Maximilian Kogler had a perfectly sensible objection to opening a table-tennis business in New York. The rent. Ground-floor space, large windows, a few tables, and no obvious way to make the arithmetic behave. David Silberman had brought him an idea for app-operated ping-pong rooms. Kogler brought the doubt. Anyone who has paid for a Manhattan sandwich will understand his position.
Then came Silberman's spreadsheet: 37 tabs. Kogler spent a couple of days looking for the flaw, and came back persuaded. The future co-founder had changed his mind before there was a first location to visit. It is an unusually useful beginning for a founder's story. Conviction arrived after an attempted demolition.
Today Kogler runs PodPlay Technologies, the sports-venue software company that grew out of PingPod. His work has moved from running the rooms to selling the technology behind them. Yet the player remains close to the executive. His peak USATT rating is 2081. This is a customer with a forehand, as well as a financial model.
A DJ, a monastery, and a mathematics degree
His route to this particular corner of recreation was hardly a straight line. Kogler grew up in Austria. His father was a DJ. Between the ages of ten and eighteen, he lived in a monastery. At eighteen, he sold hair-care products in France. The details can keep their pleasing untidiness, without a grand theory to tie them together.
His education took him to Central College in Iowa, Cambridge, and Stanford. He belongs to Central's class of 1994. His undergraduate studies covered mathematics and computer science; Cambridge added a Master of Advanced Studies, and Stanford an MBA. An Austrian upbringing, an Iowa college, and two further degrees make for a geographically busy introduction to working life.
The mathematics matters to the story because the business began with a quantitative argument. But there is a temptation to turn every childhood detail into a prediction. A monastery does not explain a booking app. A DJ father does not explain video replays. The more interesting fact is that this collection of experiences belongs to someone who now spends his working days helping people arrange games.
Kogler describes himself as a mathematician, computer scientist, and sports enthusiast. He speaks about a love of racket sports, with table tennis becoming a particular attachment. Those interests sit comfortably together: a game has rules, a score, and enough human unpredictability to make calculating the outcome a thoroughly unreliable hobby.
First, learn what a sports business costs
Kogler worked in fixed income at Goldman Sachs from 2000 to 2002. In 2005 he founded MM Capital, where he served as chief investment officer until 2012. His career also included founding and leading Kognico, a management consultancy in New York.
The transition into sports operations came before PingPod. From June 2016 to July 2018, he served as COO and CFO of Round Star, the business operating as Super Soccer Stars. That pairing of titles put operations and finance in the same person's hands. Youth sports involves players, scheduling, instructors, and delivery, alongside the familiar business of making revenue cover costs.
At Super Soccer Stars, the organization he oversaw reached close to 100,000 players and 800 employees worldwide. The business credited his tenure with raising the EBITDA margin from roughly 3% to roughly 18% and preparing the company for a 2018 private-equity sale. That work gave him experience to bring to a new sports venture: he had already dealt with the economics of getting people into games.
That history gives his original skepticism some weight. He had dealt with a sports business at scale, and he had worked in finance. A room full of tables was going to have to survive more than enthusiasm. Silberman's detailed model gave him something specific to test.
The regular who wanted somewhere to play
Kogler knew the customer problem firsthand. He had been a member at SPIN, New York's table-tennis social club. Going out to play could become an expensive evening, with drinking and other expenses attached. Corporate events could displace an ordinary player's reservation. For someone who wanted a well-lit place to concentrate on the sport, the available choices left room for another approach.
PingPod brought together three different kinds of familiarity with that problem. Silberman conceived the autonomous venue model and supplied the financial research. Ernesto Ebuen brought coaching and competitive table tennis; he is a six-time Philippine national champion. Kogler supplied business and operating experience, along with his own appetite for the game. Their company formed in 2019, and its first Lower East Side location opened in February 2020.
The arrangement made a reservation do more work. Players booked a table, paid, and used their phones to enter. Equipment was available in the room. Remote monitoring and cleaning supported the locations, so operating without a resident front desk still required people behind the scenes. The distinction matters: an unlocked playing hour has a whole system of work behind it.
By February 2023, a Downtown Brooklyn opening offered another view of the idea. Members arrived for early access, gift bags, and unlimited replays. The location included three tables in an open area and another in a private room. A relatively simple format could accommodate both a shared neighborhood space and a session behind a separate door.
“It looked like the economics were actually quite convincing.”
Max Kogler, on reconsidering Silberman's proposal
The camera had a second job
The cameras became part of the attraction. Alongside remote oversight, PingPod offered match replays. Players could save a rally and watch it afterward. For someone working on technique, the footage provides another look at what happened. For friends, it offers evidence of the shot that will otherwise improve considerably in the retelling.
Kogler discussed the gap between recreational and competitive table tennis on the Talkin' Smash podcast in March 2024. The conversation covered how neighborhood venues, coaching, and technology might bring those groups closer together. That question makes sense for a founder who plays seriously himself. A first visit and a committed player's practice session need to fit inside the same business.
PodPlay carried the operating technology into other venues. By July 2024, it was being used at 53 venues across 11 states, with pickleball making up roughly 80% of that customer base. Kogler was describing a shift toward licensing: other operators could use the system without his company having to open and run every site.
The wider product joined booking and payments with scoreboards, replays, and optional autonomous access. The owner could keep the venue's own branding. That made the work of Kogler and his colleagues increasingly about understanding someone else's club: its reservations, its members, its opening hours, and the experience it wanted players to have.
A simplified view of PodPlay's connected venue experience. Features depend on the club's plan.
A goodbye with a return booking
The expanding software business eventually needed its own organization. PodPlay's separation from PingPod was completed on August 8, 2025. Kogler went on to lead PodPlay with co-founders Ben Borton and Ilya Rivkin. Silberman and Ebuen became PingPod's co-CEOs. A founder who had been responsible for running a venue network now had a different company to concentrate on.
In October 2025, PodPlay announced an $8 million Series A led by Frontier Growth. The new investment was earmarked for engineering, sales, and customer success. The company reported nearly one million users and revenue that had tripled year over year. Kogler set out an ambition to bring the platform to thousands of venues worldwide.
By September 2026, PodPlay was reporting more than 290 clubs and 1.9 million players. An October company essay put migrated customer accounts above 400,000. Those measures describe different things: venues adopting the system, people on the network, and accounts transferred from other software. Together they show how far his responsibilities have traveled from a single New York room.
His November 2025 farewell essay to PingPod is more affectionate than the usual corporate handover. He remembers colleagues doing practical work, including cutting flooring. He also says he intends to keep his place among the venue's top five customers. Leaving the CEO job apparently did not require giving up the table.
Alfie has joined customer support
There is a dog in this story. Kogler calls himself a dog person, and his dog is named Alfie. PodPlay's AI assistant took the same name. He explains the assignment with a fetching joke. Even a software business can find a place for the family pet, provided someone gives him a job description.
In 2025, a feature that excited him was connecting replays with chat, and building a social feed for video and scores. He described it as a roadmap interest, an expression of where he wanted the product to go. It is a revealing choice for an executive with his financial background: the desired feature gives players more to talk about after they finish playing.
His stated motivation is “giving the world more joy.” The phrase can be tested against the rather specific work around it: booking courts, opening doors, saving rallies, and helping clubs operate. Kogler began by questioning whether the numbers worked. He now spends his time on the system that lets other people find a partner, pick a time, and have a game. He still has his own next booking to think about.