Rocket Padel’s Vision: Transforming the UK Scene with Seb Gordon (JOPS03E05)

Seb Gordon, Co-Founder of Rocket Padel, shares insights from his journey in the rapidly growing sport of padel. From his unique Chilean-Swedish background to lessons learned in Sweden’s padel boom, Seb offers a wealth of knowledge for padel aficionados. He discusses Rocket Padel’s expansion in the UK, emphasizing the importance of building community, quality facilities, and comprehensive offerings beyond just court rentals. Seb’s passion for design and premium experiences shines through as he details plans for future clubs. The conversation explores the challenges of coaching development and the potential for padel’s growth in the UK.

To find out more about Rocket Padel:

• Find or follow Rocket Padel on Instagram: RocketPadel
• Rocket Padel linktree to find all their clubs in the UK and Denmark

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Send in your questions or reactions:

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to review and/or rate it! ¡VAMOS!

Further resources for The Joy of Padel:

entrepreneur | indoor padel courts | international padel growth | padel academy development | padel club amenities | padel club business model | padel club design | padel club expansion | padel club innovation | padel club locations | padel club management | padel club offerings | padel club partnerships | padel club social areas | Padel Coaching | padel community | padel competition | padel growth | padel industry challenges | padel industry trends | padel player journey | padel player retention | padel talent development | premium padel facilities | rocket padel | seb gordon | Swedish padel market | UK padel expansion

This transcription comes courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI service for podcasters.

Minter Dial: Seb Gordon, I am so happy to have you on my show. We, we met at a wonderful event down in Madrid. We got to play together. You are a monster good player on the court and you have this most wonderfully interesting rich background. So, let’s start with a little bit about who is Seb?

Seb Gordon: Yeah, well, who am I? I’m come from tennis. I’m a half Chilean, half Swedish guy living in, based in Sweden but traveling to the UK a lot, trying to grow the sport of padel through Rocket. So, I have a background obviously working with, with padel since 2018, more or less. So, when you say a rich background, I guess you, you mean my, my, my part and, and my, my years through the Swedish storm of padel, which was obviously very interesting to live and it sort of gave me a lot of knowledge and experience to, to hopefully do better here in the UK. 42 years old father, I wish to say that I’m a padel player, but I rarely play. I don’t play.

Minter Dial: You’re a good player. When you’re on the court, you’re a good player. Said, that’s for sure.

Seb Gordon: I have some, I have some trick shots that I’ve learned along the years.

Minter Dial: Yeah. So, I mean, what I also mean by rich is, is the combination of cultures and the fact that you have a Chilean background. Espanol and so. But the funny thing, I mean, what I was going to ask you about the Chilean side is to what extent? Because I mean, let’s say the Swedes and the Spanish or Argentinians, there’s quite a gap between the sort of the Anglo-Saxon type of world and the hot Hispanic. And I was just wondering to what extent your Chilean ness contributed to your padel good playing.

Seb Gordon: I think, I think it’s mainly the passion. Right. I think, I think Latinos, as you know, they, I mean, you can just look at like Latino football. It’s, it’s very, very energetic. We don’t really love to lose. So, I think maybe that adds a little bit of a flavor. And also I think the way how you behave is I play obviously a lot of padel in Sweden and people are a little bit more humble and you know, they don’t, they don’t fight over points. And there’s, there’s a couple of clips if you, if you go deep enough on YouTube when I was competing that I even, even in my own club, I, it was a few, few words that came out of my mouth. I shouldn’t have been there. So, yeah, it’s the flavor, I guess it’s the Passion. And I think it’s a good mix, like to have that. The passion and the drive from that, that side of things, from the Latino side combined with the Scandinavian sort of attention to detail, organizational structure and stuff like that, especially in, in this sport, I think you can get a little bit of a mix of both.

Minter Dial: Right, well, So, before we get into Rocket, I do want to cover off your. You as a padel player, because I always like to talk to people who play padel and bring it, bring out what are the lessons learned along the way. So, you come from tennis, you converted to padel. That transition, there’s some things that are obviously easy. The volley, the ball, similar, the net. But what was it that was a little bit stubborn for you to transition from. From tennis to padel?

Seb Gordon: I mean, mainly defense, I would say. Also kind of. I was an aggressive player playing tennis, So, I think for me, you know, being on the net, being aggressive, playing trick shots, never been a problem. Obviously. I think most of the old tennis players, they struggle on the, on the defensive side, you know, in the back class, you know, playing, playing the lob a little bit more often than you. Than you’re used to, obviously, and not. And not. And not hitting hard, like, just like slowing down the tempo. But I, I mean, I, I think I told you my, my journey and I. It’s quite interesting because I stopped playing tennis when I was about 15, So, I was never like a. I was. I was never Going to become top 100 in the world, but. But I had some talent, but. But then I stopped and I played a lot of other sports. I was. I was playing ice hockey in Sweden and also floorball, a couple of other sports. But then I. So, my story coming into padel actually came because I was. I was in a. I had a burnout from. From one of my previous businesses. I had a beauty company and I found myself in a burnout. This was 2017 mainly, I think, and. And as part of my, like, rehab or like, chill out process to sort of get some. Some calmness into my life, one of my friends called me and said, have you heard about the sport padel? And I. I have seen. I had seen it in Marbella and in Spain, and I think I even had played it when I was younger. But so, we went to play it. And long story short, since that was like, almost like going into a new sport, I wasn’t really transitioning from tennis. I had a big gap of, let’s say, 10, 15 years where I played tennis, you know, twice a year in the summer or whatever. So, it Wasn’t that big of a deal for me. It was almost like starting something new that I had some sort of talent for. So, let’s be clear. I’m not a. I’m not a super player. I mean, I’ve been. I mean, I’ve done some tournaments, but I’m not, I’m trying. I’m trying to succeed in the sport in other areas than competing, let’s put.

Minter Dial: It well, let me say if I could play like you, I would feel very good. But it’s always fun because people are listening, obviously, play at different levels and, and not everybody is the super pro. And, and what it is that you’re. What is it that you think got you to feel such good therapy through padel?

Seb Gordon: It’s a buzzword, but it. I think it was the whole community aspect. One of the things, one of the reasons that I really didn’t have the passion for tennis is that you’re all alone on that court. Like, it’s a. It’s a. It’s a mind game. And I have huge respect for those who succeed in tennis because they have to be very. So, for me, it was like the whole getting back to. To enjoy the racket sports, which I love. At the same time as you get the sense of community and the team aspect, like, there was a lot of betting going on in Sweden in those years. Like, you know, we had all these tournaments, we’re playing against other clubs. You had this, like, sense of belonging to a team at the same time that you can exercise the racket sports that you love. So, it’s, It’s a beautiful mix. And I think that was. That was what really got me on. And also I think that’s why we are looking into some, some new interesting things in the UK where we can really harvest on that sense of being, let’s say, more of a team aspect between clubs. So, there’s a lot of tournaments going on where you can go and compete. As you just said that you’re coming to compete here in East London in a couple of weeks, where I’m based at the moment, but at the same time, then you’re competing for yourself. But if you were to compete for your country or, you know, I mean, obviously, then you need to be very good, but just for your club, if you have that badge on your chest, like, team feeling, the whole fan base thing around it, I think that adds a different flavor and I hope we can get there pretty soon in Padel, because in the end, you know, you can root for Alan and Shingoto. Or whatever, but when they play for their town or their, you know, home club, it’s a total different energy, I believe. So, I think that’s what got me really on because we had that sense of belonging in Sweden when it all started because it was only a couple of clubs, So, we were traveling around and playing against the others and then it just exploded and it became very like mainstream and that sort of grassroots, you know, startup feeling in the sport, I think just faded away a little bit. And we’re really trying to take that into now in the UK, in London especially to. And elevate it. We haven’t communicated yet how So, we’re working on it, but I think will be some interesting stuff coming out soon.

Minter Dial: We’ll hopefully let this podcast be a part of that. But I mean, the idea of belonging, the idea of the honor of representing a team with people around you, and then it’s more about us than just me.

Seb Gordon: Exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, there’s two, two sides of the coin always. But it’s kind of funny when people, when people lose, they’re always blaming their partner. And when, when they win.

Minter Dial: Or the racket.

Seb Gordon: Or the racket. Or the racket. But, but in the end that’s sort of, that’s all in the recipe. Right? It’s, it’s, it’s. It’s part of the whole thing of the, of the team aspect around it, which is unique to padel, I would say. I’ve played double these doubles in tennis. I think it’s quite boring.

Minter Dial: Especially men’s tennis.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, exactly.

Minter Dial: So, before we get to Rocket, I do want to just cover the. The Swedish market because obviously it’s, it’s kind of a banner market. I’ve already had Danne Windahl on the show. I’ve had Kalle Akesson to talk, who’s a federation to talk about how they’re growing, obviously. Amazing growth. The pandemic. Lots of things came around to make it happen. We had Abramovich, you know, all sort of stars and then. And money and a good sense of taste to make good quality centers. But what are the lessons that you learned in the development and now the sort of down cycle of the maturity of the Swedish market that you think would be relevant to bring as we start growing at a great rate in the UK?

Seb Gordon: Yeah, well, you have to remember, I say this a lot, but Sweden, Sweden was. It was a perfect storm. There was a lot of external factors that contributed a lot to the, to what happened. Obviously Covid, big player. Have to remember that during this period in Sweden, you were only allowed to play, padel and go fishing and play golf. And obviously like during that winter you don’t play golf or, or you, and maybe you can fish, but not everyone fishes. So, like the full country played battle and there was a lot of people taking decisions on those numbers, myself included, So, I’m also guilty. But, but, you know, So, on top of that, you have to also take into consideration it was a, it was a zero interest rate market. It was quite easy to get funding. Sweden has not as much red tape as the UK, So, to get permits and to rezone and, and, and get permits, sort of what they call in Sweden temporary planning, put it that way, was, is quite easy. And also Sweden is an old industrial country with a lot of big facilities, old industrial countries, a lot of land, obviously. And Swedish, Swedish people are quite entrepreneurial. So, I think all of this was a big mix and so, So, that obviously contributed. But coming back to your question, I think the learnings, the learnings that I have brought and that we’re working on every day here in the UK and we’re working very hard is to build the sport from the foundation up. So, what happened in Sweden is that you could literally just open up a club during this period, you know, open the doors and it got full and you made money. So, like, the human being usually react to that by becoming like sort of a fat cat and don’t do anything. Whereas where you have to build a club over like five to 10 years, you start with the academy. You have the ground pillars in like the juniors academy, the youth academy, all the, you know, seasonal trainings, PT coaches, activities, events, socials to add to them to the offer. So, I think that’s something obviously also you need to do the math. I think a lot of people thought that, you know, they do this very simple math, like if I just rent out, you know, four quarts a day at, you know, £40 or whatever, I’ll break even. So, everything on top of that is good and it doesn’t really work that way because usually then, you know, you have discounts, you have memberships and you have, you know, you have holidays where people travel away. So, So, they didn’t really do the math. So. So, long story short, we do the math very thorough. I think there’s also, at the moment, it’s a little bit, I wouldn’t say worrying, but there is a little bit of a gold rush now in the UK as well. And I can see people taking some decisions and jumping into leases that I Wouldn’t go into. So, we’re very thorough on doing the math, which is obviously not only cost but also location. Looking at, you know, connectivity, how stem, how can people commute to this club? Are we allowed to also, you know, add other features to the club such as gym, wellness section, food and beverage, offer, can we offer co work sections, etc. So, it’s. It’s a big mix of everything. But I think have done the Swedish journey has brought me a lot of knowledge. I hope to be able to put it into play and use all of that knowledge here. And we’re already doing it. But I think one of the main things things is working with the club in itself and adding a lot of. To widen the offering and build from the ground up. Not just opening up for pay and play. Because I think the pay and play and padel, you know, might sound a little bit. It’s hard words. I wouldn’t say that. I think pay and play is going to die. However, I believe, and, and I’m a victim of it myself, that the whole thing about just reaching out to your friends and go play for fun, that sort of has its. It has its life journey and then it fades away. You need to get people into the competitive side to start training because once they reach some sort of level, to break that level, they need to start training, they need to go to classes, they need to start competing, they need to feel that, you know, that little feeling in the stomach when you’re nervous and those things. Once you get to the point that you don’t really feel that you’re developing anymore, then it’s very normal that you start looking at. Let’s try. Let’s try high rocks or CrossFit or yoga or, you know, fishing or whatever. So, it’s very important for us to follow the. The journey of the player and when to activate them, to get them into So, that they can improve their game, challenge them, challenge themselves, etc. Etc. So, I think those are the things that weren’t done by most in Sweden. However, there were many clubs that did it and those are the clubs that today are thriving. So, I exited my clubs. So, we’re not active in Sweden. But many of my friends, I have plenty of club owners that are very, very good at this. There’s a few in Skne in South Sweden that are doing very, very well. Also run in Stockham area in the north, in the Nordic region, North region. So, I think, yeah, those are the learnings and it’s very easy. You can just look at Spain, which is a super mature country, how they work is very active. They have three, four, five coaches on a club with just five, six courts. Whereas in Sweden, most of the clubs they have maybe one coach from tennis and they just open up the doors, made money and then.

Minter Dial: We’re going to get done, we’re going to get to that. So, that, that’s a great story. Lots of good insights. Sep what I. So, I’ve played at bat, I played at all of your locations and what I see is a consistency of, of a superior quality product. It feels like that’s part of your DNA as well, is making sure that you have good carpets, solid, consistent glasses, a nice environment, real ceilings. Talk us through your sort of how you think about design when it comes to your clubs.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, well that’s, that’s my passion. Right. So, like I mentioned, I come, I founded a beauty company together with Frederick my, my co-founder.

Minter Dial: He saw which by the way is another thing we have in common because I worked at L’Oréal for 16 years.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, you worked at L’Oreal. Yeah, a little bit bigger than my company. But, but anyway, long story. Yeah, but, but obviously attention to detail and coming down to the whole branding side, extremely important to me and not, not only because I believe that it will set us, you know, aside from everyone else and get us some sort of competitive advantage, but just purely because of passion, I would say. So, yeah. When we start, when we start drawing, we’re actually at the moment in a drawing phase of our next club that we’re going to open up here in East London as well in, in Beckton, nearby London City Airport. We start mainly with the social area, we start drawing from that and I think coming back to the whole Swedish phenomenon, people like started looking at how many courts can we squeeze in and how cheap can we build them So, that we have a, you know, higher roi. We sort of go the opposite side. We go, we start with the social area and we look okay, So, we want to have all these offers. So, in Beckton we will have not only a fully, fully flexed padel club, we would have a upper floor with a co working area, conference rooms that you can, that you can rent. We’re going to have a gym which is not only like a regular gym but it’s also a functional training. So, we are working tightly with the GB team on that. We’re going to have a spa and wellness section So, we’re going to have cold plunges, infrared sauna steamers and obviously the whole restaurant area. The FMB and the retail section, very important to us. We try to obviously do it as good as we can. The I think the purpose for every, every of these section is that people think that is thought through, that it’s premium that people want to stay those extra hours that, you know, they can come an hour before they play and hopefully stay a couple of hours afterwards. Either go into the spa section or to just have a meal or to do some stretching. Social area. You know, we don’t hate canitas. So, yeah, So, that’s how we, that’s how we play it. And I believe, you know, I believe in a premium product. I think people are willing to pay for, for a premium product, especially in big cities where people have, where people care, where people can afford it. And so, we try to adapt to the, to the community. So, we, we build a little bit different in each club, adding different amenities depending on the, on the space and the location and, and the demographics. But we always try to keep a red. Some of the stuff coming, coming back. And hopefully you can come into a Rocket Club and feel that this is a Rocket padel club.

Minter Dial: Well, one other thing which I forgot to stress is that you believe in indoor. Well, of course, Sweden knows that it snows. England knows. Or UK knows that it rains. But it’s amazing how many outdoor courts there are in this country.

Seb Gordon: Yeah. Excuse me.

Minter Dial: One of the things that you mentioned is, is bringing in coaches. What are the big pain points that you are. That you see players in the UK in particular suffer from and how do you address that? I mean, I think specifically of the ability to get good coaching.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, it’s super challenge, obviously. And I think there’s something that this is never going to, will never be finished, will never be done. It’s going to probably take us 10 to 20 years to get some players into the top 20, either Swedish or British or. I think the, I think the world sport really needs a top 10 player that is not Spanish or Argentinian. That would be lovely.

Minter Dial: Or Brazilian, because we have a couple of Brazilians.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, we’ve had a. We have had world number one Brazilian. Right. Pablo Lima was at least top two. Yeah.

Minter Dial: And Sophia, who’s Portuguese. So, there are a couple of little.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, but I think it needs to be a non-Latino, let’s put it that way.

Minter Dial: Maybe Vamos.

Seb Gordon: That would, that would not be bad for the sport. An American or British or whatever. But yeah, obviously coaching is a, It’s a challenge. And I think also the. What happens is that the good players tend to also leave. They go they go to Madrid, they go to Barcelona to train for the training and, and I don’t blame them. So, it’s a little bit of, it’s, it’s an exchange. So, we send down some players, the exercise and the train and they get better. Then they come back here and they coach. Also. It’s not easy to get coaches into the country because of Brexit. So, we have, we have a sponsor, we actually have a sponsor license, So, we are allowed to bring coaches in. But you want some sort of longevity to the project. So, we don’t just want to take in a coach and then he or she does, you know, eight weeks and then they, they go away again. But we’re working on this very hard and we have some, we have some, we have a plan for it, but it’s going to take some time. We’re working very tight with the LTA. They’re actually doing a, a tremendous effort at the moment, which I hope is going to turn out well for everybody to get coaches educated. We ourselves have a, it’s called the CDC, So, we’re a coach development center in Bristol. So, we’re coaching, I think we coached 25% of the whole country’s coaches last year, educating them and getting the property education in padel. But yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a challenge. It’s definitely a challenge. So, we’ll see, we’ll see. It’s going to take time.

Minter Dial: If, if somebody who is a good coach is listening to this, speaks English and is listening and would like to come and settle in, in the UK. How do they get in touch with Rocket?

Seb Gordon: Well, they just reach out, drop us an email. We’re always, we’re always looking for talent, not only on the, on, on the corporate side but on the, on the coaching side. So, yeah, just drop us and drop us an email and we’ll have a look at it. We’re always looking for, sorry, we’re always looking for, for coaches. One of the reasons actually we had a big challenge in Bristol in the beginning because Bristol is, was a, was a less mature padel city than the London was. So, I think what really changed for us in Bristol was when we got coaches there. It took us a couple of months to find a proper people with a proper background that can really teach and they can follow a program. So. But we’re working tightly on our academy. We’re going to launch our own academy pretty soon. So, we’re working with some interesting names that can help us do the sort of the strategizing around it. But you also mentioned indoor. I mean, we didn’t speak about indoor, but I would just love to share a couple of comments.

Minter Dial: Go, please, please.

Seb Gordon: Yeah, we are very indoor focused. Yeah, I’m a strong believer of indoor. And not only here, I mean, not only in the UK or Sweden, even in Spain. We actually have a project in Spain as well which is indoor.

Minter Dial: Yeah. Because the sun, the sun is a problem and the heat, everything is a problem.

Seb Gordon: Yeah. You can always, I mean, if you can blame your partner, but you can blame the wind, you can blame the sun, you can blame anything, the reflections. And if you look, if you look at the top players, they all exercise and train indoors. Just, just follow them on Instagram. You’ll see they’re all in, in Madrid and Barcelona and indoor clubs. And then they have the canita outdoors. That’s fine, that’s allowed.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I, I, I think it’s rule number five, as you know, Seb, I’m a big believer in that canita. But yeah, yeah, that fact that you, I played a tournament match the other day at Battersea. We didn’t even finish our match, so. Oh, bugger. With three all in the third set, we ended up having to finish with a championship tiebreak outdoors, which changes everything. Yeah, of course, that’s the story. So, Rocket padel, you’ve got Bristol, which is where my daughter went to school, university. And it’s a big center. Great. You’ve got the Battersea, you’ve got Ilford, you’ve got Beckton coming. What else? What are the other areas? I mean, are you, are you really focusing on the UK? You just mentioned Spain, but I do have other international plans. How do you see the future of Rocket power?

Seb Gordon: No, I mean, don’t forget we have a, we have a strong footprint in Denmark as well. So, we have three clubs in Denmark just finishing to announce the fourth. Denmark is a very interesting country, by the way, because they have done very well at activating the players into the competitive side with the Lunar League. We’re doing very well in Denmark. They’re good players, high level. Like, I would say like the average player there is like almost as good as they are in Sweden now, which is, which is cool. Very competitive. So, that’s, that’s cool. I’m mainly focusing, I’m working mainly to the pipeline in the UK. In London, we’re focusing on Greater London, as you mentioned, we’re opening up Beckton. We also are about to start building a couple of months in East Croydon, which is South London. Very, very, very Unique location, by the way. It’s going, you’ll love it. It’s going to be a lot of canitas there. We have a big food court in the middle. It’s next to the, to the, to the underground, which has great connectivity. So, you can, you know, you can be in London Victoria in just, I think eight minutes. And it’s, it’s nine clubs. It’s going to be like the Battersea structure.

Minter Dial: Nine courts.

Seb Gordon: Nine, nine, nine, nine courts. All indoor, obviously. However, between the clubhouses, because there’s a few houses, we’re going to build these outdoor sections with a lot of social areas, music, live music. So, that’s going to be a cool one. And also we have some interesting opportunities in both north and West London as well. So, I think going forward, trying to look forward, we will mainly focus on London for the moment, but we have some opportunities in other cities in the UK too.

Minter Dial: Well, that is most exciting. I will be following this with great interest. So, Seb, where can people track you down? What are the best ways to engage with Rocket padels and get people to go and pick on and find some more about you and what you’re up to?

Seb Gordon: Yeah, I mean, obviously following us on Instagram, we just started with TikTok. You know us, the, the senior management, maybe we’re too old for TikTok, So, we’re just learning but we’re trying to, to have some exposure there as well. But yeah, follow us on Instagram. So, our handle is @Rocketpadel and then we have all the, the clubs have @Rocketpadel, underscore and the name of the club. So, with Beckton, BPS, Croydon and, and, and also on LinkedIn, obviously I’m gaining more and more followers. I’m trying to share my wisdom on LinkedIn. I’ve never been a big LinkedIn, er, but I’m trying my best. So, go in and follow me on LinkedIn. I usually share like one or two posts a month with, with experience and sometimes just from, you know, meetings or, or just drawings from a new club or whatever. Any, any anytime I can send the elevator down to whoever is interested in building a padel club. I’m very, I’m very open in, in getting much people that are passionate about the sport and that are professional to open up clubs or doing anything else in, in the, in the padel industry. I think it’s, it’s valuable for the sport So, I’m always trying to help out.

Minter Dial: That is a tremendous credit to you, Seb. Been great having you on the show. I can’t wait to have our next time to play with you and chat some more. So, thank you So, much. Vamos, Seb Garden and Rocket padel.

Seb Gordon: We’re playing soon.