I have been playing this sport longer than most people knew it existed.
I picked up a paddle over a decade ago, well before pickleball was a cultural moment or a business opportunity. Since then I have had the chance to play all over the world, across different countries, communities, and playing styles. What that gave me was not just court time. It gave me thousands of hours with players from wildly different backgrounds, markets, and skill levels.
You start to understand what makes pickleball players tick. What they care about, what they respond to, what brings them into a community and keeps them there. That kind of on-the-ground knowledge is something you simply cannot get from a trend report or a demographic brief. I have lived it across more markets and communities than most people in this industry will ever see, and I bring all of that into the work I do for clients.
About five years ago I started working inside the industry itself, and I quickly saw a pattern. Pickleball attracts passionate founders and entrepreneurs who genuinely love the sport. But love for the game does not automatically translate into knowing how to build a brand around it.
Most pickleball companies are smaller operations without massive budgets or dedicated marketing teams. They know they need to invest in marketing but they don't always know where to start, what to prioritize, or how to get the most out of what they have. That gap between passion and execution is exactly where THi Collective lives. I help brands figure out where their money and energy will actually move the needle, and then I help them do it.
Where I have worked
I started THi Collective because I kept seeing the same thing. Great people building pickleball brands with real potential, but without someone in their corner who truly understood the space. Not just the marketing side, but the sport itself, the audience, the culture, where things have been and where they are heading.
This is not a side project for me. Pickleball is what I think about, talk about, and stay on top of every single day. That kind of immersion is what I bring to the brands I work with.