Marucci Sports - Kurt Ainsworth

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz: Marucci Sports - Kurt Ainsworth

In this compelling episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz, host Guy Raz delves into the entrepreneurial journey of Kurt Ainsworth, former Major League Baseball pitcher and co-founder of Marucci Sports. The conversation highlights Kurt's transition from professional athlete to successful businessman, the challenges he faced, strategic decisions that propelled his company, and the eventual rise of Marucci Sports as a formidable competitor to the iconic Louisville Slugger.

From the Mound to the Boardroom

Kurt Ainsworth's baseball career with the San Francisco Giants was cut short due to persistent injuries. Despite promising beginnings, including a first-round draft pick in 1999 and a standout season in 1999 with 1.57 strikeouts over 130 innings, injuries plagued his trajectory. A pivotal moment occurred during summer ball when Kurt, battling severe elbow pain, pitched a complete game—a decision that ultimately led to a career-ending torn ligament ([10:29] Kurt Ainsworth).

“The harder I worked in baseball, the more injuries I had. It really hurt me psychologically a lot.” ([17:06] Kurt Ainsworth)

The Birth of Marucci Sports

During his rehabilitation, Kurt reconnected with Jack Marucci, LSU's head trainer, who had a passion for crafting wooden baseball bats. Recognizing a gap in the market for high-quality wooden bats tailored to players' specific needs, Kurt and fellow ex-player Joe Lawrence partnered with Jack to transform his hobby into a business. In September 2004, Marucci Bat Company was founded with the goal of producing the best bats in the world, focusing on consistency, quality, flexibility, and hardness ([25:11] Kurt Ainsworth).

“We saw that the other competitors were sending out 12 bats and only three or four were game-ready. We wanted every bat to be perfect.” ([21:08] Kurt Ainsworth)

Overcoming Early Struggles

Launching a business in a niche and highly regulated market was no small feat. The trio invested heavily in equipment and infrastructure, operating out of Kurt's backyard shed. Manufacturing was a meticulous process, with bats passing through cutting, sanding, staining, engraving, and shipping stages. Despite their dedication, only about 7% of their wood was deemed suitable for professional use, leading them to innovate by creating souvenir bats and targeting local tournaments to sustain sales ([31:01] Kurt Ainsworth).

Scaling Challenges and the 2012 Setback

By 2008, Marucci Bat Company was gaining traction, selling approximately 15,000 bats annually. However, the company's rapid growth attracted the attention of established competitors like Louisville Slugger. In 2012, an unexpected blow came when the NCAA decertified Marucci's bats, citing that they exceeded the allowable energy rebound limits. This decertification meant a multimillion-dollar hit, forcing the company to recall and recycle their entire inventory—a devastating setback merely two years after securing a significant market share ([58:56] Kurt Ainsworth).

“It was a multimillion-dollar hit for a company that didn't have money.” ([58:56] Kurt Ainsworth)

Strategic Recovery and Leadership Shift

Facing potential ruin, Marucci made the bold decision to take back all decertified bats from retailers, despite significant financial losses. This move, though unpopular and risky, demonstrated Kurt's commitment to quality and integrity. In 2014, Kurt was appointed CEO, marking his official transition from a player to a business leader. Under his leadership, the company revamped its manufacturing processes to align with NCAA standards, leading to profitability by 2015 with revenues hitting approximately $25 million ([65:29] Kurt Ainsworth).

“Taking back those bats was the best decision we've ever made.” ([64:38] Kurt Ainsworth)

Expansion and Acquisition of Victus Sports

To tap into the vast market of youth and college baseball, Marucci expanded into aluminum bats, a sector with higher margins and broader demand. This strategic pivot was facilitated by bringing in Reed Dickens, who introduced significant capital and a visionary approach to the company. In 2017, Marucci acquired Victus Sports, a competitor excelling in custom wooden bats, thereby consolidating their supply chain and eliminating direct competition ([66:52] Kurt Ainsworth).

“Acquiring Victus was one of the biggest moves we made.” ([67:35] Kurt Ainsworth)

Going Public and Major League Success

In 2020, Marucci Sports was acquired by private equity firm Compass for $200 million, which significantly scaled the business. Under Compass's ownership, Marucci nearly tripled its business within three years. By November 2023, the holding company was sold to Fox Factory for over $500 million, underscoring the company's substantial growth and market dominance.

The pinnacle of Marucci's success came in 2025 when their bats were named the official bat of Major League Baseball, overtaking Louisville Slugger. This achievement was a testament to years of perseverance, quality assurance, and strategic innovation.

“Becoming the official bat of MLB is a huge opportunity for us. We want to bring that new cool factor to the game.” ([74:17] Kurt Ainsworth)

Diversification and Future Endeavors

Beyond bats, Marucci has diversified its product line to include training facilities, apparel, footwear, gloves, and other baseball essentials. The company continues to explore international markets, particularly in Japan and Korea, to expand its global footprint.

“We make every product for a baseball player, head to toe.” ([73:59] Kurt Ainsworth)

Reflections on Success and Resilience

Kurt attributes Marucci's success to a blend of consistent effort, strategic risk-taking, and fortuitous opportunities. The company's journey from a backyard operation to a multi-million-dollar enterprise illustrates the impact of resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity.

“Consistency and putting in the time has helped us tremendously.” ([75:49] Kurt Ainsworth)

Conclusion

Kurt Ainsworth's story is a masterclass in innovation, perseverance, and strategic growth. From overcoming personal setbacks to disrupting a century-old industry, Marucci Sports exemplifies how deep industry knowledge coupled with unwavering commitment can lead to monumental success. This episode not only inspires aspiring entrepreneurs but also provides valuable insights into navigating challenges and capitalizing on opportunities within a competitive market.

Key Takeaways

• Resilience in Adversity: Overcoming career-ending injuries by pivoting into entrepreneurship.

• Market Disruption: Challenging established giants like Louisville Slugger through quality and innovation.

• Strategic Risk-Taking: Acquiring Victus Sports to consolidate supply and eliminate competition.

• Leadership and Vision: Kurt's transition to CEO and his strategic decisions that led to profitability and expansion.

• Diversification: Expanding product lines beyond bats to encompass a full range of baseball essentials.

• Global Expansion: Tapping into international markets to sustain and grow the brand.

Notable Quotes

• Kurt Ainsworth ([17:06]):

  "The harder I worked in baseball, the more injuries I had. It really hurt me psychologically a lot."

• Kurt Ainsworth ([21:08]):

  "We saw that the other competitors were sending out 12 bats and only three or four were game-ready. We wanted every bat to be perfect."

• Kurt Ainsworth ([58:56]):

  "It was a multimillion-dollar hit for a company that didn't have money."

• Kurt Ainsworth ([64:38]):

  "Taking back those bats was the best decision we've ever made."

• Kurt Ainsworth ([67:35]):

  "Acquiring Victus was one of the biggest moves we made."

• Kurt Ainsworth ([74:17]):

  "Becoming the official bat of MLB is a huge opportunity for us. We want to bring that new cool factor to the game."

• Kurt Ainsworth ([75:49]):

  "Consistency and putting in the time has helped us tremendously."

Final Thoughts

Kurt Ainsworth's journey with Marucci Sports underscores the importance of adaptability, quality focus, and strategic growth in building a successful brand. His story serves as an inspiration for entrepreneurs navigating the complexities of industry competition, market expansion, and resilience in the face of setbacks.

About the Episode

Marucci Sports - Kurt Ainsworth
Release Date: December 16, 2024
Host: Guy Raz
Podcast: How I Built This with Guy Raz | Wondery

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This summary is crafted to provide an in-depth understanding of the episode for those who haven't listened to it, highlighting the pivotal moments and strategic decisions that shaped Marucci Sports' success.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

Wondery subscribers can listen to How I Built this early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts with AMEX Platinum.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

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[Guy Raz]

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[Kurt Ainsworth]

2012 we were having a big coaches party. And I remember our engineer saying, hey, the NCAA just told me that they're going to decertify our bats. They tested some bats and they said the bats in the field were testing higher than the limit, that it was.

[Guy Raz]

Bouncing back too hard, which mean that it would give a player an unfair advantage.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's correct. And I literally couldn't speak all of our bats in the market, we're going to have to recall, and we have the hottest bat right now in the market. And I remember walking back to my hotel thinking the company was done.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And it was a multimillion dollar hit for a company that didn't have money.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to How I Built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a bad shoulder injury turned a ballplayer into a businessman who built Marucci Sports into one of the biggest brands on the baseball field. Since 1884, a single brand, Louisville Slugger, has been virtually synonymous with one sport, baseball. The company's been producing the official bat of Major League Baseball since as long as anyone can remember. It's pretty fair to say that Louisville Slugger is an iconic American brand like Levi's or Coca Cola or Ford. And yet in 2025, the brand will no longer be the official bat of Major League Baseball. That designation will go to an upstart brand called Marucci and its sister company, Victus. So how did Marucci, a brand founded 20 years ago in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, come to knock Louisville Slugger off its perch? Well, this is the story of a very risky business venture. The story of a couple of injured professional baseball players who were looking for a career after baseball spit them out. Now to step back a bit further. Most professional athletes don't make enough money to live off for the rest of their lives. You only hear about the guys who sign multi million dollar deals. The average length of a career in Major League Baseball is less than three years. The median salary is around a million and a half dollars a year. That's a lot of cash. But after taxes, after paying your agent and lawyer, most guys are lucky if they have enough left to buy a house once their career is over. So it means a lot of former players get jobs on coaching staffs at universities or sometimes in professional leagues. This was probably Kurt Ainsworth's path. Kurt was initially a stud. That is actually a term in baseball. A stud, a guy who was a great player. Kurt was drafted in the first round by The San Francisco Giants in 1999, and he made his major league debut in 2001. But like a lot of pitchers, Kurt was prone to injury. When you throw a ball at 90 miles an hour, over and over and over again, you are likely to damage your arm. And after three years of injuries, surgeries, rehabilitation, and attempts to try and revive his career, Kurt was basically out of a job. But by chance, he got reconnected with one of his old training coaches at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, a guy by the name of Jack Marucci. And Jack. Well, he had a hobby. He loved to carve his own wooden baseball bats. And even though Kurt Ainsworth wasn't a particularly strong hitter, remember, he was a pitcher. He saw a lot of potential in those Marucci bats. And eventually he convinced Jack Marucci to turn his hobby into a business and then a partnership. For more than a decade after Kurt and his third partner, Joe Lawrence, struggled. They struggled because, well, the wooden baseball bat market is pretty small, and it's highly regulated by baseball leagues across the country. At times, it wasn't clear that Marucci would survive at all. But Kurt and Joe had an advantage over their big competitors in baseball. They were players who knew what other players wanted in a baseball bat. Consistency in quality, flexibility, and hardness. Today, Marucci sports is a much, much bigger business, and now a major player in baseball. How they got there, well, that's our story for today. Kurt Ainsworth was born and raised in Baton Rouge. His dad worked for Dow Chemical, and his mom stayed at home to raise the family. Growing up, Kurt naturally played Little League, and he remembers being one of the smaller kids on the team.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

I remember in Little League, we had Will Clark came and spoke to our Little League one year, and he said, one of you in the crowd is going to play in the major leagues.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, wow. And Will Clark was on the Giants, I believe he was a.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

He was. He was. And he's from New Orleans, Louisiana. So I always woke up every morning, checked the box score to see how Will Clark did. He was always my hero as a kid, and I literally felt he was talking to me that day.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

You know, every paper I think I did for a school paper as a kid. What do you want to be when you grow up? I always wanted to be a major league baseball player. And, you know, all the teachers would kind of laugh at me and say, ah, nobody really gets to do that. And again, I was small on my team. It's really hard, but I always believed I could do it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, we're going to get there. And you grew, I mean, into a really serious ball player. I mean, I think by the time you were a senior in high school, you were pitching like, how fast were you pitching at the time?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

I think my mechanics were a little messed up, but I was probably somewhere in The, I would say 82 to 87 or 88 range. So I was okay for a high school player.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And we should mention, I should mention that like today, if you're a player in college and you're hitting, you're reaching in the upper 90s. Even if your pitches are not accurate, like, there's a good chance that you will be drafted into the majors because once you're over 97, 98, into the hundreds. Right. It's next level.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. I think when I was coming out, when you were hitting 90, you were probably a top prospect. You know, obviously the speeds have changed along, along the way and now it seems like you turn on the TV and most guys are throwing 95 to 100. It really is amazing to see these guys throw.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, it's. It's totally crazy. I know for college you wound up playing for lsu, your local university, Louisiana State, which it's one of those schools that I just, it is very good at baseball. Like some of, I think some of the greatest players, like Alex Bregman, the pitcher, Aaron Nola, DJ lemahue, I mean, lots of amazing, incredible like roster of players who went through that program. But from what I understand, like in your case, you weren't actually recruited by lsu, right? Like you were a walk on. And you started training with the team your freshman year, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. So during that year I trained, I threw, I felt okay. And then, you know, had some elbow injuries and then went to summer ball. And in my first game in summer ball, I ended up throwing a full game, a complete game, no hitter, but blew out my elbow.

[Guy Raz]

Wait, in that game you threw a no hitter, which is. And you blew out your elbow. Were you throwing that ball in severe pain?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Extraordinary pain. And I had some teammates on the team, they're like, man, come on, you gotta suck it up. You gotta go, you know, you're throwing well, we need you to pitch for LSU next year. So I was like, all right, I can do this. And so I pitched the whole game and then my elbow just blew up. And it was, wow.

[Guy Raz]

So you were just damaging it more and more and more over the course of those three hours. But then eventually I think you got surgery to fix that injury. And it was, I guess, a torn Ligament in your elbow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right.

[Guy Raz]

And then you come back to the team in 1999, you have this incredible season, like 157 strikeouts and 130 innings you had 13, 6 record for. I mean, it's awesome. I mean, you start and you start to get scouts coming to look at you play, Right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it was a great season. It was really a whirlwind season, and just seemed like I was getting better each week. And my girlfriend and I got engaged going into that season. My wife now, which was kind of crazy going into that last year at lsu. And then, you know, throughout that season, it was kind of a whirlwind all the way through, you know, the regionals and super regionals until the draft.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And I think not that long after the season ended, you guys won a title, a regional title. You were drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the first round.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's correct. You know, when the Giants came up and selected me with the 24th pick, it was just a special moment we'll always remember for sure.

[Guy Raz]

I can't imagine. I mean, it must have been incredible.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

It was.

[Guy Raz]

So you get drafted now, this is the thing about baseball is. And it's different. It was even different back then than it is now. You get drafted, you get a signing bonus. So they give you some money, and then for the most part, they send you to the minor leagues to really season you before they're ready to bring you in, if they ever do. So first of all, was it significant money or was it. I mean, did you make a bunch of money on that side by signing with the Giants?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it was. It was a. It was. It was nice. Right. It was a good $1.3 million start at 20 years old.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So that's amazing. So you get this opportunity.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And you go. And we'll. I want to talk about. About money and sports in a moment, because I think a lot of people make the assumption that, oh, you're a professional athlete, you're set for life. But a lot of. But if you think about it, some guys will make 3,4 million dollars over the course of their career, which is short, and then they blow it. They blow all the cash, buy house, buy car, pay taxes, help their friends, and they're broke. So. Which is a very common story. You go to play for the Giants, and I think roughly two years after you were drafted, you make your debut, your major league debut for the San Francisco Giants, which is, again, that's really fast. I mean, you didn't. You were not in the minor leagues for very long.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No, I wasn't. I moved up very fast. I had some really good chances, some opportunities early. You know, I put so much pressure on myself. I'm gonna be honest with you. I didn't really enjoy it along the way.

[Guy Raz]

And, I mean, I think that first season, you pitched, like, five or six games, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. I was just in the bullpen that first year in September.

[Guy Raz]

And then you had a good season. 2002.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

2003.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, you got 11 starts. I mean, you're doing well. And then, like, right when the seat. Like, right when it's summertime, the peak of baseball, early summer, you get injured, your shoulder.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. This time was different.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Then they finally figured out after my 11 start that I had a broken shoulder blade, and it was tough, and. But I was still pitching well, so they were throwing me out there, and I didn't want to come off the mound. You know, I wanted to keep going. And then, of course, as I'm rehabbing, I get traded to the Orioles that year.

[Guy Raz]

Right. And so you are sent to the Orioles, and that's business. That's. That's baseball. Like, one day you're wearing one uniform, and the next day you are halfway across the country wearing another uniform.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. And so Dave Riggetti was our pitching coach. Time comes and gets me out of the dugout, and we walk up this long tunnel at Wrigley Field, and he said he's. You know, he and I had a great relationship. He said, you've been traded to Baltimore. And basically I was like, can I go tell my teammates bye? He said, no, you got to go change. Take your jersey off. There's a car waiting for you, and you're flying to Baltimore.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. You can't. You can't even say goodbye to your teammates.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

So that one. That one hurt.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. It's like, clear out your. Don't even clear out your desk. Security will escort you from the premises. It's so crazy.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Why. Why is it like that? Why won't. Why. Why don't they say, cause I've heard this before. Why aren't they like, yeah, go say goodbye to the guys and go, like, you know, have a last drink. Why don't they do that?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

It could be different now. And that was just kind of back then and the Wrigley Field tunnels. I mean, I think we walked a half a mile to get to our locker room at this point, I mean.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, you were in Chicago when that happened?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, we were in Chicago on A road trip. Then I was like, well, I'm going to show them. I'm going to go to Baltimore and really be the pitcher that they didn't realize they had.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. All right, so you get to Baltimore.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And. But injured, you're not going to play, so you've got to. You're on the team. But you got to rehab, and I guess you decided to. Or you had an opportunity to go back to Louisiana for some time during that season.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it was in 2004. So I reached out to the Orioles and said, would you let me go home to Baton Rouge? You know, Jack Marooch is the head trainer at lsu. Will you let me go home? And Jack will write my reports and do my rehab? And the Orioles actually said yes. I was like, whoa. So I had to cold call Jack Marucci and say, jack, you probably don't know who I am. You're the football trainer. I played baseball. Now she goes, I know who you are. I said, would you do my rehab? And he said, of course. Come on to Baton Rouge. And that is how my relationship with Jack Merucci started.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

So, I mean, he's a really cutting edge trainer and always has been. So I was like, hey, I want to go back and do my rehab there.

[Guy Raz]

And when you were back in Louisiana, you know, first of all, you're the guy who made the major, so people are like, dude, what are you doing here? Right. You would see people and it would probably have to explain what was going on, and I don't know, probably wasn't a great time.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it's tough. You know, being injured is not fun. You feel like you're not really part of the team. Sometimes when you're in there and you're watching your other guys go through everything and you're there every day and you're rehabbing, but it's just not the same. It's just not. Yeah, it was super frustrating to me because I worked so hard, and I think that's the one thing that bothered me. The harder I worked in baseball, the more injuries I had. You can only throw so much. You can only run and lift so much. And that was always. It really hurt me, you know, psychologically a lot. Just couldn't stay healthy.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. All right, so you're back in Baton Rouge, and there's another guy that. Another player, former baseball player named Joe Lawrence. That is also. Help me understand the story. He was also a form. He was a former major league player who then left baseball and went back to college and was playing college football as a 27 year old freshman on the LSU team. And he got injured his freshman year and was also in this rehab program that you were in with Jack Marucci.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. What a crazy story. Yeah, he's just an incredible athlete. Obviously he was Mr. Football or Mr. Baseball in Louisiana as well when he was coming out of high school, the same years as I did in 1996, but.

[Guy Raz]

So you knew who he was?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Oh, yeah. And his best friend at the time was my roommate at lsu. So Joe and I developed a relationship when I was playing at lsu. So when I had a chance to come back, he's rehabbing his knee, I'm rehabbing my shoulder. And Jack's our trainer.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, here's where I think your story really takes off, because Jack Marucci, who is doing your rehab, he's kind of overseeing it. He also happens to have this hobby which is making his own wooden baseball bats, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, he was always tinkering with wood. You know, he tried to would make bats for his son in the neighborhood. His son's name was Gino in town and he had called Louisville Slugger one day to make a youth bat and they wouldn't do it. And so Jack said, well, I'm from Pennsylvania. I took wood shopping in high school. I'm going to make a wood bat for my son. And he did, and he made a wood bat for his son. And then he started making other bats at night and he would bring him into the locker room for Joe to look at because he was a hitter, I was a pitcher.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And Joe and I love baseball. So we like to look at the bats and talk about bats. And that's really where all these conversations started.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so Jack Marucci, trainer, but just as a fun kind of like hobby, would make wooden baseball bats. And I guess as you say, it started out he wanted to make it for his son who was a Little League player. And anyone knows about Little League, especially at that time, very unusual for a Little League player to use a wooden bat. They use aluminum bats in Little League.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

You know, he, he studied the industry and started making some pretty good bats. And it just how the stars aligned. As you know, his house is two, two streets away from mine at the time in Baton Rouge. And so Jack was just kind of whittling in his backyard and he had a wiffle ball field in his backyard for kids to go play. And really when Joe and I started seeing some of these bats, we're like, man, your knee's not rehabbing very well. It's not coming back. My shoulder's not coming back. Very well. Let's, let's think about what are we going to do now that our careers are coming to an end. Like, we're going to keep trying to play, but if they come to an end, what are we going to do?

[Guy Raz]

So. All right. Jack Marucci is not, does not have a business. He is just for fun, making baseball bats. But because he's the trainer at lsu also has access to a lot of, potentially a lot of pros.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, correct. Yeah. And Jack had relationships from his days at Florida State. He was a trainer there first. And Eduardo Perez was a player at Florida State. And so he decided to make a bat for Eduardo Perez just for fun.

[Guy Raz]

He was on the Orioles, the Reds.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Reds at the time. And so he literally went there to bring him a bat just thinking he would take some batting practice with it. And next thing you know, Eduardo Perez used it in the game, in a major league game.

[Guy Raz]

And it was just a no name bat. It was just a bat that was.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, he had a logo on it. He did, yeah, he put a Marucci logo on it. So he had kind of created this on his own computer in his backyard, put some, you know, sticker on it. Marucci Bat company. So it was amazing. He had Eduardo use it and then believe it or not, Barry Larkin used it. Hall of Famer and got a hit.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And then Mike Cameron used it and hit a home run.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, let's, let's back up for a sec. What was so special about his bats? I mean, they're wooden bats. They're. There are other companies that made and make wooden bats. So what made those bats good? I mean, why did you think they were. Yeah. What made them better, in your view?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I don't think they were at that time. I'm going to be honest with you. I think we saw an opportunity. We saw that the other competitors in the space were sending out 12 bats to a player when they'd order a dozen players and only three or four of them would be good enough to use in a game.

[Guy Raz]

Only three or four out of the dozen bats. Why is that?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, so when you go, it was just commonplace to use in a dozen bats and a player would go through them and they would do their own grading scale and they'd say, man, these three or four are perfect. I'm going to save these for game. I'm going to use these three or four for batting practice. And the rest I'm just going to sign and give away and then you look player by player. I was a pitcher in the National League, so my wood wasn't as good as other people's wood. And I'm sitting there like, man, they're walking guys to get to me. I should have the best bats. I'm in the major leagues. Why am I not getting good wood? You know, just looking at wood, whether it's the grains, whether there's knots in the wood, the weight, we would grade our bats. And again, pitchers bats were never high quality. And so we actually got together and said, we're going to start a bat company where every player in the major leagues get the best wood.

[Guy Raz]

You know, it's just interesting because a wooden bat is. I mean, first of all, most people who play baseball that they don't swing them. If you play youth baseball, you only used an aluminum bat. And a wooden bat just feels so different. It's like there's a weight to it. Right. And so it really is very specific to the player. Right. Like, different players connect with a bat. And even if it's the same brand on it, different bats in different ways.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. We'd like to say a wood bat's the best training tool out there. If you can learn how to hit with a wooden bat and find the sweet spot on that, when you pick up your aluminum or your composite bat, you're going to be a better hitter.

[Guy Raz]

So, all right, when you go to Jack Marucci, you and Joe go to him and you say, hey, we want to turn this bat thing you're doing into a business. And what was his initial reaction?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No, we can't do that. There's no money in this. You know, we're not going to make any money doing this. This is just, you know, kind of his hobby. And Joe and I really said, you know, hey, we want to do this. We want to push this along.

[Guy Raz]

So at the time, who were the. I mean, what companies were making bats? There's Louisville Slugger. I mean, I remember Easton as a kid, and, like, there's already established brands doing this. Right. Is that. Was that the case?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Of course, yeah. Louisville Slugger, I mean, that was the crown jewel in the space. Pretty much owned the market.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So Jack was initially skeptical, saying, this is not really where I want to put my time and effort. But why did he agree to. Then when you guys. You and Joe were like, let's do this. What got him to agree to it?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I mean, rightfully so. He should have been skeptical. Right. The Woodbat market at that time was small. It was tough, and it did take us a long time to do it, but we told him that, hey, we're committed to this. We're going to build a shed in my backyard, we're going to put in equipment. Joe and I are going to work this and sell it during the day and we can do something with it. So Joe and I were willing to go sign our houses. We were willing to go mortgage our houses on all the equipment we brought into our house. And he finally did agree to it and trusted us. We built a great relationship.

[Guy Raz]

And people probably assume even when you're back in Louisiana doing rehab, that you got all this cash because you were in the majors, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. Yeah. And look, we had some money from the sign in bonus for sure, but it was like at some point, you're just going to continue to dip through that.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

The savings. Right. So, you know, day to day money coming in was. Was not matching what my spend was going out.

[Guy Raz]

Huh. All right, this is September 2004. You guys start the Maroochy bad company. And how did you. Again, you're a very smart guy, good student in high school, but you did not know anything about business at this point. Right. You didn't come from a family of entrepreneurs, so. Which is very common. And so what did you. How did you. First of all, how did you guys split this business up?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, so we just split it up in thirds to begin with.

[Guy Raz]

Makes sense. Yep.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And our lawyer left that meeting saying, man, I hope my friends didn't just lose all their money in a bat company. Right. So it didn't make sense at the time. And there was no playbook for what we wanted to do. And, you know, at that time, we really didn't even know where we were going to go with it. Is it just going to be major league alone? Are we going to run camps, clinics, teams? But I tell you, what we did commit to is making the best bats in the world and getting. Learning everything about the wood business.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, this is the fall of 2004. You're still rehabilitating, hoping to come back for the 2005 baseball season, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

That's still your. With the Orioles, still an Oriole at.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That time, and went back into spring training that next year. And, you know, kind of Joe held down the business in Baton Rouge while I was there. And we had a lot of really good players on the Orioles that year. And I was bringing in bats.

[Guy Raz]

So I have to assume that Jack, who knew how to make the bats, was the guy who had to make the bats or Was he teaching you guys how to, like, use, you know, table saws and lathing machines and stuff, or did you just naturally have that ability? Like, how was that working?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Well, first things first, you know, there was no real playbook to do it, so when we ordered the equipment, it all showed up at my house. I had built a shed in the backyard.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We had a big CNC lathe. We had engraving machines. We had sanding machines. I mean, we went all out on equipment.

[Guy Raz]

How much money do you think it costs to get all this equipment in your. To buy it all?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We were several hundred thousand dollars deep.

[Guy Raz]

In equipment to make baseball bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. Our neighbors thought we were kind of crazy, but they would come over and watch. And what was crazy is that, you know, Jack, after, he'd be at all day, then Jack would come over at night and cut bats late into the night on the lathe. And then Joe and I, during the day, we would sand bats, stain bats, paint bats, engrave them, and ship them off to customers. We were kind of the sales operations. We actually made all the bats during the day, and Jack would cut at night.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. How. How long would it take to make.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

One bat back then? I think it's probably a couple minutes to cut it, but then you got a, you know, a couple minutes to sand it. Then you got to stain it, let it dry, you know, then they engrave it. So, I mean, it took quite a bit of time. We weren't doing very many bats a day, I can tell you.

[Guy Raz]

Back then, I've read that people have used cow femurs. The femur of a cow, to smooth a bat surface. Can you explain why you'd need a cow femur? She's like a giant piece of bone, by the way.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. We used to bone every bat, and we used to be in our logo until, you know, we had to take it off because it was an extra logo, they said. At mlb, we used to say bone rubbed on our bats. We used to actually use a cow femur and compress the grains of the bat to make it a harder bat. So if you didn't compress it, you could have seam marks in your bat. And to us, that meant softer. So we were compressing every bat with a cow femur.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. And a cow femur is better than, like, a steel rod?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No, I think it was probably. It was kind of bringing back the old school days.

[Guy Raz]

I gotcha. All right.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

As we've gone on, we've used other products that are not cow femurs. We started with the Cow femur.

[Guy Raz]

I got it. It's a better story than using modern technology. All right, so you guys are doing through the winter, and then you go back for spring training back to. So you're going to go to Florida to go back and work out with the guys at the Orioles, hoping to obviously make the roster, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And you come with a bunch of bats with the intention of handing them out to your teammates.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it was, you know, basically you would take a model they liked, you would copy it, make it in our wood, our finish, send it back to them, and the players really started liking the bats.

[Guy Raz]

So. All right, how much was a bat? Like, 100 bucks back then?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

It was probably more like $65. It should have been a lot more than that with the amount of time and effort we put in. But I think they were like $65 when we started.

[Guy Raz]

And at that time. This is 2005 now. Spring train 2005 again, like, you could probably still get away with it and not have to get like a. Because NFL, mlb, they're so obsessive over anybody being involved in those leagues without approval or paying licensing fees or whatever. So you could kind of get away with it at that time. Like, players could just use it in spring training.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We got licensed that year.

[Guy Raz]

You got a license from the mlb. Okay. Okay. So once you got the approval, then it was okay to use it.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right.

[Guy Raz]

In Major League Baseball. Okay. And in terms of, like, weight, for example, because you said that you were on the Orioles, right. And you'd ask players, hey, you want to try this bat? You would take their bats that they liked and then send them back, and you would try to match the weight and everything. But there has to be, like, a range. Right. Like, a bat can't be heavier than this and lighter than this. Right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. There's a lot of regulations, and it's changed over the year with mlb, and, you know, we adapt to those changes. But, you know, certain players want certain things, and you got to work with them to give them what they want. And, you know, of course, over the years, it's. We're a little bit more sophisticated than we were back then, but the biggest thing for us is consistency.

[Guy Raz]

Makes sense. Yep.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And it's just the three of us, we're weighed our bats down to the 10th of an ounce, which we still do to this day, and we wanted to be perfect. So when a player would order 12 bats from us. This is where it gets crazy, is that we would send two, we'd send four, we'd send three. And the clubhouse guys would call us and be like, this is why we don't order from small bat companies. We ordered 12, you sent us two or three bats. And we're like, well, hold on, we could send you 12. But all we had good wood for was two or three. And the others, you know, the phone would go silent and they go, what? Yeah, we could send you 12. But you know, we only had that good wood. So I think players realized when they got our bats. At the beginning, every bat was perfect.

[Guy Raz]

Given that your bats were better, I have to assume that you were throwing away a lot of wood. Yeah, like you would get wood in and it would just not be good enough. So you just had to eat it. You couldn't use it.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, that's another lesson we learned early. I think we start looking at our numbers. It's less than 10% of our wood. More like 7%. Probably goes to a pro player. Well, what do you do with the other 93%? And in those days, we didn't have an outlet, we didn't have any retail bats. We didn't have a whole lot out there. So our wood started building up and adding up and you start looking at each piece of wood. Let's just call it a twenty dollar bill. There was a lot of twenty dollar bills laying around. And it made for some uncomfortable conversations. When you would miss cut a bat or miss sand a bat or misprint a bat, you're like, ooh, you just wasted a really good piece of wood.

[Guy Raz]

So what would you do with the wood that you're not gonna. Because if it had to be perfect for the professional players, you just like turn into sawdust or what'd you do with it?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No, we would do a lot of souvenir bats. We did a lot of graduation bats, birth bats, high school senior bats. And then the truth of it is is that, you know, Joe and I would, would take off with one of our other employees, our first employee who's still here to this day. You know, Brett Laxton, he pitched in the big leagues as well. We would load up a trailer of all of our extra cut bats and we would drive to Alabama to men's senior baseball league tournament. This is 40 year old and older men up to like 65. And we would sell every bat at the tournament and come back with an empty trailer. And that kind of kept, kept our business going.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so also, from what I gather, pretty soon after you guys started this business, you shifted from Ashwood to Maplewood. Why does that matter. Why is maple better than ash?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, that was a huge move for us. That was kind of one of the early ways the stars aligned for us, and the industry changed. You know, Barry Bonds made maple popular. He came in and started hitting with maple, and he was, you know, hitting all his home runs. And then maple became more and more popular, and people looked into it, and maple's just a harder wood. And if you really, you know, show people a player comes in, you could take a nail with a hammer and drive it right into an ash bat. You take that same nail and try to put it in a maple bat, it's going to bend the nail. And you show a hitter that, and they're like, why wouldn't you use a harder bat? And so players started going to maple really quickly over ash. And then the emerald ash beetle, the ash borer beetle came in and kind of wiped out most of the ash in the. In the United States. So then it really forced everybody into maple, and we had a really big head start on the maple side. So that allowed us to gain market share pretty quickly.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, let's go back to spring training, 2005 with the Orioles. You guys get the MLB to get licensed by the MLB, so they're legal. You are handing them out to players, by the way. Because I would think that if you get in the hands of a star player, that's a bigger deal. Were you able to get into the hands of any players who were particularly visible?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, sure. With some hall of Famers on that team and some superstars. Right. I mean, well, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmero, Brian Roberts.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

But, yeah, to have those guys use it and validate the product, I think that is when we knew we were onto something.

[Guy Raz]

Were you. I mean, at that time, did you have to pay players to agree to just test out your batch, or was it kind of casual, like, yeah, no problem. Like, because today it's a completely different world. Everybody's an influencer, right? Everybody's like, where's my cut? I'm not going to use your product until I get a. Like, it's totally different world. For the worse, I think. But back then, could you have just been like, hey, Rafael Palmero, like, use my bat? And he'd be like, sure, yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

It was even better than that for us. You know, we've never paid a player to swing a bat, and a lot of that was because we just couldn't afford to pay players. I'm going to be honest with you. But again, we were very fortunate that the major League teams were actually buying the bats. So I would go to the players and say, hey, do you want to try these? We'll have the clubhouse guy order them. And they were actually buying the bats.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. So all they had to do is go to the clubhouse guy, like their quartermaster, and say, hey, I like this bag. Can you order a few of these?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's correct. And that's just kind of passed around from there and really helped us grow that brand.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, I should have asked you this. You called it Marucci Bat company because Jack was making them, and that was the only reason. You just thought it sounded cool.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it sounded better than Ainsworth Bat company or Lauren's bat company. It has that designer feel to it. And I think that was probably our first really good decision we made is just keeping it as Marucci Bat company. It just has that Italian high high end feel to it.

[Guy Raz]

Prada, Gucci, Ferrari. Yeah, Marucci.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. And I think Joe and I were kind of, at that point in time, we were thinking you could put it on anything and it would kind of add value. Right. We weren't thinking just wood bats. Joe and I weren't at that time, we had always been thinking outside of wood, of where could this take us down the road.

[Guy Raz]

All right, you start spring training, and once again, season ends early. You re aggravate that injury that you had in your shoulder. So again, that season's done. I'm curious, does your salary get affected when you. When you can't play or it's just the contract. They gotta pay you no matter what. It's pay or play?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it depends on where you are. So if you're in the major. If you're in the major leagues, you'll get your major league pay. If you're in the minor leagues, you get your minor league pay. And I had already been sent down that year. You know, I think at that point to not get the full major league pay, so. And I. And I had two kids at that point when I got home, so wow. Yeah, it was two kids, not having the salary, coming home, working for a company for free. It was definitely challenging times.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, Kurt and his partners branch out into aluminum bats. A decision that makes all the sense in the world until it doesn't stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

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[Guy Raz]

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Squarespace can help any business owner craft a strong web presence and sell anything from products to content to time all in one place, all on your terms. With Squarespace Blueprint, you can build a completely personalized website optimized for every device. With powerful SEO tools that help you grow the way you want. Squarespace makes checkout seamless for your customers, accepting credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay and in eligible countries, Afterpay and Clearpay. And you can easily manage your clients and invoices, from vetting leads to receiving payments in one streamlined, customizable workflow. So check out squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.combilt to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Rates will rise or fall. Inflation's up, up or down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one Cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and sees your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com Bilt the guide is free to you at netsuite.com BILT netsuite.com BILTI hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2005, and with his partners Kurt Ainsworth is growing maroochy bats and hoping he can get back to pitching with the Orioles despite a bad shoulder injury. But that year, the team lets him go.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I mean, when the season ended, I was basically released. You know, I was. I was no longer under a contract, no team control. So I was a free agent. And so I was. I Had no pay coming in, and I was trying out for teams, then, you know, started working out for teams that, you know, that really. That off season, November, December, throw in, and then hopefully to get signed, to go to spring training one more time to give it a run.

[Guy Raz]

So meantime, you guys are focused on the bats, on selling the bats. And probably even if you're selling, I don't know, a thousand bats. Right. I'm just doing the math. I mean, it's not a lot of money coming in. If you're selling them for 65 to $80, you're not doing serious revenue at this point?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No, we weren't doing. And especially you have three partners, and you also have employees there every day.

[Guy Raz]

People helping you to do what.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

So we're paying guys to help us sand bats, paint bats, you know, engrave bats, ship bats. At that time, you know, we need. We had help. So we were paying them and not ourselves. So anything we were making was going right back into the business to pay the employees and to buy more inventory because wood was expensive.

[Guy Raz]

So you're a free agent, and you're trying out for a bunch of teams, and you get signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes, my team growing up In Los Angeles, 2006, you go to. You get signed, you go to spring training, and there, once again, you're able to do what you did with the Orioles. You're able to bring bats and put them in the hands of some players. And did you have some success there?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Again, we did, and this was an upgraded bat. Our finishes got better that year. You know, Jose Cruz Jr. And some of the other players started really gravitating toward the bats and really started buying into the company.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And now I'm in the National League, so I was hitting. So I really had better bats than our hitters. And it became. It was pretty funny that you see hitters go up and take my bats to go out into the games. But, you know, I just. I. My first bullpen in spring training was great, and I just couldn't recover after that first bullpen. No matter how good a shape I was in, it was super frustrating to me because I worked so hard. I mean, I was really throwing well, and then I just had that damage in my shoulder, and I knew it was coming. So, you know, I threw one game in a field, and my. My wife was there, my kids were there, my family was there actually, at this game. And I walked over to him, I said, I'm glad y'all are here. And, like, what do you mean? I said, well, that was the last time you'll ever see me throw. And they're like, whoa, I can't take anymore. So I went and told the trainers, I said, look, I can't go anymore. I got. Have. I got to go see a doctor. So they flew me to Los Angeles and they did MRIs again. And the doctor said, man, your. The labrum, rotator cuff was all completely torn, and it was laying down perfectly on the mri, so we couldn't tell how bad it was. He goes, I can't believe you were throwing a baseball. And I was like, well, in one thing, it made me feel good that I knew something was really wrong. But in the other thing is, I knew my career was over that day.

[Guy Raz]

So even before spring training ends, you're done. 2006.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, super early that year. Came home in a sling, and next thing you know, I'm driving my wife to the hospital, and we deliver our baby in the car on the way to the hospital while my arms in a sling. So, I mean, we've had some crazy things happen along the way.

[Guy Raz]

Wait, how was that baby delivered?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

In the front seat of our Tahoe. And I just. Another just super blessed that I'm pulling through a parking lot, we're in traffic, and I see an ambulance, and I get out of my car, my arm in a sling, run over, beat on an ambulance, ambulance drives around and helps deliver the baby in the front seat of our car on the way to the hospital. Oh, my God, she's a trooper.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you're done. You're, like, 28. You're done with baseball. And did it feel cathartic? Did it feel like, okay, now I'm just going to get this dream up and now focus? Or did it feel. Were you sad about it?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

I was sad probably for a minute that day when the doctor told me how bad the surgery was, and then it was almost relieved. I was tired of rehabbing injuries, and it was one of those things where I worked hard, and I knew I worked hard, and the harder I worked in baseball, the more injuries I had. And I knew I could put that attention to something else. And the harder I worked at Marucci, I could see success. And it really just changed my focus and said, we're going all in on this thing, and let's go do it.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you. You're out of baseball, and you've got no salary. You have no salary, you've got three children, and you've put all of your money into the equipment for this baseball. Business which is far from profitable.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

So what are you gonna do to make money?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Well, you know, my wife kind of gave me that hard discussion of like, hey, what are you gonna do? You know, baseball's over. What are you gonna do? You guys need to start making some money. Cause we weren't taking anything out of Maroon, couldn't afford. So Joe and I got together and we started another business in Baton Rouge called the Big Leagues of Baton Rouge.

[Guy Raz]

The Big Leagues of Baton Rouge, Correct.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And it was a baseball batting cages and training facility. And we, we opened that in 2000, in the summer, really of 2006. And we put together a staff there of a lot of ex major league players that were in the area. As you said, Baton Rouge has a lot of talent. And we had a lot of players in there given lessons.

[Guy Raz]

This makes sense, right? Because you guys had expertise. You start a baseball training facility to help any professional or college player, maybe even high school players.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

High school and youth mainly. So Joe and I would show up at 6:30 in the morning, work for Maroochi from 6:30 to 2:30. We would kind of change into our PE uniforms, we called it, and then we would go do lessons till 9pm Monday through Friday, and then lessons on Sunday 12 to 6. And we were booked out for several months at a time. We were doing 200 and I think 220 private lessons each a month.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So you were basically working like 12, 15 hour days.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it was a lot. And I had three young kids at the time and we did that for 18 months. And I feel like I was raising other people's kids. My kids were coming up there and they loved it. They were young at the time. But it got to the point where it was just too much. And at that point Marucci started taking off and doing better. So we sold that business.

[Guy Raz]

And is it still around the big leagues of Baton Rouge?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No crazy stories. We actually kind of bought it back down the road. And it's Hitter's House now. That same location where we are is our Maroochy Hitter's House here in town. And they're still doing batting cages, retail store. And there's an area in the back where people can do lessons and get better. So it was one of those things that's special to us because we wouldn't be here without Bigley's Baton Rouge.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so 18 months in, you sell it and because by this point you say, you guys, I mean in your words, Marucci Bat company is taking off. And from what I understand this is 2008. You guys are selling 15,000 bats a year at this point.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So it's about, I'm thinking a little over a million dollars in revenue probably. But you guys were now able to start to take a salary from that, from the sales?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. I mean, its salary would have been really small.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We had made enough money in big leagues at Baton Rouge to hold us over a little bit. And then for this next. I would say this next adventure, we decided to go in with Marooshi Sports is what was where we then focused all of our attention.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And Jack Marucci, still a third owner of the business, he would pop in from time to time or what? I mean, how was he? He wasn't making the bats at this point?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

No, he was more of a. He would talk to the clubhouse managers and some of the players would call him and then he would send in bat orders from his phone. But, you know, he wasn't really coming to the office at all and seeing the bats be made at all at that point.

[Guy Raz]

But he had good connections and he was able to use those connections. Yeah, he did. Okay, so this is something that's interesting to me because in 2008, I guess you guys had been using a wood mill.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Right. This is where you're getting your wood from. And what they were shipping. This is a wood mill in Pennsylvania. They were just shipping you pallets of wood to Baton Rouge.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. And other bat companies were buying from them as well at this point in time. And it was an Amish run mill that we would get the best wood from.

[Guy Raz]

And I guess you get tipped off in June of 2008 that somebody, some other bat company is looking to buy them. Was. It was. When you say some other bad company, I'm just thinking there's just one big one. Was it that one big one?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yes. At that point in time, that's what we were told, that the big one was looking.

[Guy Raz]

Do you think Louisville Slugger had noticed you guys at this point?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

They did at that point. When we started having Albert Pujols and some of Those guys winning MVPs, at that point in time, they started taking notice because we were taking a dent in the market at that point in time. And so when we got word from that employee that our competitor was there trying to buy it, Joe and I actually got on a plane against our lawyer's advice, brought a document with us and bought the company. And we knew there was risk.

[Guy Raz]

But how. So you want to acquire this company? You're thinking we got to Acquire this to keep the pipeline of wood. But how are you going to do that? I mean, your revenue is low. You're already overleveraged with all the equipment that you'd bought a few years earlier. So how are you going to buy that mill?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We actually took on another investor and bought it outside of Maroochi.

[Guy Raz]

You created a separate company to buy this mill?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We did. We did. And took on another investor and bought it under a different LLC name.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, so basically, as a separate business, now the mill is selling the wood to Marucci. So, I mean, the investor is getting that. I mean, it's automatically there's going to be revenue coming into that business.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right. Now it would be a little bit different because we pretty much cut. We cut off every competitor at that time. And so now Marucci, at that point in time, now had access to more wood than we've ever had before. But now we needed more capital to go buy that wood. And so that's when we took. We took on a couple of early investors in Marucci. Bad company alone, just small investors to help us pay for some of that wood.

[Guy Raz]

How much did it cost to buy the mill? I'm just curious. How much does it cost to do that?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

At that point in time? I think we were somewhere just under half a million dollars for the whole mill.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, it's only. I shouldn't say only, but half a million dollars to buy the mill?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

That seems like a pretty good deal.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

It turned out to be a great deal.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And we. We kept the team. We kept the family involved. Yeah, you know, we. We covered a lot of debt that they obviously had at that time. So we ended up paying a lot more than a half a million. When you end up adding in all the other stuff we paid.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, you were. Okay, so you now got the mill. But you cannot grow this business just by selling wooden bats to professional players, because that's a limited market. That can't be more than a $10 million market opportunity. Maybe to really turn this into something you knew that you had to invest in the business to grow it further. What was the first thing you guys started to talk about? Because it seems to me like the opportunity is with kids playing in little leagues and grown men playing in their fun softball leagues or whatever. It might be like that, to me, seems like where the market opportunity would be.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, youth baseball. Right. And that's aluminum bats. So that was our next focus, is we wanted to come out with an aluminum bat.

[Guy Raz]

And the aluminum bat was designed for High school and college players.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And so this is a huge. This is a. Like, you're going to quintuple your potential market. Right. There's tons of college teams and there's rec teams and there's high school teams, so. And probably aluminum bats you could sell for more than a wooden bat, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, the bats, it was, you know, you could manufacture them easier, you could mass produce them. It was higher margins, and it was a bigger, addressable market. Right. That's kind of the big buzzword that we learned along the way. The total addressable market of wood, as you've highlighted, is very small.

[Guy Raz]

Right, right. But in order to make aluminum bats, I mean, you guys were going to need an infusion of cash, like capital. I think this is where you got introduced to this new potential investor, a guy named Reed Dickens, who would eventually become your CEO, Right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right.

[Guy Raz]

And I guess from what I've read, Reid had been working in politics and he wanted to get back into business. So, I mean, the timing probably was good, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. And so Reed Cold called us, and I can tell you, he said, look, let me come down there and meet with you. And Joe. And Reid came down. He said, look, if we create this other separate LLC under Maroochi Sports, I can raise the money that we need and we can create this other brand and go do aluminum bats. He kind of laid out a vision that we had never seen before.

[Guy Raz]

What did he say?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

He just said, look, I think this company can be the number one bat in the game. And Joe and I kind of looked at each other like, hold on, man, you got. Louisville Slugger has been here, you know, 120 years or whatever. Like, don't get carried away. And he said, I really believe that we can create this stale industry because baseball at that time was pretty stale. So Reid wanted to bring a different energy and come in and create this momentum around this brand that we had.

[Guy Raz]

So. All right, so Reid comes in with all these ideas and says, let's start a separate company. We'll call it Marucci sports 100%. And he brings in some outside capital. And I guess it was like two, two and a half million dollars that he helps raise.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right. Some of it was players, but some of it was, you know, kind of, I would say, family office or just, you know, wealthier people.

[Guy Raz]

Well, it would seem to make sense to bring players in because then they have skin in the game, and if they're playing, they're using the bat. So it's a double Win. Right. They're going to put in money and they're going to use the bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. Well, what we didn't realize is that when you're successful, you actually need more money than when you're not successful. And we needed to go raise more capital fairly quickly after he joined and was the CEO and we were running because we were actually having some pretty good success early and we needed more capital.

[Guy Raz]

Who are some of the players that got involved early on in that early race?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, so I mean, Albert Pujols was an early one. Of course. You know, Ryan Vogelsong, the next Giant at that time. You know, Sean Casey, Harold Reynolds, you know, we've had David Ortiz, Jose Bautista. I mean, it was kind of a who's who of players. Will Clark, my childhood idol, was in there. So we had a really good group of guys that we started going to to raise that next round of capital. And that's what really brought us to acquiring Merueci Bat company and eliminating that license. Because as you're raising money, some of the people are like, their advisors were like, wait a minute, you don't own the brand and you're paying a royalty to Maroochi Bat company on everything we're doing.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so. Because in order to put the Marucci logo on Marucci Sports products, you had to pay the Marucci Bad company, which you were a third owner of, to license the name because it's Jack Marucci's name. So ultimately that had to be untangled.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. And that's what happened in 2011 is we negotiated with Maroochi Sports and Maroochi Bad Company to acquire Maroon Bad Company, become one company.

[Guy Raz]

And so I mean, Jack Marucci probably, he had to agree. You and Joe and Jack Marucci chose a third of it and you guys probably were like, let's do it. But he had to agree to that. He had to agree to either be paid a license fee or get some equity in the new business or sell his shares. Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And I think there was a little bit of all of that. I think we all kind of rolled some of that. We took some cash off the table. Yeah, look, we had great relationships with Jack. I think he respected what we were doing and what we were trying to do. I think he could finally see that there was some other opportunities out there. You know, he had always kind of joked that all I want to do is pay for my kids school and if. And I'd be happy. Obviously we paid a little bit more than the kids school, but he trusted us to go build Something with the name that we created together.

[Guy Raz]

Right. And you start to produce an aluminum bat. And I think. And it's available in the consumer market in early 2010. So how did you get anybody to even care? I mean, I guess some kids probably knew about the maroochy wooden bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

They did. And I think locally, we probably did. Okay. Early in 2009, we would go out to those tournaments that we would. And we would bring bats on the mobile tour, and we would go bring bats out on the road and show people and let them hit with it. And I would say 2009, we did pretty well in the first year. But then when the NCAA changed the regulations to bbcor, which is just basically a rule change that made the bats perform more wood, like, everything changed.

[Guy Raz]

Can we just unpack this for a little? Cause this is really complicated.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

It is.

[Guy Raz]

BBCOR is a certification. Right. It stands for batted ball coefficient of restitution, and it's a safety performance testing and stance. And the first year you had these bats come out, they were ready to go. They had complied with this new standard.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right.

[Guy Raz]

And you guys were one of the few bat companies that had this ready to go. Because as the NCAA changed the certification, you guys could create the bat to that certification. But the second year, 2011. So the first year was great. But then you were decertified in 2011. Why? What was wrong with the bat?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

So they tested some bats, and they said the bats in the field were testing higher than the limit.

[Guy Raz]

What does higher than the limit mean?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

They sent it to a lab at Washington State, and they shoot a ball off a stationary bat, and it measures the rebound of the bat. And so they measure it every, you know, every inch along the barrel. And they had sent us reports back and said that our bat had failed.

[Guy Raz]

That it was bouncing back too hard, which meant that it would give a player an unfair advantage.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's. That's correct.

[Guy Raz]

I see. Okay.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

At that point in time, we had no idea that there was, like, you know, variances in the test. And we didn't even really know what to do. This was so new to us. We didn't even have, you know, engineering labs at that time. We were young, in business. We didn't know how to fight back at that time.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

So in 2012, we were having a big coaches party, and I remember our engineer walking myself and our CEO at the time outside and saying, hey, the NCAA just told me that they're going to decertify our bats. And I literally couldn't speak. And I Was like, wait a minute, what does that mean? We just bought Maroon Bat Company. We just took on these shareholders. All of our bats in the market, we're going to have to recall, and we have the hottest bat right now in the market. And I remember walking back to my hotel thinking the company was done. Everything we had done to get to this point was over because I just didn't understand what was going on and how they could decertify it.

[Guy Raz]

How much money did that cost you? Because you made all this product and now it's. I guess you could sell it to high school players, but no, it was.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Taken off from the high school, too. So when they decertified it, it was totally decertified. So we had vessels coming over from Asia with all decertified bats on them.

[Guy Raz]

What did you do with them? Melt them down? Like, what do you.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We did. We actually took them to a scrap yard and recycled them. There was nothing else we could do with them. And it was a. It was a multimillion dollar hit for a company that didn't have money.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, in part, you know, again, like, it's just so fascinating because on the one hand, all your eggs were in that basket and the NCAA basket, but on the other hand, they had to be. Yeah, you had no choice because that's where the market was. So, like, the obstacle was the. There was no other way around it. Like, they could make or break a business, but it's so risky. Like, from an. I would just from like, a business perspective, if that happened. Like, did you guys. Could you even. Did you even anticipate the possibility of that happening?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We didn't. Right. Because we didn't change anything. We sent a bat in, it passed. We didn't change anything in our production. And next thing you know, we're getting decertification notices. Like, oh, my gosh, what is going on? And again, you find out down the road, obviously, that we were taking so much market share that, you know, our competitors were sending our bats in to the test lab and trying to say that our bats were over the limit. And look, that was a learning lesson for us because at that point in time, we then took bats from the field, sent them to the lab, and they were all over the limit, but nobody else was decertified but us. And so you talk about frustration. That was a tough learning lesson right there.

[Guy Raz]

In 2012, was any part of you, like, conspiratorial is not the right word? Because I don't think that's the right word. But any part of you suspicious that that you guys were decertified because the bats were doing so well and there were maybe more influential competitors who were trying to get the NCAA to shut you down.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, there's no question. We've had conversations with some of those other companies across over the years, and they said we could take some hits from some smaller companies. But what you guys did, y'all were taking so much market share, you know, we kind of had to slow you down.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We were growing so fast. At the end of the day, I can look back now and say it was a blessing because we weren't ready for that growth that we were having. But at that point in time, that was the end.

[Guy Raz]

Why don't we come back in just a moment? How Marucci Sports recovers from the Great Aluminum bat meltdown of 2012. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built this. The show is sponsored by Liquid iv. The holidays are a marathon of gatherings with your family and loved ones. And in the rush, it's super easy to forget to take care of yourself. Whether you forget to take a sip of water during the office holiday party or you start feeling parched after a long day of traveling or hosting, the best thing is to keep Liquid IV on hand to stay hydrated through the holidays. I spend a lot of time with my family outside. We do a lot of hiking here in California at all times of the year and I almost always take a packet of Liquid IV with me to mix in with my water bottle. And it is super easy to use. Tear, pour, live more, Stay hydrated through the holidays with Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code BILT at checkout. That's 20% off your first order when you shop. Better hydration today using promo code biltiquidiv.com There's a lot of talk about AI's effectiveness and how easy it is to implement. But did you know that Grammarly is a trusted AI writing partner designed to fit your unique professional needs? Now I spend a lot of time writing. I write scripts, emails, business proposals, you name it, and Grammarly really helps me find the right tone. It does so much more than correct grammar. It's kind of like a trusted writing partner. I also need the right AI tools to help me run my business, like the enterprise grade security measures Grammarly uses to protect my data and keep my information private. AI is no longer a plaything, it's a business imperative. Join 70,000 teams and 30 million people who trust Grammarly to work faster, hit their goals while keeping their data Secure. Go to Grammarly.com enterprise to learn more. Grammarly Enterprise Ready AI hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2014 and and Marucci Sports is reeling from having its bats decertified. The ball is coming off the batter's swing with too much power. So to compensate, the company puts out a bunch of new bats which, frankly, are kind of underpowered.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I think we overcorrected. Right. We came out with bats that were so far under the limit that didn't perform very well.

[Guy Raz]

They weren't hitting as well.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

100%. We put some subpar product out there just to make sure we were under the limit. And we had great sell in, but we didn't have good sell through. They weren't selling. The kids. The kids weren't excited about the bats. And so we had to do something.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

And then as soon as that happened, I was named CEO, I guess I would say early in 2014. And I think that was. I think that was one of the first things I did when I was named CEO is I made the very unpopular decision of taking back bats from our retailers.

[Guy Raz]

You basically lost all this money. So you lost the money on the T certification, then you flood the market with bats that were not as good to try and see if you could salvage this thing. But that's another financial hit.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's correct.

[Guy Raz]

So you just melted those bats down again that you took back.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We did. We did. And I will say that was the first time we had a board. It was an independent board of some really high profile and quality board members. And it was pretty shocking for them for my first move to take those bats back. But they stuck with me and they trusted me through this whole process. My first year was not very good, and I brought in a CFO that year that I said, hey, man, sorry, right after we hired you, we're going to take these bats back. So our number one customer and all our sales were going to take these bats. But I promise you it'll be the right move moving forward. And I do think they thought I was crazy at the beginning, but it ended up being probably the best decision we've ever made.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so now you're retooling the bats to make them at the standards and quality that you had come to be known among players.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

How long did it take? Now you're 2014. You're the CEO how long did it take before you start to claw back? Because I still imagine it's going to take a while for you guys to hit profitability and to recover from what happened in the previous two years?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, in 2015, we were profitable again. Very profitable, actually.

[Guy Raz]

And that was on the strength of better aluminum bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Better aluminum bats. Deeper in wood bats. Better in wood bats. So everything started going that year, and then we had more product categories, of course, that we were launching at that time, but 2015 was a big year for us.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And when you say big year, like breaking $10 million in revenue, I'd say.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We were probably more like 25 million in revenue that year.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So you're 11 years into the business now, and now you're a player.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

When you took over as CEO, was it clear to you that at. That this is 2014, was it clear to you that within a few years you needed to find an acquirer to get you guys to the next level and, you know, to. To really bring in serious capital to let you do what you want to do?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I don't think so. I think we thought we could do it on our own. I really do. We. We were putting together a great team. We were having a lot of success. We made a great acquisition with Victus in 2017.

[Guy Raz]

Victus is a. Was a company that was making custom wooden bat wood bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah. I mean, if you're out there, we see this up and coming company, we were. Every single piece of wood we can make was going on the field to a major league player right at the major league level. And so we couldn't make minor league player bets, and we were having to turn down orders every year. And we saw this company, Victus Sports, was getting all the younger players, getting the minor leaguers and getting all these young big league players that we couldn't service. And we're like, man, this company's doing a really good job. And so we built a relationship with them over some years, and we ended up acquiring them. And, you know, we could tell they were going to be the future in bats. And quickly as we surpassed Louisville Slugger, I think in 2013, they surpassed Louisville Slugger in 2018 as a number two bat.

[Guy Raz]

And used by major league players, I should say.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Correct. And those. And those are the. Those are the stats that people are like, whoa, you surpassed Louisville Slugger on field. And that's when people know that, you know, baseball is. Everybody knows Louisville Slugger. And so when they hear that, that's kind of a big stat. And So I think acquiring Victus was one of the biggest movements, moves we made.

[Guy Raz]

All right. And to overtake Louisville Slugger among professional players is a big deal. But Louisville Slugger was bigger with youth sports, for example, so they may not have cared all that much. I don't know. Maybe they did. I don't know. But I want to ask about Victus, because this is another company. They're making bats. You guys acquired them in 2017. It didn't make sense to just fold it into Marucci and just to stamp the Marucci name on the Victus bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I don't think so. It's a different culture. You know, Marucci has an honor, the game feel, and Victus has this changed the game. They're more artistic and creative and almost like graffiti type art. And Marucci was more of this, I don't want to say conservative brand. Like, we show up. We kind of joked about we'd show up and our shirts would be tucked in, we'd be wearing suits, and the Victus guys would show up in a T shirt and a hat on backwards. But it was different, and it worked together. And we pushed each other to the point of, you know, we made each other better.

[Guy Raz]

When did you start to make a decent salary? By 2014, I imagine you're actually making a pretty good salary.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, we were making good money at that point in time. Right. When we started Maroochi Sports, we decided to take bigger salaries as we were raising some capital. And, you know, we were putting in crazy hours. You know, I was traveling all over the place to all of our dealers. I was traveling to Asia. I was still doing, you know, all the product meetings that I still do to this day. So, yeah, we were making more money at that point. Point. And not every hour is created equal. There are certain people that add value without putting in the hours. Right. I think what I did was I put in a lot more hours from the beginning. Right. I was. I was the guy that was, you know, here first turning on the lights and turning off the lights at night and traveling like crazy and really putting in the time, because I knew that the more I worked, the more success we were having. And I kind of got addicted to that.

[Guy Raz]

And I think in. In 2020, you guys get acquired by a private equity firm called Compass. I think it was for around like $200 million, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's correct.

[Guy Raz]

Tell me the thinking around that acquisition. It was. I imagine the idea would be, hey, now that we have a bigger fish here, we can scale in the way we Want to scale?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I think some of it was in 2019. We decided that some of our shareholders had been in since 2009. Right. Was no real return because we kept putting money back in the company. This was an opportunity for us to return some capital to shareholders. And at that point in time, we had had a lot of shareholders that had been in for a while, so there was a little shareholder fatigue. And, you know, we saw an opportunity with the success we were having to then capitalize on that, go to market. And, you know, we went and did the whole roadshow with, with private equity and strategics and had a great outcome for all of our shareholders where everybody was super pleased and it was great for us as well.

[Guy Raz]

And you stayed on as CEO?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

I did. They kept my entire team. You know, that acquisition was awesome for us. And we quickly almost tripled our business within just three years with their ownership compass, basically.

[Guy Raz]

So they bought you guys for 200 million. You're making these acquisitions and growing. And that's the playbook oftentimes for private equity. It doesn't always work out, but it clearly did in November of 2023. They then sell the holding company, the parent company that they built around Maroochi Sports, they sell it to another holding company called Fox Factory for over half a billion dollars in November 2023. So a new parent company comes in. I mean, wow, what an amazing return in just three years.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, it was. It was an incredible run.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

For us to find Fox through this process is just a dream come true. Going from private equity to a brand that literally has the same DNA of us.

[Guy Raz]

And they. Fox Factory makes like, mountain bikes, right?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's right. Shocks, trucks, bikes.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

You know, it's those high profile athletes. And it's. What's crazy is if you walk their halls, it's all bike riders, it's all people that have the trucks. They're out in all the, you know, the desert races. And they love it. So it's got that same feeling as Marucci. Obviously, we were a lot smaller than Fox, but it's been just amazing being a part of that family.

[Guy Raz]

And you stayed on again, part of that deal. You stayed on as CEO.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

I stayed on. They kept my entire team again. And they're investing in us and letting us go. And. And it's been fun.

[Guy Raz]

So let's talk about where this is heading now because from what I gather, you guys are. And you're set to do a couple hundred million dollars in revenue, right. Marucci Sports this year. And just basically the basic Sort of knowledge I have about the baseball opportunity or the market would be for sure. Japan and Korea are huge opportunities.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

They are. We've been highlighting Japan for the past five or six years. We have a full team there now, a full office and a hitter's house located in Tokyo. So we're doing a lot of investing in Japan. We see that as a huge opportunity. And I think that's our biggest goal, is to grow our addressable market. Right. Because we know baseball. You know, what the size of baseball is. Softball is a huge emphasis of ours. And then, of course, going in Japan and then other categories. There's plenty of other categories we're in now. But it's not just these products that are out there. We're just going to make them. There has to be be a story with it and technology.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So what is. If I say, what is Marucci Sports today and I never met you before, and I'm like, what is it? What do you guys sell? How do you describe the brand today?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

You know, that's a good question. We are definitely outside of the diamond now. I think that was probably a stigma we had for many, many, many years that we were just a bat company. We now have our training facility, we have apparel. We're launching footwear at the end of this year. It's on field and training.

[Guy Raz]

Like spikes, like cleats and stuff.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's correct, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Because you are a pitcher. I mean, you could. I mean, is there a world where you make ball, you make baseballs?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

We make baseballs now. So we pretty much make every product for a baseball player head to toe now.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Gloves, batting gloves, socks, you know, now footwear, hats. I mean, we pretty much have every product now. We like to say. We used to say we could outfit a player head to ankle. Now as of December this year, it'll be head to toe.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so this year you brokered a deal with Major League Baseball.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And Starting in the 2025 season through 2028, you will become the Maroochy Bats will become the official bat of Major League Baseball. The only, the second company to get that designation after, of course, Louisville Slugger. So you guys are. The Louisville Slugger has always been the official bat of the mlb. Next year, there'll be Maroochy Bats.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a pinch yourself moment. Right. This is kind of a validation of all that hard work and all the years we put into this to be the official bat. And of course, Victus as well. Will Marooch and Victus will both be official bats next year. So that's a. It's a huge opportunity for us. We don't take it lightly. And, you know, we want to bring that new cool factor to the game. Like, we like to change. We like, we like the new changes that are happening in MLB and making it more fun for kids to play and making the games faster. We think it's really good for the game.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Kurt, when you think about where you got, you know, where you got to here, we're talking about again, if I met you in 2004, I'd be like, I don't know, man. You know, wooden bats, you know, the market opportunity here is limited. You gotta sell tens of thousands these days. Like, I, you know, I'd have been skeptical. But here you are, you know, you're now heading up a brand that's doing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year. How much of where you got to now do you attribute to the work you put in and how much you think has to do with just getting lucky breaks?

[Kurt Ainsworth]

That's a great question. I think we've been very lucky along the way just where we're located. Being in Baton Rouge, we've had some doors open just from being here, but I definitely can sign just being consistent and putting in the time has helped.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Kurt Ainsworth]

You know, there's a sense of pride in this, I'll be honest with you. And I think when we sold this last time, it came out when I was addressing our whole team the first time. Not an emotional person, but it came out as I was addressing the team that I broke down. I couldn't get it out. It was just. It was such a special moment to us that we got to that point to sell to Fox. And then I enjoyed it for about one week. And now I'm driven again to do it again. I mean, I'm having fun. I gotta be honest with you. This is such a challenge for me. I kind of like it. I can't stay home. And this team here is spectacular. And, you know, I'd go to battle with these guys any day.

[Guy Raz]

That's Kurt Ainsworth, co founder and CEO of Marucci Sports. By the way, even though Kurt's MLB career was cut short by injury, he did play a role in at least one legendary triumph as a pitcher for Team USA during the Sydney Olympics in 2000. That year, for the first time in history, the US became gold medal champions in baseball, beating Cuba in the finals, 4, 0. That game became known as the miracle on grass. Hey, thanks so much. For listening to the show this week, please make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast apps so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by Devin Schwartz with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Catherine Cipher. Our engineers were Maggie Luthor and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chum, J.C. howard, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, Chris Messini, Kerry Thompson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built this. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey Klaviyo powers smarter digital relationships from more than 151,000 successful brands, including Hedley and Bennett, Fishwife and Dagny Dover. Klaviyo's unified data and Marketing automation platform turns your customer data into personalized connections to make every moment count across AI powered email, sms, analytics, and more. Build smarter digital relationships with your customers. Visit klaviyo.com to make every moment count.