In this week's episode Paul interviews Lashan Wanigatunga the CEO of Two Guys with Balls. Pretty much the best name for a company. Based in Wisconsin, Lashan created Two Guys With Balls out of his passion for golf, and he lost a lot of golf balls. He believes that everybody should be able to enjoy this great game without having to worry about the $4 you just shanked into the woods.
He knew there had to be a better way! A better way that was easier than endless practice sessions of trying to perfect that golf swing. Yes, practice so you hit that fairway every time, but that won’t happen overnight (or ever for some of us). A better way, that doesn’t include fishing for lost balls in the woods (leave that to us).
In this week's episode Paul interviews Lashan Wanigatunga the CEO of Two Guys with Balls. Pretty much the best name for a company. Based in Wisconsin, Lashan created Two Guys With Balls out of his passion for golf, and he lost a lot of golf balls. He believes that everybody should be able to enjoy this great game without having to worry about the $4 you just shanked into the woods.
He knew there had to be a better way! A better way that was easier than endless practice sessions of trying to perfect that golf swing. Yes, practice so you hit that fairway every time, but that won’t happen overnight (or ever for some of us). A better way, that doesn’t include fishing for lost balls in the woods (leave that to us).
Today we play golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My
Speaker 2:Friends were the golf clubs . I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving
Speaker 1:Range from Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round you play in to fun , from on and off the green. Why would you play golf? If you don't play it for money, just lemme put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert .
Speaker 3:What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I have my good friend LaShon Juan TGA from Two Guys with Balls. I honestly think this is the best name of any company I've ever heard of in my entire life. Um, I have known LaShon probably for about four years. Been the lot stuff together. He's a great guy and I'm really happy to have him the show finally. So welcome to the show. Thanks,
Speaker 4:Paul. Happy to be here.
Speaker 3:Where are you located at?
Speaker 4:I'm in Wisconsin. I'm located , uh, just a bit north of , uh, of Milwaukee. I'm about 40 minutes out of , uh, whistling Straits.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow. So you're really close whistling Straits . Have you ever played there before?
Speaker 4:No, no. I, I've been there. I've , uh, I've played black wolf , but not whistling sweats yet. Uh , so that's, that's on my maybe ,
Speaker 3:Maybe the summer. I usually do the summer.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my, my golf game doesn't do justice to playing a course like whistling sweats , but I'm gonna do it because how often can you say that you walk the same queens as , uh, some of the PGA pros?
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally . It's like , um, yeah, I'd never play whistling straights. I would love to play there. Actually. It's on my bucket list. So are you a golf pro or like, are you just normal
Speaker 4:<laugh> ? I'm , I'm probably the furthest thing you'll find from a , from a golf pro. I'm , uh, I'm probably a average weekend hack. I, I started playing golf , uh, in my, I I really started playing golf in my, let's say, mid thirties. So , uh, I, I didn't play golf when I was , uh, younger. I , I tried it when I was in my twenties. Didn't , uh, uh, for for whatever reason I wasn't really interested in , in it, but no, I'm , uh, I'm just your average golfer who goes out on, on the weekends.
Speaker 3:So, do you know what your handicap is or, no,
Speaker 4:I, I do. Uh , it's, I'll
Speaker 3:Say mine mine's, mine's 16 right now, but I was at 20, like at the end of last summer. So, and I'm a lucky 16, let's put it that way. I'm more of like, probably a lot higher than that, that way . I , but
Speaker 4:I'm probably like a 25. I think
Speaker 3:That's okay. That's where I was last summer. I think this is the thing about handicap, like really it's all about you and how much you play and how much you practice, really. It's all it comes down to. If you want to get it down, you gotta play in practice a lot. There's no magic bullet just to mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah. I played , I played a tournament this weekend with True Link Square , and the guys are in my group are all like sixes and eights and stuff, and then I'm a 16, so it's like, right . You could tell a big difference between a six and a 16, let's put it that way. Oh , yeah . Yeah . Like , they're way more consistent and they don't miss stupid putts and they don't have the ball in the desert. But <laugh> I did a lot. Oh my God, I could tell this story. So I've never ever, ever, ever seen a rattlesnake before in my life on a golf course in Arizona, there's like, we have a lot of desert courses, and I finally saw one this weekend. It was crazy. They're like a big rubber. It was like a rubber hose. And I'm like, what is that? And it was on the green, and I was like, coming around. Oh, wow . I looked down and it's this big rattlesnake, and I'm like, what the f And I was like, that a rattlesnake. There's no way a rattlesnakes. So I went , so I parked and then I told the guy that I was playing , I'm like , I think I just saw a rattlesnake. And they all ran over to go look at it . Sure enough, there was a rattlesnake. I was like, what the f because like, you're looking for a ball a time in the desert. And I'm like, I , I never really thought they'd really be, I know there'd be snakes out there, but I didn't think there would be snakes out there. So it was crazy.
Speaker 4:Crazy . Oh , yeah, you gotta watch out for those.
Speaker 3:It makes y'all paranoid when you go look for your ball. You're like looking around the bushes, like making sure nothing's hiding in there and stuff. When did you grow up in Wisconsin? Or did you grow up somewhere
Speaker 4:Else? Uh , no, I'm originally from Sri Lanka. Uh , it's a Oh , cool. Little island in the , in the Indian Ocean, just south of India. So that's where I, I I grew up most of until when pretty much , uh, I , I left Sri Lanka in 2005. Uh , so I, I , I went to, I lived in Malaysia for a while , uh, traveled around Southeast Asia, and then I came, I came to the US in 2008.
Speaker 3:So what, so what is your background? Like, what do you do? What was like, what was like your education?
Speaker 4:Uh , golf , my background? Yeah. No, no, certainly not golf. My, my background is in it , uh, so Oh, wow. A bunch of different stuff in it. Uh , uh, stuff . My first job was designing websites and doing graphics, and then I went into , um, uh, IT consulting, which is basically implementing these large enterprise systems for fairly large, you know, multi-billion dollar public companies. And that's what, you know, brought me to, took me to Malaysia and , um, and brought me to the US eventually. Yeah. But that's pretty much what I've been doing. Uh , so education wise , I, I have a degree in it and I have a MBM and , and stuff like that, but basically it, it management, project management systems , um, uh, you know, websites and e-commerce that, that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:So that's really cool. Like, let's, what I love about this show is that like, no one's brought up in this world, right? Like , no one's brought up in the golf industry. Like, at least the people I work with, it's like, we all have different backgrounds, different things we do already, you know, and it shows you that like, as long as you have a passion for what you're trying to do, like you can do it, right. You can build a company around it from scratch. So did you, so when you moved from Malaysia, did you move back to Wisconsin or did you move somewhere else
Speaker 4:To a few places? So I first came to Georgia, Atlanta area. I was there for a few months. Then, then I moved to California for around a year , Southern California, back to , uh, back to Atlanta after that. And , uh, then Wisconsin. I've been in Wisconsin since for around 10 years. Uh , when I, when I first You like
Speaker 3:Wisconsin?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Wisconsin is a great place to be for , for golf , surprisingly. The o only thing I don't like in Wisconsin is the winter. If , uh, if the winter wasn't there, I would say this is a , uh, good, good part of the country to live in.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's the only downside of Wisconsin. It's like Chicago. I mean, you guys get more snow than Chicago, I think though. Milwaukee does , or that area.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. We, we get a decent amount of snow all the , all the last couple of years. It hasn't been , uh, it hasn't been too bad. Uh , we've been getting, but
Speaker 3:It's good . So how long is the golf season there? It's pretty short, right? It's like what? May, may-ish.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah, you can , you can kind of start towards the end of April. It's, it's still a bit cold. It'll be in the forties and fifties, but if the sun is out, you can go, the golf courses start opening up , uh, early to midday . Well , and then it goes on till September, October. Sometimes the weather, weather cooperates. I've actually played like a week before Thanksgiving , uh, a few times. Uh , but the core golf season , I would say is May to September. I , I , I played golf when it was 33 degrees outside. It's not , uh, it's not recommended. It's not , uh, it's not pleasant. So
Speaker 3:I remember playing golf once in Illinois with my dad, and they had like, they call it winter rules, and the hole was like super big, like super big. It was like a basketball could fit in it. Did they , did they do that in Wisconsin or that just , was that just like an Illinois thing?
Speaker 4:Uh , no, I don't think it's a , it's a thing here. Uh , there was, I saw a video once of somebody playing Snow Golf, which is in the snow, but I , I don't think , uh, I don't see how that , uh, how that would catch on .
Speaker 3:Okay . When did you come up with the idea for two guys with balls?
Speaker 4:Uh, so we, we first started around , uh, 2017 , uh, when , uh, you know, 27, yeah, yeah. Beginning of 2017 is when we launched the website. I would say we , we really started getting some traction around 2019. Around the summer of 2019. Uh, things started , um, moving for us . Our website started banking. We started , uh, getting some , uh, golf outlets. Bloggers started picking us up. Uh, and then, you know, 2020 we ran into Covid and all the complications around , uh, COVID and the disruptions that caused. But really since 2019, things have , uh, taken off pretty well for us .
Speaker 3:So when you, when when two guys with golf ball, or when Two Guys Ball started, like what prompted you to get into that industry? Like use balls? I mean ,
Speaker 4:Yeah. Good, good, good question. So , uh, people selling golf balls online, that's been happening for the past 20 years or so. Um, you know, you , you get a lot of , uh, retailers out there who sell golf balls online. When , when we looked at the options out there, it was, it was pretty confusing for one, the websites weren't easy to navigate. You had to really dig around to find what you want when you found the ball you want. It was very unclear what you were getting. Uh, we, we also looked at online reviews of , uh, used golf balls, and we found that , uh, there isn't , uh, any consistency to quality around , uh, the golf balls that are sold there. So what we, we thought we could do things a little bit better, right? We can have a website, which is easy to navigate, where you just go in, pick the ball, you want, check out , and, and then you're done. Uh , but more than that, we wanted to make sure that when you buy balls from us, if you order, if you have a certain brand of ball that you pay, play , uh, every time you order, you get the same ball. You, you pick a quality grade and you consistently get the same ball every time you order. I, I think what , uh, turns people off combine used golf balls is it's always a hit or miss , right? You go online, you do a Google search for probably one used golf balls, you buy the ball. Sometimes you may get a good ball, sometimes you may not. Uh, quality is all over the place, and I, I think people don't want to deal with the inconvenience of potentially getting a bad batch of balls and not being able to play them. And then you gotta go pay for guys at , uh, you know, at your local sporting good store at the golf course. So we, we just wanted to take all those inconveniences out of the equation, because in general, I think everybody should play used golf course . There's no reason for anybody to pay if you're not playing on the PGA Tour, or if you're not playing competitive golf, there's really no good reason for you to pay $55 a dozen for , uh, for Kobe ones , just as an example. Uh , but what turns people off is just , um, lack of consistency, lack of customer service when , when , when buying online.
Speaker 3:So I mean, back in 17, who was the biggest competitor? Like, was it lost golf balls.com or something? Is that the biggest one? Yeah,
Speaker 4:Yeah. There's a few Lost Golf Balls is by father , uh, market leader in , in this past ,
Speaker 3:I never really bought, no , I have gotten your used balls before multiple times, and they are great balls. Um, I'm gonna say it straight away . Um, but I've never ordered from like lost golf balls or anything like that. But I think you made a a good point where like, I mean, honestly, you know, a , a cheap box of balls that are not like super high end start at 20 bucks, right? Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I mean, it really , um, and then you go up to like, what, 50, $60 for a box of balls mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:<affirmative>.
Speaker 3:Which is crazy because if you lose one, I mean , you do the math on that, it's like, that's a lot of money every time . Lose a ball, it's a lot of money, and you already spend a lot of money to like, play and whatever else you're trying to do with your game. So, I mean, you know, it's a good point that like, there is a big market for used golf balls, and especially like, I mean, knowing what it costs to buy a a brand new box is just, it's just crazy.
Speaker 4:Yeah , absolutely. And , and as a golfer, what you don't want to do is, let's say you are teeing off on a pathway and you have the water in front of you. Uh, you , you don't want to be worrying about that $4 ball. That's not what you should, what should be on , on your mind, right? Uh, and as you know, we are golfers. We know how much the mind plays twix on you when it , when it comes to, when it comes to golf. So we , we just wanted to take as much as possible the cost factor out of the equation. Especially if you are a mid handicapper or high handicapper like myself, you, you , you will lose a lot of balls. There's really no sense in playing paying full price to pay , uh, to , to buy new golf balls. I
Speaker 3:Mean , so you have the idea to let , let's do this, right? So what's the first step by these balls, I'm assuming? I mean, I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker 4:Uh , yeah. So when , when we first started out, we were getting balls from , uh, individuals who had , uh, a number of different balls. Uh, we had landscapers in of golf courses who collected balls as they maintained the grounds. Uh, we got a few thousand balls, but as we got bigger, we , uh, we started looking for suppliers, wholesalers of , uh, golf balls. And that's, that's where we get most of our balls from , uh, now because we in a , in a single order .
Speaker 3:Yeah. Where it's like you gotta have the supply, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Because it , it doesn't make sense for us to get like a thousand balls here , 2000 balls here from , uh, from individual sellers. Uh, but we, we mainly work with , uh, wholesalers who have agreements with golf courses and divers and, and landscapers. They have a fairly wide network. Uh, they do a lot of the , uh, let's say pre-processing and, and, and cleaning and sanitizing of the balls. Uh, we get them, we sort them by model and by quality. And, and it's online for you to buy buy retail one . One of the things that we try to do is to make sure that we have used balls , uh, we have all the current models of balls out there on our website. So if you pay the play the cov one or the TB five x or the velocity, or the Chrome Soft X Ls triple track , we wanna make sure that those balls are online. Uh , even smaller
Speaker 3:Mp , right? Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Y yeah. And we, I I , I think we have one of the wider selection of balls on online. So any golfer going on our website should be able to find their ball or the ball that they play on a regular basis.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of balls out there. I mean, a lot of brands. So how , like , how many brands do you guys carry?
Speaker 4:Like everybody? Yeah, pretty much everybody , uh, in including , uh, like some of the smaller brands like Weis , onco s now , well , they , they , they used to be small sometime ago, but those brands have , uh, grown in popularity. But you have a lot of brands out there.
Speaker 3:There's wholesale markets out there for, for, for balls. And then the key is to find those wholesalers, right? And then you buy 'em in bulk, I'm assuming. Yeah. So do they, do they, when you say like they do the , the preliminary stuff, some , like they would what preliminary clean 'em and, and , uh, but they don't grade 'em or anything, do they when you buy 'em or, or you have to grade 'em once you get 'em?
Speaker 4:Uh, it, it depends on the supplier . Most of the time it, it'll be , uh, it'll be graded where they take out the really bad quality balls, but we still need to grade them into , uh, our, our higher
Speaker 3:Scale , your own personal hierarchy, right? Like
Speaker 4:Where it falls ? Yes. Yeah . So for example, we call, we have three quality levels, right? Ego is the, you know, the best of the best, the closest you can get to a new,
Speaker 3:What characteristics are an eagle like in when you, when you grade that ball?
Speaker 4:Uh , so with the eagle ball, we, it's pretty much a new ball right there . There may be the smallest stuff , uh, scuffs, which will probably cover no more than a single dimple in the golf ball. So if you take a ball, it , it's essentially new ball . Somebody probably , it
Speaker 3:Got hit like one time into a lake and it might have a scuffle on it. Yeah . Or it got hit some bushes or something.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly. It's probably hit a couple of times. Somebody took the new ball out of the, out of the sleeve, teed off straight into the water hazard. It was Ved a few weeks later. That's probably the ball that you're getting.
Speaker 3:I don't know anything about balls. I mean, this kind of stuff. So I think this , this is really fascinating. So like, does the wholesaler already give you a price of that style of ball? Like that ball is like , oh, they know this is a really good ball, so it costs more money. Or you're just like, you know , I'm buying like 10,000 balls that are not. Like , how does that, like , what's, how do , like how do they, how do you buy it? Does that make sense?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So most wholesalers will se separate the provi ones , right? Uh , and if you look at,
Speaker 3:Of course, right? Cause that's like the big dollar one,
Speaker 4:Right? Right. So, so I buy the prob one separately and, and then the next categorization would be the, the tour level. You got 10 covered premium balls. So that's the TP fives , chrome soft Bridgestone B series. And then you get the next , uh, next year of balls, which is more of the two pace distance balls, like tight list velocity, the ,
Speaker 3:The C average balls or whatever, right? Like a, the B level, the C level, the D level, right? I'm assuming, right .
Speaker 4:Or there's
Speaker 3:A C level at that point, everybody else.
Speaker 4:Yeah, pretty much. So those are you , you get the proby ones, then you get the tour , let's call it the tour category of you get then cover golf balls. The balls that, that typically self , uh, 45 to $50 a dozen.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And, and then you get the next level which sells . And we have gone 20 to 30, $30 a dozen.
Speaker 3:So you get, so you get your , so you have to order the balls from them of that category, right? Whatever those are. And then you take them in, and then you have to, now you guys personally have to go through to the balls and then give them another ranking depending on where it falls within your criteria, which is a much, probably a much higher criteria, because not based by brand, it's based by con real condition, right?
Speaker 4:Yes. Yeah . Yeah. It's based on real condition. And we have, I , I would say we have a more stringent grading scale than most of the resellers .
Speaker 3:Yeah , I would assume so. Yeah, because you're brand too, right? So you wanna stand behind that ball. It's not just like, oh yeah, it's a good ball. And then found out it's not. So then you have Eagle, which is like a printed brand new ball. It was barely ever hit. Right? And then what's the next level down?
Speaker 4:Uh , the next level is the verde grid . So that , that'll have some , uh, imperfections, some minus cuffs. But the, but the main thing for the verde grid is it may not look as good as an ego , but it'll, it should perform almost the same as a new golf ball. So for somebody like me, you know , meet to high handicapper playing a birdie ball, I will notice absolutely no difference in performance. Yeah . Look like a ball
Speaker 3:Already , right? Like, oh, it's a , you know, you've already used that ball before. You didn't lose it . You're still gonna play it. Cause you're not fancy and you don't wanna , you don't
Speaker 4:Care. One of the misconceptions out there, Paul, is that for a , for a golf ball to lose performance or there , there has to be a lot of damage for the performance of a golf ball to get impacted, the ball flight , all of that. If there is a big cut or a huge SC that covers most of the ball , uh, that'll impact performance. But it, you know, for the modern golf ball, it takes a lot to damage that ball to a point where the average , let's, let me say the average golfer will notice a difference.
Speaker 3:Now , I saw this test a long time ago. I don't know if it's true or not . It was a test where like, people can take the golf ball that's been in water or something, and then it can like float or something with salt water. What is that? Have you ever seen that test before where people like , is that? Or what is that?
Speaker 4:Uh, yeah, yeah, it is. Maybe . So, yeah. So, so what happens to a golf ball is if you, if you hit it into the water, as long as there is no damage to the cover, that that ball can last in the water for years. You, you take it out , you clean it, and , and it'll be fine if
Speaker 3:They , yeah. I mean, right. It shouldn't , it shouldn't go through the whole cover of the ball and like soak inside the ball. The ball's like hard as a rock, right? Like, yeah,
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Especially the , uh, the , the two piece distance balls, they last even longer. So probably one would , so let's say you took a brand , probably one teed off went into the water. It , it'll be fine. It , it'll last for years. Once you clean it up , uh, o over time it may get discolored, but that's purely cosmetic. It'll not impact the performance of the ball at all. Uh, the , the problems come in when, when there's some damage to the cover , uh, moisture goes in , uh, then , then , uh, you know, then the performance is impacted. But if you get a ball like that, you can pretty easily tell when you, when you touch the ball, you hit it.
Speaker 3:Right?
Speaker 4:Even before you hit it. When you look at the ball, you can tell, okay, there is something, something wrong with this ball. It looks off , uh, it, it might even feel a little bit bigger. It may be a bit softer than your average ball. So it's not too difficult to tell if a ball is ball is good or bad.
Speaker 3:But is that something the wholesaler has to do when they first get it though? They admit a determination, you would assume?
Speaker 4:No, not, not really. We do it, what they do is they, they exclude most of the obvious issues with golf ball. So anything that has a big gash or a cut on it, they'll,
Speaker 3:Or different color. Now it's white, now it's yellow instead of being white or something. Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. That sort of stuff. E even the discoloration, we , it goes into our lower quality grids because just because a ball is discolored doesn't necessarily mean it'll perform badly. Um, some, some balls discolor a bit more than , uh, than others just because of the formulation that the manufacturer used for the rein cover. So, for example, the tight is tour speed that, that ball just, you , you just keep it outside for , for a few weeks. It'll, it'll turn, it'll turn yellow, but the ball is perfect, really fine . It's just, just looks bad.
Speaker 3:Like my old Nintendo, like my old Super Nintendo, it turned yellow <laugh> Yeah . Superintendent . But my Nintendo turned yellow. Um , they
Speaker 4:Probably use the same material for the cover . So
Speaker 3:They probably did, they probably melted down a bunch of old Nintendos and use it for the cover on that ball.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, so then what's the third tier you have?
Speaker 4:The third tier we call the power grid . Uh , that , that will have noticeable blemishes , imperfections. Uh, if you are , uh, let's say a low to mid handicapper, we recommend you don't use it. If you, you want to practice Yeah. That the power , power balls work fine. But if you're a high handicap or beginner , uh, starting out, you use the power grid because you'll, you'll spend a lot less money and chances are you, you will lose the ball before it starts Yeah . To degrade in performance. If you're, if you're just starting out , that ball is not gonna last nine holes or 10 holes.
Speaker 3:Really. Oh ,
Speaker 4:That's why . Yeah . You're gonna lose . You
Speaker 3:Lose , it's gonna go to the lake , it's gonna go in the forest gonna the desert. You're just gonna grab another ball. What do you sell the most of, of those three tiers? Like what's the most popular?
Speaker 4:Um , the Eagles pretty much, most people buy the Eagles. Uh, part of the reason is also we have more of the eagle grids in stock, but most people buy the eagles because
Speaker 3:How much of a price difference is an Eagle Pro V one versus an e brand new Pro V one?
Speaker 4:Um , so the Pro V ones , the 2023 model of the Pro V one for the first time titles increased the price from $50 to 55. We, we sell the 2021 for , uh, $33 a dozen. Most of the time you could find like 10% off or some of those discount codes . So, so you might, you, you'll probably end up paying around $30 a dozen versus 55 for the new one. Now, if you want to play the 2019 version or the 2019 model of the Pro V one , uh, then that's even less. It's like 26 or $27.
Speaker 3:That's for a dozen. Yeah ,
Speaker 4:That's
Speaker 3:Of the eagle. So the highest, all right , let's do something that's not the provi one. Let's just go with like, I don't know , a tier a second or a B level ball, a tour level ball, like chromes soft X with triple track, right? Like yeah , that box right there is like what, $50 a box, 45 bucks a box? Yeah , usually, yeah .
Speaker 4:CLU 50 . Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah . So like what would a , what would a dozen of those balls cost? I know provi one's always changing and they're the most expensive balls in the game, pretty much.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , uh, they cost about the same as the, maybe a little bit less than the provi one. So for example, the regular curve . Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. The regular curve . Soft , it'll be around 26, 20 $6 a dozen from depending on, you know, when you buy 10 .
Speaker 3:So really you're saving like 10 or $15 for a dozen balls, right? By going used, would you say?
Speaker 4:Um , well, yeah . I , I would say probably close to $20. So let's say the Chrome soft is 45. I think it's, and you buy from so 25. So you're saving a good 25 Yeah. 20 bucks . Yeah. Yeah. It
Speaker 3:Is not , and no one's you're not gonna notice. And I mean, you're not gonna notice a difference in gameplay and it's still the same ball and it still does everything it's supposed to do. It doesn't have a fancy box that you're gonna throw away, right? I mean, has a nice box. Like you got a nice packaging . I'm not saying.
Speaker 4:Yeah , it does . So I got , yeah , I got one of our fancy boxes right here. Look,
Speaker 3:They have good boxes. Like seriously show that, show 'em the camera. Like this is not. Like he's not giving you a plastic bag with 12 balls in it. Like look it , that's a good looking box, right? Like it , so it looks awesome, you know, and it comes in great packaging. So, I mean, yeah, the ball's used, so what, I mean, it's a , some slight blemishes and performance doesn't go down. Cares like save 20 bucks. I don't know . Golf's so expensive now. Anyways , it's not even worth, I probably lost like at least a dozen balls this weekend, you know? And if I figured like I've been $50 in balls, I lost if I, you played a homes X , right? That's a lot of money. Yeah. You know, on top of the ran , you know, the play that course I played, it's like $180 for 18 mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So, I mean , I didn't pay that cause part a tournament, but like, even so you spend 180 bucks and lose that many balls, like I didn't say balls. I may have lost like four balls that day, even still, like, it adds up so quick. You're spending 200, $250 for a round of golf, you know's , a cheaper course. Let's spend playing summer rates . 50 bucks, 60 bucks a round. You're spending a hundred, you're almost doubling the price cuz you're losing balls cuz you're crappy. Which I am. Yeah ,
Speaker 4:Right ? Yeah. So, so one of my customers sent me a picture of , uh, him golfing at Pebble Beach, right? He's , uh, you know, he's a , uh, I , I would say me to high handicapper and he said he lost two dozen balls, but he didn't care because he bought them from me for 24 bucks. A dozen. He didn't spend, yeah.
Speaker 3:If he bought those balls at Pebble Beach, it would've been like a hundred dollars a box <laugh> , you know, like it would've like totally jacked the price up. It's a smart industry man. Like, you don't understand how smart lasan is. You guys like fors , like, think about this. He started a business selling you the balls. Like where do you even begin with that? Right? Like, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Like how do you even get this inventory? Number one, what is the inventory? How do you grade it? Right? That's the first initial stuff. Let's say you figure all that out now you gotta build a site, you gotta build traffic, you gotta sell a brand on a used ball . When you , the biggest competitor lost golf balls.com , they get like a majority of the traffic and on all the keywords for it on the internet. Yeah . Like, that's ballsy. That's why he has two guys with balls. But I mean, honestly like, that's, that's cool. I mean that's like he created, he created a company out of an idea. Seeing there was a , a a need in the marketplace. And I don't know what lost golfball.com charges. I mean, are they same prices? Are they, are they more or less than you guys? I have no idea.
Speaker 4:They , they're , they're about the same. Uh , we , we try to stay competitive , uh, from a , from a pricing standpoint. Um, but what I, what I've seen and what I noticed is , uh, we, we get a lot of repeat customers. People buy commerce once , uh, they keep , uh, coming back because you know, you , you just know what you're getting. You don't have any surprises. You have that big golf trip planned , you've got the balls, you know exactly what you're getting. You don't have to shop for balls last minute. So
Speaker 3:Lemme ask this question to you. So right now the only place you're found is online, right? On your site? Yeah . Do you sell, do you sell like wholesale or do you sell through other third party retailers or just only you guys through your site?
Speaker 4:Just only to through our site . Two guys with balls.com is is our site. Our balls aren't anywhere else, so that's the only place you can get them.
Speaker 3:Have you ever thought about selling Amazon or No.
Speaker 4:I, I did try it. I tried Amazon and eBay. Um, it, it was , uh, it was very complicated for us to sync up our inventory with Amazon and the selling fees were just too high. So we just figured we'll focus on,
Speaker 3:I mean , yeah, I mean like selling fees on the $30 item would probably be around $10. I bet it would charge you is what I'm thinking. Yeah. I mean, when I know
Speaker 4:Yeah, it a third , right? Yeah. For us , it didn't make sense on a , on a variety of guns . Also, it's the, the customer who buys on Amazon or eBay will just buy from us once and probably not buy from us again. Uh, what we want to focus on is, and I I know a lot of brands say this community ,
Speaker 3:Make sure that , right? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4:Yeah. Lot of people who, like, when I see the orders come in it , uh, in my backend order screen, I can see how many , you
Speaker 3:Find big old smile on your face, you're like, oh ,
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah , I can, I can see if this is a returning customer. If it's their first time order . Well ,
Speaker 3:You know too . Yeah. Plus you already know these names. You start seeing like, oh, I know that guy. I remember that guy. He's cool. Or you look , so is this site built on WordPress or Shopify?
Speaker 4:It's on WordPress and WooCommerce.
Speaker 3:WooCommerce. What do you think about WooCommerce? Do you like it? It's kind of clunky.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. No, I , so Shopify is easy. Uh,
Speaker 3:But what's the But,
Speaker 4:But yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah . With WooCommerce you can pretty much do anything you want. If you know what you're doing
Speaker 3:Very quickly. Yeah. You can figure it out. Even the dumbest person in the world can figure it out. Like Yeah , it's pretty much , it's, which is so great about it, WordPress, WooCommerce, first of all, you gotta figure out WordPress and they gotta figure out WooCommerce. There's a whole other thing. Yeah . Um, but I mean here , but here's the thing. Like, Shopify gotta pay your monthly fee and all your crap and all the plugins and all the fees and WordPress, you just pay, you own the server. You own the site, you're not paying the mailing fees. Maybe a couple plugins. I mean , I think we've call us free.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And what's been great for us is , uh, like my wife has a website design , digital marketing agency. So, you know, for a lot of the SEO stuff and how the site looks , uh, she is, she's the brains behind the operation. I, I help out a bit , uh, with, with the e-commerce stuff. But , um, the , the platform has been, has been good for us compared to, you know, Shopify is great if you have a few simple products and you don't want to spend a whole lot of time, bunch
Speaker 3:Of time figuring it out.
Speaker 4:Once you start adding features, then that adds up pretty fast. So one of the things we wanted to do with our website is we wanted to add a lot of , um, not a lot, but a decent amount of useful features that people will like. Like if you go to Amazon, you can , uh, there's a wishlist. You can add WebExs to a wishlist. You can sign up for no , out of stock notifications, you can have subscriptions. So the , we , we try to build those features into the website just to make it easy for people to get balls, because you shouldn't have to spend too much time figuring out how to use a website, right. You should just go in and get your balls and, and get out. Uh , and and that's, that's the idea behind the subscriptions as well. A lot of people forget.
Speaker 3:Oh, so you have subscription model too on , on your site? Yeah . How's that work?
Speaker 4:So , uh, most of the popular balls, like the Pro V one , scru , soft TP five s, they're available on subscription. So you pick the ball, you pick how many dozen you want, how often do you want it? Once a month, once every two months, three months. And then you get your balls automatically shipped to you.
Speaker 3:That's smart. When did , did you always , did you launch with that feature or is that something you put on later on?
Speaker 4:That's something we built in , uh, uh, built in later on , probably. So
Speaker 3:How did I ask this question to you? How did Covid affect you guys?
Speaker 4:Yeah , uh, great question. So 2020, I think it was March of 2020, right? Where things started shutting down. Um Right . Nobody knew what the , what was going on. Uh , you know, is the world going to end? Is the human waste going to end? We didn't , we didn't know. I I , I had an order of I think 20 to 25,000 balls from one of my suppliers. And then things started shutting down. I I canceled that order because who , who knows what's going on? Golf courses started to shut down. But what happened fairly soon after that was that golf was one of the only things that you could do with, with covid and you know, all the lockdowns that happened. Uh , so
Speaker 3:Then you're like <crosstalk> yourself , like , oh, why'd I cancel that order?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. That was , oh , sorry .
Speaker 3:So the ball somebody else
Speaker 4:<laugh> . Right, exactly. Exactly. So for most of 2020, I was playing catch up . Anytime I checked balls in, they, theyre gone. They're sold out right away. Um, so that was a good lesson to learn. But in, in hindsight, you , you didn't know what was happening, right? March of 2020 , nobody
Speaker 3:Knew. Yeah,
Speaker 4:Nobody knew . Nobody knew. And I didn't want to have be sitting on 20,000 golf
Speaker 3:Balls, thousand golf balls. Your wife would kill you. She'd be like , what are you doing?
Speaker 4:Right, right. Um , but but then af after that I made sure that I stockpiled in , went with you into the , the winter. So now we are , we have stock, we are rarely out of stock for , uh, for the balls , anything .
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when you, when these things come in, do you have to like sort 'em and organize 'em and put 'em in all the Right, I mean, like when, when the , when the balls all come in, you gotta do all that work, right? It's essentially you just get a big load of balls. Is the balls in a container? Like , what's it like, like is it a box?
Speaker 4:Yeah, they, they usually come in , uh, come in pallets and the pallet is filled with um , uh, either boxes or bags of uh , 50 dozen each. And sometimes the 50 dozen will be co one , but we still need to sort co go through ,
Speaker 3:Go through it every single ball and put eyes on it and, and sort it again. Right,
Speaker 4:Right. So in interestingly , CO one is the only ball that we separate by model year . People care about the 20 21 12 versus the 2019 versus 2017. Um ,
Speaker 3:How can you tell the difference? I don't even know.
Speaker 4:It's from the, from the marking. So , uh, let me, let me hold it up here. Yeah. So these are , these are 2019 where we run .
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:So , so
Speaker 3:The marking the ball will tell you right away what it is.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So to at least comes up with a new model every, every two years or not numbers years and every year that, that marking will be slightly different. So if you know your balls, you could, you could pick up a ball and say, okay, this is the 2003 ball or the 2012 ball or the 2015. It's uh , it's unique. We actually have That's crazy. Yeah . We actually have a
Speaker 3:I knew that , but I didn't realize like that. So then you're the sort through all those balls, figure out what's, you know, what's what. That's a lot of work, man. So how big is your team right now then?
Speaker 4:We have about three of us, three or four of us. Uh , and when , uh, when we get our shipment in, we are kind of all hands on deck to get that sorted. And online. As sap ,
Speaker 3:What's your biggest, what's your busiest time of year?
Speaker 4:Um, certainly the summer , uh, starting in, it starts around April and goes on till September. Uh , one of the good things last year and the year before is we are noticing less of that seasonal variation. We are still getting a ton of , uh, sales in , in the slower, the typically slower months. Like that's awesome . December to December to January , February, March. Uh , so that's, that's been good. And that's something that we've been looking to do. How can we not make it as seasonal? Obviously most of the country doesn't play golf during those months, but you still get like, where you live Arizona, I , I , I guess winter is the , is probably the most popular time to play golf. Uh , and then you get California , Florida. That's true.
Speaker 3:I came get a course during the winter. It's like super expensive and it's super busy. So then how do you do your marketing? Is it pay the ads, Instagram, Facebook?
Speaker 4:Yeah , pretty much all , all of those. Uh, we , we do , uh, some paid advertising , um, but mostly it's been organic , uh, organic search , uh, that's been getting us visits , repeat customers. Uh, we, we have a fairly decent sized mailing list. Um, you know, whenever we send out some promos or even one of the things we're trying to do is just put out useful information in our blogs. I'm , uh, I should blog a bit more, but it's been , it's been hard to blog , but we , hard ,
Speaker 3:Hard . Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 4:Yeah. It's just , uh, coming up with the content, it just takes a lot of time to, you know, put quality content out there. Um, I think
Speaker 3:The best kind of content like you guys could do is like ball comparisons, like Pro B one verse Chrome Soft X Pro B one , what model is best for you? 19 23, 20, you know, whatever, like 21. And then I think like informational, you know, just general information. Cuz people will be like, now you're probably already doing that, but I was like thinking out loud.
Speaker 4:Yeah , yeah. One , one of our most popular blogs is probably one versus probably one X. Like what's the , uh, what's the difference? But we, we do have a decent amount of people get in touch with us just asking us, Hey, what's the, what's the best ball for me? You , is it the probably one , and then we, we always want , uh, you know, get more information because it's , uh, the best ball for you is a tough question to answer. It depends on , you
Speaker 3:Should do, you should build a calculator on your site, like a thing. Yeah , I don't , you already did . This would be a really good idea. But like build a calculator where it's like, okay, but it's more of a questionnaire calculator and be like , okay, what is your handicap? And whatever you say and say , I don't have one. Okay, well then the next one would be like, okay, what is your, you know, ask a bunch of questions and at the end be like, okay, based on what you're saying, you should get this kind of ball, this brand , not one, just one brand. Like one of these five brands and this version, right. A Par Verde , you know, whatever, an eagle. That'd be smart.
Speaker 4:That's a good idea.
Speaker 3:Got a new calculator and people could just know right away, like, okay, well I'm kind of but I want a nice ball so I'll probably, you know, and then do I want lines on it or not? You know? How many rounds of golf do you play in a year? I don't stuff like that . Yeah .
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, yeah. No, for sure. I think we can, I mean it to my
Speaker 3:Like you like golf ball calculator or something like that,
Speaker 4:Right? No, that , that , that would be really helpful to people because uh, most people play the ProView one because
Speaker 3:I wouldn't know, like , I mean you could ask this general questions like, I mean for me, like, I wouldn't know. I mean, it's some ball I like, like I honestly, I like the Super Soft and I like the Chrome soft . I like 'em both. Like they're , I can never hit a Pro V one, I'll never hit, I don't like probie ones nothing against title is , I just can't hit it. I just never been able to, it doesn't do well for me. But the Chromes soft and super soft . They do decent and actually had had the other one this week too , was that the Callaway, some distance ball they had, which I never hit before and it's not that bad either. What was it called?
Speaker 4:Is it distance ? The Super Fast ? That's a new
Speaker 3:One. Super fast. Yeah, that one just came , was like , this isn't too bad. Like, I mean, so I think, but I mean, you don't know. That's the problem I think with golf balls, like we're all stupid. We don't know what balls good , what's good for us and what you wanna spend for the ball. Do you wanna spend 20 bucks on a box of, you know, cut balls, which are good balls or do you wanna spend $55 on a prov one ? Do you or do you really even care? You know? Right . And I think now there's so many brands of golf balls, I think, I dunno , that was just an idea. You can copyright that if you want
Speaker 4:<laugh> . Yeah, yeah. No , it's, it can get confusing out there. Especially like, for example, calve is is very good at coming up with balls and then discontinuing the ball a couple of years later. So
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know what the difference is. You know, like, I don't know. I mean , I have no idea honestly, and I do this full time . I don't know, I have no idea like what the difference between the distance ball and the Chromes soft . Like I know once to a further, okay, what does that mean? You know, like why is it going further? Is it two piece , is it three piece ? Is it, I mean, there's probably a reason for it, I just don't know what it is .
Speaker 4:Yeah, I I I think the level of sophistication that you need to understand what these manufacturers come up with, like the difference between, let's take tightly for example, right? If you , uh, take out the Pro V one and the Pro V one X and the AAV X , you get , um, you get the velocity, you get the tour speed and you get the tour soft. The Tour Soft is the replacement for the old nxt . Those balls are very similar to each other. So for the average golfer , the difference between those balls probably doesn't matter a whole lot. Um , so it's, it's, it's tough. I know that Titleist , you know, obviously they're a lot smarter than me, that's why they're Titleist , but they probably had a very specific segment of golfers that, that should use each of those balls. But it's, it's really hard to figure out.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And I think like if you had a calculator and then even if you didn't, let's say even a calculator was wrong, they said , oh, you should use this ball and you don't like it. Well, you're not out 50 bucks, you're out 20. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and you're like, well I'm gonna use these balls anyways and I'll try something else after that. Like, I think it's hard to find information on balls. It really is. I feel like there's not a lot of ball guides out there. There's not a lot of informational articles on balls. There's reviews, but I don't know if there's really like a mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I don't know , a place where you can find out all about balls. Yeah , I have a really good website all about balls.com.
Speaker 4:All right , there you go. Let's make
Speaker 3:Sure there probably the ball. I'm not gonna , I'm not getting that domain <laugh>.
Speaker 4:Yeah , yeah . You , you can find a lot of technical information, right? Is it a two piece ?
Speaker 3:Yeah, but is it gonna help you? Yeah, exactly. What is
Speaker 4:It ? If I'm
Speaker 3:Like a 40 year old guy, is that gonna help me when I go play my Muni or my little executive course or Right . Am I playing some fancy course that I , you know, I don't know . I think like, I don't know , I think it's lot of trial and error and I think if you're a new golfer or a golfer who's inconsistent how much they play, you never know what to buy. So you , you just find what you find out in the , you know, you find out in , well out golfing, you find 20 balls. I'm put those in my bag, I'm gonna play 'em , you know? But I mean, I dunno , I think it's cool what you're doing. I think it's, I think it's really cool actually how you're able to grow as much as you have in the short amount of time and you're going against a big player. I mean , that's a really big player like the player, so Yeah . You know . Oh yeah . Mad props of Lason . I've known LaShon for a long time. How long I , the only thing I've known you since like what, 2019? Probably I had to be at least 19, maybe even 18 . Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah . I think it was pretty close to when we got started that uh, you know, I,
Speaker 3:It really was, it was a long time ago. We met each other.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah . It was good to find , to see you like last year. Oh , this year, right? This year,
Speaker 3:Yeah . I find Met Lasan in person at the PGA show. We had lunch together and it was the first time we actually met. It was pretty cool. We've talked on the phone a lot , but not in person . That's how I go with the PGA Show.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was pretty cool. I think I'll do it every year . It , it was , uh,
Speaker 3:It's worth it. I don't think you need to get a booth. I think you should just go network and talk to people and see what's out there. And I don't know . It's worth it for that reason, I think personally. Yeah, yeah . Especially I Was there any, was there any used golf ball companies there? I didn't see any Did you?
Speaker 4:No. No. That , that there wasn't, there wasn't, I , I think that wasn't because , uh, it's mainly a , like a B2B type of , uh, conference, you know, there , there , yeah.
Speaker 3:The big boys are all there, you know? Yeah,
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. I I think there were a few , uh, there , there was , uh, pg golfers there, but they were mainly targeting , uh, the golf courses and retailers for , for their youth balls and range balls, although we finished , I think .
Speaker 3:Right . Do you guys do range balls too, or No?
Speaker 4:No, no. No. We don't. We don't. We, we have , you should , should
Speaker 3:I , I talked to 'em the other day and they said that like, title is bought, I think it was title is or Tailor Made , bought the largest wholesaler of Range Balls in the last like couple of months or something the last year. Yeah. Like, so they're trying to like corner the market of Range Balls now. Somebody was , I'm not sure what some big companies one , it was one of the , these are title Tailor made , probably Titleless, but they bought it and they're like, yeah, it's hard. They said it's super, super, super hard to get good range balls now. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> because it's like, yeah . Oh yeah, the main source is like now owned by one of the big boys. I was like, really? That's really interesting.
Speaker 4:Yeah ,
Speaker 3:And I heard us like possibly
Speaker 4:We , we , we do have a , a shack bag set of balls, which is usually the, you know, the balls that don't even , that are so bad, they don't make it into our , our park grid . But you can, you can still hit them. Most people get them to like practice in the backyard , hit them into the woods or the lakes and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:The lakes
Speaker 4:<laugh> .
Speaker 3:Well, I really appreciate you being on the show. I mean, you guys need to check out Lash Sean's website, so exactly what's the domains that people can find you.
Speaker 4:It's two guys with balls.com . Best
Speaker 3:Name ever for a website , golf . My own personal opinion. Well, thank you for your friendship. Thank you for always supporting us and you guys gotta support Lash Shawn , he's a great guy. He has Intel . He's doing a lot of cool things. And if you're looking to save money on golf balls and still get a really good golf ball, you have to check 'em out. But I'll see you guys in the next episode. Thanks
Speaker 4:A lot, Paul, appreciate it.
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.