The Bagel Shop Test: Nothing Beats Word of Mouth

Ben Borton, Apr 6, 2026

There’s a version of growth every founder chases: polished funnels, optimized CAC, dashboards that trend up and to the right.

And then there’s what actually drives those outcomes.

Someone overhears a conversation at a bagel shop.

“I need a better way to handle bookings and payments—something cashless, streamlined.”

A stranger chimes in:

“You should check out this app… I use it for pickleball.”

He pulls out his phone. Opens his pickleball club’s app powered by PodPlay. Hands it over.

“It’s really user friendly.”

That’s it. No pitch deck. No demo request form. No attribution model. Just belief—transferred from one customer to another.

That is the power of word of mouth.

Growth That Compounds

Every company says they want word of mouth. Few actually build for it. Because word of mouth isn’t a tactic. It’s an outcome.

It happens when:

The product works without explanation
The experience feels obvious, not learned
The value is clear enough that someone wants to show it to someone else

In our world, that shows up as players sharing replays, operators seeing it in action, and decisions getting made before we ever get on a call.

You can’t fake that. You can’t buy it. You can only earn it.

And when you do, it compounds in a way nothing else does.

One player becomes two. Two becomes a group chat. A group chat becomes a community of players. The community drives club technology decisions.

Not because we pushed it—but because the product pulled it forward.

The Product Does the Heavy Lifting

We’ve been able to take PodPlay as far as we have for a simple reason:

The product carries its weight.

Not in features. In how quickly it makes sense.

When someone opens PodPlay, it makes sense immediately. Booking, programming, payments, replays—it’s all where you expect it to be. No friction. No translation layer.

That’s what makes the bagel shop moment possible.

If the product required explanation, the chain breaks right there. But when it doesn’t, the customer becomes the salesperson.

We’re now seeing ~1.5M annualized replays flowing through the platform. That’s not marketing. That’s distribution built into the product.

From Founder-Led to System-Led

Early on, every sale we did was founder-led.

You tell the story. You handle objections. You close the deal. But if the product is doing its job, something changes..

You start to see deals that you didn’t touch. You hear stories like the bagel shop. And you realize the job isn’t to hold onto sales.

It’s to scale belief, not activity.

That’s the transition—from founder-led to system-led growth. Not just replacing the founder with a sales team. But building a system where:

The product creates demand
The market reinforces it
The team amplifies it

Keepers of the Message

When you build a team, you can’t treat it like adding headcount. You’re not hiring sellers. You’re hiring signal. People who don’t just understand what you’re building—but are what you’re building.

That’s why we’ve been so selective in adding to our GTM team.

Because in a world where word of mouth is the engine, every person becomes part of the product.

1 of 1 People

The fastest way to accelerate word of mouth is simple:

Put the product in the hands of people who are 1 of 1 in their ability to connect with customers.

Kaitlyn Kerr is the face of PodPlay for a reason.

We build technology in the service of fun. There isn’t a person in pickleball who embodies that more fully. Add in her background—MLP team owner, former GM, MLP Host, high-level player—and you get someone who isn’t representing the product.

She is the product, in human form.

Keepers of the PodPlay Story.jpg

Ryan Weinbach leads our sales team for the same reason.

Yes, he’s one of the most gifted salespeople I’ve worked with.

But more importantly—he lives and breathes pickleball. He competes. He coaches. His family are all deeply involved in the game.

He understands the customer because he is the customer.

That’s the bar.

How Word of Mouth Actually Starts

It doesn’t start with marketing. It starts with proximity. Word of mouth isn’t broadcast. It’s passed.

A player uses the product. Loves it. Shows a friend. A coach sees it. Recommends it to a club. An operator experiences it. Brings it into their facility.

Each step feels natural. No forcing function. That’s what 1 of 1 people unlock.

They shorten the distance between product and belief. And once belief is there, word of mouth does the rest.