• After years of writing about successful eCommerce entrepreneurs, I decided to start my own business.
• A friend and I pooled $10,000 to launch a pickleball paddle company.
• We outsourced various tasks to save time and, ultimately, improve the quality of our product.

As I've now learned firsthand, starting a business is hard — and takes time. A lot of time.

I didn't doubt that heading into the endeavor, but it's different when you're in it — when you're thinking about your brand and its voice, when you're prototyping a product, and when you start shelling out your own money.

After years of reporting on successful eCommerce entrepreneurs, I decided to try my hand at launching and selling a product. I brought a friend and former roommate on board, and in April 2024, we deposited $10,000 into a business checking account to bring our product idea — pickleball paddles — to life.

Depositing funds was the easy part. The building-the-business part has been a tedious challenge that started nearly two years ago in the living room of our Los Angeles apartment when we first began tossing product ideas around.

We both work full-time jobs and figured outsourcing certain tasks would be key. While we were willing to commit some weekday nights and weekends to our side project, we didn't want it to feel all-consuming. We also know what we're good at — and, perhaps more importantly, we know what we're not so good at. Creating a high-quality brand and product that we were proud of would mean hiring smart, talented people to help with the stuff we're not great at.

Here's everything we've outsourced so far to get Peak Pickleball up and running.

Product sourcing. Our product is the heart of our business — and we only offer one — so nailing the design was crucial. I'd learned from interviewing top Amazon sellers that finding a reliable supplier would be crucial.

In the early stages of the project when we were still messing around with different product ideas, we used Alibaba to connect with suppliers and start to understand manufacturing costs. There were endless suppliers to choose from who were all quick to message back and eager to work with us, but we were hesitant to proceed. The language barrier was evident and the thought of eventually sending thousands of dollars overseas to buy inventory from a supplier we'd never met was nervewracking.

Ultimately, we chose to work with a product-sourcing company founded by eCommerce entrepreneur Joe Reeves. He's familiar with the challenges of finding a good, trustworthy supplier, having gone through the process himself when launching his wallet business. Reeves started the company 330 Trading with a college friend who lives in Taipei and is on the ground communicating in person with various factories in Asia, including the one that is manufacturing our pickleball paddle and packaging.

Packaging design. We hired a freelance designer through Fiverr to help design our packaging. We had an idea of what we wanted it to look like but didn't have the skills (or bandwidth to learn the skills necessary) to execute it.

Website. We also outsourced web design, which neither of us had experience with, and hired a different freelancer through Fiverr to put together a basic Shopify website. Moving forward, we'll be able to do site upkeep ourselves, but hiring someone to create a clean, compelling homepage and build out the other main pages was well worth $158.

The best $250 we spent: Outsourcing logo design

We've spent a lot of money, nearly $6,000, on startup costs. Some of those costs were unavoidable, like the $39 a month we pay for Shopify Basic, while others were more of a choice: We spent about $2,500 to get our paddle approved by USA Pickleball so that it can be used in USAP-sanctioned tournaments. We're betting on the pricey stamp of approval, which also helps legitimize our brand, paying off in the long term.

The costs that we outsourced technically weren't necessary, but they saved us time and, ultimately, improved our product.

One expense that we outsourced, in particular, feels fully worth the cost: We hired a professional graphic designer to develop our logo.

We worked with a friend we knew well and trusted fully. It was a back-and-forth process that started with us answering five branding questions she emailed to us ahead of our first meeting:

1. What are some adjectives to describe how you want your brand to come across? Or how you want people to feel when interacting with it?
2. Are there a few brands that you both really admire (for messaging, logo, brand activity, etc.)?
3. Other than on the paddle where else can you envision the logo being used/interacted with?
4. Do you envision brand activity beyond selling paddles and the marketing efforts to support that?
5. What are the spec sizes/requirements for branding relative to the prototype paddle specifically?

Sitting down and talking through our answers helped us nail down the identity of our brand: We are energetic, playful, and innovative — and our designer created a logo and color palette that represents who Peak Pickleball is.

We paid $250, and it's the best money we've spent on the business to date.