We made it to Episode 65 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my good friend Ean Martin, CEO of Quantix Golf Balls.
Unlike your typical direct to consumer ball company, Quantix® has a world renowned chief ball scientist behind the creation of our products who works directly for us. With the mind behind the Titleist Tour Balata®, Maxfli HT Tour Balata®, Maxfli DDH®, and the DDH III®. they don’t just take an on “off the shelf” ball and slap our name on it unlike some ball brands. They have put massive amounts of time into R&D and creating a new hot ball unlike any others on the market, not to mention they control their manufacturing process just like the big box golf ball companies. This allows us to perfect the quality control within our products to give you the most consistent, and highest performing golf balls.
We made it to Episode 65 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my good friend Ean Martin, CEO of Quantix Golf Balls.
Unlike your typical direct to consumer ball company, Quantix® has a world renowned chief ball scientist behind the creation of our products who works directly for us. With the mind behind the Titleist Tour Balata®, Maxfli HT Tour Balata®, Maxfli DDH®, and the DDH III®. they don’t just take an on “off the shelf” ball and slap our name on it unlike some ball brands. They have put massive amounts of time into R&D and creating a new hot ball unlike any others on the market, not to mention they control their manufacturing process just like the big box golf ball companies. This allows us to perfect the quality control within our products to give you the most consistent, and highest performing golf balls.
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Yeah. Welcome to behind the golf brand podcast. I never missed with the seven a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course. I lived on the driving range from pro. You should learn something from each and every single round you play to fun from on and off the green. Why would you play golf? You don't play it for money. Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is behind the golf brand podcast with Paul liberatory.
Speaker 2:What's up guys, Paul from golfers' authority. Welcome to the behind the golf brand podcast. We on episode 65. So 65. That's pretty. That's a lot for me, man. That's I started this thing two years ago, so it's like 30, 40 a month or a year. I mean, I can do math too early this morning, but this week I have my friend, Ian Martin from quantics golf balls. I've been with Ian probably for, I don't know, at least two years. So it's like kind of cool to have'em on the show now because we haven't talked in a while, but we always like do stuff together. So I really want to know more about like how we grew qu and where they're going and everything. So I'm really excited to have'em on the show today. So without further ado, Ian, welcome to the show. Thank
Speaker 3:You, Paul. I really appreciate you having me on. And, uh, you know, as you said, it's been a great two years off and on knowing you and I'm, I'm thrilled to be here finally.
Speaker 2:So where are you located?
Speaker 3:So we're located in the heart of Fort worth, Texas. Most people associate Fort worth with, with Ben Hogan and colonial country club. Uh, you know, you see the Charles Schwab challenge every single year on the PGA, always a big event. Um, so we're right here in Fort worth and, uh, you know, we, we believe Fort Worth's a big golf city and has potential to be even bigger. And so that's why, you know, we, we chose to be here.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna play a little game. It's called, what's your story. When did you first get into golf?
Speaker 3:So I've been into golf off and on my entire life. Um, my dad used to play professionally a little bit, uh, back in the late nineties. And so I grew up with golf all around me. Um, you know, we even had a, a nice little short game area with, uh, synthetic green in the backyard, bunkers, everything. I mean, it was, it was great. I grew up with that and, uh, so golf's always been around me and you know, it really wasn't until, uh, you know, maybe high school. I picked golf up back again and, you know, started playing more playing tournaments for the first time. Uh, and then after that, you know, I graduated high school. I, I took a break from golf completely, man. I didn't even watch tournaments nothing. It was just the end of it. You know, I was, I, I turned a new, you know, a new chapter in my life and I was like, okay, you know, that's it. Then I got about halfway, uh, or three quarters away through college. And I was thinking, you know, Hey, what's, what's the next step in my life? You know, where am I going with things? Um, you know, obviously majored in, in business, you know, I had kind of the aptitude for, you know, business thinking and whatnot. Um, and you know, I was thinking one day what's stopped me from getting back into golf, you know, whether that was playing or, or some kind of product, you know, what would that be? Um, so the first thing I thought of was my good friend, Larry Kor, who's our lead ball engineer. And he used to work for Titleist for anyone who's not familiar with him. He used to work for, um, max fly, dumb mob, and one of his, two of his biggest, uh, achievements, the Titleist tour blo. And, uh, he created that when he was with Titleist, he's listed on every one of their patents for it. Uh, he played a huge part in that, uh, which obviously set titles on the path towards getting to the ProView one, eventually making that big switch. Um, you know, as one of the major ships in golf balls. Uh, and then another one of his big career changes was when he personally worked for Jack Nicholas, uh, on developing his 1986 winning master's golf ball. Um, which obviously that's a very big year for Jack. Uh, it's a very well known year for, for golfers, you know, everywhere. So I, I called long story short here. I, I called Larry and, and he was previously retired. You know, he was done in the ball in after, uh, you know, 20, 20
Speaker 2:How'd you call him like, how'd you even know him? Did you look him up or what?
Speaker 3:No. So he he's been a long time family friend, um, since, you know, when I was just a little kid. So he was, he was one of those people, dad, your dad's friends with him. Yeah. He was one of those people that I could just call up, pick his brain. And so sure enough, I called him up and I said, Hey, uh, you know, I know he you're retired and you know, you're probably enjoying your life, but how would you like to get back in the ball industry? And he says, yeah, absolutely for you let's do it. Uh, so that it was as easy as that. And, you know, from that point on, we started, we started working on, uh, the R and D side of things and kind of developing and, you know, checking our player profiles, what we wanted to see what consumers needed to see. Um, you know, obviously there's been a flood of DTC companies. Um, but we, we wanna make sure that whatever we engineered would be so different in the market that, you know, people would have no choice, but to at least what year was that? That was in 2019. So we started, we originally started in April of
Speaker 2:2019, probably when I met you, man, that was like two years ago. Yeah. Understand that, like it took right. You probably first came out. I remember
Speaker 3:That. Yeah. So it's been, it's been a, really, a really short period of time from, you know, when we had nothing to, to where we are right now, but I mean, Larry's expertise. The, the man knows what he's doing. Uh, and it's, he's a purple cow in the golf industry because you don't most people who have as much experience as hand him of, you know, working in, in ball R and D and engineering, uh, they're gone, you know, they're, they're retired and you're not gonna get'em back. So it's, it's rare to see, take his expertise of, of working with some of the biggest and best players in the world back in the day. Um, and you know, really following the industry all the way from, you know, making the, the change from liquid to well, own cores, to solid cores, to Han coverings. And you know where we're at today. It's a, it's great to, to have him on board,
Speaker 2:You graduated from college and did you, what was your first job? Were you, did you go right into this? Were you working some other, other job? And you're like, man, I wanna like do my own thing or what? Yeah. So,
Speaker 3:Um, I'm funny enough. I, I'm a, I'm a very big entrepreneurial entrepreneurial guy. Um, you know, I, I take a lot of calculated risks. So I put all my eggs in one basket because I believed in, in what I was gonna do and what we would become. And so, you know, I'm, this is junior year of college and I'm thinking I'm going all in on this. I know it's gonna work. I know we can do it. I know we have the expertise and everything that we need to be successful with this. So I jumped straight into it, you know? No, there was no, you know, extra job lined up with anything. Um,
Speaker 2:There was no, I would've slowed you down. I
Speaker 3:Mean, it, it, it was just a, a nonstop train of, you know, I saw my finish line of where I wanted to take my company. Um, and, and I just, I took it and I ran as fast as hard as I could.
Speaker 2:So what year did you graduate college?
Speaker 3:What's that?
Speaker 2:What, what year did you graduate college? I,
Speaker 3:I graduated in 2019. Um, January
Speaker 2:Of, uh, how old are you? 23. What's
Speaker 3:That? 24. How old are you? I'm 20. I'm 23. Yeah, 20, 24 in,
Speaker 2:I was about tell you guys something, right? I know some of the smartest business people I know right now and golf are like younger than 25. I wanna say that like found, they know they have, they found what the niche would be and they just went all into that niche. And then like, that's it, that that's, that's
Speaker 3:What I mean. We, we have, I gotta, I gotta give it to our age group. We, we have the advantage of, you know, having our, our younger bodies. So, you know, for me, I, I sleep four to five hours a night. Um, it works for me, you know, maybe have a red bull in, but, um, you know, I still have that extra energy now. Obviously I can't keep this up forever, but I'm gonna use it while I have it. So,
Speaker 2:Bro, I know like I was you like 20 years ago. So I know at some point, no, you probably got married yet. That's why are you married? No, you, oh. Are, are, do you have kids?
Speaker 3:No kids. Uh I'm I'm okay on kids for, for a few years.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was married. That was like, that was like honeymoon time. It was like do stuff and hang out and fun. And then we have kids, like, I mean, I love my kids, but we're busy as hell all the time sports or whatever events, but
Speaker 3:Yeah, my hope is whatever, whatever I do have kids that they will be golfers as well. But of course I'm not the type of guy, whatever they wanna do. Yeah. By all means they can do it. But God, I hope it's golf.
Speaker 2:I said that too, man. I was like, I'm gonna get my kids lessons. And then like, I got my older son, he likes to go play. And like he and my younger son likes to my dad puts my, my son, my younger son plays golf my father all the time. But like I have, I give him lessons cause he's actually really good. Um, but it's hard. Cause when you have kids who are like in multiple sports, like I have like he's in baseball and golf. Yeah. And the baseball guy, you're like, oh, he shouldn't be golfing. And then the golf coach, oh, he shouldn't believe me in baseball, you know? And it's like, well, which one do you actually have a chance in like doing something with in life? Like not baseball. Right? I mean, you probably, I'm not saying anybody son couldn't do that in baseball. I just like, it's a much hard trajectory. Right? Like, and you gonna play golf the rest of your life. So it's almost like you stop blam baseball when you're older. I mean, I quit. That's what I thought. But
Speaker 3:I mean, there're the reason everyone retires while playing, you know, playing golf, they, they play football, they play baseball, hockey, whatever. At the end of the day, all these guys are playing golf. Um, yeah. You know, I mean, look, look at Tony, the guys broke his back like three times. Um, and now here he is, you know, playing mini tours. So it's
Speaker 2:So you're, you're junior in college and you're like, so did you think like ano what made you wanna do balls though? I mean, 19 2019, there was probably there wasn't, there wasn't as many direct to consumer ball brands as there are now. Right, right. Cause I feel like a, a lot of brands in the last two years have, they're not, they're not brands to golf. They're already brands that exist that make other accessories. They're like, oh, we're gonna do balls because they see a, I mean, honestly balls are the most consumed product in golf. Right. So it's like a very good product to sell. Um, because you have, did you just think like balls is the way I wanted to do I wanna do digital consumer or like what did you
Speaker 3:Think? Well, I had, you know, I had a, a very specific goal in mind with things and, you know, from my market research that I had done, um, you know, at the time was the, the most overlooked thing in my opinion, was golf balls. And it, it was, you know, exactly what you said. A lot of companies would just get into golf balls as, you know, a good supporting role product for their clubs or whatever other accessories they have because it is such a large consumable. So my first thing I thought was, you know, a lot of people are putting too much emphasis on the clubs when the ball is every, you know, that's, that's the only piece of equipment you're hitting every shot. And you know, that's one of my favorite lines to go to because it, it matters the most out of anything because you can a driver that is, you know, flawless in every way. But if the ball is spinning too much, you're gonna lose 30, 40 yards. And you know, the ball matters so much to that point. And you know, when, when thinking about all this, my connections with Larry, you know, it was, it was really just the
Speaker 2:Idea, get an advantage, cuz you weren't like some guys who are like, I wanna go buy some balls from China and slap a label on it. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And that's, that's
Speaker 2:Cool colors, you know, and like I say, crap on the planet,
Speaker 3:Qu does not sell vibes. We sell performance because I'm, I mean, I've been sick at time of seeing everybody with, well, we have this alignment that looks cooler or we have this colored golf ball, um, or we have this cheap golf ball with cool packaging. Like it's, it's the same stuff, mass reproduced, overseas over and over and over. And that helps nobody. You know, it, it helps absolutely nobody. It just confuses the marketplace even more. I mean, if you take all the DTCs away and you're left with your major OEMs, that's confusing enough. I mean, titles does six golf balls. You know, most people fit into the, you know, their main two, but at the end of the day, it's like, well, titles has six. Callaway has five, you know, tailor made has, has three. What, you know, whatever it might be. There's there was already so many there and now you, you muddy up the water with even more that are coming from the same three factories overseas, calling them, you know, different names, different colors. It's, it's all the same at the end of the day. Um, you know, that's where, that's where your brand comes into play. Um, and no knock on them for creating something, but it's just not how we roll. We wanted to take the actual true performance aspect of things and we wanted
Speaker 2:To give here's what I think. I think, I think there's only a, a very small handful of direct to consumer ball brands that I are actually a very good ball. Right. Like, and that the rest are just painted. Let's put that way. Yeah. You know, like hundred percent. Yeah. You can pay 20 bucks for it or$22 for a pack or whatever of pretty balls cuz, and you don't really care where they go, but really at the end of the day you do, because you're gonna, is it, they're not that good. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Any golfer goes out there, even if they say, I just want a ball that I can lose and not worry about. There's not a single golfer who, who, you know, doesn't care about their score at the end of the day, no matter what they say, whether they're going out and drinking with their friends for the whole day, you know, having
Speaker 2:A great time lying, dude, they still
Speaker 3:Care about their score because otherwise here's the,
Speaker 2:Here's the truth. Right? Here's here's I think, and I, I haven't done this yet, but I've had a lot of my like subscribers and followers, like email me and say, it'd be cool to do a bunch of ball comparisons. Right? Like cut'em open. Talk about,'em go hit'em at the range, take'em with a shop monitor or hit'em in the SIM. Like just, I mean, not like independent study, but just more like okay. And then talk about like, Hey, what do you think about this ball? Yeah. And I'm like, I've been, I've, that's one thing I wanna do in this next coming year, because like, no, one's really doing that. Right. It's almost like they'll do an individual video. I'm like using the ball in the course, but it's like different. It's not. And I, I feel that, I mean, for me, I know a balls I've used a ton of balls. Right. I make a lot of, I get a lot of free balls. I, um, it terms I like, and I don't like, and I feel that like there are some very, there's a very small, small percentage of, you know, companies that actually make a very high quality ball. That's not an OEM. And even the OEM balls, like I feel like they're overrated, they're just hyped up. So
Speaker 3:That's my opinion. I mean, when you look at it, Titleist has been in the game so long. I use them as a new example just cause you know, they, they have the most history. But if you think about how they got to the price of where they're at of$50 dozen, they set the price, you know, they, they,
Speaker 2:Yeah. They came by the new ball, they get a hundred dollars and people go buy it. Like
Speaker 3:They, yeah. I mean, they, they created the premium of the golf ball market and you know, the title is pro V line could have been absolutely trash, but because of their longstanding history with things, they, they set the price and the market followed and it's, you know, it's as simple as that, of course they use premium materials, but it's at the end of the day. So do we week, you know, it's um, it's, it's all part of the, the name game. Um, and you know, first to market advantage,
Speaker 2:What I thought was really cool. I thought it was, it was a couple years ago when, um, like golf by like cut open all those balls from Countway and they're like, yo, these are not even center. And it was, was like, oh, like that was, that was crazy. That was crazy. Cuz you realize these are, I mean nothing, no, not against Callaway and mad props that Mike SBA. Cause they did it. It just like holy crap. Cause you don't realize that, like I'm not saying there's, you know, there's other ball brands out there that have the same problem, but no one's cutting open the ball. Right. Essentially. Yeah. So that was, that was massive.
Speaker 3:That was, and you know, I, the fact that my golf pie essentially forced Callaways hand without them ever saying that. I mean they tried to Sue my golf pie a few times, but they, uh, the fact that they forced Cowboys hand and putting 50 million into their ball factories, I mean, that's, that's pretty insane. It was a great move in the right direction for him. Um, I'll never be a cowboy guy, you know, even if I didn't have have my ball company, I, you know, I, I never really Well golf, but you know, I appreciate so the overall movement of the golf industry, you know, I appreciate the, the work that they, they put into it on their side,
Speaker 2:You have to yeah. Cause it's like a picture says, you know, what's what they say, a pictures worth a thousand words. Right? Like if you see a ball that's not centered, you're like yo and yeah, that's makes me wonder, like with the more cheap direct consumer companies, you know, I, I very loosely that word cheap. Um, let's say it's under 22 bucks. Um, like how good are those balls really? You know, are they just pretty or are they, I don't know. I have no idea, but um, I
Speaker 3:Mean the thing is with them, you're gonna find a, a batch of good ones. You're gonna find a batch of bad ones. Um,
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. I bet you guys, I mean, you guys tried to do all kinds of R and D and testing and you're like, oh man, what the hell? Cause you can't, I mean, are your balls made where your balls made here or in China? So they're, they're
Speaker 3:Made, they're made over in China. Uh, we, we rent out one of the old Nike factories that Nike used when they were in the industry. The good news on this side is we're working on bringing all of our manufacturing here to Fort worth in the next year and a half. So we will be the, the first
Speaker 2:A huge advantage made in the
Speaker 3:United States. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause now you have a whole, yeah, that's a massive advantage. Yeah. Not only for your supply chain, but like just for the only America made ball. I mean, come on.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, anybody's, you know, after seeing the, the supply chain crisis, that's anybody's dream to have their product made in America, knowing that the next time this happens because history always repeats itself. The next time this, you know, this crisis happens that we're gonna be it's it's still not fair. There's always a new one. Yeah. You know, no one's ever gonna solve everything, but
Speaker 2:So where would you make your balls at, in Texas?
Speaker 3:Where would we make them? Yeah. Yeah. We would make them, we would make them here in Fort worth is the goal. That'd be cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well it's like a lot of the shaft companies are now there's a lot of Shaf companies in Texas too. I know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Us UST UST is about 15 minutes away from us, uh, on the, on the east side of Fort worth. Um, and then we've got, we've got our friends over at Ben Hogan about 10 minutes south of us on the south side of Fort worth. And we're kind of just over here on the west side. So,
Speaker 2:So you come out, so you started your ball company in 19, right. Come out. And what model comes
Speaker 3:Out first? So the first model models right. Was, was the F 35 control. And that's our, our three piece, um, Ioni blend cover ball. Uh, and that has, you know, our proprietary Tritech cover, which, um, has some unique, you know, characteristics, I believe that's the one you were able to try out, um, you know, a few years back. Well, I first thought, yeah. Yeah. And, um, you know, that one specifically engineered for, you know, massive distance off the tee with very low spin. You know, we, we try to keep it right around 1900 to 2100 RPMs in a consistent range for most golfers. Um, and then the, the crazy portion about it is, is you see a low spinning ball. The driver will use assume it's gotta be low spinning the whole bag, but then you get to irons and it spins up the 7,500 on a seven iron, uh, which the biggest performance attributes with that is it's gonna help golfers get the ball in the air with their irons, not be hitting these little mini-golf shots through the fairways. Um, and it'll help'em stick greens. And, you know, the biggest problem with a lot of amateur golfers is, you know, not, not necessarily, you know, hitting the fairways, a lot of'em can do that or get very close to where they're just, they're not in a terrible spot, but, you know, it's when it gets down to their close game that they have trouble, they can't hit, you know, they can't hit the green or if they miss the green, they have trouble chipping so on and so forth. So we wanted to make sure that we gave them the best opportunity from the fairway. Um, you know, also gave the good feeling ball and one that can, you know, be bombed down the fairway. But that was our first one. And we, we released that one on January 1st, 2020. So we brought in, uh, what panned out to be an interesting year, uh, with, with a brand new ball in the, the first day of the year.
Speaker 2:Did you guys go to PGA show
Speaker 3:That year? No, we, we did not. Um, you know, we had talked about it and, you know, we, we just thought where we're sitting at right now, too early. It it's just, it's too early. You know, we had another ball that was, um, wrapping up an R and D and that our F 18 tour, our three piece urethane and, you know, my thought was, I don't wanna go until we have our urethane tour offering because that's the one that, whether the, whether golfers, you know, actually need it or not, that's the one they think they're gonna want. And, you know, I don't wanna show up without that. And, um, sure enough, you know, COVID happened that ball got delayed by a few months, didn't come out till, uh, I think roughly the end of March when it was supposed to be end of January. Uh, and so, you know, we, we, we said no to the, the PGA show that year. Um, and then we, we actually, haven't been, we haven't been to one yet. I mean, I've, I've been to some personally, but, um, we haven't as a company been to one. So we were thinking about going this year, but now, you know, there's been a lot of companies that have declined to go for whatever reason. And, you know, I, we kind of see that we have, have the ability to make a very big presence because the way we, we operate our company is kind of a hybrid DTC where we're hitting large, you know, large amounts of online sales. Um, but we're still, you know, still bringing in, you know, small retail and, and pro shops into play. Um, you know, there's just, there's not as much upside to going to the PGA show based on our current model. Um, you know, yes, we can, we could pick up a few, um, you know, wholesalers on that side. It, you know, we, we have a, a rep that covers the entire Southern half of Florida who does phenomenal, um, you know, Northeast out in California as well. So, you know, we've got people scattered across, across the United States that do their job great. And so, you know, it's, I feel we can better use our money than, than head on to the show and have a, you know, grand Ole booth.
Speaker 2:So are you gonna go this year or no,
Speaker 3:I'm hoping to go myself this year, uh, as a company not gonna move as a company. Probably not, but, but for myself, of course, I, I love to go and, uh, and scope things out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I know a lot of brands are not going like a lot, you know, it's kind of like, I've been like texting all my friends, asking like, Hey, you going, oh, we're not going, oh yeah, we're going, oh, you should go. You should go. So I don't even know what to do really. I mean, I don't get a booth or anything. I just go around and hang out and see my friends essentially, and right. Which is kind of cool because like, but I think the, a lot of the big OEMs aren't going, so it's kind of an advantage, especially, but I've talked to people and saying, who've gone, had a booth and said, I didn't get one sale from the booth. Right. Like, I've, I know tons of people have said that like tons and tons. So it's like almost, it's a misnomer for people to think that they go and they get a booth. I feel like, cause my dad did this a million years ago. Be shared a booth. Somebody that like you people feel like if they go to the PGA show, get a booth that they're gonna get a million. Right. And they're gonna, it's gonna launch their whole company. And that's just not the case
Speaker 3:Without the brand building on the other side. I mean, it's all the PGS show is, is a supportive role for whatever else you're doing. You know, if you're doing a terrible
Speaker 2:Job with it's part of an it's part of your Aquis essentially. And like, yeah, if you're doing a, if you don't have a budget, then don't go get a booth, like just go and hang and talk to people and, and set up meetings. And you know, that kind of thing. I mean, network
Speaker 3:Is super important. And I think that a lot of people can do a better job of it walking around themselves without a booth and, you know, meeting key people than they can sitting at a booth, waiting for people to come to them. I mean, unless you're putting on a spectacular show, you know, with fireworks indoors, you know, it's, it's not gonna go as well as everyone would like it to go. Um, it's a, a great tool to have once you're an established brand, um, you know, to get new people, seeing your stuff in person, if they haven't before or whatever it might be, but
Speaker 2:Touch it, feel it easy with
Speaker 3:The, with a small audience, there comes a bigger audience, but if you have no audience that you know is coming, you're gonna get a small one. So
Speaker 2:They made a really good point to me yesterday by they said, I don't sell my B my product to like professionals. Like they don't buy my product. Right. Like in like PGA professionals essentially. And I'm like my 20 years of business nurse sold at one time, like, and I was like, that's, that makes a lot of sense. You know? So I think, I don't know. I think it's gonna be good because I didn't, they didn't happen last year. And nobody, you know, they had a online one this year. That was
Speaker 3:That pretty much. It didn't exist in my mind.
Speaker 2:No. When I saw that, I'm like, if you think people gonna pay me on a zoom call for four days, you good luck with
Speaker 3:That. Yeah. No, thank you. The less I can look on my computer screen the better.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like, so I don't know. I'm probably gonna go like, I'm really like, I'm probably gonna go just to hang. Yeah. Um, and I mean, I made a lot of connections that year, but it wasn't like, it was, I already knew a lot of people, so it was really cool. It almost like a homecoming, cuz it was like finally seeing people I've talked to and hung out with like on, on the show or like yeah, we've worked together in the past. It was like, it's like, you already knew these people, you know, for sure.
Speaker 3:So you came all place all around the us once a year. You can, you can catch up with everybody. So
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did a lot of hanging out. That's what I did. Um, with beers. It was funny cuz like, I, I mean you, cause you walk around, you bump into people. Like I remember I was doing something like my buddy Brandon at Chipo like I, like I was walking, went to an event I was hanging while I was in event. It was dinner. Cause I'm really good friends with the guy choose links square. And we were hanging at top golf and I was leaving and then like Chipo was doing some, I didn't even know. Chipo what I mean. I kind of knew who they were, but they were like out while walking by and I was like talking to this random guy and I was like, oh, what do you do for Chipo? I was like, oh, I own the company. And I was like, oh. Really? Like that's like real. Yeah. And then like we became friends, like it's just so random like that. And like, or like my, you know, people would say like, oh you should go talk to so and so, so, and so's here. Just tell'em I sent you, you know, and just, I don't know. It's just fun for sure. I think it's a good advantage. I think if you go this year, it's a big advantage for smaller brands because the big ones are not gonna be there to hog up the show. Yeah. So you're gonna have a lot more like interaction and like quite honestly, I wasn't like hang out in the title as Callaway area. I could care less. Like I went to pictures and that was about it. You know, like that doesn't, I can read internet to find out what's coming out. Like I don't really need to talk to the rep. Um, but that was, I mean, that's kind of an advantage. I guess I also met a lot of YouTubers that I already knew that was kind of cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, that's always a fun time.
Speaker 2:So when you came out your first balls, what's the difference between F 35 and an F 18 F
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the F the F 18, uh, is our, our tour offering. It's our three piece urethane. Um, and pretty much the biggest difference between those two balls is just the cover. Um, the F 35 has a little bit more juice packed into it, just because of, you know, who we're targeting with that ball. Um, the F 18 has just a little bit more, ironically has a little bit more touch of, uh, control, um, as far as, you know, the, the flight of the ball, um, and, you know, just that very, very close chipping feel around the green. Um, but really the primary difference is, is just the cover, you know, versus our, our Tritech item cover or our cast thing cover.
Speaker 2:Um, which one do you like to
Speaker 3:Use? I personally, I use our F 18 tour. Um, I, my, one of my favorite things is throw shots into the green and rip'em back. And so that's, that's my favorite thing to do. And, uh, you know, that's one of the big reasons I play the F 18 is, is for the extra spin around the green. Awesome. Um, luckily my, you know, I, my entire bag is, is at the moment. Perfect. Um, title is no, actually my, my bag is a mix of artisan. I have, um, the guys who were at artisan are, are really close friends of mine. I actually, my house is about 30 seconds away from their facility. Um, so I, I found out with them quite a bit. Um, I actually have one of the, uh, Nike proto drivers, unreleased, number three of 10 in the world. Um, really just gave it to me. I said, Hey, my driver broke and, and Mike over ours, like, Hey, beer, take this one and grabs a brand new Nike head. And, uh, cuz they used to be the guys that, you know, at the Nike R D facility and uh, the oven. And so he's like, yeah, here, just take this one. Um, and he is, got a sticker on it. Number, number three of 10, you know, blacked out Nike vapor pro fly. And I'm like, I don't wanna hit this.
Speaker 2:Like I'm never gonna hit this club ever.
Speaker 3:I played, I played a few rounds with it though. And uh, I gotta, say's the most unforgiving driver I've ever hit in my life, but when I was hitting center face with it, um, the thing was pure. I mean, it was, it was competing. My, I have this Sy two in the bag, you know, as my, my main go-to driver, but it, that Nike, it competed with it, you know, on center face, you miss the center, face your luck, but um, oh really?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it's like when you use blades like you, if you blade irons, you know, and you're like, it's same thing. If you're not, I, this is how ignorant I was like, I have blades, I used to have blades and like, I didn't know the difference really. And I was like, man, I suck with these and my blades, like, cause you're doing blades, man. You're not even good enough to use those clubs. And I was like, seriously, oh, try this. Like whatever. And I got the ball straight down the freeway. I was like, what the hell?
Speaker 3:Seriously? Yeah. I, I grew up, it's funny. I'm kinda the opposite. I can't hit anything. That's not play. Um, the first set of clubs hit was the, uh, Mao, MP 30 twos. Um, and I played with those from 2006, um, up until last year. Wow. And uh, I mean there's, they're butter knives, you know, there's, there's no forgiveness packed into'em. Um, it was when they still included a three iron brand new in the set. Um, and it wasn't, you know, oh, the good old
Speaker 2:Days. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The lend last year, um, you know, over the past year and a half, I I've become great friends with the guys that for Ben Hogan. Um, so they hooked me up with a, with a set of their icon irons and I thought the MAOS were butter knives. No, these are butter knives. Um, but they're, you know, I, I, I tested on multiple sets of clubs, you know, it's not that I, I was just stubborn and wanted to stick with my Mao irons, but there was just nothing that felt that good. Um, and then, you know, I hit, I hit the, the icons and I said, Hey, this is good enough for me. I'm gonna roll with it. So this what's in my bag right now. And, um, you know, I, I love blades. I, you know, my hand has gotten numb a few times when I just hit a really bad shot, you know, slightly off toe or, or wherever. Um, but for the most part, you know, for, for me growing up, uh, playing with those, I don't know, it's, I think you're used to, it might be
Speaker 2:You're trained on'em so it's not like it's a, you don't see the difference. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, I, I look down at it. It's what I'm familiar with, what I'm comfortable with and I just roll with it. So until I'm, you know, in my fifties or sixties and my back just doesn't work anymore and I need that forgiveness. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ride the blade train as long as I can blade train.
Speaker 2:Um, so what's your plans for like next year? You guys gonna become UN parent new stuff? Or are you guys going to be focusing on what you already came out with or what's
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we, uh, we have a few things in the works. Um, I'll, I'll leave it, you know, until we make an official announcements of things, you know, we, we have, yeah.
Speaker 2:We have one new stuff coming in the work. So like new designs coming
Speaker 3:Out. Yeah. We have new things, you know, when everyone listens, we have, um, we have two new offerings coming, um, here in roughly two to three weeks. We'll call it. That's cool. It'll be a little bit earlier. Um, but that's some really exciting stuff that everyone's gonna love. Um, you know, so we're really excited for it on our end. Um, but then hopefully quarter end of quarter two, quarter three of 20, 22, we're hoping to bring out another, um, tours ball, um, or I, I won't give too many details on it, but yeah, if you enjoyed the F 18, you know, for anybody who's enjoyed the F 18, um, we're, we're taking another step up in it. Um, and it's, it's gonna be real big
Speaker 2:Question. Why do you name all your balls after fighter
Speaker 3:Jets? So originally, you know, it, wasn't named after fighter jets as hard as that is to believe. So, um, when this, and
Speaker 2:That's one we have is the F four, and then after that, we're gonna have the, I love fighter jets. I'm just joking around.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, no, I it's all, it's all good. Um,
Speaker 2:I just be a pilot. I, I, I though every fighter jet I probably ever made essentially. Wow. So I saw it, I'm like, oh, cool. I need it for fighter jet. It's nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So originally it, it wasn't even meant to be like that. Um, you know, when we were going through our initial startup stages, I mean like really like naming that early on. Um, originally we, we were gonna call ourselves aperture golf, like camera aperture. And so the whole play on everything would've been, you know, when you have your, a aperture settings in a camera, you have like F slash like 1.8 or oh yeah. By whatever. So we were just gonna turn that into kind of a fun play on things of like F 18 F 35 and, you know, have it as just kind of a condensed aperture camera setting. Um, and the whole idea of it was our, our focus is on your game, focuses an aperture, you know, everything played in together, but you know, we're going through the legal stages of things and, you know, we're filing our, our trademarks and everything and the us PTOs, like, Hey, you guys can't use this. And we're like, well, why is that? Like, we, we did our, we did our research, you know, we had our attorneys check everything what's wrong with it. And they're like, like, well, the retail company zoomies in, in most malls, uh, if you've ever been to one, it's kinda like a skate shop. Um, but they had a clothing line called aperture. And because we wanted also the exclusive rights to clothing on it, um, they wouldn't give it to us for anything, you know, not even balls or anything like that. So we said, well, you know what, screw it. I, I don't want that anymore. You know, in my mind it was tainted. I'm done. I'm not gonna fight for it.
Speaker 2:Now you got this weird, like, yeah, I totally get that.
Speaker 3:Um, I wanted, I wanted a fresh clean start with everything. And luckily, you know, that was, that was such, you know, so far in the beginning that it, it didn't matter, you know, didn't, you could afford to have a mistake like that happened. Um, but
Speaker 2:That's when we got little money was invested.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's, that's when we got to, you know, the name quantum, which is just a combination of quantum physics shoved into a cool word, um, which is, you know, came up with that on, uh, you know, taking the, the real ideals of golf. Golf is a game of physics. Quantum physics is your, you know, how everything works in the world. Um, so we, you know, we put those together and made a good time of bit, but
Speaker 2:I'm gonna ask a question too. I just beat me that question, bro. So how'd you come with qu?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Uh, but so with the ball names, you know, we, we did the whole renaming of the actual company got into quantics and then I'm like, you know, I don't wanna change the ball names. I just, I like them how they are, you know, when I first came up with them, they, they rolled off my tongue nicely. I liked how they sounded. And I said, you know what, for now we're gonna roll with it. So sure enough, you know, we, we kept that now. Obviously the lines will always change. They won't be here forever. Um, you know, as, as we progress as a company, we'll, you know, can continue to introduce, you know, more lineups and, and change names and, and whatnot. But, um, you know, for the next few years, at least, you know, we'll have the F 18 tour and F 35 control.
Speaker 2:Are you gonna keep the same naming convention or are you gonna change it up with your new versions? So
Speaker 3:I, I have, I have a few names in mind. Um,
Speaker 2:Paul's a good name
Speaker 3:Until we might just have to the Ian,
Speaker 2:The Ian 35, see, that's what I would call ball right there.
Speaker 3:We might just have to do something like that. But, uh, we, we have a few different Paul
Speaker 2:2.0,
Speaker 3:They follow the same line as, as the F series.
Speaker 2:Um, like my ball will be like a waffle ball. Like you practice ball, like, oh, we made a, a ball for you, Paul it's like, ay ball, it's crappy waffle balls. You hit in the backyard. I'm like, oh, thanks.
Speaker 3:In that case, mine will be the phone balls. Cause, uh, I, I like to spin wedges, so we'll get those phone ones that can, you know, do some good spinning and we'll call the five.
Speaker 2:So how much did you guys grow in two years? And you, you literally started like right? The
Speaker 3:Pandemic. Yeah, we, we went from, I mean, zero, zero. We went from nothing, no customers whatsoever. Uh, we had our first customer, uh, two and a half weeks
Speaker 2:After launch. I know it was your dad, dude. Don't, who's your second customer. It
Speaker 3:Wasn't, you know, funny enough, he's a, he's gotten his stuff for free. Um, I don't, I don't charge soccer.
Speaker 2:My dad gets stuff for free too. He just comes to my garage and takes it. Oh, we got anything new.
Speaker 3:Uh, so we, we have it, we had our first, you know, first person, uh, like, you know, two and a half weeks into January after we launched. Um, but you know, now, now we're up over, you know, 16,000 people, um, so far. And that's
Speaker 2:A lot, dude. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's two years. It's been insane. Um, and that's really only the metrics that we can track, you know, that's, that's online sales, you know, we have, uh, I think we're up to nine pro shops across the us now, you know, a handful here in DF to w um, Florida and then, you know, the Northeast corner. Um, so all I know is that they, you know, as far as our wholesale stuff goes, they, they hit their performance metrics up there of, you know, most of'em go between 20 and 40 dozen per ball per order. Um, you know, they, they sell through them and it, it works well, but I don't know how many customer they're serving. They could be serving one customer, you know, each who's just buying nuts
Speaker 2:To go away. Cause you're like, have no idea. I just know they bought 40 units or 50 units. But yeah, I mean, I'm not a pro at this, but I kind of feel like pro shops get a bad rap because like, I don't feel like because of internet sales now, like there's not many like sales reps, like going around to golf shops and like selling product. I know they say, oh yeah, there's guys still doing that. Yeah. But like how much? Cause when you go go to pro shop, they don't anything, you know, you go in there and it's like a dumb down version of going to like PJ Superstore, you know, it's like five things, you know, ugly shirts, the hazard logo of the golf course, like four putters, you know, and then a bunch of balls and tee
Speaker 3:And stuff like that. Yeah. It's really turned into, you know, a lot of people have the idea of like, well, I would rather go shop at a, a small place than go to a, you know, big box retail store and
Speaker 2:Buy online. I want
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And, and used to be, you know, it would be like, well, I wanna stay out of the pro shops cause I wanna support maybe a smaller one, but now it's the pro shops have become the smaller, you know, smaller animal in the food. They don't have
Speaker 2:Anything like a sell.
Speaker 3:It feels like, you know, first priority is, is, you know, your big box stores. And then everyone moves to, and, and you know, the, the way I saw it was well, pro shops are not ready to die yet. You know, there is, we'll never die until, until, you know, maybe our generation and the generation before us dies out. Maybe at that point in time, pro shops maybe come obsolete, who knows? I don't think they ever will. I
Speaker 2:Doubt it. They're on they're on site. Like, yeah. I they're, there's always gonna be something there selling the small stuff,
Speaker 3:You know, for sure. And so we wanted to make sure that we served them. Um, you know, we didn't wanna just go full online because there's, there's always people who just enjoy buying in person. And you know, they like picking the, you know, the head pros brain about the product in their shops. Um, the
Speaker 2:High pro don't really even know anymore. I doubt it. You know, that was one reason why I started this stuff. Cause I was like, you, you can't ask anybody anymore. The pro doesn't know, you know, like they ki and you go to the store, a big box retailer. Those guys don't know I got with the the other night. And it was like ghost town, man. They had nothing in there. It was like, it was like picked, it looked like picked over, you know what I mean? Yeah. And it was like old clubs, like old, like generation drivers. I'm like, why are you even selling these anymore? Why are you M four S like seriously, you know, it's like, and it's on the rack. And I was like, this is just weird. And if you don't know any better, you know, you just spend$400,$500 for old driver. You can buy online for half. Yeah. I mean, nothing can see on before. I like the four, it just to like, I just feel like, I mean, they a ton of balls and they had a ton of freaking apparel and hats, but that was about it. Everything else was just like crap. Yeah. I would never buy.
Speaker 3:It's usually all the, you know, the, the unwanted goods that are left over and then you get people come in, they buy those. Cause they don't don't know any better. And, um, you know, it is what it is. I dunno if you guys have academy sports where you're at. Um, but you know, we, we have like, it's pretty much the same as Dick sporting goods. It's just, um, you know, it's, it's just as big, you know, they celebr everything from, you know, guns, golf, basketball, weightlifting, training, apparel, all that, all that stuff. Um, but they're, they're big retail training. We have, you know, here throughout the, throughout the south. Um, but they, they did away with their golf section entirely. They used to carry so many clubs and they're like, yeah, we are just stopping, you know, we're, we're just not gonna do it anymore. Um, because we can never get anything in and you know, people just don't wanna come by here. And so I'm like, well, that's crazy. I was like, are you gonna keep golf balls? And they're like, yeah, well we'll keep golf balls. People still buy those. But like it, the inventory selection, I mean, even a Dick sporting goods is like mediocre at best.
Speaker 2:Do you guys have any plans to sell to big box retailers like a wholesale
Speaker 3:Deal? The only the only two, um, which I guess you could kind of consider one that I would be willing to is Dick sporting goods slash golf galaxy? Um, I have already said no on target, um, an absolute, no on Walmart. I I'm so target as far as a big store goes, target is my go-to right. But everyone goes target where I see, I hate Walmart. I hate Walmart with a passion, um, where, where I see our brand going, um, is, you know, it's just not in that direct and sure money is money, but at the end of the day, I would yeah. Rather say no to their money to build it. How, you know, how I envision, I see it going and, and where the market takes us. Um, but you know, they, they bully, they bully you, you know, when you get up to that, to that stage, they bully you. They make sure that they're eeking you out for every last penny, because you know, they are taking on the risk, obviously. Um, they
Speaker 2:All, but every retailer is not just, and so it's anybody who buys your stuff is taking on that risk if you're, you know, but there's a margin.
Speaker 3:Yeah. If your wholesale's at 15 and your bottom cost might be at 10, you better believe they're gonna be for nine. Yeah. Maybe not who, who knows, but you know, it's just, it's not something that I wanted to get into, you know, I, no, don't, I value, I value our brand higher than, you know, saying we're in target or we're in Walmart. It's, it's just not worth it to me. I believe we can do so much more good, you know, going directly to the consumers or, you know, at, at the very least through pro shops to the consumers, you know, working on a very tight basis where
Speaker 2:I would probably go like online, all the retailers online, they're in the golf niche. If I would go there first and then like, I wouldn't even spend my time personally on like a target or like, I mean, I love target, but like there's no way on Walmart. Um, and it's, if I had a product, I
Speaker 3:Would never Walmart in my opinion. And that's, that's where brands go to die. When you have absolutely nothing left,
Speaker 2:You might find like Bridgestone E five golf balls there it's like, those came out like six years ago. Those were like the bottom of barrel balls. I
Speaker 3:Mean, that's where you find like a, a bucket of 75, uh, terribly refurbished golf balls that people still buy for whatever reason. But you just, you don't see, you don't see Walmart being updated with the newest golf tech every year. I mean, it's stuff. That's your
Speaker 2:Ever it's only as balls still. They have the earth balls. Yeah. So it's, I'm now buy fishing equipment in from of them. That's not a problem, but
Speaker 3:I haven't been to a Walmart in years. I, I can't even,
Speaker 2:You know, you go Walmart time, dude. Um, so right now all your sales are coming from online, essentially. All of'em obvious would say like, what, 90% of your sales, 95% of your sales come from online? Not
Speaker 3:90% online I say is pretty accurate.
Speaker 2:So let me ask this question then how did you market, right. Because you're a new ball. Yeah. And you got a lot of, you got a lot of freaking buyers, dude. That's a lot of freaking like seriously. So like, how did you market it? What was your marketing method? Well,
Speaker 3:Without giving too much away of what we do, um, you know, we, we, the first thing we did was, you know, after we went through our R and D process on the balls internally, we sent them over to golf laboratories, our, our friends, um, over there we've, again, that's been someone that, that my family has personally known since the, you know, the family knows
Speaker 2:Everybody, Hogan
Speaker 3:Connections are everything. Um, well actually funny enough, one of our, one of our, uh, one of my, my dad's good friends, uh, Bobby Bragen he's passed away. Now. He was, uh, the neighbor across the street from Ben Hogan here in Fort worth. So there's a, you know, there's a little bit of with that, but that's, um, yeah, it, it was really neat. He was big in
Speaker 2:MLB. Your dad probably owns like Exxon or something. Oh, it just, it's Mr. Mr. Exxon mark. And,
Speaker 3:Um, gosh, I lost my train of thought here.
Speaker 2:Um, funny, you know, I'm funny. I should be a comedian. You're,
Speaker 3:You're great. Uh, this is the most fun I've had on a podcast for quite a bit. I'm not
Speaker 2:Gonna make it your eyes. One cares about the, no one cares about stupid stuff. Yeah. Seriously. We want, so you like running ads. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3:Sorry. Yeah. So we, you know, the first thing we did was, was we took'em out to, um, uh, I took golf laboratories and we had them tested, you know, we, we put all the top ones out there. We even brought, you know, Snell out there because they tested well in my golf pie. So, you know, we ordered a dozen, um, of each of their ball and we put'em out there. We sent'em and you know, the first thing we found out was, well, our two golf balls are, have the tightest dispersion out of the top five balls, you know, rated across the golf industry. Currently it has the tightest dispersion, and also the longest carry and longest role distance out of all of'em.
Speaker 2:And so is everybody else against the big time? The big boys? Yeah.
Speaker 3:And, uh, and so we, we, we took that and, you know, we said, okay, so now that we have this data, um, you know, we have all the raw swing data and everything, how can we use the store advantage? Um, so we kind of took the marketing approach of, you know, as cliche as it sounds like, Hey, you know, here's our test data. Um, you know, we're, we literally sent out the PDF printouts from golf laboratories because everyone, it seems everybody beats titles these days. Right. But they always put in these, these fancy charts, it's like, okay, but show me the raw data. No one that, but what we did was we said, here's the raw data, analyze it yourself, make your decision, we'll be here. And sure enough, you know, it was enough to get people going. And, um, and then in August of 2020, we had Rick shields. Uh, Rick shield, there you go there, you, you go, he bought it on his own. I didn't even reach out to him. He bought, he only, he
Speaker 2:Dude, that's what he does, bro. Yeah. He buys your own stuff. So do it bought you, get it from like your brand can send it to you, try it out. But like, it's different. Like, I don't know. You don't wanna be owned by somebody for sure. It shows, it shows the man. Yeah.
Speaker 3:He's, he's a great guy. Um, so you know, he, he bought, he bought product. Um, you know, at the very least we, we sent it out to him in two days. Uh, we, we got him on the Expedit overnight,
Speaker 2:Like paid for like, you know, normally
Speaker 3:About days we
Speaker 2:Send him, you like deliver it to his house. You're like me and here you go. Thanks a lot
Speaker 3:To, yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 2:We, we got one fact Ian's dad knows Rick shields too.
Speaker 3:Um, but you know, he did his review and then I believe it was like, I dunno, four or five days later, uh, the guys over at, at T XG in, uh, there you go. They, they reviewed both the balls and the, the F 35. Um, so Matt was hitting the, uh, the F 35 against the pro V one. Cause he's like, well, like this ball like feels really hot and he carries it 10 yards further over and over in the air than the pro V one. I mean, the ball speed was in two and a half miles an hour more. I mean like the, the proved to be what they were seeing on camera. And that was, I think that was really the big kicker of that, you know, for once a brand did not exaggerate of, of what it does. You know, we, we just, I like to think we have radical transparency. You know, what, what we see is what we're gonna give you if something happens and we do not like it, we're gonna change it before you even, yeah. You're
Speaker 2:Not gonna put on the market not and be like, I'm not gonna go
Speaker 3:Buy it. We're not gonna go bring out a new ball and say, light does this, this and that. Like, we're gonna guarantee you to get more distance or more spin. Like if, if the data is not there legitimately, we're sending it back to our R and D lab and we're gonna have our guys work on it until it's perfect. Which yeah, that puts us on your schedule compared to most golf brands. Because obviously as a smaller company, you know, when we have, you know, 40 some odd people, you know, they have hundreds working on these things, but you know, it takes us longer to do things, but we do it right. And that's the biggest thing I see is that we do it right. The, you know, even if it's not the first time, um, it's the first time when it's released to the public, that it is right.
Speaker 2:You're not gonna bring something to market. We won't bring something market something you don't believe in. We're not hundred percent opposite of like everybody else.
Speaker 3:You know, if we're not a hundred percent on board with it as, as a company entirely, you know, there's one piece of, of the, the ball puzzle that we're not confident in. Um, it goes back to R and D until it's right. And
Speaker 2:Once gives you the flexibility, because you're a small brand making a quality product. Now, if you're a Titleist, you'd probably be like, oh, we need to make these now anyways as
Speaker 3:Well. I mean, everybody fits to a schedule. It's, you know, every January on the dot same, same time, new release, new release, new release. And it's like, okay, like we know it's coming every year. We'd like to keep people on our toes. You know, when we have something good, we're not gonna hold off until a special time in the year. Like, oh, it's,
Speaker 2:Father's day let's release it. Or
Speaker 3:We had something in March and it was ready to go in March. I don't care if it's like March 3rd, you know, just a random day, like, Hey, it's ready. It's, it's out. You know, we'll give it a few weeks to get marketing in order. But once, once something is ready, we on the site,
Speaker 2:It's
Speaker 3:The basic, you know, internal workings. But you know, as soon as do you guys
Speaker 2:Let ask the question, do you guys run Facebook ads or any of that stuff or Google?
Speaker 3:We do. Yeah. We, we, um, we're actually not running anything right now, as we have the new release I'm mentioning, um, of things
Speaker 2:And you have like it super expensive right now to run ads. Yeah. So
Speaker 3:We're, we're not running anything at the moment. We're just relying on our good old email list to get us through and sure enough, they always come through. So
Speaker 2:Especially if it's like, you give a good holiday sale, they're like, oh, sweet. I can
Speaker 3:Stop. Yeah. You know, luckily we were able to ride the black Friday train a little bit. Um, we had a great black Friday and we're carrying some of those things over. Um,
Speaker 2:What did you learn from it?
Speaker 3:Um, sorry. What was that?
Speaker 2:The things you've learned from the black Friday thing too, you, I, I feel like every time you run a black Friday campaign, you learn a lot. You do learn a lot about what people really wanna be pay for products. You
Speaker 3:Know, like we, we changed some things up. So last year we did a buy. We did a buy four, get one free, no, sorry, buy three, get one free on balls. Last year, this year, we decided to take a twist of just dropping the prices extreme. I mean, where you're instead of paying$33. Okay. Same instead of paying$33 a dozen for, um, the F 18 tour, you were paying$26 a dozen. So we decided to take that approach this year. It worked out phenomenally. You know, we also had structured tier gifts where you spend 75, you're gonna get something, um, you know, you spend 125, we're gonna give you a tower, spend 200, you know, you're gonna get a whole extra, a dozen towel and everything else combined. So, you know, we, we try to incentivize to spend more per purchase. Um, we had a lot of bag sales, which put people instantly, you know,$180 in their cart. You know, they add balls to that. It's, you know, it's great. But, um, you do, you learn a lot every, you know, every single year, you also
Speaker 2:Also learn like what not to spend time on like, oh, I feel like a lot of brands are good at one thing. And then they try to diversify themselves, sell a bunch of Choki with the one thing. Yeah. And it's like, now you're spending time trying to be a Choki seller, you know, like tees balls, not balls with tees and gloves, whatever it might be. Right. And then it's like, yeah, people are not, it's an upsell, but like, do you really need the upsell because they're there to buy your product. For sure. It's like this weird, and it's not good or bad. It's just the hard, it's hard because you know, in the mind of the buyers, they're like, well, why do I need to buy that for her? You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And that's the number, the number one thing that people have always asked me, you know, since we've been in, in business is, well, are you guys only gonna stick to golf balls? Are you ever gonna do clubs or shafts or anything like that? And I said, no, no, we're, we're, we're not. I mean, until we get to a point where we're just dominating the golf ball game, we're not gonna do that
Speaker 2:Because you've already seen that and I'm not gonna name brands, but they got good. Like, I, I know at least five off the top of my head who are good at the one thing. And then they try to diversify themselves into like other things. And it's like, you can't just be a store, dude. You can't just be like, oh, we sell all this with our branded stuff on it. Because like, look, you're only known for this one little old thing. Like that's people to come to your website for. They always
Speaker 3:Say, you know, pigs, get that hogs get slaughtered. And that's the way I see it is, you know, you can be a pig, all you want. And you know, you, you can make sure that you're, you know, you're one product line or, you know, couple product lines. You gotta have a core,
Speaker 2:Your
Speaker 3:Core. Yeah. And if you do that really well, like you're just gonna be a fat and pig and it's gonna be okay because you do your thing really well. But the, the second that you get to me and you say, well, we were so successful in the ball space. We're gonna enter into the driver's. We wanna bags. Well, now, now all of a sudden, you know, you just, you just split your path into, and you know, your time, your time, your money, and now you're
Speaker 2:Chasing money. Like, oh, well, we bought these for this much and here's our margin and nobody's buying'em shocker. And so then it's like, okay, what do we do? Do we liquidate? Or do we like, yeah. Yeah. And it's like this compounding, right? The more products you have, the more stuff nobody cares about. It's more just chasing to get your money back, essentially.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And if we, you know, if we ever do branch out to anything besides golf balls, you know, it's, it's not gonna be something that, that we're developing. I mean, I would, I'd much rather go buy, buy another company. You
Speaker 2:Should do a collab. Like that's what most brands should just do. If they want to do a bag, you should do a collaboration with the bag company. Like I, the best advice they'd ever been given is like, from a big brand, they said we only collaborate with people that are really good. The one thing they're really good at
Speaker 3:Thats what on our, because I didn't, I didn't, you know, exactly as we've been saying, I wanna out the money to, you know, have our own stuff, maybe
Speaker 2:Sell a bag. Like,
Speaker 3:So I was like, well, let's collaborate with sun mountain. You know, I've got good contacts over there that I've developed, you know, over the past six months. And so I was like, well, let's, let's go, you know, approach them, you know, see if we can do something. Sure enough. They were super happy to do it. And they're like, yeah, like we're, you know, we're all in on this. So we, you know, we just did a collaboration on, on, you know, three different bag designs. And that, that was it. I mean, it was as easy as that, you know, we had very little overhead to cover on that. Our liabilities were down extremely and, um, people got their bags and they already had the reputable name of sun mountain. So it's like, well, it's not like know through sun,
Speaker 2:Mountain China, no name brand bad. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly. They knew they had the quality of sun mountain. They could trust the name because it's been around for so long. But then they also got, you know, their favorite golf ball brand on the, so it's like a win-win right.
Speaker 2:No, that's well, cool, man. I'm glad that we finally got to be on the show together. We should do it again. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I've got, um, I've got a special, special package. That'll be coming out to you here probably before Christmas. So I, I wanna make sure you're on the lookout for it is
Speaker 2:The Rick Sheila's package. Are you gonna come to my house?
Speaker 3:You know, it's gonna be better than Rick she's package, so
Speaker 2:Well, cool. You guys need to check out quantics they make some really good balls like for reals and the price point is like spot on. So it's not like you're getting like jacked around. You're not, you're getting a high quality ball for a very fair price. And as you can see Ian, like they know what they're doing and they have like a clear objective and they really wanna make you guys get better. So you guys need to check out qu what's your guys email address, uh, your, your
Speaker 3:URL, sorry, our URL. Yeah. It's www.qugolf.com. Um, you search qu golf on Google. Like you're gonna find it no matter what it's, it's, nothing's close to it, but qu golf.com. Anyone will find it. Um, you know, for everybody listening. Um, I also want to give you guys a chance to have a discount on things. So if you're listening, use the code, get 10 and we'll take 10% off your first order. Pretty much that'll cover you free two day shipping. If you wanna look at it that way, it all works out the same, but we wanna make sure you guys give it a try. And, uh, we have a money back guarantee policy. You know, if you hit it, if you hit one ball and you don't like it, send the other 11 back and we'll refund you for the 11, uh, we wanna make sure that you guys like what you hit. So,
Speaker 2:Wow. That's really cool. Well, that's awesome. Well, thanks again for being on the show. And if you guys, you know, have any questions, just you can email Ian, you probably can find email on the website, probably,
Speaker 3:Um, email sales@quantecgolf.com will have people. We have great people. That'll take care of you.
Speaker 2:You know, the big team, man. He is 40 people on his team. He said
Speaker 3:Occasionally, and most of those are, are in our factory. Um, we, we have about 11 it's like 39 in the factory. So we, we have, we have about 11 of those state side here. I'm just kidding around. That's so cool. Um, but yeah, we, we have, we have great people take of everyone. Um, you know, I, I love everyone on my team. Uh, couldn't ask for better people. So anything you guys need listening, we'll take care of you. You can guarantee that so well, great. Well, thanks for being on the show and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the golf brand podcast, you're gonna beat me a golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win, stay out of the beach and see you on the green.