00:14.58 ModGolfPodcast Welcome to the ModGolfPodcast, 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 and I'm your host. 00:54.03 ModGolfPodcast So I'm a proud Canadian guy, I think as you know, and today I've got a proud Canadian company in the golf space that I have been following for, well, 10 years, since they started, since their infancy. 01:08.11 ModGolfPodcast They are celebrating their 10-year anniversary and that is Dormie Workshop. And I have Todd Bishop with us today. He was the co-founder who, along with his brother Jeff, formed the company a decade ago, I had the pleasure of meeting them The first time I was at the PGA Show in Orlando at 2015. They drove down from Halifax IN the Maritimes all the way down to the show there and cobbled it together. That same year I kind of snuck into the PGA Show. I was not in the golf industry at the time and our orbits managed to collide at that the show. So here we are 10 years later. I finally have the chance to have Todd on the podcast here today. And yeah, their story is amazing. What they create with handcrafted leather golf club covers, not just for drivers, but all clubs and putters and the way they're expanding into other areas too. I'm gonna let Todd talk about all about that. So now it's time to bring him on the show. Todd Bishop, welcome to the ModGolfPodcast. Thanks for joining us today. 02:07.97 Todd Bishop Thank you, Colin. It's a minus six degrees up here today. So there's not a lot of golf being played outside. 02:14.87 ModGolfPodcast Yikes. So for all of our American friends, minus six Celsius just means it's really flipping cold. So just take it as that. So yeah, everything is frozen. So no golf today on the west coast. 02:24.86 Todd Bishop Yeah. 02:25.66 ModGolfPodcast It's a rainy here in a rainforest. A little bit warmer than that, but I don't think I'm gonna get it out and play today, Todd. So that gives me the opportunity, both of us, to stay indoors and talk about the story of Dormie Workshop. So hey, wanted to start with this. So thanks again for being on the podcast today. So yeah, before we dive into Dormie Workshop, can you share a bit about your background and how you first got involved in golf? I always loved this story, the power of imitation. What was your first golf experience? And how that was connected to your brother Jeff also. So yeah, tell us about that, your connection to golf, the first experience you ever had and who invited you to have that. 03:04.27 Todd Bishop Yeah. Our father was the main driver of us getting into the game. So at a very young age, I was in diapers and unable to walk. 03:14.33 Todd Bishop There was a picture, I couldn't even hold the club, but it was just laying across my chest, like a sword, like I've been knighted. 03:21.21 ModGolfPodcast Wow. 03:22.60 Todd Bishop So I might've been maybe a year old. So yeah, it goes way back and that club was from my grandfather and he was a left-hander and he was a proper true left-hand lefty. And then dad became a lefty, even though he threw right-handed. 03:36.01 ModGolfPodcast Alright. 03:43.60 Todd Bishop And then I'm a righty, but swing and play golf left-handed and Jeff throws right and swings left-handed. So there's a whole hereditary of lefty, lefty, lefty from grandfather to father to son, then now I've got a seven year old and he's been bequeathed with the sword across his chest as well. 04:02.56 ModGolfPodcast Love it. Well, I'm the opposite of you. I throw in right left or left handed, but I play golf right handed, which as a struggling 16 handicapper, I had a teaching pro lesson about eight years ago. 04:16.74 ModGolfPodcast And he had this little drill because I played a lot of baseball. I don't know if it was you our your brother but one of you guys played softball, I think at a competitive level yes? 04:22.26 Todd Bishop Yeah, I did. Yeah. 04:23.29 ModGolfPodcast So he had me do this drill for releasing. He goes, "pick up a ball and just throw it sidearm. Like you're throwing it like a short stop across the diamond." So of course I pick up a couple of balls and I start doing that, throwing them sidearm with my left hand, and he looks at me and he goes, "you play right-handed, right?" Yeah, I do! He's replies, "maybe we should shift you to left." And I say "you know what? I am not going to spend a year shooting 135. I love the game, but I i just can't do it!" So but I probably should be playing left, but here I am. So we're mirror opposites of each other. Obviously, it's working for you because both you and your brother are a certified PGA professionals. Obviously you have a lot more game than I do. So having the right-handed, left-handed thing is not a problem for you. 05:07.69 Todd Bishop No, it somehow it works out. I think Mickelson is the same way. He's a righty that swings a lefty and I've heard him talk about, having the top hand on the club being the main pulling as opposed to the bottom hand doing that softball, toss or shortstop throw, right? But there's all kinds of theories out there. There's lots of people trying to figure out how to get the ball down the middle and Hideki seems to be the only guy right now that knows how to do it. 05:33.89 ModGolfPodcast Wow, so yeah, both you and your brother and your dad are able to switch sides and play very well. So that was one of the lame excuses I had for being a mediocre golfer. So I guess I have to discard that one and find something new for as an excuse for my not so great golf game. Okay, well, thanks for that, really appreciate it! So I understand that golf is a passion for you, obviously, because of what you're doing with Dormie Workshop, but you guys have done lots of other things too. so Let's start with the back story. I understand you and your brother were a couple of ski bums. You've been up here in Whistler, very close to where I am and also the surf thing and cobbling together a way to find and create a business or at least make a living on almost no money and just figuring that out and being an entrepreneur on a small scale. 06:24.33 ModGolfPodcast So being a ski / surf bum for many years, hopefully that term's okay with you or having the lifestyle, how did those experiences inform your entrepreneurial insights and confidence early on that led to the creation of Dormie? 06:43.37 Todd Bishop I think a lot of it has to do with the culture of those industries or sports. So in the ski industry, which was the first one that I really was able to participate in, I became level three ski instructor out in Banff and committed to that. And in that, yes, there's not a lot of money, but being able to network and go to other ski resorts and crash at other people's homes or apartments or tents or wherever they were living. 07:15.71 Todd Bishop We didn't need a lot because we knew we were only going to be sleeping there for six hours. And then the rest of the time road having fun. 07:23.14 ModGolfPodcast Right. 07:23.39 Todd Bishop So you could learn to live off the landscape because it was all about travel, finding the deepest pow or the best waves on the smallest dime. 07:36.43 Todd Bishop And, so from that every, there was a really strong community that would help support others because you treat others like you would like to be treated yourself. So if somebody came up to Canada, you would try to host them. If I was living in my RV at the time, then you had a spare bed in the back of the RV. You know, there was always ways to at least have somebody and say, "come on up to Nova Scotia. It's awesome up here!" And then. 08:04.05 Todd Bishop If it was Banff, we had different ways of making it happen and and skiing back country. And it was like a really fun time looking back. And there was other aspirational goals. Like I always wanted to be a heli-ski guide. So I started to get into the back country, got my Canadian Avalanche level one, which helps figure out snow packs and what terrain would be a safe route up. And hopefully you ski down and survive and that was to me, really exciting, but what took me out of that was injuries and it wasn't a sustainable lifestyle with the way I treated my body and some of the places that I skied and things that happened. It doesn't always turn out to be the dream that you forecast. 08:52.10 ModGolfPodcast yeah I guess golf is a little bit easier on the body than crashing in skiing. I'm a snowboarder, so I can definitely relate to that. 09:01.15 Todd Bishop Yeah. 09:01.88 ModGolfPodcast Okay, now I'm really intrigued about the backstory of Dormie Workshop. Share with us about the early days of Dormie Workshop. So what was that spark, that aha moment that led to the idea of starting the company? And was there a specific event that made you and your brother say, "you know what, this is it, we need to do this! Here's an opportunity." So yeah, tell us about that. 09:25.34 Todd Bishop So we had already experimented with a golf ball marker and it was a company called Lined Up Golf. And basically it was like a poker chip. 09:33.36 ModGolfPodcast Okay. 09:36.63 Todd Bishop We had a line on it. And for people that draw the lines on the balls, it was just an extension. It was like a compass and if you wanted to start it out three balls, right you'd aim that line out there and then you'd line your ball up. 09:47.70 Todd Bishop And then we from that poker chip, it developed into a fused glass product using dichroic glass with a strip. All of a sudden, this marker went from being hand-painted plastic to fused glass. Now it's $25 a pop. Then we figured out that it was really thick, so we needed to put a little mold underneath and have a mag magnet glued on there to have a a smaller marker so that you have a big marker and a small marker all in one. 10:18.79 Todd Bishop And so from in this process, we were selling, we had some girls in the LPGA Tour using it. We had some pro shops carrying it and that was our first time where we were actually marketing a product because our whole career was marketing ourselves. So whether it was golf lessons, because we had a golf school, Bishop Brothers Golf School. We ran a school program that was a dedicated sports school and we ran the golf component of that. 10:45.39 Todd Bishop And so there was all these times where we're marketing ourselves, but never selling one product and selling products are much different than selling personalities and backstories. 10:54.95 ModGolfPodcast Right. 10:56.66 Todd Bishop Because it's like, "Oh, I used to play on the mini tours" and that would usually appease most parents thinking the guy must know how to play. 11:03.17 ModGolfPodcast Right. 11:03.53 Todd Bishop With the product, it's a much different story. You need to have R & D and there should be people that would endorse it and and third-party referrals and all the rest of this kind of thing, which which still happens in teaching and marketing yourself. But that was the ground of where we started to take off with entrepreneurship. And it was Jeff who was had noticed in the US that leather head covers were starting to become a little more prevalent. And he had seen some brands that he caught his eye and he liked the feel of them. 11:39.65 Todd Bishop and he knew it was way better than what the OEMs were putting out, because the OEMs are always always a long knitted neck with almost like a football helmet on the top and you're wrestling with it. 11:49.90 ModGolfPodcast Right. 11:50.47 Todd Bishop And then the knit starts to and and you've got this like lobster claw that you're trying to put on top of your driver. And it's like, man, these leather ones are so supple and they look so great and they're just as effective. 12:04.32 Todd Bishop So he started to look to buy something that he thought was cool. The market wasn't that deep back then. And not to belittle any of the competitors, it was just the standard that he was looking for, especially with his background of surfing and everything else in skateboarding, there just wasn't a lot out there. And we're all artists at heart. So he was like, "I think we might be able to do this." And I remember when he came back, he was down in the US at the time. And I was like, man, we've got the golf school going. We had the ball marker thing. Now you're talking about a third spoke in this wheel. That's kind of like more of a triangle as opposed to a round wheel. 12:46.70 ModGolfPodcast Yep. 12:46.83 Todd Bishop And I'm like, "wWe got to pick one and really run with it." And he was like, "well, I'm going to do with it without you." And I was like, "all right, I'm in!" So that was it. 12:59.17 Todd Bishop That was in September, the Ryder Cup was on when we decided yep, we're going to go full on into this. And there was actually a third partner back in the day that was not a family member. 13:13.86 Todd Bishop And he had a surf shop and made really cool reversible shorts. And he was one of the original guys back when we first started. 13:25.42 ModGolfPodcast Yeah. 13:25.55 Todd Bishop And I think he was with us for eight or nine months before maybe, yeah, because I don't think he made it to that first trade show. So anyway, we ended up buying him out. 13:37.16 Todd Bishop let's just streamline this. And that was how it all started. So then it was just him and I inside the family unit. And that was when we brought Alex into the scene who was going to Vancouver Film School and taking digital classes on like design and doing logos and all this stuff. 14:00.38 Todd Bishop So we're like, man, perfect. 14:00.45 ModGolfPodcast Right. 14:01.42 Todd Bishop At this stage, we were probably eight months in or close to a year before we flew him back and said, "I think we can get you a full-time job here doing this." 14:16.92 Todd Bishop And so everybody was living in apartments together. It was like a frat house. 14:22.75 ModGolfPodcast Right. 14:22.99 Todd Bishop And we had another cousin who was a liquor salesman. And then there was a three brothers and he was bringing back samples. So that was pretty good for getting free wine, rum, beer. 14:36.93 Todd Bishop And so at least we didn't have to buy anything. This is what I was telling you about the network. 14:40.81 ModGolfPodcast Right. 14:40.92 Todd Bishop Treat others as you would unto yourself or something like that. So yeah, we had this household that was guys just trying to get by. And that was when we knew that we couldn't do this alone, I mean, Jeff and I had no sewing background. 14:56.33 Todd Bishop We didn't know much about leather either so we started to just piecemeal this thing together and we hired other people. We knew how to sell, but that was unsustainable. 15:09.37 ModGolfPodcast Yeah. Well, that was the next question I was going to ask you is what talents and attributes and experience that all three of you had. It sounds like with Alex, your youngest brother from the film school has that graphic design background and I understand also a graffiti artist who is able to bring that kind of vibe and that aesthetic to all the good designs that you were creating. All the custom work. 15:28.96 ModGolfPodcast But I was curious to know, did you have any background in leather work and upholstery and textiles and sewing? It sounds like you didn't, but you just figured it out and then brought some people in. I think from one of the local art schools and around Halifax, did you not? 15:43.98 Todd Bishop Yeah, so yeah, Nascad, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. there was There was tons of talent that we recruited from there in the early days. 15:52.10 ModGolfPodcast Mm-hmm. 15:52.32 Todd Bishop And one of the first people that we really relied on to to create prototypes and make product because we went to one PGA Show here in the Atlantic zone and we had four wholesale orders of like I think it might've been 12 units each or something like that. 16:14.73 Todd Bishop And, you know, that was like a monster order for us. If we could get 12, that was like, whoa. 16:18.47 ModGolfPodcast Right. 16:21.71 Todd Bishop So now it was like, the rubber needs to hit the road here. That was when we got this lady who lived in a public housing area. 16:35.96 Todd Bishop She lived in the basement apartment. And in this particular quad where you pull into the parking lot, There was other deals that were happening in this parking lot. 16:46.82 Todd Bishop And I always felt like when we pulled in there, that one of these vans that had the tinted windows or somebody there at these night vision goggles, watching the activities. 16:55.20 ModGolfPodcast Right. 16:56.70 Todd Bishop And we would take this big cardboard box and she'd open up the window. And we walk over to the window and you just see these fragile 70 year old arms that pick this box up and pull it in and then shut the window. 17:09.02 Todd Bishop And then we would get in the car and drive away. 17:12.06 ModGolfPodcast That sounds like you're doing something super illegal! 17:16.53 Todd Bishop And it's like, yeah, this is like where some of the nicest golf courses head cover is being made is in this particular area in Dartmouth. And I'll never forget those drives, but what happened was we got so busy that she turned her living room into a studio and so the drop offs through the window became pretty rare. 17:37.31 Todd Bishop that was later on. Originally we would go in and sit down with her. 17:39.22 ModGolfPodcast Right. 17:41.70 Todd Bishop She'd have her tea on. Her massive dog used to be there and we'd sit down and we would talk for hours about what needs to be done, how it should look like, how it needs to work. 17:53.68 Todd Bishop And she used to make sock monkeys and puppets. 17:57.14 ModGolfPodcast Okay. 17:58.28 Todd Bishop She was like a puppeteer maker. So she had lots of skills that she was amazingly talented. But when I look back and go forward to where we are now and how fast and and the machines that we're using, they're all air compressed. 18:13.85 Todd Bishop And the machine she was using was very old school. So it was like barely stronger than what her fingers could do. So it was slow, right? 18:20.91 ModGolfPodcast Right. 18:21.98 Todd Bishop And it didn't matter because we didn't have a lot of orders and we had all winter to make them. So those were the early, early rough days of like trying to figure out what a putter cover should look like and how to make a prototype. 18:36.92 Todd Bishop And we bring in putters and she'd look at them and she'd be like, "oh, it's like my cane!" And she'd pull her cane out and it's got the same handle and it's like, 18:43.13 ModGolfPodcast Right. makes Makes total sense. 18:44.58 Todd Bishop You know, make a cover for your handle. Yeah. 18:48.21 ModGolfPodcast So what I love about this is you guys, you talk about being lean and scrappy. You guys are the epitome of lean and scrappy, the way you put this together, kept it in the family, brought a couple of people in that had different skills that you needed to fill the gaps. I work with so many entrepreneurs, not just in golf, but all through kind of the startup culture. And my work with founding Startup Vancouver and working with Startup Canada. 19:11.03 ModGolfPodcast And I got caught up in this about 10 years ago too, where you're putting the pitch deck together and you're doing the market research about the total accessible market and all these things, which you need to do at a certain point, but you guys were just hitting the ground and just figuring stuff out and and making things that you loved. 19:19.85 Todd Bishop Yeah. 19:28.68 ModGolfPodcast And then obviously they resonated, you got some orders. So talk about that. We always talk about this term of customer validation or product market fit. But let's not be that fancy with these terms. 19:40.91 ModGolfPodcast What did you create? What was your first couple of designs that you created and then people loved and bough. So tell us about the first couple of things you ever designed and why you chose those ones. 19:50.29 Todd Bishop Yeah, so we had, there was definitely a big love of the hair on hide. The hides that you'd see at IKEA that you just throw on the floor that still have the fur on them. 20:01.33 ModGolfPodcast Right. Right. 20:03.48 Todd Bishop They'd call it like Jersey cow, dairy cow, that type of hide, right? 20:03.82 ModGolfPodcast Yeah. 20:07.03 ModGolfPodcast Okay. Yeah. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. 20:09.08 Todd Bishop So we started, we were like, "can you actually make covers out of these?" And we started making those and we're like, "man, these are really cool. I haven't seen those around much." But we didn't know how to put a liner in them yet because that's a certain technique to have liners. 20:23.76 Todd Bishop All we knew was it was like perimeter stitch and do the cuff. 20:24.44 ModGolfPodcast Right. 20:27.24 Todd Bishop And you've just got this raw sleeve that would be like from Robin Hood, you know, Conan The Barbarian sword sleeve would be the same line of this s thing. 20:36.42 ModGolfPodcast Right. 20:37.56 Todd Bishop Because leather is the world's oldest technical fabric. So you can't beat it. It's just so perfect for so many different applications from outdoor wear to well find, you know, purses and everything else and shoes in high fashion. So um to to have it be the the head cover that we chose, we started to look at other leathers. I've got a swatch of leathers now that we that we have in stock here. When we go to a trade show, they're all named. We have this one here, you can see we laser etch. Certain ones have different capabilities. 21:17.50 Todd Bishop all leather has memory, some memory is really short, some will last forever. So we know what those like that there, you can see the cow, that's actually debossed from a heat press. 21:27.62 ModGolfPodcast Yes. 21:31.97 ModGolfPodcast ah Okay, alright. 21:32.21 Todd Bishop So this leather will actually remember that, where this leather if you hit that with that same heat, a heat stamp, it won't work and won't remember it. So these are all the little tips and embellishments that we picked up as we went along through the learning curve. And those early days, though, they were really simple designs. I mean, really simple. We would pick a color and then there was a foil machine that was a heat press. And we learned that we could get different color foils from silver or gold or black. And we were riding the Nova Scotia Griffin, like the middle lion of our of our flag. 22:16.40 Todd Bishop we made that as an unofficial mascot for us. The Griffin was used in all kinds of different designs. And so they were very simple, really cool. And if you looked at it, they would definitely look like what your grandfather or your great grandfather's head covers look like. They truly were retro head covers made of leather, super simple. But Then as we got along, it was like, okay, now we want to add some surf into this. Oh, we want to personalize and customize. What, how can we do it? We learned about the laser and laser technology and how you can laser etch. And then we just like Googled who has a laser machine and Halifax. And then we took the idea to them and they're like, "Oh, we can laser this. No problem. Just bring the leather in and we'll laser whatever you need." 23:05.91 ModGolfPodcast Nice. 23:05.95 Todd Bishop So we were always relying on outsourcing to get us by because we had no money for capital. Like there was no capital to and buy a machine. We were always relying just living pay-check to pay-check style, you know, bootstrapping, as they say. 23:21.80 ModGolfPodcast Yeah. Well, there's the power of partnerships right there. So earlier, just a minute ago, Todd was showing the leather swatches on screen here. Because we have a video going here, even though this is an audio podcast, he was showing the other leather samples. We will be jumping on ah the ModGolf YouTube channel after we finish up here on the podcast. And we're going to have a different conversation there and he's going to be showing off. 23:42.90 ModGolfPodcast not only those leather samples, but also a lot of their awesome cover heads there too. so So why don't you join us over there? I'll include that link in the show notes here. Like I said, we're gonna jump onto the ModGolf Podcast YouTube channel a little bit later. So I wanted to talk about this a little bit, now that you're able to customize and laser etch, 24:06.89 ModGolfPodcast that you're able to do custom orders for people. Now I've seen that you've got a lot of celebrities, a lot of pro athletes. I think you've done some work with Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment with the Raptors and many others. So I want to know who was the first custom client that you had? Did they approach you and kind of put something out there that really pushed the limits for you guys and you just went for it? So so tell us about that. So who was the first ever custom client that you had? 24:37.28 Todd Bishop It was Chris Pronger. 24:39.39 ModGolfPodcast Oh, okay. 24:40.69 Todd Bishop And it was the end of November. And I convinced Jeff, who's not a big cold water surfer and I'll surf all winter. No problem. And I was pushing his boundaries of getting him into late November waters. It's really cold and we were ripping our wetsuits off. 24:59.35 Todd Bishop And when you're in the water that long, your fingers aren't really working. You could type, let's say it's 20 keystrokes with normal fingers in five seconds. 25:04.18 ModGolfPodcast Right. 25:10.64 Todd Bishop Well, when your fingers are frozen, like a surfer, you might as well use your elbows to type like they are absolute stumps. So he's trying to wrestle with this, with his, uh, wetsuit and the phone rings and he picked it up. 25:24.45 Todd Bishop And this guy's like, "Hey, uh, is this Dormie?" And Jeff's like, "yes, it is." He says, "yeah, it's a Chris Pronger. I want to get some covers." And Jeff's like, "yeah, right. Chris Pronger calling me" and he's got the suit half off. 25:37.23 Todd Bishop He's half naked on the side of a road in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia. 25:41.32 ModGolfPodcast Right. 25:41.78 Todd Bishop And, next thing you know, he says, "yeah, I want to get. this one for the Olympic team and this one with the medals and this one with the" and I think it actually is Chris Pronger. And Jeff put it on speaker. Listen to this man, like he's, this is live. So that was, that was pretty wild. And so all the designs that he had asked for, we needed to combine laser etching and embroidery. So this is where like the mixed medium started to hit. And that really boosted us because 26:15.48 Todd Bishop there was not a lot of people using appliqué. Everybody would just use embroidery, same embroidered polo, the same process that would happen with a piece of leather, you stitch it together and that's it. What we were doing was creating art designs that would combine embroidery with a little laser and some appliqué and it became quite a procedure to put these things together. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, like an extreme game of Jenga but our sewers, people that work for us or they were up for the task. And these are the kids from NASCAR. They loved it. Because they looked at it as a challenge and they they could feel the excitement from Jeff and I, because in Alex, cause we're like, man, we've never seen this. This is new. Like this is something nobody's done before. And that was, that was a thrill. And, and you know, to this day, we still are trying to do things and raise the bar and 27:14.77 Todd Bishop You know, it's not always about making the most expensive head cover in the world, but if it is the most expensive head cover in the world, then it should be justified by the art and the process functionality in the fashion behind it. It should be justified. And that's kind of what I think has set us apart is because we've been able to make a ah long lasting product that speaks to people in different ways or personally, you know, it can be a fully customized product. 27:43.92 Todd Bishop And that's kind of what we when we still strive for that today. 27:48.93 ModGolfPodcast I love that you have found and discovered through hard work and iteration, your market differentiator here, as you mentioned, between customization and very high quality materials and craftsmanship, because there are a ton of, ah of sorry, I gotta clean my throat here, let me do that again. 28:10.38 ModGolfPodcast Because on the the market there are a ton of companies that put out golf head covers and you guys have differentiated yourself so so nicely and I just love what you do. 28:28.86 ModGolfPodcast A little fun fact here that Todd and I were talking before the top of the show that I would love, I wanted this for years. Ever since I started The ModGolf Podcast and I've known about Dormie that I wanted to create some custom ModGolf driver covers. So we talked about that. So I'm gonna be commissioning - I don't know how busy you are - maybe they can fit us in 2025. I'll leave that up to Todd to determine. But here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna get him to make at least three of them, which one I'm gonna keep for myself, obviously. But then we're gonna give two of them away. So through a ModGolf Giveaway contest. And all you need to do is join our ModGolf Patreon community, which I'll keep that link down below in the show notes ah here for you and also on the YouTube channel. So I'm excited about that. Hopefully you guys have the capacity to work ModGolf into your design pipeline there, Todd. 29:20.38 Todd Bishop I'll make sure it gets push through the pipeline for you Colin! 29:23.60 ModGolfPodcast Awesome. Awesome. Well, you've seen the graphic that we have. 29:27.20 ModGolfPodcast I've got it behind me here on our banner. So hopefully we can work and do some fun things. And also I would love to co-create this because I've seen the work that you guys do. I'm sure you can take what we've created. We've had since day one and take that to the next level to create something that's awesome. Because work that you do is amazing. So, so yeah, I talked about the customization piece. 29:46.50 Todd Bishop I'll make sure it gets pushed through the pipeline for you, Colin. 29:46.83 ModGolfPodcast Thanks! The other thing I wanted to talk about looking at your website, I see that you're playing into or connecting with the tribalism that exists with professional and college sports. I see for some US colleges, I see with Ohio State and UConn and some others. So tell us about where the idea came for that. Where do you see the market opportunity? And then how do you go about the sales? How do you market that? And what how do you decide what schools to choose? So tell us whose idea it was to tap into the whole 30:20.86 ModGolfPodcast frenetic and rabid fan base that that universities and colleges have. 30:27.28 Todd Bishop Yeah, that one kind of came not by choice, but just by a combination of things and networking. Next thing you know, Jeff was with one of the top dogs in MLSE and the thought was, Oh, you know what? I want you to make some Leafs gear and we'll just give it to a few of the guys around here. 30:55.01 Todd Bishop you can get a local license. And just means that you wouldn't be able to sell on the website or they can't properly market it, but they're allowed to use other people to make a very small run of certain products. And so it was push came to shove because, licensing for a lot of people is a mystery and and we've been in it now long enough to to know kind of the ins and outs of it. And some licenses are really easy, some are a little trickier, some are more expensive. 31:25.14 Todd Bishop And we weren't really in this to become a license. You know, if you watch those shark tanks, you hear them always like, oh, you're going to license this or you're going to license that, or you could license this. It's like, we didn't create this brand so that we were going to license other people's ideas and sell alumni head covers or, you know, student head covers. 31:39.15 ModGolfPodcast Great. 31:43.55 Todd Bishop But just through the years, certain people connect with us and the opportunity seems like a good idea. And at the time, 31:54.37 Todd Bishop You know, the UConn was one where we met with the golf coach and he was super stoked on the product. And he was like, let's do the team. And I'm pretty sure we can help you get that license for UConn. And there's all these different people that will help, or be the catalyst of like getting a license for a product that we would never have considered to be worthy. 32:19.81 Todd Bishop I know the UConn basketball team kicks butt and the year that we got it, they won the final four. It was amazing. 32:27.63 ModGolfPodcast Yeah. 32:27.79 Todd Bishop And then Ohio state, Jack Nicholas through our play yellow charity stuff, we met Jack a few times and we know he's Ohio alumni. It wasn't a direct result of that, but understanding the backgrounds of these schools, there's certain reasons why you would, I mean, Ohio state, it's probably the most well-known, well-branded university in the US. So right there, it's like, "okay, well, what are the terms going to be?" And that's, that's all the back room, white collar stuff that I never thought we would be tossed into. But next thing you know, we're, you know, sitting across the desk talking numbers and it's like, okay, well we're not creating head covers anymore. You know, this ain't Kansas! 33:10.52 Todd Bishop So yeah, all those challenges though, you just learn from each one and now we're saying no to licenses. There's lots of opportunities, but we understand how hard it is to sell that stuff. 33:25.61 Todd Bishop It's really a big challenge that people really need to think twice about before diving into, because I could see how you could get, because there's these upfront royalties that you pay, guaranteed minimums, that's what they're called. 33:36.73 ModGolfPodcast Right. 33:38.42 Todd Bishop And so it basically protects the licensor from having a deadbeat licensee. So if they give somebody a license to produce belts and they don't sell one, well, they could have gave a license to another guy who makes belts and they could have sold a million. 33:56.11 ModGolfPodcast Right. 33:56.22 Todd Bishop Well, in order to protect themselves against the deadbeat, you got to pay an upfront fee of like, let's say it's 20,000 bucks. Well, if you don't sell anything, you wrote off 20 grand. 34:07.63 Todd Bishop But if you sell a million, well, you've already built in your 20 grand of royalties. So that, that's like a quick snapshot of how royalties work, guaranteed minimums and licensing. It's kind of boring, but it, the fun stuff is though, is that we can take all their great mascots and their stories and the school's history and morph that in into something that is going to really resonate. 34:18.52 ModGolfPodcast Interesting, interesting. 34:30.81 Todd Bishop We took the Ohio state football helmet, created the Buckeye stickers that players get for making great plays. 34:36.35 ModGolfPodcast Right. 34:36.38 Todd Bishop And those are all hand stitched and abroad. They're amazing. And these covers, I mean, they, if you're a football player and you see this head cover, that's your identity as an Ohio state fan instantly. And so, I think that's part of the attraction of our early beginnings with people would identify themselves as being part of surfing or skier or Ohio state. Like you want to showcase that. 35:03.63 Todd Bishop This is who I am. And on the first tee, one of our old sayings is "he who has the best story wins." So if you show up to the first tee with the killer head cover, the guys will say "where's that from?" And you're like, "Oh, actually this is an Ohio state and I got it signed by Jack Nicklaus." Well, there's a good story behind that. I don't know how you got that and I don't know why Jack Nicklaus signed that, but that's cool. And I want to hear more. And that it's a good conversation initiator icebreaker. 35:33.50 Todd Bishop Great gift. This is a whole bunch of ways to spin these things. 35:38.21 ModGolfPodcast I love that. Love that. So my background is in design and architecture. So I know no two clients, no two projects are the same. Some are way more complicated than others. So I want to ask you this: what, you don't have to name the client, don't throw anybody out of the bus here, but I'm really curious to hear what was the most challenging or complicated or intricate custom design that you've ever done. Or at least one of them. 36:08.35 Todd Bishop Probably a flagship for this question, there's really only one answer and it's a Samurai head cover. 36:15.41 ModGolfPodcast Okay. 36:15.49 Todd Bishop And I don't know if you've ever seen it, but the customer had asked, "could you make a samurai head cover?" We thought he just meant like, you know, a guy with a sword and embroidery or leather appliqué. 36:24.78 ModGolfPodcast Right. 36:27.33 Todd Bishop We could figure it out. And then we sent him back to digital mock-ups. He's like, no, no, no, i want I want the head cover. It'd be like the same as a football player saying, I want the head cover to actually have the face shield of the football helmet. Well, he was like, "yeah, I want the samurai with the neck guard and the mask. And I want a little Fu Man Chu goatee." And we're like, "okay, well, we do have one guy on our team named Sting and he's been with us almost since day one." 36:55.94 Todd Bishop And, he may have been like our third employee. And this guy is unbelievably talented and he's done the baseball glove, head covers. 37:05.21 ModGolfPodcast Right. 37:07.77 Todd Bishop And he really like latched onto this because he's very talented and took it on and went home and learned all about how to weave the neck piece and what the helmet construction looks like. So he did this construction out of paper first and then each piece he was able to put into a piece of leather and he chose different leathers for different purposes because some needed to be rigid. And so if you think of like a gun holster, 37:37.51 Todd Bishop he had to do those types of molds for the top part of the helmet, because it needed to be fairly firm, where the neck piece needed to be more supple and move. And so he combined all these different um ah blends of leather and ties and knots, and it's the craziest head cover. I still say to this day, it's the most intense head cover ever made in the history of golf. 38:04.44 Todd Bishop It's just undeniable. Once you see it and you pick it up, you're like, this, this is outrageous. 38:09.77 ModGolfPodcast And you only made one? 38:12.05 Todd Bishop We made one and we lost our shirts on it. I mean, Cynthia Freeland and she, lost 60 billion for Canada there the last couple of years. 38:23.82 ModGolfPodcast Yep. 38:24.81 Todd Bishop We were on a similar path with this head cover. Between materials and time and like it took weeks for this thing to be produced. So it was way under priced and as soon as he got it - he was over in the UK - he says "I want three more!" And we're like, oh man. 38:43.92 Todd Bishop Okay now We have to figure out some efficiencies here. It's hard to say no to customer. 38:48.70 ModGolfPodcast Right. 38:49.93 Todd Bishop He's already got one. and He knows that the price is So that was established. So we made some tweaks and we said "look I The price does have to be amended if we're going to do this a certain way." He agreed to that so we got a slight bump in the price and then the efficiencies of making the head cover. I don't think we still made money even on the second, third and fourth, you know, cover that we made. But from that, there was one other customer that had ordered it. We priced it accordingly and we finally made and properly priced it out. 39:26.69 Todd Bishop So I think overall in all that mess of different prototyping, we probably are in the black on that one. 39:37.12 ModGolfPodcast in the black or at least broke even. And it sounds like you really up-skilled your techniques and you learned a lot of stuff. So even it's kind of built in R&D in a way for what you did. And then you got a great piece and a great story. 39:47.99 ModGolfPodcast So it's a good marketing piece too, right? 39:48.68 Todd Bishop Oh, it's a great marketing piece. Actually, in our 10th year, we gave one away. It was one of the contests early on in the year was we gave away a samurai head cover. 40:01.97 ModGolfPodcast Nice. 40:02.25 Todd Bishop And yeah, so that was pretty cool. 40:05.06 ModGolfPodcast Very cool. Well, I'll make sure that you send me a picture if I can find one. So in the show notes, I will ensure that I include a picture of the samurai head cover. 40:09.56 Todd Bishop Definitely. 40:12.86 ModGolfPodcast I have seen that before. It's been a couple years since I have seen the samurai head cover, but we'll make sure we get that up there. Okay, to finish up, I do want to talk about the future for a couple of minutes here, Todd. 40:24.91 ModGolfPodcast And where you're going. I understood one of the reasons it took us over six months to put this podcast together. Because you have not, or you and your brothers, everybody have not been sitting still. You're based out of Halifax and your shop that you have there, which is a nice size for what I've seen. 40:41.21 ModGolfPodcast But I understand the last six months, I couldn't get ahold of you because you're spending a lot of your time in l LA. Tell us about what's going on, the future of Dormie Workshop and how you guys are expanding. 40:47.35 Todd Bishop Yeah. 40:53.05 Todd Bishop So people that have known us for a long time, everything's been based on Halifax and and we've moved shops sometimes twice in a year. 41:06.74 Todd Bishop Like it was just crazy. 41:07.06 ModGolfPodcast Wow. 41:08.02 Todd Bishop Yeah. It was like gypsies. But we finally have like a really good HQ here in Halifax where our sales and marketing, we have office space on third level. And it's like this labyrinth of hallways that lead down to the production floor. And then you go down another hall, there's a warehouse and then another hall is our retail and simulator space. And, you know, it's a great spot, but based on productivity and sales, we knew that we needed to either expand in Nova Scotia or find somewhere somewhere else. Ever since we were little, we always had great admiration for the US. Loved going down to the US and visiting and we spent a lot of time down there and we thought, "you know what, let's that's where the major market is and that's where our growth is going to be." And we picked l LA because most of the OEMs, as you know, are are in Carlsbad. 42:01.80 ModGolfPodcast Yes. 42:01.94 Todd Bishop And a lot of our partners, are within an hour or two hours max, you can go down and have a face to face meeting. We just love the California lifestyle because Mount Baldy is an hour out of LA. 42:16.23 Todd Bishop So there's one day where I golfed Goat Hill, skied Mount Baldy, and then went to Huntington Beach and surfed that night at the pier. 42:28.10 ModGolfPodcast The trifecta. 42:31.92 Todd Bishop Yes I did all three in one day and the trifecta. It's like shorts, goggles, and snow pants, and then wetsuit. But back to the production part, the facility in LA, it definitely has a bigger floor space for machinery. So whether it's laser, electric, clicker, press, cutting tables, and sewing machines, we have the ability to take over 17,000 square feet there. 42:58.04 Todd Bishop And so we're just slowly inching along, moving from left to right across this floor space, where in Halifax, when we moved in, it was like, boom! Now we've both grown it and we just moved in yesterday. And so LA is going to is really exciting because we've got a really cool collaboration and co-habitate with Extracurricular. 43:26.36 Todd Bishop I don't know if you've heard of that clothing brand. 43:28.69 ModGolfPodcast I have not. 43:30.46 Todd Bishop Yeah, you have to look up Extracurricular because we're the Canadian distributors for them. 43:34.00 ModGolfPodcast Nice. 43:34.16 Todd Bishop That unification just happened this summer from all the on-goings of getting finding space. Found out that they had some extra space in their warehouse. And this is the brand that Dustin Johnson wears. 43:48.59 Todd Bishop They also outfit the Four Aces. And it's a really cool kind of throwback to like JFK style, but there's like a a little bit of James Dean and there's just all these different characters, Steve McQueen, there's a really unique vibe to that brand. There was all kinds of synergies with us because it was like, "yeah, man, like we don't want to be stagnant. We want to keep pushing the boundaries." So LA is like kind of an incubator. The goal is to have that space as an incubator of innovative golf companies and there's more room for growth in there. And there's going to be an announcement at the Orlando show about some potential new deals that are happening for Dormie's portfolio. So that's going to be some big time news. 44:41.88 ModGolfPodcast That is exciting. Well, I will be there in a couple of weeks' time. I know this podcast episode, when we're recording it, we're going to release it in a couple of days, which will be about a week and a half before the PGA show. So I was going to ask that question if you guys are going to be down at the PGA show again. 44:54.68 ModGolfPodcast So looks like ah we can meet up in person again when we're down there. That would be great. 44:58.72 Todd Bishop Yeah. We'll have our booth there. We're in an area called The Retreat, which is where they had the concert. 45:04.74 ModGolfPodcast Okay. 45:06.61 Todd Bishop The way that works everything's just moving down. They keep it extending as the PGA show continues to grow. 45:29.56 ModGolfPodcast Yes. 45:34.04 ModGolfPodcast I remember seeing you guys there. last That's where you were last year, right? 45:36.90 Todd Bishop Yeah, now we're a little bit further down just on the other side of the wall now. 45:37.47 ModGolfPodcast You're in the same spot? Gotcha. 45:41.19 Todd Bishop Yeah. 45:41.40 ModGolfPodcast I know where to find you. Well, we'll have some fun. 45:43.01 Todd Bishop Oh, yeah. 45:43.47 ModGolfPodcast We'll actually shoot a couple of videos, some shorts also when we're there, if you if you have the time. Sounds like you're going to be very busy, but we'll definitely have a chance to meet up at the PGA show. 45:48.12 Todd Bishop Oh, yeah. 45:53.06 ModGolfPodcast So hey, as we finish up here, Todd, now that everybody's all curious about the great head covers, the custom, high quality, handcrafted, head covers that ah you and the team design and love to make. I'm sure some people are out there with their own design ideas now. So how can people find out more about Dormie Workshop and how can they reach out to you if they've got some ideas and they want to bash them around and even see if it's something that ah ah you can create for them, which I'm sure you can. It sounds like you can do pretty much anything. So yeah, how can people connect with you? 46:26.52 Todd Bishop Yeah. So on our website there's a custom intake form and right now we're doing it in batches, which is a little different than what we've done throughout our previous 10 years of business. Through our own success we can only take, do so many customs because they take so much time. 46:45.98 ModGolfPodcast Right. 46:46.39 Todd Bishop And so that's a little bit of ah a shift, but we're still doing super high end, super customized, original one-offs. And you just go to the custom button on, you know, it's at www.dormielworkshop.com. And all the information is in there and you would send your idea. And then a custom agent would either, you'll get an email back saying whether the intake is open or not or whether you're in. 47:16.74 Todd Bishop It's partially also because our B2B business has grown so much. so there's we only you know that you try You're always trying to balance. And as you go along and the people that really make the balance happen are your accountants. And they look at the P and&Ls and the spreadsheets. And so they we just try to make sure that we're trying to give the customer experience the best we can provide. Because that was always one of our pillars that Jeff and I as golf pros realizes that it's hard to find companies that will at least stand up and try to treat the customer as best as possible. And if something goes wrong, then be held accountable and try to make amends. And we're still trying to hold that as true as we did from day one. And hence the the reason why we're trying to limit the amount of custom coming in because it really is a challenge when you're trying to make samurai covers or, you know, an airplane with wings hanging off the sides. Like it's just, you wouldn't ever hear any other company, you know, if you went to Nike and you said, yeah, I want to get a set of shoes with a, you know, a muffler hanging out the back. 48:29.26 Todd Bishop They're going to laugh you off the stage. 48:32.47 ModGolfPodcast Right. 48:32.87 Todd Bishop We took that on early on and we're always going to, it'll always be part of our DNA for sure. 48:39.51 ModGolfPodcast But on the other hand, and people can go look at the Dormie Workshop website, you'll see, you've got awesome head covers on there and putter covers that you make. And so with that, what is the most popular and bestselling driver cover you have right now? 48:57.39 Todd Bishop Yeah, the classic collection has been one of our best sellers. So that's a really old school looking cover of like very clean. There's not a lot of contrast in colors um and the leathers that we've chosen are very high end Italian um with different fields and different finishes. And you know we've attended three leather shows now in Milan and that's where a lot of our, and know I would say call them trade secrets. 49:27.55 Todd Bishop When it comes to embellishments and all the partners that we need to rely on that sets us apart from anybody else. That's where we go. And yeah, it's expensive to go there. It's a heck of a lot of fun. Probably the most amount of pizza that I've ever eaten in my life. But it's those covers, the the classic collection it are really something special. And when you put them on a set, to go with a nice bag it definitely stands apart. 49:59.84 ModGolfPodcast Nice, nice. Well, I strongly encourage all of our listeners here, everyone, to go check out Dormie Workshop and their website is Dormie, as in D-O-R-M-I-E, like the term, I believe you were inspired by ah the Ryder Cup, you and your brother with that. So DormieWorkshop.ca, I understand being Canadian, not dot .com in that case, dot .ca, yes. 50:21.85 Todd Bishop Yeah, we have we have two. We have the US site, which is separate from the Canadian site. so because with 50:27.11 ModGolfPodcast So either one works.com or.ca. Okay, as I always do, I will include that link in the show notes to make it nice and easy for everyone listening to click on that and check out all the awesome designs that Dormie Workshop offers. 50:29.72 Todd Bishop yeah 50:40.68 ModGolfPodcast So Todd Bishop, co-founder of Dormie Workshop, Todd. It's a long time coming to have this conversation, sir, but I really appreciate it. This has been amazing, and I look forward to jumping over to our ModGolf YouTube channel. 50:52.27 ModGolfPodcast We're gonna talk more about entrepreneurship. You're gonna actually show us a couple of ah your head cover designs that we get to take a deeper dive into the design process there. So hey, thanks so much for joining us today on ModGolf. 51:03.87 Todd Bishop Yeah, thanks a lot. It was a lot of fun.