Ben Borden discusses the early unit economics and operating performance of PingPod's first autonomous sports venue in New York City during 2020.
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“Yeah, I mean, just from a utilization, we had a single location, but it was, utilization was, I think, running between 60 and 70% on a 24 hour basis. So, if you have a low fixed cost business, that unit was very, very, very, very profitable.”
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More from Ben Borden
Insight
Borden says developers cannot vibe code deep vertical domain software
“You can put together a prototype, like and you can vibe code your way to kind of a, you know, a simple scheduling app but you can't vibe code your way to something that has kind of deep value to a domain.”
Ben BordenFeb 18, 2026▶ 19:33He Turned Pickleball Software into a $3M/yr SaaS
Insight
Founders should choose white-box buildouts over prime locations to launch faster
“You would prefer a slightly lesser location that if you can get kind of that white box that doesn't have a lot of structural work and you can put less money into it and get open faster than getting that kind of prime location if you have to do a bunch of work …”
Ben BordenFeb 18, 2026▶ 23:30He Turned Pickleball Software into a $3M/yr SaaS
Insight
Venue tech requires vertical integration of hardware and software
“Part of the secret here is like, can you get rid of the friction? And in order to get rid of that friction, you need to do the club management sort of reservation management and the video capture. So hardware and software. So most of the rest of the market, yo…”
Ben BordenFeb 18, 2026▶ 10:22He Turned Pickleball Software into a $3M/yr SaaS
Disclosure
Borden: Podplay approaches $3M contracted ARR across over 200 locations
“We are kind of approaching three million in, in contracted ARR. We have a little over 200 locations signed up on the platform.”
Ben BordenFeb 18, 2026▶ 13:49He Turned Pickleball Software into a $3M/yr SaaS
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Borden: 90% of Podplay tech team worked on Equinox or Nike apps
“About 90% of our tech team has ties to those two, two projects. So our hiring strategy has been to kind of go pick off all the best engineers, product managers, and designers that Ilya worked with in, in the past and kind of reassembled them as a dream team.”
Ben BordenFeb 18, 2026▶ 12:00He Turned Pickleball Software into a $3M/yr SaaS
Disclosure
Borden: Podplay manages over 2,000 sports courts across its venues
“Average is, is trending up closer to 10 per, per location, and so I think we're over 2000 quarts now.”
Ben BordenFeb 18, 2026▶ 14:28He Turned Pickleball Software into a $3M/yr SaaS
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