Coworking with Alyssa Carroll

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Alyssa Carroll is a longtime communications and brand strategist who’s had her own firm since 2017, with clients including Dollar Shave Club and Samsung’s SmartThings. But now, along with helping other brands, she’s decided to take a swing herself—in every sense.

Carroll is the founder of Disco Country Club, a Los Angeles-based brand of pickleball products that went live this month. Her “aha” moment came during the pandemic when Carroll, who’d been playing tennis for years, tried to get less-experienced friends to hit the courts with her, but they found the tennis learning curve to be a bit steep. Enter pickleball, which friends found much easier to pick up, but which, from a design standpoint, she found uninspiring.

“I repeatedly saw a sea of plain black pickleball paddles that were really lacking the level of aesthetics and design that tennis enjoys and saw an opportunity,” Carroll told us. And it’s not just a new business that Carroll is nurturing—she also has a newborn daughter who’s just seven weeks old.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I sell ’70s-inspired recreation products like pickleball paddles to people who love leisure. We focus on products at the intersection of games and sports to help make social play fun and free from the prerequisites of lessons and athletic endurance so that people can enjoy playing immediately.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile: I launched the company a month into maternity leave.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? Creating our brand identity. Tennis has a very recognizable prep aesthetic, but pickleball is less defined which is a fun challenge. We like to think we’re the Dolly Parton to tennis’s Jackie O.

What’s the worst piece of business advice you’ve received? “You already have a great job, why try to start something new?” was something I heard a lot and could have led to a lot of professional limitation and regret if I had listened and decided not to dive headfirst into starting this business.

What’s the most embarrassing product in your order history from Amazon that you’re actually willing to admit? I’m a new mom, and there’s maybe too many baby hats with animal ears in my history (if you can actually have too many of those).