#126 - Precision Pro Golf (Clay Hood, CEO)

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In this episode, Paul talks with his good friend Clay Hood, the CEO and co-founder of Precision Pro Golf where they discuss how the company was formed, the difficulties of being a business owner, and all the cool new tech they have come out with within the past few years.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we play golf.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Let me show you how we do it in the pros.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Yeah . Welcome to Behind the Golf Brand podcast.
I never missed with the SevenIron , a conversation with some
of the most interestinginnovators and entrepreneurs
behind the biggest names ingolf. My

Speaker 4 (00:16):
Friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf
course, I lived on the drivingrange

Speaker 3 (00:19):
From Pro Talk . You should learn something from
each and every single round.
You play to fun from on and offthe green. Why would

Speaker 5 (00:26):
You play golf if you don't play it for money?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is Behind
the Golf Brand podcast withPaul Libert Tore .

Speaker 6 (00:34):
What's up guys?
Welcome to the Behind the GolfBrand podcast. This week I have
my good friend, clay Hood, theco-founder and CEO of Precision
Pro . Now, you guys probablyknow what Precision Pro is
because they've been around forthe last, I don't know , like,
what, probably six or sevenyears, and they've make some of
the best range finders outthere. Um, I've reviewed pretty

(00:54):
much all of them at this point, um, including their speakers.
And , um, I actually hadPrecision Pro like on the,
within the first 10 podcasts Iever did, and that was three
years ago. So it's really coolto have Clay here because it
wasn't Clay back then, it wassomebody else. And so it's
really cool to have like theactual co-founder and the whole
story and just kind of ,they've grown so much in the

(01:16):
last three years especially. Soit's really cool to have 'em on
the show. And so welcome.

Speaker 7 (01:20):
Cool. Thanks for having me. I appreciate looking
forward to

Speaker 6 (01:23):
It. So you guys are in Cincinnati, right?

Speaker 7 (01:25):
We are Cincinnati, right in the , uh, right in the
Midwest.

Speaker 6 (01:27):
Are you from Cincinnati? Did you

Speaker 7 (01:29):
Compare or what ?
I'm from Kentucky, which is ,uh, not far from Cincinnati,
right across the , uh, river.
So I grew up about four hoursaway from Cincinnati, but I've
kind of been all over the placesince I, you know, since I left
home if you , if you will. So ,um, yeah, Cincinnati was my
kind of latest landing spot andprobably be my, hopefully my
last landing spot.

Speaker 6 (01:46):
You're forever, you're forever landing spot
maybe until you retire.

Speaker 7 (01:50):
Until, until our, at least until our , uh, six year
old is there , is out of , uh,you know, is outta the house.
So still got a while .

Speaker 6 (01:58):
He's got 12 years.


Speaker 7 (02:00):
Still got now you still

Speaker 6 (02:01):
Got like 18 years probably. Like, I mean , let's
,

Speaker 7 (02:03):
Yeah, it'll probably, you know. Yeah, he
seems like a, he's the only, so, um, you know , he'll probably
be around a while .

Speaker 6 (02:08):
That's all right .
I'm an only too , and I leftlike, I, like left Arizona and
I went to Indiana, so it was ainteresting different place
right . Than, than thanArizona. They're like, why ? I
remember, I remember the firstwinter, I was like, why am I
here? I was like, why ? Why?
Like, it was like, you're likescooting, you know, trying to

(02:29):
walk to class. I'm like, I wasback home. It was like 70
degrees out. Like, this is, andno wonder.

Speaker 7 (02:33):
Yeah, it's , uh, we got our kind of ups and downs
on the , uh, Cincinnatiweather. So winters are kind of
, can be cold and nourish . Uh, summers can be a little warm,
so, but , um, no overall a spot.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
Really , really

Speaker 7 (02:43):
Good

Speaker 6 (02:44):
Spot's a great place . So are you a golf pro?

Speaker 7 (02:47):
I used to be a golf pro, so that was my before
Precision Pro life . Uh, yeah,right outta college. I got a
job as a kind of a club pro,assistant pro at a , you know,
at a, a club. And , uh, yeah .

Speaker 6 (02:59):
Where was that at?

Speaker 7 (03:00):
Uh , my first job was in Lexington, Kentucky, a
place called the , um,university club , uh, of
Kentucky. And then , uh, movedto another pl another course in
, uh, another club inLexington, you know, a couple
years after that. So , um,yeah, that was my, that was my
previous life.

Speaker 6 (03:16):
So when, like, how'd you get into golf? Was like
your dad or your grandpa oryour mom or who, how

Speaker 7 (03:22):
Yeah, it was interesting, my, my story a
little bit different. Mostpeople kind of pick golf up
from their, you know, parentsor grandparents or, you know,
some, some kind of thing likethat. Actually, my dad wanted
to learn how to play golf whenI was about nine or 10. So we
actually learned together. Sohe, we went for the first time
he took me to like this parthree course and we played for
the first time together. Uh, Ithink my little brother went

(03:44):
too and he didn't kind ofreally stick with it, but I
really enjoyed it. I liked it alot and just kind of stuck with
it. And, you know, my dadplayed it casually for , um,
you know, a while, but, youknow, wasn't, wasn't great. But
, um, yeah, I, for some reasonI really liked it and , uh,
just kind of ran with it. I'm ,uh, I like doing things not on
my own, but I, I like a goodbit of alone time. So I kind of
found solace in being able tolike, go to the golf course and

(04:06):
hit balls for, you know, eight,nine hours when I was 15 years
old and , and not have to talkwith anyone. So Were

Speaker 6 (04:12):
You like just naturally good? I mean, like, I
could use that or , or you werejust like, oh, I love this game
'cause I couldn't just do myown thing. Uh,

Speaker 7 (04:19):
I wa I wasn't bad. I mean, I was, I played for a
small college for a coupleyears. I wasn't, you know,
wasn't amazing. I played inhigh school and played in
junior tournaments and, youknow, I could, you know,
playing around where I shot ina par you know, was obviously
was not gonna, you know, go toa major college or play
professionally for a living.
But , um, you know, I wasn'tbad. And , um, yeah, but I also

(04:40):
liked it 'cause it was kind ofsomething you could do on your
own. You didn't have to, youknow, you didn't really have a
team outside, you know, kind ofthe , the high school aspect.
You could do your own thing,you could work as much as you
wanted or as little as youwanted. And , um, yeah, I just
really enjoyed it. So did it alot from the time that I was
about, geez , 12, 13 up upuntil, yeah, I guess up until
out of college. So that was,that was what I did all the

(05:01):
time.

Speaker 6 (05:02):
So when you're at , like, what did , where'd you go
to college at? I

Speaker 7 (05:04):
Went to a small school. It was in Kentucky
called St . Catherine's. It wasa two year college and I played
golf there for a bit. And then, um, yeah, after that I
actually ended up going toschool. It'd be a golf pro at a
, uh, place called the GolfAcademy of America of for Relax
. Actually , a lot of peoplewent , uh oh , I've heard that
. They've done that and , um,yeah, they had Where's that at
?

Speaker 6 (05:23):
That's ,

Speaker 7 (05:24):
What's that ,

Speaker 6 (05:24):
Where's that at ?
It's in

Speaker 7 (05:25):
Florida. They had one, excuse me, they had one in
, um, Arizona as well. They hada couple, they had like four.
So yeah, I did that after mykind of play golf in college
experience. And , uh, yeah,it's like a two year thing kind
of learn , you know , thebusiness. They're

Speaker 6 (05:40):
Not around . Are they still around or not
really?

Speaker 7 (05:42):
They, they're not, I think they actually got , um,
they got caught up . Yeah .
Well, I think they gotpurchased by a , like one of
the kind of online collegethings. And that one got, it
kind of went away. A lot of, alot of those kind of schools,

Speaker 6 (05:56):
and all that went away after the feds
like, clamped down and werelike, oh yeah, sorry. Yeah . No
more free money.

Speaker 7 (06:02):
Yeah, I think that was something like that. So I
don't know what years that thathappened

Speaker 6 (06:06):
Like that . Well , I went to law school. I know
like, honestly, like I paid somuch money in student loans and
it was like, you know, in like2010 , like, you could, you
know, get it, get money to goto college again. And it was,
yeah . You know? Yeah . Peopledon't realize that like, you
can still have to pay thatback.

Speaker 7 (06:23):
You do. Yeah. And that

Speaker 6 (06:24):
It's not free money.

Speaker 7 (06:26):
Yeah. I was actually lucky I think about to come out
of, you know, come out ofschool being able to like, get
a job in a specific field, eventhough it wasn't a , you know,
it wasn't a job that paid alot, but I didn't have a lot
of, you know, I had a littlebit of student loan , but not a
, not a like, you know , not alot. Not like, you know, four
year degree and gonna lawschool, like not a, not a ton
of like, you know, debt. Um,but also had to come a specific

(06:47):
thing I could do and get a job.
Yeah . I remember,

Speaker 6 (06:49):
I remember people in law school because I , I went
to law school late, right? I ,I , I was 30 when I went to law
school, so I already had acareer . I was working and law
school at night. So I rememberlike, there would be younger
people that were straight outtacollege, like going into law
school and they would use alltheir like, money to like go
party. And like , you get themax you could possibly get in
student loans. And I'm like,you guys are dumb. Like, you

(07:11):
know, they're like , you'relike , like they like , you
know , $250,000 a year or$150,000 a year in money ,
like, you know, for loans andcrap. I'm like, you are never
gonna pay that back. Like, soyou better enjoy that time
because you'll never pay thatback ever unless you make a
million billion dollars.

Speaker 7 (07:27):
It's tough man .
Later in life. Yeah. Things you, the things you don't think
about, like you do have , youdo have to pay that back. So ,

Speaker 6 (07:34):
Sorry, Joe Biden, . Maybe you need to ,
maybe you need to, everyonesays like, oh, we're gonna do
the free student loan, writeoff stuff . I'm like, that's
never gonna happen. Come onnow. Um, 'cause there's a lot
of money there. Uh , so youstarted teaching and then how
long were you teaching for?

Speaker 7 (07:52):
I did that for, I wanna say like nine. Yeah, like
nine, 10 years. I got , uh,yeah, that was a , a good
portion. I spent , uh, I was inLexington, Kentucky for several
years, three or four years. AndI got a job in Charlottesville,
Virginia that I was there for awhile , five or six years. And
yeah, so probably from the timeI was 21 until I was 30, yeah,

(08:14):
31, I was doing the Oh, wow.
The golfer thing. Yeah. So I ,I had a pretty good , uh, go at
it and, you know, I'd probablystill be doing it if it wasn't
for, you know, a couple kind ofchance things. But , um, yeah,
it was , it was, it was good. I, you know, a lot of work, but
it was, it was something Ienjoyed.

Speaker 6 (08:29):
Okay. So then how did Precision Pro start? I may
have heard the story, but like,I wanna hear it from your words
'cause you lived it.

Speaker 7 (08:37):
Sure. Um, so I would guess in 2012 or so, I would've
been, yeah , so 2012, so Iwould've been 30, 31 or so ,
uh, 30, 31 . And , um, was in,you know, lived in Virginia,
got had a nice, you know ,golfer job, you know, after
doing it for nine or 10 years.
I mean, the thing with like,kind of, you know, club pros
is, is, you know, if you don'tknow, it's just a lot of work.

(08:59):
You know, you're workingweekends, you're working
holidays, you're usuallyputting in a lot of hours. Um,
you know , you're doingsomething you really like, but
it, you know, it , it can begrind, especially, you know, in
the, in the busy seasons. Um,and you know , in some, some
instances you can, you can makegood money, but a lot of times
it's, it's not, it's notamazing. So

Speaker 6 (09:16):
It's a grind, right ? It's just like, yeah . I
mean,

Speaker 7 (09:19):
It's , yeah .

Speaker 6 (09:20):
And you have your , your schedules all over the
place 'cause you're like, oh, Ineed to make money, so, oh
yeah, I guess I'll work Sunday.
You know? Right , yeah. Orwhatever it is. Like,

Speaker 7 (09:27):
It could be hard.
Yeah. Like for me, my typicalday off was usually like a was
usually like Monday, so thatwould be like a Monday off, you
know , in the, in the summer.
Um, so yeah. You know, just a ,you know, the lifestyle is
different, so I was kind of,you know, just getting a
little, I guess a little tiredof it. And I was looking for
something different. So Idecided that I was gonna move
from Virginia to California ,uh, just to do like kind of

(09:50):
lifestyle change, try somethingdifferent, you know, so big
change young , so, yeah. And ,um, where

Speaker 6 (09:56):
In California did you move to?

Speaker 7 (09:58):
So I ended up moving to Los Angeles, like Santa
Monica area, which is kind ofover by the beach. Um, you
know, which is something yeah .
That I decided that I wanted todo. Um , you know, I'd saved up
some money over the years, soI, you know, kind of had my,
basically my mind was like, I'mgonna , you know, try to get
another golf pro job. Um , but,you know, I had enough money to

(10:18):
say that I knew like, if Ididn't get a job right away, I
would be okay for a while . Icould kind of get by for a
while . So, you know, got toCalifornia at the end of 2012,
just kind of , you know,getting things settled, didn't
get a job right away, and, youknow, had a few, you know ,
kind , you know, trying tofigure out my next kind of
steps. Like I, I knew that thiswas a possibility and, you
know, so trying to figure outthe next steps. And , um, ended

(10:39):
up, you know, had a coupleideas on some golf products.
I'd never done a, you know,kind of business thing before.
So had a couple of , um, youknow, ideas on some stuff. What
, uh, a couple of golf, golftraining products, a couple of
golf training aids . Um,

Speaker 6 (10:53):
But you invented ,

Speaker 7 (10:54):
Uh , you like ,

Speaker 6 (10:55):
Oh , people or like , these things you could sell?

Speaker 7 (10:57):
Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess you could say
invented. They weren't super ,I wouldn't call 'em, like, it
was not , not like , uh, youknow, inventing the next
airplane with these things ,uh, . So, but , um, I
ended up meeting, you know, theperson who's now my co-owner,
my co-founder out inCalifornia. He had moved out
there , um, you know, for thesame kind of thing for kinda

(11:17):
lifestyle stuff with hisgirlfriend at the time. Yeah.
And we met randomly, you know,one night kind of just , um,
hanging out, actually hangingout at a bar and just started
chatting. And , um, we ended upplaying golf a few times, and
he knew a little bit. He had a, had a kind of a , had done a
couple business things. So weended up working on these
training products a little bit.
One of 'em was a golf mat thatkind of showed you where you

(11:39):
put your feet and then kind ofshowed you where you put your
ball. So it was like a littletraining thing for chipping and
pitching and, you know, we madethis, no , we didn't make it.
Well, we made a , you know,made several of them . And we
actually sold a few. And had,we basically had enough success
selling a few of those to belike, this is kind of fun, you
know, to make something andpeople like actually pay you
for it. Uh, but, you know, wedidn't sell enough of 'em. That

(12:00):
was gonna be an actualbusiness, and like, it , that
kind of product wasn't reallygonna be an actual new
business. You just couldn'tsell enough of those things. So
, um, and then we had a sec ,an idea for a second product.
It was a little putting aid tokinda help you set your wrist
against kinda the putter calledthe putter cube. It's kind of
this little plastic block thatkind of attached to your , uh,
you know, the grip of yourputter. And it kind of, kind of
created this little wedgebetween your wrist and the

(12:22):
putter and kind of kept your,kept your hands solid. So we
did that as well, so that forlike 20 bucks. And again, with
that one, it was like, this isa fun little thing. And, you
know, I could , we could go toa golf show , um, like an
outdoor golf show, and theyhave several of those, like
over kind of La, San Diego,Arizona, Las Vegas. We could go
to those and I could, we couldsell like 50 of 'em in a day at
a golf show. Like this is kindof cool. We had a harder cut in

(12:44):
those selling 'em online. Um,but it , that was kind of the
same thing added in with the ,um, with the golf mat . It's
like, this is, you know, thisis fun to see that, you know,
we can make something andpeople will buy it from us. Um,
but, you know, these two thingsprobably aren't gonna be a
business that's gonna actuallylike, you know, hobby .

Speaker 6 (13:02):
A hobby. Yeah .

Speaker 7 (13:04):
Yeah . They're not gonna be a viable business.
Yeah . And I , I think that'sprobably the thing that a lot
of people get maybe hung up onwhen they, you know, try
something new like that alittle, an invention or , um,
kind of thing like that islike, you know, they think that
this is, you know, it's likethe expectation, like, all
right , if you're sellingsomething for $20 all well, you
need to sell hundreds ofthousands.

Speaker 6 (13:24):
Yeah ,

Speaker 7 (13:25):
Yeah . You know ,

Speaker 6 (13:27):
And your marketing's gonna cost you 19. So like
Mm-Hmm . , youknow , it's like you're gonna
be losing $4 a unit.

Speaker 7 (13:33):
Yeah. So, yeah. So that's kinda how we got
started. That was back in 20 2013. So

Speaker 6 (13:38):
How were you selling 'em , like going to like, just
like trade, like golf tradeshow ish, whatever you call it,
and going to pro shops andgoing like door to door almost
in that way? Or did you have awebsite, or what were you
doing?

Speaker 7 (13:49):
We had a website.
We, we sold them online. So wesold our golf mat and our
little putter and putting thingonline. And we tried some of
the , you know , normal stuffyou see to ice and , you know ,
some Facebook ads, some Googleads, some kind of like, you
know , we emails and thingslike that. And yeah , we sold,
you know , we sold some, ohyeah . We had better, we had
better, yeah , better luck.
Like we'd go to like the kindof the outdoor or the consumer
golf shows and, you know, wehad better luck selling those

(14:11):
there. 'cause you could kind ofdi demonstrate them to people
in person. They can kind of

Speaker 6 (14:15):
. That's the hard part, right? With a
training aids . Like, you haveto show them how it worked and
there's a learning curve,whatever that is for whatever
the product is. And it's like,how do you show that?

Speaker 7 (14:26):
Yeah, no, it is tired . So yeah, you could do
that better in person. So , um,but that doesn't really scale
very well. So like, you know,you go to go to show where
you're , you know, cost athousand bucks for Booth and ,
you know , maybe sell a hundredof those things over a couple
days. Like, all right , well,we made some money, but, you
know , we didn't actually, inthe end, we didn't actually,
you know , make a lot. So , um,yeah. But that whole thing was

Speaker 6 (14:46):
Good marketing though. It's gonna pay off
because people are gonna see itand they're gonna buy more.
Let's price sell yourself,right.

Speaker 7 (14:51):
Uh , meal maybe .
Yeah. I don't think at thatpoint I had a super like kind
of plan on kind of, you know,exactly what was gonna do. Were

Speaker 6 (14:58):
You still working?
Like, were you teaching, or no,you're just only doing the
training aid stuff?

Speaker 7 (15:02):
I was , during that time, I was only doing that.
That was, I was only doing thatat the time. So , um, yeah. And
we, you know, we did thosethings pretty kind think , you
know, quickly, those thingswere pretty easy to kind of
bring along and , you know,over the course of kind of a
year. So , um, yeah. Butbasically what that did, it
just kind of got , uh, youknow, for , for me, it got me
interested to say like, youknow, this is exciting when we,

(15:23):
you make something, you cansell it and people actually pay
you for it. All right ? Can wefind something that we could
actually turn into an actual,you know, business? Um, and I,
you know, I think that kind ofthe thing I personally learned
there was, you know, it's hardwhen you're inventing something
new. There's probably, youknow, there's not always a
something, you know, peoplegravitate towards things

(15:43):
they've seen and they know howthey work. And, you know,
anytime there's something new,it's just a huge hurdle to kind
of , you know, get that, youknow, to go kind of through the
mass market. So you can havesome accessing sell few , but
if you're not selling somethingthat people buy all the time or
need, you know, golf balls,golf clubs , shoes, or , you
know, apparel , stuff likethat, like, I think it's gonna
be challenging unless you dohave some kind of a , you know,

(16:04):
bigger budget where you can goout and really, or take the
time to, to make that, youknow, mainstream. So those
things have happened, butthey're just tough . So, but
yeah, basically got kindainterested. And so we were kind
of , as we're doing this, we'relike, all right , well this is
, uh, you know , we're making alittle bit on these products ,
um, you know, what can we do tomake this into a real , real
business? Are there otherproducts we can do? Can we, you

(16:25):
know, kind of try somethingdifferent? So , um, so we're
just kinda looking at a couplecategories. I mean, our passion
was around golf. Uh, I was agolf pro. My partner, he , uh,
he's a golfer, you know,interested in , in that. So
that was kind of like, youknow, our kind of playground.
We wanted play and we wanted tobe in , in golf if we, if we
could. So we're just trying tofigure out like, all right ,
what can we do? What otherproducts can we do? Um, so

(16:48):
we're just kind of looking, youknow, going stores , looking ,
trying to figure all this stuffout. And at the time, you know,
range finders were, I won't saythey were a new product, but
not many people had them . Thisis 2014, kind of going into ,
well ,

Speaker 6 (16:59):
They were super expensive too, weren't they?
Like, if you had one, it waslike a lot of money, right?
Yeah. It was almost like aluxury, or you,

Speaker 7 (17:05):
It was more, yeah, there was , there was a few
things. There were one, it wasreally expensive. There were
only a couple brands at time,so you know about the minimum
you could be at would be like300 bucks. So like, if you
wanted to be, you know, youjust didn't have a lot of
options below $300. So that waskind of one thing, you know ,
second thing, at the time, itwas actually illegal ,
technically illegal to use arangefinder post, a handicap

(17:26):
score. So I know a lot ofpeople aren't like, you know ,
really didn't know that reallyinto that. Yeah, you, you
couldn't use a, you know,rangefinder and supposedly, you
know, post a handicap score .
So that changed a few yearslater. I'm not exactly sure
what year that changed, but,you know, a lot of people
aren't into that. They don'tcare. So they, but you know,
the big things were, they wereexpensive, and then the other
big thing was they just weren'tgreat. You know, they weren't

(17:48):
easy to use. Like, you don't ,you know , if you ever , you
know, back in 20 13, 20 14, ifyou tried to, you know, a lot
of people struggle with rangefunders with kind of, you know,
shaky hands and just likemissing the flag and just ,
they were difficult to use. Um,

Speaker 6 (18:00):
And the lock on , right? Locking on the flag,
it's like, oh , the

Speaker 7 (18:03):
Shooting the ground , it's hard to lock in front it
. Yeah. So over the, you know,from then till now, like the
technology's become better andit's just become much easier.
Like, our products now are justlike, it's hard to miss the
flag. It's like pretty, youknow, simple. You may
occasionally, like miss one,you just shoot it again and
it's like, you know, it's justfreaking easy. So there were a
few things that were kind ofpushing, you know, against back

(18:24):
then. And you saw, and you sawa lot of more people using kind
of like GPS things. You kind ofhad some other, you know, like
the sky caddies were more inkind of their heyday back then.
And then some of the GPSdevices were a little bigger.
So , um, yeah. So we were like,all right , these, this looks
like an interesting category,like in our kind of idea was ,
you know, is there any way wecould have a range finder that

(18:45):
sold for $200 instead of, youknow, be a hundred dollars
cheaper than the, the mainplayer's main competition? Um,
so basically we started workingwith some suppliers overseas
and just send a bunch ofsamples and trying some stuff
out and found something that wethought was, you know, could be
okay. We came up with a brandname and basically our kinda
idea was like, we could testthis and try it out. So what we

(19:06):
did is we worked with supplier,came up with a product , um,
they let us, you know, ordernot a big number, probably 300
of those to start. That's notbad. We did this basically in
the , what , what's that?

Speaker 6 (19:19):
That's not a bad initial order. It's , I mean,
it's, yeah , I mean , I knowthey're expensive, right? It's
not like a cheap unit, but it'sstill like, not 3000, right?
And be like, well,

Speaker 7 (19:28):
Yeah, that , that would be a lot. So basically
the way we kinda , we , the waywe kind of tried it out, this ,
you know, back in mid 2014 waslike, we all right , we had
this, so we had a product . Wethought this is, you know,
decent, we can, you know, we'reusing it and like, this isn't
the worst product we've everseen. We think we could sell
this for $200. So we called upa bunch of golf courses and

(19:48):
golf shops and said, Hey, we'vegot the , you know, our name,
our company's Precision Pro,we're just kinda getting
started. We've got thisrangefinder that we, you know,
retails for $200. Like, wouldyou be interested in carrying
it in your golf shop? And inthe first, I guess three to
four weeks, we actually hadretailers commit to buy all
this . They like said, yeah,we'll bring that in. Like,
we'll, we'll give it a try. Youknow, we had probably the

(20:09):
biggest order would've beenlike probably 10 or 15 from
maybe a website. Uh , a lot ofsmaller orders. You know, a lot
of, a lot of customers werelike, yeah, we'll buy one or
two and just see how, make surethat it works well. Um, so
yeah, we basically got peopleto commit to buy all those
products in the first kind of ,you know, three, four weeks.
Yeah. And because

Speaker 6 (20:28):
There was nobody else like that, right? Because
there was no one selling anaffordable launch or affordable
range find . Yeah , it wasdecent .

Speaker 7 (20:34):
No , there was no , there was no, no one, there was
no product at that price point.
So that's what they were kindof interested in. So yeah, then
we, you know, the product camein, we got the products in, we
shipped 'em out, and

Speaker 6 (20:44):
you sold out of the initial 300 within a
month? Mm-Hmm. .

Speaker 7 (20:48):
Yeah . Wow. Yeah , just, just to selling them to
retailers, like basicallyselling them to , um, Keystone

Speaker 6 (20:53):
Or whatever, and you're like, oh ,

Speaker 7 (20:54):
Here's the pride .
Yeah . Yeah. Different golfshops. So yeah, we sold in the
first, you know, we, you know ,they didn't necessarily all
sell to consumers in the firstmonth, but they sold to
retailers. So , um, sobasically we, you know, we then
said, all right , this seemspretty good. People were
interested, all right , we'llsee how over the next several
weeks, like, do they actuallysell 'em in their shops? And
yeah, we kind of, that was kindof the cycle, and that got us

(21:15):
going. So the next month weordered more.

Speaker 6 (21:17):
What was the name of that model?

Speaker 7 (21:19):
Name of the model ?
It was our first product wasthe, called the VV 400. So it's
not even on our websiteanymore. Um , so no , I was
wondering this call , yeah ,

Speaker 6 (21:26):
I mean , I know , I know most of your models, like,
but I don't, I don't know theearly , early ones.

Speaker 7 (21:32):
Yeah, I mean, it was all pretty, you know, pretty,
pretty kind of generic name.
Like, you know, our whole goalis to like, you know, just to
try this out and see like, canthis be a , uh, an actual , um,
an actual thing. So , um, yeah,

Speaker 6 (21:43):
The real business, is it like, are we gonna buy
300? Like, is it gonna work?
Are people gonna buy it? Andyou're like, oh, crap, okay,
cool. Yeah , let's

Speaker 7 (21:50):
Do more. Um, yeah.
So basically we kept, you know,we kept calling people , uh, we
kept, you know, selling 'em ,we'd bring more in next month,
and we, yeah, we, we did prettywell. And , um, so 2014, I
think we, we had probably fivemonths of business. Like we,
you know, it was kind of secondhalf of the year. It's kind of
what we're in business. So 2015was our first , first full
year. And , um, yeah, in our ,in our first full year, we were

(22:11):
pretty , um, I guess , um,successful. I mean, we, we grew
the company quite a bit. Um, wefound people like, you know,
that price point was still ,um, you know, was still viable.
We, we did know at the timethat like, Hey, this, you know,
anyone else can probably have aproduct at this price too. So
like, if we're gonna havesustained success, like we need

(22:31):
to, you know, do thingsdifferently, you know, do do
different things and do thempretty quickly. So that was
kind of like the , um, how wegot, you know,

Speaker 6 (22:41):
. Yeah .
Someone's gonna copy us. It'snot gonna take long for someone
copies us, right?

Speaker 7 (22:44):
Yeah. Yeah. So basically supply it

Speaker 6 (22:46):
And then they call something else, and then at the
same price point or somethingsimilar.

Speaker 7 (22:50):
Yeah , yeah, yeah.
And then, you know, and therewere a few things kind of in
the start. Like, we basicallylike, we're like, all right ,
we , we have a better pricepoint. We have that, so what
else can we do? Um, so we kindof honed in on customer
service. So some of the , youknow , some of the bigger ,
that's true, that's

Speaker 6 (23:04):
Right . Yeah. As known

Speaker 7 (23:05):
For some of the bigger brands, like had had a
reputation for just not beingvery easy to work with , um, if
, if something went wrong or ,you know, and the , and the
truth is, like, these productsfrom any brand are pretty
fragile. If you drop one,sometimes they , you know,
they, they can just, you know,you drop it on the cart path,
run , run over to the golf cart, like they can, they can break
and people will lose them. And,you know, they're, they're a

(23:26):
delicate, they can be adelicate product that that's
expensive. So , um, just a lotof people lose them and things
like that. So basically what wesaid is like, all right , if
anyone has an issue with theproduct, like if it doesn't
work, they break it orsomething, we're just gonna
send them another one and we'llget back to the other one and
we'll try to, you know, we'lldeal with that on our end.
Whereas some of the othercompanies were like, all right
, well, since we're

Speaker 6 (23:43):
Big deal, man, that's a big , if you think
about it, like you're saying,Hey, if you break a 200
product, you can send it backto us. We'll give you an a
we'll return. Mm-Hmm .
, like, people,like, it's instant. I mean, no
one does that, right? So it'slike, yeah,

Speaker 7 (23:56):
Yeah. It , it was not happening at the time. So ,
um, yeah, the other companieswere , they had this kind of
weird, and not weird, it's justa pain in the process where,
you know, if you had an issue,even if it was under warranty,
basically

Speaker 6 (24:07):
Corporate, it was a corporate process, right? Like

Speaker 7 (24:09):
Yeah, you'd have to basically, you'd have to mail
the product to them. They, theywould say, they would spec
specify that, you know, we'regoing to , it's gonna take us
about two to three months to,to look at this thing Yes .

Speaker 6 (24:21):
Over , we'll give you around Christmas time . And
you

Speaker 7 (24:23):
To then they would actually request, they
wouldn't, I guess they , theywould require that you actually
put a check in the box for $20to pay for the shipping back to
you. Like that's the ultimate,like, you know, ultimate dick
move like that I've ever heardof .

Speaker 6 (24:34):
Yeah, seriously.
Like

Speaker 7 (24:36):
From a company. So , I mean, you had no

Speaker 6 (24:37):
Choice, right? I mean , we've all broke stuff. I
mean, yeah. I mean ,

Speaker 7 (24:41):
Yeah . So yeah, you gotta put a check in to pay for
the shipping back. So

Speaker 6 (24:44):
Did you guys give away free batteries too?

Speaker 7 (24:47):
Uh, we did not do that from the beginning. We
started that later on

Speaker 6 (24:50):
In . Oh , I did . I know. You know, I
like, I remember, I know youguys do that, which the thing
is smart too. Yeah . It's like,yeah . What a way of like,
creating brand loyalty.

Speaker 7 (24:58):
It no, it is good. I , our product , you know, range
funders, if you, if you don'tlose one or you don't have an
issue, it's like not somethingyou're buying, you know ,
you're not buying one everyyear. Um , maybe it's every
three or four years. Depends .
And sometimes these things lastsix, seven years. So depending
on, you know, I see peopleusing the ones that look like
they're old, beat up , used car, but they're still working and
they're six, seven years old.
Um, so yeah, it's , for us,it's like a way to just try to

(25:20):
like, you know , when someonedoes, you know, want to come
back and, you know, do areplacement that, you know, can
we be top of mind and, youknow, be, be kind of choice one
if, you know , uh, to, tocontinue on with us. So
actually

Speaker 6 (25:34):
Now, right, there's like so many brands now that
are Yeah . Competing with you.

Speaker 7 (25:39):
Yeah. So not like ,

Speaker 6 (25:40):
Yeah .

Speaker 7 (25:41):
Yeah. So it was a good thing from the , uh, for
us, from the , uh, beginningwas to kind of hone in on that.
So , um, yeah, you know, in thebeginning, for the first, I
guess kind of really year and ahalf, two years, like we really
focused most of our efforts onthe , um, kind of the retail
business. Like we were sellingstuff to, to retailers, golf
forces , pro shops ,

Speaker 6 (26:00):
This like 15, 16, 15

Speaker 7 (26:02):
And 16. Yeah. Um, yeah, that was kind of how we
got , uh, I got started, wasjust sort , we're trying to
sell stuff to retailers and,you know , that it's
interesting. How do

Speaker 6 (26:10):
You like, so if somebody was like, I ask this
question, like, if you're a newproduct, whatever it is now,
like, how hard is it to go toretailers or to go to, like, do
you have to go like door todoor , I mean, essentially,
right? Shop to shop , callthem. I mean , is that how
you'd do it back then? I mean,now it's probably a little lot
different, but I mean, like,what does , what does somebody
do?

Speaker 7 (26:29):
Uh, sure. Yeah. I mean, that's how we did it back
then. Um, we eventually startedto bring on like salespeople in
different area , differentlocations, like, you know ,
there's like

Speaker 6 (26:37):
Yeah .
Like independent sales reps andstuff, or , or

Speaker 7 (26:40):
Internal independent, yeah, independent
sales reps. There's like anetwork of people who carry a
variety of brands out there, sowho have relationships with
courses and shops and thingslike that. So , um, yeah, I, I
would think like nowadays the,it's a little, you know, it's a
little different. Um, one thingbeing that, you know, most
product categories have kind ofbeen, you know, filled up to

(27:00):
where there's like, not thatlow hanging fruit where you can
just get started with like abetter price point. So like,
pretty much every productcategories has, you know, other
brands that have filled thosegaps. So like, if you're going
to retailers with something newnow, it's gotta be very unique
and different. Um, so you'renot probably gonna have luck
just by making a cheaper golfball or a cheaper, you know, a
cheaper bag. Yeah . You know ,those, those things have been
filled by the other, you know ,

Speaker 6 (27:21):
I was told somebody was, I was talking to a friend
of mine who's ACEO of a brand ,and he goes, he's like, don't
ever base anything on price.
Like, it's like, it's a race tothe bottom, right? Like,
essentially it's like, knowyour price and just stick with
it and be like , that's whatit's worth . You know? That's
what

Speaker 7 (27:36):
I mean . Yeah. It's, it's tough if you only, if
you're only competing on price. And that's, that was kind of
one of our things when westarted and we don't really do
that as much anymore. Price isstill important, but like
,

Speaker 6 (27:44):
No , you guys evolved a lot, dude, within the
last three years. Like, yeah,

Speaker 7 (27:48):
I think it's , we have, 'cause we, we feel like
we've, we've had to, so , um,you know , retail a little bit
different nowadays too, back,you know, eight years ago there
were more like independent golfshops that you could just call
the owner and like, they couldbring stuff in and you've seen
not all of them, but a lot ofthose go away or be acquired by

(28:08):
like bigger shops, golf shop ,right? Yeah. Yeah . So,

Speaker 6 (28:11):
You know , I mean, there's some pretty big , I
didn't , like, I learned a lotin the last, like, there's some
very big golf, I'm not gonnaname who they are , you
probably know who they are .
Like, they've been like, boughtout this year. And I was like,
are you serious? I didn't evenknow that. Like, big, big, big.

Speaker 7 (28:24):
Yeah. There's some that are, you've got a couple
different kind of layers.
You've got the biggest stores,you know , the Sporting Goods,
own Golf Galaxy. Like that'sthe big , that's the biggest.
And you've got like your, youknow, your PGA superstore and
you know, out there you guyshave got your kind of ,

Speaker 6 (28:36):
And you draw all your big online retailer,
right? Mm-Hmm . Like all the,you know , yeah . Like the
worldwide and the global andthe, yeah.

Speaker 7 (28:43):
And a lot of now those , a lot of those things
are kind of all owned by, youknow, they're kind of
consolidated. So there's, youknow, kind of more under one
kind of thing . So , um, andthen you've got some regional
crazy ,

Speaker 6 (28:55):
Isn't it crazy? It's crazy. It's

Speaker 7 (28:57):
Crazy. Yeah. And I think that's kind of like the,
that's just the general senseof like, I think retail in
general, right? You don't seeas many small, independent
stores now. You just see more,you know, big stores, you know,
even to the point of like, youknow, obviously the Walmarts
and the , and the Targets arethe biggest, but yeah, you're
good . You know, there's justgonna be consolidation along
the way to where, you know,the, you know, because the

(29:17):
bigger stores can just competebetter. They have more stuff.
They compete . Yeah. They havebetter, you know , the budget
in golf, you don't really havebetter, prices aren't really a
thing . 'cause everyone kind ofsells like brands at this at a
similar price, but they canjust have more, you know,
buying power. So , um, yeah,it's just easier, easier for
them to , um, to compete. So ,um, yeah . And then you've got
some, like regional retailers.
You've got, there's probably ahandful of stores around the

(29:42):
country that have like five,six locations in a , in a
region. You've got some inSeattle, you've actually got
one here in Cincinnati that ,uh, we're good friends with
some in the, up in the Bostonarea. Um, that's kind of , you
see those kind of like , um,kind of scattered throughout.
There's, you know , in theDakotas and stuff. So Yeah. So
it's either big or regional.
And then you've got, you stillgot a few independent, you

(30:02):
know, one-off shops, just notthat many, many , it's just a
hard , not many . It's aharder, yeah , it's just a
harder game to play.

Speaker 6 (30:08):
It's hard for them to compete, that's the thing,
right? So they just die off orget bought out. I mean, yeah,

Speaker 7 (30:13):
It's like the ones like, you know, here in
Cincinnati we've got a , um, a, uh, store called the Golf
Exchange, and you know , we'refriends with them and they've
got like six locations and theyreally compete hard on, you
know, product knowledge andcustom fitting. They're really
good at fitting, so can't getthat at , you know, probably
they do a better job and youthen you can get fit at it ,
maybe like a Dix or something.
So that's where they pridethemselves and they've done

(30:34):
really well with that. So , um,on , on the kind of fitting
aspect . So , um, yeah, andthen you've got your golf
courses, and that's the placewhere like, there are probably
not any fewer golf courses, butthose are harder to work with
because there's, you know,there's, let's say there's
5,000 golf courses, well,you're gonna call every single
one of 'em , try to get inthere. So you can get , like,
we work with a lot of golfcourses, but like , that one is

(30:56):
a very much a fragmented thingwhere it's difficult to , um,
to get into a lot of ,

Speaker 6 (31:01):
Do people buy range finders at golf courses? Any ,
I mean, honestly, like, I don'tknow if they do.

Speaker 7 (31:07):
They might . I mean, it's still a pretty good yeah ,
pretty good business for us. Imean, it depends on, you've got

Speaker 6 (31:12):
Custom stuff too, which I probably much

Speaker 7 (31:15):
Know . Yeah . I mean, you've got a variety of
different, like, things you gotanywhere from like your local
public course or municipalcourse where they're probably
not carrying that kind ofstuff, or a lot of merchandise
all the way up to, you know,resorts hiring , hiring private
clubs or resorts. Like

Speaker 6 (31:27):
Well, there's a lot of consolidation on that too,
right? I mean, there's likegroups that own a hundred
courses or 500 courses ormanage 'em like a troon or
like, you know what I mean? Soit's like you go to the source

Speaker 7 (31:37):
And then ,

Speaker 6 (31:38):
Then they Yeah ,

Speaker 7 (31:40):
That is , um, no , that's definitely true. There
is consolidation across all the, uh, lines there. So

Speaker 6 (31:45):
Everywhere there's consolidation everywhere, dude.
That's just what it

Speaker 7 (31:47):
Is . Yeah. So that was the kind of retail and how
we got , uh, how we got going.
Um, and then , um,

Speaker 6 (31:55):
So what , so what was the next model? Was it the
NX seven?

Speaker 7 (31:58):
So we had, our first one was the V 400, and then in
early 2016. So basically ouridea is like , like, you know,
all right , we've proven outthat like, you know, this price
point's good, this servicething is working, people are
buying this product, all right, we're, we're we got , we got
a business here. All right ,well now we need to, you know,
what's kind of next evolution,all right , we need to make our

(32:18):
own products and like, makethem get better look different.
So we kind of did this, youknow, kind of rebranding, like
new, new logo, new website,just like we added this kind of
cool green color. And then wecame up with our, you know,
our, our own, our own designedpro first product. It was
called the Nexus. And that cameout in 2016. It was our first
product that had like thatgreen face plate and a green

(32:38):
carrying case. Um,

Speaker 6 (32:41):
Yeah . Now you sort of brand it like, oh, that's a
precision pro rangefinder. Likeit's

Speaker 7 (32:45):
Mm-Hmm . Yeah. We're starting to, you
know, yeah, now create a brandand, you know, some recognition
and yeah. You know, in 20, 2016 we were still kind of
focused on the , um, on theretail business and yeah , we
saw things kind of flatten outa bit as , you know, that the
retail stuff is just hard to,one , it was hard to , um, it
became harder to, to grow. Andsecondly it was like, alright ,

(33:06):
we just have one product. Like,we literally just have Why

Speaker 6 (33:08):
Is that one range ?
Why do you think that is ?
Like, why is it harder? Becausethey only , they only order so
many, right? And it's like,okay, here's their price.
They're not gonna order ,they're gonna order once a
year, so many units for alltheir stores. So it's like, you
can't, right? Is that why I'massuming? I have no idea.

Speaker 7 (33:24):
Um, a little bit. I mean, our , I think the thing
was at the time we weren't, youknow , dealing with the larger
stores, like, or we were, youknow , trying to, but they
weren't taking us in like the ,you know, the Sporting Goods
and the , you know , the bigstores. Like, they, they
weren't , uh, willing to tryour products. So we're working
with the smaller independentretailers in the golf shop.

Speaker 6 (33:43):
I see. Yeah. Because they're like, no, we carry
Garment and Bushnell and thebig boys. Yeah ,

Speaker 7 (33:47):
Right . Yeah. And we kind of , you know, picked a
lot of those off at the time.
And you , you kind run out oflike, Hey, we've all right ,
we're in

Speaker 6 (33:52):
You outta people.
Yeah. You run outta company .

Speaker 7 (33:54):
Yeah . Half the shop, so you run outta people
and Yeah. And then, you know,that just, you know , became
harder. And plus we just had ,you know, you got one product,
like, not a lot of, not a lotof customers wanna work with a
brand that usually just has oneproduct. Like, you know, you
need a , a little bit more, yougotta evolve. Yeah, you gotta ,
yeah, evolve . So yeah, sobasically that was 2016 and
yeah , things had started tokind of , we were still growing

(34:14):
a little bit, but not at therate that we maybe had hoped
for. And then , um, you know,so 2017 we worked on another ,
you know, another new product,and that was the NX seven. So
we had the, our first Slopeproducts, we had the NX seven
Pro and the NX seven. Wecontinued the , uh, the Nexus
product and kind of dropped theprice down. Um, and it was
really a couple things, I thinkin 27, 20 17 is when we really

(34:37):
started to kind of take off anddo good things. Um, you know,
we basically introduced thosenew products that were really
good, you know, were stillreally, you know , good. Our ,
we had a Slope product, $250 atthat time, 400 was the
standard. So , um, andbasically we, we, you know,
were able to take that toretailers, they still like

(34:58):
that, but we also figured outthe online play more at that
time. So that's when we startedto really figure out Amazon and
kind of our, you know, sellingon our website. So that was
kind of the priority 2017 as wewent forward, was really
figuring out the online play.
So, you know, Amazon wasstarting to, well, Amazon had
already taken off. It wasstarting to kind of become, you
know, more of a , a space inthe golf stuff. So yeah, that's

(35:19):
when we really started to kindof, you know, move the brand
forward from a revenuestandpoint, was figuring out
Amazon, figuring out website,and then kind of just adding
that with our, with our retailbusiness.

Speaker 6 (35:29):
Well, that sounds tough too, right? Because they
take like 30% and ,

Speaker 7 (35:34):
Uh , it can be, it just depends on Yeah,

Speaker 6 (35:38):
It's volume. Depends on you do an fba , right? I'm
assuming like you weren't , oryou , you shipping it out from
your, your facility?

Speaker 7 (35:45):
No, we do, we do the FEA where Yeah, you basically
just, yeah , you go on Amazon ,um, customer buys it and Amazon
ships it. So yeah, it makes itpretty easy. And, you know ,
Amazon is a good spot for kindof things like golf range ,
winders , 'cause they're, youknow, pretty simple to buy and
ship and, you know, yeah.
People like the, the trust ofthat. So yeah, once we figured
that out in 2017, we really,things started to kind of take

(36:07):
off and we, we just kind ofdoubled the size of the
business that year. And then ,um, and then, you know, that
was how, that was basicallyour, you know, precision Pro
starting to become a realcompany mainstream.

Speaker 6 (36:19):
Yeah. Like you evolved outside of what you
were, I mean, your main ,because now you've got a bigger
audience too, right? Especiwith Amazon, it's like
everyone's start seeing it morethan just the local place .

Speaker 7 (36:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
Um , so it right now is the majority, where's the
majority of your sales comefrom then? Is it from online or
is it from retail?

Speaker 7 (36:39):
Between Amazon, what we sell on our website and then
retailers. So , um, you know ,our retail business has really
has grown. We, we we're in mostof the larger stores now, you
know , Sporting , good Golf,galaxy, all the shops . Yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:53):
Precision from ,

Speaker 7 (36:54):
Yeah , there's , there's , there's some that
we're not , um, some that we're, there's a few that we're not
in, but we like to be. But youknow, we're, we're still
working on that. So yeah, I'dsay we're pretty, you know,
we're more of a , like anevenly split thing now. We're ,
you know, kind of retail directon the website , um, and, and
Amazon. Um, so yeah, that'slike constant kind of , you
know, strategic thing is like,how do you evolve and how do

(37:14):
you, you know, you don't,ideally you don't want one of
those places to be too, to , tobe too much of the business.
You don't want like onecustomer to be too much of the
business. So we're prettyspread across like those
channels. So like, we don'thave like, you know, Amazon, if
you've looked at one, they'renot really a customer
necessarily the way we sell,but , um, you know, that's got

(37:36):
our biggest spot, but we'rewe're, you know, actively
growing other channels andother spots that kind of, you
know, kind of pulls, you know,eats into that. So it's been a
, a pretty , um, kind ofpurposeful thing to try to
really, you know, spread thatbusiness out across a variety
of different, different areas.

Speaker 6 (37:53):
So. All right . So then you went NX seven, the NX
nine, right? Mm-Hmm .
, that was thenext iteration.

Speaker 7 (38:00):
Yeah, we had , um, 20, so yeah, 20 se 2018 and
2019. We, we kind of continuedwith the NX Sevens. Um, and we
really , really grew a lot withthose. It was 20, kind of end
of 2019, early 2020, we cameout with the NX nine line. That
was the first , uh, product wehad with , they had a magnet.

(38:20):
Um, so that was kind of the,the addition there. Um, yeah.
And then yeah, COVID happenedand that was, you know, that
was interesting. That wasactually really , um, good
thing for, for golf in general.
Just, you know , a lot morepeople played golf. Um, so you
had a couple years there ofkind of , um, of the kind of
just increased demand, just Ithink, you know, if you were in
golf at that time, like, youknow, you probably just, you

(38:42):
know, things went better thanthey would have if that hadn't
happened for golf. So it , it ,it turned out to be a pretty
good

Speaker 6 (38:47):
Thing. So then when I kind of remember, I think
when you guys were on a long ,long time ago, I remember them
saying you guys had bought inthe printer and they were
talking about printing stuff atthe time, and I was like, oh .
They're like, oh, this would bereally, really cool. Right.
What you guys were working onback then. Right. So when did
you guys decide to start doinglike, the customization and
like, when , when was that, wasthe release of the NX 10 or

(39:10):
were you already kind ofpracticing, I guess, with the
NX nine and then you developedthe NX 10, so it was more
customizable?

Speaker 7 (39:16):
Yeah, I mean, we've always been ever, I mean, I
guess ever since we kind of gotpast our first year, you know,
we've always been, I've alwaysbeen just thinking about new
product ideas and trying toinnovate and like, you know,
'cause we, we do know that likeif just selling it , you know,
we, so like where we are now,like we're actually on the
expensive side. We're, we'restill a good bit cheaper than

(39:39):
like the, you know, the biggestbrand, but we're more expensive
than almost every other brand.
Um, so for us it's like, how dowe continue to innovate and how
do we do things that aredifferent? And so that we're,
you know , we're not competingat price, which we've, I think
we've done pretty well. Um, soyeah, when we had the NX nines,
like we basically were workingon this idea we had that we
bought this engraver that we'regonna , you know , either do it

(39:59):
for free or charge people forit that we would engrave , um,
your name. Their name, right.

Speaker 6 (40:03):
Or a logo or something. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (40:05):
And we basically, what we saw was like, you know
, you get in , in therangefinder business, you get,
you know, products back, youknow, someone breaks it, drops
it, whatever, you get stuffback. We're like, we're just
noticing like a , a lot ofpeople are taking a magic
marker and writing their nameon the rangefinder, putting
their phone number on it . Likethat looks terrible. Like that
is not, you know, I'm, I'msomeone who's very neat and
tidy and likes things . Got tolook good. I'm like, that is

(40:27):
not a good look when you justwrite your name on a, on a

Speaker 6 (40:30):
. Yeah .
Right. Yeah .

Speaker 7 (40:33):
So

Speaker 6 (40:33):
Play ,

Speaker 7 (40:34):
Yeah . Call

Speaker 6 (40:35):
Loss .

Speaker 7 (40:36):
Yeah. Like, could we create some kind of position
around this , uh, you know,doing this and yeah. So we got
this engraver and we tried thatfor a while. It became
difficult just because it waslike, it just became

Speaker 6 (40:48):
You pain in the, right? Because you have to
engrave one by one, it's anengraver and Right. Yeah .
Like, it's a whole process

Speaker 7 (40:53):
Basically. Yeah. We, we, it was hard operationally
just 'cause we would, you know,sometimes we would try, you
know, do it as a, as a like abonus during a , like a i
instead of doing a sale orsomething. Sometimes we'd
charge for it, but yeah, wejust couldn't keep up with it.
It was like, it took,

Speaker 6 (41:10):
It never ended, right. It took 25 minutes , a
lot of time to do one and thenyou a hundred or 200 to do,
it's like, oh my God, I gottaget a full-time employee doing
this all day long. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (41:18):
Yeah. So basically, yeah. So we really like that. I
still like that it's just kindof , can you make it really,
you know , work at any kind .

Speaker 6 (41:25):
It's like a really good idea. It's like, how do we
execute it so it's moreefficient, right? Like , that's
came down through

Speaker 7 (41:30):
Mm-Hmm .
it would , itwould've just been basically
more kind of intensive with,with people and stuff. So we
kind of had to scale it down alittle bit. Um, so at the same
time, you know, kinda workingon new ideas and, and looking
at, I mean, kind of the ideafor the NX 10 came from like,
the idea of like phone cases,like, all right , you've got
these, you know, apple phonesthat are, you know, beautifully

(41:53):
designed, really good looking .
I personally, like, I'm one ofthe only people I know , I
don't have a phone case. Andeveryone's like, how do you not
break your phone? I just say ,well, I don't drop it. Like,
you know, if you don't drop it,it won't break. So ,
uh, but everyone else has theselike phone cases and like, you
know, all, you know, look like

Speaker 6 (42:07):
Half t he time they're like, you know, $6 on
Amazon or something. And itlike, looks l ike, oh, but i t
protects it. It's like, no, it

Speaker 7 (42:13):
Doesn't. Yeah, it protects it. And you know, some
people, some of 'em , you know,look good and you even got ones
that are expensive. You got ,you know,

Speaker 6 (42:19):
. Oh yeah, I think some really fancy
ones too.

Speaker 7 (42:20):
A hundred, $150 buy ones that are co-branded.
They're even more, so, it'sbasically how can we let people
kind of , you know, customizetheir design, their style. So
that was the idea. Theexecution was much harder.
'cause it was like, all right ,well we've got this idea, but
how do you do this? Um, solike, we've got really good
product designers here, so Idon't , it's , you know, just

(42:43):
fun fact, the University ofCincinnati , um, has like the ,
one of the best in the country,probably top two , uh,
industrial design programs inthe entire country. So we've
actually had a couple designerscome from that. So , um, and
our, our designer right now,his name's Gannon , he came
from that. He designed the NX10 . So basically he took, he's
got a three D printer and heprobably a three D printed 200

(43:04):
different designs, trying tofigure out how do we make this
thing work and customizable.
And, you know , basically wefind finally figured it out.
And now you can see that , youknow, the understands got kind
of this, this side plate , um,kind of thing that you, you
know, we can design and make,you know, different look and
look cool. Um, and yeah, youcan swap 'em out. You can like
pull 'em off and swap 'em outon the product. And, you know,

(43:25):
as simple as that design looksis actually from an engineering
standpoint was really long andhard, but it's basically, it's
magnets. It's uh , it was a lotof, just 'cause it's a really
odd shaped kind of little thinthing there. The front plate
kind of screws out and you can,you can change that out as well
. So , um, yeah, it was, it wascool, you know , it was a fun
project. It just, but it took alot of time to get it figured

(43:46):
out. It probably took 18 monthsor so. Um, yeah, and we had
that pro , we came out thatproduct in mid 2022. Um, so,
and yeah, and that's, you know,our best product, you know, one
from just the standpoint oflike customization, it's like
really interesting. It's reallycool. Secondly, just the
quality is like the best onewe've ever put out. I mean,

(44:07):
immediately when you pick itup, it's like, this thing's a
beast.

Speaker 6 (44:09):
Oh yeah. That's really nice.

Speaker 7 (44:11):
It's nice . Yeah.
This thing is like, you know,first class , um, the design is
very simple. So both

Speaker 6 (44:15):
These , this is so like on the NX 10 and like
they're both, this is both ,uh, uh, interchangeable, right?

Speaker 7 (44:21):
Mm-Hmm.
. Yep . Yep .
Yeah . So be basically for anyof the products, like you can
just pull the, pull the littleside plate off. You can put a
new one on , um, the frontplate, actually, there's little
screws and you, you actuallyget a, you get a trench with it
and you can screw those off.
And , um, changes the , um,changes the color . What's

Speaker 6 (44:37):
Your most popular design?

Speaker 7 (44:39):
Ooh , the most popular? Um, I would say, well,
the, like, the just straightblack and white is the default
and that's the most popular ,uh, second most popular is the
American flag. So the onethat's first there, that is
like the second most popular.
Um, and then past that, it'slike, it's interesting enough,
like there's not a ton of, likeall those designs get chosen

(45:02):
quite a bit, but like, there'sno like , yeah,

Speaker 6 (45:04):
There's no like, yeah, there's like only certain
ones that are like black andwhite. Yeah . People like, and
then yeah , well that the blackand white is just the standard,
right? Like this one,

Speaker 7 (45:12):
That's just the standard. Like Yeah . Yeah . If
you click on , yeah, that'sjust like the default. So like
, if you go to, if you go to astore, that's what's in the
store is black and white .
'cause you can't really haveall the different signs Oh ,

Speaker 6 (45:22):
On the wrong page .
I see .

Speaker 7 (45:23):
No , that's, that's, that's the , that's all . So
yeah, that's the one peoplechoose . Yeah .

Speaker 6 (45:27):
Um , and it pops on , pops off the clip, the mm-Hmm
. the pieces ,which is cool. And then if they
want, they can screw and theycan change out the front.
Right. The front

Speaker 7 (45:35):
Change out the front. Yep . And , um, yeah,
and we, and we , and we'veactually seen, you know, we see
most people, I wanna say mostpeople choose a design. Like we
probably, you know, I say 25,30%, they choose a black one,
but the rest of the peoplechoose some kind of design. You
know , they're all the sameprice. Um, would

Speaker 6 (45:54):
Cool, but you're not upcharging 'em like, oh yeah,
you want that more 20 bucks.
Because people are like, screwthat, you know? It's like, know
, you get to pick the one rightnow, you want, all right . I
want those, you know, this oneright here .

Speaker 7 (46:05):
And we, you know , you know, we, we occasionally
come out with new designs andwe'll send out emails and
stuff, and we actually seepeople that are , uh, that, you
know, are buying those . Like,we actually have quite a few
people who are coming back andbuying different , uh, you
know, different , um, plates,different plates , um, you know
, um, skins and stuff for their, uh, for their product. So
yeah, it's been really, it'sbeen really fun. So that's kind

(46:25):
of our next , um, you know,evolution of , uh, you know how
we,

Speaker 6 (46:28):
It's on sale right now. Look at that

Speaker 7 (46:30):
Personalized . Yeah , we actually just started our
, we started our , uh, holidaysale today. Today .

Speaker 6 (46:33):
Yeah. I'm like, I asked , like , I'm like, I , I
know the price . I'm like, oh,it's on sale. Look at that. Um,
so when did you start, like,like working with like Nolan up
and , um, Don John Daley andeverybody, like, how'd that
come about? Like down

Speaker 7 (46:51):
Here ? Sure . Yeah, we've , uh, we've done , we've
done several differentpartnerships. I mean, we've
been working with Nolan upsince 20, I think we started
like late 2019, so severalyears with them. And we've
done, you know, a lot of funthings with them. Um, it was
just with the NX 10 that westarted to kind of do some
kinda , some co-branded skinstuff kind of type things. Some
products there. Um, yeah, sothat's been a, that's been a

(47:14):
fun partnership. Really goodguys. Um, and then, you know,
John Daly , we started workingwith him this year. He somehow
he had , uh, years ago had ourNX seven, our very first NX
seven product. Like, he showedup in a video with like, on his
bag. And, you know, I think myYou're

Speaker 6 (47:30):
Like, what the, what? You're like, oh yeah , I
talked to him.

Speaker 7 (47:33):
. Yeah. My, my partner who does all of our,
he does all our sales stuff. Hesomehow got in touch with him
and like, yeah, we sent himproduct since , and yeah , when
we came out with the , with theNX 10, we're like , you know,
we got in touch with him, like,Hey , you, you'd be interested
in doing this. So we've gotsome kind of designs. We're ,
we're out of a few of 'em rightnow, but , um, yeah, it's been
a fun thing. Oh really? Wow.
Yeah, we did some photo shoot.
If you go to , uh, if you justgo to range find , go to, just

(47:56):
click on Range Finders there onthe top. You'll see we're
actually getting kinda restockon this, but scroll down like
that, you know , those are thedesigns. We're actually out of
several of them right now. So,but we're getting more, that's
the only one we have at themoment.

Speaker 6 (48:07):
That daily one looks cool. Like a beer looking
thing. That looks cool. Yeah.
Oh yeah . A lot of

Speaker 7 (48:11):
Looks sold out of the rest, but we're getting
them back in. Um, yeah, so it'sjust been a fun thing where
we've gone and done some photoshoots with him. He is a really
nice guy. Um, you know, we'vekind of, you know , yeah . Put
his face on a few things and ,uh, yeah, it's been a nice ,
uh, a nice fun partnership. So,

Speaker 6 (48:26):
Um , people

Speaker 7 (48:27):
Could like , comment on those when, like, when
they're on a Facebook post,

Speaker 6 (48:30):
If people, so like, I mean, do you guys do customs
too? Oh, you do. Duh. Right?
There're custom skins , right?
So people could actually, butcan people actually like, come
to you guys and say, Hey, wewanna do , uh, for a golf
tournament, we wanna do ahundred nx tens. Like, would
you guys customize the plate,or is that just something you
guys do, or No?

Speaker 7 (48:48):
Uh, we do. Yeah, we will , we would definitely
customize the plate. So we, wehave had that happen quite a
bit. It's been a nice thing forus .

Speaker 6 (48:54):
Yeah , I assume so.

Speaker 7 (48:54):
Yeah, we've had several different big , um, big
events that Yeah, we cancustomize these and um, yeah.
Have your logo on it. So,

Speaker 6 (49:03):
But they're not being customized in Cincinnati,
right? Like you can order 'em ,

Speaker 7 (49:07):
Um , no .
Customizing

Speaker 6 (49:09):
Cincinnati .

Speaker 7 (49:09):
Yeah. So like what we do is, yeah, we, we will
have to order 'em from oursupplier, you know,

Speaker 6 (49:14):
Yeah.
You design it and then youorder it.

Speaker 7 (49:16):
Yeah. Uh, we do have a thing we do for like, you
know, one offs for like, youknow, sometimes we , we get
kind of contacted by whenpeople are are , you know, and
we'll kind of do some one-offstuff. And that's, that's , uh,
something we do actually do inCincinnati. It's , it's , um,
you know, the , the , it's moreof like kind of a, a wrap that
we put on that. So, but wedon't, we don't sell those, we
do those, do those as kind of

Speaker 6 (49:36):
Yeah . It's one-off,

Speaker 7 (49:37):
One-off kind of things like, you know, center
event Ex Yeah. Example, like ,um, you know, we were, I don't
know exactly how it came out .
Like, you know, we had like aMus a famous musician, like he
somehow contact us or hecontacted him and like , you
know, yeah, we'll send you aOrange trainer . We , we put
like his logo on and uh Yeah.
Make it

Speaker 6 (49:56):
Look cool. Not by a

Speaker 7 (49:58):
Hundred of them .
Yeah. Did that, like one off .
So ,

Speaker 6 (50:01):
So when did you come up with this doing speakers?
'cause the duo came

Speaker 7 (50:06):
Out . Yeah, so speakers, we started that back
, um, kinda late 2021, early2022. We had our kind of , our
ace um , our ace speaker. It'sgot a , it's got a screen on it
going . So it's basically a,you know, a speaker that also
does golf distances. So, youknow, really good sound . It's
got a magnet, you stick it onthe cart, it shows you right
there, kind of in your face.
It's got front center backdistances. So yeah, we started

(50:27):
that late , uh, late 2021. Um,and then the, the Duo product
we came out with this year, Ithink it was May this year. And
that's just a , a smallerspeaker that you can put on
your bag or put on your cart.
Um , that's smart. It stilldoes the golf . It'll kind of
read the golf distances to you,but it doesn't have a screen.
So , um, yeah, it's just , uh,and it's

Speaker 6 (50:47):
. But you also did this, which was
smart too. 'cause now they cancustomize their, their face.
Mm-Hmm . on theirspeaker .

Speaker 7 (50:53):
Yeah . It's like, it's like the extent where you
can kind of , you know, they ,they actually swap out. So you
could change , you could changeit , um, you know, if you
wanted to. So yeah. Face kindof pops out and you can add a ,
uh, add a new , um, a newdesign to it. So yeah, it's
just been a fun product for us.
And that was, that product wasall about just kind of like,
you know, something fun, youknow, nice, nice small speaker,

(51:14):
,

Speaker 6 (51:14):
You evolving. It's like you started with
Rangefinders and then it'slike, okay, you've evolved the
rangefinder more and more andmore, and then you have DNX 10.
Now you can customize therangefinder, which nobody was
doing, right? Yeah . And thennow you went to speakers and
there was only so many peopledoing speakers. Like, no , like
no one was doing speakers likefour years ago, you know? And
then Mm-Hmm . What? The wingmancame out and then yeah, they

(51:36):
speakers are cool. Or peoplewould get like, whatever the
JBL, you know, whatever, that'snot a golf specific speaker.
Um,

Speaker 7 (51:44):
Yeah . Yeah. So yeah, just kind of fun , uh,
product evolution. Um, yeah, we, you know, we're, we're trying
to expand, like we've got somenew, you know, accessories now.
We got carrying cases that ,uh, are different designs. We
get some kind , you know, nicerones of those. So yeah, just
trying to kind of continue to ,uh, to do new stuff and kind of
have it be fun and, you know,hopefully make things people
like.

Speaker 6 (52:05):
No, that's really cool. I mean, it's cool to like
see. So like, what do you,what's happening in the next
like, couple months for youguys? Is, is , are you coming
out new stuff, maybe, or not,or what are you doing?

Speaker 7 (52:15):
Uh, not right near .
So right now, like , you know,kind of the holiday shopping
season is starting now. So our,our holiday sales starting
today, you know, you got a fewweeks, like kind of Black
Friday, cyber Monday, you know,for , for consumer brands it's
a big time. So like, you know,you imagine golf is a
seasonality, like kind ofOctober and , you know,
beginning of November slower,you know, weather's getting
colder in the, in the Midwestin the north , uh, you know ,

(52:38):
football's starting, but, soit'll be a slower time and then
it'll start to pick back upwith holiday sales people
buying stuff for, for theholidays. So , um, yeah, so for
us, the next couple months areall about that. Like , you
know, just kind of gettingthrough that. And then , um,
yeah, we're working on some newthings for, for next year, so,
yeah . We'll , uh, you know, Ithink we've pretty much every,

(53:00):
geez , I wanna say every yearsince 20, probably 16, 20 15,
we've had a new product andyeah , we will continue, you
know, that we'll continue toevolve our, you know , range
five years . The , um, yeah ,the next tens about 18 months
in now, so it'll have a

Speaker 6 (53:15):
Still the nine too.
I mean, the nine nine's beenaround for

Speaker 7 (53:18):
Mm-Hmm .
three years.
Three years . Yeah , we do andwe do sell . Yeah. We , we will
keep that or we actually, like,we , um, kind of re you know ,
redesigned the

Speaker 6 (53:26):
Redesigned it, it looks different than the old
one. I have the old one. Yeah .
Well , I have too , but I mean, I originally had the original
Ninex nine .

Speaker 7 (53:32):
Yeah. So we think about that as like, you know,
that's a good price pointproduct. It's just nice. It's a
good solid product that has allthe features. Yeah . Pretty
simple.

Speaker 6 (53:39):
It's probably great for Amazon too, you know what I
mean? Like , it's a good priceproduct that can compete that's
affordable. Yeah . Um , perfectnumber .

Speaker 7 (53:47):
Yeah. So we'll keep that in line and then yeah,
continue to kind of , you know,refresh our things and add ,
add, add new stuff. So , um,yeah, that's kinda our overall
strategies is to kind continueto , um, yeah, I mean , kinda
make things that we like andmake things we use stuff.
That's cool,

Speaker 6 (54:03):
Man . I mean, it's crazy. Like, I never like knew
the whole story. I knew I heardparts of the story, but like, I
didn't hear like the , I didn'tknow, I didn't know any of that
stuff about like the , um, youknow, your, your training aids
and trying to figure all that.
I , I know that I thought you ,I knew you guys met in a bar
and I knew you guys came upwith the idea for a
rangefinder. That's about asfar as I knew that story. So I

(54:24):
think it's really cool to like,hear you, like, I didn't , I
don't know , that's a lot ofstuff to go through before you
even come up a honestly, likethat's, people don't realize
that. Like, you don't just buythe first product and be like,
I'm gonna sell it, you know,it's gonna work. It's like, no
dude, we had like years of metrying to sell other things,
you know, for Yeah .

Speaker 7 (54:41):
It's, I think for most, yeah, most people it's a
, uh, it's a process. It takessome time, it takes patience.
Like, you know, that's why alot of things don't work out,
right? It's like people gettired , it's not working right
away. So , um, you know , italso, like when you, if you
start something, it's like,it's probably not gonna, you
know, go the way your fir youknow, your first vision of

(55:02):
things goes,

Speaker 6 (55:02):
Your iteration is not gonna be Yeah . The final
iteration. This is not

Speaker 7 (55:06):
What we had in mind when we first started. So just
kind of , you figure out maybesomething could work and you
iterate on it and like, Hey ,you know, this is not working,
let's try something different.
So , um, yeah , your first ideais never gonna, you know,
usually be the one that, youknow, gets end , ends up being
a good one. So

Speaker 6 (55:22):
That's what makes you hungry though, too, right?
Because you make your firstone, you're all excited about
it, and then you're like,you're ready to make V two
because you're like, oh, Idon't like this, I don't like
this, you know, and then youwanna make V two, then you
wanna make V three, and thenyou're like, I think that's the
fun part, I would say, right?
It is just the

Speaker 7 (55:38):
It is . Yeah. No, it is fun. It is fun for us too .
'cause we really like golf andwe play golf and, you know, we
can use these things. So like,if we were making something
for, you know , let's say we'remaking, you know, pickle bar
products and we didn't reallycare about pickleball, it'd be
like, all right , this is, youknow, somewhat interesting, but
the fact that

Speaker 6 (55:54):
Widget definitely a widget, right? It doesn't even
matter.

Speaker 7 (55:57):
These are things you asking about it . Yeah. Get to
use and try and like, you know,we get to be our own customers
and go out and like, when wetest things, like we can tell
like, Hey, this is not gonnawork. This is not right,
because like , you know, weplay awful all the time and
like, this is just not gonna begood, so let's fix this. Um,
uh, versus like, you know, nothaving a clue, like if you're
making software for , uh, somecompany, like, you probably

(56:19):
have no idea what theirday-to-Day is like. So you're
like, you have no idea ifthat's good software .

Speaker 6 (56:23):
Yeah. You know, right away, like, oh, no one's
ever gonna use that. Or like, Iwould never use , like , that's
the first thing you askyourself, would I ever use
that? No, that thing's stupid.
You know, I've done that lotsof times. Like people will will
send me like, Hey, I , I wantto send you this, whatever. And
I'll look at , I'm like, that'sstupid. No one's gonna buy that
. Like, I just like,no, sorry. Like, I mean , I'm
not interested. I'm not tryingto a jerk . Just like no one,
that's not a product . No one ,no one needs that product,

(56:45):
dude. Like, yeah ,

Speaker 7 (56:46):
Yeah. That's, that's, and you know, that ends
up happening and that happenswith us as well. So we, you
know, it doesn't always go

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Scrap it . You're like, Nope , we're not doing
that. Next, next thing doesn't

Speaker 7 (56:56):
Always go amazing.
So,

Speaker 6 (56:58):
So where can people find you?

Speaker 7 (57:01):
Find me? They , I mean, they can find so , well
not

Speaker 6 (57:03):
You, but like your brand. I mean, I guess you ,
you can Google Clay Hood, youcould find 'em pretty quick I
bet. But , uh,

Speaker 7 (57:09):
Me personally, I'm not very active on the , uh,
the Twitters or the Instagramsor any of those things. So I'm
not all that. You'd have tocome to my office to find me
and I'll , uh, but

Speaker 6 (57:17):
You talk , you're too busy, man. You got too much
going

Speaker 7 (57:19):
On. Yeah . Um, but no, you go to precision pro
golf.com , so that's where weare. Um, you get all the info
you need there, you know, we'reon , we're on Amazon, we're in
stores or in, you know ,Sporting Goods, golf Galaxy,
you know, most of the ba , mostof the, of the golf shops. So ,
um, yeah. But our website cankind of guide you to anywhere
you need to go or, you know,get you in , get your

(57:39):
information on anything youneed to know.

Speaker 6 (57:41):
That's awesome.
Well, I mean, I'm a big fan ofPrecision Pro. Like I said,
I've, I mean, I've , my brandhas grown alongside you guys.
Like, I've done like the NXseven, the NX nine, the NX
nine, was it the pro theycalled it or something after
that ? The NX 10? Like I knowyour products, the ace , uh,
what was the other one that waslike the, that, that was the

(58:02):
gray one. I can't think of thename of it right now. It was
Gray.

Speaker 7 (58:04):
Oh, the R one.

Speaker 6 (58:06):
R one. Yeah . Yeah, NX 10. It's like, I know your
products, like, it's cool tosee you guys like evolve each
one and it's gotten better andbetter and better and better.
And I remember my first reviewthe NX seven, and I was like,
and the NX nine. I was like,oh, that's a really, really
good product. And that videohas a ton of views. Honestly,
my old NX seven video onYouTube, that was like four
years ago, and I still had aton of views. So it's like cool

(58:26):
. I mean then no , then Clayhad to go freaking make the nx
nine people were quick lookingfor the NX seven, unless they
wanna find like a way backmachine or something. But

Speaker 7 (58:36):
Keep , uh, yeah, keep, keep , uh, keep updated ,
keep, keep going new. So,

Speaker 6 (58:41):
Yeah , exactly.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on the show, and I will
see you guys in the nextepisode.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Behind
the Golf Brand podcast. You'regonna beat me and golf stay
connected on and off the showby visiting golfers
authority.com. Don't forget tolike, subscribe and leave a
comment. Golf is always morefun when you win. Stay out of
the beach and see you on thegreen.