Hubble Golf - "Creating The Expedia for Golf Events" 00:16.14 ModGolfPodcast Welcome to the ModGolf podcast, where we speak with the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the disruptors, and the influencers who are shaping the future of golf. I am your host, Colin Weston, welcome back to season 17. Hard to believe that we're almost 200 episodes in, almost eight years in with the ModGolf podcast. In some ways, I feel like we're just getting started because I just keep meeting more and more and more awesome, amazing humans that are doing impactful things in golf. 00:50.10 ModGolfPodcast And today is no exception to that because I have Corey Powell, who is the co-founder and CEO of hubble.golf. And I had the good fortune through LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn and the community that we're building there with ModGolf I and met Cory. 01:03.48 ModGolfPodcast Gosh, like it was half a year ago. we've been back and forth loving what they're doing and following him. It was time to get Corey on ModGolf because he aligns so nicely right in the wheelhouse of the stories I like to have that opportunity to put on the tee, using that metaphor, and to showcase and shine a light on. So on that note, Cory Powell, welcome to the ModGolf podcast. 01:27.89 Cory Colin, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. I'm glad we connected over half a year ago. And like you said, LinkedIn is a beautiful community to connect with like-minded individuals. And for me as a founder, it's a great place for me to share my journey and showcase my story. 01:43.78 ModGolfPodcast Love it. And we're going to dig deep into that today, Cory. But to start with the icebreaker question that most of the time opening the shows, I like to ask just to get to know you because we've had some conversations, but I don't really know you all that well. 01:57.20 ModGolfPodcast So share with us, please, your first ever golf experience at whatever age that was. And even more importantly, who was that person in your life, that power of invitation, who encouraged you and got you all in that situation to get that golf club in your hand for that very first time. 02:15.49 Cory It's a great question, story I'd love to share. So you'll probably hear about my grandfather a lot as we share just in talk today. 02:26.14 Cory So my grandfather introduced me to the game of golf ah when I was eight years old. Christmas of my eighth year, he bought me a set of junior cut down golf clubs. He always wanted me to play golf ever since I was born, my mother says. 02:41.72 Cory And I grew up about 30 minutes outside of town in a small little lake community. There was a dusty driving range with tumbleweeds and you know weeds all over the driving range, three targets. 02:53.74 Cory Had one mat. ah The ground was so hard, you had to hammer the tees into the ground with ah with literally a hammer. 02:59.86 ModGolfPodcast Love it. 03:00.19 Cory And opened those golf clubs that morning. Later that afternoon, we went out to that dusty driving range and my grandfather introduced me to the game. It's an experience I will never forget um and just an awesome time. And I took a little while to catch on to the game. I didn't really, i would say, really start playing until I was about 12. But that Christmas of my eighth year was a very impactful moment and something I will always cherish. 03:31.36 ModGolfPodcast Love that. Love that. Okay. So I understand you did play professional golf. So you were definitely grinding away on that. So, and you've actually worked organizing tournaments. 03:39.60 Cory I did. 03:42.67 ModGolfPodcast So what I love about your entrepreneurial journey when I talk to you know so many diverse entrepreneurs across the golf space and in in other sectors too, it always seems that they firsthand experience that pain point or that opportunity or that gap. So it seems to me, a little bit I know about you already, Cory, is between you playing tournament golf, looking for other tournaments to just to get in, to get some reps in or to qualify or or just to improve, 04:12.79 ModGolfPodcast And also your work organizing tournaments and also in entrepreneurship. It seems like these three elements have collided here for the launch and the aha moment for Hubble.Golf. So can you start by telling us a little bit about your background before Hubble Golf and what led you to start your own business? And what was that initial spark that got you into entrepreneurship? 04:33.79 Cory Oh, that's a great question. And definitely I can I can wrap on this for a little bit. So I would say on entrepreneurship, I've been an entrepreneur. Oh, as long as I can remember, I would say my first real business in quotes was when I was eight years old. 04:50.69 Cory I had Corey's Pooper Scooper service and I went around my local neighborhood and picked up dog poop. 04:53.25 ModGolfPodcast Nice. 04:57.03 Cory It was a very glamorous job. But it was a way for me to buy the Nike baseball cleats and soccer cleats and the nicer equipment that I always wanted. And all my peers seem to have around me, but I didn't. So that's, ah you know, when my entrepreneurial spark really got ignited. 05:17.08 Cory My golfing background. So I grew up in an area in California called Paso Robles, Atascadero, San Luis Obispo County, Central California. 05:26.04 ModGolfPodcast Right. 05:27.51 Cory Tiger Woods' childhood coach, Rudy Duran Jr., created a phenomenal junior golf ecosystem, produced a lot of top talent during that era. 05:38.48 Cory And so when I was about 12, I started attending the weekly junior camps. And they were very disciplined. You had to graduate to different skill levels. And at each skill level, you got a discount for range balls or a discount to play golf and just various discounts at the local course. And then once you pass the final level, you got a junior county card, which allowed you to play golf at any course in the county. Range balls were 50 cents. a round of golf was $3. You could literally for $5 hit balls, play golf, buy a hot dog and a candy bar. 06:14.64 Cory And so just a phenomenal ecosystem. That carried me through my junior golf career, in which I played everything local and then played state. and then I went on to play national stuff through the AJGA, then went on to play a short, very short stint at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. 06:33.28 Cory I wanted to play golf and work more than I did want attend class and do my homework. So it didn't really fit within their their model of ah the you know the role or ideal 06:39.16 ModGolfPodcast Great. 06:44.99 Cory you know scholastic athletes 06:48.28 Cory Then I went on and I started a car wash business with some buddies and bartended and served in restaurants. And then in 2010, I moved to Arizona and I decided, you know what, I want to pursue playing professionally. I think I've got the chops to do it. 07:05.50 Cory So I started, locally just in the local mini tour scene here, which has been very but vibrant for a long period of time. 07:13.80 Cory I had some success. I was competitive. I didn't really win a lot, but I was always a a you know top 10 guy and I would kind of sneak my way into the top three. If I got hot off the tee, I was always a really good putter and chipper. Never really a you know fantastic off the tee. 07:30.88 Cory And then I started moving outside of my backyard and went on to play, you know, every pretty much every state open mini tour Monday qualifier around the United States. 07:42.97 Cory And in 2012, I got an invite to play in an event in Indiana, and I was trying to figure out Where do I go and what do I play in on this roadmap from Arizona to Indiana, knowing that I would make my way up to the Dakotas for the Dakotas tour and do the John Deere Monday and this, you know, summer tour, so to speak. And so in figuring this out, I had 20 tabs open on my screen and I was trying to just figure out. 08:11.37 Cory What do I plan? What's the entry fee? What's the purse? You know, just all these variables that go into really planning, whether it's a junior season or a professional season. um So I went out, I did my 50,000 miles in a car. I had a lot of windshield time to think and ideate on what could become. And I came back that summer and kind of had the foundation of what ultimately is now Hubble Golf. 08:39.91 Cory And then, I came back and I typed into Google, how do you build a website? And I started navigating my way around that. And I met some interns and graduates from ASU and they built kind of the first, I would say, the very, very first early versions of that. Back in the day, for those listening who know me, it was called Mini Tour Hub and it was a database of professional events. 09:05.34 Cory Everything from Mini Tour, State Open, Monday qualifiers, men, women, seniors. Um fumbled my way and and kind of Found a little bit of lightning in the bottle We became the source for mini tour events and I had a local businessman reach out and say hey, we want to be featured on your website What do you know about mini tour golf? We want to we want to start a new mini tour here in phoenix and so sat down with them brought a couple buddies along uh who just had experience running events or playing professionally and so 09:40.36 Cory We sat down and ideated on what a new tour could look like. At the time, there were three or four mini tours in the Phoenix market. So it was very competitive and you had to do something, I think, a little different to kind of merge your way into the market. 09:55.65 Cory Things didn't work out. And so we left that meeting and stood in the parking lot and said, why don't we start our own mini tour? We've got the business model and we ultimately called it the Outlaw Tour and it was a little bit of an homage to the middle finger to them not wanting to do business with us. A little bit of just where we sit yeah geographically being in Arizona and the wild west you know kind of play on words with the outlaw tour. 10:10.27 ModGolfPodcast I remember that. Yeah. 10:28.39 Cory We started that and we were the fourth mini tour in the Phoenix market at the time. There was the Gateway Tour. There was the Pepsi Tour and what was called the Dream Chasers Tour um at the time. So yeah, it's been ah it's been quite a wild ride and journey. I've definitely worn a lot of hats. There's some other jobs and things I've done in between there, you know, fill in the grey areas, but very thankful for it. I think it's ultimately giving me a real world experience, tangible experience to speak to my audience to to ultimately, I think, be the perfect person in this driver's seat to build Hubble Golf. 11:10.90 ModGolfPodcast Yeah, I love this. And you you set the stage very nicely for the next piece of our conversation here about Hubble Golf. 11:17.41 ModGolfPodcast But before we dig into that, I want to go way back to one of the first things you said here. Because a lot of entrepreneurs I talk to, and I know I've struggled with this over the years too, is your pricing model and how much do you charge? And maybe you'll look at what your competition or similar offerings are putting out there and kind of tinker with that and see you know what people will pay and back and forth. So I have to ask you this very serious question. Your first entrepreneurial foray when you're eight years old, what was your pricing model? Was it a buck a poop or what was it? 11:47.84 Cory I charged per dog in the size of dog. 11:52.03 ModGolfPodcast Nice! 11:52.35 Cory So yeah, it was basically $5 per visit for a small, medium sized dog and $10 per visit for ah larger dog. And if you had two, you got a discount for every additional dog that you had. So I would cut the additional dog in half. So you had two dogs, two larger dogs, it was 15. And yeah, I probably had five or six neighbours, that were clients of mine. And they ultimately ended up becoming clients of mine when I started then mowing lawns and pulling weeds. So I was kind of your local little junior a handyman, outdoor handyman, whether it was dog poops or mowing lawns, picking up leaves during fall, I was your guy. 12:44.33 ModGolfPodcast I love this. The fact you figured out very early on that all dogs are not the same size. So between a St. Bernard and a little chihuahua, they both produce definitely different sizes of poo. That's for sure. So sounds like you figured that out. I like the fact you had a business model there that you'd have a lot of return customers because those dogs do not stop pooping. 13:10.53 Cory No, they do not. 13:10.66 ModGolfPodcast It's a lot of throughput there. 13:13.35 Cory Rain or shine, good economy or bad economy. I always had repeat customers. 13:18.00 ModGolfPodcast Love this. Love this. Okay. Back to Hubble Golf now. So it sounds like you, as a kid there, really kind of set you up and now it's going of burned into your DNA as far as that entrepreneurship piece. 13:29.97 ModGolfPodcast So with Hubble Golf, you know you led us up to the Outlaw Tour there and I understand you formed that in late or launched it in late 2016 and it ran for five or six years. 13:30.38 Cory Yes. 13:40.59 ModGolfPodcast And I believe, because I started in 2017, either you contacted me or someone else because I didn't know about the Outlaw Tour and we're looking to have you on the podcast. To be honest, at the time, the alignment, I didn't know quite how that fit. 13:51.88 ModGolfPodcast So that's I didn't know what that conversation what was going to be. But now is the time for that conversation. See, we just had to be patient. 13:57.39 Cory yes 13:57.99 ModGolfPodcast Just like entrepreneurship, sometimes you got to go fast. And other times you got to just be patient and persevere and kind of stick in there. And now it's the right time for this conversation. Corey. So, okay. With Hubble golf, let's talk about that AHA moment. 14:10.03 ModGolfPodcast I understand you're the co-founder, not the founder. So it's not just yourself that had this idea and thought that, "Hey, there could be a business here". 14:13.43 Cory Thank you. 14:17.41 ModGolfPodcast So tell us about that. A lot of people that are starting with entrepreneurship or founding, or they've got an idea and they're going alone. Tell us about the value of co-founding and how that complimented encouraged each other and how it kind of played off of each other to kind of fit the gaps or, or the skills or the strengths you didn't necessarily have that the other person had. So, so tell us about that aha moment and kind of the founding of that core group in your team with Hubble golf. 14:42.65 Cory Absolutely. So I guess I could say I technically am the founder. I struggled solo for the first two, three years. I'm just trying to navigate the technical aspect of it. 14:59.40 Cory I had the idea. I had the vision. But, you know, actually... creating a technical platform um that services the customer is there's a lot of nuance in it. 15:10.07 Cory It's not just building a site on Wix or WordPress. And, you know, WordPress is even more complicated than Wix. So the first few years I navigated alone and then i was in 2020, right after the sale of the Outlaw Tour, 15:18.43 ModGolfPodcast Yes. Yes. yes 15:26.94 Cory I was still helping run events, especially when the pandemic really picked up and the Outlaw Tour was just having the attention that it had. At one point, it was the only pro sport operational in the world for about an eight week window. 15:41.14 Cory And so there was a lot of hands on deck. 15:41.68 ModGolfPodcast wow 15:44.39 Cory There was a lot of outside ah individuals in different industries reaching out to us, everything from sports betting and media and you name it. um So I met a gentleman through LinkedIn who wanted who was actually wagering on our events and wanted to do more live streaming so the betting audience could actually see in real time what their ponies were doing. 16:09.27 ModGolfPodcast Right. 16:09.45 Cory And so I met this gentleman and we kind of started talking and forming a relationship. And i I told him, he's like, well, what else do you do? And so I shared with him you know this idea I had and kind of how I struggled through the years and he introduced me to who is now my co-founder, Kevin Lewis. 16:29.29 Cory They were in Austin, Texas. And this gentleman, he had a marketing group and Kevin was more so on the technical and rev ops side. And he said, Hey, I think you need to meet Kevin. And so Kevin and I met virtually and, you know, I shared with him what I was looking to build and kind of the struggles I went through. And he's like, "Oh, this sounds neat". And Typically, to engage with him, you pay a monthly retainer, whether it's an advisor, consultant, or if you actually bring him on your team, it's different tiers. And he said, "well, let's just keep talking through things." And so couple months went by and he said, "hey, man, I really believe in this. And I've worked with a lot of startups". His experience is a technical rev ops guy for 30 plus venture backed startups. And he said, this is just different. And I see what you're trying to build. 17:20.03 Cory not just in golf, but what it can come become beyond golf. And so I said, hey, well, you know i I have the idea. I'm the teams guy, the relationship guy, the partnership guy, um but I have zero technical background. 17:36.34 ModGolfPodcast Right. 17:36.34 Cory And I'd learned some along the way, but I really needed someone who could help me navigate the technical waters and the build-out of this platform because the the further down the road I went, the more I realized that the the complexities of it were more than I could even comprehend. And i had failed a lot to get to that point. 17:54.43 ModGolfPodcast right 17:58.12 Cory I'd wasted and burned. um I mean, arguably, I tried to hire developers overseas and I had probably wasted upwards of $60,000 just you know trying someone, getting somewhere. The code was spaghetti and just failed and failed and failed. And so I said to Kevin, like, 18:16.76 Cory Hey, man, I would love for you to be my co-founder. um I need you. i need someone like you. We've built this relationship. And I said, you know, I'm willing to give you a piece of the pie if you're, you know, give me your time and be willing to come on board. And so we just really took the crawl, walk, run approach. And for the first, you know, i would say two years, year and a half, two years, we really just kind of met once a week. 18:43.25 Cory And we started you know walking through the business plan and the financial models and just kind of chipped away and chipped away and put ideas on the table and took them off and just slowly started working at things. And then it was in fall of 2023, we brought on friends and family and Angel around and we were able to actually take what we had a really good foundation idea and actually truly start developing it from the ground up. 19:13.88 Cory Kevin and I work together weekly. i don't know if we really missed many weeks in the first two years, all virtual. We didn't actually meet first time in person until January of, I guess it was last year maybe. 19:30.29 ModGolfPodcast Really? 19:30.69 Cory So now we're as close as kin. I mean, I consider him a brother. When he came out, he stayed at my house and my wife and my two kids and we broke bread together and laughed. And,, so yeah, I wouldn't be where I'm at. 19:49.83 Cory And this platform Hubble will never exist without Kevin's involvement. Because i believe I would have gotten somewhere, but without someone to compliment me, you can't go it alone. 20:05.82 ModGolfPodcast No. And in life and entrepreneurship, there is a saying "that if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together." So it sounds like you learned very early on to park your ego and realize you can't do it all. 20:13.66 Cory Mm-hmm. 20:17.80 ModGolfPodcast Don't micromanage, bring other people in, engage and empower them. And that allows you to propel it forward, which you've done. Okay, we're almost 20 minutes in here and we haven't done this. 20:28.30 ModGolfPodcast Our listeners are probably wondering, "what is this Hubble Golf thing that you speak of, Cory?" So why don't you give us the quick elevator pitch of what you do and why you do it with Hubble Golf? 20:40.03 Cory Simplest way to explain: Hubble Golf is the Expedia of golf events. So everything from junior golf, youth, amateur college, professional, charity, networking, green grass, non-green grass, we will be the largest searchable event database for all things golf. And the idea stemmed from my background trying to find events and figure out a schedule and put together an itinerary and what's the budget around that itinerary and how do I share that itinerary with other people? And that's what we've created. 21:17.30 Cory Not only will we be the largest database of golf events, when we go to market, we will have roughly half a million events in our database from every category I just described. 21:35.36 Cory And a user will be able to create an itinerary. They will be able to book travel, see an estimated budget, see an actualized expense. Once they book that travel, search nearby things to do, share itinerary, ultimately add people to that itinerary if you're planning a buddy trip and looking to put a group together. 21:59.24 Cory We'll have a fundraising component around that. There's some social networking capabilities. We pull in a lot of like YouTube and news feeds. So we're really honing in on the event side and travel. 22:12.32 Cory There's 12 million people that compete in over a quarter million events annually. Junior golfers, particularly their parents, they're the decision makers in the household. 22:24.21 ModGolfPodcast Mm-hmm. 22:24.43 Cory On average, a parent spends over four hours planning one individual event and a junior participates anywhere between 12 and 18 events in a season. So ultimately, if we can save parents time on figuring out a child's season and then ultimately save them money by reducing time and also cost on travel. 22:48.47 Cory Figuring out a better way to put together these itineraries and their kid's season. And same thing goes for the professional golfer. We're really for the organizer, we talked about Outlaw Tour and being on the operations side. 23:07.24 Cory At the end of the day, they want more bodies on the golf course, more players teeing off on that first hole. And if we can be a marketing platform free of service to them, if we can be a marketing platform and advertise their events to more people, then hopefully more people participate in their events. And whether it's a pro event, the purse goes up or a junior organization, charity event, we're bringing that community together. 23:36.37 ModGolfPodcast Nice. So I see on the Hubble Golf website that you have tournaments, not just in the US, I think there's some in Canada. I did see there's some in the UK also. So you're definitely have that international reach already. 23:45.49 Cory Mm-hmm. 23:50.16 ModGolfPodcast I'm curious to hear that as you've just started up you've only launched recently, and I understand - correct me if I'm wrong here, Cory - but you're more in that pilot beta and you're doing a full launch very soon. 23:56.24 Cory Yes. 23:59.91 ModGolfPodcast By the time we release this episode in a few weeks time, we're going to coordinate that with your full go-to-market launch, which is really exciting to coincide with that. 24:07.44 Cory yeah 24:08.98 ModGolfPodcast So I'm curious to learn about what we call in the startup world, as far as customer validation or Product Market Fit. So what type of research did you do besides your own experience for years and years of driving those thousands of miles and hours to go to tournaments? 24:25.12 ModGolfPodcast And so tell us how did you reach out to validate what you were doing to make sure there actually was a market and even more so that people, whether it's parents or tournament players are willing to pay for this? So tell us about that piece as far as the research and how you arrived at your product market fit. 24:46.85 Cory We will find out. We need to still validate true product market fit because when we do go to market, we will be a free offering initially. When we do start charging for premium services, that'll be the telltale sign of how many people are willing to pay for our service. But some of the initial discovery I had started early on during my Outlaw Tour days. Back when I was playing, just talking with a lot of my peers of "how do you find events?" and just sharing this idea, this vision I had and getting some early excitement and validation there. 25:24.44 Cory Then when I owned the Outlaw Tour, I was the guy teeing off players at every single event. So all I did was, it was by nature for me to talk to them and do discovery, but they didn't know the information they were providing me. But I would talk to players all day long on the first tee about this idea I had and what I was trying to build and what do they like? What do they need? What would they be willing to pay? 25:50.79 Cory Then since leaving the Outlaw Tour, I volunteer with the Junior Golf Association of Arizona. So I do the same thing. I talk with junior golfers on the first tee and I show them the beta platform and have them sign up and use it. 26:04.68 Cory I talked to a lot of parents. I've sent out quite a lot of surveys and had phenomenal feedback. Over 85% of the people that I've surveyed have said that they would be willing to pay $9.99 or better for this service on a monthly basis. And so a lot of conversation, building a lot of relationships and rapport with other organizations outside of my own ecosystem here in Arizona. 26:34.02 Cory talking with organizers in Florida and in Canada and overseas and talking with businessmen that look to put on buddy trips and sharing a little more about what we have now, of what we're looking to build really validate what my inclination is on what the future features we'd like to build out on. What's sticky and what's not. 26:58.68 Cory But we will find out true product market fit when we go to market and actually turn on a premium subscription. I'm fortunate to have a phenomenal mentor. 27:11.27 Cory And we have all these partnerships and all this feedback and surveys. And he's like, "that's great!" He's like, "but I want to see true product market fit. you know Someone willing to pay, whether it's $1, $5, $10 for your product, that's true product market fit." So as excited as I am, that'll be true validation for me when someone, when we actually generate that first dollar through the platform. 27:35.40 ModGolfPodcast Yes, absolutely. 27:37.34 ModGolfPodcast You did touch on mentorship, which is something I did want to dive into here. I understand having done a little background reading on you that Jim Casino is your mentor, an individual that's really helped you along. So I want to talk about that because a lot of people think that mentorship is, especially with a lot of the young people that I teach in entrepreneurship or that I've been involved in the startup community with the work that I've done in Startup Canada and Startup Vancouver over the years that I founded, that lot of people think that it's an age thing, that you have to have so much experience, where that's not necessarily the case. 28:10.37 ModGolfPodcast It's a matter of what your experience is in a certain area of expertise. And I've learned so much from people that are less than half my age because they bring so much to the table. So it's not an age thing. 28:19.97 ModGolfPodcast It's more of an experience thing. And also mentors are not there just to pat you on the back and sugarcoat things. You need them to challenge and push you. So I want you to dig in and talk about your relationship with Jim and what that's meant to to you as far as being an advisor and a mentor and how that's helped to form your entrepreneurial worldview and helped you out with Hubble.GOLF. 28:42.30 Cory You hit the nail on the head. I think a good mentor challenges you and asks you questions and pushes you in a way to help you derive the answer yourself. 28:54.03 Cory They're not just there to give you the answer. 28:54.21 ModGolfPodcast Mm-hmm. 28:57.16 Cory Jim has been an unbelievable blessing and mentor to me in my life. We've been working together a little over a year. I was an advisor for him for a golf company that he owned. And we met over coffee and hit it off. And he said, "hey, I'd like to just pour into you." 29:20.76 Cory And we've been meeting weekly for the last year and change. And it's not just an age thing like you mentioned. 29:32.19 Cory It's "Has your mentor produced fruit in whatever field or industry or knowledge base that you're looking to acquire wisdom in?" 29:45.01 Cory Jim, he's a seasoned C-suite executive. He's been a part of over 16 mergers and acquisitions. He's been the CEO of some very high-level companies and he's very active in Arizona venture capital and the startup ecosystem here in the state. So he's a phenomenal mentor. We're very compatible from a personality perspective. 30:20.33 Cory And Jim's approach is, I come to him with the talking points of that day's call. We have an hour. We'll do a couple few minutes, catch up. How was your weekend? 30:33.28 Cory And then i present him with "here's my problem for the week" or "here's where I'm looking to provide wisdom." And here are my thoughts around this. And he'll start just asking me questions and poking and prodding. And sometimes, he will share stories and share experience that help me better understand how he's navigated the situation. 31:01.26 Cory But ultimately, and he says this every single time, and he's like, "this is my own opinion. Take it for what it is." 31:08.44 ModGolfPodcast Right. 31:09.00 Cory And so it's never him trying to force his opinion or force suggestions on me. It's sharing his experience through stories and sharing how he's failed and what he did or the decisions he made or his thought process around that decision that allowed him to succeed or allowed him to fail. 31:31.71 Cory And then asked me a lot of questions to help me derive my own answers. And his mentorship, his advice has allowed me to grow. I look at who I am now versus who I was a year ago. And I think more than anything, what I'm trying to do and in tech, especially since I don't have a technical background, I feel a lot of imposter syndrome at times that I'm not capable or I'm not equipped or I haven't exited a previous tech startup or there's a lot of times where sitting in front of people or in conversations and I'm like, "man, am I even worthy to be here?" 31:59.88 ModGolfPodcast Mm-mm. 32:18.51 Cory And what Jim's done for me through his mentorship is he's given me the confidence and the wisdom and the chops to feel like I can sit in any room with anyone and feel worthy and capable and be able to speak to with conviction what I'm doing. 32:42.10 Cory And it's been, I highly suggest anyone, whether it's in golf, whether you're playing a sport or you're in business is to find a mentor. And I have Jim's a mentor in business and I have um you know, just personal life coach relationship with my wife mentors who helped kind of pour into me as a father and as a husband. And so I have a couple different mentors and and it's you can there's two ways to succeed and it's learned by doing and failing and you learn from those mistakes or you can learn by those who have been there and done that before you and can pour into you their mistakes and their wisdom that they learn from that. 33:24.84 ModGolfPodcast Love that. love that response. And I know with entrepreneurship, a lot of people that have been approached to be a mentor by someone, they think it's this big commitment. And it sounds like Jim has been gracious enough to do meet you every single week. 33:39.84 ModGolfPodcast It doesn't necessarily have to be that. It can even be what we call micro mentoring. It could be meeting every once in a while for a coffee or just a moment or even one meeting. I've said on the podcast many times, I've done almost 200 episodes. 33:52.29 ModGolfPodcast And I consider - and you're now added to that list here, Corey - that I have over 200 micro mentors. So I've learned something interesting and impactful from each and every one of you. So that's one of the reasons I love doing this. There's many more reasons I love doing it, the community building side also of what we're creating with ModGolf, but that piece too, I've just learned so much from people of having this 30 minute micro mentoring opportunity here, which is just fantastic. 34:21.47 ModGolfPodcast So, Hey, one thing I have so many questions to ask you here, Corey, but one thing we're going to do, we're also going to jump over for a video interview because we have the ModGolf YouTube channel. We're going to have a slightly different conversation there. We're going to encourage our listeners to also become viewers over there. So it's going to be a slightly different conversation. We're going to dig deeper into entrepreneurship and a few other things. 34:41.84 ModGolfPodcast But to finish up, I want to dip our toe a little bit and into that space right now. And that is about risk-taking. And one of the hardest aspects of golf and also entrepreneurship is learning when to take risks. 34:54.13 ModGolfPodcast So how do you approach risk-taking and how do you evaluate opportunities with Hubble Golf and elsewhere when faced with uncertainty? 35:04.00 Cory That's a really good question. 35:08.17 Cory I have always been a risk taker. Early on, I would dive into everything head first and just jump off the cliff and figure out how to make the parachute on the way down. 35:15.73 ModGolfPodcast Mm-hmm. 35:20.99 Cory I think that's kind of just how I am by nature. I've never really been afraid to fail. And I think because I've failed so many different times, some small, some big. It's made me a little bit callous to know that at the end of the day, everything's going to be all right. Now, present day, my situation is a little different because I have a wife and two kids. 35:47.35 Cory So there's higher stakes on the table. 35:47.43 ModGolfPodcast Of course. 35:53.24 Cory If you truly are passionate about what you are doing and there's some validation behind what you're creating and you truly are solving a problem, then I think those that succeed and those that don't just have a willingness to never give up. Now, there's definitely a time where if you've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you're in crazy debt. And definitely, if the ship is pretty much sunk and you're just trying to hold onto the top of the mast, then it's probably time to jump off and and swim and go figure something, get back to dry land. 36:50.14 Cory If you continue to see winds and you continue to see the light at the end of the tunnel, then you just got to keep going. And that's where I've been, my golf career. You're going to have setbacks and it's how you deal with those setbacks. And you can't be so stubborn and stuck in your ways that my way is the only way. You've got to see when there's times to pivot and move the rudder in a different direction and continue to seek advice where needed. And for me, it's been around the team and I feel incredibly blessed with the team that's come around me really in the last two months. I continue to have conversations that validate not just what I'm doing in golf, but what we look to create beyond golf with Hubble. 37:50.27 Cory If you truly are passionate about what you do, you wake up every day invigorated and excited to get to work, to chase it, put in the work. It's not easy. You have to be disciplined. You have to be willing to do. My grandpa always used to say, "you have to be willing to pay the price and do what others aren't willing to do." And that's long hours and hard work. 38:13.39 Cory And that applied to my junior golf career. I didn't get good at golf by doing what everyone else did. It was Saturday mornings. I was the first one at the golf course and I'd be one of the last ones to leave. And when my buddies were out going to the lake on the weekend or going on this vacation, i was at home practicing or I was at this tournament. And the same thing goes in my entrepreneurial career. I've gone full-time in Hubble over the last year and it's taken a financial setback. I've been able to put earning potential on the back burner for what I would say long-term earning potential that I'm looking to create for Hubble. 38:59.44 Cory And for me, at this point my life with two young boys, they get to see their dad build something in real time. And for me, that's real life mentorship for my two boys. I want them to see their dad struggle and work and persevere and, and discipline and ultimately create something that is of legacy for them and legacy for the golf industry as a whole. I want to provide opportunity for the many and not the few. And for me, if I can hit Hubble out of the park, then I can give back to the golf industry, not just in what I've created, but financially also, I'd like to be able to open up opportunities for those less fortunate and expand the game beyond just what it is in the States and to other countries and other people and give back through scholarship to junior organizations and low those less fortunate. 40:03.81 Cory It's much bigger than myself. What really excites me and keeps me moving every single day is to really do something that truly grows the game and has some legacy behind it. 40:17.61 ModGolfPodcast Wow, you just shared some incredible nuggets of wisdom and key takeaways here for our listeners and myself also. So so thank you for that. And interestingly, when you're talking there I was smiling because i think we're cut from the same cloth when we were little bit younger and little more independent, less responsibilities. I also embraced that "shoot ready aim" approach too. Maybe jumping in too quick. I know with our first golf venture more than 12 years ago, we definitely did that. But that's also how you learn. 40:50.62 ModGolfPodcast And then that was the progression of then moving, moving on. 40:51.48 Cory Mm-hmm. 40:53.94 ModGolfPodcast you use that metaphor there with the saying about the ship sinking and whether you know when to jump off. And I know some entrepreneurs, sadly, they don't, they just keep holding off. 40:59.34 Cory Mm-hmm. 41:02.64 ModGolfPodcast And in that mindset of, "oh, people just don't get it yet." It's like, oh gosh. And you just want to grab them and yank their arm, but they can't help themselves sometimes. 41:13.48 ModGolfPodcast So it sounds like you have enough insight and I'm sure Jim also among the many things, he helps to keep the rudder of your boat pointed in the right direction so that you're not hitting rocks and you're not sinking. 41:28.05 ModGolfPodcast Okay. So like I said, I can keep going here, but we want to jump over to our YouTube channel. But before we finish up, like I said, you're just going to launch right when we release this episode of the ModGolf Podcast. So why don't you let our listeners know where they can learn more about Hubble Golf, your website, social media. 41:45.40 ModGolfPodcast Just let us know here. Go for it, Corey. 41:47.57 Cory Find me on LinkedIn. Cory Powell. You can look me up, C-O-R-Y-P-O-W-E-L-L. I'm sure Colin will have my name listed in the ah podcast announcement and on YouTube. 42:01.45 ModGolfPodcast Yep. 42:01.56 Cory You can find us on our website, www.Hubble.golf, just like the name sounds. Try to keep it simple. You will find us on Instagram. We've been very quiet. We've teased a few things, but we've done zero marketing to date. So as we ramp up and as this podcast launches, you will definitely start hearing and seeing more information about us. And yeah, those are the easiest ways. You can always reach out to me, DM me on LinkedIn, DM me on our Instagram page. 42:36.96 Cory You will be able to reach me there. You can shoot me an email. I'm a relatively easy person to contact and reach out to. And I really I'm here to be a man of the people and a part of the community. 42:50.59 Cory And I really want to build something for everyone listening. And so feel free to reach out. Happy to jump on a call. I'll respond your email as promptly as I can. 43:00.76 Cory You know, if I'm ah tied up with my two young boys, then I'm a little preoccupied. 43:05.89 ModGolfPodcast Thank you. 43:06.39 Cory But once I get to bed, I usually get back on my computer and jump in on my emails and DMs. And, yeah, I look forward to talking to as many people as possible. 43:17.58 ModGolfPodcast Well, as I always do in the show notes for Cory's episode, I will include all the links that he just mentioned to make it nice and easy for you, our listeners, to connect with him. I'll also set up a bio page for him also with even more information, including LinkedIn, that you can connect with Cory. So, hey, why don't we finish up there? 43:38.17 ModGolfPodcast Cory Powell, thanks so much for joining me today on the ModGolf Podcast! I'm super excited for your launch. Everything you've said here, you're doing what I can see, entrepreneurship the right way. 43:49.63 ModGolfPodcast There is no one-size-fits-all playbook, but it sounds like, it looks like, you are really embracing the journey and leaning on other people and their advice, while at the same time balancing that by having that conviction and belief in what you are doing with Hubble Golf. So I'm excited to see where you go. So let's jump over to YouTube. And for now on the ModGolf Podcast again, Corey, thanks for joining me today. 44:16.32 Cory Thank you, Colin. Appreciate the opportunity and thank you for creating a platform for guys like me to share our story and journey and the cool products we're creating.