Berto is the founder and CEO of Table Hoopz. He came up with this idea in college, and during the pandemic he finally had time to build his first table. Since then, he has been traveling around the country bringing his product to college campuses, sneaker events and pretty much anywhere he believes is a fitting space for it. For the first BHM Black Business Spotlight, we are sitting down with the CEO of Table Hoopz, Berto.
What made you want to become a CEO?
I really just wanted freedom, honestly. You know, you hear financial freedom, you hear all types of freedom. Anybody’s chasing freedom. You have to have equity in something in order to achieve freedom. And just the current path I was on, you know, I could fill any role. You know, it was easy to fill roles. It was easy to fill in the shoes. But it’s a whole different endeavor to create your own shoes and create your own footsteps.
How did the Table Hoopz idea come to you?
Man, I actually love telling this story because it was so organic. So I went to school at Valdosta State. In our dorm, we had this old pool table set. The velvet on it was terrible. We didn’t have a full set of pool balls. We didn’t have a stick that worked. One of the roommates would go to tennis class and he would bring tennis balls back to the dorm where this old dingy pool table was. I would literally take the tennis balls and I would shoot them into the pockets of the pool table. And it became a game for us. We literally played this during our downtime. That awkward Thursday night, at 3:30 p.m. we’re sitting there throwing tennis balls into the pool pockets. One day after winning and beating my chest the idea came to me like lightning hitting a building in New York. It was unreal. It was love at first sight. Thought at first sight.
What were some difficulties of creating this product?
The difficulties were in the details. I think we all tend to underestimate how much detail and how much work we have to put into something to truly make the vision come alive. And that was just a real principle I had to understand. So I knew I wanted to create these tables. I knew I wanted to put the goals this high, have the table this high. I knew I wanted to make it, have all the features and design it well. But until I actually took those materials and put it on the table, that was the difficult part about it.
What was your ideology in making an indoor basketball game?
If you just look at the current marketing and the competitors on the landscape, right? It’s like you have pool tables, ping pong tables, foosball tables. Essentially, those games, you just take a sport and you put it on the table. So I decided what’s practical, what’s realistic and what’s another thing that’s getting old that I could innovate on. And so of course basketball has been brought into the home once before, but I wanted to do it in a completely different way that was customizable. It’s not a tiny little piece of plastic. It’s not just a tarp and some net.”
Who is your target audience?
Truthfully, the target audience is everybody. It’s young adults, it’s kids, it’s ages from 18 to 35. It’s young, you’re old, you can be male, female, disabled, anything. And so it really is beautiful to be able to create something like this and to be able to bring this dream to life, to more than just children. We can bring it to college. Anywhere.
What is some advice you have for those who want to become CEOs and start their own product?
I would really say consistency is the key, and that consistency comes from a brand burning passion within. And that burning passion within is lit by understanding your why. So to rerun it all back, I understand my why. That why brings in my passion. And then the passion brings the consistency. Number 2: You got to just go out there and do it. You got to put your hands on something physical and do it. Even if it’s just taking the idea and writing it down on paper. And three: once your idea materializes and it’s tangible, get and create a solid team of people who believe in you more than your idea.
