Gear Talk: Solinco's KT Kim
Recently, at the USTA National Tennis Center, I sat down with KT Kim, Business Director at Solinco. The company has been gaining traction in the string market, particularly with its edged polyesters aimed at enhancing spin production. In the first part of our interview, we talked about Solinco’s business strategy, audience, and some new products that the company looks to launch soon. Part two will follow on Friday.
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Justin diFeliciantonio: Solinco is a fairly new company, one that looks to be gaining momentum, especially in the polyester string market. For those of us who aren’t familiar with the brand, what would you say Solinco is all about?
KT Kim: Our strategy at Solinco has always been to focus on the performance of the product. That’s where we’ve spent all of our energy, trying to develop new products that people can experience—you know, try out to feel whether it’s better than what they’re currently using. As a small company, we don’t have a Nadal or Federer promoting our products, so really our products have to sell themselves. So instead of spending money advertising or paying players to use our products—in fact, we don’t pay any players to use our products—we put all our resources into research and development.
JD: Who is Solinco’s audience? Who have you pitch your products toward?
KK: Our focus and target, initially, was high-performance players. Whether they be very good juniors or college players or professionals, these players are very focused on finding something that’s going to help them perform better. They’re also more sensitive to the quality of product as well. That’s who we’ve targeted, and it’s steamrolled and gained momentum from there. So if I had to summarize us, it’d be: High-performance products for high-performance players.
JD: So what you’re saying is, Solinco’s audience mainly comprises serious and accomplished players. What about recreational players? What does the company have to offer?
KT: You know, our target market initially was high-performance guys who wanted to take their game to the next level. But there’s always a crossover, because so many people, average club players included, want to use what the best players are using. So you can end up marketing to the club-level player even if you don’t really intend to, because there’s this trickle-down effect.
However, the products that, say, the ATP guys are using aren’t necessarily the best products for the average club player to use. And we’ve realized that. So we’re doing a number of things, like coming out with a 19 gauge version of our Tour Bite string. The 16 and 17 gauge Tour Bite is very popular, and a lot of the pros and college players use it. But as you know, a club player shouldn’t be using a 1.30mm, 16 gauge polyester that they’ll never break in five years. So we basically are coming out with thinner gauges that players in the recreational space can either hybrid with a synthetic, or string in full beds at very loose tensions [JD: High 40s, low 50s, lbs.] in order to get better playability.
JD: How durable would you say your thin polys are?
KK: I mean, our strings are more durable than a lot of other polys out there. So for example, at USC, almost all their guys use Tour Bite. Those are pretty big hitters. I’d say, half those guys use 17 gauge, vs 16L or 16 gauge. Our 17 gauge is 1.20mm. And obviously different companies have different ways of determining gauge. I think some other brands call 1.25mm 17 gauge, whereas we call that 16L. So our 17 gauge is actually thinner than [many] other companies’ 17 gauges.
JD: Why isn’t there a standard for gauge measurement?
KK: You know, I’m not really sure. I think maybe because a lot of European companies, they’ll go 1.23mm, 1.27mm. Whereas, in the U.S., we’ll go 1.20mm, 1.25mm, in multiples of five. But yeah, there is no universal standard. So when you say 17 gauge, it really could mean anything. That’s why when you talk about gauges to someone who’s really familiar with tennis, you always talk about numbers. You don’t talk about 17 gauge; you talk about 1.20mm, 1.25mm, and so on. And actually, our Tour Bite 19 gauge is going to be 1.10mm. And so far, recreational players who have tried it out and used it, they get plenty of durability out of it. But it’s not durable enough that you’re going to start seeing pros using it.
JD: You supply strings to a number of college teams and top juniors. Is that part of the marketing strategy you’ve been pursuing?
KK: I think, yes, that’s how we’re approaching marketing our product—again, not so much the traditional media and television and print advertisement route. We built it really based on word of mouth. From our standpoint, we had to get the product into the hands of people who could tell a difference. And those are the people who will use what helps them perform better. So that includes top college and junior players. I want to say over 50 percent of top-ranked-75 D-I schools use our products. The guys who officially use our product, as the exclusive string for, includes USC, UCLA, Baylor, Pepperdine, Virginia Tech, and Harvard, among other top schools. Every single school buys the product from us, and we don’t market the players’ names, as that would be a violation of NCAA rules. But really, we think that the fact so many top players are using our strings is a testament to their quality and performance.
