Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
It’s like playing a round of golf with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs and listening to the stories behind their success.
Hi, I’m Paul Liberatore, and I love talking to entrepreneurs and the stories behind their brands. I find it intriguing when people are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and successes. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to some of the biggest names and brands in the game of golf.
So come join me on my quest to find the stories Behind the Brand.
Behind the Golf Brand Podcast with Paul Liberatore
#126 - Precision Pro Golf (Clay Hood, CEO)
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In this episode, Paul talks with his good friend Clay Hood, the CEO and co-founder of Precision Pro Golf where they discuss how the company was formed, the difficulties of being a business owner, and all the cool new tech they have come out with within the past few years.
Today we play golf.
Speaker 2Let me show you how we do it in the pros.
Speaker 3Yeah . Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast. I never missed with the Seven Iron , a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My
Speaker 4Friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course, I lived on the driving range
Speaker 3From Pro Talk . You should learn something from each and every single round. You play to fun from on and off the green. Why would
Speaker 5You play golf if you don't play it for money?
Speaker 3Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind the Golf Brand podcast with Paul Libert Tore .
Speaker 6What's up guys? Welcome to the Behind the Golf Brand podcast. This week I have my good friend, clay Hood, the co-founder and CEO of Precision Pro . Now, you guys probably know what Precision Pro is because they've been around for the last, I don't know , like, what, probably six or seven years, and they've make some of the best range finders out there. Um, I've reviewed pretty much all of them at this point , um, including their speakers. And , um, I actually had Precision Pro like on the, within the first 10 podcasts I ever did, and that was three years ago. So it's really cool to have Clay here because it wasn't Clay back then, it was somebody else. And so it's really cool to have like the actual co-founder and the whole story and just kind of , they've grown so much in the last three years especially. So it's really cool to have 'em on the show. And so welcome.
Speaker 7Cool. Thanks for having me. I appreciate looking forward to
Speaker 6It. So you guys are in Cincinnati, right?
Speaker 7We are Cincinnati,
Where are you located?
Speaker 7right in the , uh, right in the Midwest.
Speaker 6Are you from Cincinnati? Did you
Speaker 7Compare or what ? I'm from Kentucky, which is , uh, not far from Cincinnati, right across the , uh, river. So I grew up about four hours away from Cincinnati, but I've kind of been all over the place since I, you know, since I left home if you , if you will. So , um, yeah, Cincinnati was my kind of latest landing spot and probably be my, hopefully my last landing spot.
Speaker 6You're forever, you're forever landing spot maybe until you retire.
Speaker 7Until, until our, at least until our , uh, six year old is there , is out of , uh, you know, is outta the house. So still got a while .
Speaker 6He's got 12 years. <laugh>
Speaker 7Still got now you still
Speaker 6Got like 18 years probably. Like, I mean , let's ,
Speaker 7Yeah, it'll probably, you know. Yeah, he seems like a, he's the only, so , um, you know , he'll probably be around a while .
Speaker 6That's all right . I'm an only too , and I left like, I, like left Arizona and I went to Indiana, so it was a interesting different place right . Than, than than Arizona. They're like, why ? I remember, I remember the first winter, I was like, why am I here? I was like, why ? Why? Like, it was like, you're like scooting, you know, trying to walk to class. I'm like, I was back home. It was like 70 degrees out. Like, this is, and no wonder.
Speaker 7Yeah, it's , uh, we got our kind of ups and downs on the , uh, Cincinnati weather. So winters are kind of , can be cold and nourish . Uh , summers can be a little warm, so, but , um, no overall a spot .
Speaker 6Really , really
Speaker 7Good
Speaker 6Spot's a great place . So are you a golf pro?
Are you a golf pro?
Speaker 7I used to be a golf pro, so that was my before Precision Pro life . Uh, yeah, right outta college. I got a job as a kind of a club pro, assistant pro at a , you know, at a, a club. And , uh, yeah .
Speaker 6Where was that at?
Speaker 7Uh , my first job was in Lexington, Kentucky, a place called the , um, university club , uh, of Kentucky. And then , uh, moved to another pl another course in , uh, another club in Lexington, you know, a couple years after that. So , um, yeah, that was my, that was my previous life.
Speaker 6So when, like, how'd you get into golf? Was like your dad or your grandpa or your mom or who, how
Speaker 7Yeah, it was interesting, my, my story a little bit different. Most people kind of pick golf up from their, you know, parents or grandparents or, you know, some, some kind of thing like that. Actually, my dad wanted to learn how to play golf when I was about nine or 10. So we actually learned together. So he, we went for the first time he took me to like this par three course and we played for the first time together. Uh, I think my little brother went too and he didn't kind of really stick with it, but I really enjoyed it. I liked it a lot and just kind of stuck with it. And, you know, my dad played it casually for , um, you know, a while, but, you know, wasn't, wasn't great. But , um, yeah, I, for some reason I really liked it and , uh, just kind of ran with it. I'm , uh, I like doing things not on my own, but I, I like a good bit of alone time. So I kind of found solace in being able to like, go to the golf course and hit balls for, you know, eight, nine hours when I was 15 years old and , and not have to talk with anyone. So Were
Speaker 6You like just naturally good? I mean, like, I could use that or , or you were just like, oh, I love this game 'cause I couldn't just do my own thing. Uh,
Speaker 7I wa I wasn't bad. I mean, I was, I played for a small college for a couple years. I wasn't, you know, wasn't amazing. I played in high school and played in junior tournaments and, you know, I could, you know, playing around where I shot in a par you know, was obviously was not gonna, you know, go to a major college or play professionally for a living. But , um, you know, I wasn't bad. And , um, yeah, but I also liked it 'cause it was kind of something you could do on your own. You didn't have to, you know, you didn't really have a team outside, you know, kind of the , the high school aspect. You could do your own thing, you could work as much as you wanted or as little as you wanted. And , um, yeah, I just really enjoyed it. So did it a lot from the time that I was about, geez , 12, 13 up up until, yeah, I guess up until out of college. So that was, that was what I did all the time.
Speaker 6So when you're at , like, what did , where'd you go to college at? I
Speaker 7Went to a small school. It was in Kentucky called
Where did you go to college?
Speaker 7St . Catherine's. It was a two year college and I played golf there for a bit. And then , um, yeah, after that I actually ended up going to school. It'd be a golf pro at a , uh, place called the Golf Academy of America of for Relax . Actually , a lot of people went , uh oh , I've heard that . They've done that and , um, yeah, they had Where's that at ?
Speaker 6That's ,
Speaker 7What's that ,
Speaker 6Where's that at ? It's in
Speaker 7Florida. They had one, excuse me, they had one in , um, Arizona as well. They had a couple, they had like four. So yeah, I did that after my kind of play golf in college experience. And , uh, yeah, it's like a two year thing kind of learn , you know , the business. They're
Speaker 6Not around . Are they still around or not really?
Speaker 7They, they're not, I think they actually got , um, they got caught up . Yeah . Well, I think they got purchased by a , like one of the kind of online college things. And that one got, it kind of went away. A lot of, a lot of those kind of schools,
Speaker 6<crosstalk> and all that went away after the feds like, clamped down and were like, oh yeah, sorry. Yeah . No more free money.
Speaker 7Yeah, I think that was something like that. So I don't know what years that that happened
Speaker 6Like that . Well , I went to law school. I know like, honestly, like I paid so much money in student loans and it was like, you know, in like 2010 , like, you could, you know, get it, get money to go to college again. And it was, yeah . You know? Yeah . People don't realize that like, you can still have to pay that back.
Speaker 7You do. Yeah. And that
Speaker 6It's not free money.
Speaker 7Yeah. I was actually lucky I think about to come out of, you know, come out of school being able to like, get a job in a specific field, even though it wasn't a , you know, it wasn't a job that paid a lot, but I didn't have a lot of, you know, I had a little bit of student loan , but not a , not a like, you know , not a lot. Not like, you know, four year degree and gonna law school, like not a, not a ton of like, you know, debt. Um, but also had to come a specific thing I could do and get a job. Yeah . I remember,
Speaker 6I remember people in law school because I , I went to law school late, right? I , I , I was 30 when I went to law school, so I already had a career . I was working and law school at night. So I remember like, there would be younger people that were straight outta college, like going into law school and they would use all their like, money to like go party. And like , you get the max you could possibly get in student loans. And I'm like, you guys are dumb. Like, you know, they're like , you're like , like they like , you know , $250,000 a year or $150,000 a year in money , like, you know, for loans and crap. I'm like, you are never gonna pay that back. Like, so you better enjoy that time because you'll never pay that back ever unless you make a million billion dollars.
Speaker 7It's tough man . Later in life. Yeah. Things you , the things you don't think about, like you do have , you do have to pay that back. So ,
Speaker 6Sorry, Joe Biden, <laugh> . Maybe you need to , maybe you need to, everyone says like, oh, we're gonna do the free student loan, write off stuff . I'm like, that's never gonna happen. Come on now. Um, 'cause there's a lot of money there. Uh , so you started teaching and then how long were you teaching for?
How long you were teaching for?
Speaker 7I did that for, I wanna say like nine. Yeah, like nine, 10 years. I got , uh, yeah, that was a , a good portion. I spent , uh, I was in Lexington, Kentucky for several years, three or four years. And I got a job in Charlottesville, Virginia that I was there for a while , five or six years. And yeah, so probably from the time I was 21 until I was 30, yeah, 31, I was doing the Oh, wow. The golfer thing. Yeah. So I , I had a pretty good , uh, go at it and, you know, I'd probably still be doing it if it wasn't for, you know, a couple kind of chance things. But , um, yeah, it was , it was, it was good. I , you know, a lot of work, but it was, it was something I enjoyed.
Speaker 6Okay. So then how did Precision Pro start? I may have
How did Precision Pro start?
Speaker 6heard the story, but like, I wanna hear it from your words 'cause you lived it.
Speaker 7Sure. Um, so I would guess in 2012 or so, I would've been, yeah , so 2012, so I would've been 30, 31 or so , uh, 30, 31 . And , um, was in, you know, lived in Virginia, got had a nice, you know , golfer job, you know, after doing it for nine or 10 years. I mean, the thing with like, kind of, you know, club pros is, is, you know, if you don't know, it's just a lot of work. You know, you're working weekends, you're working holidays, you're usually putting in a lot of hours. Um, you know , you're doing something you really like, but it, you know, it , it can be grind, especially, you know, in the, in the busy seasons. Um, and you know , in some, some instances you can, you can make good money, but a lot of times it's, it's not, it's not amazing. So
Speaker 6It's a grind, right ? It's just like, yeah . I mean,
Speaker 7It's , yeah .
Speaker 6And you have your , your schedules all over the place 'cause you're like, oh, I need to make money, so, oh yeah, I guess I'll work Sunday. You know? Right , yeah. Or whatever it is. Like,
Speaker 7It could be hard. Yeah. Like for me, my typical day off was usually like a was usually like Monday, so that would be like a Monday off, you know , in the, in the summer. Um, so yeah. You know, just a , you know, the lifestyle is different, so I was kind of, you know, just getting a little, I guess a little tired of it. And I was looking for something different. So I decided that I was gonna move from Virginia to California , uh, just to do like kind of lifestyle change, try something different, you know, so big change young , so, yeah. And , um, where
Speaker 6In California did you move to?
Speaker 7So I ended up moving to Los Angeles, like Santa Monica area, which is kind of over by the beach. Um, you know, which is something yeah . That I decided that I wanted to do. Um , you know, I'd saved up some money over the years, so I, you know, kind of had my, basically my mind was like, I'm gonna , you know, try to get another golf pro job. Um , but, you know, I had enough money to say that I knew like, if I didn't get a job right away, I would be okay for a while . I could kind of get by for a while . So, you know, got to California at the end of 2012, just kind of , you know, getting things settled, didn't get a job right away, and, you know, had a few, you know , kind , you know, trying to figure out my next kind of steps. Like I, I knew that this was a possibility and, you know, so trying to figure out the next steps. And , um, ended up, you know, had a couple ideas on some golf products. I'd never done a, you know, kind of business thing before. So had a couple of , um, you know, ideas on some stuff. What , uh, a couple of golf, golf training products, a couple of golf training aids . Um,
Speaker 6But you invented ,
Speaker 7Uh , you like ,
Speaker 6Oh , people or like , these things you could sell?
Speaker 7Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess you could say invented. They weren't super , I wouldn't call 'em, like, it was not , not like , uh, you know, inventing the next airplane with these things , uh, <laugh> . So, but , um, I ended up meeting, you know, the person who's now my co-owner, my co-founder out in California. He had moved out there , um, you know, for the same kind of thing for kinda lifestyle stuff with his girlfriend at the time. Yeah. And we met randomly, you know, one night kind of just , um, hanging out, actually hanging out at a bar and just started chatting. And , um, we ended up playing golf a few times, and he knew a little bit. He had a , had a kind of a , had done a couple business things. So we ended up working on these training products a little bit. One of 'em was a golf mat that kind of showed you where you put your feet and then kind of showed you where you put your ball. So it was like a little training thing for chipping and pitching and, you know, we made this, no , we didn't make it. Well, we made a , you know, made several of them . And we actually sold a few. And had, we basically had enough success selling a few of those to be like, this is kind of fun, you know, to make something and people like actually pay you for it. Uh, but, you know, we didn't sell enough of 'em. That was gonna be an actual business, and like, it , that kind of product wasn't really gonna be an actual new business. You just couldn't sell enough of those things. So , um, and then we had a sec , an idea for a second product. It was a little putting aid to kinda help you set your wrist against kinda the putter called the putter cube. It's kind of this little plastic block that kind of attached to your , uh, you know, the grip of your putter. And it kind of, kind of created this little wedge between your wrist and the putter and kind of kept your, kept your hands solid. So we did that as well, so that for like 20 bucks. And again, with that one, it was like, this is a fun little thing. And, you know, I could , we could go to a golf show , um, like an outdoor golf show, and they have several of those, like over kind of La, San Diego, Arizona, Las Vegas. We could go to those and I could, we could sell like 50 of 'em in a day at a golf show. Like this is kind of cool. We had a harder cut in those selling 'em online. Um, but it , that was kind of the same thing added in with the , um, with the golf mat . It's like, this is, you know, this is fun to see that, you know, we can make something and people will buy it from us. Um, but, you know, these two things probably aren't gonna be a business that's gonna actually like, you know, hobby .
Speaker 6A hobby. Yeah .
Speaker 7Yeah . They're not gonna be a viable business. Yeah . And I , I think that's probably the thing that a lot of people get maybe hung up on when they, you know, try something new like that a little, an invention or , um, kind of thing like that is like, you know, they think that this is, you know, it's like the expectation, like, all right , if you're selling something for $20 all well, you need to sell hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 6Yeah ,
Speaker 7Yeah . You know ,
Speaker 6And your marketing's gonna cost you 19. So like Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you know , it's like you're gonna be losing $4 a unit.
Speaker 7Yeah. So, yeah. So that's kinda how we got started. That was back in 20 20 13. So
Speaker 6How were you selling 'em , like going to like, just like trade, like golf trade show ish, whatever you call it, and going to pro shops and going
How did you sell your golf products?
Speaker 6like door to door almost in that way? Or did you have a website, or what were you doing?
Speaker 7We had a website. We, we sold them online. So we sold our golf mat and our little putter and putting thing online. And we tried some of the , you know , normal stuff you see to ice and , you know , some Facebook ads, some Google ads, some kind of like, you know , we emails and things like that. And yeah , we sold, you know , we sold some, oh yeah . We had better, we had better, yeah , better luck. Like we'd go to like the kind of the outdoor or the consumer golf shows and, you know, we had better luck selling those there. 'cause you could kind of di demonstrate them to people in person. They can kind of
Speaker 6<crosstalk> . That's the hard part, right? With a training aids . Like, you have to show them how it worked and there's a learning curve, whatever that is for whatever the product is. And it's like, how do you show that?
Speaker 7Yeah, no, it is tired . So yeah, you could do that better in person. So , um, but that doesn't really scale very well. So like, you know, you go to go to show where you're , you know, cost a thousand bucks for Booth and , you know , maybe sell a hundred of those things over a couple days. Like, all right , well, we made some money, but, you know , we didn't actually, in the end, we didn't actually, you know , make a lot. So , um, yeah. But that whole thing was
Speaker 6Good marketing though. It's gonna pay off because people are gonna see it and they're gonna buy more. Let's price sell yourself, right.
Speaker 7Uh , meal maybe . Yeah. I don't think at that point I had a super like kind of plan on kind of, you know, exactly what was gonna do. Were
Speaker 6You still working? Like, were you teaching, or no, you're just only doing the training aid stuff?
Speaker 7I was , during that time, I was only doing that. That was, I was only doing that at the time. So , um, yeah. And we, you know, we did those things pretty kind think , you know, quickly, those things were pretty easy to kind of bring along and , you know, over the course of kind of a year. So , um, yeah. But basically what that did, it just kind of got , uh, you know, for , for me, it got me interested to say like, you know, this is exciting when we, you make something, you can sell it and people actually pay you for it. All right ? Can we find something that we could actually turn into an actual, you know, business? Um, and I, you know, I think that kind of the thing I personally learned there was, you know, it's hard when you're inventing something new. There's probably, you know, there's not always a something, you know, people gravitate towards things they've seen and they know how they work. And, you know, anytime there's something new, it's just a huge hurdle to kind of , you know, get that, you know, to go kind of through the mass market. So you can have some accessing sell few , but if you're not selling something that people buy all the time or need, you know, golf balls, golf clubs , shoes, or , you know, apparel , stuff like that, like, I think it's gonna be challenging unless you do have some kind of a , you know, bigger budget where you can go out and really, or take the time to, to make that, you know, mainstream. So those things have happened, but they're just tough . So, but yeah, basically got kinda interested. And so we were kind of , as we're doing this, we're like, all right , well this is , uh, you know , we're making a little bit on these products , um, you know, what can we do to make this into a real , real business? Are there other products we can do? Can we, you know, kind of try something different? So , um, so we're just kinda looking at a couple categories. I mean, our passion was around golf. Uh, I was a golf pro. My partner, he , uh, he's a golfer, you know, interested in , in that. So that was kind of like, you know, our kind of playground. We wanted play and we wanted to be in , in golf if we, if we could. So we're just trying to figure out like, all right , what can we do? What other products can we do? Um, so we're just kind of looking, you know, going stores , looking , trying to figure all this stuff out. And at the time, you know, range finders were, I won't say they were a new product, but not many people had them . This is 2014, kind of going into , well ,
Speaker 6They were super expensive too, weren't they? Like, if you had one, it was like a lot of money, right? Yeah. It was almost like a luxury, or you,
Speaker 7It was more, yeah, there was , there was a few things. There were one, it was really expensive. There were only a couple brands at time, so you know about the minimum you could be at would be like 300 bucks. So like, if you wanted to be, you know, you just didn't have a lot of options below $300. So that was kind of one thing, you know , second thing, at the time, it was actually illegal , technically illegal to use a rangefinder post, a handicap score. So I know a lot of people aren't like, you know , really didn't know that really into that. Yeah, you, you couldn't use a, you know, rangefinder and supposedly, you know, post a handicap score . So that changed a few years later. I'm not exactly sure what year that changed, but, you know, a lot of people aren't into that. They don't care. So they, but you know, the big things were, they were expensive, and then the other big thing was they just weren't great. You know, they weren't easy to use. Like, you don't , you know , if you ever , you know, back in 20 13, 20 14, if you tried to, you know, a lot of people struggle with range funders with kind of, you know, shaky hands and just like missing the flag and just , they were difficult to use. Um ,
Speaker 6And the lock on , right? Locking on the flag, it's like, oh , the
Speaker 7Shooting the ground , it's hard to lock in front it . Yeah. So over the, you know, from then till now, like the technology's become better and it's just become much easier. Like, our products now are just like, it's hard to miss the flag. It's like pretty, you know, simple. You may occasionally, like miss one, you just shoot it again and it's like, you know, it's just freaking easy. So there were a few things that were kind of pushing, you know, against back then. And you saw, and you saw a lot of more people using kind of like GPS things. You kind of had some other, you know, like the sky caddies were more in kind of their heyday back then. And then some of the GPS devices were a little bigger. So , um, yeah. So we were like, all right , these, this looks like an interesting category, like in our kind of idea was , you know, is there any way we could have a range finder that sold for $200 instead of, you know, be a hundred dollars cheaper than the, the main player's main competition? Um, so basically we started working with some suppliers overseas and just send a bunch of samples and trying some stuff out and found something that we thought was, you know, could be okay. We came up with a brand name and basically our kinda idea was like, we could test this and try it out. So what we did is we worked with supplier, came up with a product , um, they let us, you know, order not a big number, probably 300 of those to start. That's not bad. We did this basically in the , what , what's that?
Speaker 6That's not a bad initial order. It's , I mean, it's, yeah , I mean , I know they're expensive, right? It's not like a cheap unit, but it's still like, not 3000, right? And be like, well,
Speaker 7Yeah, that , that would be a lot. So basically the way we kinda , we , the way we kind of tried it out, this , you know, back in mid 2014 was like, we all right , we had this, so we had a product . We thought this is, you know, decent, we can, you know, we're using it and like, this isn't the worst product we've ever seen. We think we could sell this for $200. So we called up a bunch of golf courses and golf shops and said, Hey, we've got the , you know, our name, our company's Precision Pro, we're just kinda getting started. We've got this rangefinder that we, you know, retails for $200. Like, would you be interested in carrying it in your golf shop? And in the first, I guess three to four weeks, we actually had retailers commit to buy all this . They like said, yeah, we'll bring that in. Like, we'll, we'll give it a try. You know, we had probably the biggest order would've been like probably 10 or 15 from maybe a website. Uh , a lot of smaller orders. You know, a lot of, a lot of customers were like, yeah, we'll buy one or two and just see how, make sure that it works well. Um, so yeah, we basically got people to commit to buy all those products in the first kind of , you know, three, four weeks. Yeah. And because
Speaker 6There was nobody else like that, right? Because there was no one selling an affordable launch or affordable range find . Yeah , it was decent .
Speaker 7No , there was no , there was no, no one, there was no product at that price point. So that's what they were kind of interested in. So yeah, then we, you know, the product came in, we got the products in, we shipped 'em out, and
Speaker 6<crosstalk> you sold out of the initial 300 within a month? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .
Speaker 7Yeah . Wow. Yeah , just, just to selling them to retailers, like basically selling them to , um, Keystone
Speaker 6Or whatever, and you're like, oh ,
Speaker 7Here's the pride . Yeah . Yeah. Different golf shops. So yeah, we sold in the first, you know, we, you know , they didn't necessarily all sell to consumers in the first month, but they sold to retailers. So , um, so basically we, you know, we then said, all right , this seems pretty good. People were interested, all right , we'll see how over the next several weeks, like, do they actually sell 'em in their shops? And yeah, we kind of, that was kind of the cycle, and that got us going. So the next month we ordered more.
Speaker 6What was the name of that model?
Speaker 7Name of the model ? It was our first product was the,
What was the name of the first product?
Speaker 7called the VV 400. So it's not even on our website anymore. Um , so no , I was wondering this call , yeah ,
Speaker 6I mean , I know , I know most of your models, like, but I don't, I don't know the early , early ones.
Speaker 7Yeah, I mean, it was all pretty, you know, pretty, pretty kind of generic name. Like, you know, our whole goal is to like, you know, just to try this out and see like, can this be a , uh, an actual , um, an actual thing. So , um, yeah ,
Speaker 6The real business, is it like, are we gonna buy 300? Like, is it gonna work? Are people gonna buy it? And you're like, oh, crap, okay, cool. Yeah , let's
Speaker 7Do more. Um, yeah. So basically we kept, you know, we kept calling people , uh, we kept, you know, selling 'em , we'd bring more in next month, and we, yeah, we, we did pretty well. And , um, so 2014, I think we, we had probably five months of business. Like we, you know, it was kind of second half of the year. It's kind of what we're in business. So 2015 was our first , first full year. And , um, yeah, in our , in our first full year, we were pretty , um, I guess , um, successful. I mean, we, we grew the company quite a bit. Um, we found people like, you know, that price point was still , um, you know, was still viable. We, we did know at the time that like, Hey, this, you know, anyone else can probably have a product at this price too. So like, if we're gonna have sustained success, like we need to, you know, do things differently, you know, do do different things and do them pretty quickly. So that was kind of like the , um, how we got, you know,
Speaker 6<crosstalk> . Yeah . Someone's gonna copy us. It's not gonna take long for someone copies us, right?
Speaker 7Yeah. Yeah. So basically supply it
Speaker 6And then they call something else, and then at the same price point or something similar.
Speaker 7Yeah , yeah, yeah. And then, you know, and there were a few things kind of in the start. Like, we basically like, we're like, all right , we , we have a better price point. We have that, so what else can we do? Um, so we kind of honed in on customer service. So some of the , you know , some of the bigger , that's true, that's
Speaker 6Right . Yeah. As known
Speaker 7For some of the bigger brands, like had had a reputation for just not being very easy to work with , um, if , if something went wrong or , you know, and the , and the truth is, like, these products from any brand are pretty fragile. If you drop one, sometimes they , you know, they, they can just, you know, you drop it on the cart path, run , run over to the golf cart , like they can, they can break and people will lose them. And, you know, they're, they're a delicate, they can be a delicate product that that's expensive. So , um, just a lot of people lose them and things like that. So basically what we said is like, all right , if anyone has an issue with the product, like if it doesn't work, they break it or something, we're just gonna send them another one and we'll get back to the other one and we'll try to, you know, we'll deal with that on our end. Whereas some of the other companies were like, all right , well, since we're <crosstalk>
Speaker 6Big deal, man, that's a big , if you think about it, like you're saying, Hey, if you break a 200 product, you can send it back to us. We'll give you an a we'll return. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , like, people, like, it's instant. I mean, no one does that, right? So it's like, yeah,
Speaker 7Yeah. It , it was not happening at the time. So , um, yeah, the other companies were , they had this kind of weird, and not weird, it's just a pain in the process where, you know, if you had an issue, even if it was under warranty, basically
Speaker 6Corporate, it was a corporate process, right? Like
Speaker 7Yeah, you'd have to basically, you'd have to mail the product to them. They, they would say, they would spec specify that, you know, we're going to , it's gonna take us about two to three months to, to look at this thing Yes .
Speaker 6Over , we'll give you around Christmas time . And you
Speaker 7To then they would actually request, they wouldn't, I guess they , they would require that you actually put a check in the box for $20 to pay for the shipping back to you. Like that's the ultimate, like, you know, ultimate dick move like that I've ever heard of .
Speaker 6Yeah, seriously. Like
Speaker 7From a company. So , I mean, you had no
Speaker 6Choice, right? I mean , we've all broke stuff. I mean, yeah. I mean ,
Speaker 7Yeah . So yeah, you gotta put a check in to pay for the shipping back. So
Speaker 6Did you guys give away free batteries too?
Speaker 7Uh, we did not do that from the beginning. We started that later on
Speaker 6In <crosstalk> . Oh , I did . I know. You know, I like, I remember, I know you guys do that, which the thing is smart too. Yeah . It's like, yeah . What a way of like, creating brand loyalty.
Speaker 7It no, it is good. I , our product , you know, range funders, if you, if you don't lose one or you don't have an issue, it's like not something you're buying, you know , you're not buying one every year. Um , maybe it's every three or four years. Depends . And sometimes these things last six, seven years. So depending on, you know, I see people using the ones that look like they're old, beat up , used car , but they're still working and they're six, seven years old. Um, so yeah, it's , for us, it's like a way to just try to like, you know , when someone does, you know, want to come back and, you know, do a replacement that, you know, can we be top of mind and, you know, be, be kind of choice one if, you know , uh, to, to continue on with us. So actually
Speaker 6Now, right, there's like so many brands now that are Yeah . Competing with you.
Speaker 7Yeah. So not like ,
Speaker 6Yeah .
Speaker 7Yeah. So it was a good thing from the , uh, for us, from the , uh, beginning was to kind of hone in on that. So , um, yeah, you know, in the beginning, for the first, I guess kind of really year and a half, two years, like we really focused most of our efforts on the , um, kind of the retail business. Like we were selling stuff to, to retailers, golf forces , pro shops ,
Speaker 6This like 15, 16, 15
Speaker 7And 16. Yeah. Um, yeah, that was kind of how we got , uh, I got started, was just sort , we're trying to sell stuff to retailers and, you know , that it's interesting. How do
Speaker 6You like, so if somebody was like, I ask this question, like, if you're a new product, whatever it is now, like, how hard is it to go to retailers or to
How hard is it to get to the retailers with a new product?
Speaker 6go to, like, do you have to go like door to door , I mean, essentially, right? Shop to shop , call them. I mean , is that how you'd do it back then? I mean, now it's probably a little lot different, but I mean, like, what does , what does somebody do?
Speaker 7Uh, sure. Yeah. I mean, that's how we did it back then. Um, we eventually started to bring on like salespeople in different area , different locations, like, you know , there's like
Speaker 6<crosstalk> Yeah . Like independent sales reps and stuff, or , or
Speaker 7Internal independent, yeah, independent sales reps. There's like a network of people who carry a variety of brands out there, so who have relationships with courses and shops and things like that. So , um, yeah, I, I would think like nowadays the, it's a little, you know, it's a little different. Um, one thing being that, you know, most product categories have kind of been, you know, filled up to where there's like, not that low hanging fruit where you can just get started with like a better price point. So like, pretty much every product categories has, you know, other brands that have filled those gaps. So like, if you're going to retailers with something new now, it's gotta be very unique and different. Um, so you're not probably gonna have luck just by making a cheaper golf ball or a cheaper, you know, a cheaper bag. Yeah . You know , those, those things have been filled by the other, you know ,
Speaker 6I was told somebody was, I was talking to a friend of mine who's ACEO of a brand , and he goes, he's like, don't ever base anything on price. Like, it's like, it's a race to the bottom, right? Like, essentially it's like, know your price and just stick with it and be like , that's what it's worth . You know? That's what
Speaker 7I mean . Yeah. It's, it's tough if you only, if you're only competing on price . And that's, that was kind of one of our things when we started and we don't really do that as much anymore. Price is still important, but like <crosstalk> ,
Speaker 6No , you guys evolved a lot, dude, within the last three years. Like, yeah,
Speaker 7I think it's , we have, 'cause we, we feel like we've, we've had to, so , um, you know , retail a little bit different nowadays too, back, you know, eight years ago there were more like independent golf shops that you could just call the owner and like, they could bring stuff in and you've seen not all of them, but a lot of those go away or be acquired by like bigger shops, golf shop , right? Yeah. Yeah . So,
Speaker 6You know , I mean, there's some pretty big , I didn't , like, I learned a lot in the last, like, there's some very big golf, I'm not gonna name who they are , you probably know who they are . Like, they've been like, bought out this year. And I was like, are you serious? I didn't even know that. Like, big, big, big.
Speaker 7Yeah. There's some that are, you've got a couple different kind of layers. You've got the biggest stores, you know , the Sporting Goods, own Golf Galaxy. Like that's the big , that's the biggest. And you've got like your, you know, your PGA superstore and you know, out there you guys have got your kind of ,
Speaker 6And you draw all your big online retailer, right? Mm-Hmm . Like all the, you know , yeah . Like the worldwide and the global and the, yeah.
Speaker 7And a lot of now those , a lot of those things are kind of all owned by, you know, they're kind of consolidated. So there's, you know, kind of more under one kind of thing . So , um, and then you've got some regional crazy ,
Speaker 6Isn't it crazy? It's crazy. It's
Speaker 7Crazy. Yeah. And I think that's kind of like the, that's just the general sense of like, I think retail in general, right? You don't see as many small, independent stores now. You just see more, you know, big stores, you know, even to the point of like, you know, obviously the Walmarts and the , and the Targets are the biggest, but yeah, you're good . You know, there's just gonna be consolidation along the way to where, you know, the, you know, because the bigger stores can just compete better. They have more stuff. They compete . Yeah. They have better, you know , the budget in golf, you don't really have better, prices aren't really a thing . 'cause everyone kind of sells like brands at this at a similar price, but they can just have more, you know, buying power. So , um, yeah, it's just easier, easier for them to , um, to compete. So , um, yeah . And then you've got some, like regional retailers. You've got, there's probably a handful of stores around the country that have like five, six locations in a , in a region. You've got some in Seattle, you've actually got one here in Cincinnati that , uh, we're good friends with some in the, up in the Boston area. Um, that's kind of , you see those kind of like , um, kind of scattered throughout. There's, you know , in the Dakotas and stuff. So Yeah. So it's either big or regional. And then you've got, you still got a few independent, you know, one-off shops, just not that many, many , it's just a hard , not many . It's a harder, yeah , it's just a harder game to play.
Speaker 6It's hard for them to compete, that's the thing, right? So they just die off or get bought out. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 7It's like the ones like, you know, here in Cincinnati we've got a , um, a , uh, store called the Golf Exchange, and you know , we're friends with them and they've got like six locations and they really compete hard on, you know, product knowledge and custom fitting. They're really good at fitting, so can't get that at , you know, probably they do a better job and you then you can get fit at it , maybe like a Dix or something. So that's where they pride themselves and they've done really well with that. So , um, on , on the kind of fitting aspect . So , um, yeah, and then you've got your golf courses, and that's the place where like, there are probably not any fewer golf courses, but those are harder to work with because there's, you know, there's, let's say there's 5,000 golf courses, well, you're gonna call every single one of 'em , try to get in there. So you can get , like, we work with a lot of golf courses, but like , that one is a very much a fragmented thing where it's difficult to , um, to get into a lot of ,
Speaker 6Do people buy range finders at golf courses? Any , I mean, honestly, like, I don't know if they do.
Speaker 7They might . I mean, it's still a pretty good yeah , pretty good business for us. I mean, it depends on, you've got
Speaker 6Custom stuff too, which I probably much
Speaker 7Know . Yeah . I mean, you've got a variety of different, like, things you got anywhere from like your local public course or municipal course where they're probably not carrying that kind of stuff, or a lot of merchandise all the way up to, you know, resorts hiring , hiring private clubs or resorts. Like
Speaker 6Well, there's a lot of consolidation on that too, right? I mean, there's like groups that own a hundred courses or 500 courses or manage 'em like a troon or like, you know what I mean? So it's like you go to the source
Speaker 7And then ,
Speaker 6Then they Yeah ,
Speaker 7That is , um, no , that's definitely true. There is consolidation across all the , uh, lines there. So
Speaker 6Everywhere there's consolidation everywhere, dude. That's just what it
Speaker 7Is . Yeah. So that was the kind of retail and how we got , uh, how we got going. Um, and then , um,
Speaker 6So what , so what was the next model? Was it the NX seven?
Speaker 7So we had, our first one was the V 400, and then in early 2016. So basically our idea is like , like, you know, all right , we've proven out that like, you know, this price point's good, this service thing is working, people are buying this product, all right , we're, we're we got , we got a business here. All right , well now we need to, you know, what's kind of next evolution, all right , we need to make our own products and like, make them get better look different. So we kind of did this, you know, kind of rebranding, like new, new logo, new website, just like we added this kind of cool green color. And then we came up with our, you know, our, our own, our own designed pro first product. It was called the Nexus. And that came out in 2016. It was our first product that had like that green face plate and a green carrying case. Um,
Speaker 6Yeah . Now you sort of brand it like, oh, that's a precision pro rangefinder. Like it's
Speaker 7Mm-Hmm <affirmative> . Yeah. We're starting to, you know, yeah, now create a brand and, you know, some recognition and yeah. You know, in 20, 20 16 we were still kind of focused on the , um, on the retail business and yeah , we saw things kind of flatten out a bit as , you know, that the retail stuff is just hard to, one , it was hard to , um, it became harder to, to grow. And secondly it was like, alright , we just have one product. Like, we literally just have Why
Speaker 6Is that one range ? Why do you think that is ? Like, why is it harder? Because they only , they only order so many, right? And it's like, okay, here's their price. They're not gonna order , they're gonna order once a year, so many units for all their stores. So it's like, you can't, right? Is that why I'm assuming? I have no idea.
Speaker 7Um, a little bit. I mean, our , I think the thing was at the time we weren't, you know , dealing with the larger stores, like, or we were, you know , trying to, but they weren't taking us in like the , you know, the Sporting Goods and the , you know , the big stores. Like, they, they weren't , uh, willing to try our products. So we're working with the smaller independent retailers in the golf shop.
Speaker 6I see. Yeah. Because they're like, no, we carry Garment and Bushnell and the big boys. Yeah ,
Speaker 7Right . Yeah. And we kind of , you know, picked a lot of those off at the time. And you , you kind run out of like, Hey, we've all right , we're in
Speaker 6You outta people. Yeah. You run outta company .
Speaker 7Yeah . Half the shop, so you run outta people and Yeah. And then, you know, that just, you know , became harder. And plus we just had , you know, you got one product, like, not a lot of, not a lot of customers wanna work with a brand that usually just has one product. Like, you know, you need a , a little bit more, you gotta evolve. Yeah, you gotta , yeah, evolve . So yeah, so basically that was 2016 and yeah , things had started to kind of , we were still growing a little bit, but not at the rate that we maybe had hoped for. And then , um, you know, so 2017 we worked on another , you know, another new product, and that was the NX seven. So we had the, our first Slope products, we had the NX seven Pro and the NX seven. We continued the , uh, the Nexus product and kind of dropped the price down. Um, and it was really a couple things, I think in 27, 20 17 is when we really started to kind of take off and do good things. Um, you know, we basically introduced those new products that were really good, you know, were still really, you know , good. Our , we had a Slope product, $250 at that time, 400 was the standard. So , um, and basically we, we, you know, were able to take that to retailers, they still like that, but we also figured out the online play more at that time. So that's when we started to really figure out Amazon and kind of our, you know, selling on our website. So that was kind of the priority 2017 as we went forward, was really figuring out the online play. So, you know, Amazon was starting to, well, Amazon had already taken off. It was starting to kind of become, you know, more of a , a space in the golf stuff. So yeah, that's when we really started to kind of, you know, move the brand forward from a revenue standpoint, was figuring out Amazon, figuring out website, and then kind of just adding that with our, with our retail business.
Speaker 6Well, that sounds tough too, right? Because they take like 30% and ,
Speaker 7Uh , it can be, it just depends on Yeah,
Speaker 6It's volume. Depends on you do an fba , right? I'm assuming like you weren't , or you , you shipping it out from your, your facility?
Speaker 7No, we do, we do the FEA where Yeah, you basically just, yeah , you go on Amazon , um, customer buys it and Amazon ships it. So yeah, it makes it pretty easy. And, you know , Amazon is a good spot for kind of things like golf range , winders , 'cause they're, you know, pretty simple to buy and ship and, you know, yeah. People like the, the trust of that. So yeah, once we figured that out in 2017, we really, things started to kind of take off and we, we just kind of doubled the size of the business that year. And then , um, and then, you know, that was how, that was basically our, you know, precision Pro starting to become a real company mainstream.
Speaker 6Yeah. Like you evolved outside of what you were, I mean, your main , because now you've got a bigger audience too, right? Especi with Amazon, it's like everyone's start seeing it more than just the local place .
Speaker 7Yeah.
Speaker 6Um , so it right now is the majority, where's the majority of your
From where the majority of your sales comes from?
Speaker 6sales come from then? Is it from online or is it from retail?
Speaker 7Between Amazon, what we sell on our website and then retailers. So , um, you know , our retail business has really has grown. We, we we're in most of the larger stores now, you know , Sporting , good Golf, galaxy, all the shops . Yeah.
Speaker 6Precision from ,
Speaker 7Yeah , there's , there's , there's some that we're not , um, some that we're , there's a few that we're not in, but we like to be. But you know, we're, we're still working on that. So yeah, I'd say we're pretty, you know, we're more of a , like an evenly split thing now. We're , you know, kind of retail direct on the website , um, and, and Amazon. Um, so yeah, that's like constant kind of , you know, strategic thing is like, how do you evolve and how do you, you know, you don't, ideally you don't want one of those places to be too, to , to be too much of the business. You don't want like one customer to be too much of the business. So we're pretty spread across like those channels. So like, we don't have like, you know, Amazon, if you've looked at one, they're not really a customer necessarily the way we sell, but , um, you know, that's got our biggest spot, but we're we're, you know, actively growing other channels and other spots that kind of, you know, kind of pulls, you know, eats into that. So it's been a , a pretty , um, kind of purposeful thing to try to really, you know, spread that business out across a variety of different, different areas.
Speaker 6So. All right . So then you went NX seven, the NX nine, right? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , that was the next iteration.
Speaker 7Yeah, we had , um, 20, so yeah, 20 se 2018 and 2019. We, we kind of continued with the NX Sevens. Um, and we really , really grew a lot with those. It was 20, kind of end of 2019, early 2020, we came out with the NX nine line. That was the first , uh, product we had with , they had a magnet. Um, so that was kind of the, the addition there. Um, yeah. And then yeah, COVID happened and that was, you know, that was interesting. That was actually really , um, good thing for, for golf in general. Just, you know , a lot more people played golf. Um, so you had a couple years there of kind of , um, of the kind of just increased demand, just I think, you know, if you were in golf at that time, like, you know, you probably just, you know, things went better than they would have if that hadn't happened for golf. So it , it , it turned out to be a pretty good
Speaker 6Thing. So then when I kind of remember, I think when you guys were on a long , long time ago, I remember them saying you guys had bought in the printer and they were talking about printing stuff at the time, and I was like, oh . They're like, oh, this would be really, really cool. Right. What you guys were working on back then. Right. So when did you guys decide to start doing like, the customization
When did you decide to do the costumization?
Speaker 6and like, when , when was that, was the release of the NX 10 or were you already kind of practicing, I guess, with the NX nine and then you developed the NX 10, so it was more customizable?
Speaker 7Yeah, I mean, we've always been ever, I mean, I guess ever since we kind of got past our first year, you know, we've always been, I've always been just thinking about new product ideas and trying to innovate and like, you know, 'cause we, we do know that like if just selling it , you know, we, so like where we are now, like we're actually on the expensive side. We're, we're still a good bit cheaper than like the, you know, the biggest brand, but we're more expensive than almost every other brand. Um, so for us it's like, how do we continue to innovate and how do we do things that are different? And so that we're, you know , we're not competing at price, which we've, I think we've done pretty well. Um, so yeah, when we had the NX nines, like we basically were working on this idea we had that we bought this engraver that we're gonna , you know , either do it for free or charge people for it that we would engrave , um, your name. Their name, right.
Speaker 6Or a logo or something. Yeah.
Speaker 7And we basically, what we saw was like, you know , you get in , in the rangefinder business, you get, you know, products back, you know, someone breaks it, drops it, whatever, you get stuff back. We're like, we're just noticing like a , a lot of people are taking a magic marker and writing their name on the rangefinder, putting their phone number on it . Like that looks terrible. Like that is not, you know, I'm, I'm someone who's very neat and tidy and likes things . Got to look good. I'm like, that is not a good look when you just write your name on a, on a
Speaker 6<crosstalk> . Yeah . Right. Yeah .
Speaker 7So
Speaker 6Play ,
Speaker 7Yeah . Call
Speaker 6Loss .
Speaker 7Yeah. Like, could we create some kind of position around this , uh, you know, doing this and yeah. So we got this engraver and we tried that for a while. It became difficult just because it was like, it just became
Speaker 6You pain in the, right? Because you have to engrave one by one, it's an engraver and Right. Yeah . Like, it's a whole process
Speaker 7Basically. Yeah. We, we, it was hard operationally just 'cause we would, you know, sometimes we would try, you know, do it as a, as a like a bonus during a , like a i instead of doing a sale or something. Sometimes we'd charge for it, but yeah, we just couldn't keep up with it. It was like, it took,
Speaker 6It never ended, right. It took 25 minutes , a lot of time to do one and then you a hundred or 200 to do, it's like, oh my God, I gotta get a full-time employee doing this all day long. Yeah.
Speaker 7Yeah. So basically, yeah. So we really like that. I still like that it's just kind of , can you make it really, you know , work at any kind .
Speaker 6It's like a really good idea. It's like, how do we execute it so it's more efficient, right? Like , that's came down through
Speaker 7Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> it would , it would've just been basically more kind of intensive with, with people and stuff. So we kind of had to scale it down a little bit. Um, so at the same time, you know, kinda working on new ideas and, and looking at, I mean, kind of the idea for the NX 10 came from like, the idea of like phone cases, like, all right , you've got these, you know, apple phones that are, you know, beautifully designed, really good looking . I personally, like, I'm one of the only people I know , I don't have a phone case. And everyone's like, how do you not break your phone? I just say , well, I don't drop it. Like, you know, if you don't drop it, it won't break. So <laugh> , uh, but everyone else has these like phone cases and like, you know, all, you know, look like
Speaker 6Half t he time they're like, you know, $6 on Amazon or something. And it like, looks l ike, oh, but i t protects it. It's like, no, it
Speaker 7Doesn't. Yeah, it protects it. And you know, some people, some of 'em , you know, look good and you even got ones that are expensive. You got , you know,
Speaker 6<crosstalk> . Oh yeah, I think some really fancy ones too.
Speaker 7A hundred, $150 buy ones that are co-branded. They're even more, so, it's basically how can we let people kind of , you know, customize their design, their style. So that was the idea. The execution was much harder. 'cause it was like, all right , well we've got this idea, but how do you do this? Um, so like, we've got really good product designers here, so I don't , it's , you know, just fun fact, the University of Cincinnati , um, has like the , one of the best in the country, probably top two , uh, industrial design programs in the entire country. So we've actually had a couple designers come from that. So , um, and our, our designer right now, his name's Gannon , he came from that. He designed the NX 10 . So basically he took, he's got a three D printer and he probably a three D printed 200 different designs, trying to figure out how do we make this thing work and customizable. And, you know , basically we find finally figured it out. And now you can see that , you know, the understands got kind of this, this side plate , um, kind of thing that you, you know, we can design and make, you know, different look and look cool. Um, and yeah, you can swap 'em out. You can like pull 'em off and swap 'em out on the product. And, you know, as simple as that design looks is actually from an engineering standpoint was really long and hard, but it's basically, it's magnets. It's uh , it was a lot of, just 'cause it's a really odd shaped kind of little thin thing there. The front plate kind of screws out and you can, you can change that out as well . So , um, yeah, it was, it was cool, you know , it was a fun project. It just, but it took a lot of time to get it figured out. It probably took 18 months or so. Um, yeah, and we had that pro , we came out that product in mid 2022. Um, so, and yeah, and that's, you know, our best product, you know, one from just the standpoint of like customization, it's like really interesting. It's really cool. Secondly, just the quality is like the best one we've ever put out. I mean, immediately when you pick it up, it's like, this thing's a beast.
Speaker 6Oh yeah. That's really nice.
Speaker 7It's nice . Yeah. This thing is like, you know, first class , um, the design is very simple. So both
Speaker 6These , this is so like on the NX 10 and like they're both, this is both , uh, uh, interchangeable, right?
Speaker 7Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yep . Yep . Yeah . So be basically for any of the products, like you can just pull the, pull the little side plate off. You can put a new one on , um, the front plate, actually, there's little screws and you, you actually get a, you get a trench with it and you can screw those off. And , um, changes the , um, changes the color . What's
Speaker 6Your most popular design?
Speaker 7Ooh , the most popular? Um, I would say, well, the, like, the just straight black and white is the default and that's the most popular , uh, second most popular is the American flag. So the one that's first there, that is like the second most popular. Um, and then past that, it's like, it's interesting enough, like there's not a ton of, like all those designs get chosen quite a bit, but like, there's no like , yeah,
Speaker 6There's no like, yeah, there's like only certain ones that are like black and white. Yeah . People like, and then yeah , well that the black and white is just the standard, right? Like this one,
Speaker 7That's just the standard. Like Yeah . Yeah . If you click on , yeah, that's just like the default. So like , if you go to, if you go to a store, that's what's in the store is black and white . 'cause you can't really have all the different signs Oh ,
Speaker 6On the wrong page . I see .
Speaker 7No , that's, that's, that's the , that's all . So yeah, that's the one people choose . Yeah .
Speaker 6Um , and it pops on , pops off the clip, the mm-Hmm . <affirmative> the pieces , which is cool. And then if they want, they can screw and they can change out the front. Right. The front
Speaker 7Change out the front. Yep . And , um, yeah, and we, and we , and we've actually seen, you know, we see most people, I wanna say most people choose a design. Like we probably, you know, I say 25, 30%, they choose a black one, but the rest of the people choose some kind of design. You know , they're all the same price. Um, would
Speaker 6Cool, but you're not upcharging 'em like, oh yeah, you want that more 20 bucks. Because people are like, screw that, you know? It's like, know , you get to pick the one right now, you want, all right . I want those, you know, this one right here .
Speaker 7And we, you know , you know, we, we occasionally come out with new designs and we'll send out emails and stuff, and we actually see people that are , uh, that, you know, are buying those . Like, we actually have quite a few people who are coming back and buying different , uh, you know, different , um, plates, different plates , um, you know , um, skins and stuff for their , uh, for their product. So yeah, it's been really, it's been really fun. So that's kind of our next , um, you know, evolution of , uh, you know how we,
Speaker 6It's on sale right now. Look at that
Speaker 7Personalized . Yeah , we actually just started our , we started our , uh, holiday sale today. Today .
Speaker 6Yeah. I'm like, I asked , like , I'm like, I , I know the price . I'm like, oh, it's on sale. Look at that. Um, so when did you start, like, like working with like Nolan up and , um, Don John Daley and everybody, like, how'd that come about? Like down
Speaker 7Here ? Sure . Yeah, we've , uh, we've done , we've done several different partnerships. I mean, we've been working with Nolan up since 20, I think we started like late 2019, so several years with them. And we've done, you know, a lot of fun things with them. Um, it was just with the NX 10 that we started to kind of do some kinda , some co-branded skin stuff kind of type things. Some products there. Um, yeah, so that's been a, that's been a fun partnership. Really good guys. Um, and then, you know, John Daly , we started working with him this year. He somehow he had , uh, years ago had our NX seven, our very first NX seven product. Like, he showed up in a video with like, on his bag. And, you know, I think my You're
Speaker 6Like, what the, what? You're like, oh yeah , I talked to him.
Speaker 7<laugh>. Yeah. My, my partner who does all of our, he does all our sales stuff. He somehow got in touch with him and like, yeah, we sent him product since , and yeah , when we came out with the , with the NX 10, we're like , you know, we got in touch with him, like, Hey , you, you'd be interested in doing this. So we've got some kind of designs. We're , we're out of a few of 'em right now, but , um, yeah, it's been a fun thing. Oh really? Wow. Yeah, we did some photo shoot. If you go to , uh, if you just go to range find , go to, just click on Range Finders there on the top. You'll see we're actually getting kinda restock on this, but scroll down like that, you know , those are the designs. We're actually out of several of them right now. So, but we're getting more, that's the only one we have at the moment.
Speaker 6That daily one looks cool. Like a beer looking thing. That looks cool. Yeah. Oh yeah . A lot of
Speaker 7Looks sold out of the rest, but we're getting them back in. Um, yeah, so it's just been a fun thing where we've gone and done some photo shoots with him. He is a really nice guy. Um, you know, we've kind of, you know , yeah . Put his face on a few things and , uh, yeah, it's been a nice , uh, a nice fun partnership. So ,
Speaker 6Um , people
Speaker 7Could like , comment on those when, like, when they're on a Facebook post,
Speaker 6If people, so like, I mean, do you guys do customs too? Oh, you do. Duh. Right? There're custom skins , right? So people could actually, but can people actually like, come to you guys and say, Hey, we wanna do , uh, for a golf tournament, we wanna do a hundred nx tens. Like, would you guys customize the plate, or is that just something you guys do, or No?
Speaker 7Uh, we do. Yeah, we will , we would definitely customize the plate. So we, we have had that happen quite a bit. It's been a nice thing for us .
Speaker 6Yeah , I assume so.
Speaker 7Yeah, we've had several different big , um, big events that Yeah, we can customize these and um, yeah. Have your logo on it. So,
Speaker 6But they're not being customized in Cincinnati, right? Like you can order 'em ,
Speaker 7Um , no . Customizing
Speaker 6Cincinnati .
Speaker 7Yeah. So like what we do is, yeah, we, we will have to order 'em from our supplier, you know,
Speaker 6<crosstalk> Yeah. You design it and then you order it.
Speaker 7Yeah. Uh, we do have a thing we do for like, you know, one offs for like, you know, sometimes we , we get kind of contacted by when people are are , you know, and we'll kind of do some one-off stuff. And that's, that's , uh, something we do actually do in Cincinnati. It's , it's , um, you know, the , the , it's more of like kind of a, a wrap that we put on that. So, but we don't, we don't sell those, we do those, do those as kind of
Speaker 6Yeah . It's one-off,
Speaker 7One-off kind of things like, you know, center event Ex Yeah. Example, like , um, you know, we were, I don't know exactly how it came out . Like, you know, we had like a Mus a famous musician, like he somehow contact us or he contacted him and like , you know, yeah, we'll send you a Orange trainer . We , we put like his logo on and uh Yeah. Make it
Speaker 6Look cool. Not by a
Speaker 7Hundred of them . Yeah. Did that, like one off . So ,
Speaker 6So when did you come up with this doing speakers? 'cause the duo came
Speaker 7Out . Yeah, so speakers, we started that back , um, kinda late 2021, early 2022. We had our kind of , our ace um , our ace speaker. It's got a , it's got a screen on it going . So it's basically a, you know, a speaker that also does golf distances. So, you know, really good sound . It's got a magnet, you stick it on the cart, it shows you right there, kind of in your face. It's got front center back distances. So yeah, we started that late , uh, late 2021. Um, and then the, the Duo product we came out with this year, I think it was May this year. And that's just a , a smaller speaker that you can put on your bag or put on your cart. Um , that's smart. It still does the golf . It'll kind of read the golf distances to you, but it doesn't have a screen. So , um, yeah, it's just , uh, and it's
Speaker 6<crosstalk> . But you also did this, which was smart too. 'cause now they can customize their, their face. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> on their speaker .
Speaker 7Yeah . It's like, it's like the extent where you can kind of , you know, they , they actually swap out. So you could change , you could change it , um, you know, if you wanted to. So yeah. Face kind of pops out and you can add a , uh, add a new , um, a new design to it. So yeah, it's just been a fun product for us. And that was, that product was all about just kind of like, you know, something fun, you know, nice, nice small speaker, <crosstalk> ,
Speaker 6You evolving. It's like you started with Rangefinders and then it's like, okay, you've evolved the rangefinder more and more and more, and then you have DNX 10. Now you can customize the rangefinder, which nobody was doing, right? Yeah . And then now you went to speakers and there was only so many people doing speakers. Like, no , like no one was doing speakers like four years ago, you know? And then Mm-Hmm . What? The wingman came out and then yeah, they speakers are cool. Or people would get like, whatever the JBL, you know, whatever, that's not a golf specific speaker. Um,
Speaker 7Yeah . Yeah. So yeah, just kind of fun , uh, product evolution. Um, yeah, we , you know, we're, we're trying to expand, like we've got some new, you know, accessories now. We got carrying cases that , uh, are different designs. We get some kind , you know, nicer ones of those. So yeah, just trying to kind of continue to , uh, to do new stuff and kind of have it be fun and, you know, hopefully make things people like.
Speaker 6No, that's really cool. I mean, it's cool to like see. So like, what do you, what's happening in the next like, couple months for you guys? Is, is , are you coming out new stuff, maybe, or not, or what are you doing?
Speaker 7Uh, not right near . So right now, like , you know, kind of the holiday shopping season is starting now. So our, our holiday sales starting today, you know, you got a few weeks, like kind of Black Friday, cyber Monday, you know, for , for consumer brands it's a big time. So like, you know, you imagine golf is a seasonality, like kind of October and , you know, beginning of November slower, you know, weather's getting colder in the, in the Midwest in the north , uh, you know , football's starting, but, so it'll be a slower time and then it'll start to pick back up with holiday sales people buying stuff for, for the holidays. So , um, yeah, so for us, the next couple months are all about that. Like , you know, just kind of getting through that. And then , um, yeah, we're working on some new things for, for next year, so, yeah . We'll , uh, you know, I think we've pretty much every, geez , I wanna say every year since 20, probably 16, 20 15, we've had a new product and yeah , we will continue, you know, that we'll continue to evolve our, you know , range five years . The , um, yeah , the next tens about 18 months in now, so it'll have a
Speaker 6Still the nine too. I mean, the nine nine's been around for
Speaker 7Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> three years. Three years . Yeah , we do and we do sell . Yeah. We , we will keep that or we actually, like, we , um, kind of re you know , redesigned the
Speaker 6Redesigned it, it looks different than the old one. I have the old one. Yeah . Well , I have too , but I mean , I originally had the original Ninex nine .
Speaker 7Yeah. So we think about that as like, you know, that's a good price point product. It's just nice. It's a good solid product that has all the features. Yeah . Pretty simple.
Speaker 6It's probably great for Amazon too, you know what I mean? Like , it's a good price product that can compete that's affordable. Yeah . Um , perfect number .
Speaker 7Yeah. So we'll keep that in line and then yeah, continue to kind of , you know, refresh our things and add , add, add new stuff. So , um, yeah, that's kinda our overall strategies is to kind continue to , um, yeah, I mean , kinda make things that we like and make things we use stuff. That's cool,
Speaker 6Man . I mean, it's crazy. Like, I never like knew the whole story. I knew I heard parts of the story, but like, I didn't hear like the , I didn't know, I didn't know any of that stuff about like the , um, you know, your, your training aids and trying to figure all that. I , I know that I thought you , I knew you guys met in a bar and I knew you guys came up with the idea for a rangefinder. That's about as far as I knew that story. So I think it's really cool to like, hear you, like, I didn't , I don't know , that's a lot of stuff to go through before you even come up a honestly, like that's, people don't realize that. Like, you don't just buy the first product and be like, I'm gonna sell it, you know, it's gonna work. It's like, no dude, we had like years of me trying to sell other things, you know, for Yeah .
Speaker 7It's, I think for most, yeah, most people it's a , uh, it's a process. It takes some time, it takes patience. Like, you know, that's why a lot of things don't work out, right? It's like people get tired , it's not working right away. So , um, you know , it also, like when you, if you start something, it's like, it's probably not gonna, you know, go the way your fir you know, your first vision of things goes,
Speaker 6Your iteration is not gonna be Yeah . The final iteration. This is not
Speaker 7What we had in mind when we first started. So just kind of , you figure out maybe something could work and you iterate on it and like, Hey , you know, this is not working, let's try something different. So , um, yeah , your first idea is never gonna, you know, usually be the one that, you know, gets end , ends up being a good one. So
Speaker 6That's what makes you hungry though, too, right? Because you make your first one, you're all excited about it, and then you're like, you're ready to make V two because you're like, oh, I don't like this, I don't like this, you know, and then you wanna make V two, then you wanna make V three, and then you're like, I think that's the fun part, I would say, right? It is just the
Speaker 7It is . Yeah. No, it is fun. It is fun for us too . 'cause we really like golf and we play golf and, you know, we can use these things. So like, if we were making something for, you know , let's say we're making, you know, pickle bar products and we didn't really care about pickleball, it'd be like, all right , this is, you know, somewhat interesting, but the fact that <crosstalk>
Speaker 6Widget definitely a widget, right? It doesn't even matter.
Speaker 7These are things you asking about it . Yeah. Get to use and try and like, you know, we get to be our own customers and go out and like, when we test things, like we can tell like, Hey, this is not gonna work. This is not right, because like , you know, we play awful all the time and like, this is just not gonna be good, so let's fix this. Um, uh, versus like, you know, not having a clue, like if you're making software for , uh, some company, like, you probably have no idea what their day-to-Day is like. So you're like, you have no idea if that's good software <laugh> .
Speaker 6Yeah. You know, right away, like, oh, no one's ever gonna use that. Or like, I would never use , like , that's the first thing you ask yourself, would I ever use that? No, that thing's stupid. You know, I've done that lots of times. Like people will will send me like, Hey, I , I want to send you this, whatever. And I'll look at , I'm like, that's stupid. No one's gonna buy that <laugh> . Like, I just like, no, sorry. Like, I mean , I'm not interested. I'm not trying to a jerk . Just like no one, that's not a product . No one , no one needs that product, dude. Like, yeah ,
Speaker 7Yeah. That's, that's, and you know, that ends up happening and that happens with us as well. So we, you know, it doesn't always go
Speaker 6Scrap it . You're like, Nope , we're not doing that. Next, next thing doesn't
Speaker 7Always go amazing. So,
Speaker 6So where can
Where can people find you?
Speaker 6people find you?
Speaker 7Find me? They , I mean, they can find so , well not
Speaker 6You, but like your brand. I mean, I guess you , you can Google Clay Hood, you could find 'em pretty quick I bet. But , uh,
Speaker 7Me personally, I'm not very active on the , uh, the Twitters or the Instagrams or any of those things. So I'm not all that. You'd have to come to my office to find me and I'll , uh, but
Speaker 6You talk , you're too busy, man. You got too much going
Speaker 7On. Yeah . Um, but no, you go to precision pro golf.com , so that's where we are. Um, you get all the info you need there, you know, we're on , we're on Amazon, we're in stores or in, you know , Sporting Goods, golf Galaxy, you know, most of the ba , most of the, of the golf shops. So , um, yeah. But our website can kind of guide you to anywhere you need to go or, you know, get you in , get your information on anything you need to know.
Speaker 6That's awesome. Well, I mean, I'm a big fan of Precision Pro. Like I said, I've, I mean, I've , my brand has grown alongside you guys. Like, I've done like the NX seven, the NX nine, the NX nine, was it the pro they called it or something after that ? The NX 10? Like I know your products, the ace , uh, what was the other one that was like the, that, that was the gray one. I can't think of the name of it right now. It was Gray.
Speaker 7Oh, the R one.
Speaker 6R one. Yeah . Yeah, NX 10. It's like, I know your products, like, it's cool to see you guys like evolve each one and it's gotten better and better and better and better. And I remember my first review the NX seven, and I was like, and the NX nine. I was like, oh, that's a really, really good product. And that video has a ton of views. Honestly, my old NX seven video on YouTube, that was like four years ago, and I still had a ton of views. So it's like cool . I mean then no , then Clay had to go freaking make the nx nine people were quick looking for the NX seven, unless they wanna find like a way back machine or something. But
Speaker 7Keep , uh, yeah, keep, keep , uh, keep updated , keep, keep going new. So,
Speaker 6Yeah , exactly. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, and I will see you guys in the next episode.
Speaker 3Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind the Golf Brand podcast. You're gonna beat me and golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win. Stay out of the beach and see you on the green.
