Making Pickleball More Fashionable With Aubri Steele and Kate Nowlan of Civile Apparel

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Tacos in tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper captains counting beans Contador quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo, the taco stand in puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean watch the sunset la Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the moon SD Tecos with your host, Neil Bloom.

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Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom, and I'm thrilled to have you here. On the Tacos and Tech Podcast, we interview builders of technologies, of companies, of communities, and we do it weekly. So thanks for tuning in. Every Tuesday, a new interview and on Fridays we talk about what's new in the San Diego tech ecosystem from a news perspective. So make sure you join us there as well too. We also have a tech newsletter that comes out every other week@freshbroodtech.com you can subscribe to listen to it without further ado. Enjoy this episode. I'm thrilled to have Aubrey still here, CEO and founder of Civilia Apparel. And also Kate and Olin is here with us two time on the podcast, a partner at Chevile as well too. Thanks for both being here, guys.

Thanks for having us.

Excited to be here.

Yeah, no, I'm really excited to tell the story. You know, pickleball is all the rage and you're kind of the face of it right now, especially in San Diego on magazine covers and everything else. So I'm really glad we got connected through this. It would have happened one way or another. Do you want to give us a quick just like one minute overview of, like, what Chibila is?

Yeah, absolutely. So we are a modern pickleball apparel brand, and I say it that way because I think traditionally People tend to think that the sport is new because it may have come into their world recently, but it is by far not a new sport. I would say it is booming right now in popularity, thanks in part to the pandemic. And traditionally, the clothing and the apparel, the aesthetic of those was not what we would define as modern. And as the sport becomes more popular, we recognize that the demographic playing it is expanding. And I think that modern apparel in that space was a fresh breath air and very welcome to something that traditionally was a little bit different, brighter, a little more chaotic feeling. So with kind of a simplified, more sophisticated version for on and off the court.

Oh, super cool. Well, obviously we have two apparel experts on here, so we're going to get to that. We're going to talk about the apparel world. But even before that, before pickleball was even an idea, how did you come to be in this crazy entrepreneurial world? Did you grow up around entrepreneurs or where did it all start?

Well, it's funny, for me, pickleball was the crazy idea that was the sparking moment, kind of coincided at a very pivotal point in my life. I grew up with a father, entrepreneur. He was in the manufacturing and the semiconductor space in Burbank, California. And while what I do now is not similar to him in a lot of ways, outside of being an entrepreneur, I watched as he built a business and watched the way that he treated all of his employees, the families of the employees. So much of my family and extended family worked there. My brother still works for the company that actually eventually bought it out. And just the mentality behind it that that constant rising tide. He built a metaphorical boat. He put us all inside and brought us to brighter places. And I was always inspired, always wanted to be one. But unfortunately, it took his death in the end of 2020 that made me reset and kind of jump off the end of the diving board. But had I not discovered pickleball, I don't think that I would have seen the opportunity. That was the little push I needed. So it was very. It was a multifaceted catalyst there for me.

Wow. Unfortunate. But go ahead.

Well, yeah, what Aubrey is leaving out is that she is super fashion forward and a trendsetter. And, you know, to her friends and people around her, she pulls off looks that a lot of us wouldn't dare to. And then we see her doing it, we're like, oh, wait, maybe I could do that if she can do it. And so, despite not necessarily having an apparel background, it was definitely a strong play and it made sense for her to get into the apparel space in a sport that was becoming a household name, you know, it hadn't been before.

Got it. I'm from the 818 as well, so I happen to know Burbank pretty well. We all ended up in San Diego. How did you actually end up in San Diego, Aubrey?

So I was born in Glendale. We moved here when I was very, very young. My father moved the business to Carlsbad when I was about three. And so I grew up in Encinitas, California, North County, San Diego. I could not be luckier. I live now in Solana beach with my husband. We went to competing high schools, and so we're very deeply rooted in North County, San Diego. And I feel very lucky to have landed there. Here. I say there because Encinitas and Salon and beach are neighboring cities. But, yeah, so I made my way down here, you know, long, long ago. And so I consider Encinitas my home.

How do you. I'm curious how people now, these days are, find their way into pickleball. Like, did you start from tennis and find your way there? Or like, what was the sport to you originally?

No.

So that's funny, actually, when I play, I still tend to want to hit the ball really hard and really long, which is not necessarily a smart play in pickleball. But people ask me all the time if I had a tennis background and I was a soccer player and a hip hop dancer. So I found the sport in the middle of the pandemic. My husband and I have a combined five teenagers at home, which is a.

Lot, let's say that.

So I think, like many people, we were desperate to find something, some way to engage with them, and definitely a way to get them off screens and outdoors. And we are lucky enough to have some space in the driveway where my husband broke out the chalk and drew a pickleball court. It was a sport we knew his parents played. They had come over, you know, started talking about it and we thought, oh, cute. This fun sport that your parents play, maybe this is something we can do with them during the pandemic. With that said, that was at the point when my father was suffering pretty severely with cancer and we didn't have an opportunity to celebrate indoors and dinners and traditional things. So the whole family would come over for birthdays during 2020, and we would sit outside, barbecue and, you know, safe distance, heavy sanitizing, and then we would play some pickleball. So it was. It was very lucky. But I do think many, many of the people that discovered Pickleball in the last couple of years, it was the exact same. You see them popping up in cul de sacs, and it's really fun. And we're working right now with Chibili on this whole, like, bring it back to the streets thing. It reminds me so much of basketball courts in the 80s and early 90s, where people just made courts where they could and they got out where they can play. And that's kind of what we've seen with pickleball.

And that's how Aubrey and I met too, actually. I think I mentioned previously, but my fiance was a pickleball freak. He'd moved from Newport and was looking for tennis and found happened upon Bobby Riggs, which is our local home court, and started playing pickleball. And me and my children thought he was crazy. Cause if you googled it at the time, it did not represent the age group that I thought he should be a part of playing a sport. And so. But then he was consistently playing and met Aubrey and said, you really need to meet this woman. She would be your friend. You need her. And I said, I don't want any new friends. But then I happen Chance met her with a bunch of women playing pickleball. And we both had fallen in love with the sport, and it was keeping us busy and keeping us off our devices during the pandemic. And then she had that light bulb moment of, you know, I'm thinking about starting a brand, and I know you've done this before. What do you think? And I said, I want nothing to do with it, but I'll be your friend.

Apparently, we don't give Kate an option of no as an answer.

It was, yeah. And I. So. And then she, you know, I said, but call me if you have questions. You know, I've done this before. She did. And then I, of course, got roped in because I fell in love with what her idea and the brand idea. And then I couldn't help myself but get involved. So it really brought us together. And I think that pickleball in a lot of ways, symbolizes what we want. The unity. Yeah. And what we want to see happening with the world. There's such a divisive world that we live in now, especially in this country. And it's like, how do we get people back together? Regardless of what side you're on of the court, you know, it's about being nice. And that's really the tagline for Chavile. And it has worked. I mean, we see it happening. You know, we play with all sorts of people, and it's inclusive of all ages. Like she said, you know, where you can play with your parents, you can play with your teenagers. It doesn't matter what level you're at, and it's still fun. And so I think for both of us, that's really brought us together. And despite now running an apparel company, we still find time to play, which is even cooler.

Makes for some great meetings, I would imagine.

Yeah.

Little anger management. Yeah, it's fine.

Take us through the big thing that everyone. Everyone has ideas. A lot of. Not many people get off the seat and execute. Like, how'd you know to take this idea and actually turn it into reality? Like, did you already know. You already know Kate at the ideation phase? Did you know people in the apparel industry? Or how did you. What were the first steps to turn it real?

I would say I do know people in the industry. San Diego tends to be a hotbed for entrepreneurs for new, great, cool brands. I did not know Kate at the ideation moment. That happened really kind of on my own. It was almost a bit of a joke. When my father passed, I actually thought I was gonna take six months to a year off of work and take a breath. That lasted about, ooh, I don't know, week, when I just started to spin. And my creative juices were probably the thing that was the outlet that I needed at that time. And so I began kind of circling this idea of a modern pickleball apparel brand, but one that represented that unity and a return to civility that we were talking about. I originally wanted to call the company Civilization, and my husband sweetly told me that was way too serious sounding, which I completely agree with now. So I'm a Spanish speaker, and the Spanish version wasn't any more exciting. So it happens that a friend of ours was here playing pickleball, who's from Italy, and I just by chance said, hey, how do you say civil in Italian? And she said, oh, it's civile. And I thought, well, that tastes so much better in my mouth. That's just. That's my answer. And when I found out that you can spell it just like English, but with an e on the end, I thought, there's a story behind that. It allowed me to maintain the messaging that I was after, because, like Kate mentioned, the be civil, play nicely is really. It's about a return to unity. So that aha moment was kind of on my own. And it wasn't totally serious at first, but I was internally kicking myself for not having started A company when my father was alive. And it was an awful paradox of I wanted to have done it because maybe he could have stayed alive longer with something to do, which is a horrible thing to live with. But on the flip side of that, he was so ready to go and I, I knew that this would be a way to honor him, was to just finally make that jump. And I, I, you hear it all the time. No time's a good time to do it. But again, unfortunately, the passing, his passing was that little tiny gust of wind that pushed me right off the end of the diving board. And I remind myself daily that it is an absolute luxury to have an opportunity to become an entrepreneur because so many people want to do it and they can't find the means or they can't find the confidence or no, no. Wind kicks them off the edge. And I know that it's a struggle and it's a 20 hour work days every day, but what an honor it is to be here, to be trying it and to have people like Kate and great friends and people surrounding this and getting behind it. That's definitely the wind that carries me right now.

Yeah, what a silver lining. You're right to honor him in that regard too. North Kennett Coastal is like under the radar. Maybe not on the radar, but like the apparel hub of entrepreneurship. Right? From Grace by Grit, from Hyli to Prana to all these, these brands that and many more now.

It's massive.

Yes. Vuori, did you lean into that or fall into finding entrepreneurs? Did you know to look locally, to surround yourself with other kind of advisors and help?

You know, it's funny, I think a lot of it is this area. We've been lucky enough. My husband grew up surfing professionally when he was younger. We just, we have a really amazing community.

We.

I think I've leaned into it more since I've got another friend who grew up as a pro skateboarder and was heavily involved in some very urban, fantastic skate apparel brands. And you always, you've known them forever, you love them forever. But they have been incredible just with their willingness to help and their enthusiasm for it. I think a couple people every now and again think, oh my gosh, what are you doing? Especially amid a pandemic, amid a supply chain breakdown of all time. The supply chain breakdown. And yet so many of them, the minute you say, well, I'm doing it anyway, the support has been incredible and the willingness to share and it's just really been pretty amazing. So leaning into them more now and discovering more and More. And it's always connecting and reconnecting with people, which has been amazing. And Kate's been an incredible advisor, but also somebody who had built these relationships in the past. And my. For me to be able to leverage those has been game changing.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Take us through from the brand naming, which is great. How did you actually start designing and when was it in market and started to see, like, first sales? Because that must have been so fulfilling.

Yeah, it's crazy. As Kate mentioned, I was not. I'm not an apparel designer by trade. I'm actually a career educator. I taught at the high school and college level most of my career and always had a creative side, was always kind of into the marketing side of things. And I literally, once I had the brand, the vibe and the feel. Feeling of it, I sat down and I started to draw some designs. I. The first thing I drew was our. What we call our little black dress of pickleball. And the whole idea was that it doesn't have to scream sport to be performance. Right. And we wanted something that we had all spent two and a half years in athleisure in our joggers, and loved it. But I think as we. As the pandemic changes, I think people are ready to return to community. They're ready to return in person. They might even be willing to get out of their sweats for a change. And so designing stuff that can take you from the court to brunch instead of back to your sweats was kind of the idea. So our little black dress of pickleball.

Has a completely open back.

Now it's performance up. That's performance fabric. It's amazing. All black, beautiful silhouette. It's created with this little one, I think, a mechanism that you loop under your sports bra. So people always ask me, is it actually for pickleball play? And absolutely is. It was designed specifically for that and very well thought out. But going through that, just thinking, what if we could change the face of it? What if it didn't have to be athleisure? What if it didn't have to be hardcore athletic? So we kind of land on this funny what we call apres pickle. So it is actually for the court, but it's about also where it's taking you afterward. And a lot of what we started working with were the pickleball puns, because above all else, we recognize that people are starting to be a part of this pickle community and they want to identify as. So that's historically what we all Want everything. We call it the CrossFit Syndrome. Right? It's the I'm from Boston or I do CrossFit. Right. You want people to know those two things. So we played a lot. You know, we'll have wine nights and come up with the next funny pun. Our classic one is don't be a dink. A dink is the main style of hit and pickleball, but it also leans into our messaging of being nice. Right. Being civil and playing nicely. So I sat down, I got to work, I started drawing. I created a logo, and I just gave myself the license to do it. I think that was the big ticket. As somebody who was not a creative person who I. No degrees in marketing, nothing like that. I simply sat down and gave myself the license to be creative. And I think that's what it takes for a lot of people. I think we tend to identify only as the qualifications that we've been given. And it would be amazing if people had more opportunity to just say, well, here's what I'm going to be today and see what happens, because that's literally how it happened for me. And then from that point, we went into production right here in California with a couple of different teams, and we started selling in February of 2021. So we're just over a year old. We're babies.

Yeah. Wow. Incredible.

Yeah.

I didn't get the memo. And we're not. Still not doing sweats, so sorry about that.

Yeah, I know. Well, by the way, I was laughing when you said that, Aubrey, because I'm looking at all of us in our sweats as we're wearing them here on this call. But I did you know where. I think Aubry also, she has that. She has that entrepreneurial spirit of, like, I'm going to just figure it out. And while she didn't have a background in apparel, where I helped lend my expertise of, like, okay, we got to build. We got to build this building materials, and what does that look like? And let's break down our cost of each unit, and how do we build around those margins? And then also, let's look at fabric vendors, and let's figure out different suppliers and how do we make sure we diversify our manufacturing here in Southern California so that we could grow and scale. And that was where I could access a lot of the partners that I worked with. But, you know, I would say that Aubrey, because maybe she's a career educator or because she was so hungry for this challenge, it didn't take much to figure that stuff out. And it was really just about making the right phone calls, building that stuff, and then running with it. And because she has such a good eye for design, women are really attracted to what she's doing, and not just women, but men are too. And so that aesthetic is so incredibly useful with this new wave of people playing the sport that it was really an easy sell to get it out there. And then as the world has opened up, being a part of tournaments and so getting to participate in local events and experience experiences where pickleball's at the core of it. It allows you to get in front of people where they can touch, feel, try on. And as I know from my past experience, that's what women love to do. And then they call their friends or their friends, see them wearing it. Where'd you get it? How do I go online and purchase it myself? Right. And building those strong relationships also within our own community and bringing on the right partners to help us grow into different channels has been key, too. So we have some key partners that work on wholesale and partnerships. And also, pickleball is incredibly. There's a lot of money being poured into the sport. So now you have professional athletes that are quitting their day jobs, and being a pickleball pro athlete is what they do. We have a major league pickleball now, where you've got teams that cost two and a half million to purchase, and you've got four pros that are on them. So there's a lot of opportunity and growth that we've. We've been a part of from the very beginning. That has been really great because Aubry's a people person. She's a relationship person, and we all are as a part of this team. And I think that when you look at the key to our success, I think it is that piece of it right there. It's all about the relationships. And to me, that's what it comes down to at the end of the day, despite not wanting to be friends with her. Now, here I am working on that part.

So. But really, the modern aesthetic was. I mean, it was ripe for the taking. I think that it's funny, there are a number of pickleball brands popping up. There are larger brands that are stepping into this space. The difference with Chevyle is, you know, there. There are almost 5 million players right now who the data will show are pickleball players. That's a fraction, I think, of what there is. Those are people that actually like currently, from a digital marketing perspective, actually identify as pickleball players. We tend to be very popular with the people who don't even yet necessarily identify on that scale. We believe that market is much, much larger. Even people that love it, that play it, but aren't necessarily doing the searches or something for it, they just, oh, you run into them, you're like, oh, I have one in my cul de sac. We play all the time, but they're not going to tours, they're not going to tournaments. They don't even know there's professional pickleball players.

Right.

So we like to say we're helping define the emerging and expanding culture of pickleball because we believe the market size is so much larger even than what is coming up on the radar right now. And those people tend to love our cheeky things. But again, the simplicity, that modern, sophisticated edge is like, yeah, I play pickleball. I love it, but I don't want a onesie with pickles and flamingos on it.

Right.

So there's a very clear line between those things. And we've been lucky enough to kind of identify that larger opportunity and create something that lends itself more for that.

Is this brand right now, did it start only towards women and has expanded to everything, or has it always been for all genders?

You know, it's funny. We started very much on the female side. We had originally, we make. Our T shirts are considered unisex, and we did make a men's performance tee early on. A very soft hand fabric. Instead of kind of what I like. I call it the slimy performance fabrics. And it's a much nicer softer hand. And we realize, I think partially due in part to the aesthetic of the brand itself, of the logo itself, it's somewhat masculine. I tend to like things like that. We've had a number of men become incredible customers. And so because of that, with some of the stuff dropping this summer, we've leaned a little bit more into the male side. We're coming out with a men's short and long sleeve and more items. But right now, we do make a number of tops that are considered unisex.

Super interesting. How are you viewing, like, is the sport itself? Just want to know a little background the sport. Because obviously tennis has almost. It almost feels like men's and women's. One of the few sports where they're at the same level in that regard. Right there isn't. It just feels like the top players in tennis on both sides are just like top in the world. Is pickleball being accepted in that way? Regard to very kind of gender Equality, Yes.

And I think that's another one of the beautiful things. Kate spoke earlier about the inclusivity. You can play with your kids, you can play with your parents. I get beat by somebody twice my age on the regular, and it makes me respect the sport a ton. But with that, you also get that gender equality that you see. And there's some. The people at Major League Pickleball in Dreamland and Dripping Springs, they are putting on these really fun pickleball night in America. It's the Tuesday nights right now. And with Duper, which is a pickleball rating system, and they are. It's like a hat draw. You might play with two females. You might have a male and a female. You might be two women playing against two men. They did a battle of the sexes recently, and it was very indicative of that equality. It. Pickleball is such a game of pace and place that brute force doesn't matter. Speed is important, but your ability, somebody explained it the other day. It's all about angles. And actually, Kate's fiance is a perfect example of this. He drives me nuts because I'm sweating and hitting hard and giving it everything, and he just. He's kind of coaching me and very casually just hitting the ball at an angle where I just can't get to it, and it makes me crazy. So it's so great for that because it is such a mind game in. In that pace and that placing. And if you can change up the speed of the ball, gender has nothing to do with it, in my opinion.

That's pretty great to be riding that wave. So pickleball's growing. You're growing. Like, what does now versus the next year look like? Both industry and kind of where Chavile.

Is, you know, first year in business, especially right now with the existing landscape, as we mentioned earlier, with supply chain issues and stuff, we're lucky to manufacture onshore. We're lucky to use us made blanks for the things that we use blanks for. That has not only kind of helped us with maintaining control over it, not having stuff stuck on ships in addition to lowering our carbon footprint, not having things traveling all the time, but it. It's been a year of learning. Becoming an entrepreneur is an incredibly humbling thing, I will say. And I think year one, in review, it was like, okay, this is awesome. We've got great momentum, incredible traction. We've made some incredible partnerships, and we've learned a ton. Here's where our little pivots need to be made. Here's what we see as changes in a strategy because of X, Y and Z. Here are the changes that we need to make. Go deeper on this stuff and pull out of this stuff. So I think after the first year wrapped, it was a very big, deep, you know, big sigh of, but a good sigh. Kind of like, wow, we survived. This is fun. What do we know from that? And so I would say over the next year, I think we're going to go deeper on the things that are true to Chevy LA's core. We don't want to compete in a truly athletic space. I don't want to make sports bras that don't differentiate from anything. We want to make basics, leggings, shorts and stuff. Because once people get into our customer ecosystem, they tend to stay there. We have an incredible customer retention rate. People like us, they, they know that we're building with high quality things. Our customer service is, we pride ourselves on great customer service because we treat people the way we want to be treated. And so we want to get them into our ecosystem with the stuff that's fun, that represents that, that message of kindness that says, hey, we know you're a pickleball player too. And then once they're in there, we'll go a little bit deeper on the things that, hey, now that you're here, we do make leggings, we do make this. But right now we're really focusing on the Chibile, the messaging, the pickleball aware stuff. Kate, anything I'm missing? I'm thinking you're moving forward.

No, I mean, I think you nailed it. And I think it's about obviously growing our revenue. I mean, we're also business mind and so I, you know, focusing on that and recognizing we have people coming at us saying we'd like to invest and how do we become a part of this? Because they see the opportunity and it's about being strategic over the next year about who potentially could be those right partners and building values so that we bring on people at the right time for the company. And figuring out in the meantime, how does that look and what does that look like in order to finance this business? Because apparel is extremely tough. It's expensive to be a part of. And despite the fact that we are in the states and in Southern California, that doesn't mean that things still don't cost a lot of money to make them. And especially because we're using such high quality materials and working with great partners. So I think that's, I would say, the juggle that we have over the next year of navigating that and being really smart about where we spend our money and who we spend our money with, and then also when we bring on the right partner. And so we are really looking into that over the next next year. We have a couple investors, and we've been fortunate to now, you know, we're working with. How do we do inventory financing. Right. And working with people that are interested in female founders because they understand that female founders certainly don't get investment at the same way that men do. So I think that's really where my background starts to come in. But then Aubry's now experiencing and tasting what that is and so being really strategic about who we go after and what that looks like. Like. And I would say that's. That's this next year. And under also knowing, like, this is our time because the sport is growing so much, there's so much money being poured into the sport that we do need to have rapid growth and we need to scale fast. And so it's that constant juggle. As an entrepreneur, you don't want to grow too fast. Right. And you also want to be able to be valued in a place that is. Right. So we don't lose equity when we go out for fundraising. So, as you know, Neil, that's.

And to Kate's point, I think that we've been really lucky to not just take money from people in order to make this work. We've really worked on building the machine. One of Kate's favorite lines is, people begin as they intend to continue. And for me, that's really critical. I have core values that I want to stay. We have something actually noticed in your bio, Neil, but we have something called the Rising Tide with chevyle. And we're going to give back at every opportunity that we can. We sponsor firefighter tournaments and local school fundraisers and Ms. Foundation. And I've heard a lot of people say, well, you can't do that until you're older and you're profitable. And I do understand that there's a threshold to it, but that is where my heart is. I am building this boat. My intentions will always be to make it a plot, use it as a platform for good, as my father did. And so our ability to hold off on taking investors until we find appropriate partners who believe in that same. Those core pillars of our foundation is really the goal here. So, of course, yeah, bumping up revenue, building the machine so that valuation comes in. And when we're able to say, okay, now we're ready and hop aboard the Boat and grab a paddle because it's where we're going.

Yeah, I obviously see how, why and how you guys get along so well. Just being so mission driven first. Right. Grace by grit was obviously mission driven first in that regard too. And a lot of people are in San Diego, to be honest. Like, it feels like people want to work on the things they want to work on over have to, which has got to feel good around that. And you're super smart and the smart money matters more. Right. The people who the dollars honestly don't go nearly as far as the expertise as you can. Like, I'm sure having Kate on board now, who is a serial apparel entrepreneurial, like, you know, Kate, I can't imagine, like you plan to be in apparel over and over. Like, what's it feel like now doing, jumping back in and building another apparel company?

You know, at first I was like, no, don't get me involved. I've done it, I sold it. I want to be done and I want to, you know, like, it was so much work. And that first time around, you know, despite having great mentors along the way, you know, it's like you don't know what you don't know. Right. So you're constantly like learning. And then I think this time around it's like, don't do that, do this. I learned that already.

She doesn't mind saying that. By the way.

I am very straightforward, not afraid to say what I think to a fault. And so I think that's where it's been so refreshing for me. And like, wow, I learned, for me, it's also like Aubrey says, like, we. I learned so much in this last year. Like, to me, I recognize every day when we have our strategic conversations and we're talking about things, I'm like, oh, I already know that. Like, no, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. And that for me feels really good to be able to give back. And that is almost like that ethos of mine of being mission driven where it's like, I'm able to contribute in a way where Aubrey gets to learn from all my mistakes and what, you know, what not to do. And that feels really good. And then we do have other partners too that have that same level of expertise in different arenas that have been incredibly helpful. And so I think also the beauty of this time around is having people at a high level in different areas all working together. Because for me, the first time around, it was me and my co founder, right? We. We had never Done it. Like I said, we had great mentors and things of that nature, but we were hiring a lot of people that were inexperience but we saw potential. Whereas this is having partners where they have the experience. They're coming maybe from different spaces, but it's that collaboration and working with women at a high level too is then just like game changing for me. And it's just, I love it. It's super passionate. I mean Aubry's getting emails from me at 2 in the morning whether she likes it or not. So my mind is always thinking about chevyle and the next thing. So it's really fun.

That's so great. Well, besides emailing, you gotta be. Obviously you're either playing pickleball together and have a meeting or as we do in north county coastal, we break bread or tacos. Right? We have tacos together and that's for meetings. Do you, Aubrey, have a favorite taco spot locally?

So I was thinking very hard about this question and I have to give two and here's why. Our go to every day is Tony Hiccall's. It's nostalgic. I think I. Some of my old students work behind the bar. I think half of my husband's soccer team work. I mean we love them, we love being there again. Growing up here, that's an integral part of our lives. The food truck Taco Picasso is another favorite of mine because it just, it's just not what you think it's going to be. You know, starting with being a food truck, but even the vibe of the truck itself, but the type of tacos that they offer, really unique.

It's a good one. We haven't had the, that, the, that taco truck mentioned. So adding it to the taco database, which is a great one. There's no wrong answers to this by the way, so I don't even. I was going to look up Kate's ahead of time but Kate, do you have a new favorite taco or have you got the same Tried and you.

Know, so I do have a new one and I want to give a shout out actually to it. So. Death by Tequila and Sanitas. My daughter's boyfriend is one of the chefs that actually makes the tacos now behind in the kitchen.

So just the other night.

So he. Yeah, so he's there. So you know, I've checked it out now and they have a new, their new ownership. So I think it's definitely worth checking that out. And it's funny because it should really be like tacos, tech And Tequila, because Aubrey and I also love Tequila. So if we want to go there, I'm happy to talk about Tequila all day long.

When you ask about how I got her back into the apparel space, there is your answer.

That's a great idea about renaming the podcast, because during COVID I got very into Tequila as well into extras. So let's go there maybe in person. Last time you mentioned city tacos, obviously, another great location, north park, but now also Encinitas too.

So they're in Encinitas.

Yeah.

Yeah, Another good taco spot. But I would love if people start bringing up Tequila ideas. All right, just hit me. What is your favorite Tequila? Let's just do it now. Let's start it.

Ooh. So I have.

I got.

We have Tequila in the family. So my brother in law is behind Cilento Tequila. I think they've done an incredible job with that. It's delicious. And I used to tell people during the pandemic, we had chickens at the house, and we've got avocado trees and lime trees. So I said, you know, the world can end. I have tequila, I have limes, I have avocados, and I have chickens. So I feel sorry for y', all, but, like, my version of the apocalypse is like a pretty good. It's horrible to say, but, yeah, they've done an incredible job. And it is delicious Tequila.

And another Encinitas brand. I believe in his brand.

I know it well. Yeah, Salon. Yeah, it's.

And a lot of local partners too, like Brett Crosby and others who, you know, are deeply rooted here in the community as well. I know I've got at least the reposado and the here as well. I discovered Old Town Tequila and, like, game over, because I can spend days there. My favorite right now is Urzura, which they never have in stock. And I'm literally communicating with the tequila Ria in Spanish on Facebook messenger, all the time asking, when's a new shipment coming?

Oh, Neil, your likable points just went way up. The fact that you're working that hard for tequila is amazing.

Trying to buy cases of it because it's taken so long to get. So anyway, yes, I love it.

Hilarious.

I think you should make a tacos, tequila, and tech truck, and then you can offer all of those. And the tech part is just plug in because everybody's always out of battery, Right?

That's true. And we'll just be at every pickle court. Pickleball court. Yes.

I see a partnership.

Yes. This is great. I love this. Well, We've got a lot to go. Got a lot to go work on, mostly me, it sounds like. But it was so great to, to have you guys on together. I do mean we should go do tequila and tacos. So we'll make that happen. And we're excited to continue to see the story unfold because it's just the early days of being in business and for pickleball. So all the best and thanks again for being on the pod.

Thanks for having us. Thank you, Neil.

Thanks thanks for tuning in to Tacos and Tech Podcast. You can find all of our episodes on freshbrewedtech.com as well as on Twitter at Tacos and Tech Pod. Also follow Fresh Breedtech on all of her social platforms and make sure to share and give her a view you on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Play. Thanks again.

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