00:00.00 The ModGolf Podcast Welcome back to season 19. This is our second episode of the season, and I am excited for this conversation, one that's been in the making for a little while. Since the PGA show, when he and I had a chat, I'm like, "hey, got to get you on the podcast!" Wanted to get you guys on for, gosh, three, four years, ever since you guys launched. 01:05.08 The ModGolf Podcast But sometimes, and we talked about this off before the top of the show, that it's all about timing. When the planets collide and the universe says, "now's the time for the conversation." And apparently now's the time for that conversation. And that is with Drew Kohler, who is the chief revenue officer and co-founder of Blue Tees Golf. So with that, Drew, welcome to The ModGolf Podcast. 01:28.07 Drew Koehler Colin, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. 01:30.14 The ModGolf Podcast It is my pleasure, Drew. So hey, let's pick up where we left off at the PGA show. You guys have launched all kinds of awesome new products. developing or innovating, building on what you already have. But before we get into that, because you and I don't really know each other yet, and I always love to use golf as that icebreaker, that bridge to find out a little bit more about Drew Kohler. So I want to know that first ever golf experience you had in your life. 01:57.02 The ModGolf Podcast First time you had a club in your hand, that first experience. And who was that person, that power of invitation that invited you to try golf for that first time? 02:05.21 Drew Koehler Yeah, so amazing question. And i grew up out here in Southern California, ironically playing ice hockey. And so for whatever reason, skating in the rink and all that stuff, and then power of invitation was my father. 02:13.38 The ModGolf Podcast All right. 02:22.86 Drew Koehler I remember he took me, he loves to golf. He's golfed his whole life. And I remember one day after practice, he took me to a Roger Dunn, and I will never forget it. There's a brand called Pinseeker. 02:38.84 Drew Koehler Got me a set of Pinseeker used irons that we hit in the hidden bay there. 02:41.62 The ModGolf Podcast Sweet. 02:42.76 Drew Koehler And that was the introduction to a lifelong journey of fun and frustration all in one. 02:51.63 The ModGolf Podcast The Pinseekers. I have not heard of Pinseekers. They sound kind of awesome. So with that Pinseeker, that first time out, did you actually get that beautiful, buttery, majestic connection at least once that got you the bug? All you need is one good strike there that gets you for life. Did you have that with the Pinseekers? 03:11.13 Drew Koehler I think just the idea of being out there with my pop, walking for four and a half hours, spending time with him being outside. That was the bug, but also hyper competitive individuals. We both are. And so while most of the shots were hossle rockets, there were a couple that at that moment in time were buttery and perfect. And in retrospect, they probably weren't great, but there were a couple that kept you coming back. 03:36.16 The ModGolf Podcast That does keep you coming back. Well, before I get to the AHA moment, that origin story of Blue Tees Golf with you and your buddies on a golf course, I realized looking at what you've done in your career so far over the last 10, 15 years or so professionally. 03:53.34 The ModGolf Podcast You don't have a golf background. My understanding is you're director of business development with Large Enterprise, leading up a sales team with Gartner, multi-billion dollar company. So that's kind of your DNA. So ah I'm curious to learn how then you stumbled into the golf industry like I did. And at the same time, dovetail that into the story, the AHA on course moment out of frustration that led to the first product desire for, for Blue Tees Golf. 04:26.05 Drew Koehler It's funny thinking about this, right? Because it's never a straight line. We've talked about this, right? 04:31.31 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. Yeah. 04:32.09 Drew Koehler I went to the University of Washington in Seattle where I was a political science major and I had no plan. I just really liked learning about current events and global perspectives. And when I graduated college, I was like, man, shoot, what am I going to do? 04:46.77 Drew Koehler I don't know. I don't wanna become a lawyer. Political science can lead into to law. I'm not a politician at all. Like, what in the heck am I gonna do? So I was like, well, what did you learn in this degree? It was all around analyzing a problem, forming a hypothesis, coming up with a solution. I was like, well, shoot, I could parlay that into business development and consulting. And so from Seattle, Washington, I went to San Francisco, California, where I was really privileged and got a job at a company called Gartner. 05:20.70 Drew Koehler And there we were doing go to market consulting. That's where i ended up and helping organizations, specifically tech companies, both hardware and software, better structure their sales organizations, what type of technology makes sense to enable growth, how you structure sales teams, what types of conversations should you be having? And throughout this time, i had this towards the end. I was just like, what are you doing here? 05:48.18 Drew Koehler Like, this is an incredible job. You're learning from some of the brightest people there is. You're definitely not the smartest person in the room, which is always a blessing because I'm always learning. but I make recommendations to people on how to better generate revenue. 05:58.25 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 06:03.13 Drew Koehler And I was like, well, this is ridiculous. You should go do this yourself. Put your money where your mouth is and actually stand behind the advice you're giving. And so that was my AHA moment of super lucky, love my job. It was safe. And I work with amazing people, super smart people, but let's go take that leap of faith. um And so at that time, my roommate, because we're in our young 20s, San Francisco is an expensive place, but was a roommate with my best buddy, who is one of the co-founders of Blue Tees. 06:36.38 Drew Koehler And he had a job and the in the finance world. I had this job in the consulting world. And on the weekends, we had a couple of extra dollars in our pocket. So we started playing a lot of golf. 06:47.50 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 06:47.99 Drew Koehler And as we continue to improve and bring the index down, I'm talking like 15 is where we're at this point. and that was bringing the index down. 06:58.36 Drew Koehler Again, competitive people, and we're trying to get ah an advantage on one another. So we ended up both going buying laser range finders. But at that time in our life, in our 20s, we didn't want to go spend $400, $500 on a laser rangefinder, right? We would rather take that money and go buy the new tailor-made or Titleist driver. That's going to help us hit the ball a couple yards further, or going to take that money candidly to the bar and go have ourselves a good time on the weekend. 07:25.85 Drew Koehler So we ended up going to Amazon and we each bought a range finder independent of each other. We just happened to do this and two separate brands, two direct from Amazon. 07:39.32 Drew Koehler And we were playing at the Presidio Golf Course in San Francisco. Unbelievable public golf course, by the way. It's one of the best out there. A lot of character. 07:46.34 The ModGolf Podcast I've heard. 07:47.74 Drew Koehler And on the first hole is this dogleg right and you hit a three wood out there and we end up kind of in the rough fairway kind of where they meet and my laser the eyepiece popped off. 08:01.11 Drew Koehler Well, okay. So right now, it's not even a hole in things already broken and his laser wouldn't pick up the flag and it was just inconsistent yardage the whole day. 08:14.31 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 08:14.84 Drew Koehler And so We rewind, right? I need to go take this, all this advice that I'm giving to people, right? To go grow their revenue organizations. Now, I wanna do that for myself. 08:27.16 Drew Koehler Chris is thinking the same thing. He's got this background in finance and operations and but always been entrepreneurial. We looked at each other and said, there's something here. There's a gap in the market for a really solid high quality laser range finder that doesn't break. 08:46.01 Drew Koehler that doesn't break the bank, but also there's an opportunity to differentiate and differentiate in the way in which a golf technology brand goes to market and the way in which they are branded and their messaging. 08:59.29 Drew Koehler And so it was then and there that we had this idea for a laser rangefinder company to start called another one of our best buddies, who's an industrial designer by trade and just utterly brilliant. And the three of us came up with this blissfully ignorant idea to start a golf laser rangefinder company and the rest is kind of history. 09:23.15 The ModGolf Podcast I like the fact that you mentioned you brought in your kind of the third leg to the stool there with an industrial designer. And this is such an important piece for founders or entrepreneurs that are just starting up with a venture that are going alone is finding those partners that have the diversity and skill set. You don't need the people that are all doing the same thing as yourself with your buddies because then you're redundant. Whereas that case there, you all relied on your unique skill sets to make this happen. 09:53.77 The ModGolf Podcast And I'm curious to learn now, where do you go next? Because you're entering the hard goods space and it's called hard goods for a reason. 10:00.28 Drew Koehler Yeah. Yeah. 10:01.68 The ModGolf Podcast It is hard. It's not like software is easy or a digital product, but you're physically making something. So what were the next steps then? What did you do as far as a minimum viable product, a way to differentiate yourself? So tell us about the next step where you went then from concept to reality. 10:20.57 Drew Koehler Well, before concept to reality, you make a really interesting point and you talk about the skill sets, right? And so Chris, one of the original three, he had started an e-commerce company before this. 10:34.26 Drew Koehler And when he started the company, he started with two of his former colleagues, and they were all in finance. And one of the questions that I had asked him is we were just talking and spitballing on things. And if we were to do something together, what's one thing you would do differently? 10:49.37 Drew Koehler And he said, "I would never get into business with two other bankers." And i was like, "what do you mean?" He goes, "well, the three of us are experts in finance. And so one of the experts in finance has to go learn how to do sales and marketing. And that's not their strong suit. The other person has to go learn X and Y. And so was really intentional from the start that every person that was brought into the organization had a different skillset." So the three of us had the idea. 11:17.62 Drew Koehler But we have two other co-founders. One of them it has this incredible creative background and customer obsession. And the other guy is a digital marketer by trade. Two additional skill sets that we didn't have. And so as we look to build this team, it was all finding people who are smarter than us in different fields right to grow this business. But back to your original question, because I don't want to take us too far on a tangent. 11:44.73 Drew Koehler Your question of concept to creation. One of the unexpected things for us is, and I'm sure you know this because you're in your 19th season of this show and you've been around for a long time, but again, from and a blissful ignorance point of view, for us, finding a name that wasn't trademarked was so much harder than anybody would ever imagine. 12:08.53 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 12:08.63 Drew Koehler I'm serious. We had this idea for the company and what it would do and how we would go to market, but we didn't have a name. And so finding blueteesgolf.com really hard finding the website finding something that wasn't trademarked and so that was definitely one of the mishaps that we didn't really give enough time and attention to or realize how hard it was going to be but from concept to creation. That's all Brandon so we had this idea for a laser rangefinder and the three principles that we wanted to create this brand on and the first product portfolio around was price point not crazy expensive, but also not dirt cheap. Because you get what you pay for. But we felt as though we could find a sweet spot, a middle ground. To disrupt the market. Number two was we had to create this high quality product. So accessible or approachable price point is number one, high quality product. Number two, number three was design. 13:12.92 Drew Koehler So Brandon as an industrial designer does not come from golf either. I don't want to speak for him, but his inspirations are not golf companies, right? There are other technology companies out there that have shaped his worldview on what a product could and should be. And so from Brandon's lens, everything that we wanted to do was "let's design our products to look different. Let's design our products to be minimal. Let's use really high quality materials on these. So when it sits in your hand, it feels premium." 13:46.87 Drew Koehler From the time that somebody interacts with the package. Well, how do we give them an unbelievable tactile feedback from the box itself? When you open up an Apple product before you even touch the phone or the computer, the box is the first thing that you touch the weight, the the material that they use, the way that it looks. Everything is already priming you to have an incredible experience. And so that design component for the products and the brand was a quarter. 14:16.31 Drew Koehler And so with those three pillars, that's what we as a group infused into the laser range finder. And so as you start a company, It's a capital intensive business buying inventory. 14:30.13 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 14:31.30 Drew Koehler So one of the first things that we did is after we drafted the articles of incorporations is we liquidated our bank accounts, or at least I did. Every dollar that I had to my name went into the Blue Tees bank account. 14:42.71 Drew Koehler I'll never forget that drive home. And so from concept to idea, it's liquidate bank accounts and put our money in the account. Number two is we found an incredible supplier partner. 14:54.01 Drew Koehler Number three, with that supplier partner, the team and Brandon, not only does he have an industrial design background, but he also has a technology background. So he was able to be that brainchild behind the design, the tech, and working with other people there. 15:09.18 Drew Koehler But there's your product. I remember getting a 3D printed series two laser sent to me and I was working to still this corporate job at the time, and it was shipped to my office. And people were like, "what is that?" i'm like, "oh, we're starting a golf company." Like, you're crazy. 15:22.04 Drew Koehler Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. But this is what it's going to be. But we got 3D prints. We got a minimal viable product. And then COVID hit. 15:34.81 The ModGolf Podcast Well, that's, I noticed when you launched, yeah, for context, so this is all 2018, 2019. 15:35.23 Drew Koehler Right. There you go. 15:40.62 The ModGolf Podcast And yeah, then that COVID thing hit, which I do want to get into. I'm glad you brought that up. I do i would want to circle back on some of the really great things that you had already mentioned there, Drew. And one was your connection to Apple or using them as this North Star as far as that product design and my background in product and design and architecture and also technology. 15:57.22 Drew Koehler Yeah. 16:02.17 The ModGolf Podcast Everything else that I've been working on, I certainly embrace that too. And Steve Jobs had this term, I believe that the term was called, the word was impute, this concept of, as you touched touched on, from the first experience you have on that customer journey to the very end. 16:20.12 The ModGolf Podcast And that's how they design the stores and and even the packaging, like you said. Everything has to be at that quality, that experience. If one of them falls down, everything falls down. So it sounds like you've really embraced that. And I have enough of your products. You've been gracious enough over the years to send me a lot of your products here. And yes, I do notice that. Even the way they open up out of the box and even fit or even come out, the sound it makes coming out of the box. 16:45.39 The ModGolf Podcast I don't know if you guys have thought about that or it's just accidental, but it's great. Like it matters and it just instills confidence in the product before i even turn that on. So you guys, obviously you've harnessed that and that's something that matters a lot to you guys. 17:02.49 Drew Koehler When three people get together with three diverse career experiences, everybody brings something different to the table. 17:13.02 Drew Koehler And you have some of those non-negotiables, right? And then you have some of those, like, I'm not going to not gonna die on the hill on this one. and that was one of Brandon's non-negotiables and both Chris and were like and you know the early founding team was like absolutely done that's we agree 100% and so from day one it was really important to us that even the digital touch points a customer is going to judge a brand or the products by the interactions in which they have with you both digitally and physically and so from the first time that somebody interacts with us through into the post purchase experience and then using the products on course and even the customer service it's a whole flywheel effect and we need to make sure that we're excellent in every one of these areas. 17:55.77 The ModGolf Podcast Yes, yes. Before we get into that little thing called COVID, because I do want to hear that next chapter of the story, but I want to stick with a couple other things here first. 18:06.61 The ModGolf Podcast You touched on how it was not easy to land on a name and be able to secure that name Blue Tees Golf. I was going to ask you about the origin story of launching a couple of brands myself. 18:18.07 The ModGolf Podcast And sometimes it's excruciatingly painful to find something. Sometimes it pops into your mind right away. But I'm curious to hear, were there any other workshop names for the company or was it always Blue Tees Golf? 18:28.85 Drew Koehler Oh, God. 18:30.31 The ModGolf Podcast I'm curious to hear ones that perhaps so ended up on the chopping block that you look back and you kind of laugh at and glad you didn't go that route. 18:37.05 Drew Koehler So, I'll give you the end of the story before I go to the beginning, but we actually did not come up with the name Blue Tees Golf. So i'll tell you how we got there in a second, but we had names like Gosh, Baron golf, Second Shot Golf, all these random names and like everything was trademarked. We had no idea, nothing really stuck. And you know, it's funny the way the world works. I think that we caught wind. 19:07.61 Drew Koehler So we had this idea, right? We've already designed the product. Everything's funded. We still just don't have a name for the company. But there was a company on the market called Blue Tees Golf. 19:20.18 The ModGolf Podcast Okay. 19:21.05 Drew Koehler They were for sale. And so we're like, wait, this is perfect. 19:24.77 Drew Koehler So forget the dollar figure, not a lot. We're like, wait, this company Blue Tees Golf. Great name. love the name and wish we would have thought of it. Two, had a website. 19:39.58 Drew Koehler Three, name was already trademarked. Four, like we have this like a bit of infrastructure. And this was tiny, tiny company, right? Like this is about a startup as startup it gets. So ended up buying Blue Tees Golf. 19:48.98 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 19:52.66 Drew Koehler And was amazing about the name Blue Tees Golf to us and why it was and just such a positive fit was when we're in this competitive journey, of bringing our indexes down, getting better at golf, trying to get a laser range finder to play better, the question at that time that we would always ask each other was, well, what tees are we playing from? 20:14.49 Drew Koehler And typically for us at that time, we were playing from the white tees. That's where we felt comfortable playing from. And so we had this, when we heard blue tees golf, it was a light bulb moment for all of us. We're like, no way, this is perfect. 20:27.00 Drew Koehler our brand and our products come rock with us and we're going to give you the confidence to take that step back and go play from the blue tees. So for us, it became this mantra in our marketing, right? Of like, Hey, we're going to give you. And so it was absolutely perfect and, uh, unbelievably happy with, with the end results after, after a lot of difficulty in the beginning. 20:50.09 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, yeah. Well, before I move on to the COVID piece, ah I did want to ask you a little more about, well, tying into the brand, and that is the culture. When the five of you sat down at the beginning to form this company of what you wanted to be and even more so what you did not want to be. 21:07.58 The ModGolf Podcast How did this come about that – you guys are just a naturally cool brand with a great vibe. And, you know, sometimes when people try to be cool, guess what? 21:14.61 Drew Koehler Thank you. 21:17.37 The ModGolf Podcast They're not. You know, it just doesn't work. And I have to give you guys credit. You guys uys have this – I don't know if it's your Southern California kind of chill vibe going on, even though you're up in NorCal in the valley there. 21:28.53 The ModGolf Podcast But it just seems now that you've always developed or just had this kind of this cool vibe going on that, that it's kind of relaxed and fun. So is that something you guys intentionally worked at or is that they tell us about that part as far as that ties into the culture with blue tees. 21:45.78 Drew Koehler Yes, we're all from Southern California. And we were really inspired by Travis Matthew. 21:56.14 The ModGolf Podcast Hmm. 21:56.66 Drew Koehler Right. So when Travis Matthew first came out, they did things a little bit different. I think they kind of took away the, in our opinion, but I'll speak for myself and Travis Matthew launched. 22:11.99 Drew Koehler you had an alternative to a pair of pleated khaki trousers, right? Which by the way is cool again, right? We're going through the cycles and khaki pleated khaki trousers are cool again. 22:23.53 Drew Koehler Back then it wasn't. 22:23.52 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 22:25.40 Drew Koehler And you could get away with not wearing like a typical peak polo shirt, right? Which again, they're back in style. But when Travis Matthew came out, what we loved about their brand and what they stood for, it was all around like, hey, we're made to meet the moment. 22:39.99 Drew Koehler This is super comfortable, active wear. You can wear on the golf course, but also you can wear it after the fact. that If you go to the bar, if you go to a restaurant, like you don't look like a golfer necessarily. You're just really comfortable. And we thought that their brand messaging was great. The way that they portrayed themselves was great. And so we really love just that the tenets of Travis Matthew. And so I appreciate that you think we have a cool brand. But um truth be told, man, when we built this thing, we built it for ourselves. 23:10.36 Drew Koehler Like we looked at ourselves and we said, well, what ah what do we want in a brand? 23:10.51 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 23:14.04 Drew Koehler Like if we're building it, let's not go build it for other people. Let's build it for what we'd like to see. And I touched on Apple earlier a little bit, but building it for ourselves, GoPro, if you think about GoPro, I don't think about a camera. I think about the experience or you're doing some crazy, you're doing a backflip on a snowboard. Or you're going through some crazy wave. You're doing something active and it's all around, wow, you're extreme. 23:44.38 Drew Koehler Or what's another good example? Red Bull. Red Bull is a beverage company. 23:48.97 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 23:49.46 Drew Koehler I don't think most people associate Red Bull with the beverage company anymore. It's F1 or again, it's something like that. And so as we were building this brand, we're like, let's not be like every other brand. Let's use bold texts and fonts. Let's have this, palm fronds were huge in the beginning. Let's have this Southern California vibe. Designed and developed in Southern California was huge for us. 24:13.66 Drew Koehler And so long-winded way of saying inspired by a lot of brands, Travis Matthew being one of them. And selfishly, we wanted to build products that we liked and that we thought our friends would like. 24:26.42 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. Well, tying into another Apple or Steve Jobs-ism, remember him saying with the iPhone or a lot of their products, he's like, he said, the customer doesn't know what they want because it hasn't been invented yet. So he was one didn't want to be involved with customer focus groups or anything like that. It's like, okay, because they don't know what they want. 24:48.28 The ModGolf Podcast So how did you guys at the beginning determined, like you said, this was something you designed for yourself, solving your own pain points here. So as far as the features, because you had the opportunity to do anything and you didn't want to have what we call performance oversupply, like trying to cram in every single feature that every single range finder has, ah not needing that. 25:12.30 The ModGolf Podcast So how did you determine, let's say at the beginning, and how do you still maintain that philosophy and that mindset to provide the features that are most impactful and most valuable and most beneficial? 25:24.09 Drew Koehler Yeah, I would say that as our company has grown, so too has our technological capability. Right. So once upon a time, our goal was to create just a really high quality, simple point, click and shoot laser at an accessible, approachable price point. Right. But really differentiate less on the speeds and feeds because you can only do so much with the laser, but more so on the brand, more so on the marketing, more so on the design. Right. And making sure that. 25:55.64 Drew Koehler didn't have to make six figures a year to afford one of our lasers right like it was it was at that sweet spot where you could buy it right it wasn't like this aspirational crazy expensive purchase like you could buy it um in the beginning was all around like just simplistic products As we got more into the space and, you as an entrepreneur yourself, you think about, well, shoot what's next. 26:21.27 Drew Koehler And for us, golf is an unbelievably competitive category, in my opinion. I think there are just a plethora of incredible companies, both in the club space, the apparel space and the technology space. Like our competitors are very good at what they do. And so as we took a step back, we realized we're not going to create a sustainable business if we're only selling laser rangefinders. We were a product in the beginning, and then we had to take a product and turn that into a business. 26:53.88 Drew Koehler And so again, we went on this path of, and things have changed over time because what got you here might not necessarily get you to the future. 27:03.54 Drew Koehler Again, we've made products that we wanted. So we went from laser range finders to speaker and from a speaker, we thought we'll shoot. 27:15.38 Drew Koehler There's GPS speakers out there, but these GPS speakers They're audible and they're telling you what the distance is. And I think that's a really awesome idea. And it was a massive success when they came out. But again, selfishly for me, i didn't want to buy that GPS speaker because i didn't know I don't think my friends would want to hear front center back in a robotic voice while we're on the golf course. And if we have a speaker, we're out there having a good time, we're vibing, we're listening to some good music. right And so like, well, shoot, why not? 27:49.02 Drew Koehler take a speaker and we love the convenience of a GPS and a speaker, but nobody wants to hear the other person's distance. So why don't we just put a screen on the speaker? We could do some really cool stuff with the screen, right? 28:03.54 Drew Koehler And then again, Brandon coming in and just like his non-negotiable was like, guys, it's gotta be a touchscreen. And we're what are you talking about? 28:09.09 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 28:10.58 Drew Koehler Like that's gonna add to the land of, he goes, trust me, customer experience, trust me. And so we came out with the Player Plus GPS speaker and All glass touchscreen, full colour, did all these things. And that quickly became one of the best-selling golf technology products. But that was born out of what we felt was a need in the space, right? And something, again, like nobody was told us to do it, but we felt, again, there is a gap in the market for a product. And we great gained inspiration from others, but we came out with the Player Plus. 28:44.25 Drew Koehler And that, from a feature standpoint, you ask, well, what do I pack in there? How do we decide it? We wanted to include the features that we thought would be helpful to a golfer. What are your distance to hazards? What is your front center back distance? 28:58.90 Drew Koehler What's your score? right What music are you playing? At the end of the day, you are playing music. You're going to want to see your album artwork on there. 29:09.85 Drew Koehler And then stuff that you might necessarily and not need, but everybody's really interested in is what's your driving distance? right So that was one of those additives that we felt was awesome. 29:15.52 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 29:19.13 Drew Koehler And that really is kind of I think been a launching point for us as it relates to all of our new products and what we believe is going to be our unique selling proposition moving forward. But that was kind of the Genesis of how did we choose the products? 29:35.29 Drew Koehler How do we decide what features? And it's really been a launching platform ever since. 29:40.82 The ModGolf Podcast Now with that at the PGA show, talking about launching new products, you have ah the Rainmaker launch monitor. 29:43.19 Drew Koehler Yeah. 29:48.96 The ModGolf Podcast So I haven't had a chance to give that to kick the tires of that quite yet, but I did have it in my hands there at your booth at the PGA show. 29:54.77 Drew Koehler Yeah. 29:55.80 The ModGolf Podcast So why don't you talk about the rain the Rainmaker launch monitor and also overarching products. 30:00.54 Drew Koehler yeah 30:02.84 The ModGolf Podcast I know that all of your, most of your products now speak to each other. They are interconnected and that's something as a philosophy to make them integrated and holistic. So can you talk about those two things, but please start with ah with with your launch monitor with Rainmaker. 30:19.10 Drew Koehler Yeah. And so again, as the evolution of the company, right, you've got to innovate to survive. And our whole thought process in this process was, well, on course, we believe that our product portfolio is solid, but there's only so many gadgets and gizmos, right, that somebody can have on course. So how can we Blue Tees. 30:42.68 Drew Koehler Is there a way where we can be this, sit at this intersection of both on and off course technology? So that was a thought process. 30:49.07 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 30:51.83 Drew Koehler And so as we think about well intersecting together, off course for us from a technology point of view was naturally diving into the launch space. And there are some incredible companies out there that are doing launch, right? But they're really solid standalone launch products. And we think there are a lot of really good companies that are doing on-course technology, but they're standalone on-course technology products. 31:16.18 Drew Koehler If we look at other companies in the world, what they've done from a hardware and software point of view is they've integrated hardware and software together such that if you have an iPhone, again, going back to Steve Jobs, which is a constant theme is if you have an iPhone, you now probably have AirPods as your headphones. Because they just work together natively. 31:34.94 Drew Koehler and there's an above 50 chance right that you probably have an iPad or a MacBook Pro as your computer or tablet why well the products are great they just work but they also work together in unison so how can we take that and parlay it to the golf course and that was where the idea for rainmaker came in So Rainmaker, we're really excited. It'll be launching around Father's Day this year. 31:58.90 Drew Koehler For those of you listening, it is our foray into the personal launch space. So it's a $599 Doppler-based radar launch monitor. And similar to the Player Plus, we put a screen on it. 32:15.21 Drew Koehler As simple as that is. Look, I'm a technology user. I have a ton of apps on my phone. I'm on my phone my wife would say too much, but when I'm at the golf course, I like to put it away. 32:27.58 Drew Koehler And so one of the opportunities and gaps we saw in the market in the personal launch space was all of the best selling and really high quality launch monitors out there in the personal launch space. None of them had a high quality screen on them, right? You would have to, when you're at the golf course, take your phone and you'd have to download the app and you'd have to connect it either Bluetooth or a wifi connection, depending on who is. And it's, it's a bit clunky. 32:54.33 Drew Koehler And then when it works, now I have my phone outside. And again, we're down here in Southern California. 32:57.32 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 32:58.81 Drew Koehler So in the summertime, it's 85, 90 degrees. And the last thing that I want to do is put my phone down on the ground to just get you know shot by the sun and then have the warning on here where it's like, hey, I'm shutting this thing down because it's so hot. 33:12.09 Drew Koehler So our idea was let's build a screen in there so that the golfer can take the launch monitor with them from their car. or even in their golf bag, it's small enough to fit in your golf bag, be able to open it up, set it down five feet behind them at the golf course, and just start hitting golf balls and getting their data. So we wanted to make it easy and convenient. 33:33.85 Drew Koehler Now, again, we talked about really good standalone hardware companies, both on and off course for us, the evolution and looking at what some of these larger, you know, multi-billion dollar market cap companies have done was let's connect this all together. 33:46.78 Drew Koehler And so while Rainmaker works by itself, has a memory on there that holds up to 1,000 shots, it also works with a companion app. 33:56.21 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 33:56.44 Drew Koehler So when you download that companion app and when you upload all of your data into that companion app, now all of that data can be transferred into your laser range finders, which are Bluetooth connected, can be sent to your speaker, right? Which is obviously Bluetooth connected. And what's important about that is if you're somebody who is practicing and trying to get better, like we talked before we started recording, right? Like this relationship with golf of trying to bring down your index, right? 34:22.17 Drew Koehler As you're practicing and you get better, more often than not, your shot shape changes or you take the left side out of the out of your shot right and you're just playing a fade. It's a one-way miss now. 34:34.55 Drew Koehler Or if you're getting more consistent in your flushing golf balls, you inevitably gain distance. right and so A lot of companies offer the My Bag feature. in any app what's your seven iron distance well that's great but people set it forget it and don't really do anything no matter where their game is trending up or down it's just the fact of the matter right nobody's thinking about constantly updating my bag so we love about the rain makers now you have a launch monitor they can connect with the laser rangefinder and one of the viewfinders that you have in your captain pro or captain air laser rangefinders a club recommendation 34:56.69 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 35:08.89 Drew Koehler And that recommendation dynamically updates based on how your game is trending. And so what we're doing is we're trying to create this connected ecosystem where hardware and software work collectively together to give you the golf, you, the golf or the information. 35:24.28 Drew Koehler Necessary to perform better, but also not overthink it, right? You don't need 17 devices out there. You don't need to be making these calculations. It's already. hard enough half the time to say, am I going to step on an 9 iron or am I going to hit a 70% eight. What kind of shot am I hitting here? And so let's take a lot of that thought out of it, give you that recommendation that is dynamic, that is accurate to you, hyper personalized and just go out there and enjoy the game of golf. 35:51.36 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, well, I really like the design principles you've embraced there because myself also, as a guy that does not shy away from technology, but on the golf course, when I've had, i'm not going to name names of other companies because their products are good, but you know if I got my phone out all the time and whether it's after the hole and I have to input some data data or I'm just looking 36:04.86 Drew Koehler Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah. 36:15.09 The ModGolf Podcast ah for a distance to get a club recommendation, it doesn't have that frictionless experience. It kind of takes me away from the group. And if it's people that I haven't played before, they got think I'm one of those guys that's on his phone all the time, right? 36:27.19 Drew Koehler yeah 36:27.38 The ModGolf Podcast And so it's kind of a bad look also, but also it takes me away from the experience of connecting with the three other people I'm playing with and also the golf environment and the experience. 36:38.92 The ModGolf Podcast So making it as frictionless as possible, what you're doing combined with the, with the, that nice Goldilocks price point that you're finding, just like you did at the first back in the day with the range finders. 36:43.86 Drew Koehler Yeah. 36:50.05 The ModGolf Podcast I love because of them, I'm not looking to buy a TrackMan or a Foresight between that $5,000 and $20,000 range. And I played around with some apps on my phone for launch monitors. And you know you pay $25 and get guess what? You get the value of a $25 launch monitor. It's garbage. So I guess on that point, both experientially and also price point wise, I think I'm your target customer for this. 37:19.61 Drew Koehler It sure does sound like it, which is awesome. know But I agree with everything you're saying, right? And so for us, you know frictionless experience, I think means different things to different people, right? 37:29.94 Drew Koehler For me as golfer, I like to keep my phone in the golf cart. 37:29.99 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 37:33.88 Drew Koehler And when that actually spurred a design change on our most recent speaker. Before, it was only one way. So data was sent from your phone to the speaker, and you would see GPS on there. 37:43.92 Drew Koehler And then One of the things we realized is, well, man, on the speaker, you can change the songs, but you can't actually keep your score on it. So player pro, the next iteration of that speaker, which actually starts shipping here in March, it's on presale right now, you're able to keep score on device, right? 38:00.27 Drew Koehler So again, if you are the person who wants to keep the phone in the golf bag, you can. But then also, right, frictionless experience for some people means, hey, I just want to use the phone. 38:10.50 Drew Koehler Right. And so what we've done is we've designed and developed, in our opinion, a world class app to where like we talk about frictionless experience. 38:11.26 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 38:19.48 Drew Koehler How difficult. Is it to when you see like the green heat maps, I never know what they mean because there's never it's just like ah all sorts of lines and colours and there's really no key and it doesn't tell you what to do. 38:30.29 Drew Koehler And some red is good and some red is bad. It makes no sense. so like frictionless experience, our head of software development designed this unbelievably intuitive green heat map complex. So now on our app, here's a different way of looking at it that you can rotate and see and position for yourself right to us that's taking friction out of what once was a cumbersome thing to understand and read and so different strokes for different folks but yeah I'm a phone in in bag kind of person on the on the course. 39:02.36 The ModGolf Podcast There you go. Well, hey, you know what I can keep going on for like another hour here to keep asking you questions and dig deep. 39:07.45 Drew Koehler Yeah. 39:08.78 The ModGolf Podcast But I did not mention this at the top of the show, but all of our listeners here, I want to let you know that Drew and I are going to jump on a video call for a conversation for the YouTube podcast. 39:16.76 Drew Koehler Amazing. Yeah. 39:19.07 The ModGolf Podcast I'm sorry, for the ModGolf YouTube channel. So in that case, there will be able to show some visuals also of the fine products that Drew has been talking about here. i do have a bunch of other questions here that kind of dive into entrepreneurship and all those good things. But to finish up, I want you to pull out your crystal ball here because I'm sure you guys are already now thinking one year, two years, five years ahead. 39:41.51 The ModGolf Podcast So I'm curious to hear what what the what is the next frontier? That Blue Tees is looking to conquer and perhaps tie that in and how you're using ai for good for something that's really valuable rather than just AI for AI's sake. 39:57.46 Drew Koehler Yeah, world domination. No, I'm just kidding. um Yeah, I think really one of the core tenets of this game is we have this tagline of play different, right? 40:07.99 Drew Koehler I think there are a lot of companies who claim to be the company of the PGA Tour or 99% of the pros or it's like 95% of the pros use us now, whatever. 40:08.11 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 40:19.79 Drew Koehler But for us, our crystal ball in the future is we're the golf brand for the modern golfer. We're the golf brand for those people who want a brand that resonates with them. Doesn't matter your age, your demographic, your skill level, right? We're an approachable price point. We make incredibly high quality products. we need products that just work, right? And so the future for us, you talk about ai golf is really complex. How do we simplify it right? What does that make sense? And so we've launched our first version of our AI caddy called Scout AI in our Blue Tees game app. It's incredible. 41:02.55 Drew Koehler And I was a bit skeptical, candidly at first around Scout AI. was like, why the heck would I ever use this? 41:10.52 Drew Koehler And it's fascinating. It's an unbelievable experience. And it's an unbelievable experience because it, It's not telling you how to hit your golf ball. But what it's doing is it's navigating you around the course and it's making recommendations. Hey, based on your shot patterns, Drew, you should aim up the left side of the fairway here and that bunker is X yardage. So you should club up and hit this club. So even if you miss hit it, you're going to stay away from danger. 41:38.62 Drew Koehler That's incredible. That's what you get with the human caddy, right? So what we're trying to do is let's take that and let's democratize this technology such that you don't have to go play Pebble Beach with a caddy, right? 41:43.61 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 41:52.71 Drew Koehler In order to experience how to navigate the golf course like a professional does. We've got a lot of things in the till with that that'll just make it, I don't wanna say easier, cause golf will never be easy, but help you distill down a lot of information and hopefully make more sound decisions on the golf course, where to aim, why, what are the hazards, steer away from this. And then also with the green heat maps, pins back left today. 42:20.81 Drew Koehler It's a false front, right? You want to make sure you're a little bit longer on this one than short. Cause if you're short, it's going roll down or Hey, aiming on the right side because the green contours funnel down. And so that's kind of the idea of where we're going with it all. 42:34.34 The ModGolf Podcast Well, geez, if I start using Scout, I think my friends are going to be disappointed on the golf course because they get no end of amusement with my ridiculously poor course management decision making. So it sounds like that that could be a thing of the past. 42:50.46 Drew Koehler Yeah, I love that. Well, give it a go. Let me know what you think. 42:53.82 The ModGolf Podcast I certainly will. Well, hey, with that, Drew, this has been incredibly insightful. i thank you again for joining us today. It's been amazing to see how much this moment of frustration with you and your friends on Chorus has turned into this movement with Blue Tees to make golf tech more more accessible, cooler, and and way more fun. So with that, Drew Kohler, thanks for joining us today on the ModGolf podcast. 43:16.69 Drew Koehler Appreciate you. 43:17.71 The ModGolf Podcast All right. And as I said, hey, join us over on the ModGolf YouTube channel. We're jumping over there. We're going to take the conversation to the next level. All right. We'll see you there.