The dossier

Talk like an operator. Give away nothing that costs you.

Ashby isn't just hiring hands — he's after what's in your head about how a padel venue actually runs. That's your asset. This page makes you fluent enough to be worth real money, and clear about the line between showing the goods and handing them over.

Rule of the whole meeting: knowledge about the industry is yours to spend. Knowledge about Your Padel's insides is not yours to sell — and the blueprint is Dad's product, not a freebie.

1Why he wants you (know your own value first)

You've worked inside one of the only operating padel venues in the county. You know what breaks at 9pm on a Friday, what customers moan about, how the booking flow really behaves — the stuff no consultant's slide deck has.
The word being used is manager. Read that honestly: he needs someone who already knows how a padel venue runs, at a price a startup can afford, and you're the only person in the county who fits both halves. That's genuine leverage — and it's also exactly the shape of an offer designed to buy your knowledge cheap. Section 5 is how you tell which one this is.
Worst case to hold in mind, calmly: he picks your brains in the meeting, picks them harder for the first three months, then moves you on once the venue runs itself. You don't defend against that with suspicion — you defend against it with a contract and a pay number that make the extraction worth it either way (section 5).
Some of what he wants might be your current venue's private business, not yours. The whole game Wednesday is showing your knowledge while refusing their secrets — politely, visibly, and in a way that makes him trust you more, not less.

2The industry in ten facts (all public — spend freely)

These are all from published sources, not from anyone's private books. Quoting them makes you sound like you read the sector, not like you leaked something.

UK padel is in a land-grab phase — the LTA runs a dedicated padel arm and venues are opening monthly. Being second or third into a catchment is fine; being fifth usually isn't.

Court hire locally runs about £26/hour off-peak to £34/hour peak — that's Your Padel's published pricing, on their public website. Pickleball rents cheaper (~£20).

An indoor court package from a UK supplier costs roughly £25–35k per court where a good flat slab already exists — but the building is the hard part, not the courts.

The building needs about 10 metres of clear height and ~3,000 m² for a six-to-seven-court venue. Very few warehouses qualify — which is why sites, not money, are usually the bottleneck.

From committing to a site to opening the doors is realistically five to eight months of planning permission, building regs, fire strategy and licensing — whatever timeline anyone hopes for.

Nearly everyone books through Playtomic — it's the network where the players already are. A new venue plugging into it inherits demand; going off-network means building an audience from zero.

The economics live and die on utilisation — what percentage of available court-hours actually get booked, especially off-peak. Peak sells itself; Tuesday 2pm is where venues quietly die.

The industry trend is lean staffing — gym-style digital access, cameras, remote monitoring, vending for balls and racket hire — with staff concentrated on peak, coaching and the bar. Fully unmanned is the ambition; hybrid is what actually works day one.

Café and bar aren't decoration — padel is a social sport with built-in dwell time (you book 90 minutes, you stay two and a half hours). But alcohol needs a premises licence, a personal licence holder, and staffed hours — you can't vend beer in an empty building.

The moat isn't courts — anyone can buy courts. It's leagues, coaching programmes and community. Players stay where their league is. A venue that only sells court-hours is a commodity waiting to be undercut.

3Things to have an opinion on (your own ideas — they sell you)

Your observations as someone on the floor are yours to give. They're the free sample that proves the quality. Have two or three of these ready, in your own words.

What customers actually complain about at a padel venue (booking friction, racket quality, waiting around, cold viewing areas — whatever you've genuinely seen from the customer side of the counter).
What you'd design differently if starting fresh — flow from door to court, how walk-ins get handled, what makes off-peak feel dead and what might fix it.
Where staff time actually goes in a shift — in general terms — and which of it a machine could do versus which of it is the reason people come back.
Why the first ten hires matter more than the fit-out. He's interviewing you; having a view on what a good venue team looks like turns the tables.

The problems rule

You've seen a lot go wrong where you work — that catalogue is exactly why you're worth manager money. Spend it as solutions, never as complaints: "I'd design the opening checklist so X can't happen" lands as expertise; "their X is a shambles" is you leaking their dirty laundry — same information, and it moves you from the give column into the hold column the moment it names them. He gets your conclusions, not their case file.

4The line: give / hold / tease

Give freely

Public facts (section 2). Industry mechanics. Your own ideas and observations that any sharp customer could also have made. Your opinions about what great looks like. Enthusiasm.

Hold — not yours to sell

Your current venue's insides: what people are paid, what the takings look like, rotas, supplier names and deals, member numbers, problems and disputes, anything from a screen or a document a customer couldn't see. Two reasons, and the second one matters more: it's shabby — and a man watching you leak your current employer's numbers has just learned exactly what you'd do with his. Refusing is the single most impressive move available to you on Wednesday.

"I'd rather not get into their numbers or how they run things internally — same way I wouldn't share yours if I worked for you. But I'm happy to talk about the industry all day."

Tease — the family product

Dad has built a full turnkey operating blueprint for exactly this kind of venue — costed financial model, staffing scenarios, statutory roadmap, a 58-procedure operations library with a training-video plan. That's a consultancy product with a price on it, not meeting chat. Your move is one sentence, planted late in the conversation, ideally when Ashby hits a question he can't answer:

"You know my dad's actually put together a complete turnkey blueprint for lean padel venues — the full operating manual, costed. If you're serious about this I could put you two in touch."

Then stop talking. Don't describe the contents. Don't answer "what's in it" beyond "everything — that's rather the point." If he wants it, that's a meeting with Dad, not with you.

5If the offer is "manager" — the tests that tell you what it really is

A manager title at 18 is either the best line on your CV before medicine, or a flattering label on a liability dump. The title tells you nothing; these five tests tell you everything.

The divide test. A salary sounds bigger than it is. Take the number, divide by 52, divide by the hours you'd really work (managers don't clock off when the rota says) — if that doesn't clearly beat your current hourly rate, the promotion is a pay cut wearing a badge. Do this maths in your head before you react to any number.
The authority test. For every responsibility in the job, ask who holds the matching power: can you set the rota, authorise refunds, refuse an unsafe court, spend on repairs up to a limit? Responsibility without authority isn't management — it's being first in line when something goes wrong that you were never allowed to prevent.
The midnight test. Lean venues need one named human who answers the help point at 22:30 and drives in when a door fails at midnight. If "manager" quietly includes being that person, fine — but it's real, rostered, paid work, visible in the salary and the schedule. If it's hidden inside "well, you're the manager", the job is bigger than the number.
The licence test. If there's a bar, someone must be the named licence-holder legally on the hook for every alcohol sale. You legally can hold a personal licence at 18 — which is exactly why a startup might ask you to. Carrying that as a teenager on your first management job, without serious support and serious pay, is a red flag you should say no to without apology.
The paper test. Written job description, salary with guaranteed hours (not zero-hours with a title), notice period both ways, probation terms, and what happens to your September if med school calls. A man who wants you managing his building but won't put the terms in writing has answered your question.

And the "chewed up, spat out" fear, straight: with under two years' service he can let you go almost at will — so promises about your future there are worth nothing; only the contract and the monthly payslip count. But look at your own calendar: you're gone to university anyway. A well-paid nine-month run as a founding manager of a new venue, ending on your schedule, is a win — it's only exploitation if the pay was wrong while it lasted.

So negotiate like someone who's leaving anyway — because you are. Front-load the value: proper salary from day one (not "prove yourself first, rise later" — there is no later), title on paper immediately, and an agreed reference. If he needs you most in the chaotic first months, that's precisely when you should be paid most, not least.

6Questions that make you sound like an operator

Ask two or three of these, casually. Each one is a question real operators struggle with — asking it signals you know where the bodies are buried, without revealing anything.

"Have you actually got a building? The eaves height is the killer, isn't it — hardly anything's tall enough."

"What's the plan for off-peak? Peak fills itself — it's Tuesday afternoon that decides whether a venue makes money."

"Are you going Playtomic like everyone else, or trying something different for bookings?"

"How lean are you thinking on staff? The gym-style model's obviously the ambition, but someone's still got to answer the help point at 10pm when a door won't open."

"Who else is opening within half an hour of you? Feels like everyone's announcing courts at the moment."

"Leagues and coaching from day one, or courts first and build it up? Players seem to stay wherever their league is."

Watch how he answers. Vague on the building, the money or the timeline = this job may not exist for months, which changes what any offer is worth (prep page, section 3).

7Spotting the fishing trip

"Poaching ideas" looks like friendly curiosity. The tells:

Questions that drift from the industry to your employer specifically: "so what does Chris pay?", "what do they take on a weekend?", "what's their deal with the coaches?", "what would you change about their place?"
Flattery attached to extraction: "you obviously know how it all works — talk me through how they run their…"
Hypotheticals doing real work: "just roughly", "off the record", "between us".

The deflection is always the same shape — decline the specific, offer the general, stay warm:

"Honestly, their operation's their business. What I can tell you is what the industry generally does with that…" — then give a section-2 fact and move on.

If he pushes twice on the same private thing after you've drawn the line once, that's not curiosity, that's a character reveal. File it, stay friendly, and factor it into whether you'd trust him with your Septembers.

8The one-paragraph version (if you remember nothing else)

Be generous with industry knowledge, protective of your current venue's privacy, and let one sentence about Dad's blueprint do the heavy lifting. Ask about the building, off-peak and other openings. If "manager" comes up, run the five tests — divide, authority, midnight, licence, paper — before you're impressed by the title. Never answer money first. Take nothing on the spot. And remember the two audition truths: refusing to leak is the audition, and negotiating like someone who's leaving anyway is your strength — because you are.

After the meeting: text Dad five things — what Ashby said about the building, the timeline, the staffing model, exactly what the manager offer is (title, salary, hours, what's in writing), and whether he took the blueprint bait. The rest sorts itself from there.