00:27.47 ModGolfPodcast Welcome to the Mod Golf Podcast, where I speak with the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the disruptors, and the influencers who are shaping the future of golf. My name is Colin Weston, I am your host, and today we've got an episode and what you're gonna discover on this podcast is at least three key takeaways with our guest, Joe Assell, who is a returning guest, CEO and co-founder of GOLFTEC. You're going to learn about how embracing a growth mindset and how that commitment to inclusivity helps to grow your business. That innovation side and what Joe and his team has done over the last 30 years as they're celebrating their 30th anniversary of GOLFTEC this year. 01:11.54 ModGolfPodcast You're also going to discover the history and the evolution of golf technology, which will be fascinating. Lots of fun we're gonna have there. And also, you're going to discover the future trends in golf technology. We're also going to pull out the crystal ball and get Joe's thoughts on that too. So yeah, with that, let's bring him back on here. It's been seven years since we last talked on the podcast. I went back and looked, it was 2017. 01:38.64 ModGolfPodcast When we had Joe on when the ModGolf Podcast was just starting. It was just a little baby podcast that no one really knew of and Joe was gracious enough to come on. I was introduced to Joe and he came on the podcast at that time. So it's great to catch up with Joe seven years later to see all the great things that have been going on with GOLFTEC since then and we are going to explore the future. So Joe, welcome back to the ModGolf Podcast! 03:47.41 ModGolfPodcast So yes, it's been seven years since I had my last conversation with Joe, even though I have had the chance to speak to him several times at the PGA Show in Orlando. So it's going to be great. We're going to be catching up on all the things in the last seven years that GOLFTEC has been up to. The main reason I wanted to get him on as they are celebrating 30 years of GOLFTEC this year, which is really exciting. So let's bring them back on. Joe Assell, welcome back to the ModGolf podcast! 04:19.50 Joe Assell Colin, thanks so much for having me. I can't believe it's been seven years since the last time I was on. Time sure goes fast, but I'm honoured and excited to be back down with you here today. Thanks again. 04:29.80 ModGolfPodcast Yeah, my pleasure. Well, at that time, well, seven years ago when we were talking about ah everything that golf tech was doing, what you were looking to do in the future. And some of those things have come to fruition and other ones are still in the works here. But this is gonna be exciting. One thing we're gonna do here is have a little bit of fun later on in the show. I have our previous recording from seven years ago. I'm gonna play a snippet of where I asked you the question, what do you where do you think golf technology and GOLFTEC are gonna be in five, 10, 15 years from now. So I'm going to play that back to see if what you got right and maybe what you were a little off the mark on here. 05:08.40 Joe Assell Okay, so without warning, you're giving me a replay of my vision seven years ago? 05:08.79 ModGolfPodcast So that's going to be fun. 05:14.04 Joe Assell I can't wait to see how I did. 05:15.87 ModGolfPodcast That's right. That's right. Well, you know, seven years ago, the amazing thing is here, I know this is a podcast, but you and I can see each other. We haven't even aged a day. We both look amazing! Like it's like we're frozen in time here. We still look great. 05:28.76 Joe Assell Not one bit, cardio, that's all I can say. 05:31.08 ModGolfPodcast There we go. Cardio will do that. You gotta get keep keep that sweat going there. And also that 10,000 to 15,000 steps every time you play around a round of golf too. That's a good way to to stay young, which I know you and I both do. So hey, I didn't ask you this question last time, seven years ago. I've only started asking this one the last couple of years, as I love to hear people's connection to golf, whether someone's never played the game before, which I've had some guests that have been in that situation, or they started when they were just able to walk and everything in between. So I love to hear that to start off here, Joe. I'd love to hear your connection to golf, that first great experience that brings back a smile and a memory and that person, that power of invitation who made that happen for you, that invited you and gave you that first opportunity to pick up a club. 06:17.45 Joe Assell Oh, I've been so fortunate to have golf in my life, nearly my entire life. Since I was a little kid, five or six years old, my dad was an avid golfer, still is. 06:23.52 ModGolfPodcast Hmm. 06:29.61 Joe Assell And I was given some golf clubs you know as a little kid and started playing, started following him around the golf course and walk along with him when he would play. And then I started playing. and and got hooked and then there was another gentleman named Liam McNair, PGA Pro, gave me some lessons but more importantly gave me a job in the golf shop when I was 12 years old and I vacuumed and dusted and loaded the vending machines and I was part of the team. I was included in what makes the golf course go. I've been incredibly fortunate to make a living in golf for 40 years ever since then when I started as a 12 year old in the golf shop. 07:06.46 ModGolfPodcast Love that. Love that. Well, you saying that, that you have that opportunity to ah get a job when you were just a kid in, in the golf industry. And that was one of the things that helped spearhead all the good things that you're doing which we did talk about in the previous episode, we're not going to take a deep dive into the origin story, the backstory that is such a great one. We talked about that in the previous episode so I will include the link to our previous episode encourage our listeners to uh to check that out so we're going to focus on really what's happened the last seven years and the future but I wanted to ask you this since you said you had that opportunity to to work and volunteer in the golf industry at a young age. Do you pay that forward now? Is that part of your legacy within GOLFTEC? Do you have an internship program or have kids and teens have some responsibility at some of your stores? 07:59.13 Joe Assell Absolutely. We have we have player assistants at some of our centers who are often you know high school golfers. 08:03.29 ModGolfPodcast Oh, nice. 08:05.50 Joe Assell Then this last year we had three college interns in our office here at our headquarters over the summer. And then I'm fortunate the club I play at has caddies. I always take a caddy. 08:16.77 Joe Assell I never ride. And that's another great way for people to start to earn a living and be around golf at a young age. 08:23.40 ModGolfPodcast Love that, love that. Let's take a step back here. One thing I should be mindful of with our listeners, yes, most of our listeners already play golf, love golf. A lot of them are in the golf industry, but we have a lot of listeners that just love entrepreneurship and those stories around it. So they may not know who the heck GOLFTEC is, even though you've been around for almost 30 years now. So why don't you give our listeners an overview of what you do and why you do it with GOLFTEC? 08:49.66 Joe Assell Happy to do that. I'm fortunate to be the co-founder and CEO of Golf Tech Enterprises. Golf Tech Enterprises really has two businesses, our legacy business of Golf Tech training centers. We currently have 265 Golf Techs all around the world, predominantly North America, but throughout Asia. We're also in Dubai and Johannesburg, South Africa. ah We employ about 1,100 golf professionals, mostly PGA pros, at those locations and will give about 2 million golf lessons and club fittings this year at those centers. A lot of avid golfers coming in and and getting better and that's half our business. The other half is we own the number one selling consumer launch monitor SKYTRAK. We've sold 90,000 SKYTRAK launch monitors and simulators. We're in people's homes everywhere. It's a really exciting aspect of our business as we're we're pushing the technology hard right now and then we're working to bring these two businesses together in a kind of a fully remote GOLFTEC experience anywhere at any time. 09:52.60 ModGolfPodcast Love this. And one thing at the top of the show, I mentioned that our listeners will be discovering here. And one of them is this growth mindset that you've got at GOLFTEC, just baked into the culture of innovation that you have there. And because SKYTRAK seven years ago was not a company that was part of the portfolio or part of your business offering at that time. So this growth mindset, seeing other opportunities and the synergy around that, I'm assuming also. so Can you talk about this a little bit? I'm i'm quite interesting. It's going off script here, but how did that deal come about? Where did you see how there was some, if we want to call it vertical integration or some synergies with those two companies of how one plus one equals three with the acquisition of SKYTRAK? 10:38.91 Joe Assell Sure, happy to talk about that a little bit. So we have this vision for a product kind of codenamed GOLFTEC Anywhere. It may get a different name when it finally comes to market, but it is really enabling GOLFTEC lessons on your phone for anybody in the world to be a GOLFTEC customer. 10:53.19 Joe Assell Now that we have accurate body motion tracking um optically, meaning through a camera and working on only one camera, you may have seen it in our, we were incorporated into the CBS broadcast earlier this year for the Masters on the Range and the PGA Championship. 11:05.38 ModGolfPodcast Right. 11:08.62 Joe Assell in numerous other PGA Tour events and now that it's working on one camera it works on a phone we can coach people remotely but that's only the golf swing part of it the second. Part is where did the ball go and what was the result of your shot or your swing and your club. 11:23.97 Joe Assell And so we started looking at the launch monitor and simulator landscape out there, and we really focused on who has the the biggest audience. ah So not the higher end guys that sell fewer units, but the more consumer grade ah launch monitor, but that's still very accurate, which led us to a discussion with SKYTRAK, and we acquired that company about two years ago. 11:46.09 ModGolfPodcast Nice, nice. Well, I think I would be right in your potential customer wheelhouse with SKYTRAK, because I would love to to set something up here in the garage that's nice and compact, because my wife doesn't play, and I think if I want to stay married, and I do, it's been 26 good years, and I want to continue on that. I don't think I can take over a man cave in something that was this big, massive installation. So maybe we'll have to have a chat a chat about that. But I find this really interesting just as far as the future of where that whole golf simulator, 12:18.70 ModGolfPodcast screen golf, as they call it in Asia, how that's moving forward. We know with the X-Golfs and the Five Iron Golfs as far as that entertainment piece, but having it at home now. So this kind of ties into my next question because, it's been seven years since we last talked on the the ModGolf Podcast. Lots of has happened in on the technology side of things and advancements. You were generous enough to offer me some lessons back in the day, especially during COVID. 12:45.36 ModGolfPodcast And I managed to get down to a 13 handicap. I've stopped taking lessons with GOLFTEC now and I back up to almost an 18. So I would think there's a correlation there. I don't think that's by by any coincidence there, Joe. 12:57.97 Joe Assell There's 100% of correlation for better or for worse. It's it's a hard game. Golf is challenging. And even the tour players take lessons nearly weekly to stay sharp. and And that's what it takes for you ah golfers everywhere. and Unfortunately, we see that when somebody leaves, sometimes maybe they slip, but then people come back and we help them get even better than when they left us. 13:18.81 ModGolfPodcast Well, perhaps we'll have to come back. what's the If I remember from ah from Sunday school way back, I think it was the prodigal son who came back. Maybe I need to be the GOLFTEC prodigal son there if that's not overstating. 13:28.76 Joe Assell We have a lot of prodigal son. There's no shame in that. People come back all the time and we'd love to see people coming back. 13:35.93 ModGolfPodcast So when I was having lessons, so this was back around, 2019, 2020, that I was then strapped into this harness with a Velcro belt that had sensors on it. You've moved so much forward since then. So, why don't you tell us a lot about what has changed in the world of golf and tech, not just what you see overall, but specifically to how you've moved forward to the last seven years since we last talked with GOLFTEC. 14:06.07 Joe Assell Well, for 30 years, as you mentioned, we have this anniversary coming up. We believed in using measurement and data and facts to teach golf, not just somebody's opinion or swing theory, but really true measurement and having a model swing based on the best players in the world, but also based by handicap and ability. So we can we can teach you to your goal. It may not always be to be a tour player. And to do that, you have to measure the swing. And as you mentioned, we've always measured it with these straps and these cords and these sensors in there. 14:34.41 Joe Assell but We want to get wireless and we were working on this well before covered and then we we brought it out maybe a little premature in covered but it allowed us to do a socially distance golf lesson because if we can measure your movement through a camera only the coach is not did not need to get near you to put the straps and cords on you. 14:53.93 Joe Assell and that pushed the envelope we were able to to to pump a couple million more swings into the machine learning environment and it actually was one of the greatest things that happened to us because it allowed the software to get faster and more accurate much quicker by really releasing it early and and and pumping all these swings into it and now it's a regular part of what we do we've given millions of lessons on our technology called OptiMotion which accurately measures 4000 data points per golf swing ah in our bays and it also works on one camera as well and on a phone. 15:26.19 ModGolfPodcast Interesting, interesting. Well, perhaps I'll have the the the good fortune of getting back in with OptiMotion so it can reevaluate my very flawed and inconsistent swing to see if we can get it back to to to where I want it to be. And on that note, I see on your website here, and I've seen a lot of the kind of the marketing and the ads you put out there, that you say on average, players that get lessons at golf tech improve by seven shots and also almost 21 yards farther when they hit the ball. So what type of data do you use? Are they playing for so many months? Is it based on their handicap rating that they get back that you see year by year? So I'm curious, how can you validate that so that your lawyers don't get upset and worry about a potential lawsuit? So yeah, how how do you do that? 16:17.03 Joe Assell Of course, the lawyers were all over it before we published that. So I'll tell you, it's really interesting. We survey our customers every year. We're fortunate to give a lot of golf lessons, have a lot of customers. And we just say, you know did did you get better? And if so, by how much? And for 10 or 12 years in a row now, it's thousands of people answer our survey. And the average improvement has been seven shots, like right on the number, pretty much every year when people respond to the survey. we probably 100,000 survey responses backing up the seven shot improvement, but when we asked them if they improved. And then the off flip side on the club fitting to your question, we have our own proprietary golf club fitting technology software called TechFit. It runs on either our SkyTrack launch monitors or foresight launch monitors. And ah in that, when we fit somebody with a new club, we've seen even greater distance gains, but our average distance gain, will 17:09.74 Joe Assell Switch somebody to the proper driver for them, meaning the proper head, the proper loft, the proper weighting, the proper shaft. Everything dialled in just for them is a 21-yard gain. 17:20.63 ModGolfPodcast Nice, nice. Well, i get hopefully if I get back in there in seven shots, I'm at a 17 right now, I would love to get back to a 10. My dream is to put in the work and actually get to, because I'll never get to scratch. You know, I know I shouldn't put up barriers there, but for me realistically, if I can get down to like an eight or a 10, that would be amazing. That would just make me happy, because the better you play, the more fun you have and the more joy it brings you. And I would definitely love to have more joy in my golf game. 17:50.55 Joe Assell Golf is so much more fun when you hit it well and you're not looking for your ball in the trees or wherever and you're making pars and birdies. We can get you breaking 80. I'm confident in that. Let's get going on that! 18:00.83 ModGolfPodcast Nice, nice, let's do that. So, okay, with GOLFTEC, I always thought until I went back and listened to our previous episode, because you did mention it back then, the TEC and the tech for GOLFTEC doesn't stand for technology. If I get this right, let's see if my memory serves me correctly. So T is for the technique, your golf swing, everything around that. The E is for equipment and now with all the fitting and the the the the platform you have and the technology around that. And C is for conditioning. So let's talk about the C a little bit. How how do you manage that, what do you do on the conditioning side to to fill out those three letters? 18:38.65 Joe Assell Well, that's coming. I believe in being really good at everything we do, really not being mediocre and being great. And we're number one in the world at the T, two million lessons this year. We are pretty darn good at the E, but I think we can do quite a bit better. and We're working on investing in that. And unfortunately, those have taken priority. We have not done much on the C yet. It's been part of our name for almost 30 years. We believe to play your best. You need a great swing, great clubs, and your body cooperating with you. 19:06.91 Joe Assell But it is going to be coming via our mobile app here in the next couple years. We're going to use the same technology we just spoke about in OptiMotion and that we will be able to measure your physical abilities. You can touch your toes or turn your shoulders or bend over and we can start to understand your injury profile or where you're flexible or where you're you're not so flexible. 19:27.60 Joe Assell We'll marry that with your golf swing issues and then prescribe a series of exercises for you dealing with your your body yeah weaknesses along with your golf swing. So finally, ah here and probably in another year or two, what's we we'll get to see, we we'll bring our entire name to market here. 19:44.91 ModGolfPodcast You just dropped such a great insight, little nugget of wisdom there that ties into one of the key takeaways we were talking about earlier at the top of the show. And you had mentioned there, you're 30 years in now, and the C, the conditioning, is still something you're working on. It's still even aspirational, but even though you've got a strategy and a plan and a framework to put that in place, you you have not let that hamstring or hold you up for your progress with the company. A lot of entrepreneurs and myself, when I started 12 years ago or so, I got caught up in this as mindset that, I don't have all the pieces in place yet. It's not perfect, even though there is no perfect. So it held me up from then taking that next step, which this is just such great insight that you provided. The fact you haven't got the C figured out in TEC yet, that's not like you've been waiting 30 years later before you launch golf tech. you're always constantly evolving and making things happen. It's okay that you don't have that in place yet. That's still part of the progress in the future. 20:53.47 Joe Assell It's one of the challenges of being an entrepreneur. There's always the shiny new thing. I have a lot of really smart people on my executive team. Everybody has new ideas, but staying focused and being really good at what we do we became number one in the world of golf lessons and making sure we focus on what we're good at. and then methodically, thoughtfully adding new things. And I'll tell you, we actually move something ahead of the C that isn't part of the TEC, but we have an experience that we call practice plus, which is the ability to come in our centers all over the world and play golf courses, play specifically designed challenges to help you get better. Maybe it's a wedge matrix drill or hit your driver straighter drill or ah learn how to you know hit a draw around a brick wall. um We actually put some fun in that we enabled 21:39.07 Joe Assell skill-based wagering, some gambling in our bays, and then we've turned on our optical motion in our bays for practice even if the coach is not in there. So this really incredible experience you can come in in our bays and work on your game in between your lessons, and you don't even have to be a lesson customer to come in and do this. We think it's a way people can get better and have fun ah within our bays. It's a really a great new experience in the golf techs, and we even prioritize that over Over the sea, frankly, it's more fun to play Pebble Beach than, you know, do a workout or lose weight. So we move that up higher in our priority list. 22:17.04 ModGolfPodcast Nice, nice. So I'm assuming with SKYTRAK that that's really allowed you to kind of fold all that. And so you're taking more of that gamification or that entertainment side. And I understand as a, as a business, maybe that is part of the future. Maybe you're going to partner with someone, but you're um my understanding as far as your focus staying in your lane here and focusing more on training and golf improvement for players rather than. 22:42.43 ModGolfPodcast competing against the Top Golfs, the Drive Shacks and the Five Iron Golfs of the world. 22:51.05 Joe Assell Yeah, so our mission statement is to help people play better golf. That's what drove the technique, equipment and conditioning, the three things you need to play your best. And that really drives our vision and mission every single day, helping people play better golf. We are not intending to be in the food and beverage business. I'm not putting bars and grills in all the GOLFTECs. 23:09.62 Joe Assell But you practice time is crucial to playing better golf. And after we acquired SKYTRAK, we allocated quite a bit of resources to the software side of things and making sure that that software experience just gets better and better. And that's what we've done. And now we've created this in Bay experience that we're calling Practice Plus. 23:28.88 ModGolfPodcast Got it, got it. Okay, so a few years ago when I was in GOLFTEC, getting, training myself to improve, to drop down to a 13 handicap, we were focusing almost primarily on my swing, so as far as irons, drivers, so really off the tee approach shots. And at that time, I think there was a little bit of kind of putting analysis that we did, but that was still in the early stages. So since, as you very well know that with golf, and I get this from our Arccos sensors all the time of, 23:57.72 ModGolfPodcast the four areas, the four buckets of the golf game of where I need improvement, where I'm giving strokes away, strokes lost, strokes gained. So driving, irons with approach shots, chipping and pitching, and putting. 24:08.54 ModGolfPodcast So as far as this holistic four pieces of of your golf game, how are you how is GOLFTEC looking in the future to cover all four of those? 24:20.88 ModGolfPodcast So what are you doing, especially on the short game and the putting side? I'm quite curious to learn this. 24:24.34 Joe Assell I'll say a couple of things we're doing now. We don't have to wait for the future. We have our own proprietary putting analysis software called tech putt, like GOLFTEC. It's called Tech Putt. It runs on an iPad. ah You can do it in in the putting green in any of our golf techs, or you can do it out at a golf course. And then we have um another proprietary software called tech swing go. So tech swing is our main teaching software, but tech swing go means it's portable. It runs on an iPad. 24:51.93 Joe Assell and every GOLFTEC coach in the world has their own personal you know company issued iPad that they take with them and they teach one day per week at a local golf course to do the short game outside. Really get down in the bunker, hit the flop shot out of the rough, 25:08.48 Joe Assell hit the 30-foot breaking putt, or go on the golf course and find other unique situations and strategies. So weather permitting, our coaches are four days in our center one day at the golf course with their golf tech students using our iPad-based technology. 25:24.74 ModGolfPodcast Love this, love this. As you were saying this, I was thought it was being very clever, being ah you know coming up with different names for brands and and products. I was already thinking, if you had something that was remote, whether you're at the driving range, and it was like you're getting a lesson there, and I was gonna call it, I was gonna say Golf Tech Go, and I thought it was being very clever, but you've already figured that out. 25:44.13 Joe Assell Yes our new thing, codename, we're calling it Got Tech Anywhere, when it's running on your phone for even consumer use. Not quite ready yet, but hopefully out in 2025 to celebrate our 30th anniversary. 25:55.70 ModGolfPodcast Got it, got it. Okay, so I'm gonna do something fun here. As I mentioned, I have queued up the previous conversation that we had. I'm gonna pull my microphone over. Hopefully you can hear this. Let me turn my volume up. 26:12.86 ModGolfPodcast I'm gonna play this. So this is Joe Assell circa 2017, answering my question when I asked, what do you think the future of golf will look like? So here we go. 26:29.29 ModGolfPodcast 2017 "So one question I'd like to ask here, and I'd like to hear it as far as your thoughts with GOLFTEC and and also golf in general. So pull out your crystal ball here and give me your thoughts of where golf will be in five, 10, 20 years from now and also GOLFTEC." 26:45.30 Joe Assell 2017 You have been 20 years into it already. Let's hear where you think perhaps golf tech could be 20 years from now. What are your thoughts? Sure. It's so hard to see the future. I'll tell you a few years ago, we tried to have this conversation and it really spurred some of our current innovation. 26:58.51 Joe Assell 2017 So trying to just see five years into the future, we determined it being very self-critical. We needed to improve our environment, which came to this new design. We needed to improve how we sell clubs, which is this shaft wall. 27:09.33 Joe Assell 2017 We needed to improve our technology, which are these new cameras that we're rolling out. And so a lot of these things we're currently doing came from this kind of a discussion five years ago. And as I as i look forward, everything is going to your phone. 27:22.19 Joe Assell 2017 Everybody lives on their phone. You can book airline tickets, you can do your banking you can do almost anything on your phone and We had to be prepared for ah more and more aspects of golf to come to your phone. 27:32.94 Joe Assell 2017 Maybe it's instruction. Maybe it's just your game tracking. Maybe it's something we haven't ever thought about. And then I think with the millennial group coming along, we need to be more fun and leisure and entertainment focused and a little less serious. 27:45.82 ModGolfPodcast So I think you're going to see. golf courses and GOLFTEC continue to adapt to be as much about fun as anything in this great environment. And just your casual and social time being very important in everyone's lives. 27:59.23 ModGolfPodcast Good stuff. So i just there we go. There's your voice seven years ago. 28:05.18 Joe Assell Well, somewhat prophetic. I think everything is more on the phone, including a GOLFTEC app with a wealth of features on it. And then the fun aspect, partly that's our practice plus offering, but also the explosion of now Top Golf and these golf simulator bars that are everywhere that are an entertainment venue, it falls right into those comments. So not bad. 28:30.05 ModGolfPodcast There we go. Pretty good. Well, I'm going to have to ask you that question again. Well, the way you've kind of answered that a little bit too, but even the fun aspect there too, as far as making an engagement, making it engaging in my understanding is, cause you had this on the previous episode also that you've got some people that just kind of have community around their golf tech location that they'll come in the morning, bring a coffee and watch. 28:53.44 ModGolfPodcast The golf channel on the TV, they'll just kind of hang out and just kind of kind of chill. And you, but you embrace that. You kind of welcome people to do that, to show up, even if they're not spending money there. 29:03.45 Joe Assell Absolutely. Our coaches and our members have great relationships and they like to hang out and they like each other's company and we're a fun place to come and hit a few balls and hit some putts and just absorb the vibe. So we definitely have some community within our centers and many of our um our our markets will have the Chicago GOLFTEC Open or the Dallas GOLFTEC Open where all of our customers, we get together for a day of fun. So we we really spend quite a bit of time and energy around just the community of being part of Golf Tech. 29:32.72 ModGolfPodcast Nice, nice. So I understand the the moniker or the one of the, how can I put this? Your catchphrase, I guess you can say there in your acronym is GBOSH. We talked about this in the previous podcast episode. Go big or stay home. And that seems to be something that just kind of permeates through the DNA of the culture at Golf Tech. So how does that translate? That rather than just being a concept in words, how do you actually kind of invigorate everyone that works with golf tech. How does that trickle down? How do you walk that walk with GBOSH rather than just say it? 30:12.01 Joe Assell So that's really our internal motto, our rally cry for our teammates. And when we started this back in the mid nineties, we had this idea that most people said would fail. Nobody's going to take a golf lesson indoors and use technology. And we had to have this GBOSH mindset, like let's go big. Let's do this. We can make this successful and. 30:35.26 Joe Assell That worked and we've really never dropped it, which you see now in maybe our acquisition of SkyTrack or the new technology we're developing for our phone usage and just our continued growth as we got bigger. We could have switched to call it you know conservative mode or mature mode and just seeking moderate growth every year. But we think we can still open hundreds of GOLFTECs, i think actually 500 more golf techs around the world as how many we think we can build. And so we show up here every day working on growing both our just our size, but more importantly, our customer experience and our technology and over-delivering for people ah constantly. 31:14.03 ModGolfPodcast Love this, love this. So you've been at it for almost 30 years, three decades. I've got a feeling it has not been a straight line trajectory. I'm sure there's been some bumps in the road, probably several of them, because as the entrepreneurial journey, that's kind of what we experience. So could you share with us one of the, if you want to call it a mistake, one of the biggest mistakes, or perhaps something that just didn't work out that sir that happened, whether it was in the early days or in the last 30 years, 31:43.63 ModGolfPodcast something you thought this is going to be the next big thing. Maybe it was a little bit too early. So we know timing, especially with technology at the markets ready for it. So can you share with us something that you thought of the team thought for sure, this is going to be a home run and it didn't quite work out. And what did you learn from that and take away and then perhaps use to, uh, to make something better eventually over time? 32:06.03 Joe Assell I've never made a mistake. Come on. 32:08.61 ModGolfPodcast Uh-huh. 32:10.27 Joe Assell I actually guest lecture the MBA classes on entrepreneurship and I talk about all the terrible things that have happened to us along the way and all the mistakes that I've made. 32:19.75 ModGolfPodcast Yeah. 32:20.96 Joe Assell I'll give you two. One is back in the kind of mid late 90s, I was trying to raise some venture capital money. The VC guys thought I was too young and they asked me to hire a CEO over me with some more business experience. 32:36.62 Joe Assell And that was a mistake. I hired the wrong guy. um We actually got worse and really put us in a perilous position. And I had to undo that hire, put myself back in charge. ah But that was ah kind of an 18 month adventure that was really challenging. That was a long time ago. 32:52.86 Joe Assell And then another somewhat more recent one, ah we maybe even spoke about this seven years ago, but we had this great partnership with Golf Smith and we were opening golf techs inside all of the Golf Smith stores. 33:03.65 Joe Assell And they went bankrupt and I lost 50 golf techs in one month. 33:08.06 ModGolfPodcast Wow. 33:08.09 Joe Assell And that was really, really challenging. and Maybe a mistake to partner with them. I'm not sure because it actually we end up ah at one time we're in 81 golf Smith. So it really fuelled our growth. It was a partnership. ah But then when they didn't make it, then that was a really painful dark time. 33:25.76 ModGolfPodcast Now, yes, when we recorded the previous podcast in 2017, I believe you would were just going through that. I guess wherever that was there legally, financially, business wise, we didn't even talk about that. I didn't even know that was was going on. So you were under a very stressful situation, but I'm assuming out of that, you had kind of learned how to kind of reshape your partnerships there of not putting too you know, all the eggs and in one basket less necessarily. 33:52.95 ModGolfPodcast Cause I know now you've got partnerships, I believe in Canada up here in some of the Golf Towns, you've got GOLFTEC locations now. So obviously you've learned come out the other side of a better way to structure partnerships. 34:05.10 ModGolfPodcast Is that, is that something that's been a positive that's came out of that, that experience? 34:07.93 Joe Assell Absolutely. and and And one of the actual, it was a very dark time, but turned out to be one of the greatest things that happened to us, because as we rebuilt those locations out of the golf smiths to be a normal, you know, standalone golf tech, when we got them reopened, sales more than doubled. And it was a, I never would have tried to unwind that partnership, but it was forced on us. And it turned out to be a really great thing because our business actually boomed once we rebuilt them. 34:33.19 ModGolfPodcast Right. And do you find the adversity you went through and the team went through, did you think that helped to kind of galvanize the culture and, uh, the show that the kind of increase the resilience and future proof, the company and and in fact made you stronger coming out the other side? 34:50.71 Joe Assell It sure did as a team and it it taught us crisis management. Here we get 30 days notice that we're losing 50 locations. 34:57.48 ModGolfPodcast Yikes. 34:57.77 Joe Assell And that that crisis management came back in a huge in COVID when on like five days notice our whole entire company shut down. And we had to come together as a leadership team and figure out how to navigate through that. And it was like round two of the golf Smith news. And it actually, we had the confidence then going into COVID that we could figure this out thanks to the golf Smith experience. 35:22.54 ModGolfPodcast Wow, wow. Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Joe. It's not all butterflies and rainbows, is it, in this in this business world, is it? 35:31.41 Joe Assell Not one bit. 35:32.55 ModGolfPodcast Not one bit. Okay, you know what? We also are going to jump over for a video call for the ModGolf YouTube channel and we are going to take a deep dive into your entrepreneurial learnings. 35:46.17 ModGolfPodcast So I really encourage all of our listeners to go over there to watch that. I was going to ask you some ah some questions here about entrepreneurship, scaling a business and ah and the entrepreneurial journey, but we're going to cover that over there in our YouTube channel. So I will include the the link for that in the show notes. So once again, all of your listeners here encourage you to ah to to to watch that. So, hey, the to finish up here, Joe, why don't you let our listeners know where they can learn more about golf tech, where they can learn about SKYTRAK, if they're listening, hey, now I'm thinking about getting 36:22.03 ModGolfPodcast an affordable home ah home setup here for a simulator, or maybe they want to, like me, improve by seven strokes and get back into a GOLFTEC location if they've ever been there before, maybe they've lapsed like I have, or they haven't had that first experience. So why don't you let them know where they can kind contact, find out more about golf tech, and also on social media where they can find out about you guys. 36:43.35 Joe Assell We're happy to do that. Thanks, Tom. So, you know, 240 locations just in North America. We're in almost every major city. If you want to take a lesson, get some new golf clubs or practice, it's golftech.com, pretty simple, G-O-L-F-T-E-C dot.com. And then if you want to have your own launch monitor or simulator in your home or business, that's skytrakgolf.com, where you can find a suite of options there for our launch monitors and then the studio enclosures that you need there as well. 37:13.11 Joe Assell and under both of those names were on all social media channels as well. 37:17.13 ModGolfPodcast Perfect. And as I always do, I will include all those links that Joe just mentioned in the show notes to make it nice and easy for all of you listeners to do connect with them. And I guess the last thing I want to end with here is just in golf, in life, in business, the best thing you need to do. I think Woody Allen said, 90% of success is just showing up. And I think for us showing up here, just to let everybody know, pull the curtain back. 37:43.12 ModGolfPodcast This is the second time we recorded this. We tried to record this and our connection kept glitching out. You had a major snowstorm where you are in Colorado last week. Maybe that was the issue, maybe not. But rather than just throwing our hands up going, oh, we're not gonna do this. 37:56.64 ModGolfPodcast We said, hey, let's do it again. And that was a good conversation. And in fact, since this is take two, I think this is even a better conversation that we had. So ah there you go. Just the act of showing up, whether it's at the golf course or in life is the most important thing. 38:10.64 ModGolfPodcast Absolutely. 38:11.01 Joe Assell and entrepreneurship, perseverance, just keep going. 38:13.61 ModGolfPodcast There we go, there we go. So hey, why don't we finish up there once again, Mr. Joe Assell, co-founder and CEO of GOLFTEC Thank you, Joe, for spending the time today. Hopefully it will not be seven and a half years before we have you on again. ah It's gotta be sooner than that, because I'd love to hear all the new things that you're gonna be embarking on over the next while in the future of golf that's that's embedded and surrounded with GOLFTEC. 38:38.46 Joe Assell Yeah, thanks for having me, Khan. I look forward to it as well, and hopefully it's shorter than seven years. And I'm sure I will see you in person sooner than that. 38:44.79 ModGolfPodcast Absolutely, sounds great, Joe. All right, have a great day. You take care. 38:48.70 Joe Assell Okay, thank you very much. See you soon.