The Story of Height Matched Hoops

Before I built viral apps and websites for millions of users, I hosted two viral height-matched basketball tournaments for 400 players from all over California.

I called it Height Matched Hoops. Think weight classes in fighting, but for height in 3v3 basketball. There were 6 height divisions where every player was within a certain height range (for example, 5’8 to 5’11).

The tournament has a crazy story; it’s one of my worst business ventures ever but one of the proudest achievements of my life. This is that story.

The whole idea was pretty spontaneous; it was summer, and I was about to leave for college. It seemed fun to host a tournament and I thought the unique format would be fun.

Originally, I planned for it to just be among my friends and mutuals who played basketball. Unfortunately, I underestimated my network and only a few teams signed up — hardly enough for a tournament.

On a whim, I began posting TikToks and Reels. They were simple videos of me explaining the tournament format. This was my first time posting videos with my face so I was quite awkward with the camera. Even worse, I had just gotten my wisdom teeth removed, so my cheeks were still puffy from the procedure in a few videos. Embarrassing! 😂

But I guess my puffy face and the unique tournament format struck a cord — a video ends up going viral (400k views). My phone starts buzzing constantly with DM’s and Venmo payments for entry fees. Before I know it, ~200 people from all over California cleared their Saturdays to play height matched basketball.

This was just 1 week before the tournament. Frantically, I got to work. I rented out 20 half-courts at a nearby middle school. I put together $1,500 in prizes for the winning teams. I recruited a team of friends to help run the tournament. I drafted rules; printed score sheets and liability waivers; bought hundreds of dollars of snacks and drinks; I even hired a security guard out of paranoia that something would happen during the tournament (he ended up leaving halfway through…🤦‍♂️)

48 hours before the tournament, 2 friends and I drive to the middle school armed with thick, white duct tape and rulers. The 20 half courts I had rented didn’t have three point lines. We spent hours on our hands and knees taping DIY three-point lines. We finished at midnight.

For the entire next day and night before the tournament, I watched YouTube tutorials and set up a massive, complex google sheet to generate matchups, rankings, and reffing assignments for 5 divisions. I connected the sheet to Twilio to send text blasts for every team before their game. To this day, I still consider that Google Sheet to be one of the most impressive pieces of software I’ve ever built. (I’ll link it below)

Throughout the entire week, I felt strong urges to throw in the towel. I kept thinking to myself: this was my senior year summer and I had 2 weeks until I left for college — why was I doing this to myself? I couldn’t even put this on my college apps. I could send out one email blast, call it off, and enjoy my last 2 weeks relaxing with my friends and family.

The last urge came the morning of the tournament: at 5am, on two hours of sleep. I resisted and drove to the courts.

There were already a few players there who had driven up 6 hours from LA. The middle school janitor ends up forgetting to unlock the gate, so all 200 people had to climb over the 5ft fence to get in. The tournament was delayed for an hour trying to get everyone signed in. On no sleep, trying to get 200 people organized… I still get stressed just thinking about that day. The tournament was a blur of running around and handling one problem after the next.

By the end, I had lost my voice (and probably a few years of my life). I was utterly exhausted. I climbed over the fence to leave the courts, drove home, flopped on my bed, and slept for 14 hours straight.

When I woke up, I started planning the next one.

This time, I was more prepared. I posted more videos, this time with actual clips from the first tournament. I already had a good number of sign ups between returning players, teams who couldn’t make the first one, and people who were initially skeptical that the tournament was even real (it was a random high school kid on TikTok, after all). I even ordered merch for the tournament, designed by my sister, available for purchase and prizes.

The second tournament went smoothly. The janitor remembered to unlock the gate and I spent less time frantically running around trying to get everyone in order and more time interacting with players at the tournament. I met people from all around California who had told me they saw my videos on their for you page or had heard about it from a friend. I bursted with pride when I overheard a few teams making plans to meet up for the next one.

At the end of it all, the tournaments got around 1 million impressions, 400 players, and essentially $0 profit (snacks, prizes, merch, court rental, security guard 🤦‍♂️).

Three days after the tournament, I left for college. There, I met @declan and @phillip and moved on from hosting basketball tournaments to building software. I went on to build products with hundreds of millions of views, millions of users, and enough profit to sustain myself full-time.

But to this day, that evening after the second tournament was the proudest moment of my life. Some might call it an inflection point; it was truly the start of it all.

P.S. I ordered way too much merch and I still have dozens of t-shirts lying around. If you want one, lmk!