Golfballs.com
Revenues
1998 — $200,000
2008 — $10.4 million
Website Visitors – 7,000 per day
Employees – 30-40, depending on season
I STARTED MY FIRST business at 23, it was called Club Computer Consultants. I was in the golf club management business at the time, but had a lot of experience with computer systems in the club environment. So I started doing hardware and software implementation consulting in golf clubs. Limited revenue, but a great learning experience.
In 1995, I was the club manager at LeTriomphe Country Club and was interviewing web developers to build a web site to promote memberships and our wedding ?reception business. That same week, I had a meeting scheduled with a golf ball diving company that was making a proposal to pull the golf balls from the ponds on the golf course.
I had this idea to marry the two businesses together and that got it started. We sold used balls initially; over time, as more and more people began shopping online, our business broadened to resemble a full-line golf shop. Golfballs.com stopped selling used golf balls altogether seven years ago.
During the last five years, we have added an imprinted logo component to the business, which we now sell to 8,000 corporate customers, including most of the Fortune 50.
GOLF IS A FUN INDUSTRY. The Internet was a new frontier back in 1995. Now, Internet retail is considered mainstream, but it is still full of excitement and innovation. You have to constantly innovate to grow, and that is a great challenge. It doesn’t have to be golf; it’s about the challenge of creating new business opportunities on the Internet.
You can count on the fact that more and more business is going to be conducted online every year for the foreseeable future.
ENTREPRENEURS AND SMALL business owners can usually find a way to get things done on a shoestring budget, and that was what we did. I brought in expertise in different aspects of operations on an equity basis rather than paying for it. I partnered with a very talented web developer to launch the business initially. Once we had our proof of concept, I began raising capital from 1998 to 2000, and we have grown the business from internal cash flows since then. Golfballs.com reached $1 million in annual revenues in 1999, up from $200,000 in 1998. That was a big year for us.
OVER THE CHRISTMAS holiday in 1997, I was faced with the prospect of selling Golfballs.com or turning it up. With 1997 revenues of only $75,000, it was more of a time-consuming hobby than a business up to that point. I made the decision to wind down my roles in other businesses that I was involved in and focus my total attention on growing Golfballs.com.
It looks like we are entering another one of those trying times at the moment. Making it through the dotcom crash of 2001 was tough. We are in the midst of another difficult ?economic period right now.
HAVING A VISION for the business and ?being able to communicate that vision throughout the company is what makes it work, as is choosing great and talented people to work with. Entrepreneurs can start a ?business with a great idea and grow it early on with force of will. The only way that a business can continue to succeed over time is to have a continual flow of great employees.
About 90% of our business is web ?originated or transacted online. As you might expect, we rank No. 1 for the search phrase “golf balls” and have been for many years. We also rank very high on Google for search terms related to the sale of golf products. We have about 7,000 unique visitors to the website daily. Without a doubt our greatest exposure is online via Google and other search engines.
Golfballs.com has been included in articles in the Wall Street Journal, Inc., Entrepreneur, and several in Internet Retailer, not to mention many in Louisiana-based publications such as Baton Rouge Business Report, Daily Advertiser and The Independent, to name a few.
We also have one of the largest golf retail stores in Louisiana adjacent to our online operations in Lafayette. It is complete with two hitting stations, a vector launch monitor to help match equipment to golfers and a staff of golf experts.
What makes me most proud is building a business that has a meaningful and positive impact on others. The golf industry is flat and has been for several years. Our ?business has grown; however, it is getting more and more difficult to grow in a flat market. By the time this story goes to press, we will have launched a new promotional products ?company, LoyaltyLogo.com. The golf ?equipment industry is $3 billion or so; the promotional products industry is around $20 billion. We think there is a huge upside ?opportunity to entering this space as a pure play e-commerce business.
In the last 10 years, Golfballs.com has grown from $200,000 in sales to over $10 million. Ten years from now hopefully we’ll hit the $100 million mark. Check back in a year, and I will tell you how Loyalty Logo is doing.
