While at SXSW earlier in the year, I had the opportunity to sit down with David Lowe, the founder of the company Uberpong, based out of Austin, Texas. The company has a fairly simple premise: personalise the experience of ping pong / table tennis through custom paddles. We talk about how his business has taken off, what’s next for the company, the growing popularity of the sport around the world and their part in it.
Tell us a bit about how you started Uberpong.
It was probably about three years ago now… I had been working at a tech start up in London, and when they did the tour they showed off the ping pong table. Immediately I thought it was a cool start up. I didn’t know anybody in that company, but through ping pong, that was the social glue if you like… and the team bonded quickly, we went from strength to strength.
Now we also shared the floor with another start up. At breaks they’d come over and they would play and challenge us to games, and it’s how we got to know them. So I saw the power of the game, and I was hooked. Not just playing, but I started thinking about it being a game that I could start my own business with. So I started seeing all the different types of people playing with the plain equipment… it just didn’t reflect their personalities. So I thought about creating a company that did just that, and that started with the paddles. The potential was there to build an alternative ping pong brand that had never existed before. Because if it could work in a start up like ours in bringing people together, it could work anywhere.
Table Tennis is also the number two played sport in the world, behind soccer. And very few people know that. This needed to be done.
So where is the company currently based?
Well we’re based here in Austin, Texas. Being British, I have the passion to take it over to Europe, the sport is doing well over there, but certainly in the States, we’ve got a long way to go here. We’ve got a great presence in Texas, New York, LA, Chicago… lots of cities are buying from us. Right now we’re just doing branded paddles. They come onto our website (uberpong.com) to create their own paddles using their instagram and facebook photos on our custom editor which we just launched. It takes about 30 seconds. We also have a range you can buy from other designers. We’ll be going into balls and tables down the line, which we’re really excited about, and also creating our own world first events. Interactive ping pong experiences.
We just got Kim Gilbert onto our board of directors, she’s a table tennis professional and ping pong celebrity. She’s going to be having a hand in a lot of our events. So we’re really excited to have her on board.
So who were some of the companies that were early adopters of this?
We started out in 2012 as a kickstarter campaign. The website I launched was originofcool.com and so I used that brand to launch Uberpong as a kickstarter campaign just to see how it would go. And we raised over $10,000 in 30 days, so we knew we were onto something… we launched Uberpong in late 2012.
I thought it would be a year before big brands took notice, but Nickelodeon, MTV and Extra TV came on really early. Mario Lopez is one of the hosts on Extra TV and we did his face and his co-host’s face on the paddles and they played against one and other on TV. We got a lot of buzz for that, really early on. So within a year we added Coca-Cola, Levis, Red Bull… we were finding they would use them for events.
Nike had a pre-US Open Tennis event, in a disused Subway, and they had Rafael Nadal down there, and we did up these really cool green Nike paddles and we actually stained the handles… so they were using the table tennis to bring everyone together at this event.
And then there are plenty of businesses who are bringing it into their workplace to achieve the same results I saw when it was in my start up the years before… to bring people together. You can have the brand on one side and the employee’s face on the other, and they can do that for every employee in the company and bring that table in. So instead of having the branded mug, it’s the branded paddle. It’s something that allows you to connect with the team.
So can you order these internationally?
Yeah we’ve done plenty of orders to Australia actually, and all around the world. India, Mexico, England… we started out with US only, but we quickly had so much demand from other countries that we had to open it up. So we satisfy those now. And we can’t wait to get into the other products, the custom tables and balls…
It’s not just about the inter-company culture as well. But you have clients come into your office and there are great opportunities there for branding. You can have your own tournaments, too!
China makes up a lot of those numbers that brings Table Tennis to being the number two played sport in the world. Are you going to be heading into that region?
Yeah definitely. China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia… in a month I’m doing the Uberpong Euro tour, so hitting quite a few countries there. And then next year I’ll be doing a lot in Asia, because it’s the world Table Tennis championships in China, just west of Shanghai. So we want to have presence there. We want to bring it on in Asia!
With the manufacturing of the product, we’re trying to keep as much of it locally as we can. The blades are temporarily coming from overseas, but all the printing is being done here. Ultimately we’d like to do everything here. Partnerships happening later in the year should allow us to do that!
What’s surprised you about your experiences building this company?
Ping pong social clubs are getting popular, so I think the pace that this is accelerating is quite surprising. Even in two years, I’m seeing the game pop up in the weirdest places. Like in that Bud Light Superbowl commercial with Arnie! Seeing its presence and celebrities getting involved, it seems en vogue. But I don’t think it’s a fad, I think it’s here to stay. Because in the 80’s, it came and went, a bit like soccer in the 70’s… but I really see this as the second wave, where it stays… so I really think something special is happening here in the US.
And we see ourselves as leading that social ping pong movement. Trying to get people playing it outside of strict tournaments and gymnasiums. We want to see it in bars, cafes, restaurants, in parks… we want to push that. Maybe even one day seeing a US table tennis medalist at the Olympic Games! It all starts with building a culture.
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For more about Uberpong, and to create your own Custom Paddle, head along to uberpong.com/custom-paddles. And to find out where you can play ping pong near you, head to this handy map and leave your favourite locations!
