Know what you are building
I moved to Saigon three years ago and didn’t know many people back then. For me, the best way to make new friends is through activities. So I picked up a badminton racket again after more than five years. Then, slowly, I found a group of people who shared the same interest.
We started as a group of friends with a common interest: playing badminton. We played twice a week with everyone we knew. Sometimes a new player joined when some of us were busy, but we tried to keep the levels from being too far apart. And like every group, there was always someone arranging the games during our meets, and that someone was me. It was all good in the beginning.
But after a while, I felt something wasn’t quite right. Managing and organizing the group took more effort and energy than I thought. On top of that, work and personal stuff were getting busy around then, so I felt overloaded. Badminton wasn’t fun like before, because I had to take care of the group, manage people’s expectations,… Instead of having fun and recharging after work, I was spending more energy on the very thing that was supposed to be my place to recharge. Not burned out yet, but I knew that if I kept doing all of this, I would be someday.
So I stopped the group and went to play around instead. No more worrying about finding enough people for the meets, no more dealing with everyone’s expectations, no more stress. Just enjoying badminton.
I played around like this for almost a year. And I started to feel like something was still missing.
Badminton was still fun, but I couldn’t keep up with the intensity and competitiveness of the young guys at the meets. I understand they want to win and play their best every game. That’s fair, no problem with that. It’s how they enjoy badminton. The problem is that if I play like that, I can get injured. I’m not in my 20s like them. And I’ve felt what an injury is like from running in my 20s. It wasn’t easy to tell my 20-something self to not play so hard, and to be careful if you keep playing intensely nonstop. Who cares about that when you’re in your prime?
What I enjoy is playing badminton and connecting with people at the meet. Like playing one or two intense games, then laughing at a good rally on the other court, or joking with the guys sitting next to me.
I kept searching for a group with the vibe I wanted, but I couldn’t find one at that time. Again.
If you can’t find it, build it.
This time, I knew what I wanted to build. I wanted a place where people come to play badminton, can talk with the guy sitting next to them, or meet new friends. A community where everyone plays proactively, and nobody needs to tell you which court to go to.
It isn’t easy. I know.
Do things that don’t scale
Every community or organization starts with founding members, people who share the community’s purpose. Same for us. Those first members are incredibly important. They set the vibe for your meet. But finding people like this is hard, always, and it takes a lot of time.
Even when you have your founding members, it still takes time for your meets to attract people.
All of this needs patience. But it’s worth the time. Things like this need resilience to build. They’re your foundation. There were days we only had 10 people for 4 courts. It took us 3 to 4 months to get around 15 regulars for 4 courts. After that, people started to introduce their friends. We slowly got through the hard time. Then when it hit the tipping point, everything just went up naturally.
You just need to keep doing the thing.
Know what matters
As the community grew, some members kept asking us to organize weekday meets and to bring more people on weekends (we already had 3 courts on Saturday and 4 on Sunday).
At first, I thought it was cool. I tried opening a weekday meet. It started slowly, like before. But I had more things to care about now, while the meet took a lot of time, energy and money to build and manage. After 2 months, I decided to close the weekday meet. I’m fine with our weekend. If I want to play on weekdays, I just find a group and go play. No need to book courts for the whole month, ask people whether they’re coming or not, then watch them slowly drop out right after the meet.
I like the quiet, calm of Saturday morning, when I can enjoy talking and catching up with friends. I also like the crowd, the buzz, the little bit of chaos of Sunday morning, when we often have new friends come by. I like meeting new people and making friends, but sometimes I just want to sit in a corner, talk shit with the boys, and watch people play. Just simple like that. That “sometimes” has been happening more lately.
Here’s a casual Sunday morning. Around 30 players show up, say hi to the people they know, and everyone just goes on court on their own initiative. The level goes up slightly with the court number, which means good players often play on court 11. But it’s not fixed. And if you end up in a game with people who aren’t as good as you, no big deal. If you’re an advanced player and want to bring a friend who isn’t as good as you, we have 4 courts, so it’s fine. Just play a friendly game, then wait for your next one.
I always think about what could happen when 4 people come to a court. If the 4 already know each other, it’s like a casual chat. You come to the court, play with people you know, laugh, joke. If someone’s new, you’ll meet new friends. It’s fine to play a friendly game. After one or two games, everyone gets a sense of which game suits them. Or if you want to play with someone, just go ask. Everything that can happen in life happens in 2 hours on the court. You come to a community, and you need time to experience it for yourself to see if you want to spend more time with them or not. Connection takes effort from both sides, not one person pushing and the other passively receiving.
And yes, it’s a bit chaotic. People have to step onto the court proactively and play with players they don’t know. That’s normal here. Instead of worrying and being afraid that people won’t be satisfied, now I just accept it as a part of the meet. I can’t make everyone satisfied. I don’t want that either.
I know we don’t have good onboarding for people joining for the first time. I can walk them around for 1 or 2 games, but after that you should be proactive: join a game, jump on court, make friends on your own. It isn’t like other clubs, where the organizer always has to take care of everyone, handle expectations, arrange every game,… I’ve done that before. I don’t want to do it anymore. That’s the reason I started building Bestminton Club this way. As an organizer, I want to build a space for badminton lovers, but first of all, I’m a player too, not someone providing a service.
Since I do all the things myself, I make sure everything stays public and transparent. I’m always looking for ways to automate the operations too. So I built a chatbot to answer all the questions about the club, like the schedule, fee, location,… It helps a lot. Instead of checking messages and answering the same questions all the time, now I just create a knowledge base and update it, so the chatbot can answer everything for me.
At the end of the day, badminton is my hobby. I want to enjoy the joy of a good rally, or of catching up with friends after a week of nothing but work. I can make a little money, but I’m not making a living from it. It isn’t fun anymore once it becomes a job. I understand I have a responsibility to the community, to the people who trust me. But I’ll still keep it a hobby. As long as I’m having fun, I still get to enjoy badminton with the best people.
Like some communities I’ve built before, I think the best community is one that doesn’t depend on anyone. Even me. I can be the one who starts it and keeps track of everything in the early days, but I think a healthy community shouldn’t rely on one person, or one group of people. It should run on shared rules and a shared spirit. So even when I’m not on the court, it still works as usual. That’s the community I want to build. And as an organization, that’s the kind I think will last long.
Don’t wait for the perfect time
I know it’s hard to build a community like ours from the start, especially when we do things differently from most other clubs. People are used to having someone arrange every game: you just show up and wait for someone to tell you which court to go to. In economic terms, we need to educate users to get used to a new habit, a new product. And it’s not easy. It takes time. You can’t achieve it overnight.
But if I just waited for someone else to come and do the hard work, or waited for enough early adopters, I would never have built what we have now. The perfect moment will never come. We make it perfect by the moment we start.
So, just do it.
Even though there have been plenty of ups and downs over these past 3 years, I’m grateful for the experiences, the people who’ve supported me, the people I’ve met. It’s a memorable chapter and an experience I’ll carry with me.
Things that keep me going through the hard times!