and affordable," Swindle said.

The set that came out has a net system, a foldable base, four paddles and two balls. Teams alternate turns hitting the ball into a small, trampoline-like court. The company's FAQ says it takes about 10 minutes to get through the learning curve, and the complete set lists for $199.99 on the company's own site.

PaddleSmash launched in October 2022. Looper reports that it sold on Amazon first, then landed Dick's Sporting Goods and Scheels by late 2022, and the Daily Herald put the business on track for close to $2 million in revenue by the end of 2023. On Shark Tank, which aired on October 20, 2023, the founders asked for $250,000 for 10 percent, and Kevin O'Leary offered 15. They took the Cuban and Herjavec offer, then read the contract and decided it was not the right fit. Swindle said he had "no regrets." Brown had set his watch to vibrate on every sale, and it buzzed for three or four days after the episode aired.

PaddleSmash does not say where its sets are made, and one of its two co-founders lives outside Nashville. Bingham's original problem was a 20-minute drive. The game now ships to Canada, Europe, Australia, South America and the Middle East.