🐅 🧡 Building the Future of Tennis Merch with Sarah Koudouzian (richsport)

The Early Newsletter | 25th Edition | This Week’s Jobs

Happy Holidays! 🥳 This week, I’m excited to share a conversation with powerhouse and top-ranked tennis player-turned-entrepreneur Sarah Koudouzian ✨ Sarah is the co-founder of richsport, a tennis accessories company redefining self-expression on the court. Six months after launching, the brand (a team of just two, Sarah and her co-founder, Nicole Dunn) has already secured major partnerships, including a feature at this year’s Billie Jean King Cup. As a former college and pro tennis player myself (and a richsport fan), this one is near and dear to my heart.

Sarah shares more on:

• Her scrappy journey from competitive tennis player and celebrity fitness trainer to co-founding (and bootstrapping!) a consumer company

• Channeling painful past experiences into the business idea for richsport 

• Why the tennis accessories industry hasn’t changed in decades

• Sarah and Nicole’s product development process, including how they prioritize what to create and when

• Why richsport is the idea Sarah wanted to pursue out of many

• Advice for aspiring founders in the consumer goods & sports space

See the end of this e-mail for the full interview. A huge thank-you to Sarah for sharing the origin story of richsport and her learnings along the way. 

Make sure to follow Sarah on Instagram, where she shares behind-the-scenes as she builds richsport in public 🐅 🧡 

Building richsport, the future of tennis accessories 🎾 

Sarah Koudouzian is a former top-ranked tennis player-turned-entrepreneur. After a career-ending injury, she earned her B.S. in Kinesiology and became a celebrity fitness trainer. Along the way, she launched an online subscription-based fitness company and also landed a book deal as a co-author with publishing leader Simon and Schuster. Her book became a national bestseller and received an exclusive deal for a Walmart version. Now, Sarah is back to her tennis roots, having just launched richsport, a tennis accessories company, with her childhood best friend, Nicole Dunn. 1% of richsport’s proceeds are donated to charity. 

💡 TLDR; Building the future of tennis accessories

If you don’t have time to read the full interview, here are a few key points:

1. Sarah wanted to create the brand she knew was missing from the tennis world. Growing up, Sarah realized there was nothing that catered to what she wanted to see - fun, bright tennis accessories that help players express themselves. So, she decided to build it herself. In this sense, it’s a classic founder story of solving the problem she’d experienced firsthand. 

2. To create something impactful, make sure your product vision is guided by true experiences. Sarah believes a lot of companies miss the mark because they don't truly have experience in the problem they're solving, or an understanding of why consumers feel the way they do. Sarah and Nicole bring their own experiences in sport to the table. 

3. Being self-funded, cost is one of Sarah’s main considerations in product development. Sarah and Nicole don’t compromise at all with quality, so they have to be thoughtful in their development process. (Much less wiggle room than VC-backed startups with runway to make bigger mistakes.)

4. If you want to start a company, you better hold onto your ‘why,’ because you’re going to face more adversity than you can imagine. Sarah has faced challenge after challenge, from pushback by manufacturers to door-to-door knocking for sales. Holding on to the reason you’re doing it all gives you the power to push through - if you’re not tied to your mission, you won’t make it. 

5. It’s a superpower to reframe past painful experiences and channel them into new ideas that solve your own problems. Sarah took the painful experience of getting injured and losing her tennis scholarship and turned it into a brand that’s empowering players and helping redefine self-expression on the court. 

6. You don’t need to have it all figured out. When creating her bestselling book, Sarah ‘googled everything’ and figured it out as she went. Listening to Sarah’s journey, the importance of advocating for yourself and self-educating comes through. When Sarah was creating her book, she had never written professionally. She searched online to teach herself how to put together the book and figured out things as she went, step by step. When negotiating her book deal, Sarah almost gave up a chunk of the profit by not asking for a royalty fee. Luckily, Sarah watched an episode of Oprah that gave her the idea to go into the deal with a percentage, which turned out to be a game-changer. Self-education is a must.

✨ Read the full interview with Sarah below ✨ 

🧠 Favorite quotes from Sarah

1. “Hold onto your why. When you face any sort of pushback, holding onto that why is so powerful.”

2. “I’ve always believed in the underdog story, and I've always led with, ‘Why not me?’

3. “Rich is a feeling. You don’t have to be rich to play [tennis]. We want to embody that.” 

4. “I take chances like no other. That’s how I play tennis and how I perform off of the court. I am an all or nothing player.”

5. On creating her book: “I was in charge of things that I literally should not have been in charge of, because I had no prior experience or knowledge. I just googled every single thing and figured it out, which I think I can attribute to tennis, because you have to figure it out on the court.”

6. “The sport that once caused me anxiety has now become my outlet for it. It’s been this full circle moment, and it’s only right that I come and create a tennis company with my best friend.”

This Week’s Open Roles from the VC 🌍️ 

Internships 🤓 

• Venture Fellow @ Scrub Capital (Remote, US) - Apply Here

• MBA Associate @ Emerson Collective (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

Analyst 😍 

• Investment Analyst @ 16VC (US) - Apply Here

• Investment Analyst @ Best Nights VC (Berlin) - Apply Here

Associate/Senior Associate 😄 

• Associate @ Westly Group (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

• Associate @ F-Prime Capital (USA) - Apply Here

• Associate @ Alpaca VC (Alberta, CAN) - Apply Here

Operational Roles 🤠 

• Research Associate @ Westly Group (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

❗️ Note that many VC roles are posted without application deadlines and filled on a rolling basis - if you see one you like, I’d recommend applying within a week, or as soon as possible!

More from richsport 🐅 🧡 

• Read the full interview transcript here

• Shop richsport

• Follow Sarah and richsport on IG

• Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

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Resources 📝 

• Download my meeting notes template for VC/investment pitches

• Check out my previous post for a list of VC interview resources

• Take a look at the Early VC job board with roles updated twice weekly 🤗 

• Join the waitlist for our VC candidate portal (coming soon!!) 🤝 

FULL INTERVIEW: Building the future of tennis accessories with Sarah Koudouzian 🐅 🧡 

Talk a bit about your career prior to starting richsport. 

I've always been an entrepreneur, since I was 21 years old. I think the independence comes from the fact that I grew up as a competitive singles tennis player, where everything is done on your own when you're on that tennis court competing. So, it was only right for me to get into something as a founder and in this case, one of the founders. 

Taking a step back, I was in fitness for 10 years. I got into fitness because I studied kinesiology in college. I was working with athletes and helping them not end up like me with my injury and understand the power in rest and recovery. I really wanted to use my knowledge to help others not end up like me, basically.

I was in that [fitness industry] for quite a long time. I toured with a singer across the 50 states and lived on a tour bus for five weeks, training him and getting him ready for the New York marathon as he was doing concerts all over the US. After that came another client, who is a singer.

At that point I had an idea of doing a cookbook. Since I was a kid, I really wanted to write a book. It’s crazy, because I actually journaled that I wanted to write a book utilizing my tennis experience and how it's helped me in life and in business. And so I'm still waiting for that moment. But in the meantime, I did a book with this singer that was based on the diet that I had created for her, which was inspired by keto, and she is Mexican. So, we did one of the first Latin-inspired keto books. I had no idea what I was doing whatsoever. I googled how to put together this mock book. During our training sessions, I pulled out my laptop while she was breathing heavily in between our workout sets. And I said, ‘I have an idea for you.’ I showed it to her and the lights went off. She immediately said, ‘I want to buy this off of you.’ 

During that time, I happened to listen to an Oprah Winfrey interview. Oprah was talking about how they wanted to buy her idea of the Oprah Winfrey show. And she said, ‘No, I want a percentage.’ Had I not listened to that, I wouldn't have known to come in and say, we're going to go in as partners, and I want a percentage as far as royalties. Instead of just selling my idea. 

So, shout out to the Oprah Winfrey interview for helping me with that. I had no presentation, no anything. I googled my way through that entire book. I had no idea what I was doing.

Describe your tennis journey. How did that ultimately lead to you making the leap to co-found richsport? 

Starting a sport at such a young age (five years old), it was never about the fun for me. . It was more of, oh, she's a natural athlete, she's good. This is what she's going to do. So it was kind of picked for me what I was going to do.

I never truly got to experience the fun that a lot of players have the opportunity to have when they first pick up that racket. It was more so, hey, you're going to play tennis. And that's it. And so I played competitively, starting at eight years old, and I was a top junior player, top 10 junior player, and then top 40 in the nation, and was a D1 recruit since I was 13 years old. Then, when I got injured at 16, every single offer was off the table for me. And for me, college had been looked at more as a secondary option. It was never a primary option. 

When the injury happened, I had to kind of figure it out. I then went to play for a university team that ended up being a very toxic and unhealthy environment. I did not like my experience at all, and it actually made me dislike tennis even more. I thought when I first got injured and lost all of all of the opportunities, I thought that's where the true anxiety and depression was, but it was even more amplified in my college experience. 

It wasn’t until a colleague's mom said to me, why are you still on this team? This is not the environment you should be in. And I was like, well, I've been playing tennis my entire life. Now I'm going to throw it away? And at this point, I was having to work two jobs to pay for college because I had been injured. And I finally said – I'm done with the sport. I walked away for 10+ years until 2021, where I got that urge to start playing again, and picked up my one lone racket that I had left from my college days, and started playing again. And it was this sense of relief.

As you said, you’re an entrepreneur at heart. How did you know that richsport was THE idea you wanted to pursue, and what was the inspiration for the brand? 

There were no bright colors. And, you know, when I look at the sky and it being bright blue, it makes me happy. When I see the sun, bright, beautiful sun, it makes me happy. And there's science behind it, where colors trigger certain emotions in your mental, which then help you with your physical. And so coming back into the sport, where I came back it happened to be the  height of tenniscore being a thing. I didn't even know because growing up with tennis, it was a nerdy, non-trendy, not fun sport.

My partner, Nicole, has been my childhood best friend for 20 plus years. She's been through all of my things. She's with a corporate job currently and in hopes of her leaving that so we can so she can only do richsport — she's full time with her corporate job and full time with this. She’s heard every single crazy idea I've had, every single thing, because I've constantly thought of things and wanted to create. She's been the person that I call and shoot the shit with. She grew up as a rec player. I said, Hey, I have this idea about tennis accessories, dampeners and overgrips. I was like, why are none of them appealing? 

The majority of people [tennis players] utilize them and wear them, why can't we reframe them to not only be a positive tennis accessory, but to be fashionable, and to be something that people look forward to changing up? It’s kind of the same thing people do with Crocs. If Crocs did really well with this idea, why can't we do it in the world of tennis?

Prior to this, Nicole never had the inclination of wanting to leave her corporate job or wanting to ever be an entrepreneur, because she would see me and all this shit that I dealt with and went through. Very casually, I said to her, ‘Hey, do you want to do this with me?’ And she was like, ‘okay!’ Very simple.

What was the inspiration behind the name ‘richsport’?

I think that the deeper meaning behind it is: I've worked in an industry prior to this, where I've been around some of the richest people ever and they felt the poorest on the inside. So on the first day we were spitballing names for the company and she asked me, ‘well, what did it feel growing up as a tennis player?’ I said, well, they made fun of me cause I went to public schools and they made fun of me when I had to leave school to go to a tournament or leave school because I had to go to a training camp. They were like, ‘Oh, you're going to go out and play that rich sport.’ I knew it was an insult because the cool sports were basketball, track, volleyball, and football. And so to be called that rich sport, I just felt ashamed because I was not by any means rich.

We wanted to share the richness and that sharing comes from the price point because we also share our proceeds. We share our products with local communities and we donate to nonprofits to help make it more accessible for all because we do understand how expensive this sport is. It’s reframing the meaning of rich.

On top of that, a lot of the tennis companies need to do better with the way they market, because they’re marketing towards only the elite, as if those are the only people that can play. With the launch, we've had people reach out to us to say, we never even thought about playing tennis until we saw richsport, because it makes us want to play and it makes us feel welcome.

What’s been the response to richsport from the tennis community? 

Honestly, we were expecting pushback. We were expecting some sort of hate to be thrown at us. And it's just been overwhelmingly open, welcome hands. Even today, I actually want to read it word for word, because somebody wrote to us and said, ‘Hey, guys, just wanted to say that I love what you're doing. Think it's great for the sport. We definitely needed more of this.’

I think when you come together with that sort of a mission of really putting your true experiences together, I think you make something more impactful. I think a lot of companies miss the mark because I don't think they truly have that experience that Nicole and I bring.

You officially launched the company less than 6 months ago and already landed a partnership with the Billie Jean King Cup Mexico Team. Talk a bit about that partnership and how it came about. 

*Billie Jean King Cup is the largest women’s team tennis event in the world.

God, I take chances no other. How I play tennis is how I perform off of the court. I'm a risky player. I’m an all or nothing player. That comes from all of these years, listening to all of these entrepreneurial podcasts and learning from them to just ask. It’s the simple things. I think as an athlete, I've learned to do the basics so well and I've mastered the basics that a lot of people miss.

Landing this partnership, it's as simple as – I just asked. I pitched it to GuGu Olmos, who is an incredible, incredible doubles player. And I formed a relationship with her when I met her at a charity event last year prior to us being launched.

There was something that drew me to her because she's just this positive light and bubbly and just such a genuinely good person. I maintained a relationship with her and genuinely like her. And I told her, hey, we're coming out with a brand. Would love to send you some stuff and sent the stuff. She absolutely loved it. 

Then she was saying, ‘oh, yeah, I'm going to be heading to Billie Jean King Cup in November,’ because every time she's in town, we'll grab a bite. I said, who's doing your warm up kits? And she said, oh, we don't have any. I asked her if we could do it, and she said she just loved what you're doing and that she knew we were going to create something that they going to love. And they absolutely loved it. 

The ultimate goal for 2025, is going to be the official T-shirt sponsor for the Billie Jean King Cup, because if that's not appropriate, I don't know what it is.

Talk through your product development process. I’m sure you have a million product ideas - how do you prioritize which products to release and when? 

For 2025, we already know the two products that we're going to be launching with. Again, it's going to be something that's purposeful, meaningful, and fashionable while still functional and high-performance. Both of us [Sarah & Nicole] care about all of those things since a lot of times you sacrifice one for the other.

We take our time in developing everything to make sure we don’t sacrifice at all. For example, a lot of people don't understand that, with overgrips, each time a treatment is being done, you are compromising quality. So, we had to get really smart about how we are going to do this without compromising the quality, but also still make a big splash in a way that hasn’t been done before. I do feel we really did nail that because it took over a year of testing out formula grips. 

When we were in beta, I handed out our sample overgrips to all levels from beginners to pros, and the feedback was so positive. And that's how we decided on that one particular formula. 

We went to the US Open last year, and last-minute I had the idea, I said to Nicole, I think we need to get t-shirts made. We did, and we got stopped left and right. And so that's how we did it and how we did it with the grips, and all our products — we just passed them out in beta.

What are your thoughts on fundraising for richsport? Are you thinking about raising in the future and what does that timeline look? 

We have been bootstrapping from the ground up. Nicole has her full-time job. I have multiple jobs. I'm just an innate hustler – I figure out how to make money, and we want to hold on as long as we can. That said, we are always looking for angel investors. We haven't done crowdfunding or anything at all, but we are definitely open to it. In terms of investors, we’ll consider it if it sounds right and it feels right, because the number one thing is we want to make sure Sarah and Nicole are a part of this. Our story is what's been helping build the community and we've been growing without paid ads, without any of that. 

I know a lot of people have a little bit of a pushback on when the founders are the face of the company, but I truly feel in this day and age of entrepreneurship they want to see the founders. They want to see who they're purchasing from. They want to see where it's coming from. Luckily, we've been able to get athletes behind it so that there's still other faces on there, but when I'm shopping I like to know about the founder because I want to know the story and a lot of the times that'll persuade me on whether to make the purchase or not. 

Why do you think the big tennis brands haven't done something this?

I think what a lot of people [in the industry] don't understand is that change is sometimes necessary, and I think a lot of people don't want to make that change because they don't want to move away from that ‘rich’ aspect of tennis – this exclusiveness that they're trying to create by doing things the way that they're doing. We decided it's time for a change, and necessary, which is why it's been working for us. I think the newer generation of people trying to get into tennis is tired of seeing the same thing over and over. I'm not taking away from anybody that likes the traditional kind of an aesthetic – there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But, there’s a problem when you're being told that’s what you need to be to play tennis. 

Growing up as a tennis player, the majority of the time I was in a Hanes t-shirt and Nike compression shorts. When I would get invited (I was never a member at a country club) to the clubs, I literally showed up that way and they wouldn't tell me otherwise because of the level that I played at – so no one told me to go and change. I got away with things. When you play competitively in any sport you don't really dress the part that the marketing people are trying to get you to dress. You dress in what's comfortable and feels good to you, right?

When we developed our products, the colors were important to us, the phrases were important to us, and it was with the help of working with a sports psychologist that really triggered something in my head where I was like – this is how we're going to implement it and we're going to take the sports psychologist's advice and tips and implement it to richsport because it matters and it makes a difference and rich sport is a feeling rich is a feeling.

Not a single thing that we’ve done has been a ‘stamp your logo and call it a day.’ It’s been Nicole hand drawing. It’s a collaborative effort of what we want, and then once we talk about it she just starts designing and then I'm part of the process of saying yeah this or move that but her drawing from from the ground up and just seeing her create.. she can take a white canvas and do that. I'm a color person – give me a coloring book. 

Everything is in-house – marketing, branding… every single thing is in house and nothing is outsourced. 

To the aspiring consumer founders who read this newsletter — what advice do you have for someone wanting to start a company and maybe disrupt an industry? Any learnings from your own experience? 

A lot of the time, when you are in the true beta phase of things, you are going to risk losing sight of that ‘why.’ When you hold on to it, you power through. 

I also do believe in the shiny unicorn where, if you are sharing your story over and over again that truly resonates with people, and it's coming from the goodness of your heart, it does do better than somebody with a lot of money deciding to put something out there. I do believe in the underdog, I do believe in those stories, and I think growing up the way that I did, I always believed in the underdog story. I've always led with, ‘why not me?’ If this company did that, why can't I do that? I just have to hold on long enough to see it through, and what's going to make me hold on to that is my why. Why did I start this in the first place. 

A huge thank you to Sarah for taking the time to share her insights from building richsport! You can reach Sarah at [email protected] and via Instagram and LinkedIn. 

Say Hi! 👋 

And that’s all for this week! You can find me on LinkedIn and X. As always, feel free to reach out to [email protected] with any questions or feedback. I’d love to hear from you! 🙂 

-Mic