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After 35 years in financial services, Tim Klitch could have retired.
Instead, he became Chief Fun Officer of a pickleball ranch.
On YES, BRAND, Hersh Rephun sits down with the founder of Austin Pickle Ranch to talk about second acts, community, and what happens when everything you learned about succeeding in one career doesn't necessarily prepare you for the next.
Tim knew relationships. He knew finance. He knew how businesses worked.
What he didn't know was how to build a modern consumer brand.
Banking had taught him traditional advertising and customer acquisition. Austin Pickle Ranch taught him about social media, influencers, experience and the strange alchemy that happens when a good product and a good brand start reinforcing each other. In 2025, Tim says Austin Pickle Ranch spent roughly $15,000 on advertising while attracting an average of 60 new customers a day.
But the Ranch isn't really selling court time.
Tim grew up around his father's tennis club and remembered something that many modern sports facilities had lost: people didn't just show up, play and leave.
They hung around.
So Austin Pickle Ranch was intentionally designed around community. Even its first location, an inhospitable parking-garage rooftop, was transformed with turf, shade, furniture and commissioned art to feel less like a garage and more like a ranch in Central Texas.
And before that first location even opened, Tim and his team had already created a brand book and decided what they wanted the place to stand for:
Accessibility. Friendliness. Informality. Fun.
Those weren't words for a wall. They became a filter for decisions: Is this consistent with the brand we created?
Hersh and Tim talk about building community by design, why experience is made up of dozens of tiny decisions, what has to remain true as a business expands, and the unexpected humility of becoming a beginner again after an enormously successful first career.
Because Tim went from running a bank with an operations department to being the guy whose phone rings at 2:30 in the morning when the fire alarm goes off.
And he wouldn't trade it.
He could charge more. Build something more exclusive. Perhaps even make more money.
But then it wouldn't be the thing he wanted to build.
Sometimes the strongest brand isn't the one engineered to extract the greatest possible value.
It's the one the founder actually wants to live inside.
https://austinpickleranch.com/
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Hersh's new book, SELLING THE TRUTH: A ‘Semoir’ with Insights for Life & Business is a semi memoir drawing on his adventures as an Authority Advisor and Standup Comedian. It is part business book, part happiness formula for life, and an amuseful read, whether you’re building a business or burnishing your self-image.
You can kickstart your own messaging evolution with a one-on-one 5-Minute Fix.
Take the 60-second Get Off Your Assets Quiz, and find other resources here: https://www.hershrephun.com/selling-the-truth/
