Tanner Bykowski | Founder of Diamond Derby

Why Diamond Derby

A Way Back Into Baseball for Everyone

Baseball creates fans for life, but eventually most people lose the ability to actually participate. You stop playing, life gets busy, and the game becomes something you watch instead of something you do.

I kept coming back to the same question: why is it so difficult to just go hit a baseball for the feeling of hitting a baseball?

Diamond Derby grew from that idea into Baseball Lite — making the best feeling in baseball accessible without running around a field, needing your own equipment, requiring a team, season, or years of experience.

What I'm Building

Derby Box

Derby Box is Diamond Derby's patent-pending pitch delivery platform, designed to create a consistent, approachable pitch while preserving a real swing, real baseball and real ball flight.

The Homerun Park is its first deployment: a group baseball venue where friends can step in, swing for reachable walls, eat, drink and leave feeling like they actually played baseball again.

Conceptual Derby Box pitch delivery platform with pitch slot and batter zone

This is a conceptual design. Prototype development will finalize the production design.

Patent-pending Derby Box pitch delivery platform.

I Decided to Bet on It

From an Idea to Raleigh

For years, Diamond Derby was something I believed should exist. By July 2025, I had started posting publicly about the idea and was seriously considering going all-in when my apartment lease ended.

Then in November, with 75 days left on that lease, I was laid off from my corporate job.

That was the final push I needed.

So I did. I put in my notice at my apartment that same day.

I researched where Diamond Derby should launch, chose Raleigh-Durham, pulled my savings and 401(k), packed up my life in Phoenix and, a few short months later, moved 2,200 miles to North Carolina to be boots on the ground.

Eventually somebody had to stop saying this should exist and build it. I decided that person was going to be me.

Map showing the 2,200-mile drive from Phoenix, Arizona to Raleigh, North Carolina

July 2025

Started sharing Diamond Derby publicly and seriously considered going all-in.

November 2025

Laid off. Put in notice at my apartment with 75 days left. Time to go all-in.

February 2026

Moved 2,200 miles from Phoenix to Raleigh to be boots on the ground.

Background and Proof

Built by Me. For What's Next.

I graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee with a BBA in Marketing, a minor in Communications and a certificate in Real Estate. My professional background spans sales, marketing, customer experience, professional baseball and managing million-dollar business portfolios.

Everything you see across Diamond Derby — the brand, website, market research, investor materials, product concepts and supporting resources — has either been built or led by me.

That has required learning skills I didn't have when I started, finding experts where expertise matters, and doing whatever the business required next.

Diamond Derby has required me to become whatever the business needed next.

800K+LinkedIn impressionsJune 2026 – September 2026

2K+New LinkedIn followersJune 2026 – September 2026

100+Go Yard Club waitlist additionsJune 2026 – September 2026

Featured On

The Story Beyond Diamond Derby.

The Baseball Nerd

Someone Built the Baseball Venue Adults Have Been Waiting For

Read the Feature →

Straight Lines Podcast

Tanner Bykowski: Diamond Derby, the Home Run Moment & Why Baseball Never Has to End

Listen on Spotify →

Building Baseball Lite.

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