Court Side Stories Facebook ad: “This Changed How I Look At Pickleball”

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4211985332425795

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Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Threads

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Niche

Sports & Training

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Ad text

I'm the founder of the biggest pickleball insole brand in the United States. And here is why you need to try it. Four years ago I couldn't get out of my own car after open play. I was 57 when my neighbor dragged me to the rec center, the spring I retired. By summer I was there every morning at 7. Within a year I had 30 people in my phone saved as Steve Pickleball, Donna Pickleball, Big Mike Pickleball. My wife said I had more friends at 58 than I had at 30. On the court I felt great. Off the court I was falling apart. The first step out of bed was my heels. The stairs were my knees. The drive home was my lower back. Some mornings I lay there and took inventory before I moved. I figured that's just what 58 feels like when you play every day. So I did what you probably did. Three pairs of court shoes. A bottle of Advil in the glovebox. Then insoles. First the cheap ones from the drugstore, then a $50 pair of "sport" insoles. Each one helped for a week or two. Then nothing. One night I put the drugstore pair and the sport pair side by side on the kitchen table and pressed my thumb into both. Same foam. Same shape. Same everything. One cost $15. The other one said SPORT and cost $50. That's when I got mad. I'm not a guy who writes angry emails. That night I wrote one. I asked them what exactly made their insole a sport insole. They wrote back two lines. Something about quality standards, and the name of the factory that makes them. So I wrote to the factory. I told them I wanted to start my own insole brand. I was mostly bluffing. Two days later their catalog was in my inbox. Page after page of the same insole. Running. Tennis. Basketball. Pickleball. Even the thin liners that come inside new court shoes. Everything is the same in another color and with another logo. At the end they asked how many thousand pairs I wanted, and what logo to put on them. I could have had my own "pickleball insole" in six weeks. I closed the laptop instead. Because a new logo wasn't going to fix my knees. For months I read everything I could find. And I asked Donna Pickleball, who it turns out is a physical therapist, about a hundred questions. Here's what I learned. Pickleball isn't walking. Every stop at the kitchen line pushes three to four times your body weight into your foot, and it comes in from the side. Every insole in that catalog was built for walking. Once your body weight, straight down. Nothing in it catches a stop. So your foot catches it. Then your knees. Then your back. So I started making my own. I wanted something that holds your foot on a sideways stop and takes the hit without going flat in a month like cheap foam. The best thing I found was PORON. The price was HUUUGE. The first pairs cost me around $400 each. My wife saw the invoice and asked if I'd lost my mind. I tested every version myself, every morning at 7, for almost a year. Most of them were wrong. One of them was right. About three weeks later, I got out of the car after open play and was in the kitchen before I even noticed. A few mornings after that, I realized I'd stopped taking inventory. I hadn't gotten any younger. Only the foam had changed. Donna noticed first. She asked what I was taking. I pulled the insole out right there at the fence and had her press her thumb into it. Then into the one in her own shoe. She's a physical therapist. She didn't need me to explain the difference. She wanted a pair that night. Then Steve, who'd been down to two mornings a week. Then Big Mike, who wears a 14. A few months later I was making them for half the rec center. So I did the thing my wife told me not to do. I ordered a real production run. Even then, every pair still cost me $60 to make. For a long time I didn't make a dime on them, and I didn't care. Steve was back to five mornings a week. Then people I'd never met started ordering. And leaving reviews. Eileen wrote: "I didn't feel any difference initially but noticed my feet never hurt after playing pickleball! Such a relief to not have the pain" Margaret wrote: "Great for pickleball! My legs no longer hurt after a two hour session." So many people could keep playing pickleball as much as they want, as long as they want. Without pain while they play, and without pain after. That's how a retired guy with a kitchen table ended up with the biggest pickleball insole brand in the United States. We're still tiny next to the big brands. They'll sell you an insole for pickleball, tennis, soccer, football and basketball. Put them side by side sometime. Same insole, different design. Today there are over ten of us. Steve runs our shipping now. Afternoons only, because he still plays five mornings a week. Most of the others came the same way. They tried the shoes, the Advil and the "sport" insoles first. Then they tried ours, wrote to us, and a few months later they were working here. Nobody here came for the money. Trust me. So that's my company. Sorry. Our company. Steve would kill me. And I want to be honest with you about one more thing. To get the price per pair down, we had to place one really big order. Bigger than we could sell. It was the only way to stay alive, and I'd do it again. We're one year old. We don't make millions. We make enough to pay everybody, and that's it. So right now we have a lot of insoles left, and you get 40% off. It helps us pay everybody. And it puts more of you back on the court. So if you're lying in bed taking inventory in the morning, and all you want is to keep playing as much as you want, try ours. They're called OnAce. Play in them for 60 days. If you're not pain free, send them back and you get a full refund. And if anything comes up, before or after you order, Jessica answers every question herself. She was one of the first people to join us, and she's the nicest person I know. Every cent stays in the company, so we can help even more people on the court. Because pickleball is not that easy haha. Hank Norris, founder of OnAce. Still at the rec center every morning at 7. P.S. Tonight, take the insole out of your court shoe and press your thumb into it. Then think about what you've been playing on all this time.

Where the ad sends people

onace.store

This Changed How I Look At Pickleball

OnAce Pickleball Insoles — Engineered for pickleball players who demand lateral stability and all-day comfort. Features PORON® medical-grade material that absorbs up to 1,000 kg of impact, protecting your feet from repeated trauma during quick direction changes. The Dynamic Support Zone relieves ...