We are going to start doing a weekly dive into all things Prince; discuss what goes on behind the scenes of the product development team, our decision-making process and some of the things that excite us and drive us to innovate. There are many different ways to develop products and product lines and as a consumer there are a huge amount of good choices right now in the market so we felt that this may be a good time to share how we go about what we do. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting, maybe educational, maybe it’ll encourage you to give Prince a try or maybe it’ll confirm that this is not the brand for you but either way we hope you’ll keep an open mind and keep coming back to see new topics of discussion each week.
To kick this off, a little bit about the team here. Through all the changes with Prince over the last few years we’ve seen more changes than most in the tennis industry. Having been a large operating company, Prince is now a licensed brand that has various licensees throughout the world. However, Prince has maintained its ownership over the product development and the small team oversees all new innovations and inline developments for all of the global partners. This team is small, but it is a group of passionate product and tennis people that all bring a different perspective to the group. As we like to say, Prince is big enough that it matters in the world of tennis, but we are small enough of a group that we can be agile and make outside of the box decisions more easily than maybe other brands can.
You’ll see a few people pop up on here to offer insight on a regular basis that are part of this group, in particular:
tyler
Began with Prince in 2005 right after graduating college (University of Illinois), so next year will mark 15 years with the brand. He has probably done just about every different kind of job over the years, but his absolute passion is for products development. Starting as a tech rep, Tyler traveled the world putting on clinics from California to Dubai. Shortly thereafter he took over the US Junior program where he managed over 250 junior players from all over the country.
Following this he was given his first opportunity to work in product development where he helped to launch his very first product the Prince 5000 stringing machine. From there he then moved on to manage the string and accessories business where he helped launch one of his favorite products of all time...Prince Recoil strings (input a more detailed story of the behind the scenes manual operations you did) . After this he moved into the racquet business and eventually worked all the way up to becoming the global director of product development and R&D for the brand. Now, in his latest role with the brand Tyler oversees all aspects of the Prince global business, working with over 40 different partners around the world to try and bring new and exciting Prince products back to the market.
In his words: “As a product developer I'm a bit of an equipment chameleon as I rarely play the same racquet 2 times in a row, but if I was pressed to pick my current favorite set it would be the Beast 98 with Prince Vortex 16 @ 48lbs. (or add something else)”
Tim
Like Tyler, has been with the Prince brand through the ups and downs over the last few years. He started working out of the former R&D center based in Italy back in 2006. It was an exciting time to join the R&D team as the O3 technology was still relatively new to the market and the Prince brand was strong. As a junior engineer the volume and variety of projects was a great start in the industry. The first major racquet project that he was involved in developing was the Speed Port Black. After spending 4 years with the team in Italy, Tim made his way to China to work directly with the production teams to refine all of the production processes in an effort to improve the efficiency and quality of the complex processes at a time of economic challenges.
Following the restructuring of the Prince business in 2011, Tim spent a brief period as the Product manager for Asia before starting my current role as Director of R&D. The first task in this new role was to develop a new line and technology which resulted in the introduction of the first generation of TeXtreme racquets in 2014. Tim is responsible for the line development of all hard goods products, 3D CAD, layup development and product performance and quality.
In his own words “My favorite project I’ve worked on over recent years is the development of the Phantom line, which challenged us to develop a modern version of a thin beam players racquet. It’s something which Prince had been well known for and something that is unique in the current landscape of the tennis racquet market.”
ramon
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