Selkirk Sport’s Pickleball Innovation: Selkirk Sport, a pickleball company based in Idaho under the Selkirk Mountains, has grown rapidly since 2019. The company, started by the Barnes family, has seen its revenue increase by 1,900 percent. It now sells its products in major stores like Costco and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Selkirk Sport invested over a million dollars in a high-tech lab with equipment to test and improve its pickleball paddles. The company plans to focus on the sport for the long term and not expand to other sports.
“Pickleball is not going to be on a hockey stick growth curve forever, but we think we’ll be able to adapt and be able to focus on the industry for the long term. And we have no plans of getting into other sports.” – (Mike Barnes)
A Family Business Turned Pickleball Leader
Selkirk Sport began in 2014, co-founded by brothers Mike Barnes and Rob Barnes, and their father, Jim Barnes. Another brother, Tom Barnes, joined later and leads research and development.
Mike and Rob first started a sports equipment company in high school, selling airsoft parts. They ran it from their father’s basement before moving to a warehouse with a pickleball court. They quickly saw the sport’s growing popularity and shifted their business focus.
“We saw where the game was going. We loved it. We loved the culture. We loved playing it. We just felt that pickleball had the trajectory to make it one of the largest racket sports in the world, even at that time.” – (Rob Barnes)
By 2015, the company stopped selling airsoft parts and went fully into the sport, even though the sport was seen as mainly for older adults.
Growing Sport, Growing Business
Pickleball has changed a lot since then. Two professional leagues started in 2019, and Major League Pickleball began in 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic helped the sport grow as people looked for outdoor activities they could play safely. Participation more than tripled between 2020 and 2023, with nearly 50 million adults playing at least once in the past year.
“You still have that core group that’s still a very important group, the Baby Boomer, older generation, but you now just have a much younger demographic—that grew much quicker, especially in the last four years—joining the sport.” – (Rob Barnes)
The High-Tech Lab
To keep improving, the company built a lab costing over a million dollars, filled with advanced machines. Tom Barnes showed a “universal robot” that helps with production. There are 3-D printers to make quick prototypes and a cannon that shoots pickleball balls at paddles to test their strength.
“We can do thousands of shots on the paddle to see what happens with it. One way is, we shoot it with a really fast ball to see if we can physically break the paddle in half.” – (Tom Barnes)
“We want to make sure that it’s not going to fail because you tripped on the court and you used the paddle to catch yourself.” – (Tom Barnes)
The lab also has a special scanner to create detailed 3-D images of paddles and a CT scanner to check inside them. This helps the company test the paddles after use to see how they hold up. They also check if paddles meet USA Pickleball rules.
“They put standards out there that help limit what the paddle is like, which makes sure that the paddle doesn’t exceed performance limits… Too much power, you end up getting injuries. People get hit, and it makes the court feel too small. Too much spin, it becomes unrealistic to return the ball, which isn’t fun.” – (Tom Barnes)
The lab helps Selkirk control product quality, reduce testing costs, and speed up making new paddles.
“The typical [process] could take, honestly, anywhere between three and nine months, depending on who we’re working with. Now, we can do that in a week, which supercharges our product development life cycle. It also costs us less money.” – (Tom Barnes)
Feedback From Players
Selkirk also involves its customers in product design through its Selkirk Labs program. More than 10,000 members get early access to new paddles in exchange for feedback.
“The reason we created Labs was to have an engine to get feedback from consumers on what they wanted to improve and then implement it.” – (rob barnes)
This includes players of all skill levels, not just pros. Some products made in Selkirk Labs don’t make it to the main line, but others, like the Luxx paddles, were improved before release. One innovation, Infinigrit, went through about 1,000 tests before being used.
Focused on Pickleball
The Barnes brothers plan to stay focused on the sport only.
“We have entrepreneurial friends whose mindset is, sell it in two years, start something else. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and we’re very invested in sticking to it.” – (Mike Barnes)
They are also planning to use more testing methods and new software to continue improving. Tom Barnes calls Selkirk’s lab “the most advanced in pickleball” and wants to keep gathering data and technology to lead the sport forward.
News in Brief: Selkirk Sport’s Pickleball Innovation
Selkirk Sport, a family-owned pickleball company in Idaho, has grown its revenue by 1,900% since 2019. It invested over $1 million in a high-tech lab to develop and test paddles. The company involves players for feedback and plans to focus only on pickleball, aiming to lead innovation in the sport.
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