Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore

Ep #45 - Swing Juice: Jon Mason (Founder and CEO)

May 04, 2021 Paul Liberatore Season 2 Episode 45
Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
Ep #45 - Swing Juice: Jon Mason (Founder and CEO)
Show Notes Transcript

We made it to Episode 45 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast.  In this week's episode, I interview my good friend Jon Mason the founder of Swing Juice.

In an era of divisiveness and polarity, SwingJuice has remained rooted in its values and ideals.  Community, inclusivity, creativity, and a come-as-you-are mentality continue to be the corner posts of who this brand is and what they’re about.  That’s why you, as you are, are welcome with open arms to the Swing Juice community.

If you haven’t checked out the Swing Juice brand, you should.  Not only will you be able to find a like-minded community of golf enthusiasts, chances are you’ll find yourself becoming part of a special family before you know it.

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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 a 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 golfers authority. Welcome to behind the golf ramp podcast. This week, I have a legend. I think he's a legend because he was the original who did shirts in golf. And then it kind of like took off, but it was a long, hard road. Like he's been doing it for a while. And I, I just, I have a lot of respect for it because it's hard. And what he did is really cool because it's kind of like resonated with players. And I think this is awesome. So this week I have my friend, John Mason from swing juice, apparel and everything. I know you guys know who they are, cause they're like everywhere. So welcome to the show. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. I actually have like an MC I'm like man was pretty sad. Could I be flavored slave? I want to be flavor fleet, like ultimate high trip, big swingers clock. I should actually go get the clock at the masters. Right? Take out Rolex. That'd be sick because I'd be like, I don't care. I see flavor a flavor that his own show. Uh, absolutely. It worked for him. And he did in New York, like 10 times that show, like that was just a long time ago by aging myself. I was like, if I started talking about some of my favorite old TV shows the other day I, we met TV show. We were kids called head of the class. I don't even remember that. It was like, I saw it on Hulu. And so then I like watched them like horrible, but like, I was like, I won't have it, all these people. So I started like Googled each of the actors and I was like, Holy crap. Like many people actually had a career.

Speaker 3:

Most of them did, but like my son like watches this show on Nickelodeon called Harvey danger and like that big fat dude, uh, on head of the class and the backer. That's his show. Like he produced it. He directed it. I was like, my kids aren't really Harvey danger. Anyway. Sorry. So where are you at right now? So I'm in the office. We are we're based in Tucker, Rhode Island. So small state, I've got a lot going on this beautiful background, bad. It's my little, little, little Oasis. At least I get some sunlight in here, my old office before it was my basement. And then we moved to a smaller office. I'm glad to have a windows for once in the year. This is my garage. That's a good one. And now they started other new brand. Like I just have boxes over here. I'm like, Oh, I want to say it's these boxes. I'm like, really? I still have boxes in my basement. And she's like, what are you getting these things out of here? You have your office, like get them out of here. And like, I used to be drowning in boxes. It's like, this is this, this guy, man. I cannot wait to find out how he did this. All right. So let's start a little time machine. Are you professional golfer? No, not even close. It's you play high school? Like anything like that? My, uh, kind of sports path was growing up, played baseball, basketball, ended up playing both of them in high school and, uh, baseball and college. So again, I've been at Providence college, which no longer has a baseball program. So I used to believe his biggest baseball, baseball, which was, which was great. Great, great competition. You graduate college long time ago, 2000. Let's call it late nineties. That's where I graduated college, man. Dude, I graduated 2000. What year did you graduate? 96. You're really old

Speaker 4:

Might have been just four years older than me. You don't even look like you're full years older than me.

Speaker 3:

You're all buff and stuff and I'm like, try to keep it together, dude. So you played baseball and then what'd you get your degree in marketing marketing? So I've always been sort of like an idea. So kind of like my two passions growing up, you know, through college sports and then, you know, marketing. So, you know, when this started to kind of come about in my head in 2003, 2004 as sort of a natural fit of where I wanted to go, but at the time and the way the brand started actually was a sports energy beverage. So yeah. So, you know, at the time it was, it was really starting to play a lot of golf with my friends. Like once I was done with baseball, just started again in the golf, like I said, early two thousands, 2003, 2004. I had a group of buddies that we just play golf all the time. And you know, one of them one day said, Hey, you know, um, no big deal. We'll district, our swing juice will be rented to go, like the spark went off in my head. I'm like, huh, used to be a great name for like some sort of a golf related energy beverage. And at the time this is when like, you know, red bull was taken over. Right, exactly. Like this red bull back there. Right. It was red bull and vitamin water pretty much so, so I literally that day I, I started the trademark process of the name of swingers and, you know, for a full year, I just, uh, just went through the process. All right. Well, how do you, how do you create an energy drink? How do you create a, uh, an energy water? So I literally hand wrote the first formula for swing juice. Um, I just researched all the ingredients. I knew what I wanted to be. I want it to be a healthier type beverage. Um, so I went through that whole process for a year, got some samples, main finalists, but all right, let me see if I can get some traction. So my initial thought was, okay, I want to get this into the golf space. You know, this is a natural fit. I love golf, you know, I'm into, you know, kind of into that health and wellness space. So initially my thought was all right, let's, let's get into let's, let's try it again at whole foods. And then let's, let's just get you to try to get into, you know, golf courses. So literally it just kind of, sometimes you hear this story, I just got a bunch of samples in the back of my trunk and I just drove all around. Pretty much every everybody did, you have to game, I'm like, Oh, you play golf. And this is also like the pre social media area. There was no, there was no Facebook there wasn't a, you know, there wasn't a, the only way you could get it out, it was just grassroots. Wanna use my space. Yeah. That's pretty much it. So yes. So, you know, the first, probably four or five years, it was basically just kind of getting out there. So, you know, one of my big goals was to get into whole foods, which I did, which was, which was great. Cause again, our product was like an all natural sports energy drink. It was like low sugar and no preservatives. It was really, it was kind of like, you know, again, it was a cross between a red bull and a vitamin water. So from 2004 to 2009, I that's what I did. And I just was on the road. I was pushing this drink and at the high point of distribution, we had about 300 accounts. You know, we had whole foods in the Northeast and then we had, you know, a number of grocery chains, uh, smaller grocery chains in stores and golf courses that carry the product. But we got the beverage spaces is very difficult. I mean, you truly are going up against giants with Coke and Pepsi and obviously red bull at the time and, you know, vitamin water before they were purchased by Coca-Cola, you know, it's almost virtually impossible to get shelf space unless you have, you know, again, a major distribution partner, uh, uh, behind you. So again like 2010, 11, 12, I started to kind of see the writing on the wall that the beverage piece was not going to work, but I love the brand. I still love the spleen juice brand. And I just thought I had a place kind of in this, in this, in this world. So I started to think back, well, how can I make this something? So we had a website, we would sell products on the website, but that didn't work because, you know, I'd sell cases of product for$25 and it would cost me like$34 to ship it, you know, people across the country ordering product. And it's like, well, this isn't, this isn't viable. So again, 2011, 12, 13, I said, all right, well, sweet juice as a beverage is not going to work, but I want to continue this. How can I do that? So it kind of got in my own head space and thought, all right, well, why don't I pivot this to an apparel brand? You know, we still had people that were buying t-shirts on the website. Um, you know, not, not many, you know, a couple of months, but people were constantly into the golf app, but of the brand. So 2013, 14, um, a God with a friend of mine was the web web developer. And I said, all right, well, I want to, I want to turn sweet juice into an apparel brand. So we worked for about six months and trying to fine tune the website. And then in February, 2014, just turn the lights on to switch just apparel and had about 10 designs on there. And immediately people were buying the t-shirts. It just resonated. Um, and again, it was something that, because you know, the name resonated to a golfer. And at the same time again now to the Instagram era, I was really starting to push the brand on Instagram. You know, again, speaking to a golf audience to see if that would resonate. And it works in, in, you know, now we ship all over the world and, uh, we have thousands of customers, tens of thousands of customers and, you know, things are going in a direction that I envisioned a long time ago, but it's great to see it actually come to fruition. How many designs do you have in t-shirts? So currently on site, we have, I mean, over the, I mean, I've probably had over four, 500 designs, uh, in total, uh, over the evolution, but currently, now we have over 200 on our website. That's cool.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you have a lot of copies yet. You know what I mean? Like a lot of people saw what you're doing and then they try it, same thing. Right. And I say like direct copycat, but like, Oh, funny, t-shirt for golf. Like, you know, like I've seen them all over the place. I've seen ones, like, I've seen people who like you pretty close to your designs. Like I was at a muni the other day and I saw a design and I was like, I was familiar. I can't remember where I

Speaker 3:

Saw it. You know? And I looked on your website right here. You're talking. I was like, Oh, that's the, you know, like, yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of that over the years. How much how'd you come up with the ideas like of these designs, the all in your head, or do you have like team or like, you know, 99% of them are in my head. That's just how my idea let's do a taco playing golf. Right. And you're like, okay. Find somebody who can draw that. And then you start. Yeah. So like all the concepts, like I said, majority of the concepts, 95 to 99% of them, I come up with this again, my brain, I'm constantly thinking about this stuff. Um, so we, you know, we have a designer and over the years I've had the designers that I've worked with closely. So essentially I'll just come up with the idea, message, message, our designer. We go back and forth until we get to the right, you know, iteration of what, you know, the thought processes in a way we go, that's like my favorite shirt, like the one, you know? And it's, it's been interesting because, you know, again, over the years, it's, it's one of those things. So the reason I wanted to go with golf t-shirts initially and not like polos and other golf apparel is that I felt, but again, as a consumer, I was looking around the marketplace. I'm like, there really isn't a cool, like golf t-shirts, although on this stuff you would see on smaller websites, it's like father's day related or some kind of goofy looking things. Again, the other thing for me was two things. One, you know, a great design on something that's fun. That's relatable that speaks to like my lifestyle, like something that I can wear off the course or show my passion for golf off the course. And then two, it had to be good quality, you know, I'm personally, I don't like, you know, shirts that are just like, you wear them once. And then you toss about, you know, a bar promotion that, you know, they throw you a free t-shirt. So I wanted like good quality. So, you know, before I even launched the apparel side, it was like, okay, well, what type of t-shirts do I personally like, cause I've always been a t-shirt guy. Like I'm in, I'm in the fashion, I'm in the t-shirts. So I did a good three to six months just kind of research period of t-shirts, you know, w what t-shirt blenders do I like, what do I not like? And then finally came up with a blend that I never really liked, like really comfortable, soft, no strange. Um, you know, so it, it was, you know, again, a quality thing. And then once the kind of the two mesh together, that's when you know what a lot with it. So then your original designs, you had like a youth launch, and then that's like, pretty much that's when like Instagram was starting to come out and more social. Right. So you're starting, which probably catapulted you faster because now finally there is a way of sharing that content. Absolutely. In a space that it wasn't,

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean? Like now it's like, I know about five different t-shirt companies right now. You know what I mean? And I'm not in this, I mean, everyone's creative in their own way, but you know, you were the first, right. I mean, essentially,

Speaker 3:

Honestly, that, that's how I, that's how I look at it. You know, again, when I started, there was not, again, there were other brands that were doing t-shirts like larger, you know, golf brands, but there was not somebody that was doing fun, cool, relatable lifestyle for anyone

Speaker 2:

Lifestyle. Like, yeah. Like I was at the golf course Sunday. And like, I was looking around, you know, and like, most of the time people don't wear t-shirts to the golf course. Like I thought, like I do. Cause I'm just like, I'm just seeing the bucket of balls. I'm not going to dress up. But a majority of people don't I just noticed, I was like, what the hell? I would still wear a polo shirt. I'm like, this is the fricking municipal golf course, dude. Like, but it's like, you're never going to change that. But there are people out there that like wear a t-shirt or they want to wear it when they go out their friends or when they're hanging out at home at a barbecue, or there is one nice comfy t-shirt to go to the movies or, you know what I'm saying? Like it's different and they still love the sport. But then I don't know. I just it's like, I'm trying to learn these things or seeing, I don't know. I just, I started my own brand. It's like, Oh, I see. I see why. Oh, you know, it just, I don't know. It's just,

Speaker 3:

And you know, to me like the, the initial thought process was okay, I want to be able to wear something that I'm passionate about. Right. So like, I w I came up with the term, you know, where you're passionate your sleep, you know? So the idea was okay, well, I, I don't want to wear polo all the time, but I, I love wearing t-shirts all the time. And I want to show people that I'm into, you know, I'm in the golf and then the, you know, the, the sort of lifestyle. And that was really the initial thought process in getting the tea. So I, you know, again, I, I I've said this all the time. It's like, I truly, wasn't the first one to do fun, you know, cool golf lifestyle. T-shirts, you know, way back in 2014.

Speaker 2:

No, I mean, I don't know, like, your designs are on, on par, no pun intended. Um, but like, you're, they're, they're on par to what's happening in society right now. Like you have, like, if you're in a golf and you get what's happening. Oh, that's funny. Oh, that's cool. I see what you did. You know what I mean? It's like, it's almost like you can't throw it in somebody's face, right. The joke. Right.

Speaker 3:

True. I appreciate that. And that's literally what, you know, what I try to do is come up with stuff. That's relatable stuff. That's, you know, that's current, that's something that, you know, again, it's, that's funny to me, and this is opposite likable. A lot of things is you want to get an emotional, you know, from somebody you want somebody to be drawn to something, because it brings a certain emotion. I like the golf and tacos design. It was one of the first ones I designed. And the reason I came up with that was I really liked golf. And I really like tacos. So I'm like, all right, well, why not wear that? T-shirt and same thing with golf and hip hop. Like, I really love hip hop. Like, I'm a, like a hip hop historian. And then I really loved golf, but I'm like, you know, on paper, they probably don't look like they go together. But that's one of our all-time best selling shirts because other people see that, like, you know what? I like golf and I like hip hop as well. Why not? Why not wear that on a, on a t-shirt. So again, it's trying to get this fun emotion out of people. And it seems like so far it's working. So

Speaker 2:

What are your two biggest golf and tacos involvement?

Speaker 3:

Uh, those are, those are like in the top, you know, in the top, um, you know, five

Speaker 2:

Vintage Georgia. One is probably one of them.

Speaker 3:

That's, that's a, that's a good one.

Speaker 2:

The one that has a TV on it. Right? Like, whatever it is, golf and chill or whatever,

Speaker 3:

That's up there too, honestly, like right now, our, our top selling design is our new logo that we switched to. We call it the juice retro designed. Um, right now I have right now, that is our number one selling design across, correct. Across every category, which is kinda wild. Cause I was a little nervous to change the logo. The logo had been the same for six, seven years, but you know, like talking internally, you know, from photos, it was a good, you know, kind of cool update and you know, it's got a little retro look, but it's also relevant. It is. Are you seeing it?

Speaker 2:

It's a big brands doing it. But I see like respect for the older generations, you know, like the brand, I, my friends, Gavin owns a brand called Penfold and like call me balls and teas and all that stuff. But like they just release the bag and the bag is like an old retro style, like, you know, seventies bag. And I'm like, that is the coolest bag my grandpa carried. And I'm like, that is cool. You know, it's not like in your face, there's so much in your face stuff right now that it's like, nah, I never, but you know, that's the thing

Speaker 3:

Is definitely coming back. I feel like no doubt about it. Yeah. You could say it. And, and again, it's like, I feel like fashion is like that. Anyway. It's like cyclical, like things that were old or come back as new, you know? So for us it was, you know, the, the, I, I love this new logo because to me it is, and we call it the retro logo, but again, it's got a little retro feel and it's also like minimalist. And again, to me, the biggest cue is that our customers are fans are loving it. So it, obviously it was a resume

Speaker 2:

When you do your marketing, are you, I mean, obviously you're all over social and all that, but like even an email list and Nike run ads and all that still. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Are you still doing all that? Yeah. Yep. Still doing all that kind of have to do a full three 6,366, a degree kind of marketing plan you to try to get the word out there as many places. Because again, you know how it is people, especially now people consume their media in, in various, just sitting in front of them. Right. They're not just sitting in front of the TV and if they are, they're either skipping through the commercials or they have a service where they show commercials. If they're on their phone, they're just scrolling through, scrolling through scrolling through same thing with like email and text. So you got to have to try to hit people where you may think there, they could see you. And right now it's like, you know, it is, it's like instant gratification. It's, you know, two second attention spans. And it's mostly mobile, which is,

Speaker 2:

I watched a video the other day on YouTube. Like, I'm totally, I'm like hooked on YouTube. Now I wanna learn everything about it. And they're saying that like multiple watch YouTube on mobile. And like, you have to like optimize your cover image for mobile. Like nobody cares. Like, like if you can't read what's on the screen, you know, like, I don't know. I just find that fascinating. You know, like I may sell it on my website. I would say. I would say like 60% of my traffic stop, you know? So it's like, okay, well now we've got to have a super mobile site. And then I redesigned AlphaGo for that because

Speaker 3:

It's, it's honestly, it's going to be a hundred percent mobile at some point. I mean, again, the biggest cue is, look, look to like the younger demographic. You know, the kids that are, who have cell phones that are from like 10 to 14 or 16, everything is mobile. Nothing is, you know, analog, like sitting in front of the TV. They, they, they watch their TV on YouTube. They watch their TV and whatever, the streaming service, they're not watching network.

Speaker 2:

I was gonna tell you something about that. Oh, so we were talking about video earlier that did really well. Mine and I was looking at the demo. I was looking at the demographics and everything, and I thought found was so fascinating. Is that like probably 50% of the traffic of a, of like total amount? Like the age group was actually 24 to 34. I was like, interesting. You know, because like, I don't know, as a brand, as any kind of brand, you're always trying to figure out who's your audience. Right. And then I was like, okay, that's cool because it's always fluctuating. Right. Because if you look at my website, I'm like, Oh, it's, it's mostly, you know, a little older demographic, but then I'm like on YouTube. That's like, I almost feel like that's a sweet spot. Right. 25.

Speaker 3:

It is the sweet spot. And I was just going to say that like the 25 to 35,

Speaker 2:

Less than that, they're not like, seriously, it's right. They don't have 20 plus 25, 24 year old last, they kill us. Right. Unless you're like wine, be a professional golfer, but then it's like, you know, the majority of people are at 25, let's say 53. That's like, yeah. But I mean, after that, you'd see diminishing returns. I don't know. I find that fascinating because you know, it's always interesting to see where golf is right now. Right. Where did the interest in golf and that's good, right? Because 25, 34, that's

Speaker 3:

Like the next generation coming older. Now it's the guys that like, are now married to have kids. You want to get out of the house and you want to buy some cool stuff. Right. Or learn more about where golf was going, which was great. So Mike, most of us out there, you're probably double duty for awhile. Right. As you grew your brand, when did you get to focus? Full-time on something like how pretty much, probably about a year or two years into the pivot into teasers. So we pivoted from beverage to t-shirts in 2014. So it's probably 2016, 17 when I was just like, what were you doing before? It's a different housing and beverage distribution. So it was, I was in beverage distribution at the same time. I was trying to push the beverage product. So to like, yeah, you're already there. But at the same time, it's like, all my mind and energy was focused on building this. So I did get to the point where I'm like, you know what, if I'm going to take a run at this, I go there. I got to go full bore. And it's like hard to sleep. Right. Your mind's always like, it's still hard to sleep. I can't sleep right now. I try to sleep every night. And I was like really stressed out. I'm like, no, I'm not stressed out. I just have a million things on my mind right now. You don't, you don't think you're stressed out, but then you put the new, your brain is going a mile a minute. Right. Like I think I've always done like that. That's okay. Um, you know, like, no, no, you go ahead. You're the guest. It's funny. No, no, no. But you know, again, it's one of those things where like, even now, like, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're growing at a good clip and ream hit a lot of great opportunities, but my mind is constantly racing. I'm like, what's next, next, next, next, next, next, next. Right. So right, exactly. Like trying to constantly try to continue and innovate. I mean, that's the thing it's like, we started again, the evolution of the brand started as a beverage pivoted to just solely graphic t-shirts. But now we have, you know, we have polos and we have hats and we have, we have hoodies and you know, we have this new deal with a major league baseball player, which is, which is super exciting opening up. Yeah. It's also opening up additional doors, which is so how does that work, which is exciting when you work with the MLP PA like, are you then able to do licensing of certain players? Are all players correct? Yeah. I'll play all players that are on a 40 minute, current 40 man roster. That's that's nuts. Hundreds of players, hundreds, thousands, bro. But yeah, I'm trying to think there's probably 14, 1500 players in the league, something like that. So pretty much you, by going with the MLB PA, then you're able to then do it's like you licensed with them. And then the player is already a member of the player association. So you're able to like, right. And instead of going to like a Cubs, right. And trying to a Cubs shirt with my date, myself, Andre Dawson, right. Or Ryan, Sam, like the Hawk back then out of people think I'm like, I don't even know these new players now. I was like, Oh yeah, I know that guy. Bellenger, I've heard of him, but that's about it. But then you hit that. That's so fricking. Yeah. So it's exciting. And again, not that we're going to undertake at least right now, like every single player, but it's fun because again, I was, I used to be obsessed with baseball and you know, now that I'm sort of back into it, I'm actually really back into it. Um, it's exciting to see the way that, how the game is, but also to, you know, really diving into each team and cities, fandom. Right. So you, what we're trying to do, at least some of this initial part of the launch launches to, you know, again, pick players that it resonates to the fans or a more general basis. And then because baseball is such a long season, it's every day for six, seven months to, you know, they're going to be, be players. Yeah. It's fun. It's super fun. Like right now, like I have this Fernando Tatis Jr. Shirt on like, he's the face of the game. Right. So it's like, he's somebody that resonates like how cool this is, but the NBA, right? Like if you want to do a Jordan shirt, right. But like, this is almost like 30 years ago or whatever, like being able to like go to the NBA and be like, Oh, we're a member of the player association. I could do a Jordan shirt. Right. Or something like that. Like, it's so cool. Because like, I don't know, you call all the BS. Right. All these layers to get to a cool product. Right. It's not like, Oh, I got do a licensing deal with the team and I gotta do a license deal with major league baseball. And I do the, you know, it's almost like the source, right. The real source of it. Yeah. That's cool. I didn't realize that. I was like, Oh yeah, no. And again, it's like I was saying before, it's, you know, we, we started the process of trying to put a deal together with the MLB PA last July. And we just launched, you know, opening day of this year. And again, pandemic year, season was all over the place. So that was a horrible season. Yeah. So, you know, again, for me, it's like a great evolution of what the swing and swing juice could be for baseball too. Right. Like hundred percent, you know? So it's not, it's a good segue. Right. Or waiting on you come, that's a huge, yeah. It's exciting. Exciting. You know, again for that though, or like a separate section of the site, you know what I'm saying? Pick your city,

Speaker 2:

Right. Like, Oh, okay. Like I'd have a golf and I'd have I do my sport and then be like, Oh, pick your city. Oh, you're from like the Dodgers. And then like here's all the dogs. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. That's exactly what we just did. We just kind of segmented the site to show golf and baseball. So you know, you go on a golf and you see like our new polo line and you see all of your favorite t-shirts golf t-shirts and then you go on the baseball side and you see the mob PA stuff. And then you see, even when you know, we, we also just launched some new Spaceballs. So we have some, some cool baseball graphics. No, it's all, it's all up here. It's all up.

Speaker 2:

No, I, sorry. Am I like giving away? Right. I'm like thinking of all the coolest banners, balls, cool giveaways too. Like, Oh, you want to autograph them? So-and-so tatties, dude. That's so freaking cool. This guy is smart. I told you, I love talking to like the originals because there are like, there are hooks Mark. Like'cause you gotta, you gotta hustle. That's it. You gotta be a hustler. Like you look at all the brands that have been around for more than three years, they're all hustlers. Right. Cause most people just die off because they're like, Oh, I'm gonna you money or to sucks or whatever. But like you had to constantly evolve from like, you know, selling beverages, you know, an idea for a beverage, either a smart thing to because you trademark name, like right away. Like most of her stupid, they don't trademark the name. And then they're like six months down the road, somebody steals it and they're like, Oh, and they have to go to court and argue that I had,

Speaker 3:

I mean the two things I did right away, trademark the name and I bought the domain name and I didn't even know where it was going to go. I just thought, all right. I love this idea. So let me just try and get as much

Speaker 2:

Like last week, I've only been like one person on my team knows about it. I'm not to say, I'll tell you this idea. And like, I've been for months and months and months, I've been developing this idea. And then like, I couldn't think of a name of the David name. And then finally, like I thought of the name and I like, Oh my God. Be really good name. And then I like, same day, just like you. Oh, I bought the domain. And then I bought the logo and I had a logo, made it like fast. Right. And then one of my partners, the law firm, I'm just like, Hey, I gotta do a trademark. It was like, all right, let's just do it. I'll walk through today.

Speaker 3:

It's it's funny because even like, like I'm just so super passionate about, about what this can be and the idea. So that's really what drives me

Speaker 2:

Next level, dude, I'm telling you right now. I'm not, I'm not just to like pull your chain like for reals, because the whole baseball thing, you're thinking so far outside the box, like, you know, people go, I want to make golf shirts. Right. And then it's like, you've already moved a hold others for kind of by chance. Right. And like, you can go anywhere. Right. And now you've learned from this train, like, you've learned how this works now. You're like, I should go to the NBA, the NFL. I can talk to whatever soccer, whatever, you know? And like, no one thinks that far outside the box. They're just like, I just need to sell some stuff. You know, I need make my money back. That's the thing too. I know the question to ask you. So like when you started this, was it like print on demand? Or were you buying this stuff at like a printer? And like,

Speaker 3:

It was all pronounced a man. Right, right from the beginning. Which, you know, again, at the time it worked, because again, we weren't doing like really high balls. Right. So it was easy to do that. But as, as the volume, over the years started to increase and then it was like, okay, well the margins are not the right. Right. So then it started to become, okay, well let's contract with one printer, then two printers and three printers. You know what I mean? It's still then as the volume builds, you know, obviously it helps with the margins, but at the same time, it becomes more efficient because you can control, you know, what you print with effective press.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Because your price points are not like absorb it. Right. It's a$20 offer. Like that's, that's like less shirts,

Speaker 3:

Right? We're not, we're not selling$2,000 or anything like that.

Speaker 2:

You'd like to though, could you do with the rappers? That'd be sick, dude. If you could do the deal with like, Oh, that'd be cool. As how like old school rap I was on, I was on a clubhouse the other day. Sorry, I'm going to date myself. I was on clubhouse the other day. And I was in a room with fabulous. Somebody. I dunno. He was like, Sugarhill gang, some guy ready? Yeah. I was like, Oh, I love that song. And then like, I was in there with him. And then the next day I was in a room with MC hammer and like talking about something else. I was like, this is blowing my mind. Right. Because all the guys that I used to listen to, I was a kid. So you want clubhouse?

Speaker 3:

I am on call policy. I just haven't. I haven't liked hard. I haven't jumped into it. You know,

Speaker 2:

I haven't gone headfirst. I need it's cool. But like most of the time I feel like it's a bunch of people talking about the same, you know? Like, Oh, it's golf after dark. Oh, it's golf for lunch. Oh, it's golf. I think there's a way, I mean, there is, there's all talking heads. Right. Which is cool, whatever. But like, I think it was more structured and you, like, I think it'd be really cool. Like if you had, like, for example, let's pretend you have a club house together and then we're doing the show, but then other people come in, ask a question to you. That would be cool. Like it's interactive. I think that that's the, I think it could be taken to where it's,

Speaker 3:

It's like just one sided, like a user is talking or whoever the host is, is talking, but there's not a lot of, uh, interaction. Cause I, I thought that that's what kind of the, it was supposed to be where, you know, let's say whoever celebrity has a keynote, let's call it. But you know, I could ask you a question.

Speaker 2:

I haven't seen that. That's a thing. But do you have these rooms with like 10,000 people then? All of a sudden Mark Zuckerberg is not like how how's everybody get a chance to ask a question. And so like the ones that, and then it's like some people like you look at them. It's cool. Here's a cool part of it. I think it's really cool. I've made a lot of connections to clubhouse that I would've never made with people on Instagram that are already not really new, but I was like, Oh, I know that. So once you see what the person they're talking, like even people that do the same thing, right. I'm not the name brands, but like, I was like, Oh, Hey, you know, we were talking to the same room. It was like five or 600 people. And I'm like, Hey, I own this site. You know, it's other site. It was really cool because like now we're talking about things and you know, it's just, that would have never have happened. Right. Cause how else would you, how would you ever get someone's ear? That's the key, right. So it's true. Like, I don't know. I think it opened doors, but Oh, that's cool. It's no, it's not Instagram, but I also feel like it's kind of turning into like pay to play program, you know, it's just like

Speaker 3:

Sure. I see a lot of that. That's something you've got to try to evolve to the different platforms as best you can again, but you also know at the end of the day, like where are your audiences and where you can have the best interaction with them. So it's, it's crazy.

Speaker 2:

It's certainly in golf because a lot of people aren't Twitter, right? Like old-school golfers. Like I would say the guys are like 40, you know, or like over 40 or 35 or older are on Twitter. Right. They're on Instagram. They are. But not really. And then like you have the next demographic, they're all on Instagram, then all young, the next guy was on Tik TOK, you know, but I don't know. That's just my 2 cents. So cool. No, that's awesome.

Speaker 3:

This is awesome, man. I really appreciate it. I mean, again, it's, you know, the more that we can kind of tell the story and it's funny because I've almost kind of done this backwards in the sense that, you know, started with the brand name and try to hold all the product without telling the story. But now that we've kind of built up a story,

Speaker 2:

No, you got a good story. You got a good story and you're moving in a cool direction. I think like if you guys, you guys have, I know for a fact you guys have seen swing juices stuff. Like it's everywhere. You know, like you don't realize it's with juice, but it's pretty much everywhere. And I respect that because it's not, it's not easy in this industry, especially with, t-shirts like that's a whole different direction that nobody was

Speaker 3:

Category. And I, and that's kind of one of the things I, I feel sort of proud of in my, in my time doing this is I feel like we created a category that really wasn't there before. You know, you're starting to see larger brands really dive in the t-shirts. But again, all these other brands that you know, that, um, that have popped up over the years, I have to feel we're inspired by what you know are created.

Speaker 2:

Here's my opinion on the larger brands not doing t-shirts give me a break. Right? Clever kind of stupid. And number two, it's like, I dunno, it looks fake. You know what I mean? It's like, well, we gotta make a dollar off that person. So they must like, t-shirts, it's like, there's no passion there. And it's like, how many freaking Bushwood country clubs, shirts? Like, I'm not going to name a brand, but it's a very large one. And I was at like and they had like, all this half, their gear was Bushwood country club. And I looked at the brand I'm like, seriously, like, that's cool. That was cool. Like five years ago when it first started coming out. But now you're doing it. It's like, Oh, people are buying it. Like it is not cool. I don't know. It's my opinion. Again, I agree with you. Like again, at the end of the day, posers are posers. It's what resonates to the customer. They may look at it and say, it could have your reaction. Right. They all do. You know, again, that's why I'm really proud of what we've done, where we're going. And again, hopefully some exciting days ahead. Now you guys have big stuff. Well thank you for being on the show. I appreciate it. Let's definitely, let's definitely get another call. Off-record Oh man. Let's do it maybe on and I'll shoot you some times and let's uh, let's just pick a day, actually. I really would like to play that video idea that you had. Um, I think that will be fun if we could, if we could pull it off, I think I'll make that happen. Yeah. You guys were talking about doing a video, Don. I like playing golf together. So it's, you know, it's going to be, I just want to play golf with my friends. That's all I want to do. Right. And then kick my because I'm not that good. So me plus that drinks it and he crushes it. Cool. I know I'm gonna wear my gear. I'm gonna wear my gear says I'm going to send you another care package care package, get you some polos and some of the baseball stuff. Cause guys sent me a care package or the masters, which is nice. So that's really, that's the S-Class classy, right guys. So you guys need to check out, uh, juice.com. All of our socials. That's the cool part too. He has like a real email, a real website now, like I O dot, you know, it's like it's old school because he has a real car. It's a baby. Well, thanks for being on the show and we'll take care of good man.

Speaker 1:

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