Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast of Like It Says in the Opening Man gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, live in the studio, kids, I got something kind of cool for you.
So this is actually a friend of mine who was very, very successful in his career, but just decided out of the blue a little while back, like a year and a half ago, to start a completely another business that's doing very well. It's kind of starting to take off. And we always have people on that... you know, have kind of crossed the finish line. I've kind of gotten over the finish line.
And I thought it would be really interesting to kind of grab somebody that was in the middle of the race and kind of talk about how they got this started, where it got going. You know, the idea here is if you're somebody at home that has an idea that's burning inside of you and you're thinking, man, I could make that happen or all the reasons I couldn't make it happen.
This is a dude today that's going to tell you how he's making it happen. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. The
Chapter 2: What inspired Scott Martin to start a golf apparel brand?
founder ceo chief creative and all-around genius behind the new golf brand scooter martini ladies and gentlemen welcome to the program this is scott martin scott thank you nice to meet you how are you buddy pull that a little closer first podcast for scott first one first one so dude you've been you're a pretty successful guy in your own right what what's the day job that's gotten you to where you are
Cybersecurity, more consultant, advisor, dealing with global Fortune 500 companies, really overseeing security, bringing new technologies to the market, solving complex business outcomes, trying to show like risk plus cost justification on why they're doing what they're doing. So that's more my day job.
Yeah. And at this point, it's at this point, you've got that pretty much down.
Yep. Correct.
Yeah. So life runs pretty smooth, pretty easy. Life is pretty good. Yep. I see you at the club. It frees up a lot of your time. You've got time to play golf and do things. And all of a sudden you just wake up one morning and say to yourself, you know what I need is a golf brand, a clothing apparel company, which is an incredibly tough business.
So walk me through the idea stage of this coming to you and then deciding to make it happen.
Yeah, so it was more my wife and I talking through it. And it was, if we were going to do something, what would we want to do? Golf's always been my passion. Buying apparel, I've always been a consumer. So I was always thinking, what would I do different? How would I design something? Where do I think... is wear something that I want that I don't see out there today.
And then ultimately the pricing just started getting to me. Every polo is $125. Every hoodie is $150. Hats are up to $90 now for good quality. So I started thinking there has to be a market to create those high-end quality products, but bring it together with a good design at a better price point more for the consumer.
So that's the idea. So you have no idea about apparel at this point.
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Chapter 3: How did Scott's background in cybersecurity influence his business journey?
Where did you find them?
The first people?
Um, connections, like it was, there's a show, a couple of shows in Vegas, magic show. Yeah. Magic show. And another guy I trust was starting to look at them as well as a company. Cause he was doing something similar, but a different line. Um, and it just kind of put a lot of blind faith and people without really doing my research up front.
If you could go back to that stage instead, what would you have done differently?
What we did second step. Which was what? Yeah. So it was kind of scoured the internet and found golf apparel freelance designer and she's been huge. So she started like send us samples you like starting to build. Well, a lot of people don't know when you build apparel, it's not like, okay, I want this, just throw this here. It's like a tech pack. It's like building a building.
So all the measurements, the sleeve lengths, then customizing how you want to be. Do you want to be like a slimmer fit brand or do you want to have a little bit of room in it? So there's a
pulling apparel that I like, I like the fit of, send all that over and we kind of measured everything, came up with the difference and then she pretty much builds what's a blueprint, which is called a tech pack. So then from that tech pack, she had some relationships with suppliers out of South Korea that deal with about 15 different golf manufacturers.
So we reached out to them, she introduced me and then they, it was a whole different experience.
Was she based in the US?
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Scott face with his initial manufacturer?
Maybe once a year. But the majority of that stuff that gets sold in the pro shops, I think, is one-offs to people that maybe they're playing a course because it's got the club logo on it. Fine. where design and color may help you there a little bit. It doesn't matter, because they're not really buying the brand as much as they're buying the name of the course that's embroidered on it.
But I think what you can do is just having your brand associated with those, and then it gives you an opportunity to say, okay, listen, you can buy direct from us and get a better deal.
Well, I shouldn't say better deal. I want to try and have consistency throughout the brand because if people are better able to get a better price online, they're just going to cut out and then the pro shops won't. But they won't. No, no.
But here's the difference, right? I think, again, for me anyway, I think the fact the pro shop brand is totally different from the online brand.
Well, here's why.
Because it's got the name of the course embroidered on it. And I think the majority of times, unless you have the dreaded spelled hot dog down the front of your shirt, most of those are being bought because it has the name of the course on it, right?
um you know i still have a pullover it says badlands on it i can't throw it away just because badlands was such a cool course used to work there yeah i just yeah i just i just like having a bad something says badlands on it i couldn't even i think it's a i don't even know what brand it is i just know it says badlands right so i think that makes that a little bit of a limited stock run for you that can justify a higher price on on site like that
Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. A lot of times you're paying for the logo, right? If I, if I go play pebble, I'm buying something. Oh, for sure. Or a bunch of stuff with the pebble logo, just so I have that as a memory. Sure. So yeah, there, there is a price point to that because of the logo. That's what's making up the difference.
Okay. So trouble. So, so, so the trouble we're having, you're having right now is kind of necessarily getting over the hump with the approach. The original thought of coming into this with the pro shops, we're going to sell you cheaper. That's not happening now.
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Chapter 5: How important is a tech pack in launching an apparel brand?
And so you've got to stay within the confines of the game.
Well, let's talk about that. So who's a scooter martini guy in your mind?
In my mind, it's from a player perspective or what I envision.
What do you know just in general? Like if I see a dude wearing Scooter Martini, what do I know about that person?
They're going to be fun. They're going to be personable. They're going to be a guy you want to play golf with, but they're going to respect the game. They're going to take care of the course, and you don't have to worry about them as a liability on the course. Yeah.
i i've told my son for many years i said listen when it comes to the game of game of golf it's way more important to be entertaining than good than good yeah so it's it like i keep going back to it's a fine line like you know if i want the brand to represent that you're going to be like that's a force of my want to be it's going to be a ton of fun but we're still going to play good golf and we're going to respect the course
Well, let's talk about reaching those people now, because obviously the pro shops, that was a little bit of a pivot. Even though we continue this, it's going to pivot. So now the strategy is becoming a little bit more customer direct via the internet. And what's the plan for reaching some of these folks?
So I think as we've talked, I'd love to create kind of an AI vision and marketing plan of I have about 100 different pet peeves of golf that just drive me crazy, right? So I want to really start hammering on those, bring light, make them funny, show the personality side of the brand, and really kind of at the same time showcase this is what our brand is.
This is kind of what we believe in from a golf perspective. But at the same time, maybe even help some of the courses when it comes to the people playing that they're taking care of the course and they're doing what they should.
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Chapter 6: What strategies did Scott use to validate his market before launching?
So I'm trying to get it right up front because I think it's, it shows that we care instead of me just
take in an order offline there's no personality to it and you order a large I send you a large it doesn't fit then you reach out it's like I'm trying to be proactive and understand interact with the customer and make it more personable and really with apparel it's all about the fit so you'll hear it all the time it's like this brand I'm a large and this brand I'm an XL how's your fit
And then I'll make recommendations. Do you have like the sizing chart? We do. We have a lot of it, but as you know, like a lot of people don't pay attention to it. It's, I see something, I wouldn't pay attention to it personally.
You have frequently long arms. You have to pay attention to stuff like that.
But it's, I feel it's, I'm trying to limit the returns by reaching out, making it, you know, I'm asking a couple of questions, so I'm getting to the bottom of, and then I feel like I know our sizing good enough to where I can put you on the right size. Right.
Okay, so when you order stuff, I'm just curious about this, right? Do you have to order like X amount of smalls, X amount of mediums? Because I'm sure at the end of it, you wind up with boxes of smalls.
That was the big part of the first figuring it out. I can order whatever I want. It just needs to be 200. But trying to figure out with no data up front, what sizes are going to sell? Who's your customer going to be? So I reached out to a lot of pro shops, people in the industry I know. What are your most popular sizes? I kept hearing over and over 2XL, 2XL, 2XL.
So I buy all these 2XLs, and my whole sales so far are large, medium, and small. Where it's large, we did a lot, but medium, small, I very underestimated the demand. Yeah.
You did a lot of medium and smalls?
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