00:00.00 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Welcome to the ModGolf Podcast. 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, and today we have a return guest. I'm excited for this because I can truly, truly say this guy is one of my best friends. 00:46.23 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And this is the beauty of podcasting. One of the things I love about podcasting and love about golf coming together is I meet awesome humans that I get to connect with. And some of them I become very close friends with. And that is The Gratidude. That is Kevin Carpenter, who was on the podcast two years ago, almost to the day. I had to listen to our podcast podcast yesterday and what a great conversation that was. And I said, Kevin, come on, you've done so much over the last 24 months. You got to come back on, buddy. So here he is, Kevin Carpenter, who is now also not only The Gratidude and all the good things he's doing there, but he's also the US Managing Director for AM Golf. We're going to get into all the good things at AM Golf. Kevin, my friend, welcome back to ModGolf. 01:31.78 Kevin Carpenter - US Managing Director for AM Golf Man, thank you so much, bro. Really appreciate it And the fact that I'm getting invited back after you listened to the show two years ago means that I didn't screw up too badly two years ago. All we can do is hope for the same this year. 01:46.04 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast You always exceed expectations my friend that's gonna happen. I don't know what we were doing with the audio because i'm usually really tight with the quality of the audio and the microphones and the setups both of us sounded like we were on different planets in a sewer or something. 02:02.52 Big Bad Hank Interesting. So the levels were off on both or were they equally terrible? 02:08.57 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast It sounded tinny and it was weird. I don't know what was going on there, but anyway, it's much better. You can hear the rich texture and the dulcet tones that, and the soothing musicality of Kevin's voice will emanate through your headphones, everyone out there listening today. 02:25.46 Big Bad Hank Oh my gosh. It's getting thick in here already. 02:30.20 The ModGolf Podcast I know. You're like, what does he want from me? 02:32.54 Big Bad Hank Ah, exactly. 02:32.68 The ModGolf Podcast Why is he puffing me up so much here? 02:35.16 Big Bad Hank yeah but listen, on that intro, I got to tell you, bro, you nailed it in terms of those of us that are fortunate enough to be in golf. well, nobody except private equity gets into golf for the money, right? 02:51.10 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 02:51.26 Big Bad Hank So what happens is you get you get to meet folks, bright, really interesting, cool folks with with great skill sets, but have chosen passion first, right? 03:02.58 Big Bad Hank Chosen to pursue a career, an occupation out of the heart versus the spreadsheet, right? And then they're figuring out, okay, now I got to figure out how to make money in this space. 03:14.87 Big Bad Hank I know I wanna be here. And I love that. And then, the friendships, right? It's everything, you know what I mean? and And it's a great segue as we get into it of my current software endeavour with AM Golf. And the emphasis should be on collaboration, on connecting, on communicating and creating lifelong friends. I mean, that's the greatest thing. 03:37.34 The ModGolf Podcast And I think that's why what for I can see, and you're going to elaborate on this, of course, that AM Golf is such a great fit for not only your personality, but for what you hold true and important and sacred in your life. 03:41.98 Big Bad Hank Yeah. 03:51.22 The ModGolf Podcast So it's just, it's just a great fit. And on that note, talking about reaching out and kindness and gratitude. 03:56.41 Big Bad Hank Yeah. 03:59.48 The ModGolf Podcast that last year, around this time, you reached out to me and said, hey, Colin, we've got this event called the Vegas Baby Invitational, 25-year anniversary coming up. 04:05.91 Big Bad Hank Oh yeah. Right. Yeah. 04:10.94 The ModGolf Podcast AM Golf is going to be not only sponsoring this, but you guys were using that as one of your test kitchens in real time to walk the walk with that. 04:17.14 Big Bad Hank Exactly. 04:20.06 The ModGolf Podcast And you invited me along with three others, and we said, hey, come on, let's go to Vegas, get you down there and participate in this. which I did, and I want to thank you for that, and it gave me a chance to really see what AM Golf was about and what you guys were doing there at the cold face. 04:28.44 Big Bad Hank Oh yeah, man. 04:35.47 The ModGolf Podcast So to start off here, perhaps we can use that, but everything you learned there last November and how you built that out with AM Golf. 04:38.71 Big Bad Hank Yeah. Yeah. That's a great start. 04:42.47 The ModGolf Podcast Why don't you tell everyone starting off here, Kevin, what AM Golf does, what you do, and more importantly, why you do it and where the opportunities are. 04:47.50 Big Bad Hank Sure, absolutely. And I almost forgot completely that you were a part of that event last year. That was a lot of fun. 04:56.50 The ModGolf Podcast I left quite the impression there, did I? 04:58.55 Big Bad Hank how I came into the opportunity was just you know totally out of the blue. I was contacted by a recruiter out of ah of France that was working on behalf of the founders. And when they contacted me, I thought perhaps that the recruiter was just confused because they explained to me that it was a complete golf management software platform stack um and explained everything. It's really the big emphasis on the on the software is in bringing people together, community, communication, and collaboration. And at the center of their software is an extremely robust and mature tournament and event software program. 05:45.88 Big Bad Hank And so I was like, well, so you mean they have a separate piece of software for tournament software that they can bolt on for the for the management she's like no no no i have all the notes here it says that it's actually all one platform with tournament software in the middle i'm like hmm that's interesting i've never heard of that right because it hadn't existed until now. so again up until AM Golf and i could be mistaken there could be some newer companies that have come up in the last few months that i haven't heard of yet. 06:03.56 The ModGolf Podcast All right. Mm-hmm. 06:16.92 Big Bad Hank Bear with me there. But as far as I know today, we're the only company that that has taken this approach. And a part of that is just the nature of the complexity of scoring tournaments and events and how software has evolved, quite frankly, over the last 10 years or so. 06:32.28 Big Bad Hank What you can do today, you couldn't do in a piece of software 10 or even five years ago, perhaps. Tournament software and events have always been, if you go back to the first tournament software company I worked with in the late 90s through my first golf cart GPS company, Parview, that was called Scorecast. 06:51.06 Big Bad Hank Scorecast was the PGA's official tournament software. It was their first ever partnership with tournament software because tournament software was brand new. 06:58.36 The ModGolf Podcast All right. 07:00.34 Big Bad Hank And I just remember back in the in the late nineties that software, golf course operators and head professionals and tournament coordinators would just tell me just how incredible and what a revolution it was that they didn't have to type in 144 names anymore when setting up an event, that they could pull a spreadsheet in. I mean, it sounds so silly now that that was a big deal, but it was a huge deal 25 years ago. 07:28.04 Big Bad Hank Tournament software came into the game with a really clear value proposition right from the get-go, even in days of software built on a DOS platform like Scorecast was back in the day. 07:41.53 Big Bad Hank And the other piece of that, other than the setup piece, is obviously the mathematics and all of the things that go into complex scoring when you have decimal point handicaps that aren't just whole numbers and formats like Stableford and things of these nature, right? It's very, very complicated, right, to try to do, just on paper and in hand. So tournament software is definitely coming into the game. 08:07.86 Big Bad Hank Because of how rich and complex the software was, it was a standalone piece of software all the way through like Blue Golf and Golf Genius today. 08:17.97 Big Bad Hank So those big players in the space, right? That's just when their software was created, that was the way that it had to be. 08:25.53 Big Bad Hank AM Golf is created in a postmodern post AI reality where the ability to create a unified platform is now possible, even with all of the complex permutations and requirements of tournament software. So that to me was extremely intriguing that you've got one platform that doesn't need an integration or an API integration and everything can flow together so that member communication or event communication, player communication, social, Tee-sheet, the ability to do registration and payments. All of this in one platform really provides for operators the ability to not have to toggle between different applications, not have to deal with integrated platforms and programs. 09:16.70 Big Bad Hank And then the other piece is a robust native app for the player, which is different than simply using it for registration or score entry. So those are some of the bigger differences within AM golf versus what's been happening in the world up until now. 09:34.52 The ModGolf Podcast Right, right. And in Las Vegas and using it firsthand, you know, we were the Guinea pigs and tournament is complex. 09:40.98 Big Bad Hank Right. 09:42.57 The ModGolf Podcast That is a massive tournament. 09:43.03 Big Bad Hank Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. 09:44.69 The ModGolf Podcast It's, it's so awesome with the experience. So, What did you learn from the partnership there with the Vegas Baby Pro-Am coming out, let's say, the last six months that you've managed see what works, what doesn't? Maybe you've refined and tweaked some things or enhanced other features and maybe backed off on some others that you assumed were going to be a hit. 09:59.13 Big Bad Hank Yeah. yeah 10:03.54 The ModGolf Podcast So I'm kind of curious to hear about the journey of of experience, connectivity, and community that are so important to you with AM Golf. 10:04.89 Big Bad Hank Yeah. Great question. Yeah, well, we leaned heavily on our partner there from Vegas, maybe Scott Kolb, who I know that you've met over the years as he's from your neck of the woods up there in Northwest Canada. 10:21.11 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, yeah. Correct. 10:21.98 Big Bad Hank And Scott just finished his tenure as the president of the PGA of Canada, May 1st. So obviously, well-respected guy in the space, in the industry. But because, as you mentioned, it's his 25th year doing this highly complex event. And again, it's a pro-am, taking percentages of amateur scores, wildcard holes in every round where all scores are taken, deuce pot, skins. So you've got numerous different leaderboards and different side games and different things of that nature. One of the things that we really took away from that event was that having one source of information, to herd the cats, so to speak, for tournaments and events. So from the moment that you register all the way through the moment the last putt goes in, but anything and everything that transpires even before the event takes place, new sponsors being added, new parties, soirees, different aspects, new clubs in the rotation, things of that nature, all of that just flows through the app. 11:25.88 Big Bad Hank So for the participants, they know that anything and everything that's of importance they're going to get an alert for and anything that changes in the event, they get a ping and a notification in their AM Golf app. The other piece that that's really cool is the ability. And Scott said, this was really important for the guys that are the pros in those groups. They're the ones sort of responsible for the four players underneath in that pro-am. 11:52.21 Big Bad Hank And they really enjoy the opportunity to no longer have to be the answer man for everything. 11:52.42 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 11:57.29 Big Bad Hank Right. Right. Because what happens is they're answering the same question for all four players. Like, when's the party tonight? When's the party? Where's the party? When's the party? Now they're just like AM Golf, AM Golf, and they just copy and paste and put app, app, app, app check the app. Everything's in the app and they they're retraining all of their players to do that. So it gives you the ability to not have to resend emails, to not worry if everybody knows what's going on. and to have one platform for everything, for the social, the community, as well as the the complex scoring. 12:29.24 The ModGolf Podcast And I really noticed in Las Vegas that one of the strengths of AM golf is it's not just about what happens from the first tee to the 18th putting green, that you have saw this opportunity to harness all the experiential touch points across the journey from could be weeks out. 13:00.50 Big Bad Hank Right. 13:01.24 The ModGolf Podcast everybody getting excited about the event and communicating about that. 13:04.50 Big Bad Hank Exactly. 13:04.64 The ModGolf Podcast And then what's going on the evenings in Las Vegas, there was something social going on every single night, whether was every single person or even smaller groups breaking out. So that gets really complicated. And then post whole event there. 13:18.84 Big Bad Hank yeah 13:19.02 The ModGolf Podcast Tell us about that, how you started. 13:20.70 Big Bad Hank Well, you really nailed something you really cool there. Yeah. So, when you look at, so the way that Scott used it in the first event in November that you participated in um was cool. But then what he did is he realized all the stuff that we could do and all the headaches and logistics and communication steps that we could relieve him of. So what he did in the spring event, which is a smaller event with just like maybe 150 players or something like that. 13:50.81 The ModGolf Podcast Right. Yes. 13:51.22 Big Bad Hank Not very small, but small compared to his big five, six hundred person event was that he kind of upped the ante on leveraging and using the community um piece of the event. 14:02.26 Big Bad Hank to make sure that all of the possible pratfalls and concerns and communication misses couldn't happen. So he was using it for things like all the shuttle bus information. So he created really cool PDFs with buses, all you know images and cool stuff. And it had the sign on the front of the bus with the name of the golf course and the time of departure. So it's an alert on all the buses. And if you click on that, then it's a huge flyer with everything and telling you how to get to the buses and everything. And then he also did a really cool thing every single day called the VB Bulletin. 14:44.28 Big Bad Hank So he did a Vegas baby bulletin on Here's the short one page you're on everything you need to know today. Here's the weather. Here's where the shuttles are coming. Here's three things you could do after golf tonight. Here's an entertainment thing. Here's a group experience. Here's a dinner recommendation. I was like, damn, that's a great idea. So it was a really, really cool way. 15:06.49 The ModGolf Podcast yeah 15:08.59 Big Bad Hank And again, all of this is being done in the same app that you registered in, the same app you're entering scores in. However, it's much, much more than that. And you're really hitting on something like when you compare the experience today. And this isn't being disparaging of any other tournament software. It's just the nature of when the tournament software has the approach of being a utility or an appliance application in the phone. It's not there to be an everyday thing you check on, right? 15:39.31 Big Bad Hank It's only there when you need to do it for a certain task. 15:39.68 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 15:42.31 Big Bad Hank So registering for an event. OK, that's when I go to my blue golf app or my blue golf profile or whatever my app and register. But then I don't touch it again until I get to the first hole three months later when I'm in the event itself. 16:02.20 Big Bad Hank So that's very, very different than everything else that we do in life. You think about even when we did the Vegas baby event, you're my bro, right? So I get excited when I know we're going to hook up and hang out, whether it's the PGA show or an event or a boondoggle that we've hatched up. 16:19.80 Big Bad Hank And what we do is what friends and people do and even folks that you're just meeting, right? You communicate and connect and get to know each other and get excited and share the experience and start talking about it. Like, Hey, are we going to go low? What's going on? Should we do some side games? You know, boom, boom, boom, boom. boom Hey, what's going on? Who's got new clubs and, and then let the communication begin. And then now your experience begins day one, the day you register, you're already communicating and beginning your experience all the way through until you show up at the event. And by the time you show up to the event, You're actually looking for people that you've been either talking smack with, maybe the guy from New York that set up the side game. You want to meet this Yahoo. So you're like, hey, where are you? 17:07.35 Big Bad Hank And so it's a completely different experience because you're way down the road on already starting your experience before you show up at the actual golf event itself. 17:17.08 The ModGolf Podcast And golf has that beautiful ability to create shared memories and experiences. Unlike a lot of other sports, that's many things I love about golf. 17:28.31 Big Bad Hank Yeah. 17:30.01 The ModGolf Podcast And it really seems like you're again, harnessing the ability to capture and enhance those. 17:37.43 Big Bad Hank Yeah. And check it out and think about this actually, because up until even a few months ago, i wasn't even thinking about after the event. And then this is what drove it home. We had the opportunity to go and meet with a bunch of, um, big golf car guys. They're all up in Augusta. And they have all their golf courses that they have access to. 17:57.21 Big Bad Hank So they hosted us when we were up there and it was really cool because 15 minutes before we teed off, there's a few techie guys, but most of are golf car guys. We walked around to the different groups and we said, hey, in our in our software, you don't have to be an administrator to do an event with your white wig and flowing black robes. You don't have to be official. So we let the inmates run the asylum. That's the idea is let the kids play on the playground. 18:26.58 The ModGolf Podcast Right, right. 18:28.29 Big Bad Hank So you could be set, you could be playing in a very official, like a member guest event or something like that. You're entering in your own score. But if you want to have some fun with the boys on the side, set up your own side game. And guess what? Only the people you invite can see what's going on in your leaderboard. Not even the administrator or the owner of the golf course can get a peek in there. It's completely private. So we show all these golf car guys. 18:52.78 Big Bad Hank We're like, hey, you know, we set up this little Stableford event. It should be fun. But if you guys want, you can do your own events. And the guys are like you mean I could challenge Dave over there, that son of a you know what? I'm like, yeah, you can do whatever you want. Like, oh, show me that again. 19:05.93 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, yeah. 19:06.51 Big Bad Hank We just show him, hey, you just click on this as side games. And then it just launches into the little wizard and you just tell it what you want to do. Now you could do that, or you could also use our AI agent. We can come back to that. You could have your AI agent set it up for you. So we show these guys that, and then all of a sudden there's invites flying everywhere. 19:25.03 Big Bad Hank There's a little side event called US versus Romanians. And then it's golf car guys versus technology guys. I'm like, okay, I guess I'm in that one. And then somebody else did skins. Somebody did a deuce pot. We had nine leaderboards and there was only like 16 of us playing in the event. But it was cool because we had no idea if they would just think, oh, that's nice. That's a nice thing. We didn't think they would just grab it and start doing it like they did, but they did. And maybe we encouraged them and they were comfortable to do it. But that was really, really fun. And after the event is that those guys, because you can go back in i went back in and I'm looking at all the leaderboards just to see how everybody hit. And then all of a sudden I'm seeing like notifications pop in and stuff in the community page. 20:18.14 Big Bad Hank People are going into individual scorecards and liking scorecards, certain even certain holes. And AM Golf creates an automatic post in the community section. When you go, Hey, I like this scorecard. Colin got back to back birdies. It pops up and it goes, Hey, Kevin really liked Colin's scorecard. And then you could say what you liked about i'm like back to back birdies, bro look at you dog! I mean, 14 handicap. That's some bullshit is what I would say. And then everybody's piling on that piling on. 20:45.75 The ModGolf Podcast Absolutely. 20:46.78 Big Bad Hank In other words, it's much more like a trip that you go on, right? With friends and family where back in the day, you'd remember folks would invite you over to watch the slideshow from their trip to Europe from the previous summer and you'd revisit the trip. I love that because just because the event's over it doesn't mean you could go rehash. Get one last lick in and talk smack one more time on that guy that had all those double bogeys. 21:13.24 The ModGolf Podcast Nice. Nice. So, so what you're saying here, and what you and I have had many conversations and I've kind of watched it you and your growth trajectory here. So, as part of your growth strategy in the US it seems like a three pronged approach to me. You just touched on this, that boots on the ground, the grassroots, the actual users, getting them excited to get engaged and start to share and invite their friends. 21:32.28 Big Bad Hank Right. 21:35.09 The ModGolf Podcast So that from the bottom up and looks like whether it's through Scott and Vegas baby in these, these tournaments and these events that golf course owners and operators that are doing events, getting them on board. 21:47.46 The ModGolf Podcast And the third one, it seems, the corporate partnership partnerships that you're making because you're so entrenched and the trust that you've cultivated and earned over the decades, not to age you too much here, buddy, but with the golf cart manufacturers and companies, it seems like there's three prong growth strategy between tournament, owners and operators, corporate partners, and then the users themselves getting excited. 22:16.22 Big Bad Hank Absolutely right. 22:16.88 The ModGolf Podcast So I wanted to expand on that a little bit. If I have that right, that's your approach. 22:19.00 Big Bad Hank Yeah, you nailed it, man. And obviously, i like to say when it comes to software, it's important to look at some other examples in other businesses. And I like to point out that having the greatest software in the world really doesn't mean anything if people aren't using it and getting in their hands. So you got to get creative on distribution. There's a reason why the New York Times doesn't publish best writing author. They publish best selling author, right? 22:49.98 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. It's true. 22:50.42 Big Bad Hank Yeah. I'm not interested in being the best writing software writer. I want to be the best selling software writer. So that means you need to get creative and find other B2B organizations in golf that appreciate, and understand your software and what its niche could be in the industry. 23:14.20 Big Bad Hank And then offering them ways to get creative with win-win scenarios so we can help we can have other folks help us bring our software out. So other companies with entrenched sales channels and things of that nature, could be hardware, could be technology, it's probably going to be both and and all of the above. There's lots of folks that are looking for ways to create greater stickiness and new sort of hooks to stay relevant with their existing customers. It's a lot easier to get more wallet share from an existing customer than to spend money to try to get a new customer. 23:54.02 The ModGolf Podcast Absolutely. 23:54.07 Big Bad Hank So what I'm interested in is finding, hey, who gets it? Who feels like there's room for another player? And who also feels like the current solutions aren't matching how our digital life has evolved in other non-golf areas and other aspects of how we live our lives? 24:15.42 Big Bad Hank The folks that get it, get it. And there's lots of them that get it. Those are the folks that we're going to work with that at this coming PGA Show, we'll have announcements of different partnerships and different folks helping us to get this software into the hands of people that can evaluate it, make educated decisions and go from there. 24:31.80 Big Bad Hank So that's one piece. And then on the other side, finding multiple course operators as well that are interested in any of these guys. And we would take the same approach, Colin, if we were running a big company that owned private public golf course or whatever is, you're probably gonna have to do some meetings and really show that your software is viable, get people to understand it, ask some tough questions in different demonstrations, at which point they're not gonna say, okay, well, you can do all 100 of our golf courses or all 20 of our, they're gonna have you started a few, right? And you're gonna you're gonna prove yourself out. 25:09.40 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. Yes. 25:11.24 Big Bad Hank And that's fine, that's a great approach. And all you're asking for when you're confident in what you're doing and you love what you're doing, you just want the opportunity, you want the impact, like they say in baseball, right? But when we get that, what'll happen is we'll be able to get some wins into some of these larger companies. And what's interesting for some of these folks is that if we go to a management company just to use an easy round number of like 50 golf courses or something, they're going to be doing on an average in the States these days, close to 40,000 rounds. 25:41.55 Big Bad Hank So you can do the math on what that looks like a few million rounds happening. And of those rounds, anywhere between 10 and 20% are going to be outing or league or something that could or often does use tournament scoring. So you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of rounds, both members and guests annually and over a year's time that would be exposed to the software. And because our software that you're entering your scores in and doing your scoring for for all these events has is so feature rich and beneficial to the golfer, we're gonna, by just nature of exposure, we're gonna get a lot of paid subscribers that are gonna come from these companies. And when those paid subscribers come, every single one, Colin, has a unique cookie and identifier that lets us know how they came into our ecosystem. 26:31.83 Big Bad Hank And we don't care if it's three or four years ago, we're going to share revenue with that multiple course owner operator based upon the subscriptions that come from our partnership. So if you could so fast forward a little bit of what this looks like a few years from now, the expense side of having this software in play at your facilities is going to go away. It won't be an expense anymore in a few years. It won't be. It will be a profit center and the snowball will just grow every year. That's completely new and different and nobody's ever offered anything like that. 27:26.58 The ModGolf Podcast So Kevin, I'd like you to elaborate a bit as an entrepreneur that's worked in many, many startups, many early growth companies, many mature, large Fortune 500 size companies out of the whole gamut here. I'd like you to provide some insight for us here today. As far as the size of the market. Now for tournament software, there's other players. In fact, one player has been a gracious sponsor partner of ModGolf for years. I won't mention them right now because of course I'd like to him happy, but the space is big enough that I can have more than one to talk about what you're doing on ModGolf. 27:59.22 Big Bad Hank Sure. Yeah. 28:05.60 The ModGolf Podcast And also the space is big enough and expanding that there's room for AM Golf and the others. So they can give us an overview because we have a lot of entrepreneurs listening to ModGolf, both in golf and whether in sports or even other industries. So perhaps you can tie this response in with how you guys have looked strategically at the landscape in the U.S. and where the opportunities are, where the market's expanding, and what excites you, as you said, of the next year and two and three of as you guys grow here, that it seems like with the market, you don't need an opportunity an approach of scarcity. It is one of abundance. 28:45.98 Big Bad Hank Totally. 28:47.14 The ModGolf Podcast So can you tell us a little bit about that of how you guys have 30,000 foot this of where you see those opportunities and what it gets you excited about this? 28:47.54 Big Bad Hank For sure. That's a great, really great question. So call it 30,000 golf courses, right? And obviously not all of those are going to be using tournament software, but it's safe to say at this point that um half of those facilities at a minimum globally are using software for running events and tournaments of some kind, whether it's homemade or a local person or a big time guy like like one of your partners. 29:24.89 Big Bad Hank So there's a minimum of 15,000 golf courses that could look at this software. But that's just one segment of our business. Our other business is the massive number of tournament event events going on in the form of like Pro-Am operators, in the form of small companies and even larger companies that operate tournaments on behalf of charities and foundations and other things. And then you've got the emerging trend especially since COVID of celebrities and athletes both getting into golf and using golf for their fundraising activities for as an extension of all of their foundations and philanthropic activities. That's booming as well. Because we have a native app that's very unique and it's a global native app that you can post both to World Handicap and GHIN as well as stat tracking and all these other cool things, AI agent to help you with your game and all that stuff. 30:23.14 Big Bad Hank So we've got a whole other model on the other side of that subscriber side. And then the fourth leg of the stool, the other business is a whole other division around travel and experiences that we're calling AM Golf Experiences. 30:39.60 The ModGolf Podcast Alright. 30:39.68 Big Bad Hank So for me personally, I'm not going to bullshit you and tell you that I was smart enough to know exactly what our niche was and where we would land. 30:52.50 Big Bad Hank What I saw was, going back a year or so, I saw the complexity of what we were going to be doing for the Vegas Baby event as I was just getting started with AM Golf, 31:04.47 Big Bad Hank I was very comfortable with the technical side of our prowess. Of our ability to execute the scoring piece fundamentally. I didn't understand all of the things that were included in the scoring and event experience because no other software had ever done it. So what does it mean to have one platform for the the utility of scoring, registering, and those basic machinations, but also the softer, kind of squishier side of communication, promotion, networking. I just haven't seen it together. 31:40.76 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 31:40.85 Big Bad Hank I'm not saying that chocolate and peanut butter don't go great together, but until Reese's put them together, nobody knew how great they were, right? Now they know. So for me, that was the interesting piece. And so the only way that I could really know with certainty was to really just grind Zoom calls and demonstrations with probably 30 industry leaders in the golf industry through management companies, individual operators, tournament operators, and did that in the fall before we really started, before we got to the PGA Show and articulated who we thought we were and who we were going after. Like basically, okay, I'm going to show you five things that we do. And based on your reaction, I'll know which one we should focus on. This one, this one, this one. Oh, okay. That one. Okay. That's a good one. This one. 32:38.17 Big Bad Hank Oh, okay. Those two. And I do that over and over and over and over and over and over again. And 98 out of a hundred people react to the same two of five things. Then I start focusing on the two things in the calls and that worked out really well. So, and it was the fact that Existing tournament softwares, the big ones that have been around, not anyone in particular, all of them, they were all built you know anywhere 10, 15 years ago. So just from an experience from your eyeballs and a UI UX, when you go into those older softwares versus the things that you participate in today, it feels very different. Even just neurologically, it feels different. It feels like you have to focus more is the feeling that most people explain it. Some people are more emotional and dramatic when they explain it. But that's the general consensus is it takes a greater degree of focus because there are more smaller steps and the interface isn't as soft and warm is what we're hearing. 33:36.69 The ModGolf Podcast Right. Right. 33:46.87 Big Bad Hank So I'm not smart enough to just figure it out on my own. I needed the feedback of people smarter than me that are in the industry that run the industry and get them to tell me what resonates, what doesn't. Okay, you're telling me that our Tee-sheet isn't robust enough as a standalone Tee-sheet to compete with the majority. That's good to know. i can't lead with the T-sheet. So for example, from that feedback, what we realized is where our T sheet is more valuable in, in our current strategy is I'd rather go to a big time point of sale company that maybe has 500 or a thousand golf courses and offer the ability to roll our software in with theirs and do something more along those lines. But you really need the feedback and the voice of the industry in order to make educated decisions. Otherwise, you're just guessing. 34:45.91 The ModGolf Podcast And it's interesting that the conversation you're having now, the learnings, even the last six months since we spent time together in Las Vegas, and we've we spent some time together after the PGA Show, hanging out in Sarasota at your home there, playing some golf and having some fun and learning more, that it seems to me like you now know even better who you are catering to, who you're resonating and connecting with. Not that before you were trying to be everything to everyone all at once, but you hadn't defined who, call it the avatar or persona or your ideal user was so of all the people listening out here today on ModGolf, so we have a lot of people in the golf industry that loves the ModGolf podcast. 35:31.61 Big Bad Hank Sure. 35:32.92 The ModGolf Podcast So who are the one or two archetypes that if they're listening would be the ones that would definitely want to be connecting with you? 35:43.06 Big Bad Hank Well again, I'll sound like a sales guy if I say what I really think. I think it's for everybody, of course, is what I want to say. If you take 500 golf courses, there's going to be 100. They're going to be like, listen, I love my tournament software provider. They solved some major freaking headaches for me a few years ago. My members use it and like it. 36:11.83 Big Bad Hank It ain't broke. ain't messing with I'm cool with it. That's going to be a that's a big that's a big chunk of people. There's going to be another chunk over here that's like, listen, the current providers, they don't care about me. I'm not getting the attention I deserve. It's difficult. It's old. I'm looking for something new. 36:33.91 Big Bad Hank And then the 300 in the middle, they're just typical golf industry people that are like, If there's some momentum and things bubbling up that are cool and new in the industry, I'll hear about it and I'll check it out then. 36:44.69 Big Bad Hank But I'm not an innovator. I'm right here. I'm a Ford F-150 guy. I'm blocking and tackling. I'm showing up every day. I'm not into looking at new stuff. So we just got to go of those 500, there's only about 100 that we're going to land on very quickly and easily. And then the results and the testimonials from those 100 will hopefully leverage that middle 300. And we're not going to worry about the 100 that are married and locked into to whoever they're locked into. 37:09.34 The ModGolf Podcast Right, right. To expand on that, when I was at the PGA Show, before the show, a couple days before the NGCOA, the National Golf Course Owners Association, had their golf business conference that I had the pleasure of speaking at. I got invited to a roundtable that was open to all the membership there, so the golf course owners and operators. And a lot of these conversations, a good chunk of people in the room, I was surprised of – it sounds mean to call them Luddites, but they were so far behind. They were even proud that they were even taking credit card payments in the last couple of years. Some of them are still using paper Tee-sheets. 37:50.49 The ModGolf Podcast The whole idea of dynamic or surge pricing or even charging people like you would in every other industry, whether it's pay for the thing before like you do when you buy concert tickets. 38:01.56 Big Bad Hank A concert ticket, exactly, yeah. 38:03.37 The ModGolf Podcast It's so weird. So where I'm going with this, Kevin, do you see there's an opportunity that in some pockets of the golf industry that they're still technologically behind? Is that an opportunity or is it so slow that it's a long tail closing it out looking, okay, we want to go from zero to 100 right now and do these things. Or have you found out there that the ones that are more behind on the technology side with their infrastructure, are they ripe for the picking? Or do you find that also is a slow moving ship? 38:37.75 Big Bad Hank Yeah, well, it's interesting, because the event in November, the Vegas Baby event, majority of those players came from Canada. And there are a lot of nice private clubs in Canada that have never adopted tournament software. And I mean, they're not low end mom and pops and they're not neophytes on technology. It's just something that they felt like, hey, we've got a short season. It's five grand US. It's like 6,500 Canadians, a lot of money. And we seem to be getting by without it. 39:15.51 Big Bad Hank And I was shocked that you don't have that any of those facilities I'm thinking about that I spoke to, if they were in the States and not just in a big golf market, but anywhere, they'd have tournament software because it's just something that everybody is using and doing, right? It's prevalent. So there's a lot of opportunity out there. And if you've got a really soft and elegant facility look and feel, that goes a long way to when you first show it to people that they don't get, oh, they don't put their defence up as much. Because what I found is that people that are non-technical, when they see our software, what they say is, oh, this looks like Facebook. 40:00.89 Big Bad Hank So they say it with an element of surprise. And what they're also saying is, I'm comfortable with Facebook. It doesn't scare me. And I'm surprised because when you showed me your software and it opened up, it didn't scare me either. So it bodes well for us. Now, the other piece, because I agree, there's a lot of opportunity in that, in a demographic that you just alluded to. So we're doing a pilot program with the NGCOA for that reason. 40:30.70 The ModGolf Podcast Alright. 40:30.71 Big Bad Hank So we have done a few Northern courses, one in California, couple in Michigan, couple on the East coast, and we're going to do the rest in the Sunbelt to catch them in their season because that's exactly who we want to meet. 40:44.09 Big Bad Hank And we also want the feedback from those folks that are perhaps even using paper Tee-sheets. Hey, is this something you'd be willing to try and take a look at no expense, no risk. 40:56.82 The ModGolf Podcast Hey, one more thing on AM Golf here before last couple of minutes, I want to follow up on some of the things we talked about two years ago with everything that you do as the GratiDude and how you get back there. 41:04.12 Big Bad Hank Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. 41:07.86 The ModGolf Podcast So, hey, I wanted to ask you, because everything you've talked about here is the real life green grass golf experience with tournaments and leagues and experiences. The explosion of simulator golf and tournament example here. I've had them on the podcast a couple years ago with Jeff Testa, who's the founder of Neighborhood National. So linking up the Airbnb for golf laters and all the tournaments they're doing now. And the membership I have down the street here at a two bay monthly membership simulator. They use TrackMan and some of the tournaments there, but it doesn't have that connectivity. 41:46.36 The ModGolf Podcast And once again, that community around that. So they're also using WhatsApp to talk to people and they got the three different things going. So my question for you here, Kevin, do you see with AM Golf this opportunity to get into the tournament in league with simulators? 42:01.37 Big Bad Hank Yes. Yeah, great question. And yes, we're talking with lots of mutual friends, whether it's Dave Bisbee, and some other folks. So yeah, so absolutely. And we're keen to do that. And one of the things that makes our platform so interesting for those guys is the ability for individual players to set up their own events. 42:27.13 The ModGolf Podcast Exactly. 42:27.10 Big Bad Hank So that's really unique and different. That's what that's a game changer in that ah indoor space because that's the real cool thing that's happening there is the ability to have competitions through those events and to play your buddy from across the country or whatever the case may be. So, yeah, I love that idea. And we're definitely talking with those folks as well. 42:50.78 The ModGolf Podcast That's because that's growing. The number of rounds played last year, there were 82 million recorded rounds of golf played in the U S last year. A lot of people that aren't recording their rounds, so it's probably like double or triple that. 43:04.34 Big Bad Hank Yeah, yeah. 43:04.95 The ModGolf Podcast So, it's booming. It's not lost on you that this is an expanding market and opportunity for you guys there. 43:08.38 Big Bad Hank Yeah, and some of these, as I've talked to some of these guys, they're growing so fast, and they're way bigger than I even realized when you find out how many locations some of these guys have, whether it's Five Iron or some of these other guys. I'm like, what? Holy crap. I had no idea. It's neat. 43:31.54 The ModGolf Podcast Absolutely. Yeah. 43:32.21 Big Bad Hank I love it. The biggest thing about it is that it eliminates all of that friction around things like dress code and the culture and all of these invisible barriers that people in the golf industry have trouble even seeing them as barriers because they've been around it so long. But even knowing what to say when you walk into a golf shop. That's even something i think is smart to give new players. Ask them how the greens are rolling and just sit back and listen, right? They don't even know what to say. 44:09.90 Big Bad Hank I'm here for golfing, you know? So now those indoor places there folks aren't feeling compelled that they have to wear the collared shirt or whatever the case may be. We're going to keep growing the game through that that side of the biz and that funnel. I love it. 44:28.34 The ModGolf Podcast Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. Before we switch over last couple of minutes to talk about all the things you're doing, as the GratiDude, let everyone know. Now they're saying, Hey that's AM Golf. I have to find out more. What's the easiest way for people to check out AM Golf? 44:44.34 Big Bad Hank Yeah, just go to app.am.golf, AM Golf, just Google it and you'll find the website and you can obviously download the app and use it at no cost. There's no paywall right now as part of our 2026 US launch. 44:58.01 Big Bad Hank Get in there and you can use the GPS. You can track your stats. You can do whatever the heck you want in there. Set your own side games up. And then the GratiDude is still alive and well. And it's really fascinating. We didn't touch on it at the at the beginning when i was talking about how I got recruited. But I asked the recruiter a few times. i was like, it seems like such a needle in a haystack. Why? How? You have to talk to the guys. Well, it turns out that one of the investors in AM Golf actually is the major investor in an HR, AI driven recruitment software. 45:33.24 The ModGolf Podcast Okay. Yes. 45:33.46 Big Bad Hank That's what is used by the recruiting company out of France that reached out to me. That's the long tale story of how this whole thing happened. So they're explaining to one of the founders of AM Golf, Nick Kovacs, that like Chat GPT or Claude or any of these other things, the longer the prompt, the more happy you'll be with the results, right? They're saying, if you do a 10 minute prompt, you're gonna get probably 10 guys in the world that you'll narrow it down to. You do an hour prompt, you're really gonna get closer to who you're looking for. So you really need to think of every single thing that you would want to include in that person. 46:17.50 Big Bad Hank So apparently all of the things that they included in the descriptors were typical business things, you know, comfortable and embraces new technology, has achieved liquidity events, has done complex partnerships. And he had a million of things on the business side. But what's interesting is he had gratitude in the description and he had compassion and had importance of friendships and relationships. We're looking for a relationship guy. We want someone that we're proud to call our partner outside of their world, so basically they were weighing the scale as much on some of these other personal development and personal human characteristics as well as business things. And it turns out that the founder spent two and a half hours on the prompt. He literally said it was 150 minutes long, the prompt that he did. And it only came back with three people and you were three times more recommended than the second place person. 47:23.77 Big Bad Hank And he goes, so that's why when you at first were like, well, I don't really know. They told the recruiter, tell him he's having the fucking call. And I said, okay. Okay. And then I didn't find out this out until months later when they were here visiting and playing golf. and he goes, let me tell you about that prompt, dude. He goes, I started it before dinner. i ended up not eating dinner with my family. And I looked down and it was two hours, 29 minutes and some number of seconds. i'm like, okay, that's enough. And I go, and this is what you ended up after two a half? You need another two and a half hours, bro. 48:01.06 The ModGolf Podcast I think they nailed it. Last couple of minutes here. Because once again, i want to encourage our listeners here, I'll include it in the show notes of our previous episode. Again, we dive deep into your why with the work that you do with the mindfulness, what you do as a coach, all that great stuff. 48:22.17 The ModGolf Podcast But one thing I love so much about you, my friend is that you just put out there and it's not transactional. You put it out there on social media. You'll just walk around. You'll have some thoughts. I'm sure there's structure in it. Sometimes it's spontaneous of things that just to help us as humans and through your own experience. 48:41.21 Big Bad Hank For sure. 48:42.59 The ModGolf Podcast So why don't you tell us a little bit of what you do there on almost a daily basis to put a kind of a quick kind of video out there to the world, into the universe and and why you do that. 48:53.72 Big Bad Hank Yeah. So listen, I'm so fortunate and just happy to be alive. I had a lot of um difficult and challenging experiences growing up as a teenager and really culminated with my father taking his own life when I was 15. And I told myself a lot of stories around all of those circumstances that, as it turns out, didn't serve me. I held myself a little bit responsible and perhaps, in my own mind narrated that I could have and should have done more and that somehow all of these experiences of my family's challenges and stuff reflected upon my value. And what that resulted in was I didn't have the feeling of self-worth and the self-love that I really needed to be as healthy as I could be. So I gravitated towards alcohol to cope with that. 49:46.07 Big Bad Hank I got older. And I realized that I was really killing myself in a different fashion. And so about seven years ago I developed a program that I wrote up for myself, hoping I would have the courage one day to actually do it, of quitting alcohol and hard drugs and and using drugs. 49:53.50 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 50:10.78 Big Bad Hank Gratitude, meditation, yoga, and a whole self-talk program to repopulate my internal talk track, leveraging what we've learned about neuroscience and neuroplasticity. So I got some people to kick me in the you-know-what enough to let me know that I needed to do it, and I did that. But it was such a transformational journey mind-blowing, godly experience that I needed to find a way to share it. And it wasn't as if it was a need, but it would be nice to share it. It was something I had to do. 50:47.80 Big Bad Hank I had to do it. Because I know that there's at least one person out there that I could save or help save. Or at least save through sharing the information that that there is a way out, you know? And what I wanted to do was to follow in the footsteps of one of my mentors, a gentleman by the name of Clark Kent. You may know him by his Avatar Superman. So if you look at Clark Kent. You have to look at the fact that he didn't need to wear a costume to do what he does, right? It wasn't like Iron Man. 51:24.54 Big Bad Hank He didn't have to wear the suit to have his power. So why did he wear it? It wasn't just a branding exercise from the marketing department. It was a very clear message, in my opinion, to find your gift and give it away and walk away. And what would the world look like if we all did that? So in other words, Superman saves someone, doesn't seek credit or do an interview and just disappears. And the way that I took the message was that through my journey to sobriety and then experiencing the wonders of neuroscience and neuroplasticity, that I had found my superpower. 52:07.74 Big Bad Hank The ability to both be vulnerable and share this with others and to use my communication skills to encourage and help others to find ways to save themselves from themselves by forgiving themselves for all the things they never really did anyway. So The GratiDude became my avatar, much like Clark Kent created Superman. And I use that as the front guy, especially in the golf industry, to lead with gratitude and to share these tools, tricks and tips to help others achieve success. 52:42.46 Big Bad Hank a better enjoyment of life and to have the opportunity to pursue their own personal greatness, right? So this business endeavour with AM Golf was so attractive and so interesting and such a wonderful opportunity, both personally and professionally, that I had to put my full-time coaching and retreats and health and wellness business on the side, but it's never going away and it's always going to be a part of what I do. 53:10.02 Big Bad Hank I'm still coaching a few folks on the side. And I'm hooking back up here in the community to do some new things with folks like the local radio station I've worked with in the past and other things to do pop-ups and to do outreach around gratitude, health and wellness um and and never lose sight of what's most important. 53:28.25 The ModGolf Podcast Love this. Love this. Well, the post that you put up almost every single day, they inspire me, they ground me, and i am grateful for you and for you for doing that. 53:38.94 Big Bad Hank Yeah. 53:39.84 The ModGolf Podcast I really am. 53:40.22 Big Bad Hank Yeah. And listen, man, I'm so grateful for our friendship, bro. And it's really cool that I know that we're going to be friends forever and we're going to old men together and it's going to be great. I mean, we may be wearing a dependent undergarment, but we'll still be hanging out. 53:56.02 The ModGolf Podcast Well, you know what? I got to live longer and be friends with you because I'm still a a handful of strokes away from ever beating on the golf course. So I got to beat you at least once. 54:03.58 Big Bad Hank Listen, it's going to happen, bro. 54:05.52 The ModGolf Podcast Straight up, buddy. 54:05.52 Big Bad Hank It's going to happen. 54:06.56 The ModGolf Podcast So I need more time. 54:08.54 Big Bad Hank Let's go! 54:08.82 The ModGolf Podcast So hey, as I always do in the show notes for Kevin's bio, I'll include his LinkedIn connection there. 54:14.33 Big Bad Hank Cool. 54:14.69 The ModGolf Podcast So if you want to connect with him there. But I'll keep it nice and simple here and also you post all the good things you do with The GratiDude, Your walk and talks, that once again, so inspiring, so informative. 54:24.73 Big Bad Hank Thank you, buddy. 54:26.96 The ModGolf Podcast Why don't you let people know what your, let's say on Instagram, what's your Instagram handle? And we'll include that too so people can check it out. 54:32.41 Big Bad Hank Sure, yeah, it's gratitude to underscore abides. 54:35.93 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 54:36.73 Big Bad Hank Gratitude_abides. 54:38.36 The ModGolf Podcast There we go. I will include that in the show notes, as I said. 54:39.00 Big Bad Hank There it is. 54:42.01 The ModGolf Podcast Well, my friend, this happened almost spontaneously of me just reaching out. I needed one more guest to fill out the season here. 54:50.14 Big Bad Hank Happy to be here. 54:50.36 The ModGolf Podcast And I didn't have to go through my list on my spreadsheet of the 100 people that I have wanting to be a guest or who will be guests later on. Immediately, it's like, it's time to get my friend The GratiDude back on ModGolf. 55:00.79 Big Bad Hank I love it, bro. This is so great. Well, thank you, man. It's a beautiful, beautiful opportunity. And thanks, everybody, for listening. And I can't wait to see you soon, bro. can't wait to play some golf again.