INDUSTRY PROFILE
Selkirk is Spanning a Range of Innovation in Pickleball
When it comes to small family businesses, the
Barnes family of Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, could be the archetypical model. Founded by brothers Rob and Mike Barnes, their father Jim, and Rob’ s father-in-law, Russell Heistuman, Selkirk is an example of what a few entrepreneurs can do when their hearts are in the game.
Named after the Selkirk mountain range that stretches from the Barnes’ native Idaho into Canada, the company is the result of the family discovering pickleball, falling in love with it, and then deciding they could make things better for everyone by building better paddles. Heistuman, a professional designer and marketer, came up with the Selkirk name, and the family went to work.
“ We’ ve been playing pickleball for almost eight years,” Rob said.“ When we started, there wasn’ t anything that you would call a brand in the space. Stuff didn’ t last very long. Mike and I previously owned a business for another sport we founded when younger, so we discussed it with my father-in-law and decided we could build a lifestyle brand within the sport and offer players a more reliable, betterperforming product.”
Jim Barnes had a construction business, became a fire fighter and then retired before coming out of retirement to serve as the production manager for the new business. As a supporter of his sons from the very beginning with their first sporting goods venture, started when they were just in their teens, Barnes figured out how to manufacture and distribute the Selkirk equipment to the market.
Today, Selkirk continues to manufacture its lines out of Hayden, Idaho, and is ready to face any uptick in the market that would result in a higher demand for its products.
“ Pickleball is a very fast-growing sport and we’ ve set ourselves up to be scalable,” Mike said.“ We try to make
sure that players can get our paddles from wherever they can, but, at the same time, we focus on aiming distribution toward the smaller outlets where you find people involved in community— instructors teaching lessons, bag dealers, pro shops that support their local communities.”
By being a whisper away from their market, Selkirk can actively straddle the demands of making high-end paddles for pros as well as entry-level products for beginners by focusing on the needs of both.
“ We’ re always pushing the limits for the highest performance and quality,” Mike said.“ We were the very first company to come out with a lifetime warranty on our products, which was unprecedented at the time. Some of the unique things we did along the way to meet pro demand was design low-profile edgeguards that are lightweight and extremely durable. And we created a line of $ 30 polymer honeycomb paddles to grow the sport for novices. Everyone agrees that beginners using wood
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