Off the Deck

ParFour with Ethan Andrews

• BestBall • Season 2 • Episode 15

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0:00 | 56:03

Ethan Andrews shares his journey from high school dropout to tech innovator in golf, discussing his company's pivot, innovative features, and vision for the future of golf technology.

https://parfour.com/

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SPEAKER_00

Driver off the deck for Cory Connor. Here's driver off the deck. They're hoblin. So the driver off the deck. I think you would try this, right? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02

You have to put your foot on the gas. You pull out the driver off the deck and you put it on the green all the way up the hill.

unknown

Don't stop! Don't stop!

SPEAKER_02

Welcome back to another episode of Off the Deck. We have Mr. Ethan Andrews joining the show today. Ethan, it is a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for taking time to come on the show.

SPEAKER_01

Josh, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02

And I want you to introduce yourself because this is the first time we've ever met other than communicating via some DMs. Um tell the listeners who you are, what you do, and then we can dive into that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I'm Ethan Andrews. Uh founded Par 4 about, gosh, now coming up, I think on a year and a half. Um, and we have changed a lot. This is probably my first podcast since we've raised a million dollars, and we've pivoted our entire product, which has been the best decision we could have made, which is awesome. Um, but uh yeah, a little bit of back uh you know background about me. Um I I've played golf since I was gosh uh seven years old, I believe. Um, and uh been in tech since I was 17. So I've worked at uh Apple, I I helped build Home Depot's app, I was a part of BitPay, worked for a ton of Y Combinator companies for those who know what YC is. Um and so yeah, it's you know, taking what I absolutely love, uh and now what my children love, um and in and truly turning it into something that is is changing what we think is the way that tech is actually done in in inside uh inside the game and on the course and in the club, right? So it's like our old my old saying was we're changing the game. It's like no, this is this is software that's actually changing the momentum of the game, which is super, super cool. So um yeah, super excited to be on here. And yeah, I like I said, you're the first person uh that we've talked to since post-raise. So it'll be cool to kind of vocally give an update on on what we're doing and where we're at.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, which I want to hear that. Uh, but I'd like to start with your background though. Um you said you've been in tech since you were 17. Where did you grow up when you when you said you were seven years old with a golf club in your hand? Where was that? Where where did your life begin on the course?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so uh North Georgia, Woodstock, Alpharetta, Georgia, is where I grew up most of my life, uh, actually, pretty much all my life. Uh and so yeah, I played USGA uh in Georgia. Actually played against my stepbrother a lot, who is now on the PGA tour. Uh so his uh his name is Anders Albertson. Actually, just got to caddy for him at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which was super cool. Um, and that was my first time like inside the ropes with him and watching his swing. It was a whole different world, right? Like he's my stepbrother, but he is also a really freaking good golfer. And uh yeah, I I I played against him. He kicked my butt a lot, which is awesome. Uh and uh yeah, I I uh worked and lived in Georgia until I was uh my wife and I moved down here about seven, coming up on eight years now, uh to Orlando, Florida. So now I'm in Orlando. Uh I I I'm up in uh Claremont, so we're about on five acres here in Claremont, which is awesome. Uh a little bit about 35 minutes north of Disney, and I have golf uh every five miles away from me, which is incredible now. So uh member over at the uh Four Seasons Country Club. So if you're ever down and want to play some golf, uh and uh yeah, it's it's it's a really cool, very blessed uh to be where we are today and and and be able to like now engulf my life literally in golf, which is super cool.

SPEAKER_02

So is some is tech something you always wanted to work in, or did this just kind of accidentally become a thing?

SPEAKER_01

So uh I'm not sure if I've ever talked about this. Well, maybe. Uh I'm a high school dropout, so I dropped out at 17 years old to go work for Apple. Uh, and I struggle with severe dyslexia. So, like, I mean, if you gave me a book to read, it would be probably just very, very, very difficult for me to read. Um, I started learning how to do UI UX uh and just kind of like design and some front-end development. And I felt like it was just easier for me to do that than actually like read. Uh, and so I just knew that technology was gonna play a big part of like my life and what I wanted to do and and and where I'm at. Uh, and then my older brother, who is now my head of design at MailChimp, or he at uh at Parfur, he was the uh one of the lead designers at MailChimp for eight years. Uh so took him from MailChimp. I said, come work with me and build something cool. And uh he's really like the person who has taught me my entire tech, my background, kind of helped me fall in love with it. Um, there was an application, he I remember the day we were sitting on my mom's couch and he was showing me an application called Sketch. Uh, and he was showing me how I can basically build mobile screens and mobile designs. And this was like literally, gosh, right, right as I was about to drop out of high school. And I was like, I love this. I love building things, I love tinkering things, I love problem solving. Um, and so that's kind of where it led me to be like, I love technology and get to get to build it every day.

SPEAKER_02

So, and and I know my parents are gonna listen to this episode because they they're I think they're my biggest fans other than my wife. What do what do uh UI and UX stand for?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, user experience and user interface. So user experience is something that me as a user, I'm going to go through, right? So I'm going to click button, button is going to take me to X, and then X is going to do Y. So every app you use, every piece of technology that you use, whether it's on web or mobile, somebody is thinking about that experience. Now there's some websites that don't care about experience and they don't care about user interface, and they just literally it's just a program, right? Um, and and a lot of today's technology is focused around user experience, user interface, right? They hire uh what is called user interaction designers who literally their sole purpose of their job is to talk to users and figure out what is going to make their lives easier for you to give them money, right? Uh as a product. And then you have user interface designers, which are literally solely focused on building something beautiful, right? And so, um, and then now you have UX engineers who are now a combination of UX user experience and then also know how to develop, right? So now you're kind of getting two birds, one stone. Those are very expensive people. Uh very talented of being able to use the left brain and the right brain simultaneously. Uh, and so yeah, I I mean it it's it's a it's a and with AI, it's a whole different world now, right? Like, I mean, it is it is insane what you can build at that level and even what you can think about, right? I can literally ask Claude or ChatGBT to say, act as a senior UX designer and help me flow do this flow. And it'll literally tell me the things that I need to do or how to do it. So it's like we're entering a whole new world of tech. We're utilizing it, not not dependent on it, right? And there's a there's a big, big difference between that. Sure. Um, but I think that you know, as UX designers and UI designers, there it's going to truly change the way that we design and think because of AI. So um I'm very excited to see like where tech is gonna go in the next like two to three years because it's yeah, it's scary and it's cool.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. It's it is it's very scary, it's very cool. I mean, we we just recently moved and we pretty much designed our entire house with AI, with Claude. That's with Chat GPT. I mean it, yeah, it's not um saved thousands of dollars doing that too. Um so uh and I want to get to your pivot and congratulations on the funding. But thank you. I'm curious with every every product or with every, and I guess an app is a product, but everybody has an aha moment. What was what was the aha moment for you when this became something in your mind that you wanted to create, the parfour app?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I'll kind of start from the beginning, right? So in the beginning, uh we, you know, the idea of parfois came from uh being able to go and live stream on a course, right? So we have Instagram Live, we have YouTube Live, we have Twitch, uh, you know, and all of those things are for specific things. Twitch is for video games, Instagram Live is more of just like communicating, comedy, talking. And now you have TikTok live, which is, you know, now honestly in like the selling uh side of things where you can buy stuff off the TikTok shop and all that. So we were like, well, where's where's like where's live streaming for golf? Where's live streaming for sports? You have it for game changers, which is the baseball version of live stream where it has a camera behind home plate. Parents can watch when they're out of town. But where is this for golf? Now it's super hard, and there's a reason why this hasn't been done, uh, because it's very expensive to do that, right? You're using servers that require a lot of movement when it comes to video compression, uh phones, being able to create an app that actually takes that video, brings it to a live stream, chatting, user experience, user interface, engineers. It just it's massive, right? So we were doing it for some really cool tours. Um, and we figured out a way to do it to where we could basically uh do about one-tenth of the cost of what a normal actual production costs and still look the exact same. Wow. Um, we we did some stuff with uh the PGA tour. I can't say like what in the PGA tour, but we did some stuff with the PGA tour, which is super cool. Uh, and then we ended up doing stuff for the Annika Tour, so the women's uh you know, pathway to the uh LPGA tour. And there there's a gentleman named Gary, if he ever listens to this, and Gary one day literally we were out there streaming uh the championship for him, and during that stream, and I'm not on the camera, I have two camera guys. He looks over to me and he goes, You know, with your talents, you guys could probably recreate what Golf Genius has done better. And it was just that was like the aha moment. And I've you've I've used Golf Genius, I've never thought about like that's a beast, right? Like you, you, you, you're tackling David and Goliath at this point. Um, and so I thought I was like, okay, like, you know, we're making a little bit of money, we're not making what we thought we would make with the live streaming aspect. It's it's very travel heavy. I was becoming more of a media production company rather than a tech company, right? And so when Gary said that to me, I, you know, we had very, very little in the bank left. We were like, we got to do something. Like, this is this is the time to do it. Um, and uh fast forward today, we've raised a million dollars. Uh, we uh have uh onboarded 74 clubs, we've generated$50,000 in revenue in our first month. Uh and it's awesome. It's super cool. We're able to build extremely fast. Uh you know, for instance, uh two days ago, one of our users said, Hey, it'd be awesome to have a wait list where once the event is at full capacity, I can have a wait list. And if someone drops, it automatically fills them in and sends them an invoice. We built it in three days, testing from beginning to end.

SPEAKER_02

So if a member does this club and they've got a wait list, as soon as someone drops out, it automatically pops someone else in, invoices them. Yep. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So there's there's pieces of the technology that we're hearing from outdated products and platforms that are literally saying, we've asked this stuff for years, right? The problem with those outdated applications, right? Um, is they've they're built on literally 20 to 25 years of architecture. So when you go and you say, hey, I want this, that one little thing takes months, right? Because what happens is they try to integrate it and there's a thing called regression. So if you change one thing, it can affect 85 different files, right? So there is there is not a lot of updating happening. They're they're moving at very slow speed, but it's working. What they have works, it's there, it's functional. And then now when you're looking at new today companies that are coming out, you either have two problems. Number one, it's AI slop, right? Like they're literally just having AI build it, which is fine, but it's not from a long term, it's not scalable, right? The infrastructure is not there to actually build on it. Um, number two, people are building, but it still looks like it was built in the 90s, right? Like there's just no attention to, again, user experience and user interface. Um, I always say, like, if I walk into a store and you see something beautifully designed and then something really ugly, you're gonna buy the beautifully designed product first before you even look at the ugly product, right? So, like your landing page, your your branding, your aesthetic, it all needs to have a purpose and a reason. Um, and so, you know, that's what that's what we tried to focus on was how could we become the next adaptive idea and design for golf, right? Golf technology. Um, and we're really putting our focus heavy on clubs and events and tours, right? So at a club level, you have everything. You have the members, you have the actual club itself, the location, the things that it offers, the events, the whole nine yards. Then with inside of that, you have the members. So you're having to use about four, three to five different products right now to do everything that par four does. Um, and that's what we're trying to do is chip slowly away to be like, hey, you don't need PayPal anymore. If you go on a par four event page, you can actually buy a sponsorship for an event right there, upload your logo, and it automatically applies it to the event page, the scorecards, the cart cards, and you as the event manager have to not do a single thing. It does everything for you. Right? So we want to create better software, we want to create clubs more revenue, events more revenue, and to be able to bring in things that they never had in one platform where it doesn't feel like they're having to go and spend thousands of dollars over multiple platforms or forget which platform does what. Our pricing is super simple: four thousand dollars a year, no contract, no setup fee, and that's it.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. And then cost per event or or what? Is it just four grand for the year and you have I mean, obviously you don't get open-ended access, right? It it's how how does that function?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so we have three options. Well, technically four. You can create a club for free, right? So anyone can go in there, create a club, that's free. Um, to use an event, right? If you were, let's say you were a charity event and you're like, hey, I have one event a year. I don't need$4,000 worth of events, like I'm just doing one. For one event, it's$299, right? But we handle everything. We handle your event page, your registration, your live scoring, your sponsorships, uh, every fee we connect to Stripe. Uh, so essentially it is built all in right there through Stripe, which is awesome. Uh, and yeah, so we handle literally everything from before the event to final putt, live leaderboards, stats, to statistics, uh, what happens after the event, the whole nine yards. So that is free,$2.99, or you could do four$499 a month or annually$4,000 a year, right? Which saves about like 20-ish percent. So that's kind of like we have a lot of users who do the monthly event because for them, hey, I'm gonna run three or four events, cancel for a month, I'm gonna come back and do it for now. It's like for me, that's awesome. I love that because by the time you come back, we'll have four or five more features that you didn't have when you first started. Yeah. So I think that's the the new name of the game. And then the cool part is we actually launched our app. We have not made like any big hoot and howl about it. Um, but we're doing a big press release on April 17th. So we're gonna give the masters a little bit time to breathe uh with all the masters news, and we're gonna be a big press announcement where we've basically recreated 18 Birdies and the Grint and 19 Whole, and we've rebuilt the app completely from ground up, and it's completely free. So there is no subscription, there is no anything. We want users to literally use the Par 4 app. There's multiple game modes, so you can play Stroke Play, Scramble, Match Play, Stableford. We're coming out with Skins and Ryder Cup, and the app is going to be 100% completely free because we want people to come in and be like, oh my gosh, head pro, we need to use this our next member guest. We need to use this as our next member member. So we're using that opportunity to basically give anybody and everybody access to it and then go into the clubs and make their club experience better than it is today.

SPEAKER_02

That is fascinating. So uh, and you started the app for a different reason and it pivoted, like you mentioned. What was that a tough pill to swallow? Like you talked about the conversation you had. So tell me about the conversations internally about completely changing course with what you all were doing as an organization. And I one of my questions was the size of your team, how many people you have at par four. Uh I mean, that turning a ship a completely different direction is a big move. How, how was that received? What was that process like?

SPEAKER_01

Man, so I mean, with with any startup, the big the hardest part, like when some when I I remember I always heard like the hardest part of being a C CEO is just navigating, right? Like knowing you have to make the call as to what is going to be best for you, best for the team, best for the product, best for the company. And I I I felt that full hand, right? Like I'm responsible for people's salaries. Uh the good part is is half the people, uh about 75% of the people on my team are some of my really close friends, if not family, right? So that pill was a little bit easier uh to swallow to be like, if we run out of money, I'm sorry, you know, like it's well, let's maybe go find something else. But um, you know, it was it was very hard. There was a lot of sleepless nights, there's a lot of hard conversations with my wife, which is like, do I continue this? Like, I I put so much time and effort into the brand, the voice, uh, the product, the tech. You know, our team members have done the same. Um, and and so yeah, it was a it was a gamble. It was a literally a flip the coin. Like, is this going to work or is this not going to work? Uh, and I remember I my first call with social leverage, it it was it was crazy. The first call I had, it was all about us raising money based off of the live streaming aspect. Two months later, I go back to them and I said, Hey, we pivoted in this, what we're building. And they were like, Oh my gosh, this is the Strava and Shopify for golf. And that's what they invested in. They didn't invest in the streaming aspect. They literally were like, You're gonna drop the streaming stuff, right? Uh, and I was like, Yeah, I mean, we'll still do it for some, you know, some Annika tour and some other tours, and and people we're talking to um that want to do cool events that are willing to pay the price tag, but that's not gonna be our core product anymore. And they they they loved it. They were they I mean, it's been so cool. And I think we found a really good uh VC that it the money, the money is the 50% of it. The connections and the the opportunities that they've given us just from this venture capitalist alone is worth if not more than what they gave us, right? And so uh if anyone's out there listening about uh raising capital, make sure it's the right VC because it it matters a lot, right? Like money can only get you so far, but your connections and like the the the conversations that they've given me, I I don't think I could have gotten from any other VC. And we got a couple other VCs with term sheets, but not as good as this term sheet, and also just as good as what they wanted to do, which was help us grow the business, right? So um, yeah, very, very hard pill to swallow to answer your question, and it and it was a massive risk, literally flipping a coin.

SPEAKER_02

And how much of your framework and everything within the app, and was that just scrapping everything and starting over, but you had the brand loyalty and the brand equity, so that's that was the plan. Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

So that that sucked, right? Like we literally, we literally, I remember the day that we sat there and we said, All right, let's delete the app. And we started literally from scratch, and it it it sucked. It sucked. It was like, all right, there's no going back. Like we just like.

SPEAKER_02

How many users did you have on the app that you deleted?

SPEAKER_01

Uh so we still have all that user database. So they that's the good part. They can still access the app, but we had roughly around 10,000 users uh using like you know, that had an account in par four, which was super cool. Um but you know, today, if anyone was to go into the the the app, um we actually switched it to where there is no passwords in par four. It's an email, you get a six digit code, you enter that in, right? So That's really for our older generation that will be using the app. Another password is not needed right now in today's world, you know? So uh made it super easy from that standpoint. But we have uh we have seven team members total, and uh three of which are engineers, two of which are product and design, and then me, and then uh uh some sales guys and and marketing guys who kind of are you know part-time who help out. So yeah, it it's it's a very like I do all the graphics, I do all the branding, I do all the demos, uh, I do about 10 to 15 demos a day right now. Uh we're just cold reaching out to to clubs and being like, hey, you got Golf Genius, you got Blue Golf, like we can help you uh not want to pull your hair out at night. So yeah, that's kind of the the easy in, and then from there it it they once they see the product, they're just like, oh my gosh, this feels like an app that was built in 2026.

SPEAKER_02

So which it's funny you said because in in my nine to five, I'm currently dealing with a CRM that's about 20 years old and it's been just band band-aided along the way, which to your earlier point has created a mountain of problems that we're dealing with because once you pull this lever, it ch the domino effect is terrible. And yeah, it's it's yeah, in turn the the challenges it's created for us have been horrendous. Um so what is it that is uh the capabilities and the functionality that you all provide that's more advantageous than what, and I know Golf Genius is more prehistoric. What is it that par four is doing differently to set yourself apart?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so number one, I'll kind of walk you through like the entire UX, right? So this is a great example of um I'm a club, right? Uh, and that's the cool thing. This is not built for just country clubs or just munis, right? Like this is for the random golf club. This is for the Tuesday morning boys who go out, this is for the Thursday night golf sim league, right? Like this is literally built for every single type of golf club um that doesn't even have to have a building. And so that's the hard part that golf genius or any other product does, right? They don't they're focused on going after the country clubs, they're going after the public courses. And there's really nobody out there that's doing this for the everyday course. So for instance, today we signed on uh a core uh a club literally called the Social Tour out of Ontario Ontario, and they do just like high stakes, high-level golf. But they don't they can't use golf genius because it's so expensive, but also because it doesn't have the all the functionality and and their brand is super sweet, super cool looking, and they're like golf genius just bogs that down, right? Um, and so you know, and they look at other products on the market, but most of these products is what we call is a fractional feature of what we offer. So they do like there's you know, one company that just does just events, right? Or one company that does tour level leagues and seasons. Um, but there's no one who does clubs, events, members, tours, and tournaments. So that's where we kind of come in play, which is focusing on bringing a club in, getting all of their members uploaded to to parfour. Then you can create events and not just golf events. Let's say that you have a social gala, or like for me, for instance, I'm actually throwing a master, I'm going to the masters Friday and sun uh Friday and Saturday, and then I'm flying home and we're throwing a master's party on Sunday. I literally did all of my registration through an event I made in par four where all my friends could register, add plus ones, and now I can see how much food I need to order, what I need to do. It gives them what to bring. We have bounce houses, a pool, but I like I basically created an invite or in bright for everything golf related. Yeah. Right. So it's not just on the course, which is super cool. Um, then I'm able to go in and I'm able to do differentiating factors like let's say I don't know the course or know where I'm playing or how much it costs, but I know this is the vision of my tournament. We have options where you can say, this is TBD, you know, location is TBD, price is TBD, but I can join a wait list. Once that wait list lets me know, it sends out an email automatically to all the members. A date has been chosen, a price has been chosen. Um we have uh built-in 43,000 golf courses. So as I'm actually building my event, I type in my golf course, you select it, and then boom, a drop-down comes down and tells you what tease you're playing. Um we just got uh kind of the okay to start using uh USGA. I don't know if I wasn't allowed to say that or not, but we'll find out. So we uh we have integration within USGA now, so you can go into the PAR4 app, link your USGA account. Uh our next step is to get all the scoring, right? So all the 10, your your past 10 scores will be brought into par four, and then all of your stats will be based off of that as well. So now we have full handy care handicap operations for any game type. Um, again, free. Uh and uh going all the way down to during an event, you have a full leaderboard. And within the app, this is the cool part that no other app does. Um, as you're playing, a live GPS will actually show your icon moving across the golf course with the yardage to the pen, and it'll show your viewer what club you're taking, the weather, and everything about the location of where you're at, how many hazards there are on that hole. So we basically created shot link, what the PGA tour has, but for the everyday tournament and the everyday player.

SPEAKER_02

And also really cool. So you've got my wheels really turning because I'm going with 16 guys, or if there's 15 guys going with me, I'm the 16th. We're going to Landman in Nebraska in July.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02

And and I'm thinking through because there's always there's lots back and forth about what kind of games we're gonna do and how we're gonna keep up with it. And I might have found a solution. And and because it sounds like par four can solve all of that. Because if anybody wants to have side games, side bets, whatever, they can do that while we still have a large game between two teams that gets managed within the app. Am I hearing you correctly? Because that's like that functionality exists.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. And you can do scrambles, you can do stableford, we have point systems all the way down. Your handicaps will show everybody who gets a pop on which hole. Um, like everything is broken down to where all you have to do is literally push your your score, and that's it, and it does the rest, right? So um and and and the cool part is is we're working on where you can actually create side games in your big tournament, right? So if you're playing a stroke play, we're gonna have the op uh the option to be basically create a skins game in that stroke play. That's right. Right. So um again, just kind of doing things that are, you know, it's it in a way we're focusing on two different types of users. We're focusing on the the B2B, which is essentially the the clubhouse, the event manager, the people who are putting on events and tours, and then the B2C, which is leading us to the B2B, right? Um, and I think that like you said, this is built for physically any type of size. Two man, four, six, ten, sixteen, thirty, one hundred, five hundred. Um, you know, we just partner with Goldlinks, uh, the really, really awesome black community in golf that have that has like JR Smith and Justin Jefferson and like all these guys, uh Billy J, um, Swag Avance were actually hosting his tournament on par four. And uh yeah, it's it's it's just insane the level of detail that we can get into with still making it look freaking gorgeous. Yeah. Right. And and that's really what we're focusing on is uh, and I this kind of cliche, but we are truly trying to become the apple of golf, right? When someone looks at par four, when they look at our brand, look at our logo, they're like, they know they're going to get the best product, they know it's going to function well, and yeah, it may be a little bit on the expensive side, not compared to the other competitors, but just as a normal golf outing, but you're gonna get what you pay for, which is an incredible experience. Um, you know, our goal is to go after the invited club, the trunes, the the cabots that every time a big group goes out, they're using par four, a part of that party. Um, because now it feels like they're actually playing in their own little PGA tour right there at that event on that location.

SPEAKER_02

So when does when does a user like myself, like for my trip to Landman, when do I start paying? Is it doing it?

SPEAKER_01

So you would you would pay for just the just the one event. That's it. Okay. Right? That would be$299. And then what you do is you ask all all 16 guys to chip in 15 bucks and it's covered, right? But now you have a historical data of your entire round, and you can do multiple rounds in that event. So let's say that you do in that event, you do day one, you're going to play 18 holes at this location. You create a second round under that same event, it creates your scorecard for you for every single event. So you're not having to create five events, you're creating one event with multiple rounds inside.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, because that's I was about to ask that question because we're playing four rounds. So my event, I would have one event with four rounds under it, and then I can go in those each each of those rounds and make them either scrambles or stroke play, whatever.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, yep. So you're able to now create all of that, and it's all separate different leaderboards. And then you can say, Hey, are we playing gross and net? Are we just playing stroke play straight up? So you get to choose as you're going through this. Um, and and and and you know, like let's say, for instance, you just happen to be like, hey, I'm gonna try to get a sponsor for this, right? And and publicly get it. You can literally create a sponsorship right there in that event. That sponsorship can buy it, and now it's on all of your scorecards. Now it's on all of your cart cards. And we do all the printouts right in par four where it automatically generates everything with cut lines. Uh, your sponsor logo shows up on it, a QR code shows up on it for you to download the app. You click it, there's no GG ID, there's no searching for your event. The email that you registered for, literally type that into par four, even if it's your first time using the app or a hundredth time, you log in, and that scorecard is literally waiting for you right at the top. So our ecosystem allows for you now your profile to go to another event, and that that that profile follows you along. So now your stats will follow you to any par four event that you do inside the platform. So it's not like other products where you use a a GG ID once and you're like, well, I don't know what happened to my score. It's in the ether now, right? Like it literally, like the only way you'll be able to see it is if you go back to if it's tied to a USGA account, right? Um with this, literally everything follows you uh inside of your member profile. Your club can actually go in and leave private comments. So, like, this guy's slow, we need to put him with the sandbaggers or what. So there's a full ecosystem for the club to literally manage their members in real time. Then there's a thing called my bag. So in the app, you can set up every single detail about your bag, your glove, the ball that you use, the bag that you use, all your clubs. So when you're playing, it literally is telling the user in real time that's watching you what club you're using based off the distance that you put in, and it's using that data every single time you play on every single course.

SPEAKER_02

And so which that's fascinating also. The on the group game, like the 16 guys, is there a link then that everybody gets sent where they're able to join that event? What how how does that that event?

SPEAKER_01

So what would happen is you would create an event, right? You now have a public page, they would all register. You would make this an unlisted event, right? Because you don't want it out in the ether, like you want people to literally you're your 16 guys to register. Once they're registered, you actually can go into that event and create tea times for specific one like rounds, but like, hey, we're gonna group these four guys together and these four guys, and then the next round, these four guys are gonna be grouped together, these four guys are gonna be grouped together. So you literally can customize it like you're the head pro at the clubhouse, but for just your 16 guys. Then as they're entering in all their emails to register for that, once they sign into the app and you start that event, literally that that scorecard shows up automatically in their app. So there's no searching for it, there's no entering a code. Literally, once you guys are starting your tea times, boom, everyone gets in the app a push notification saying your round is started, you hit it, and then it comes up and start scoring, and that's it. And then once you finish a hole, you just go in and put your score in. Yep. And then you hit next. And then on the web page, this is the cool part. The web page is dynamic. So the webpage they signed up on literally the sign-up goes away and it becomes a full leaderboard for people to literally follow along in real time. Then inside the app we have an optional thing that are called stats. So you can enter in your FIR, G I R, how many putts, how many sand traps. Below that leaderboard is all the data that's coming in real time from the app. So you could say, oh, Josh made a three putt here, but he made a par. Oh, Kevin made a two putt and he made an eagle, right? Like, so it literally lists out all the stats like you're literally watching uh a tour in real time, and it tells you, and and and the updates are literally four to eight seconds. As soon as you enter the score, it updates automatically right in the web browser, too.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. Well, yeah, so I'm I'm definitely gonna have to get with you on on for our channel.

SPEAKER_01

I'll give you a code.

SPEAKER_02

You can use it for free and test it out and give me some feedback. Yeah, that would be great. So, what what challenges have you guys run into with calling on clubs and just in the trip like me on a golf trip? What has been the biggest hurdle that you all have encountered that that kind of surprised you?

SPEAKER_01

New software, right? Like no one wants to sit there and relearn new software. Yeah. Um, and and we kind of win them, we've won them over recently by changing the way that we talk about it. And it's really saying, hey, I can I can actually onboard you in 30 minutes. A normal competitor uh onboarding takes anywhere between four to six hours multiple days, right? Because it's just so much, it's so convoluted, like it's it's massive. But we literally can onboard you in 30 minutes and have your first event up in nine minutes. So from beginning to end, I you can set up a full event in nine minutes. And so we we made it to where, like, uh it's funny enough, uh my my slogan or my saying is like if my mom, we literally asked my mom to do it and she was able to do it all the way through. And my mom is the person that calls me weekly asking for my pet for a password, right? And so we made it to where any type of level of person would be able to create an event and do it. Um, and so that's what we've really been focusing on is making it very quick, very easy, very beautiful, and truly focusing on that experience to make it be like, yeah, I'm gonna use this for everything that we do, right? And again, not just golf events, but everything that that club may offer. Um, and and we're we're building even more. Like next on our roadmap, the the the biggest thing that I'm absolutely so excited about, we're offering memberships with inside of a club. So a a club can now sell memberships at annual or yearly with dues in the whole nine yards within side of par four. So you can have membership packages in that membership package. Let's say you create an event and say, hey, I only want these members to get access for 24 hours, then it opens up to the public. So these members will get first access to my club and you pay X amount a month or X amount a year, and then here's the initiation. So all these clubs that exist without an actual building will now be able to create and build memberships right in par four. So now you have club management, member management, event management, uh sponsor management, league management, and everything all under one roof.

SPEAKER_02

That's very good. And that that's becoming a more popular thing, right? Like you're seeing that pop up all over the place where there's it's a golf club, I'm gonna make an air quotes, but they don't have brick and mortar, they don't have a home course, but they've had five of them sign up in the last 48 hours.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yep. And and you have to think about it random golf club, golf gaming club, um, uh the cactus club, which they signed up. Terrence signed up on on par four for that. Um, we again today we just announced the social club. We have here a uh in Orlando, the Panther Pines Club. And it's literally all these clubs have no brick or building, they go and meet at different golf courses, they play, and that is their membership, right? Which is a freaking cool experience because now you get to go to multiple courses. Yeah, and usually it's the people inside the the club that's offering up their clubs for those players to come in. So yeah, I think I think in my in my opinion, where golf is going, you're going to see more clubs without buildings than buildings.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's that's crazy. But it's a really cool concept. I mean, I'm not a part of one, but I'm I'm familiar with Gimme Golf in St. Louis and they're they're just exploding. And they've got access to clubs there in St. Louis. They have simulators, obviously, so they can play indoors, but their membership's huge. They're they've got international, they've got national members. Um that yeah, that's that's fascinating. I didn't I never even thought about that as an opportunity for revenue, but it it certainly makes complete sense. What is what is next for par four? So it sounds like you've found the niche and where you guys are trying to kick open that door in terms of clubs both that have their own golf courses and clubs that don't. But what if you could wave a magic wand in the next five years, what does par four look like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so big thing number one is is building trust, right? Like we're this new product, well, older new product that has pivoted to what we are. Um, and and I truly think that gaining trust of people to be like, hey, I'm I will spend money on your product, right? That's the hardest thing to get anybody to do is saying, man, I'm gonna drop$300 for one event. But what people don't realize is one sponsor can cover that, 10 guys can cover that, right? Like the when you break it down, it is so inexpensive to actually do an event or host an event or tournament or club inside a par four. And you know, we we've we've pitched it this way, which is we want to create more revenue streams for clubs that they did not know that existed, right? So it is starting to become a business for some of these people to create clubs, host events, create tournaments, and they're literally now be able to create a business off of it, right? Um, I mean, you you do the math simply. If I got, you know, we know a club, oh, Soba, Soba Club. They are uh, I'm actually going uh with uh Corey to Ireland, which is super cool in September. And we signed up Soba, you know, if you think about it, if they launched a membership for their 10,000 members at$75 a year, that the math's simple on that, right? Like you're creating a revenue stream that never existed, but now you get to offer your members something that they never got to get got to have, which is an experience almost feeling like they are part of a country club, but actually a tighter community, right? So that's I think where we want to focus is creating and generating revenue, but making sure that we're building clubs and events really freaking well for our users.

SPEAKER_02

So is there are there capabilities within the app to like a like a Discord channel where you can communicate with other members or no?

SPEAKER_01

Not right now. So we're working on a communication piece where you'll be able, right now you can email members inside of par four and it's its own system. Um we're working on text messages, in-app notifications. So you can basically be like, hey, I want to send out a push notification to your 16 guys and say, hey guys, make sure you're up and ready. Tomorrow's tea time, 6 a.m., right? Right. And it sends out a push notification to all their phones or text or whatever. Um, so we're working on that right now, and then we want to build uh, you know, some integration into something like MailChimp where you can export it, create a newsletter, and then send it off inside of MailChimp. So communication, uh communication memberships, uh multi-leaderboards is something that we're working on too, where you can have like a flight A leaderboard, a flight B, a women's leaderboard, a senior leaderboard. So that that takes a lot of effort because it's a lot of data flowing into one place. Uh and then we're actually working on a TV app right now for Fire Stick, Apple TV, where it's basically a customized leaderboard for your event with all your sponsors and logos. Um so you know, and I think we're we're we're hearing things uh a ton of like schools have been reaching out to us, which is the coaches want to create a roster or a way to manage his his vegan team inside of par four where he can create practice rounds or championship rounds. So we'll probably start going and branching out to do functionality and build functionality that are meant for other types of golf clubs, schools, colleges, uh simulators, right? Like building this software where we actually have one here. It's called one degree. I'm meeting with them tomorrow tomorrow morning. And he's like, I hate the software I use. What you have is awesome. Can you create a version where instead of one in the course, it literally is just a, you know, he'll he'll build stands for every single sim that he has, and you put your phone there and it's a scorecard, right? And then your phone becomes a scorecard without the map of the course that you're playing, right? So now it it and he has this huge, giant TGL type screen that he's like, I want to put the leaderboard on there. So when they update their score, all the sims can turn around and look at the leaderboard in real time.

SPEAKER_02

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so I think there's a lot of different pieces that we're gonna go after. The the one thing that we don't want to do is try to put all of our every egg that we have in one basket, right? Um, I think really, really focusing on the idea to create a software really well is to build what you're building really well, then move on to the next roadmap piece. Yeah. Right. Listening to our users. I mean, ever uh about 40, 40 or 50 of our my users, I text daily. And I'm like, and it's a white glove experience that probably will hopefully go away, you know, in in the long term as we grow. And but it's like right now I'm so excited to be like, hey, like today I sent out 30 messages. Hey, we just launched a new feature inside the club where you can now upload pictures into your club. So now your club has aesthetic viewing of what your club is like from a visual standpoint. And the other day we just added social media uh tags where you can go in and create your social media in your club. So our goal, hopefully in the next three months, is some of these clubs don't even have websites. Their website is their club page on part four because it has everything there, right? So again, creating that Shopify experience where then we'll move into hey, you can sell your products on part four, you can create your tea times on part four, right? So that's long term, but we gotta start and build something beautiful before we get to those cool and fun pieces.

SPEAKER_02

And like you said, gain the trust. As soon as you have yeah, gaining the trust with anything is a huge, huge factor um for anything that's gonna be successful. And once you have that trust, then you can start adding those other layers, and people have already know how your app works, they enjoy using the app, so they don't have any issue with a new feature because it we're we're all creatures of habit, right? And anything, as soon as something changes, we freak out. Like it doesn't matter. And yeah, but you're you're right, the trust part's huge. Um, I love what you're doing, it's fascinating. I love how you you just 17 dropped out of high school and had this aha moment and then had a complete change in direction for the company. Um that's it is a wild, wild journey you've been on, Ethan.

SPEAKER_01

It's uh yeah, there's sometimes I like literally like not even being cliche or cheesy, I lay in bed and I'm like, what the hell? Yeah, what are we doing? I'm like, what have I done? Like this is this is like there is no going back, you know, like it is it is full steam ahead. And if you can't tell, like my passion for this is fiery. Like, I just I love what I get to do. I'm up. I mean, my not just me, my team, my CTO Josh literally is up most nights till one or two a.m. He lives in Atlanta, my older brother lives in Atlanta, we're all pretty much East Coast, okay, and we're just like it was funny. My I was talking to my brother today. I was like, okay, we need to look for, you know, start maybe hiring for this and this. And he's like, you do realize like we're gonna be the only people that stay up till one or two a.m. Like your expectation for other people to do that is is needs to come down. And I'm like, well, if they don't have the grit, I don't want them on my team. You know, like this is you know, I think if we if we work really hard to build something really cool, the reward is is gonna be way more worth every single night that I stay up till one or two a.m. You know, um, and I don't have to, but I'm excited about what I'm building. I'm excited about bringing tech and in a way that is not fractional and not old, um, and truly changing the way that like I get to play golf. Like my wife has recently become obsessed with golf, which I freaking love. Um, and we'll go out and use my app to score while we play golf. And I'm like, this is just this is wild, you know, like there's so many combinations here. Um, but it's a it's a massive blessing, and it it is it is super, super cool um to see how far we've come, the struggles, like yeah, the struggles have been insane. But like at the end of the day, like when we hit fifty thousand dollars this month in in in revenue, I I looked at that number and I was like, there's no way I would have seen this a year ago. And um people trusting us with what they want and need and building. Um, every every customer we talk to, our goal is saying, hey, if you have feedback and if there's something that we can build, let us know. We will add it to the roadmap. We're not gonna give you a defined time of when that will be done, but it won't take months and it won't take weeks. Like our goal is to truly put what customers want because what Mitchell wants is probably what a hundred other Mitchells want. Right. Right. And so if we can kind of articulate that, we're gonna become and build a successful product just listening to our users, right? Like Rolap said the other day, the best way to build an incredible profitable tour is listen live by listening to nine out of ten of the people who watch the game of golf. Right. Right. So if we do that, we can build something very successful that actually people want to use and will pay for.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's fantastic. That's that is awesome. Well, yeah, I definitely want to I need to I need to use your app for my trip because I'll send you a code. There's a lot going on for that. Um, and and thank you for the time, but I got a couple little quick questions and then we'll get you out of here. Yeah, yeah. Uh, what is your favorite club in the bag right now?

SPEAKER_01

Okay. My Mizuno 60 degree is probably my favorite club. I just ordered a mini driver, so I'll let you know if that's my favorite club in about two weeks.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, I my 60 degree, like, I just love chipping. Chipping's one of the most like peaceful things to me, which is very weird for someone to uh say that, but it's just yeah, I love it. I love my 60 degree.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, so you've clearly listened to some episodes for you to make the mini driver reference. I mean, yeah, that's I need to get one in the bag. Uh what is your favorite course in Florida?

SPEAKER_01

Uh gosh. Okay. Favorite course in Florida would have to, I mean, I'm biased. Like, four seasons is just gorgeous. Um, it's it's in Disney World. It's on a uh a property that's four seasons, but it's also in a neighborhood called Golden Oak. So it's the only place in Disney World that you can actually live uh inside of the gates of Disney World. Houses start anywhere between 4.5 to 30 million dollars, right? So it is like it's nuts, but we don't have tea times. We have 200 members, and I literally like I like me and my wife could go out at three o'clock and not one single soul is on the course. Oh, that sounds amazing. Peaceful thing in the world where her and I can literally just like practice chipping, practice doing this. Um, so I would say for the for the the factor and the benefits of the course, but also the beauty of the four seasons, they take so good care of it. Um, I would have to say four seasons all day long. Tranquilo is what it's called. Okay. Where they used to host the uh LPGA tournaments uh down here in Florida.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I remember that now. Um if you could come up with a dream foresome, dead or alive, who who would be in that dream foresome with you?

SPEAKER_01

I I I have it. Uh Tommy Fleetwood, Bryson D.Chambeau, Anders Albertson, and me.

SPEAKER_02

That would be fun. That is is Anders a talker? Is is he is he talking about?

SPEAKER_01

He is he is quiet as a mouse. Um yeah, he is very quiet in it, and and I would love someone like Bryson to play with someone like Anderson.

SPEAKER_02

Right, yeah, yeah. And I feel like Tom Tommy would be the level head uh in the pros there, just like chilling, watching, just kind of taking it all in. But uh I I share uh in the love for Tommy Fleetwood. I I want him to get his first major.

SPEAKER_01

Um I'm hoping so bad it happens this year. I not not so much the masters. I I think I would love to see Bryson pull it off this year. He's uh I'm a big Bryson fan. I just love him. I love you know uh just how he thinks about the game. He he he invests in a ton of companies in tech to literally enhance the game. Um so he is just like a he's like the scientist, the mad scientist of golf, of what I what I feel like. And he just is like always dabbling in like what can make him better, what can what tech can make him better? And I'm just I love that. I love people who are like trying to progress what they do for a living, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and lastly, do you hit driver off the deck?

SPEAKER_01

Uh no. Uh terrible, but that that mini driver, when I was hitting it off the deck at Golf Galaxy, I was strifing. I love that.

SPEAKER_02

Love that. Ethan, thank you so much for the time. Uh really enjoyed our conversation. I look forward to to using your app and look forward to keeping up with all of the success that that Par 4 has.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Josh. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for talking. I I just I love being able to talk golf um and with cool people who who just truly, truly also want to grow the game in so many different aspects. So thank you for what you do and and your awesome podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thank you for the kind words. Well, for Ethan Andrews, I'm Josh Stecker, and this has been another episode of Off the Deck.

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Josh Decker

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