00:01.82 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'm your host, Colin Weston, and today I'm excited for a golf entrepreneur, a sports entrepreneur that I had the pleasure of meeting at the PGA show when I was in Orlando. I just love these collisions, this serendipity when you just randomly meet people, although this particular gentleman, this shows his entrepreneurial hustle, he saw me out in the hallway doing a live show there for ModGolf, and hey he stopped by and he gave me his card. He goes, "you got to come see what we're doing with GRIT. Please come by." 00:49.62 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And I did. One thing leads to another. And here we are today to have him share the GRIT Inc. story and their golf bags, the Tower 2.0, the backstory that goes with that. And that gentleman is Greg Collins, the founder of GRIT Inc. Greg, welcome to ModGolf. How you doing? 01:10.05 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. I'm good. Good afternoon. 01:12.82 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Good afternoon, indeed. So you're joining us just northwest of Toronto, close to where I grew up, around Orangeville, Ontario, I believe, and a town around there. Is that right? 01:23.84 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yes, specifically Loretto, Ontario. 01:27.92 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Loretto, Ontario, the home of GRIT. There it is. 01:32.41 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. that's it. Yep. 01:34.42 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Okay. So, hey, let's get started here. Your entrepreneurial story, I've watched a couple of your videos that you've posted on the GRIT YouTube channel, and we've had many conversations already, Greg, and I just love this story. That's why I had to have you on the ModGolf podcast, because you really encapsulate, you embody the stories we love to tell here, this entrepreneurial journey. And your journey does not start with golf at all. In fact, that's just where you've arrived the last couple of years. 02:02.90 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And it really starts around your love and passion for hockey and design. So, Before we get into the formation of grit, why don't you talk about the way you grew up and your love for hockey? It's a bit interesting. I understand that you didn't grow up in a hockey culture at all. Your parents were both artists, were they not? Tell us a little bit about that, your love for hockey and how that led to some of the work that you did and then industrial design and then and then what you did in college. 02:30.74 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yeah, like every kid growing up in Toronto, you want to be an NHL player. How could you not, right? So I used to go to bed at night with the transistor radio under my pillow and i'd be listening to the Leafs game. 02:36.41 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right, right, right. 02:41.78 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And I could just imagine how exciting that would be to play in the big leagues. So like, yeah, that was every kid's dream, you know? So I lived on a cul-de-sac and there was a bunch of kids and we would play street hockey every Saturday and Sunday, eight hours a day. And then when it got cold, we were on the public school hockey rink and we would play until our toes were so cold and we were in tears. We'd come back home, have a hot chocolate and then tiptoe in our skates back to the Mallor Road public school rink and play all, you know, after school and the weekends. And it was a great, wonderful place to grow up for sure. 02:47.07 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So that's where my love for sport happened. 02:48.46 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast I can relate to that. Right. 02:49.99 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And, as I said, You know, my parents were artists, so they didn't get this. They didn't get this kid that really wanted to be involved in sports. 02:55.26 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So that even wanted made me want to play the game even more because of that. 03:05.66 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast So I find this beautiful marriage between your love for hockey and your parents' creative influence, I believe, led you to then attend the Ontario College of Art and Design, OCAD, in Toronto. So I believe you studied industrial design there. So then tell us about that and then your first job that I believe you actually had with ah the biggest sporting goods manufacturer in Canada. So tell us about those early days. 03:18.81 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yeah, my parents in grade 13, they said, why don't you consider art college? So I thought, i never considered that. 03:24.25 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 03:25.36 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. I was thinking what am I going to do with my life? But I'd seen my father and my mother, toiling away. And I saw that pain that comes with creating art. It can be painful to watch because they got so much joy from it, but they also suffered because of it. 03:37.69 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 03:41.62 Greg Collins So i I thought maybe I didn't want that in my life. Anyways, ended up going to the Ontario College of Art. and took industrial design, which was, it really set me up for the future because I was allowed to, you know, create, you know, like, was you're pretty much self-driven there. So I learned about materials and I learned graphic design i learned colour, all those kinds of things that you put together, that you put together in your palette that help you create things. 03:46.50 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So yeah, I remember i got into Cooper because I designed my thesis project was I was designing some running shoes. And I did these concepts for running shoes and also played hockey. 03:50.70 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Okay. 03:53.53 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And so my interview went like, here's some of my designs for footwear. And I love playing hockey. I've played hockey my whole life. And, you know, I got this, like every kid's dream who loves art, a job at Cooper Canada. 03:59.38 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So for me, it was like a kid being a kid in a candy store. you know Under one roof, there was 1,500 employees, and we had every kind of process you could imagine for making sports gear. There were molding presses. There was knitting machines. There was a tannery. We made foam. 04:07.45 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. We had a skate line. We made helmets, gloves. I mean, it was incredible. and But yeah ironically, one of my first projects that I was given was to create a golf bag. 04:09.69 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And I wasn't a golfer. I was a non-golfer. 04:11.77 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Okay. 064:12.41 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. But I looked at ah let the line of golf bags that they were making, and I thought, man, these like they're using these really old materials, and things are really heavy. and So I started making some – I did some concept Cordura, and I got rid of all the plastic all the metal hardware and started using you know plastic clips and things like that. 04:37.50 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And so that really got the company's attention, its the sales – Did really well. 06:38.94 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 04:43.58 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And later on at Cooper, I also was given the freedom to design something of my own, my own concept for a golf bag, which was a plastic golf bag with the integrated cart. 04:57.69 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And, 45 years later, i'm walking around the PGA show and I see something that's really, really close to what I created a long time ago. So that was that was pretty interesting. So that was kind of my first introduction to golf. And of course, when you're designing you're designing a golf product, you start playing. 05:17.34 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So I started playing here and there. 05:20.44 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 05:21.11 Greg Collins But that was kind of the end of my golf career. After i I left Cooper, I started freelance, freelance designing. So i worked for all the hockey companies. I worked for Bowers, CCM, Micron, Lang, all of the companies that I looked up to as a kid, I was this i was creating things for them. And then I got and then i worked for Rollerblade, working on a new the new Rollerblade products for roller hockey and things like that. So it was like, man, I was living the dream. It was really, really cool. 05:54.55 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So I was a freelance designer for about 20 years. And it was a great ride. I loved it. But I kind of got tired of seeing my designs get watered down. 06:01.28 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And you know the things that I created didn't necessarily end up being the way I envisioned. 06:08.82 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 06:15.69 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. I thought that i you know to really hone in on my craft, I got to have some control over what I do. That's when I thought I got to start my own sporting goods company. 06:28.56 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. That's when I started GRIT. That was in 2000. 06:42.01 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast There we go. There we go. So you told me this story a little bit. You teased it a little bit. I'd love to hear more. So yes, you decided to go on your own, then start to create your own products. And I know you talked about this, that you wanted to create a design-driven company as compared to a sales-driven one, because you were also frustrated by that piece of it. And yeah, design definitely with what I've seen with GRIT and the 2.0, 07:11.82 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast bag that that you got the tower bag that I've had the pleasure of seeing at the PGA show. and We did shoot a, ah a short video for YouTube and Instagram there that, that was very popular that your daughter Madeline did a fantastic demo on. 07:24.44 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast So, ah so yeah, I'll include the link for that one in the show notes for the show here. 07:30.76 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast But I understand that you had some ideas, obviously your design background of 25, 30 plus years already, but I believe the real kickoff, the inflection point was someone that lived only 10 minutes away from you, that that a meeting that began at a pizza parlour in Bolton, Ontario, a small town, kicked things off. So so tell us about that. 07:49.37 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yeah, that that was one of those bizarre things that happens. You can walk into a situation in life and you go, what am I doing here? Why am I here? I'm a professional, and here I'm meeting this guy in the middle of nowhere looking at something that – it just seems strange. Anyways, this inventor, his name is Aldo Buccione, who I'm still good friends with, and he still plays hockey with me. 08:15.54 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. But he phoned me up. He goes, I got this great idea for a hockey bag. I said, okay, you know what? I ended up i went to his pizza parlour and met the guy, and I first met him. My first impressions were this this guy is like he's off, like he's he's out there because he was overly enthusiastic about his idea, and it's like and sometimes you've got to be careful with people like that because their enthusiasm can sort of blind you, so to speak. But anyways, he had this he had a patent for ah for a hockey bag. 08:20.58 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And his idea was that that the bag stood up and had shelves and doors on the front. Now, his execution was pretty crude. So at first I said, well, you know like you got an idea there, but you still I'm not really sure I'm interested. 08:27.88 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 08:28.82 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And he goes, no, no, wait. I'll pay you. I said, OK. So I agreed to bill him so much per hour and started working on the project. And then I fell in love with it And to make a long story short, we went through all kinds of you know stops and starts, but I i ended up giving me a royalty, and then I had to sell the idea. 08:34.24 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So I went out, sold the idea to a Quebec retailer, and he and he bought two containers from me based on just a just a concept. 08:38.30 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And that was unheard of at the time. Nobody puts that kind of investment into a a new product like that. Anyways, so he bought two containers from me, and i went back and created the product, got it sourced and costed, and I became a reluctant manufacturer. 08:41.85 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And so here I am. 08:42.10 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 08:42.69 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. All I can say is that idea has survived because it was a really good idea. has survived many, many years. It's been like 15 years now. And it's put bread on the table, that's for sure. But what it did was it gave me capital to dream. 08:51.40 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And, if you give an entrepreneur working capital and support, it's amazing what he can do. So that idea of the stand-up bag and the doors, the shelving and all that has translated into multiple products. 08:54.78 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So right now we have quite a product line. We have a product line that that basically you know covers everybody in your family. you know Your dad's a goalie. 08:59.85 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Your mom's a figure skater. Your son plays hockey. Your other son, he plays baseball. We have a bag for all those people. and so and they And all of the bags that we've created, they all use that same idea. 09:05.24 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Going back to all those prototypes, The bag stands up, has shelves, has an open door to store your gear. And now we've taken that idea and translated that into golf. 09:07.28 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And that's another story. 09:08.46 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast which we will get into shortly. We're slowly building up that because I just love that you cut your teeth on hockey and everything that you learned and refined with your golf tower bags, which I understand are sold in now over 15, maybe even close to 20 countries now. So globally and have got great exposure there. So you've refined the kind of the technique and the execution and the fabrication and design with your golf tower bags. 09:14.69 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And then you took all those learnings into golf with your golf tower bag, which you've just released your tower 2.0, which I saw at the PGA show this year. So talk a bit about the design inspiration and what differentiates yourself with the grit 2.0. I know we're on the podcast here. So we were using our words on the ModGolf YouTube channel, which you and I are going to jump onto a video call today. 09:20.58 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast shortly after we finish here. I do encourage our listeners to become viewers because then you'll see the bags over there. I'll include some images in the show notes. but And we're also going to have some fun. You're going to show that very first prototype from back in the day. You're going to demo that too, that'll be some fun. so So yeah, why don't you tell us, Greg, what your design inspiration is, what you've learned from hockey, what you've learned from elsewhere within other industries, whether it's luggage or whatever that is. 09:24.10 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast that has then informed you and what the differentiators are with what you offer with your GRIT 2.0 tower bag. 09:25.08 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Well, okay, so the golf entry is an interesting story. There's nothing like the fear of God to motivate you to do something. 09:27.90 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 09:27.99 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And in this case, it was COVID. COVID comes by, and guess what? We're not selling any hockey bags at all. 09:31.67 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 09:32.47 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And we're wondering what the heck we're going to do here because this is our business. And so you know what? We had this young designer, Stephen Roncaden, great golfer, I said, Stephen, you know, like, what are we going to do here? and he goes, well, what how about a golf bag? I'm like, okay, you got any ideas? He goes, we got half the thing designed because look at what we're doing already. 09:44.09 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Yep. Yes. 09:44.52 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So we sat down and Stephen thought that, you know what, we should look at doing a cart bag. So a specifically a bag specifically designed for a power cart. 08:53.48 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast yes 09:04.18 Greg Collins And you know no one's really looked at that before. And so we thought, okay, that's something we could handle. Let's look at that. So we looked at the architecture of a golf cart, right? You look at it, there's a rectangular box, basically, where two round-shaped vessels sit inside. 09:13.64 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Well, golf bags are always rotating and twisted and everything. We thought, let's make them square so they fit in that rectangular box. 09:22.89 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 09:22.98 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So we made two squares and built up from there. And that's where the square shape kind came from. But also having you know the square shape allowed us to have front face storage. 09:34.66 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So rather than having storage that wraps around the bag, it's front face storage. So right there, that really defined our direction. 09:39.35 Greg Collins And from there, it was just fine tuning. There was all kinds of things were interested in in was you know the use of magnets on closures and things like that, magnets. and then So we developed the first generation bag, which obviously the 1.0, and had some really interesting ideas. 09:58.39 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. It was really out there. Like the head was different. It has a 15-way divider. It was cross. It had a cross shape. It's out there. A lot of traditional golfers looked at us like, whoa, what are you doing there? 10:11.32 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 10:22.03 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And like, so we got that out there and you know what? 10:26.80 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. We took it to a big company and they got excited about it and they were going to buy. We went so far and then hate to say, but the buyer who gave us the nod, he ended up, something happened and he was no longer employed by the company. 10:37.46 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So we got stuck with two containers of 1.0 golf bags, which was a real tough blow. 10:44.73 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 10:46.65 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So we just sucked it up and, you know, we sold them, right? 10:47.83 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Oh yeah. 10:50.15 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And they're a great bag. it was a great bag. But, stories like things like that happen, right? Just the way of the Lord, as my friend Aldo would say, that's the way of the Lord. 11:00.38 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 11:00.41 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Things happen along the way. And i can I have many, many stories previous to this that would make you cry about You know, what happens out there in the real world? And I don't think, you know, anything you've ever studied would ever prepare you for those types of things that happen along the way. 11:17.97 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 11:18.40 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Anyways, we developed the 1.0. It was a great bag, had some really far out ideas, and we got a lot of ah great feedback on it. And the feedback we got helped us set us up for the 2.0. 11:32.76 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And, you know, some of the things like we knew we had to have a 14-way divider. Had to. And the 14-weighted divider had to go all the way to the bottom. We had to have a putter well. 11:34.79 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. We had to have materials that were more sympathetic to a really high-end golfer. We really tweaked it. and And we also had to make sure that the shape allowed the bag to fit in all carts, pull, power carts. 11:39.30 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast yes 11:40.95 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And how many pull carts there are out there? So one of the things I did was I went down to the PGA show before it opened, and I went and put our bag in every single power cart and pull cart that was on the floor before people were showing it up just to make sure it fit on every one because there's so many out there, right? 11:50.74 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. Mm-hmm. 12:05.38 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So – The second generation bag, it was round we made it more round the back. So it fit in the configurations for all of the, mostly up the pull carts. 12:11.94 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. The power carts were really good, but the pull carts, there were some issues there. Now we're we've got it dialed in. It fits in all of the pull carts, power carts, and it looks good. It has a lot of the first generation in it, but I look at and I go, man, I love this. And some of our new our new like our new line, it's got like an automotive theme, right? We've got racing stripes on the front, which just tugs at my heartstrings. 12:19.45 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. And a lot of car guys, they golf. They love their cars. So we put the racing stripe on the front. And some of the cars are called like Camaro, car-inspired things, which just I thought was a great strategy. 12:31.37 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 12:44.00 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. cars, golf, hockey. Like, this is really happening. So that's where we are right now with it. 12:51.33 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Love it. Love it. So one thing I love as far as your design perspective, you look at from really from the outside in as far as the design criteria. And you started, like you said, with the power cart and the shape being rectangular. And I've had the same thing where you strap on your bag to the back of a cart. And then by the second hole, it's already rotated like 45 degrees and you can't get at the stuff and you can't get at your clubs. 13:06.91 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And the fact that you looked at that and said, well, why don't we actually use what is given to us here as one of our design parameters? And also with the bag, I'm i'm just going to guess the efficiency here, but the kind of the volume area that you have being rectangular as compared to round, it's probably what, 15, 20% larger or more spacious than a traditional golf bag? 13:16.71 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Is that is that fair to say? 13:19.76 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Well, yeah, I think it's – you're not squishing things like a normal bag. 13:22.26 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. Yeah. 13:25.34 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. You ask any six-year-old kid to design a golf bag, it's going to look exactly like what's on the market. 13:30.15 The ModGolf Podcast Right. Yeah. 13:32.06 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. A six-year-old kid is not going to design what we've created. like It's just not. So they're all looking the same. Golf bags all look the same basically. You look at them go, oh, my God, they're all the same. So we just – we had an advantage over every other company because we – Our hands weren't tied. right We could be creative. We had nothing to lose. 13:44.47 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So that's why we did what we did. 13:47.26 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Sounds like your secret sauce. Well, lots of ingredients to that secret sauce, but your design and industrial and product design background combined with all the work you've done with the Grit Tower hockey bag has all come together and informed you to what you've created with the Grit Tower hockey golf bag. So I wanted to ask you, you said something interesting that you were sympathetic to the materials that golfers liked. So can you expand on that comment a little bit? like what I know you use some traditional materials, but also ones that are more high performance ah and also more modern, let's say. So where do you derive inspiration for colours and materials? Besides what you talked about, that great comment you talked about, racing stripes and car inspired. So yeah, what gets ah what could you hot and bothered and excited? Not only what you're doing now, but maybe even what you're thinking for the Grit 3.0 down the road. 14:04.09 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Oh, I got to say something. If I can just put a little plug in here, it's not the 3.0 that's going to happen. 14:09.94 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Go for it. 14:12.69 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. It's going to be the GRIT carry bag. 14:16.22 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast All right. Go on. 14:18.23 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. It's on paper and it's being prototyped. And it's like some people see it and they go, oh my God, like it's got some wow factor to it. So just hang on to your seat because there's going to be some cool stuff hang coming out soon. So maybe when you're in Brampton next summer, we'll give you a sneak preview. 14:39.90 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast All right. Well, I'll be back i'll be back there and most likely in June now for part of the media crew at the RBC Canadian Open. So if that happens, and I think it will, we'll definitely hang out and spend some time. And I'd love to see where you're up to then. So yeah, that sounds amazing. 14:56.15 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. But anyways, as you were saying about materials, I guess for the 2.0, It was actually the Germans looked at our bag and they said, we love your ideas, but hey, 15:07.96 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. On the 1.0, things weren't waterproof. The materials are more water-resistant. 15:11.33 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 15:14.90 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. You can't go scuba diving with it. It's not waterproof, but it's very water-resistant. 15:19.96 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Right. 24:21.65 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Things like the zippers and the materials. and I love materials. You have a shiny material. You have a matte material. 15:32.63 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. You put them two together, and you get a great look happening. And, so it's all about materials. 15:59.63 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. I'm all about technology and magnets. I just love things that work and are techie and look good, right? 16:24.44 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. I think if I like it and if it turns me on, other people are going to want to buy it. They're going to recognize the same feelings that I have. So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But I'm just really excited about golf. golf The golf world is, for me, a new canvas. And we want to really rock this golf course. 16:40.44 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Well, I'm loving your story. I'm loving the product. So I'll do the best that I can with ModGolf to support you as I can. We had talked about this. I'm going to put you on the spot here. I i think you had mentioned that you'd be willing to send me a Grit 2.0 tower bag that I can include in some ModGolf YouTube videos this summer. be happy to showcase one of your bags there. And maybe we'll even give one away as part of our ModGolf giveaway contest to one of our lucky, lucky listeners down the road too. 17:02.91 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. No, we'd be thrilled there. So with that in mind, you have to see the new colour combination. They're not on our website, but you saw at our trade show. 17:13.69 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. So if there's some colours that sort of turn your crank, let me know. We'd love to help out there. 17:20.18 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast I certainly would. 17:23.11 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Well, with ModGolf, of course, our main colour is pink with a little bit of yellow and then some black and white in there too. 17:30.18 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast But who knows? Maybe we can do something exciting there. Maybe we can do a ModGolf one. That would be fun. I know a custom one may have. 17:35.85 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Wow, that would be cool. 17:37.82 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. Who knows? Maybe we can come up with a ModGolf bag. I've got someone actually doing the ModGolf hats for me already. So we can, ah with our friends at 36 a Day Golf. So perhaps we can, we can collaborate. We'll talk about that over, ah maybe over a slice of pizza at a pizza parlour in Bolton or something, if he's still around. 17:55.54 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. He is not in that business world any longer. So that's another story. But. 18:01.02 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast There we go. Well, we can tell that story at another time. But, I have to say here, Greg, I absolutely love the entrepreneurial story, especially these ones where it doesn't start in golf. And then you've arrived at golf and you've pulled in all these other elements, this experience, these inspirations that add something new to golf. And that's part of innovation. 18:23.22 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast You've been a designer long enough. Innovation doesn't mean starting with a blank piece of paper and trying to come up with something that's never been done before. That just doesn't happen. 18:33.37 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast So you went to design school, my background is in architecture. That was my career for 20 years and studied architecture at a university. And one of my first year professors said to one of the students, and we were aghast that he said this. 18:47.48 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And he actually said, "just remember that the good ones borrow and the great ones steal". We're like, "isn't that plagiarism"? 18:53.64 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Ha ha ha. 18:54.06 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast And what he was getting at is the fact you need to be inspired by all these other elements. And that's true innovation. And you've looked at, Whether it's fashion, luggage, other sports, what works, other products that you've designed across the spectrum and pulled all that in to create something new and unique and innovative and valuable with the GRIT 2.0 Tower Golf Bag. And I absolutely love it. 19:22.94 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yeah, I think what you said is key, you know, because, you know, we're talking about materials and that I like to go into, for example, I would go into a camping store or an automotive store, look at military backpacks and things like that to see how they use materials in another, another way and bring them into what I'm working on. So that that's another very, very important thing to do. 19:50.42 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. You don't just look at the industry you're in. You look outside of the industry that you're in and you bring things in and people go, oh, I've never seen that before. Well, that's because you've just, you've spent too much time, you know, you know seeing your and the back end the back of your dog's tail walking all this, you know, down the road. 20:09.30 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. You got to look out around. You got to get out there and go to other places that you wouldn't normally expect to go into. 20:16.57 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Absolutely. I, as a designer myself back in my architectural days, and even the work that I do at design work, I do in golf also that I embrace what you just said there wholeheartedly. 20:27.46 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Absolutely. So if I understand your sales model for the most part is a direct to consumer off of the grit Inc. website, But why don't let our listeners know if they want to find out more about GRIT, the golf bags, and everything else that you're offering. 20:42.22 The ModGolf Podcast And perhaps now they're very interested and it's like, hey, I want to buy one of these bags. How can they reach out to you? How can you make it as easy as possible for our listeners to get a GRIT golf bag in their hands and on their carts? 20:54.25 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Gritinc.net, like a hockey net. 20:58.39 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Love it. 20:59.41 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. G-R-I-T-I-N-C. Inc. Dot net. N E T. 22:05.05 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Good stuff. And as I always do in the show notes, I will include the link to gritinc.net, as Greg just mentioned there. 22:13.53 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast you're also active on social media. So I'll also include some links there for some people, including the... 22:18.65 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. PGA Superstore in the U S. 22:20.82 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast There we go. 22:22.68 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yes. Yep. Online. We're starting to sell a lot of them It's really exciting. Places like Latvia and Germany and France and Korea and China, they want to sell our products. 22:41.70 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Indonesia, like it was pretty exciting. That PGA show got us really excited about interest from all around the world. And as much as we like to see some Canadian buyers in there, it was other countries. So that was cool. 22:58.57 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast That's amazing. That's amazing. 22:59.97 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yeah. 24:00.01 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast Well, hey, why don't we stop it there? Because as I mentioned earlier, you and I are going to jump over for a video conversation where I can see behind you. 24:02.99 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. Yeah. 24:08.87 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast I'm excited. so You've got a full lineup of your bags there. So you're going give us a bit of a demo, run through your line. And also I've got more questions about entrepreneurship and perhaps some advice Some nuggets of wisdom, cautionary tales that you can provide ah all of our innovators and entrepreneurs out there, whether they're in the golf industry or not, they can learn from your almost over 40 years of experience now in the sport entrepreneurship. 24:39.37 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. 45 years. 24:41.05 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast There we go. 24:41.72 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. I'm turning, so I'm 69 years old today. So yeah, thank you. 24:46.44 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast What? Well, happy birthday. How's that possible? Must be all that hockey, that clean living, man. 24:53.14 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. It's true. 25:06.23 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast So why don't we leave it at that? So Greg Collins, the founder of GRIT Inc., not only in hockey, in baseball, in figure skating, and in golf, love what you're doing here. Happy to support you and give you the platform here to showcase all the good things you're doing. 25:21.98 Colin Weston - The ModGolf Podcast I just want to say thanks so much for joining us today on the ModGolf podcast. This has been an absolute pleasure. 25:26.68 Greg Collins - Founder/CEO of GRIT Inc. My pleasure as well. Thank you.