Building A Social Platform That Wants You to Log Off

Monisha Saldanha (00:01) Welcome to Colorado Tech People, where we talk with founders building technology that brings people together in meaningful ways. Today's episode explores how digital tools can help foster real world connections through sports and recreation. I'm joined by PJ Bullock, founder of Pickup Play, an app designed to make it easier for people to find pickup games and build community through shared activity.

We'll discuss the challenges of building a two-sided marketplace, the importance of trust and safety, and how technology can help people stay active and connected. Let's get started. So my first question, well, first of all, welcome, PJ. Thank you for joining the show.

PJ Bullock (00:45) Monisha, thank you so much for having me. So excited to be on the show and to share a little bit of our experience in building Pickup Play.

Monisha Saldanha (00:54) Great. So maybe to start, please could you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and Pick Up Play, including what it is, the problem it's trying to solve, and its audience?

PJ Bullock (01:05) Absolutely. So a little bit about myself. I spent a career as a executive within corporate development and &A. So I was a strategist, investment banker, working within healthcare, primarily doing large acquisitions to kind of bring into our portfolio. And then, you know, through phases in my life, I decided to go on this entrepreneurial journey.

of helping connect people around sports and play because I found that play is such a vital part of our daily life and our routine. so a lot of It started out of sort of necessity of sort of looking at my own life and how much time I was putting into work. And When I started to sort of reprioritize how I spent my week and my days, I saw this opportunity to help more people make it easier.

to include play as part of their week.

Monisha Saldanha (02:08) Fantastic. And what gap did you see in how people organize recreational sports?

PJ Bullock (02:17) I think the gap I saw is that, you know, just mainly what happens to us, you know, in adulthood. right? When we're, when we're kids, we prioritize having, you know, time within our day to go play, right? So we, We set aside recess time for our kids in school. We go to the playgrounds. I remember as a kid, you know, taking on this mindset of the sandlot mentality where there was just sort of that space within the neighborhood that everybody

met to go interact with one another and just play games. And as we age and we take on more responsibilities and our day get more more packed, it just becomes harder and harder to carve out that time and that space. And so when I looked at how it was being done today, it was largely being done through messaging apps and group chats and text threads. as a tool, it was...

the best way to do it in our schedules, but it really wasn't designed and really wasn't very effective. And so I grew up playing pickup basketball as a kid. I played in college. And then when I did start to age and had kids of my own, I just saw it getting harder and harder for me to organize among my friends and the people I knew to try to go and play games like basketball or something else. And so...

The gap I saw really was in how do you start to connect and gather your friends in order to say, I'm interested in playing a game today.

Monisha Saldanha (03:56) And why would somebody use Pick Up Play instead of organizing games in a group chat?

PJ Bullock (04:03) I think the biggest thing that I'm realizing in terms of the shortcomings of messaging apps or group chats is you're kind of limited just to the members that are within your thread, right? I think we all have them. We have this group chat that's dedicated to a certain activity, but it only has about 50 or 100 people in there. And our lives are continuously evolving. So someone might have...

be in the group, but they've moved to a new city or they've taken on a new job or they have kids. And so you're kind of trapped within sort of the dynamics of the memberships of the group. And one of the things that we really focused on with the design of Pick Up Play is allowing for you to not only tap into your own network, but into everybody else's, right? And to also find people that might not even...

be in your network today, but you know them through degrees of separation. So I did find that the group chats as a way to do spontaneous communication and messaging, you were still sort of trapped within a critical mass issue. We still had trouble pulling together enough players for a game because you only had so many people to find within that single group.

Monisha Saldanha (05:21) That makes a lot of sense. What were the biggest challenges faced when building a two-sided marketplace with players and organizers?

PJ Bullock (05:32) You know, I think for anyone that is trying to solve this problem of a marketplace and for me, I jokingly say I'm building a network marketplace. It's not just two-sided where there is, you know, one consumer and a business. There really is multiple consumers that are coming together into an asset that's called a game, right? And that roster has multiple people on it. And it really is a group.

element that's interacting with businesses like rec centers and sports complexes in order to book field and space reservations. So it is a network marketplace or a two-sided marketplace, but I think for anyone that's out there in the technical space trying to develop or build a product, you really have to understand what needs you're addressing for both sides and what their pain points are, right? So, you know, A lot of times we...

we immediately start into the needs of the consumer because often that's sort of how our inspiration comes. We see a problem that we would want for ourselves as a consumer. And it's really important as you're doing this market research to understand what the needs are of the business, right? What do the businesses also want and why would these two groups interact, right? So.

Being able to clearly define both sides of the marketplace and how your solution is solving those pain points will really help to bridge the gaps.

Monisha Saldanha (07:04) And what were the pain points that you saw for the organizers, for example?

PJ Bullock (07:10) That's a great, great point. Well, the pain point in organizing a game today, and if you are somebody that's out there playing sports, I think you would feel this one. is really is rallying together enough people and coordinating among multiple different people to try to bring a game together. So if I wanted to go play basketball right now, I need to get 10, and sometimes you want more just to have.

you know, for substitutes, 12, 15 people. If I'm trying to do a baseball game, it's 18. And so this coordination among multiple individuals, it is like herding cats, right? And so I did see that people need enough people to fill out a roster. And oftentimes games were falling apart because you would have, you know, you would have an...

a handful of people that were interested in playing, but not enough to actually run a game together. So being able to continue to tap in, being able to distribute out the information that you're trying to play and that you have a group that's trying to play, and then being able to seamlessly coordinate among them, that was the biggest pain point that I saw for our user base, which we call players.

Monisha Saldanha (08:28) And were there any hard decisions that you took?

PJ Bullock (08:34) numerous hard decisions. In which areas are you interested in exploring for these decisions in the product?

Monisha Saldanha (08:42) Yeah, in the product.

PJ Bullock (08:46) I think for every founder, the hardest decisions are really what to focus on initially. Roadmap creep or feature creep, it can happen really, really quickly because a lot of us are sort of creative visionaries that sort of see, you know, the possibility of what our solution can do, right? And how we can go about solving these problems.

And so being very, very, very prescriptive about where to start and what is truly addressing that customer's pain point, those are some of the hardest decisions that I felt that I needed to start with because we were building something that was really cool, right? I mean, a pickup sports app, you know, even just as I speak to people out in the marketplace, there's so many different ways and avenues that we could take this product.

But being able to just be very, very, very just selective on where we're going to start and focus effort to test the market. I think those are the biggest decisions that start to come up. There's a lot of cool stuff that I want to do. It just needs to wait until we have the capacity to get there.

Monisha Saldanha (10:08) So choosing what not to build is a difficult decision.

PJ Bullock (10:12) Of course, always.

Monisha Saldanha (10:14) And how did you validate demand before investing heavily in building the product?

PJ Bullock (10:22) it took me a while to build up the courage to start investing in the product. I, you know, my, as I started off the beginning of the call with my background being in strategy and corporate development, I might've overanalyzed and had a little bit of analysis paralysis. So, one of the ways I tested the market was just doing desktop diligence, right? What solutions are out there today? What

How are they going about solving the problem and how big is this market segment? That is, think, One of the best ways just to get started is just to really understand the landscape of the space that you're trying to go into. I then talk to a lot of customers. My customers are primarily rec centers, sports complexes, and facilities and try to understand what their challenges are.

And one of the biggest that I found was capacity utilization, right? And this was also validated through the industry reports that I saw within this space. And that's one side of the marketplace, right? So one side of the marketplace is how do I help address businesses that have space that's available to be reserved? And why are they having issues filling this and having sort of idle time on their books?

And then on the other side, I went out and I had the best job in the world doing market research within the area of pickup sports. I would jump into games. I would play a lot of pickleball, ultimate frisbee, basketball. Volleyball was a huge part of my life. And just starting to understand.

how people went about organizing these games. And of course I got invited to about 30 different group chats everywhere

Monisha Saldanha (12:12) Peace.

PJ Bullock (12:12) from Telegram to WhatsApp to text threads to email chains. And they were all seem, They all seem to suffer from the same problem and we're going through the same process. And so I did spend a lot of time just understanding how these games started to come together, right? And then I also spent a lot of time understanding what was

sort of the barriers for people to go in and reserve and book space.

Monisha Saldanha (12:43) Yeah. And what were those barriers that you discovered?

PJ Bullock (12:50) I think a lot of people are looking for certainty today in their schedule. When I was growing up playing basketball and other sports, there was sort of this wait and see mentality. You kind of knew where the places were and you would show up and just start to hope that people would also arrive and you would have enough for a game. I think in today's world, because we put so much time into building out our schedules during the week,

We want certainty, right? We want to know that if I make the drive out somewhere that people are going to be there. Or if I go arrive at this, if I carve out time to go to this recreational center that I will be able to get a game and do what I want to do. And so we are looking for certainty. And I think that is a pretty big, big barrier that's sort of limited the adoption of more play within our communities. And so what I did...

find was that there was almost more of a guarantee to go join a CrossFit class or a Pilates or yoga studio or go to the gym because or go on a run that individual that individual sort of exercises or things that you do where you can do it on your own started to sort of take the place of group exercise or group activities.

So I did sort of see this sort of change in the way that we're living and how we're managing our weeks being one of the things that's preventing sort of this spontaneous play occurring within our communities.

Monisha Saldanha (14:30) it sounds like we're losing a little bit of joy from that spontaneity. Are you trying to bring the joy back?

PJ Bullock (14:37) Absolutely. I found and just as a personal story on my journey, I really did get motivated to build pickup play out of me being able to find joy back in my life from playing volleyball with a group of friends. I do think that this is something that we need and to have that third place or that space.

It's not necessarily about the sport or going out and competing. It really is about being in connection with other people and doing something fun together. And that is that is a great way to just bring bring joy back into all of our lives is just just doing something as simple as kicking around a ball into a goal together. And the score doesn't really matter. The the the time that you're spending

you know, in community with people, that's where it really counts.

Monisha Saldanha (15:40) And what monetization model are you planning on pursuing? And are there other monetization models that you thought about but you're like, no, I'm not going to do that.

PJ Bullock (15:50) Yeah, I, this is where I banged my head on the wall for about a year when I was thinking through Pickup Play. And I think it's, it is really important for anyone that is creative and technical to really think about, okay, how do, how do we pursue a viable commercial strategy, right? And How do we monetize what we're building and understanding the pain points? And so Where I began on my journey was

this joy spark that you're talking about that I wanted to bring more play into this world. I was getting so much joy out of playing with my friends. How do I bottle this up and package it for other people? Then the question comes as you go out and talk to investors and share your idea. Well, okay, well, how does it make money? And That was a big question for me. And so That's where this other element of the research of finding

the business problem for sports complexes and facilities that they start to understand that there's an opportunity to do group reservations and bookings and to get on sort of a transaction of a fee cut, right? So as we're going out and doing a group reservation, it costs sometimes 200, $300 per hour to book a space.

that is a really hard upfront cost for one individual, right? But if you have 20 people, that's a much easier sort of payment to consider, right? So we are looking at, There are transactions happening within the recreational sports space. Some of them are largely player enrollment into programs and coaching and tournaments.

There's you know, reservations that need to occur to book the space. There's advertisement opportunity for other equipment and goods providers to potentially target the player universe. And so You really do start to look at, within this space that I'm solving a problem for, where is money flowing between the parties, right? and how can I help facilitate, you know, that

that exchange. And so We did think reservations and group bookings was a big one for us, as well as player enrollment and membership into sports programs and leagues.

Monisha Saldanha (18:33) That makes a lot of sense. Were there other monetization models you decided not to pursue, or was that the obvious one that you followed, that you came upon?

PJ Bullock (18:45) I mean, it's hard, especially as a founder trying to get to revenue as quickly as possible is important, right? And a lot of thinking around how could we essentially charge subscriptions to the user base, right?

any type of tokenization strategy, we're still looking at a couple of options within that area. And it could be something that, you know, as we prove out demand and the value within the platform that people would pay to sign up. But the alternative today is free, right? So WhatsApp and Telegram and some of these other ones are free for users to go use. And so I do think

I do think we are on hold of trying to charge users, trying to put a whole bunch of ads in there and really focus on where is sort of the biggest opportunity and that's within group reservations.

Monisha Saldanha (19:55) That makes sense. So you decided against advertising, for example, at least for now.

PJ Bullock (20:01) For now, I personally get annoyed when I open up an app and I feel like I'm being constantly bombarded with stuff being pushed my way. And so I think It's a strategy that some businesses have to pursue if they don't have other monetization mechanisms. But since we did find a pretty big one, we decided to hold off on cluttering the

the platform with banners.

Monisha Saldanha (20:33) And What has been the biggest challenge in convincing investors that the marketplace can scale?

PJ Bullock (20:45) That's a great question. I think the biggest challenge and I think everybody that is out there trying to fundraise is really, really taking the time to get into the investor mindset in a similar way that we talked about doing the research for the two sides of the marketplace. There's this other side, which is the investor's mindset and

and how they're gonna look at potentially getting return for their business, right? So one of the things that I had to really try to bring forward for investors is There is this existing underground network of people trying to organize games today. And that's not clearly defined. That's just you and me reaching out to our friends, trying to pull a game together, saying, we should go play softball this weekend. right? That's...

That's not a really well-defined market. so Being able to show that this interaction has taken place and how big and how frequently this was occurring, that was part of the research that went into the data room and the investor materials. And how that ties into the other side, which is how many complexes and facilities are out there? How much empty space do they have? How much do they charge? Right? So Being able to show

not just your Tam, Sam and Psalm, but the, the drivers that go into calculating how you arrived at the market size. And That's what investors are looking for. Tell me that you really understand the customers and how big this market is and what is the type of, you know, reasonable sort of rate at which you can capture that giving, given your traction to date. And so,

The investors are going to take a hard look at is this believable and obtainable, right? given what you're building.

Monisha Saldanha (22:56) And what product decisions made pick up play fundamentally easier than how people organize today games today?

PJ Bullock (23:06) So My favorite product decision was the add player button. So when you create a game and if you download and use the system, it's a better way to coordinate games among your friends, right? And It's similar to, you know, an event system like Partiful, but we have this add player button that allows for you to easily distribute and send out either within your own network, within...

other players networks or outside of network. So distribution of the game became a really valuable sort of feature for you to be able to get enough people to make sure a game can happen. We also allow for you to tap or rotate in players that are maybe not part of your network, but are available nearby. So we, We allow for almost like a whiteboard.

for players to say, I'm available to play this evening. I'm free to play. I'm PJ. I'm a basketball player at a level four. If you're trying to put a game together, I'm here and available. And so you can actually send them to make sure that you have your 10th player to come in and join the game. And so I really love the feature that we have on being able to send out additional invitations.

to make sure that you have enough players.

Monisha Saldanha (24:38) Great feature. Community is at the heart of pickup sports. How do you design the app to foster real-world connections rather than just digital interactions?

PJ Bullock (24:52) Monisha that's a great question. And this is, This is constantly on my mind. So to just be upfront and transparent with all of the listeners, We have released an MVP. We've gotten a ton of market feedback. We are still iterating on landing product market fit. And I think this question is exactly at the heart of the feedback and the insights that we're receiving from users.

to really make sure that you can establish sort of the trust and confidence to actually go out and join a game. I'm realizing not everybody's like me. I'm a pickup sports junkie. I spent all this time going out and jumping into games, but that's a different mindset than I think a lot of people have. so what we're finding, Where I started with the design of the product was I wanted to keep it

really simple. We're building a social networking platform, but I didn't want people addicted to the platform. I wanted for them to be driven to go do, you know, an in real life event, right? So I want you off your phone and I want you out on a field playing volleyball, right? That's, That was the intention. However, there is

There is some trust building that has to occur within the community to actually get them to go out and and go to that field and meet new people and so there's there is this balance between not trying to Keep people on the system, right? But also giving them enough security and confidence and icebreakers within Being able to interact with one another in the digital space before they interact with one another

in real life. And so I'm still working on this balance. I'm finding that I'm looking and spending a lot of times looking at dating apps and how dating apps sort of allow for people to, you know, have some soft touch interactions before they go and have a coffee together. And That's and that's kind of the the considerations that are going into sort of the next iteration of the product.

Monisha Saldanha (27:16) And I mean Another thing that you see on dating apps is more of a profile, like more information about somebody. Are you thinking about incorporating that into pickup play?

PJ Bullock (27:27) Absolutely. So I love our player profile, right? A player profile is sort of at the heart of what we're doing. When I come in and define what my play persona is, this is who I am and how I enjoy spending my free time, right? And so On LinkedIn, you go in and you build a professional profile. I'm PJ. I 20 years within the...

within the corporate world, doing investment banking, valuations, M&A whatever it is, right? And if you have an interest in this field or healthcare, SaaS, connect with me. And that's a huge part of who I am. But there's this other part of who I am, which is what I do in my free time and how I like to spend my free time and finding other people that not only align with me in terms of the sport or the game that I'm interested in, but are also at or around my skill level.

this becomes really valuable for the matching and clustering of people together to find the right people to have a fun game, right? Because there's nothing worse than feeling intimidated as you step onto a court and feeling like you can't hang at that level. So let us help find you other players that are at or around your level so that you can...

feel more confident entering into a game. And that's where the player profiles, I think, really help you find the right group.

Monisha Saldanha (29:03) What lessons have you learned about building trust and safety into a platform that brings strangers together?

PJ Bullock (29:15) I think the first thing that I'm learning is that trust isn't going to come from the platform. It's coming from people that you already know in real life. So if I'm inviting you to come play, I'm the connector that sends the invitation and you trust me.

If you're unable to play, but you know somebody that can fill in the fact that you made that referral, I have trust in that area too, because you're referring to me, somebody that I know can join the game. So I see that as I'm designing the system to really keep that human element front and center, that trust gets built from the people you know, and the people that you've interacted with in real life.

You know, One of the things that we learned early on was we would send a game invitation and it would have our logo on it. Well, people don't know my logo. I haven't built the brand identity yet, right? But they know who Monisha is, right? So if a game invite says Monisha has invited you to play as opposed to Pickup Play has invited you to play then I really do think that, you know, human to human interaction

in a time where we are just so overwhelmed with digital options, that is going to build more trust within our platform.

Monisha Saldanha (30:54) And How has building Pickup Play in Colorado influenced your growth?

PJ Bullock (31:00) it's been amazing. Colorado, Colorado is one of the best states for a couple reasons. I think The first is we have an active, healthy sort of culture here within the state. We play in nature, we go in the mountains, we go skiing. You you see a lot of triathletes that, you know, there's a different mindset here that exists. When people ask you what you do, oftentimes they don't

mean for work. They mean, you know, what's your thing? Do you fly fish? Do you bike? You know, I think that's one of the most amazing things about Colorado is, you know, people really do take pride in how they spend, you know, quality time outside of work, right? And so that was a great base for me to get started as I was out there playing and meeting people. I just felt that the community was really, really strong to begin with.

Also just from the sort of startup entrepreneurial space, being in Boulder, Colorado, there is a great entrepreneurial mindset here. There's a fantastic community within the Boulder startup world to kind of share in the journey to help you network. The Colorado CU Boulder has fantastic programs for innovation and venture growth.

I'm working with Regis out of Denver as well. The state also has programs to help provide grants and additional funding and tax supports for people that are innovating and creating within the state of Colorado. And so I think Colorado is one of these sort of emerging sort of tech hubs because of the fact that we're putting such an emphasis on building and creation.

creating as well as doing things that are socially responsible and sustainable. Colorado has that mindset as well. It's kind of ingrained in who we are probably because of our love for the mountains and our connection to the landscape. So if your business is in that area of kind of hitting not only a good business strategy, but also, you know, improves

society and well-being, I think this is a great place to do that.

Monisha Saldanha (33:30) And what are you doing with Regis University?

PJ Bullock (33:33) So with Regis, I'm part of their pitch competition, right? I'm working with a couple of students there. We're going through what's called their Innovation Challenge. And it's a multi-month program that helps not only the students, but also the founders refine their business plan, connect with advisors, and potentially win some capital. so that's just a great way to keep strengthening these muscles because

The fundraising world as a CEO and a founder is very different than the sales role of your product into the marketplace. So getting that exposure and that experience I think is very valuable because it is different than your day to day.

Monisha Saldanha (34:24) And What has been the most surprising behavior or feedback from your users?

PJ Bullock (34:34) We're living in a very interesting time. for everybody that's listening, you're very aware of the speed at which things are changing and the amount of...

stuff that's out there. so I do think users are very, Customers and users are just overwhelmed, right? I know for me personally, I am so tired of the AI generated outreach bots that are selling me stuff in my LinkedIn profile. I probably get 40 of them a day. My emails are just bombarded with people that are sending me, you know, just blanketed outreach requests.

Right? We're preparing resumes that all look the same. They're being reviewed by AI bots. If you're trying to get a job application, the amount of content that's being put out into social media and everywhere, people are overwhelmed. We're overwhelmed. And so The first thing that I realized after spending a year building a mobile native product was a lot of people got turned away from downloading an app. And app fatigue was real. That

As I look at my roadmap, people's phones have too many things. I got too much right now. And it is funny that we are at an age where we have so much technology to make life more simple that it almost feels so hard to manage, right? And even when I started, this was trying to help people basically coordinate and schedule. So...

Biggest user feedback was, you gotta make this really, really, really simple for me, right? Like, I needed to be truly seamless. I do not have the amount of time to give to your product as someone like me would because I built it and I love it, I'm passionate about it. You really only have about 10 to 15 seconds before you lose somebody's attention. So reviewing this onboarding process,

for me became very, very, very valuable. Being able to sell on emotion as opposed to features, people really do respond to sort of an emotional element in terms of salesmanship, then, hey, it can do this for you or this for you or that for you, right? And Really listening to the customers because I am finding that

users want this solution.

but they don't want to do more work. And they're already doing a lot of work within WhatsApp and all these other group chats. How do you really, really, really take stuff off their plate and not add more? And I did find that even the redirecting into the App Store or Google Play to download was additional work. And so I think for everybody out there that's thinking and building,

Get in in front of users, let them try it. Don't be totally sold on the initial solution that you have, right? And listen to them in terms of when they say, don't have time for this or you have to make it so that it's almost a no brainer for

Monisha Saldanha (38:14) Yeah, that's a big challenge. fatigue and people's attention spans in challenging times.

PJ Bullock (38:21) It really is.

Monisha Saldanha (38:22) What assumption about building this product turned out to be wrong once real users started using it?

PJ Bullock (38:34) For me?

The biggest feature we have is starting a game.

I thought...

that starting a game would be just a simple thing for people, right? And that assumption was wrong. A lot of people saw this as a heavy lift, that they're essentially signing up for something that they weren't necessarily ready to go do. And so that's why as we are kind of working on our MVP and reworking it, that there were smaller things.

that sort of build this confidence and trust before they're ready to go start a game. So going back to that dating app analogy, I was essentially connecting people and saying, all right, go have coffee at the Starbucks, right? And they're going, well, wait a minute, wait a minute,

Monisha Saldanha (39:34) Okay.

PJ Bullock (39:34) I wanna like their photo first and I wanna be able to swipe right and I wanna be able to chat a little bit and maybe send them a rose or something. There are these...

Warming up icebreaker steps that have to occur before somebody has You know enough motivation to go do something like start a game for us start a game was a big step so I think I think for me and sort of learning from the marketplace was What felt like a sort of yeah, just go do it There was there was more that needed to happen beforehand and and that is where learning from

learning from actual users and learning from the marketplace just helped us in defining the roadmap.

Monisha Saldanha (40:21) And Were there any features that seemed like a good idea but you ultimately decided not to build? Like You mentioned earlier that the roadmap can have scope creep and you can think about all these amazing things to build, but then it's just too much. So are there any examples of features that you thought about that you decided not to build?

PJ Bullock (40:43) I don't know if I decided not to build them. I would say not to build them yet, right? Because I keep all of it. Eventually they're going to come off the shelf at some point. The one that I think I get most excited about is gamification of the player profile. The stuff that I can do in order to really excite.

people and encourage people to be more active within the community and to go play more, I think there's so much that can be done within the player profile. And that is immediately, I think, where my head wanted to go in the build was create a really cool interactive.

you know, system for me to really get detailed around who I am. And that isn't necessarily addressing the pain point to the side of the marketplace that I'm describing. I think it's going to add stickiness over time. But I think the biggest focus was on game coordination and player connection, right? As opposed to player definition. And that...

And that is where I spent a lot of time in sort of the design process wanting to do this, but it had to go onto the show. It had to just kind of take a backseat for a little bit until we really work on the game engine and sort of getting the games going. From there, I there's just a ton of possibilities within this area of profile development.

When I speak with people and have coffee, lunches and dates and we talk about the product, gosh, the amount of sort of ideation that occurs around, know, gamifying the profiles, it's exciting. It's just not time yet.

Monisha Saldanha (42:42) What's the mistake you made early in building pickup play that taught you an important lesson? And how did it change the way that you make decisions today?

PJ Bullock (42:59) I was too afraid to get started. And so to everybody out there that's questioning whether or not that should go do or pursue an opportunity, go do it. Just get started. I spent, you know, over a decade in corporate strategy for a large medical device company in healthcare.

And so if I was going to propose a strategy or to a large initiative, I needed to be rock solid, certain that this is what we wanted to do, that this wasn't going to disrupt our customer base, that if we're going to push something through this large organization, that it needed to be iron tight, you know? And that's not true for entrepreneurs. Go fail and go fail fast.

So I think if I could have gotten out of my head earlier, I would have. If I could have gotten my product in front of customers while it was still ugly with warts, rather than trying to make sure it was as pretty as it could to represent me and something I could be proud of, I would just start making moves, getting out there, getting feedback, iterating.

changing, adjusting, pivoting as much as I could as fast as I can early on.

And then as you and then once you're able to sort of land exactly exactly how to get product market fit, then I think you can, you know, add a little bit more discipline and rigor. And so for me, I started I came from a place of discipline and rigor and I, it just took me a while to, to, to kick myself and go, No, get started. Start building. Start doing this. You can do this. Go go get it in people's hands.

What do they think? It's okay if they call your baby ugly. Like these are the type of sort of rejection bottles, battle scars that you're going to have to go through as a founder and whatever's in your brain. It's it's it's going to be great, but the market's going to tell you exactly what it is that they want and they need. So getting started earlier start today and that is also true when it comes to fundraising.

I wanted to make sure that when I was out trying to raise capital that I was at a certain point or a certain effort. I wish I started earlier. I just wish I started having these conversations months, months in advance, right? And Because these things are processes, they take time and you have to build confidence and conviction, which only comes from putting yourself out there.

Monisha Saldanha (45:57) Okay, so be brave and start early. Don't wait until perfect.

PJ Bullock (46:01) Be brave. Yes, thank you for simplifying that for me.

Monisha Saldanha (46:06) What decision are you making today that will matter most to Pickup Play's success in five years' time?

PJ Bullock (46:15) People. right? Who

Monisha Saldanha (46:19) you

PJ Bullock (46:19) is it that you're going to bring along on your journey? Right? And I think oftentimes As founders, there's this big idea out there about being a solopreneur. right? I believe in team. I believe that, you know, There is an ability to kind of...

leverage a lot of different skill sets in order to grow and scale. right? So.

If you are building technology and you're in that process of just where I am as a sort of pre-seed inception stage sort of founder, the people that you bring in, how you bring them in, whether it's an investor, a pilot user, a technical co-founder or sales guy, you know,

These are big decisions, right? These are really, really big decisions and if done the right way, it can have the biggest impact, right? So I'm at a place right now where I am looking for people that believe in this mission, right? Of where you got to early on in this podcast, which is spreading joy, right? Who else wants to help in this?

this sort of need that's out there for people to reconnect around play and experiencing more joy in their life. And if you find people that are bought into this and are believers in this, the ability to grow is accelerated.

Monisha Saldanha (47:53) Fantastic. Do you have any other parting words of advice for people thinking about building their own products out there?

PJ Bullock (48:06) No, I think the biggest piece of advice is kind of what was already talked about early on, right? It's...

It is this iteration. so Falling in love with the problem instead of the solution is the biggest piece of advice because I think oftentimes is if you're an engineer or you're technical, you're thinking a lot about the product, right? And even the way you asked me was, you know, for people that are out there building products, right? The mindset shift I'd encourage you is for people out there that are solving problems.

Right? What is the problem you're solving for and for who? And the product will just be a part of that. And the service eventually will be a part of that. And that will allow for you to truly be able to sit in their seat and talk with them and be able to build for the problem that you're solving for. And it's, it's gonna move. It's like, it is never gonna be a straight line. You're gonna find this problem. For me, the problem was

Shoot, it is really difficult to organize a game and people should be playing more within their week. That's the problem, right? How I go about doing it, the product is changed. The product's constantly changing, right? And so even as technology's evolving at the rate it's evolving, the problem's still there, right? How do I continue to adapt and adjust and...

I was guilty of falling in love with my initial design of my product, right? And that's where you got to go back to the solution you're solving for.

Monisha Saldanha (49:57) And What is one book every builder should read and why?

PJ Bullock (50:03) Every builder. Okay. I love the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It is a 12 week workbook that essentially helps you tap into your creative potential. And so it doesn't, it basically sits on the premise that everyone was created by the creator to create. And we all have this creative potential in us. And how do you do exercises to tap into

your creative potential and to get rid of any type of emotional or mental blocking that's stopping you from going out and pursuing and building this thing that you want. And so it is a fantastic read. It's a lot of writing and self-reflection and kind of looking at your life and your past to say, you know, what's stopping me from building or

expanding the vision of what I'm building into what it could truly be. So if you have not read or done the exercise of the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, I would strongly recommend doing it. It's one of those things that sort of, you know, changed my perspective and I still do my morning pages every morning.

Monisha Saldanha (51:19) Fantastic. Yeah, I've read that book. I'm not doing my morning pages though, so you're far better student than I was. Well done.

PJ Bullock (51:29) It's

addictive and for those that are listening, morning pages are a journaling exercise that has a sort of a unique twist to it, but it's about 20 to 30 minutes of sort of free flowing journaling as a way to exercise the right hemisphere of your brain.

Monisha Saldanha (51:49) Yeah, we all need a little bit of that. Great. Well, thank you so much, PJ. And thank you listeners for listening to this episode of Colorado Tech People. If you enjoyed this conversation about building community through sports and technology, please share the episode with someone who loves playing or organizing pickup games. Don't forget to subscribe so you can hear more conversations with the founders and builders shaping Colorado's tech ecosystem. Until next time.

Keep building, keep connecting, and keep creating technology that brings people together. Thank you everyone and goodbye.

PJ Bullock (52:25) Thank you, Monisha