Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore

Ep #39 - Desert Fox Golf: Scott Kovesdy and Eric Fox (Founders)

March 23, 2021 Paul Liberatore Season 2 Episode 39
Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
Ep #39 - Desert Fox Golf: Scott Kovesdy and Eric Fox (Founders)
Show Notes Transcript

We made it to Episode 39 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast.  In this week's episode, I interview my friends Scott Kovesdy and Eric Fox, the Founders of Desert Fox Golf. 

The Phone Caddy from Desert Fox Golf is a great idea that delivers on everything the new age of golf is asking for. Players continue to take more and more devices to the course and golf carts continue to expand their options for cell phone applications. Golfers that use their phone for anything on the golf course should be making sure they take care of their device and make it as easy as possible to focus on their games and scores and the Desert Fox Golf Phone Caddy can help in both of those areas.

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Speaker 1:

Today, we play a golf. Let me show you how we do it in the pros. Welcome to behind the golf grand podcast. I've never missed with the seven nine 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 talk. You should learn something 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 the hole. This is behind the golf brand podcast. With Paul libertory behind the golf brand podcast is sponsored by OnPoint. The revolutionary three-dimensional dome golf ball. Marker on point provides alignment recognition as small as a degree of inaccuracy from the planned course of the putt face angle endorsed by Jim Furich us open champion and 17 time PGA tour winner on point alignment technology has been proven to increase putting performance and help lower your score. Visit OnPoint golf dot U S, and be sure to use code[inaudible] for a 10% discount on point, make more putts

Speaker 2:

What's up guys, Paul from coffers authority. Welcome to behind the call brand podcast. This week, episode 39. I can't believe we're already on 39 and listening year. Mitch, take a little break. Just kidding. But uh, this week I do have friends of mine that I've known for awhile. I actually met, uh, about almost two years ago. I would say about the fall of 1920 is a blur, but the boys behind desert Fox, you guys don't know what desert Fox is. It's like the best. I don't know what you want to call it like assessor you could possibly buy. And we'll talk more about what on the show today, but it's so freaking cool and like nothing else like it. So I'm really excited to have on the show and welcome my friend, Eric and Scott from desert Fox golf. Welcome to the show. Thanks Paul. Hey Paul, what is the desert Fox? Explain to people what the Fox is. So the desert Fox golf chatty is the best phone holder for golf. It might be a little bit biased. No, it is. Uh, you know, basically, uh, I got hooked into using a shout out to the guys about three and a half years ago now. And I realized when I was on the golf course that I love the app, but I didn't have a place to put my phone. So he came home one day and started tinkering around with computer and designing a little product that would work and fast forward. About a year later, we decided to launch as a phone holder, that straps right to your golf cart. It keeps your phone right at your fingertips. And you know, we get more out of our vaults apps because now we have a phone, right? So before I go into the whole strategy, designing that bad boy, I want to know what is your first golf memory? Eric go, probably me slamming my golf club on the ground

Speaker 3:

When I was probably 12 or 13. Cause I just shanked one with my, with my father. So my early, early golf memories are not necessarily, uh, the best ones. How about you? Scotty? Pretty frustrating for me. I grew up just off of a golf course back in, uh, just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So for me it was hunting golf balls in the woods, popping out and selling them for 10 cents a pop and uh, you know, making enough money to go get like an ice cream sandwich or something. That was my first golf memory. Right. And then you get into the game, right? That's a whole nother story, but yeah, I used to shag balls back in the day, walk in the woods, picking up golf balls and selling conflicts, probably paying monitors to call those balls. I can't remember. We're going to age ourselves here The best time to grow up. Seriously. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I think it is. So obviously like you guys are just like, like the rest of us, right? You're just two guys who liked to play golf and are smart and invented something cool. Right? You guys are not pros by you. Didn't go. Did you guys play in college or did you guys like play the mini tour? Any of that stuff?

Speaker 3:

No, definitely not. So for me a high school golf was about as competitive as I got. Um, when I went to college at Penn state, you know, talk to the golf coach was trying to go down that path. And I think I was like a four handicap coming out of high school. Yeah. Penn state doesn't recruit for handicaps. So they wouldn't even let me carry a golf bag or like clean the golf gloves. But now the coach was awesome. I mean, he's like, Hey, you know, go play some summer golf, you know, start posting some scores and you know, let's talk when you're a sophomore. And of course when you're 18 years old and you get told that you don't do anything done, you're like I'm done. And then that was the end of my golf careers that I was playing for fun. And I was committed to amateur golf at that point. And I was a 30, 30 or 40 handicapper until I was into my weight for a long time. I can tell him that when he started working on my game and got me down into the mid teens. But even today, I'm not a great, uh, I'm not a great golfer, Scott. Scott's a really good golfer, just lower than average golfer.

Speaker 2:

So like that's what I am like a 15 on a good day, maybe on a good day. And then if it's a bad day, I don't even want to, I don't even know. Right. Like I don't want to talk about it. Like, you know, I never, I never, um, portray myself as good. Right. I used to be good, I guess like when I used to be a pilot, like we would fly them out here in Arizona. We'd fly in the morning. It goes cool. Right. And the day was high as hell. So then we would go play golf. And I feel like every day I got down to like a four or five probably, you know, like every day and then, you know, you quit playing and then it's like, Ooh, back up. He forgot how to play. Yeah. So I know you went to Penn state. What year did you graduate from Penn state? 90 what? 96. Oh, cool. I went to Purdue, but I graduated in 2000. So big 10 represent Michigan. Okay. Okay. Well your geographic, same time

Speaker 4:

I graduated in the actually, um, uh, December of 99.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Like you had a fricking same age bro. Cause I graduated like may of 2000. I was there with drew Brees was there?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I was at this game with lady. So we were both there in the hallway,

Speaker 2:

Drew Brees in my psychology class when he's a red shirt freshman. And I was like, who's this dude, you know? But I knew was on the football team. He was nice. But then I was like that looking back, I'm like, actually they're really good friends with that guy. You know,

Speaker 4:

Say there wasn't too many, uh, football players in my engineering courses at Michigan. So I didn't get to run across anybody really fun.

Speaker 2:

I just, my next door neighbors in my apartment, we're all on the football team. So like I knew a bunch of guys, you know, but like I was an aviation dude. There was like no football players, they're all management. But what the hell's management will be a management like that that's important.

Speaker 4:

Well, yeah, at Michigan, they're all in kinesiology. Right,

Speaker 2:

Right. Target so much crap. Like when are those classes come on? You know, how's that management degree Chick-fil-A working out actually a Chick-fil-A private cloud money. So that's crazy. You guys Mactan, you guys have all the little kids out there, you better go to the, do we need to go to the big 10 and when I grew up and own a company kinesiology, so Eric, what's your background? Are you like an engineer?

Speaker 4:

I'm an electrical engineer. I was in the semiconductor industry for 15 years, you know, worked for Intel, uh, microchip, some, some big semiconductor companies left that space. And uh, geez, about six years ago now, uh, to go out and kind of try to start my own businesses. Um, flip some houses, started a little computer business I ran for a year or so. And then, um, stumbled on this idea and decided to shut all that stuff down and focus on

Speaker 2:

A

Speaker 4:

Little bit. I mean, I, for the first 15 years of my career, I was just, you know, a corporate manage the, you know, a bunch of engineers and, and uh, you know, my wife was also, uh, in the semiconductor industry. And so at some point we're like, you know, we're so overworked and stressed out that we wanted to kick our dog every day and we don't even own a dog. And so we were like, somebody needs to make a change. And so I took off

Speaker 2:

Well, as she likes supported that, you know? Yeah. Is that where you guys met? Yeah. We both met at a semiconductor company down in Texas, Austin, Texas, actually. So that field was great for us made a good living, but now we're on that now I have a little bit more flexibility and the money's starting to come, come back. And so, um, you know, be like, Oh finally, like I made,

Speaker 4:

It was a, you know, especially at the beginning of this business you worked for Spence

Speaker 2:

Spend, spend, spend, spend, it's all you do. That works a lot. Right. But he's got a he's, he's got his paycheck. So, you know, he's, he has that advantage disadvantage of having to work out to gigs. But you know, for me, without my wife and her support and the bills, while we got this off the ground, it kind of gives you guys a competitive advantage, I think, because you have to, right. It's like you have two very smart people that are friends doing it. And you know, you're able to spend more time on it because you're not stuck at a full-time gig. Right. Like I wish I had that sometimes. That's awesome because I feel if it gives you like the extra oomph, you know what I mean? To get things done faster because I like talking to about these guys, I was talking to somebody and they're like, all of a sudden I have going on, like, I'm the tip of the spear. Right. But like, I'm not able to get something done, then nothing else gets done. And I can't delegate. So it's almost like if I had a second person and I could be like, Oh yeah, cool, take care of that. And they just take care of it and don't have to worry about it, but it's nice. It's cool. Now, Scott, I know Scott has a full-time gig. I know where he works. I'm not going to say where. I mean, it doesn't really matter. It's not going to look for them. So Google my name and you'll figure it out. But he works for a really cool company actually, knowing that this is a small world. So Scott and I kind of, well, you reached out to me, right. I can't remember what happened, but like we end up knowing each other to another guy, like the guy through, uh, what's his face from little league. And that's how I met you because you guys both worked at Intel, just kidding. That's a matter, just look them up on LinkedIn. So that just, it was just a small world. You know what I mean? Like I dunno. So, so Scott, then you have a full-time job, right? And then, uh, then you're spending your extra time, like me or help being grow this brand. Right. So how'd you guys like initially come up with the idea, like, I know you had the idea, but how'd, you guys come together and be like, Hey, we should really make this into a company and I'll let, I'll let Eric talk about it, but what's fun about it because it's behind the brand that right. There was a picture that I got with a cell phone sticking in it. And I was like, what the heck are you doing? That's awesome. I want one, man. That's fantastic.

Speaker 4:

Yes. I literally came up with the first design. I did a 3d prototype and I stuck it on the golf cart and I sent him a picture and said, Hey, check this out. And that was his first

Speaker 2:

Response is like, I want one. So

Speaker 4:

I went back and printed him a 3d printed version that would work for his phone. His phone was a little bit different size than mine. So I printed one that would work for him. I gave it to him and, and we just started using it. And then we didn't like, we didn't start this with the idea that we could turn this into a, uh,

Speaker 2:

Business, a real business, like, Oh, we get South sound probably on the internet.

Speaker 4:

We kind of used it for a while and we kind of molded back and forth a little bit. And then I think it was almost about six months later. We're like, okay, you know, enough people have seen this thing on the golf course and there's been enough interest that, you know, maybe we should look at, you know, can we turn this into something sellable? And then, and then it goes from, you know, it's really easy to design one that fits for

Speaker 2:

Product into a, whatever, a real product,

Speaker 4:

About 200 prototypes to get something that would work for the problem is it's not even every, all the different phones out there. It's all the different cases. So we had to design work for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different case sizes. And so that was the real,

Speaker 2:

It wasn't so much going this way. It was, it was going this way, right? Like,

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I know the different widths and the different depths of all the cases. And so, you know, that was the, that was the challenge of designing something that was robust enough that we, we believed could cover the vast majority of the market. We didn't want to just put out a point solution and say, Hey, this only works if you have an iPhone six. Right. And so it, it, that was the, that was the challenge is coming up with something that just worked for the majority of them.

Speaker 2:

I mean, so a lot of people have pop sockets on their phones now, which, you know, obviously you can't put a pop. I don't think you put a PopSocket on and put the case on, cause sticking up like that far now, even if it's like completely compressed, like, I mean, if you're going to use the desert Fox, you gotta take your well, if you have that kind of case, right. Where it's like a rubber case or on the side, not like a, it just depends. I guess that gets, that'd be the next cool, like invention. You guys have to come with a, how to use or the pop socket since a lot of people have pops up now.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Pop sockets. And uh, so the, the, the two things are in there in the category that don't quite work with, our phone caddy is pop sockets are those little ring loops that people put on the back of their, um, their, uh, cases and then the folio cases you yeah. The full wall in case. So, you know, we were always, uh, we have more products in the development pipeline, so we'll always, you know, try to, you know, shortcomings the product and, and create new new versions of it. But the good thing is, is that, you know, I believe we cover about 98 to 99% of the market out there. So

Speaker 2:

I mean, it is a small percentage of people have pop sockets. Just wondering about that.

Speaker 4:

Maybe I, it may be, uh, we can come up with something in the future that will accommodate them. Um, you know, if, if we get enough feedback that that's something that we think the market's big enough, we'll certainly address it.

Speaker 2:

So you guys came out when did B one come out to the public public? Um, you know, like

Speaker 3:

We were selling on site, like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that would have been, that would have been in the fall of 2018. So our very first, you know, run at this, we ended up doing the, uh, PGA demo. What was it called demo? And something experienced something in Las Vegas because it was close to get to, and we actually had July of 18. Uh, no, no, no. That was actually August of 2018. They do that all show up there. It's a mini version right now. And it's, I mean, it's primarily, it's primarily fashion, you know, and they have a very small equipment section. So Eric and I went up there and, um, you know, we, uh, you know, we went up there with actually 3d printed prototypes. So we had our production units, um, you know, kickstarted, well, we rolled up there with 3d printed prototypes and we're like, all right, let's go see if we can find somebody that we don't know. That's not going to tell us that this is terrible and see what happens. Yeah, yeah. You gotta test that stuff. Right. And so we did, we did pretty well. We actually sold to probably about two or three pro shops, you know, just having 3d printed prototypes, press buy. Yeah. They're like, Oh, this is cool. Yeah. And I mean, never even saw the actual product they were going to get. Right. So, so that was really encouraging. And then ultimately launched the website, you know, and went live. I think it was probably call it September, 2018 where we finally started taking orders. Although that very first one was pretty hysterical because you know, Eric and I were, you know, it's launched of course. And you're just sitting there waiting. You're like somebody buy it. Right. That I remember that days. And you're like, Oh my God, somebody buy it please as an engineer too. Right. We're like, we don't even know if the site works. Right. I mean, we can go on there and buy it. Right. But until somebody else that you don't know buys the thing, it's, you know, it's kind of crazy. So, you know, you're like, nobody likes me, you know, like I haven't really cool product and no one's buying it. It's like, that's the hardest part. That's the hardest part with what you got with all business. Right. It's not so much like figuring it out and building it. It's like that bridge from people actually buying it. Right. It's a, it's a weird area. I wouldn't want to even call it. I feel it's a line in the sand. Right. And it's like finding whatever that magic sauce is to break that barrier. It actually, people know what it is, you know? And then it's valid the road. No problem. But I feel like you go to the PGA show, you see that a lot. Right. I guys come there, I spend$10,000 get a booth. And they're hoping that when they leave the PGA show, they're now a real brand. And then they go home and they realize that these people are,

Speaker 4:

Sometimes people blow up instantaneously, but you know, we, we certainly weren't in that category, but we also had very realistic expectations of how long it was going to take us to borrow. We didn't, we didn't build this from the beginning, assuming that we were going to be an overnight success. So we actually built a two and a half and a three-year model that, that we needed to kind of, our sales needed to track. And we ended up blowing the model. A lot of the water, we did much better than we predicted, but so, so having that model in place over three years and knowing that it was going to be a slow credit and slow growth, um, I think helped us make the right decisions at the right times.

Speaker 3:

Really smart. I think it was the first people that actually like, say that to me. I think it's really smart. It's so smart. Honestly,

Speaker 4:

Throw in like a hundred thousand dollars of advertising on the first go. And they expect to like blow up immediately. And we were very judicious about, you know, slow growth and you know, it actually helped us too. Cause we had to figure out our procedures. We had to figure out, make sure that the product was good. And so not being a hundred thousand units on the first month would have been bad for us because you wouldn't be able to do it. And then we would have heard our brand reputation. So it's, you know, I think we did it the right way. We, we, we grew slow enough that we could keep up with ourselves. Uh, but yet fast enough where we knew it was going to be a viable business for them.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I love about you guys. I don't know. Like, first of all, I mean, I'm already for the Scott, but like I just, you guys are very realistic, you know? And I think a lot of people, I think everybody's not realistic. And like you just said, they come out of the gate thinking that it's like a weight loss, right. You're like, Oh, I'm going to lose weight. And then after two days you're like F it because I'm not losing any weight because as same scenario, when you're trying to build a brand, it's like, Oh, ethic, like I'm not, this is not working because we're so used to instantaneous gratification that like, if we don't have it, then you're thinking you second, guess yourself, is this really a good product? Do people really care about it? That what I do wrong? You know? And it's nothing. It's just, it takes time. That's it? And it definitely takes a lot of time. We were fortunate to, to meet a lot of people along the way. Um, Eric is, you know, looked at businesses, you know, for years and years and years, we have friends that own businesses. So it kind of helps set that expectation when you have people that are telling you, Hey, by the way, you know, I started my business five years ago, you know, I started my business six years ago. I, you know, that type of stuff. So it certainly helps, um, just having, you know, people that have done this, you know, and it, it, it does help set those expectations. But you know, I, I couldn't agree more with what Eric mentioned, you know, setting those models up and setting the proper expectation out of the Gates. Do you have to use a software for that or what'd you guys, do you just kind of roller down?

Speaker 4:

We run our entire business off of probably 25 Excel spreadsheet.

Speaker 3:

I need you to send me one of those spreadsheets, not with your information, but like, I need to figure it out. Like my three-year plan here. Like

Speaker 4:

That's a problem with having, uh, two engineers run a business in terms of the analytics. We're probably a little heavy on some spreadsheets to analyze everything. So my solution to pretty much anything is a spreadsheet. So

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I love spreadsheets. The data tells us, I always tell people, it tells you what you need to know

Speaker 2:

As a lawyer. Same thing. It tells you what you need to know.

Speaker 3:

There's some guessing close your eyes and just hope like, hell, but you're right. But I'm having a lot of data in front of you. Certainly

Speaker 2:

It's like when I started golfers authority, the same freaking thing, like it was all data driven. I was trying to figure out what people want to read about, you know? And it took, like you said, the three-year plan. I didn't have a three-year plan. I was like, I'm in it for the long haul. So whatever. So that was my three-year plan. But then the data helped tell me this, tell me what to do. You know, even though it took a long time to do it, I mean, I don't know, I'm a nerd.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. We had some nice successes too. Right. You had the same type of thing where you do a couple of things. Right. And you'd take that little pop. You get a nice little move and you're like, okay, do more of that. Right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Like year one, I went from zero. Like I used to measure January 1st of 18. And by September I was getting like 75,000 people a month on my site, no ads. That's a hundred percent organic and that's it. I mean, well, it's like 95% organic. It was like 95% organic and like 2%, you know, Pinterest and social and whatever. But I mean, it just kind of it's compounding interest, right. Compounds like to do, let's say with you guys, right. You kind of test things and you go, Oh, that worked or that didn't work or whatever it is. So then you went to PGA show. I know last year, because I saw Scott there and hung out. It was at your first PGA show or like big PGA show. Or did you go to your before?

Speaker 3:

No, that was our second one actually. So the first one we went to is 1999, but that was, that was, I think a week and a half before the show, we got an opportunity to get a spot behind Callaway that they couldn't fill. And so we both looked at each other and said, now what the heck let's give it a shot. But it was like, you know, throw up a table. And, uh, and uh, and one of those rows and we had a banner. Yeah, exactly. It was, it was, uh, we have pictures on it. It's pretty much got it. Right. Which we did. Yeah. And then 2020, I would say that's when we truly made it

Speaker 2:

You're on the end. Weren't you, or now you're on the end. You're like second to the end.

Speaker 3:

We were second at the end, we were right behind club car. Didn't know we were going to be behind a huge wall. We were super excited to be behind club car until we realized we were literally behind club car. It was pretty amusing. So, uh, yeah. But no, that, yeah, we did. We did the whole thing, man. Committed how to booth. We had launched a bunch of new stuff.

Speaker 2:

The guy man, expensive as hell. I don't even want to ask you. I bet you that's over 10 grand easily. Yeah. I know. I hadn't. We had the big booth,

Speaker 3:

You know, you know, Pete, you know, PJ show pricing. So it is what it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. He's got to deal with that. Yeah. You guys do have virtual. This that was dumb. I was like, what a money grab? Like who the hell is going to do that?

Speaker 4:

Honestly, I think they could have, I think they had the opportunity to do it in a way that would've made sense. If they kind of like for us as a small brand, we needed a way that people were going to stumble onto us. Right. Um, cause nobody was going to go to that site and search for us. Right. They had to find some way that it's equivalent to you walking around the show, which is how small companies like us get found.

Speaker 2:

It's the only way when you're in a big show.

Speaker 4:

So I think they had the opportunity to do something that they could have done in a more virtual way. That way, where they would replicate you walking around in a, in a way to find brands. But the way that they did it, just, I think, you know, look

Speaker 2:

I'll talk. I don't care.

Speaker 4:

Whatever. Like everybody else had to adjust and just for the money that they wanted out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Like it wasn't like the money went down in price. It was like, Oh, okay. You want to have a link? It'll be$5,000. And I don't know if that's true or not, but still, it wasn't that bad. But no, but it was still like pretty, like I said, when I first found out about that, I was like, go, go, go to that. Like, who's that dude that a couple of brands did, but they were the blood. They had like ginormous budgets and they had to do it.

Speaker 4:

I, um, the silver lining to me is I wasn't sure previous year, if the money we spent at the PGA show was really worth it or not. And so honestly this year kind of made that decision for us. You know, we almost, I almost feel like at a small blind, you're almost obligated to go to the PGA.

Speaker 2:

It's a right to ride a badge of honor. It's like, all right, I did it. I learned it. Why I learned from it? You know, my dad did it. My dad has the accurate, right. The golf trading argument. He went to the PGA show in 1999, 99, 2000. And he thought the same thing, right? Like, Oh, I want to go to the PGA show. And like, you know, I think he shared a booth with like golf training, aids.com or something. Cause he knew Dane wire in or somebody out. So like you guys be hanging out in the booth and like, you know, showing is accurate. And like he was there for the week and guess how many fricking sales we got from that do sag, you know, like, and it was early internet too. So I mean, but even still it's like, you got to go to the PGA show, which I think is sad. I think people don't understand that until you actually go or you talk to somebody who's been there to like, you gotta really understand your expectation level and be like, Hey, you're not, this is not going to be, this is not your magic wand. Right. You're not going to be successful because you weren't there. You might be. I mean, it's like, but it's a very small chance. And I think I wish people knew that, you know,

Speaker 4:

Just because of the longevity piece of it too. Right. You, you know, you show up right. Then people come back and say, well, are they still there in year two? Oh, okay. Maybe this place is legit. Right. You show up in year three. There's that longevity piece of it. That kind of plays a pretty important role as well. Right. I mean, if you've in the golf industry, it's,

Speaker 3:

It's uh, you know, this is a word of mouth industry, right. I mean, it's right. So like, I didn't know that, but

Speaker 2:

I started, I was just like, I'm just like you guys. I was like,

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And you learn that. Right. And so you find, Hey, did you see the desert Fox golf guys? Hey yeah. Did you see those other Fox golf guys, right. Enough of that happens, you know, you, you start to build that. Right. And it's just like what we do with golf equipment and everything else. Hey, what golf ball did you play today? Oh, I never tried that. You know? And that's how you end up doing things just as a golfer. Right? You, you, it's a word of mouth type of an experience. And honestly, that's pretty much how the business works as well. You know, on the business side, there's a lot of the word of mouth that, that, that, you know, that people find out who you are, what you've done. And then it just kind of balloons from there. So that's how I grew up so fast because

Speaker 2:

I just treat people. Right. You know what I mean? Like that's it. I never went to any of these relationships saying, what am I going to get out of it? I was just excited to like, like when I met you, I was just excited to get the product, test it out. We had coffee, we knew, see people. It was weird. You know what I mean? I was like, Oh, this is cool. Know I did the review and now we kind of became friends and we text each other and all that stuff. Like, but it was all natural. You know what I mean? And it's like, Oh yeah, that's kind of how I feel like I grew my brand, I guess the same way. It's just, it's golf is a very small world. You don't realize how small it is. Right. Like everybody would think it should manufacturing world. Dude. It's like super small. There is. I can tell people is like, we're all the same. You know what I mean? Like small to medium sized brands. We're all the same. We are. It's just so that I saw it was so funny when I went by your guys' booth, Scott was always busy. I was like always stopping by. And he's like, Oh, I'm doing an order. I'm doing an order. I got it. And then I was like, Oh man, what the hell? And so, but then one time I was over there and Mr. Short game was there. I remember that.

Speaker 3:

Yup. Yup. He did a nice little piece. I mean again, you know, and even when his PGA summary, right. We made the cuts. So that was pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

That was cool. He's really nice. Like I he's on my cell phone texts every once in a while. Yeah. I'll be figuring out what the camera's the by actually. So he's super cool. You guys watch what? Your short game on YouTube. Nice guy and cool videos. Actually.

Speaker 3:

You guys haven't. I think you guys had the camera fixation in our booth. If I remember right. You were looking at what?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I was like, what camera is that? Exactly. And I bought that camera. The camera is recording me right now is the same camera. But I was like, Hey, camera is that, Oh, that's a cannon, blah, blah, blah. I don't know,

Speaker 3:

Whatever, whatever. Because he told

Speaker 2:

Me to, I texted him. I was like, Hey, what's the, what's that model number? No, the thing is though that camera is like six years old. Like it's not even the newest model. It's like, he's like, Hey, this is the best camera you got. If you want to walk around with the camera, like you don't learn these things, you learn from YouTube. That's how they know. So then last year you guys, what did PGA show coming out of it? How did you feel? Like excited? Like, Oh. It's me big year.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I think we're starting to see the momentum. And so we are gearing up. Like I think everybody else was to have a really good solid year

Speaker 4:

Of events. I mean, at that time, the majority of our business was actually, um, custom orders, you know, events and, um, companies that do promotional giveaway stuff. And so we were really gearing up. That's the, that's the meat of our business is, is getting ready for the spring and early summer. And so we were you're ready. You're weird. Ready. Right. We were rubbing our hands together. We had our list from coming out from the, uh, the PGA show and we were making contact with everybody. And then, you know, kind of all broke loose.

Speaker 3:

Seriously. I'll never forget that day. It's like nine 11. I'll remember I was like March 16th or whatever, when I was like, Oh crap, this isn't real,

Speaker 4:

Like an immediate thing. We just started seeing a slowdown of, you know, reaching out for people. And there was a, we're not sure what's going on and all that kind of stuff. And honestly, at the time we were like, you know, crap, you know, this, this, this could take our business down to mirror zero for awhile. Uh, because again, a lot of our business came from, uh, golf events and things like that. And so it was, it was a sketchy time. But for us it wasn't like something immediate. It was more kind of the frog in the hot pot. Right. It just kept getting a little hotter and hotter.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Like you're like, Whoa. Yeah. It's like, dad, what happened? Well, I mean, it all, it all goes back to what I was talking about. It's a word of mouth. It's a, it's a social business. Right. And so we ended up working with a guy named statement, Mellon, uh, golfing that and, uh, got to really get to know him pretty well. Uh, we went out and hung out with, uh, the guys from dormy, uh, golf, right? So the, you know, the, the guys that make the head covers out of Canada, that just created a relationship. And through that network of people, we got introduced to a guy that's helping us with some social media work. And as Eric mentioned, we had no choice. We had to pivot and we had to really take direct to consumer more seriously. So combination of hitting Facebook and Instagram, social media marketing, true digital marketing, me going out and talking to a ton of people on different email, direct email campaigns, frankly, working with you all, you know, uh, golfers authority, doing giveaways and all that kind of stuff. It just shift everything. Right. You shift your whole mind to pivot and yeah, you pivot, right. And you shift your whole mindset. It's like, okay, the event business is going to go on a shelf. You know, we got to start figuring out how we're going to hit the customers. Right. And so, you know, Eric went from, okay, I need to be thinking about big orders of, you know, a hundred, 200 units at a time to, okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to do stuff with individual units? And then we also sell on Amazon. Right. So, you know, he spent a lot of time looking at fulfillment by Amazon and those types of things. So we're, you know, we're looking at how to increase your channel, creases your, like you knew you had to do that some point, Oh yeah. Like a novelty novelty, but like a novelty for 200, 500 orders. Right? Like as part of that, you're focusing on that, but you're not really paying as much attention on this. These flipped it right now. It's like, but now it's like, this is running your marketing, which would probably make these orders go up even higher because people are like, Oh, that is spiral starting to spiral. And that's what Eric, Eric touched on a little bit this year. Right? So now you have a direct to consumer business that's reasonable, right. That you still gotta, you still gotta build it and work on it. But now this year you got events and corporate promotions stuff coming back. That's just going to be icing though. You know what I mean? Like

Speaker 4:

You got have it's yeah, it should be, it's still be a huge business for us. But you know, our initial business model was start with the customization and the, uh, you know, event business. And the theory was, is we wouldn't have to spend as much marketing dollars to get those. And then it's a way of getting our product into more people's hands quickly. Right. Whereas starting with the direct consumer business, our problem was we have to spend a lot of advertising dollars to just get us know it's expensive. So that's why we started with kind of the event business first. And then we always knew that, and we had the direct consumer business. We did, didn't spend a lot of marketing dollars towards it. And we knew two, three, four years down the road. We would really now have the momentum budget and the budget really get that COVID was just the forcing function for us to flip the business model. And, and so now for the last seven, eight, nine months, the consumer business is driving our event business. Cause now we're seeing people that bought the phone caddy, they used themselves and now they're coming to us and saying, Hey, you know, I run a tournament.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So smaller guys you would never have known about, right.

Speaker 4:

Or, Hey, you know, I run an autobody repair shop and a lot of my, uh, customers are golfers. I'd like to buy 25 of them with my logo. So it actually kind of flipped our model where now we sort of lead with the consumer business and it drives sales into our, uh, into our event and, uh, and wholesale business. So how'd you meet

Speaker 3:

I'm friends with those guys, Todd. Yeah. Golfing dads. He has, you know, does a blog out of Florida. Right. And you know, it was just a ton of people. And again, when you're down there at the event, right where this was all at the PGA show, right. You meet that guy meets that guy meets that guy. Right. And you just start to have the conversations, build the relationship.

Speaker 4:

That's why we have Scott. Scott's our, Scott's our relationship builder. I'm the engineer that doesn't like to come out of his office.

Speaker 3:

That's all right. I never even met Eric until today. That's exactly why I was like, what the hell? I have a partner? His name's Eric. I'm like, who's Eric.

Speaker 4:

Uh, yeah. So, you know, one of us is, uh, running the business on day to day

Speaker 3:

After the show at the office. Cause now he told me where it's at. I'll be like, no worries. I got some groceries afterwards.

Speaker 4:

You go stop at Walmart and hang them over.

Speaker 3:

I know exactly where you guys are hanging out with us. Well, you know what? I, I'm so proud of you and I'm not like, Oh, let me say this. I'm proud of you because

Speaker 2:

Look how far you've come. And like, since I've met you, you know what I mean? That's a, that's a long way, man, too, dude selling stuff out of their house to like, now they have a warehouse. Now they have office. Like, you know, like, that's, that's massive. Like that's a dream, right? Like, you know, some people, that's what that is. The dream, you start in the garage and then you get a building. And I just, I really am proud of you guys. Like, I don't say that ever. And I just really am, but it makes me happy. I'm like, Oh, that's awesome. You know, because working with small and midsize brands, like love and fail, right. Or there's kind of like, Oh, they just stay flat. You know what I mean? Like they don't. And so now it's just kind of like the Cinderella story, right. It's like, okay, cool. Now there are the next level already. It's on two years. So I've met, you know, a year and a half. I was almost here, you know? So like that's a big move, especially during COVID. That's awesome. I had no idea. I thought you you're still working hired a garage. I was like, yeah.

Speaker 4:

We w we were really fortunate. You know, you hear a lot of stories about, you know, obviously if you're in the restaurant or entertainment business COVID is, is, you know, not good for your business model. We were super fortunate. And I think one of the rare segments where honestly, COVID was helpful to us, it, it really helped expand our business and, and change our business dynamic. And we were able to pivot to take advantage of it. And so, you know, looking back, I'm not sure I'd want to do it any other way, honestly. Um, I think, I think the growth in golf, I think COVID was good for the game of golf. You know, I would have told him to go, the golf was kind of, you know, trending down. Right. I think this was a forcing function to get people out on the golf course cause they could get outside. Right. And so I'm hopeful that that's helped kind of reinvigorate the game of golf.

Speaker 2:

I think this year is going to be an interesting year, right? Because like last year was because we don't know what's going to happen this year. You know, right now golf is flat. I think it's slowly going up, but you have to understand too. It's like fricking February, you know? So it's like half the United States frozen. So you can't, you can't even use that as a marker, you know? And you know, but I also think this historically it goes PGA show, right? It's a lot of buzz, a lot of excitement golf's coming back new season, then two weeks or a week later is, is Phoenix open. Right. And then that's massive. That's what I feel like golf starts. I don't care about the capital Louis stuff because no one cares about Hawaii. Right. Like whatever. And so, you know, but we really didn't have either of them this year, you know, like, Oh yeah, we have the Phoenix open, but like seriously, it wasn't the Phoenix. So it was just like when people could show up, you know what I mean? So I, I don't know, like I don't see the spike that I've seen before the traffic. I also think we had an ice storm that covered happy United States. You know what I mean? So it's like, I don't know, but I was going to be interesting here. Some people I've heard naysayers say like, well that was last year. Now football is coming back and baseball is coming back. Like now they've lost those people. Sorry.

Speaker 3:

Like NFL season was boring. I just watch NFL this year. I didn't watch it at all at all this year.

Speaker 4:

I watched what's what's, you'd almost think it'd be the opposite. I watched far less proportional sports than I did before, which is kind of, you would almost think it'd be the reverse you think of nothing else to do if it's on, watch it. But I watched less. Um, and, and I, I might be in that category. Like you like the NBA might've lost me, you know, permanently. Um, I, it just, I don't care. A lot of the political stuff that they started trying to get into sort of turned me off a little bit. And, and honestly, I, I just, I may not watch, you know, be a watcher of MBA.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I mean, I think what happened with COVID did you see the underbelly of sports? And now you see like, what sports is really about? It's not about the sport, it's about the money so that it's like, you know, it's like, okay, now we, you have to be 16. Are we going to have tournaments? Or they all wear a mask. Who's Eddie look at like the national championship for, for college football. It's like, some of those teams only play for half a season. How's that even count, those guys played all 12 games, you played five how'd you call the, you know, Hey, we're all big table. None of us went to Ohio state, but we're just saying right

Speaker 4:

In the big 10 didn't exactly. I mean, they don't look as stupid as the pack 12 did, but the big 10 waffling back and forth didn't exactly. It looked like they had their together.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. It's just, I don't know. I just feel like, so the naysayers out there and say, Oh, golf's going to slide inside the shirt. I think that's. I don't think it will at all. Because number one, we have new golfers that never played right. Or all excited, jazzed about it. For example, my boss he's all into golf. He never even played golf before he thought it was boring. He said it. So, but in the last like month, he's all into golf now. And I was like, Oh, awesome. Finally, you know, because his girlfriend had been golf. It's just, you see, like, I don't know. People want to go outside, hang out. Parks are full of people. It'd be people that live in Arizona. Like we do, like if you go to any of the mountain parks right now, you can't find a place to park. So, but you find a place to get a tee time, go play golf. Oh, the other thing that's nice about golf. Is there so many people out there talking about building, you know, building the game, you know, reinventing the game, making the game more fun. Right. I mean, I know I've played since high school. I played competitive golf, but I can easily separate that. If I want to go play competitive golf, I go play competitive golf. If I want to go out and have fun with my friends, I can go out and have fun with my friends on a golf course. You know? So I liked that. I, you know, I might, I don't know whether I'm the, the norm, if I'm the, an outsider or whatever, but just having, you know, music on the golf course, having, you know, the apps and all the rest of that kind of stuff. My personal opinion, it's all builds the game. It makes it more fun, you know, then, you know, then, then where it was in the past, most of my friends that have gotten into the game, they all talked to me. They're like, I just like being out here. I just, I mean, it's so beautiful. It's so gorgeous. Well, yeah, it's manicured, I mean these golf courses, but you know, tens of thousands of thousands of dollars

Speaker 2:

Into these golf courses, you're not going to find prettier places to go and hang out at. Right. And that just blows people's minds. They're like, Oh my God. I had no idea. So, you know, I think that's, I think that's really awesome is is that whatever that barrier is, it got broken down. People have looked inside and they're like, wow, I really like what this is all about. You know? Um, that's been, that's been really positive. It's fun. It's just fun. I dunno. You know what I've learned to? I think I like, as we get older, it's like they get four or five hours with your friends. Right. And like Decker out and have some drinks and play golf. Like what do we get that in our lives? Right. We all busy. We have kids, you know, it's like, I started understanding why golf was so, so important to the demographic over 40 it's because they get a break, you know what I mean? And like get to be dudes hanging out. And, and so, I don't know. I think you're seeing a lot more of that too. You seeing a lot more people coming into the game. Like I just, just too,

Speaker 4:

They have to adapt that. Like, I like the concept of like a, is it mountain shadows that converted to the par three only course

Speaker 2:

Whites?

Speaker 4:

I think of a, I, I think more golf courses should figure out a way to make it a shorter experience that you don't have to invest four and a half or five hours to play, you know, kind of modernize a little bit to really keep it going. You know, shorter courses be able to play at nights, you know, stuff like that. That's maybe not traditional. I keep the tradition and keep those traditional courses there. But I think we can certainly find a way to make them.

Speaker 2:

Here's the other thing that you're seeing too, I feel this, you might disagree is a peril, right? Because you don't have to wear a polo shirt to go play golf. You could wear a t-shirt and workout pants and no one's gonna say Jack. Right. Because like black socks don't wear black socks. That's like my dad, but we never black socks with sandals purposely do that. Why bring girls over in high school? And I'm like, do you know what you're doing? And he's like, just smile. Like thanks a lot, dude,

Speaker 4:

Exactly what he was doing. He was, he was trying to give those girls a preview of what you're going to turn into it. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I don't, I don't have black socks and sandals. I'm going to be old now. Like a little town man, like welcome to my garden. Yeah. So I I've, I've seen that. I don't know. I think it's kind of cool with the apparel because now it's like you wear joggers or you can wear it. You don't have to dress up. Like it's not a fashion show anymore, which is interesting. I don't know. I just think you'll just see fashion change a little bit, like a little more sporty

Speaker 4:

The balance, right? Like the, the, you want to keep like the rules of the game and all that kind of stuff there. But I think they do kind of need to open it up a little bit and give a little less stodgy, I guess, about some of the things like, you know, dress code and stuff. Like I said, there's, there's a, there's a time and place for that there's courses where it absolutely is they should have

Speaker 2:

A traditional, but there's

Speaker 4:

Some other courses they should open up and just have fun. Right. Just get people interested in the game and just, you know, let people be themselves out on the golf course and enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

Now you're a hundred percent free. So what's new for this year. What do you guys got going on?

Speaker 4:

Um, we're actually working on, uh, we'll, we'll continue to kind of release some, um, accessories for the phone caddy. So we're going to launch a little adapter that allows the phone caveat work on pushcarts. Um, so that will open up, open up the market. We have a couple of prototypes out there in the, in the, in the field that some people are testing for

Speaker 2:

Us. It'll

Speaker 4:

Be nice, kind of open up the people that, you know, move back and forth from, you know, pushcarts to, to the normal golf cart. So that'll help kind of expand that business for us a little bit. And then we're working on another super secrets product that's totally different than, uh, than the phone caddy that, um, I've had rattling around in my head for a year or so. And, uh, we've done some early prototypes and people who've shown up pretty excited about it. So we get launched this year to, you

Speaker 2:

Can call it the Paul if you want. I don't mind

Speaker 4:

Paul. Um, yeah, maybe Paul Fox. Well, how much money we have to pay you to use your name?

Speaker 2:

$1,$1 per hundred units. That's cool though. You guys have like that. You're like, see, I really think you guys are to, that's a whole other space. It's like untouched right now is the push market. Because like I know because Tyler, I know real quick push card companies and it's like, that industry exploded. Like literally they ran out of cards like two months into the year and they were not able to get any parts. Like if you want to make a billion dollars, like sort of golf cart company,

Speaker 4:

The social distancing where, you know, there was a time where they weren't allowing two people in a golf cart. Right. So the solution to that is, is postcards. Right? So, and there's a lot of other countries that have a great golf tradition that don't ride in golf because

Speaker 2:

England absolutely.

Speaker 4:

So that allow, that allow us to expand into other countries and we're gonna, you know, expand ourselves more into Canada this year. So just in terms of a business side, you know, we're, we have a distributor that we're working with in Australia. Um, we want to expand more significantly into Canada, Mexico. So

Speaker 2:

You're barely, you barely scratching the surface. I mean, golfers are United States, but like, if you, the thing about Canada, which is a pain in the, I'll just tell you is the shipping costs, right? Like anything to Canada, it's like$14. You know what I mean? It was utter total ounces. It's like, dude,

Speaker 4:

I suppose from that, is we just, we need to go, uh, we need to expand our, uh, Amazon business. So it's fulfilled by Amazon in Canada, that'll help, you know, with the logistical cost for us as well. And as well as finding some distributor partners and things like that. And so yeah, business side it's

Speaker 2:

I know a bunch of'em to, um, to Nick be like, hear me. I want you to ship these out. And if they pull up outside and dump like a big old truck full of, and you're like, can you ship this stuff out on your free time? Right. Thanks. Well, that's awesome. I'm really happy for you guys. You guys need to check out desert Fox. It's like seriously, the coolest thing ever. And I'm a big supporter of, um, a lot of people I hang out with are supporters of, of their, like everyone they speak the best phone holder is do like I've tried them all. I mean, I think you guys pick the best one. It's cool because you can like adjust it. It's not just like a strap or something. It's like, you can adjust the sizing. I dunno. You could tell it engineer designed it. Not like China was like, Oh, I'm going to put a strap on it or a magnet, you know, whatever. But, um, it's brilliant, right? Because we all, I mean, seriously be writing. And when he uses an app now, I mean, I had, like, I had Sal on this week and a laptop. I had him on the episode. But like, you know, if you use the Arcos, there you go. Like you have your articles on. So I think that's who you guys need to work with. It's like those kinds of companies and make it part of their thing. We've had the conversation

Speaker 4:

From a lack of effort.

Speaker 2:

It's hard. I know. I know. Well, after we get off and sell my cell phone, I'd be like, tells a good dude, man, that guy's smarter as hell.

Speaker 4:

But I think the good thing about the market is right. When you go out and you, when you golf, you don't see a ton of, uh, phone holders on, on golf cart. So the it's, it's a new market. Right. And so we have a double role

Speaker 2:

Competitors. I think I different, they're not the same,

Speaker 4:

By the way. I like having the competitor. So it's so it's, um, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, right? So

Speaker 2:

In emerging market,

Speaker 4:

I would, I would hope that there's lots of options. And then for people to try them and settle on ours, which I think is the best. So I think getting people to recognize that having a phone holder period is a great thing. And then once they now have choices for that phone holder, they can choose ours. But I agree. I'll know, I'll know the market is mature when I go out and play golf and half the people on the golf carts.

Speaker 2:

Are you seeing it though? Like when you go play, have you seen it like on other people's cards, which are not people, you know, that's a blast. It really is. It's one of those things. But I think I called him. I was out of the golf course and somebody was coming by and I, I, for a longest time, I just assumed, I know everybody that has the phone holder. Right. So guys driving towards me and I'm waving at him and he's like, who the hell are you? Right. And I think I called Eric. I'm like, Hey man, it's so exciting. It's so gratifying. Right. You're like, Whoa, it's definitely happening. Like where your stuff? You're like, Whoa, I watched, I watched that video the other day of Jeff[inaudible] from 18 strong we're friends. And I said, what am I beanies? And like, he's like eating, uh, I don't know, he's eating like a vegetable. And it's like your vegetables. He's one of my beanie. And I was like, that's my be at the center. It was fun. Like, I was like all excited. I was like, man, that's awesome. But like my dad's like my dad's where my beanie and I was like, Oh, this is my dad. Like he's wearing that and black socks. And I'm like, you need to go

Speaker 5:

Into footwear. So you'd get your dad's from different footwear.

Speaker 2:

I, or he's my, dad's the biggest, so funny. He was a story. My dad is now becoming the biggest fan boy of, uh, true links where like, I, I think I gave him a pair wants and he's like, Oh sure shoes. And now he's like buying them all the time. It was so funny. I'm like, yeah, no kidding. The good shoes, like duh. But, um, but it's old to say, all right, but anyways, you guys, I really appreciate you guys being on the show today. I appreciate our friendship. Oh, you know, like what's up with you guys? Um, like I said, we're friends outside of the show. Uh, maybe we should get coffee again, Scott. So, um, you guys need to check what's your guys' website. Again. I don't want to mess it up that desert fox.com or something. Desert Fox, golf.com really critical. Or if you want

Speaker 5:

To go really simple dmg.golf, you can

Speaker 2:

Get there that way to check them out, to make the coolest thing around, I think. And there's good dudes. You can see like the growing, they came with a cool idea. You got two engineers who are smart men that are putting together a cool brand, but somebody is actually needed in golf. I think, I think it's, I don't know. I love this stuff. So thank you for being on the show and I will talk to you guys soon. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the golf brand podcast, you're going to 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're winning, stay out of the beach and see you on the green.