Do you use insights to inform marketing decisions?

What do you consider when expanding into new markets?

How do you quantify markets?

Learn the answers to these questions (and more) in just 30 minutes from Cassandra Bausch.

Cassandra is the Director of Marketing at Club Champion. Club Champion delivers tour-quality golf club fittings to high performing, and recreational golfers. Each store has more than 50,000 clubhead, shaft, and grip combinations for golfers to test. Because the company’s approach is agnostic – the fitters don’t favour one brand over another – players find the best combination of components.

After opening 100 new Club Champion brick and mortar stores in the last five years, the company is expanding internationally.

“We’re always trying to pick a segment that is underserved, or isn’t thought about in the grand scheme of club fitting. Women make up about 35% of the golf industry in general, but if you look at club fittings they are maybe 10-15%. So that’s an underserved market. When we do market analysis, what we’re looking to do is learn how to speak to that segment.” (Cassandra Bausch, Club Champion)

Key discussion areas to listen for:

• 1:08 mins. The similarities of marketing to bowling fans vs. golfers. How helpful is it for golf marketeers to be the target market?
• 7:27 mins. 100 new Club Champion brick and mortar stores have opened in the last five years. What’s the advantages and disadvantages of growing this fast?
• 9:37 mins. How did Club Champion quantify the market opportunity five years ago? Would they assess new growth opportunities using different insights and metrics now?
• 11:49 mins. Personalised club fitting has been available for a long time with club professionals. Why are more golfers getting fitted for clubs, and how is Club Champion capitalizing on this?
• 14:40 mins. What difference is Club Champion seeing with international markets? And how do you change your marketing tactics to succeed in these markets?
• 17:17 mins. When setting customer acquisition goals for a new market, does Club Champion use the same goal setting approach as in a new US state, or different?
• 18:39 mins. Gather’s Sue Shapcott conducted research for Club Champion that specifically looked at the club fitting experience for women and higher handicap golfers. How did Cassandra and the team use insights from this research to inform marketing decisions?
• 20:57 mins. How do you track brand perception and awareness?
• 24:25 mins. What is Cassandra’s framework for taking a brand like Club Champion forward in the future?

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In the third of Gather's three-part start-up series with Gather Collective Member Old Tom Ventures, we welcome Adeel Yang, Co-Founder of Dryvebox.

Learn about the journey so far including how Dryvebox recently took the decision to launch its franchise model; it has rapidly scaled from its first franchise to eleven across America.

Randi Zuckerberg was an early investor in Dryvebox. Dryvebox also has a wide range of collaborations with the likes of Lululemon, Cobra Puma, Michelob Ultra, Topgolf, Malbon, Topgolf, Barstool, LAGC, Lexus, and PGA Hope.

Adeel has other startup experience and understands the investor landscape; the pros and cons of partnership deals. Couple this with the experiences of Evan Roosevelt from Old Tom Ventures and you have a fascinating conversation packed full of helpful insights and advice.

Key discussion areas to listen out for:

• 3:18 mins. The Fairgame product journey so far – why did Eric see an opportunity to leverage human centric design, a simple user experience, and pair it with a beautiful brand?
• 3:00 mins. What did Old Tom Ventures see in Dryvebox and their Founding team that prompted them to consider investing?
• 7:50 mins. What’s the backstory of Dryvebox and how did Adeel jump from being a doctor over into starting a mobile golf simulator company?
• 12:00 mins. Many businesses start from a Founder’s need to “scratch their own itch.” How powerful a motivation is this if you are starting a company? Is growing a new company as simple as this?
• 15:00 mins. The value of co-founders. Is it important to seek other people to help build a new business?
• 22:40 mins. What has surprised Adeel the most about coming from outside the golf industry and building a business within golf?
• 26:03 mins. Which market currently demands Dryvebox the most: existing golfers, or people new to golf?
• 28:11 mins. Is it less desirable for investors to invest in a company run by a single person rather than investing in a team?
• 31:17 mins. How much of the early-stage decision making at Dryvebox was done through data and insights vs gut instinct?
• 33:20 mins. Does Adeel feel part of the golf industry? Or does Dryvebox feel like an external business with a product partnering with golf industry businesses?
• 35:30 mins. Was it critical for Dryvebox to start discussing potential partnerships in the business's early stages?
• 39:52 mins. “Staying Switzerland.” What is the no.1 learning that Dryvebox took from their first few years in the golf industry?
• 42:18 mins. “Let other people do what they do best.” What is the no.2 learning that Dryvebox took from their first few years in the golf industry?
• 43:48 mins. Company Mission and Values – do they matter more to the next generation of customers?
• 51:02 mins. Was the decision to go the franchise route the biggest pivot for Dryvebox so far? What has Dryvebox learned from this?
• 58:14 mins. How can you help Dryvebox? Want to discuss potential collaborations?

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“We are striving to create an experience so engaging that golfers will never want to leave the game.”

(Fairgame)

In the second of a three-part series looking at golf’s startup ecosystem, we welcome back Gather Collective Member Old Tom Ventures and their guest Fairgame to talk about their journey so far.

If you read Golf.com, you may enjoy learning that one of Fairgame’s co-founders, Eric Mayville, built Golf.com’s publishing site that provides content to 10 million subscribers. At that time, Eric was a co-founder of Wondersauce, a global agency that now has 130 staff in five international offices.

One of Eric’s other Fairgame co-founders will be familiar to any watch collectors out there. Ben Clymer is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Hodinkee. He’s regarded as one of the leading voices in the watch industry, and brings that experience to golf.

“Golf today reminds me of where watches were 15 years ago.”

(Ben Clymer, Co-Founder, Fairgame)

The third co-founder of Fairgame is reasonably well known in the golf industry. Despite his day job–being one the most famous international golfers on the planet–Adam Scott plays an active role in both the development of the Fairgame product and the promotion of the brand. In fact, the app Fairgame launched for golfers is helping Adam solve his own problem of staying in touch with golfing friends around the globe.

Old Tom Ventures is one of Fairgame’s first investors. They join Eric and Ben in this discussion to explain what they saw in Fairgame that prompted their investment decision.

Enjoy!

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