Busy dad of three Hector Cruz balances work at The Focus Group, CellARide and Evangel University while chasing the entrepreneurial itch. Read about how and why he developed Hampton Paddles with business partner David Hoover.
May 2025
It’s difficult to decipher the line between day job and side hustle for Hector Cruz. By day, he’s a fundraising coach and consultant at The Focus Group, a remote position where he helps coach fundraising professionals, and he’s the chief revenue officer for CellARide, helping to develop its sales pipeline and manage sales relationships. He’s also an adjunct professor at Evangel teaching online doctoral classes.
Despite all that, he has found time to pursue a side hustle. He was approached by his friend and now business partner, David Hoover, to think through an idea for pickleball paddles. After exploring the question “why can’t pickleball paddles be quality and pretty?” and taking a deep dive into the market, they decided there was an opportunity for them to move forward with their idea.
As co-presidents of Hampton Paddles, Cruz and Hoover have built a partnership formula based on personal investment and sweat equity, and they are focused on the strengths that they both bring to the table. The duo spent about 10 months in the research and development phase—sourcing product materials and manufacturers, establishing designs and developing their brand.
“So you just have to hurry up and fail so that you can fix it and move on,” Cruz says. “You kind of have to resolve in your mind that ‘I’m going to fail at something, and that’s not going to be the end of it.’ Because if you’re passionate about it and you think there’s a need out there, then the failure is only going to point you to your next success.”
One of their early “failures” was in the original design concepts of the paddles.
Nailed It
“My daughter was not feeling well before a basketball game, so I showed her highlights from Michael Jordan’s ‘flu game’ to get her pumped up.”
Failed It
“She’s 8, and did not play well, and got sicker after the game. Oops!”
They created market research surveys directed mostly toward women, who were their initial target market. One of the specific goals of the survey was to get feedback on the paddle designs. “One of our survey respondents commented, ‘Just because I’m a female, doesn’t mean I want flowers on everything,’” says Cruz.
Cruz shares that they emphasized the importance of listening to the customer, as the surveys provided the valuable feedback they were seeking. “Our original designs for the paddles are not one of the three [designs] that we launched with. We went with the three highest that were most popular,” says Cruz.
“Our idea was not only to have nice looking paddles, but to present them in a nice way,” says Cruz. Working with local cardboard manufacturer SMC Packaging in Springfield, they developed a box that creates an elevated presentation for consumers instead of a basic shrink-wrapped paddle. The paddles are designed by the Hampton Paddles team, but sourced and printed internationally. Hampton is able to order in bulk so that when a customer makes an order, it can be shipped same-day in most cases, therefore creating the need for local storage and assembly of the product.
Cruz and Hoover found a solution that was not far from home. “It’s called my garage,” says Cruz with a laugh. Cruz has also been able to find affordable labor resources close to home by engaging his three children, ages 12, 10, and 8. “We have an assembly line in there so I get really cheap labor that I can pay in chicken nuggets and ice cream,” says Cruz. He enjoys teaching his children about entrepreneurship by involving them in the business.
Hampton Paddles officially launched September 2024 at a fall festival held at Cassidy Station near Ozark. “The response has been fantastic,” says Cruz. “Now, we are just looking to build it and create some consistent sales.”
Cruz is in the process of establishing wholesale relationships locally with country club pro shops and other pickleball venues to continue to scale the business. And, thanks to a wholesale order of custom branded paddles for OMB Bank, Hampton Paddles is well on its way to meeting their 2025 goal of selling 400 paddles. Check out Hampton Paddles on the website or on Instagram @HamptonPaddles.
