Cypher P Story

CYPHER PICKLEBALL

FROM $0 TO $250k+
A MONTH

While investing in new product designs, hiring, and scaling.

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Owned by PQC Co-Founder Garrett, his brand Cypher Pickleball had a slim marketing budget & faced stiff competition. Leveraging their META ads knowledge, JP and Garrett scaled Cypher Pickleball extremely efficiently with a 10x ROAS and $208k YTD sales as of late May 2024. Now, in Summer of 2026, they're pulling in over $250k+ in monthly revenue and about to launch a new shoe to help take them to the next level.

$250k - $300k a month gross revenue

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4x ROAS average return on ad spend

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100% YoY growth in gross revenue

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Investment Imminent meeting with VCs

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Space fashion & footwear

PHASE 1 - COULD IT BE DONE?

Low Budget, Big Dream

Started by PQC co-founder Garrett, Cypher Pickleball was born in San Diego as a fashion-forward court shoe specifically for pickleball. But...making shoes ain't cheap! When it finally came time to market the final product, there was just a smidge of marketing budget left and it needed to be spent as efficiently as possible. To make matters more challenging, Garrett wanted to start running ads in September of 2023 while communicating to the customer the product wouldn't be available until March of 2024. Could we get Cypher off the ground?!

Cypher's Situation

Relatively new ad account (algorithm untrained), need to find the right audience FAST.

Product not available until March 2024 but needed to pay manufacturer 30% upfront. Could enough revenue be generated via pre-orders?

Going up against brands the likes of Nike, New Balance and Skechers, could we create compelling ads to beat them?

Initial Goals and Situation

Relatively new ad account (algorithm untrained)

Product not available until March 2024 but needed to pay manufacturer 30% upfront. Could enough revenue be generated via pre-orders?

Going up against brands the likes of Nike, New Balance, Asics, and Skechers, could we create compelling ads to beat them?

PHASE 2 - FIND THE WINNER

The Ad of All Ads

The PQC team put their heads together and asked themselves, what type of ad could be compelling enough to get someone to buy a shoe from a no-name brand like Cypher rather than a trusted brand like Nike? Oh, and wait MONTHS for the shoe to ship! Seemed impossible.

The PQC team are big believers in authenticity. They decided the one thing Cypher Pickleball had that other legacy shoe brands didn't was a compelling origin story relatable to the consumer. It was suggested to create a "Founder Walkthrough" ad with a strong hook highlighting:

Three unique differentiators of the product

The personal connection of the founder to the sport

An air of exclusivity highlighting A "limited release"

Needless to say, THIS AD WORKED

Data from just ONE ad 9/15/23 - 5/16/24

10x

ROAS

$.74

CPC

$15

CPM

$302k

Gross Sales DTC

GROSS SALES SHOPIFY: $302,323

ROAS: 10x

CPC: $.74

CPM: $15

PHASE 3 - MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE

Scale Efficiently

So it's cool and all to have one super ad that can sustain you for a few months, but Cypher Pickleball had goals to reach $1M in revenue by end of year 2024. We would have to increase ad spend. But how do we increase ad spend without ballooning the customer acquisition cost to the point where profit margin becomes a problem?! PQC's scaling methods are the solution. It took us years to properly structure the perfect, most cost efficient testing environment, but we're proud to say we know how to test for winning ads without breaking the bank.

Now, Cypher Pickleball is constantly testing new ads, seeing which ones resonate and which ones don't, and scaling the winners just like the initial Founder Walkthrough ad.

BELOW: Cypher Pickleball sales data from September of 2024 & June of 2025

PHASE 4 - HIRE, MAKE NEW PRODUCTS, GET TO $10M

Become a Brand

As of 2026, Cypher has converted over 40,000 pickleball players all with one shoe design. Having built out a 5 year strategy, it's time to implement the next phase of the business with the goal of scaling gross revenue to $10m as quickly and efficiently as possible. To do this, it's going to require new and meaningful footwear products, market expansion, hiring of key employees, and a lot of hard work along the way.

Just like Garrett's brand, we also help our clients envision what their future can and should look like! Or, if you need fractional CFOs, bookeepers, startup lawyers, we have the contacts for those too. Just another advantage of working with active brand owners!

NEW Shoe launching in late 2026 below: