It’s Pickle time!! And yes, to get ahead of your question (again), rain or shine, we still pickle tomorrow!!

Last week, we braved the rain, played holding umbrellas, and super bonded.

Thanks to everyone who braved it out and made sure it was still a good time.

Tomorrow will be better than last week!

Who will we be seeing there?

Tomorrow morning, McCarren Park, 7:30-9:30 am Free Bagels and Coffee, Good Vibes, Familar Faces, Infinite Smiles… and the best way to start your Friday morning:

https://lu.ma/9uxgw8l4

Outdoor NYC TECH PICKLEBALL IS BACK BABYYYYYY (over 1300+ signups!!!)

RAIN OR SHINE WE WILL HAVE A BLAST TOMORROW!

Moving on to the fun stuff!

Pickle fun fact of the week:

**This one might just blow your brine-loving brain

🚀 Pickles in Space: The Briny Frontier

Pickles have made it to space — and they’re more than just a crunchy snack.

🥒 Why Astronauts Take Pickles:

• Shelf-Stable & Non-Perishable: Their brine preserves them for long missions.

• Flavor Boost: In space, taste buds dull due to fluid shifts. The tangy flavor of pickles helps cut through the blandness.

• Morale Booster: Familiar, comfort foods help astronauts feel connected to Earth.

👨‍🚀 Who’s Eaten Them?

• Russian cosmonauts often bring pickled cucumbers.

• NASA astronauts have eaten pickled and fermented foods, including in vacuum-sealed pouches.

**Tech Pickleball in space next week, who’s down??

**If Katy Perry can go to space, why can’t we??

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

Taco fun fact of the week:

💥 Tacos Started as Explosives?

The word "taco" originally referred to small charges of gunpowder wrapped in paper — used by Mexican silver miners in the 18th century to blast holes into rock. These early "tacos" were essentially dynamite sticks, not food. Historians believe the term was later adopted to describe food because the shape of a folded tortilla resembled those paper-wrapped charges.

Wait a second…

Why was there a Taco fun fact of the week in the pickle newsletter you ask?

Great question!

That’s would be because HeyTaco is this months Tech Pickleball sponsor! (I’m also a personal megafan of theirs)

What the heck is HeyTaco you ask?

HeyTaco is the easiest way to show your teammates some love. Drop a 🌮, make someone’s day, and build a better vibe at work—just like that.

Check them out at HeyTaco.com!

**I promise they’re the most fun work app on the planet and yes I will debate you on this

**And since tacos are explosive, they means HeyTaco is basically DA BOMB (I’ll see myself out now)

I have more stickers than you can imagine and might have some special swag for you this Friday.

Come up and ask me about it! 👀

Okayyyy moving on from your taco hunger… It’s Job Board 🔦 time!

Job Board 🔦

We’re starting a section in The Pickle where we give job board updates and updates on cool stuff happening in our communities ecosystem!

Sound cool right? I’ll let you be the judge for yourself:

Here’s what we have this week:

Head of RevOps - Apono

Head of Sales - Shaped

Founder in Residence GTM Innovation - Vanta

Sales Leadership - Hebbia

Stuck in a Pickle: Lessons & Stories from Early Stage GTM Leaders

Sharing my wisdom from the last year

I have generated over $1 million in revenue for Optemization.

Here are the 5 biggest lessons I've learned as 1 person Sales/GTM team:

1. You just simply have to hustle

Sorry not sorry hustle culture haters, this one is going to trigger you.

You want to make a difference at an early stage startup? Work harder.

There is no substitute or magic pill, gotta grind to reach your goals.

2. Sales is hard

There is no magic pill here either. Sales is hard.

It will feel like you're getting your teeth kicked in 90% of the time.

Need to stay consistent, show up daily, and have extreme (borderline irrational) conviction.

3. Obsess over your customers

Your customers are the lifeblood of everything that you do.

But most people skip this part.

They close a deal and the client never hears from them again.

That's unacceptable.

Build a long term relationship and help to ensure mutual success.

4. Consistency leads to long term results

Example: I set daily/weekly activity metrics.

My goal every week is to:

• Prospect 25 new accounts

• Follow up with 25 accounts

• Progress at least 2 deals to the next stage

• Come up with one new big idea I want to test

Trust the process that daily consistency will lead to long term results.

5. Get creative / Relentless innovation

Here's the fun part about being at an early stage startup. You get to create!

My favorite framework when thinking about new ideas... think to myself:

"What would an average person do right now?"

And then do the exact opposite!

What does getting creative look like for me?

Few examples:

• Create a Tech Pickleball community to increase brand awareness

**Oh hey wait…. that’s us!!!

• Build custom Notion pages for every prospect, tied together with videos + voice notes

• Develop relationships with everyone at Notion who has customer facing roles

• Non stop innovative prospecting campaigns, lots of gifs and memes

Bonus #6, be relentless in giving my coworkers tacos!

Wait, tacos? Huh?

Yes, tacos, what if you had a fun way to gamify your Slack shoutouts and gratification?

Well did you know HeyTaco is a Slack plugin to gamify hyped up your coworkers? **you’re about to know whether you like it or not 😉🌮

Taco Tuesday?

Taco Leaderboard? I’ll just go ahead and drop this tortilla here for you: Heytaco.com

NYC Tech Pickleball update

Theme of the week:

Braving the elements!

Overheard quote of the week:

“Tech Pickleball is the only place I’d brave a monsoon for to still hang out outside”

Excited to see everyone tomorrow!!

And lastly, The Pickle is never complete without a picture of everyone… enjoy!

Some brave and wet faces there!

Normally, I would be rocking the pickle hat, but tomorrow I have a switch up…. I will be rocking a Taco Hat instead!!! 🤯

If you want to chat, it will be borderline impossible not to be able to find me 😊

Andddd that’s a wrap!

We reallllly value your feedback and want to make this the best newsletter ever to support the community. Plz plz give us your most honest and blunt feedback on how we can improve it. We do this for you ❤️

Ps, know anyone who might be interesting in partnering with Tech Pickleball?? Hit up me, John or Tech Pickleball to discuss! We want to find more creative ways to expand and grow this community through awesome partners 🙂