After Reading 409 Pickleball Threads, Dearrally Founder Puts Paddle Fit First
Nov 11, 2026
Dearrally's founder says the industry is competing on power while buyers are asking whether they can still play next week.
Irvine, California, United States, November 11, 2026 -- When Kevin Zhang, founder of Dearrally, started looking at the pickleball paddle market, he expected the hard problem to be performance. Instead he found a crowd of people talking about their elbows.
Dearrally
Zhang, who spent six years selling consumer products before entering the sport, collected 409 threads and 452 comments from r/Pickleball — the sport's largest open community — and ran a word-frequency analysis across roughly 800,000 characters of user-generated text.
The results changed his product plan. "Elbow" appeared 261 times, "wrist" 200, and "pain" 187 — 648 references in total. For comparison, "grip" appeared 164 times, "budget" 133, and the name of the sport's largest paddle brand appeared 21 times.
Ninety-six threads carried an injury reference in the title itself.
"I expected to spend a year learning about cores and face materials," said Zhang. "Instead I spent a month reading about people's arms. That was the moment I understood what this category was actually selling — and what it was getting wrong."
The analysis also surfaced a pattern of players modifying factory equipment rather than replacing it. References to adding weight (69 instances) and to lead or tungsten tape (31 instances) appeared 100 times across the corpus, suggesting that the market's central frustration is not performance but fit.
"Two paddles both listed at 7.8 ounces can feel completely different in a fast exchange," one community member wrote, describing the gap between published static weight and actual swing feel.
A Brand Built to Solve a Problem
Dearrally launched with 70 paddle models, sold direct to consumers in the United States. And that is why the company built its own factory — to solve the problems people in the community were facing: arm pain, fit, and the gap between listed weight and actual swing feel. Those problems can't be solved by picking products off a shelf. You have to make them yourself to control them.
Dearrally is publishing the weight, thickness, and core specifications for all 70 paddles, one by one, and offers a 30-day on-court trial: play with it, and if you don't like it, send it back.
Dearrally — Made for the Rally
"Some brands inspect returns for ball dust," Zhang said. "We don't. If you played with it and didn't like it, that's the information we needed."
What We Won't Promise
On Amazon, the ten best-selling pickleball paddles all describe themselves as "suitable for beginners" in their product listings. Dearrally chooses not to say that. Nor does it claim its paddles treat or prevent injury.
"I know this will cost us some sales," Zhang said. "But if you buy one and find out I lied to you, I'll never sell you a second one."
The company will publish its full methodology: the search terms, the size of the corpus, the matching rules, and every assumption that could be questioned. The raw counts can be reproduced from the same public data source.
It is also publishing the weight, thickness, and core specifications for all 70 paddles — including the numbers that don't flatter it in side-by-side comparisons.
"If there's something wrong with these numbers, I want to be the first person to point it out," Zhang said.
The DRIVE Gradient Wave T700 Paddle is 16 mm thick, with a honeycomb core. It costs $57.99 for the paddle alone.
The DRIVE Purple Orbit T700 Paddle Kit includes a 16 mm paddle with a polypropylene (PP) honeycomb core. The one-paddle kit starts at $107.99.
The APEX Crimson T800 Paddle is 16 mm thick, with a polymer honeycomb core. It costs $115.99 for the paddle alone.
About Dearrally
Dearrally is a pickleball equipment brand based in Irvine, California, selling 70 paddle models and court accessories direct to consumers in the United States.
Its philosophy is "Made for the Rally": made for the next rally — one more game on the court, and beyond it. When it comes to results, the focus was never the scoreboard. It was always the next game.
Contact Info:
Name: Kevin Zhang
Email: Send Email
Organization: Dearrally
Address: 5319 University Dr, Ste 367, Irvine, CA 92612, United States
Website: https://dearrally.com/
Release ID: 89209196
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