#292: Thomas Shields – Building Pickleball's Biggest Media Company

Thomas Shields is the creator of The Dink – the biggest pickleball media company in the world. In this conversation, we spoke about why pickleball is everywhere, how he got his first 1,000 subscribers, his biggest mistake, and the most exciting moments of building his company. (0:00) Intro (2:31) Starting A Pickleball Media Company (4:14) Why Has Pickleball Taken Over? (5:34) Gary V, Tom Brady, & Kevin Durant Buying Pickleball Teams (7:02) Going Into Other Sports? (9:41) Getting First 1,000 Subscribers (13:54) Life Before Starting The Dink (21:15) What Are You Optimizing For? (22:23) Getting MBA & Entrepreneur (25:45) The Dink Taking Off (27:50) What To Do On Bad Days (29:50) Most Exciting Moments (31:45 )Process For Making Money (33:34) Microacquire (36:13) Reasons Why The Dink Is Successful (39:23) Expanding On Pickleball (40:13) Why? (43:07) Training For Austin Marathon (46:01) Ideal Scenario In 1 Year (50:31) Biggest Mistake (53:03) Creator vs. Business (56:41) Challenge - Thomas’ Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/readmynewslettr Website: https://www.thedinkpickleball.com/ + https://upswingsports.com/ - SPONSOR: This episode is brought to you by My First Million. This is the podcast that I listen to and recommend whenever I want to learn more about business, technology, or the future. Sam Parr and Shaan Puri are hilarious, informative, and interesting. Check it out: https://link.chtbl.com/MFM?sid=Danny-Miranda - My Links ✉️ Newsletter: https://dannymiranda.substack.com 🎙 Podcast: https://anchor.fm/dannymiranda 🎥 YouTube: https://youtube.com/dannymiranda 🐣 Twitter: https://twitter.com/heydannymiranda 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/heydannymiranda 🕺 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@heydannymiranda