Taking a swing at a pickleball startup
In corporate America, Stanley Anderson ’79 says, executives often assume that their peers grew up in privileged circumstances. He did not. “I spent my early years trying not to get recruited into gangs, getting shot at, watching my friends get murdered, and thinking that if I don’t leave, I will die,” says Anderson, who was…
Stanley Anderson '79, CEO of Costa Pickleball, a Las Vegas-based startup, is taking on the pickleball market with a unique approach. Raised in Chicago, Anderson overcame a challenging upbringing, facing gang recruitment, gunfire, and the loss of friends. Despite these early struggles, he went on to build successful careers at tech giants HP, Intel, and the Palo Alto Research Center.
Now, Anderson is applying his management expertise to Costa Pickleball, which offers high-performance paddles in stylish designs, allowing players to express their identity on the court. However, the startup is also focusing on innovation, developing a quieter paddle that could give it a competitive edge. In an industry where success is hard to achieve, Anderson believes he has the determination to succeed, drawing from a key lesson learned at MIT: "There's nothing you can't accomplish if you are willing to put effort into it."
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