From family startup to industry juggernaut: How Six Zero became one of the top brands in pickleball
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Almost exactly 4 years ago, Dale Young founded Six Zero Pickleball in his backyard workshop in Australia.
At first the inspiration for wanting to make pickleball paddles was out of necessity: There were only a handful of brands that sold paddles in Australia at the time, and shipping costs made them very expensive for consumers.
Dale had previously worked in surfboard manufacturing and his father, Bruce, also had an engineering background. Together, they set out to solve a common issue in the paddles of the early 2020s – they cracked along the edges and they often snapped at the top of the handle.
“We started mucking around and building some paddles with the simple idea to put a carbon seam around the edge of the paddle to join the top and bottom face together,” Young said. “We then put that into a mold and baked it, and we also brought the face plate all the way through to the bottom of the handle. Those two innovations solved the natural points of weakness that we saw in earlier paddles.”
From the trusted Coral Pro to the all-new Boulder Opal, Six Zero is constantly innovating and bringing new technology to pickleball.
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The process would widely become known as thermoforming, and it created a new category of paddles – “Gen 2” – that offered significantly more power and stability than what the industry had seen up to that point.
Six Zero’s design also introduced a new hybrid shape that was slightly flared out toward the top of the paddle. This shifted the sweet spot further toward the head of the paddle, where most people make contact on “max power” shots.
Young had 250 paddles made in the first batch, and immediately sent them out to reviewers in the U.S. After a few months and several positive reviews, Six Zero was the hottest brand in the sport.
“We were almost forced into business at that point because things took off so fast,” Young said. “So we quickly made it our full-time priority, and all through 2023 we were just trying to keep up with demand and keep pace with how fast the sport was growing.”
Innovation remains key part of Six Zero’s DNA
Although Six Zero operates on a much different scale today than when Young first founded the company, it is still family owned with the same goal of innovating for the benefit of pickleball players.
That innovation has been on full display over the past year as Six Zero has developed new foam core technologies and its “Diamond Tough” surface, which is infused with real diamond particles and was one of the first durable grit surfaces released in 2025.
Many companies have since launched paddles with durable grit claims, but with varying success – some don’t hold up as long as they say, and others don’t generate more spin despite feeling more gritty to the touch. Six Zero’s grit has been independently tested by several reviewers and found to be among the most durable on the market.
“We continue to put a huge amount of work into R&D and technology,” Young said. “It took 2 years to bring the Diamond Tough surface to market because we were very meticulous with everything. It would be easier in a lot of ways to sit back and let other people do that work and then try to copy it, but that wouldn’t be true to who we are as a company.”
Another project Six Zero is working on right now is 3D mapping the sweet spot of their paddles and trying to figure out ways to even out performance across the paddle face.
To date, Young has made 26 trips to the manufacturing facilities in China to oversee Six Zero’s production and quality control processes. The brand has gone through more than 600 prototypes and released six paddles in the past year alone.
Black Opal: A 14mm full-foam paddle that is among the most powerful on the market. Shop here.
Boulder Opal: An updated version of the Opal built for players who want more control without losing the signature Opal feel. Shop here.
Coral: A 16mm full-foam paddle that is built for all-court performance and stability. Shop here.
Coral Pro: An updated version of the Coral that features an even grittier “Double Diamond Tough” surface. Shop here.
Coral Lightweight: Designed to increase hand speed/maneuverability and give players more freedom to customize their paddle setup. Shop here.
Ruby Pro: Features a custom-designed 12 gauge polypropylene core for increased dwell time and superior control. Shop here.
“There was a lot of work in bringing our technology from the backyard to being able to scale it and manufacture it in a factory,” Young said. “It’s one thing to make a prototype, but then you have to figure out how to make thousands of them and keep the same quality. We’ve implemented a lot of the quality assurance systems at the factory, and now we have our own R&D lab that we built in Australia.”
The facility in Australia features more than $500,000 in testing and fabrication equipment, which will boost Six Zero’s prototyping efforts even more in the coming years.
THE SIX ZERO CORAL PRO IS NOW DUAL APPROVED
With the stamp of approval from both the UPA-A and USA Pickleball, the Coral Pro is one of the most popular paddles on the market.
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Becoming a full-fledged company
Although the past four years have involved a ton of work for Young and the team at Six Zero, he said he’s proud of the fact that they’ve always tried to do things the right way and be good stewards of the sport.
He’s gone from having a handful of employees to more than 40 full-time staff across three continents, and has made significant investments back into the company and into pickleball as a whole, which isn’t something every company can say.
Six Zero currently sponsors several pro players and is a title sponsor of the PPA Tour, and also has a network of more than 1,500 ambassadors around the world.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done to build out all the systems and structures to become a ‘real’ company, rather than just a backyard brand or garage brand,” Young said. “We’ve invested a lot into that process – setting up software, staffing, global distribution … it took 4 years of hard work by our team to get us to where we are today.”
He said that investment in the brand has started to pay off over the past 3 to 6 months as Six Zero has ramped up its R&D and prototyping efforts even more. The Coral Pro has been one of the best-selling paddles on the market since its release earlier this year, and the Boulder Opal (released in August) has also received positive reviews.
“From Day 1 we’ve had the mindset to continuously improve every day, and that’s something we’ve stayed very conscious of even as we’ve grown,” Young said. “We’re always thinking of how we can continue to add value to our customers and still keep the family culture and community feel that helped us grow in the beginning. Hopefully 10 more years from now, people will look back and say Six Zero was one of those companies that helped shape pickleball.”
