The most valuable lessons we’ve learned in business weren’t learned in meetings or decks. They were learned by doing. And by doing, we mean trying, failing, iterating, and occasionally throwing ourselves into the fire.
Last week, we had a last-minute opportunity to host a padel event through our app, Rulo. We said yes.
To optimize the player experience, guests were greeted by our smiling faces at the door (and the QR code to download our app, of course).
We had four days to build an entirely new platform. Event features were on our “someday” roadmap — nowhere near urgent. But when we heard someone was running a padel tournament on paper and manually coordinating brackets, it physically hurt us. So we did what builders do under pressure: we cut scope, cranked it out, and shipped.
We wouldn’t have said yes without our AI tools.
In a previous life, a last-minute ask like this would’ve been a non-starter. Asking a 15-person engineering team to reprioritize, spec, and ship something this fast would have ignited a revolt, or even worse, weeks of planning, meetings, pushback, and a serious drop in morale.
Now, the tools change what’s possible. AI helps us prototype faster, fill in gaps, and move from idea to working software without dragging the entire org into crisis mode. It doesn’t replace engineering judgment — it removes friction.
The result is simple: we can say yes to more opportunities. And saying yes is where the learning actually happens.
The Joy of Live Ops
For the event, we built a new event-management layer into our app that let players scan a QR code, track brackets, and follow tournament progress live.
Did it go perfectly? Of course not.
There were bugs. Glitches. A few moments of quiet panic when something broke mid-event. But nothing a deep breath and real-time problem-solving couldn’t fix. And we learned far more than we ever would have by theorizing about user journeys or hypothetical edge cases.
5 seconds after something broke. We’re panicking on the inside but making it work.
We saw the real user experience: energy-drink-fueled crypto bros trying to change partners. Players opting into the tournament at the last minute. Humans behaving like humans — messy, inconsistent, impossible to fully predict. None of that shows up neatly in your project planning, but now it lives permanently in our product intuition.
The crypto bros in question. Note Russell with his laptop (our command control center) keeping the show running.
And here’s the funny part: most attendees never noticed anything was off.
They didn’t see the scrambling or the fixes behind the scenes. They just played padel. (No one needs to know how the sausage is made.)
We also got to play padel together for the first time! We lost (unfortunately), but even without a trophy, we walked away with something more valuable: clarity.
Julia performing the cardinal sin of watching your partner serve (you’re supposed to be watching the opponent and moving forward). At least it made for a good photo opp.
“But I’m Not Ready”
“Not being ready” is the most convenient excuse we have. It keeps ideas safely theoretical. It lets us hide behind screens, polish slide decks, and delay the thing that actually matters: getting your product into users’ hands.
Learning by doing beats any MBA or theoretical framework. Every single time.
So consider this your reminder: say yes more often. Even when you don’t feel ready. Especially then.
You’ll make it work.
Stay curious,
Julia & Russell
