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Hey hey, this is Sean with the Award Winning Go Tennis Podcast powered by Signature Tennis.
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Check us out at Let'sGoTennis.com, and we invite you to learn more about the award
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by following the link in the show notes.
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And as you're listening to this, please look in your podcast app where to leave a review
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We would love to earn your five-star reviews.
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And now let's get into our recent conversation with Darren Hornick.
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And most of you would recognize is that Darren owns the Port Washington Tennis Academy
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on Long Island, where John and Patrick McEnroe grew up playing.
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Port Washington currently hosts the John McEnroe Tennis Academy.
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Darren is also founder and CEO of Courts app, which is the priceline.com of Courts rental
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for Racket Sports facilities.
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Have a listen and let us know what you think.
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Who are you and why do we care?
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I don't know, but I'll tell you who I am.
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My background is predominantly in real estate.
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I own a bunch of real estate and develop a bunch of real estate throughout the country.
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I had the fortunate opportunity to buy the Port Washington Tennis Academy, which is a
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renowned tennis academy in Port Washington.
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The reason it's renowned is where both McEnroe brothers play.
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It's the first academy in the United States.
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So it's where the McEnroe brothers were trained, played with Tracy Austin, Beatrice Gerald
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I bought it from the original owners.
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And when I bought it, I had the vision of enhancing it and improving it.
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And we did a very big job, I believe, in doing that.
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It was 17 tennis courts.
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Now it's 13 tennis to 12 pickable.
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Because you can't grow with a pickable, which we're all aware of.
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But one thing I noticed when I bought it is the overall sophistication level and technological
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levels and marketing that court operators have are not up to par with the rest of the
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industries out there, particularly real estate where every square inch is counted and every
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dollar is maximized.
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I didn't say the same sophistication level with racquet sports.
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And I created courts app to bridge that gap and help racquet sport owners fill their
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courts and help players find courts easily and book courts easily and get out there and
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play is really the name of the game.
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That also leans in a little bit to the why are you unique question because this isn't court
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It's not what I would use when I run my club.
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It's not what Bobby uses to run his club.
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This is a layer within that helps me do more with what I have, right?
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That's exactly right, Sean.
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So we have relationships and partnerships with the biggest court management companies out
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there that will be announcing shortly.
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But the names you know, what they do, they manage the inside four walls.
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So they know the courts, they know the court availability, they have personnel, they have
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accounting, they have credit card processing, they run your pro shop, they run court maintenance.
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We don't do any of that.
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What we do is we take the available court inventory and put that on the market.
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The same way Expedia takes room availability from a hotel and puts that on a market on
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But what's most unique is you have price and discovery and location on our app to find
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out where you want to play and then discover the pricing differential.
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So if I went on XYZ court and price was $50 an hour and I wanted to book there, you know,
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But maybe down the block, the same court is now $40 an hour.
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Why not save $10 on that court booking?
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So where the only one to do that, the same way we've all used, you know, Expedia, open
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table, Airbnb, we are able to compare contrast to different.
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So we'll bring it to the market for both the racquet clubs and the consumer.
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Kick it to Bobby because I've done a bunch of due diligence on this.
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So I already know my thoughts and Bobby likes to hear this firsthand and give us an initial
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What's your what's your knee jerk reaction on this one, Bobby?
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Obviously Atlanta or Choea driven, so we don't have the incentive of money.
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I think from the tennis club perspective, I've been saying it for, you know, five, six
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years now, it's the future and I love the idea of that.
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And I love the idea that the clubs are accepting it if they're accepting it.
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I mean, because I think the clubs, you know, a tennis specific club in order to survive
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down here needs to open it up.
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You know, hey, I got a couple hours available.
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Come on in and fill it.
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So I, you know, I've been screaming for this since my days involvement with courts with
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the K, you know, when we were trying to break into the market.
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No, I mean, the court owners love it.
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I mean, I'd say 90% of the conversations end.
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This is a no brainer, right?
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Because it's a win-win, no, no court out there is used 100% of the time, right?
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It's just impossible to fill all 16 hours of the day, especially with multiple courts, right?
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If you have 10 courts at 16 hours a day, that's 160 hours, right?
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So maybe you're filled 80, 90% in peak, we only 10 to 20% in off peak.
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So we're taking your available courts, you know, you still do your job, we're not competing
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We're going to help you fill your off courts because there's two, there's two numbers.
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One people think that these clubs are membership club only, right?
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So it's gated there, and then the other one is it's painful to find a way to book the
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You have to make a phone call, you have to become a guest account, you know, you just come
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on courts at and you can search and discover in three clicks and book one click in your
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So we're really making it easier.
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So I'm happy you agree with Bobby, we didn't get it to her right now.
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Hey, question for you, because I'd love to see it go one step.
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And as Sean said, I don't know, we might already.
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One thing I pushed was for an open concept where you could like for the, not just the
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courts, the club, but if the club had a drill that they wanted to get filled, because I
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think that would explode down here.
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I think the opportunity for people to see more than what is just in their neighborhood.
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There's a, you know, I had people driving 45 minutes because they've learned about our
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They did it once, enjoyed it and start.
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So I, you know, it was just a financial thing they couldn't get there yet.
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But I would love to see that.
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And I think that's a home run as well.
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So the one is court booking and the idea around that is we need the product and we need
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the inventory to show people, right?
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So the same way when DoorDash started, they started in certain geographic areas, just
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like Uber started in San Francisco, it didn't, it didn't pay to go out there and not have
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cars who could drive people in a given market.
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So we're focused on the Northeast right now when we're rolling out throughout the country
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But from a product standpoint, it's court bookings, then it's going to be open play and open
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Then it's going to be tournaments, lessons, clinics, well, I've getaways.
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So we'll have a whole robust suite of different e-commerce capabilities on the racket court.
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But the whole thing is we're making it easy, we're making it easy, we're making digestible.
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That is typically used.
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You have a map view.
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You can see how far you are, right, because people, keep your care about price, obviously
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So not only do we do tennis, we do tennis, pick them all, paddle, squash, ping pong and
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badminton, time of day, right, price and distance.
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Like you have those four factors, you can make the decision very easily.
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We display that in an easy-used interface, you know, that just makes it really a lot simpler
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than having to go through all the hurdles of booking the court these days.
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Say something about the term perishable inventory, Darren, because our audience, especially
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if it's mostly tennis types, we don't think always in those types of terms of it actually
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being a product that has value that is then gone.
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We just think we always have a tennis court.
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You used that phrase recently, and I think you've posted about that as well.
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I wouldn't mind giving you a second to tell us about that, because I think that's something
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tennis types, specifically, with bracket sports types, need to really understand about
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One hundred percent.
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This was really the crux of this business model is court time is a perishable command, right?
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The same way an airline ticket is a perishable commodity.
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The same way a hotel room is a perishable commodity.
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The difference is court time becomes perishable every hour or every half hour, right?
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So right now we're approaching two o'clock, you know, Eastern Seaboard, come to fifteen,
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there's millions of dollars of courts that went unused.
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So why wouldn't you sell that inventory?
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And this is what we're helping also with dynamic pricing, right?
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Consumer behavior reacts based on pricing availability, right?
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So why do hotels discount their rooms the day of?
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Because they know they're never going to make that money back.
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So they'd rather get 75 or 80 cents on the dollar than zero cents on the dollar.
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That's just pure economics.
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So we're approaching it the same way and giving the facilities tools to discounts their
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courts closer to that perishable time, right?
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Because I know right now it's one fifty, right?
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There are millions of dollars of courts that went wasted between one and two o'clock,
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The average utilization between 12 and four is less than 20%.
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So 80% of the courts being wasted.
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So why wouldn't you take those 80% of courts and just 50%, you have to have 50 cents on
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the dollar than zero cents on the dollar.
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So that's a big part of what we're bringing in is just business rationale that we just
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don't think has been thought out and really focused on how to operate a business in an
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efficient manner the same way a hotel operator does and the same way an airline does.
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And a consumer package good, you know, as long as it doesn't spoil it, it could sit on
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the shelf for weeks.
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School of clocked reservation is only setting that for an hour, you know, use it or lose
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And that's what we're trying to help do.
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Bobby, I'm glad he said it because I'm going to crop that out and I'm going to send
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it to everybody we know.
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And it goes back to what we were talking about yesterday strong.
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This is the discussion I would give up my Friday morning to go listen to because this
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is what tennis needs more across the board of getting a perspective outside that people
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don't think like this.
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And you know, five years ago when we started when I started with the other 90% of facilities
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didn't even have a reservation system.
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They were still taking it over the phone and it was pencil and paper.
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So it's great to see that we're coming.
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But thankfully for COVID, everybody got a lot more receptive to the idea of doing it
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It's been time for some time.
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So it's interesting and it's great and hopefully again, I hope the clubs take advantage
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Well, they are first, you know, I started the company exactly a year ago, you know, it
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took us about six months to build the demo.
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We started first selling to clubs mid July.
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And as of this morning, we have 174 clubs, 1800 courts on the app already.
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And you know, we just launched live, you know, last month.
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So we're new, right?
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We're, you know, where we want to be.
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We want to be national.
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And then, you know, we'll go into national ultimately, particularly the Asian and European
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markets of booming.
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But it's a learning curve for the facilities.
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Like when we talk to them and explain it, and they look at us and shake that head and
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like, you're right.
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I keep saying, this is a no brainer.
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Like why let the court on go?
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You're already paying for your real estate cost.
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You're paying the taxes.
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You're paying your insurance.
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The only way you make money is renting courts.
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So we're going to bring more people in and not only bring more people in on Mac, even
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hour, it gives you a chance to upsell them and let them become a member.
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I mean, that's part of the beauty of what we're creating.
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The same way of expedient brings me to a Hilton hotel.
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It has a chance to make me a member because it's a better experience than I have at Marriotta.
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So a lot of the business principles that have been well utilized in sophisticated analytical
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businesses, we're bringing it to the table to the racket sports and tennis industry.
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So we're really excited about it.
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In Bobby, I'm happy when I first talked to Darren about kind of how the business integrates
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into the racket sports world, it's a relatively non-competitive conversation that he gets
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to have with everybody that's in the industry and it's similar to what we do with GoTennis,
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similar to what we do with the American Racket Sports Association, that we're not out
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there saying, okay, well, yeah, we compete with this company and that company, but we do
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It really is a nice system that doesn't have much competition if any in this industry
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and works well with what's already established.
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Is that well put, Darren?
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I think that's dead on.
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I look at it, we want to grow the games, right?
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I love tennis, I love pick a ball from starting to like paddle, just a little bit more challenging,
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but it's about growing the game, right?
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And I use this phrase often, all boats rise in a rising tide.
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So if we're helping more people get on the court because it is less expensive, they're
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going to play more.
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And we all know how beautiful the game of tennis is than pick a ball and other sports.
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If you like the game, you're going to play more often, you're going to buy more goods,
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you're going to have more friends, you're going to start a community.
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So the whole idea is keep building the game and get people on the court, right?
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The same way, think of the travel industry.
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Everyone loves to travel and that's what the airlines compete.
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But the more people that travel a year, you may use Delta, you may use United Airlines.
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It does bring with people in and making the access easier because there's nothing more
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frustrating, right?
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When you make a phone call and you put on hold for five minutes and you can't get that
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Like give me a break, I just want to go on an app, find the court and I want to get out
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You know, we did, we did a customer survey, we interviewed 2,000 people who play more than
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Their number one complaint was booking 24% of them say the most friction and the most annoying
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they have is finding a booking of court.
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I mean, that's silly, isn't it?
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That should be the easiest thing.
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You know, the hardest thing should be a two handed backhand.
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That's, that's well, that's well compared.
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The issues with a two handed backhand down the slide line, right?
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Two handed down the line.
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So I love, I love what's going on.
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And it's a, it's a cooperative style business conversation to be able to say, we, we come
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in and help together, we come in and help you.
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And I definitely want to hear your King of Racket Sports, we're going to zoom out for
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that question next.
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Darren, does you have something specific you want to talk about before we ask our last
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Something you want to share, any launches or anything exciting?
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We have some exciting things happening and with building the products, we've just started
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literally advertising yesterday.
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And the response has been great.
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You know, we're getting feedback, you know, we're not, we're not perfect, like no company
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is perfect initially and maybe you're not perfect, you know, years from now.
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But we're living and learning.
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We've won feedback.
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We want to get as many courts on the system and users on the system.
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One other thing we're doing is a light social network, right?
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We're not going to be Facebook, but we're going to enable players to find players who
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want to play at the same level.
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So we're calling it a close and open network.
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I like to play with my dozen friends, I like those dozen people, I booked a court,
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I need three, you know, John, Paul and Ringo, you guys want to play great.
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If I can't find three, I'll open up to the market and say who's in proximity and wants
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So we're trying to think about things a little bit differently.
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We're integrating lessons, like I said, and we're integrating split fee.
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So the same way you share an Uber with your friends and it's $30, you know, Bob, you
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pay 10, I pay 10 and Sean pays 10, right?
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We're doing the things that make practical sense to make the user experience better and
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get out there and play.
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So that's really what we're going and we're trying to have fun with it and we definitely
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It's a fun industry and great people.
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Bob, you got anything for Darren before I hit him with the last question.
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I know you said you're rolling out in phases.
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And do you anticipate going beyond tri-state, you know, where's next?
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So next is the East NC boarding Florida and we're already there, right?
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I mean, we've tried to get a court density of at least a thousand courts in an area before
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So what we're trying to do is get court density of about a thousand courts.
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We roll out a given market and go from there.
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So we're moving down the East NC board into Florida and going from that standpoint.
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So we'll be all of these coasts about the end of the end of this quarter and then we'll
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go national through 2026 because I'm just interested to see how it plays out here.
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I really believe that we have an aging infrastructure.
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I mean, my facility is a perfect example.
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We're at the point where we should be redoing courts and that costs money.
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It would be unheard of because there are amenities, but I do think that the, you know,
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the HOAs down here should list it because it's something that it's not going to make anybody
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rich, but I think it can monetize it.
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It's a great way to advertise your neighborhood and you're talking about property value more
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than anything else.
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So more exposure, the better off you're going to be, I do think it has a place here.
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Yeah, listen, HOAs is interesting, right?
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If they allow outside people in, we could register them.
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We do register them online.
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We could put John Jones name at the front gate and they come in and they're renting it for
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You know, a tennis court, forget about a facility's tennis court is utilized.
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Like I said, about 55, 60% because you take all the hours of the year.
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That's, that's a really evil defeat.
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No one gets much further than 60%.
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East are closer to 20%.
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Because just people are doing all the things and it's not like in their area.
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We're also integrating backyard courts.
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Think of all the backyard courts around the country that just sit there empty.
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You know, people while you're sleeping their beds to Airbnb,
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want them to let you play on that tennis court for $50 an hour, yeah?
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I don't know, I don't know if I want Bobby coming and sleeping on my couch or
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much less in my backyard on my tennis court.
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You never know, you got to put filters on these things there.
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Hey, that's between you and I, Bobby.
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There and I appreciate your time.
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We both do and we got a couple of minutes.
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I just want to ask our final question,
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which I really love because it's so much fun to hear all the answers that we get.
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But in your case, I'm definitely very interested.
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And I'm going to zoom out to racquet sports because you're not only tennis in this case.
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But the question is, if you were king of racquet sports,
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whether it's the entire world or just New York or Florida,
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social, professional, whatever it is, if you were king of racquet sports,
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is there anything you would do or change?
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If there's anything I'd do or change,
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I would give you three serves, right, instead of two,
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just give you like the first two you could try out, get the third one in.
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And I would just make court availability and ubiquity, you know, easy, right?
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And the one thing that I would do, if I was king and I had that pot of gold,
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I would sprinkle the gold and improve the dilapidated courts we see around the country.
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It breaks my heart driving through parts of New York City or other parts of urban markets.
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They don't have nets, the nets are fading, the lines you can't see.
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So it's something meaningful to us of giving back.
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And if I was king, I'd sprinkle my gold around my kingdom.
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And get the courts, you know, going, but that takes time,
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it takes money and takes expertise.
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So that's something we plan on doing also with courts app is, you know,
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giving back and helping people.
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So it's not all about just making money.
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It's about filling courts for the facilities,
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making it easier for players to get on there.
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And then making it more fair for everyone to get out there and play the games we love.
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Maybe we can connect courts app with the go tennis foundation and create an initiative
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for what you guys are working on.
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Do we can do a non-profit target for fixing up some tennis courts?
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And maybe that's a good fit.
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That would be fantastic.
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I mean, listen, that's what it's about.
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I say this all the time.
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It's about having fun and loving what you do.
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And I'm thankfully at that position of life that I could do both.
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This stress that comes with it like anything else.
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I'm involved in a game that people love.
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And the game of tennis, you say love pretty often.
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Again, well, well referenced.
22:07
Well, Darren, thank you so much for your time.
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Again, we appreciate you coming to tell us what courts app is doing.
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We'll put all the information in the show notes and we'll make sure
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we promote everything to the best of our ability.
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Bobby, thank you for making the time.
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Of course, and glad you're back inside a little bit.
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It's cold here in the Atlanta area.
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Darren, I appreciate it again.
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Thank you so much, gentlemen.
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I appreciate your time.
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Thanks a lot, guys.
22:33
Well, there you have it.
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We want to thank rejuvenate.com for use of the studio
22:37
and signature tennis for their support.
22:39
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