He Turns Abandoned Driving Ranges Into Cash Machines Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:05 business in the world. It's an old dated industry.  And so that was the bar was actually really low. The major insight was there's a missing gap which  is more and more people are playing the game than ever. How many members do you have across your  four locations? We've got 8,000 across four locations. 50 driving ranges around the country.  That's the goal.

00:19 One in every state is the goal. I've always said that the overlooked businesses  are the ones that are the most profitable. So, what are your thoughts on like the rise and fall  of Topgolf? Like, what happened to them and what are you doing differently? We made a really  huge effort in making this a really friendly place. Dress however you want. If you are here  to have a couple beverages with your friends, we welcome that.

00:41 I'm going to talk to a guy today  whose whole business is buying those outdated, overgrown, unwanted driving ranges and turning  them into cash flowing money machines. So, let's get into it. So, you went from three and a  half balls hit per year here 2 or 3 years ago to 12 million today. Yes. Yes. Yes. How did you do  that? Like what is that process like?

00:56 I think a couple things. Um, traditionally driving ranges  very unwelcoming, stale experience. Uh, a lot of golfers complain about, hey, the turf quality  isn't great. The ball quality isn't great. Um, there's a lot of substitutes. Like you can go  to other driving ranges. We made a really huge effort in making this a really friendly place. We  put the time and care into upgrading things that we thought were most important to golfers.

01:21 So ran  some customer surveys, got tangible data to say, "All right, where do we start?" Mhm. One of the  very first things was ball quality. So, high quality golf balls. This business, you're hitting  balls all day. You're picking them up. What you're finding is most driving ranges, they're just  throwing those back in the hopper. We go through a sorting process to say, "All right, is this good  enough to go back in?"

01:39 And then on top of that, we're just investing in replacing those balls. A  little thing that requires capital, but I think it's more thoughtful of like, cool, you have  limited resources. Like, where do you spend your dollars? Golf walls was the number one thing that  we we got back in surveys. Number two was turf quality. So, I think something you'll see in in a  lot of older driving ranges is you're hitting off a mat, but it's got a hole in it.

02:00 It's got feels  like you're hitting off concrete. And so, again, small customer feedback loop where we were able  to say, "All right, let's invest in high quality mats." So, went bought every mat we could on  Amazon, went and sourced and and found individual smaller distributors and and found the mat that we  love. I think again, small thing, but it's a very elevated experience from your normal.

02:22 the bar was  actually really low. I think that was kind of our opportunity was the golfer had been underserved.  Can you provide something like a little bit better and a little bit nicer around exactly what they  want? And so I think that was a big insight for us to help drive this huge spike in business.  I mean the amount of volume that we're able to do was fantastic.

02:39 I I'll say another thing like  most driving ranges you're limited by some weather constraints. I think here in in Dallas, right? Not  as much as others. But what you may not realize is Dallas during the middle of the day is scorching  hot. This is typically what you would have at a Dallas driving range. Open, completely open air.  In the middle of your workday, you're not going to come hit balls during lunch.

02:59 It's so hot you'd  be drenched with sweat. So, small adjustment. We added a cover tine to our bays. If there's a  hail storm, which we had a couple weeks ago, you need to have protection and and those are  operating hours that you normally lose revenue on completely. Yeah. So, ball quality is central  to everything you do here. Super. Super. So, when you bought this facility, uh what was the  previous owner charging?

03:18 So, buy the bucket. I think typically in in driving ranges, they have  almost like a gift card model. So, it's a prepay a certain amount and then that unlocks a certain  amount of buckets. Cash flow forward, you know, that's pretty standard and and you're getting  that discount on your per bucket model. So, we took a little bit of a different approach and  we said, hey, instead of prepaying for 10 buckets with one card, let's do a monthly membership  model.

03:42 So, we have a model called Ranch Pass. It's $20 a month that gets you exclusive pricing. Okay.  So our whole thought there was getting people in the door at a more consistent basis and driving  visits versus I don't know my experience with gift cards is like all right I get a Starbucks gift  card money could be on there for like 3 years I'm actually driving incentives for me to show up  on continued visits and so we started with this $20 a month model.

04:08 We wanted to make it super  flexible because look it seasonal and and life changes and so if you're not this serious  golfer coming two times a month you can cancel at any time. And what we found with that was that  membership and commitment unlocked a lot of other things as far as membership. So whether that's  tying in like events um we we do a couple times a year ranch pass classic events which are  competitions with members.

04:27 We have exclusive pricing on our par three uh preferred pricing  on lessons. And so for us it was let's go this membership model route. let's get some sort of  commitment from them and then it's our opportunity to provide other programming to keep them along  versus an old school driving range model which is really hands-off. It's kind of like you can pay  in advance for a discount but there's really no incentive for you to keep coming back.

04:51 So I think  that was that was one of the things that we really thought about with membership is like not only  some sort of commitment from your customer but having a reason for them to come back frequently.  So what do they pay per bucket if they're a member versus not a member? It's 40% less. Oh wow. Okay.  What percentage of people here today would you say are members versus non-members?

05:08 I would say 40%  are members. 40% are members. Okay. I would argue a lot of the membership comes in off peak time.  So we get a lot of older ladies and gentlemen who are coming in the mornings which is traditionally  for driving ranges like down off peak time where they're not generating any revenue. What we  find is that, you know, during the evenings, five and and after, we have lights going into  late night, which kind of opens up our revenue window.

05:35 Typically, driving ranges like sundown,  the range is closed. This night traffic has been great to bring new people into the site. We've  seen like dates as this like really interesting first date opportunity. I think mini golf is like  something that most people do as first dates. Now, that's, you know, actually coming to a driving  range and hit cuz we've got the venue to support that.

05:55 So peak times for us are definitely after  work shockingly go really far into the night. I mean during the summer here we're up until  midnight. Um often times we have to like kick people out cuz they're on the putting green  and enjoying themselves midnight during the week which is shocking. Like I think most businesses  it's just such a luxury to be able to say hey we can just extend our hours and we still have  a demand to fill this.

06:15 Most have the opposite problem which is like no we can't keep staffing  open because there's no one here. Yeah. Do you do much business on the food side of things or is  that minimum food? Food is intentionally a very light part of the business. So 15% of the revenue.  We looked at concepts like Topgolf which are food and beverage forward. We kind of think of those  entertainment concepts as like party concepts.

06:38 It's like they're actually making their money  on food and be events. There just happens to be golf there. We didn't want to like overextend  on this del this expectation that when you're here you're going to be have a server bring you  food um food quality like these are all bars of expectations that frankly like we thought of we  need to simplify the model and it's you know we have hot dogs and burgers very simple menu items  that can be served on a flat top doesn't require a huge kitchen buildout and then buckets of

07:03 beer  seltzer soft drinks um really things to it's not the focus it's just like an amenity that if  you just to support the people that are here to play golf sure whereas Top Golf might be the  opposite, right? Like hospitality first, golf is secondary. You guys are the reverse of that. So  what are your thoughts on like the rise and fall of Topgolf?

07:23 Like what happened to them and what  are you doing differently? Topgolf attract also amazing business like we have actually a lot  of our our founders founding group a lot of employees from Topgolf. So, they did an amazing  job at like making golf sexy, making it cool, and they were able to drive a lot of people who  never touched a club to playing for the first time.

07:43 I think the big difference is the experience  is a little bit more expensive. It's a little bit more occasion based. Um, it it's heavy emphasis  on food and bev. And there's some parts about the experience that if you're not a real golfer,  it's hard to justify a repeat visit. And so, they get a amazing like their upper funnel is  incredible. They are driving so many first- time visits.

08:02 what their issue is is getting people  to come back. I think there's a couple things like we were just talking about the the first  site visit, this sandwich, which we talk about a lot internally, which is the first five minutes  of your visit and the last 5 minutes. That's what you remember. That's what you remember. That is  like there's emotion being driven in those.

08:14 So, first five minutes of the Top Golf experience  is pretty amazing. It's like, wo, high energy, beautiful place. I've never seen anything like  this. I'm hitting a ball in the outfield. Super memorable. The last five minutes is not the  best experience because at the Top Golf model, you're you're locked into a certain time. So, at  the end of the hour, you're getting rushed out, you're getting a bill, it's typically a little  bit more than what you expected.

08:36 And so, that last 5minute experience kind of leaves  this sour taste in your mouth. Yeah. One of the things that we tried to engineer here was  like, hey, entertainment golf does this pay for the hour and you're renting just time. And so,  what we found as opportunity is like, actually, don't do that. Encourage people to stay as long as  they want. That is a far more friendly experience.

08:58 It's a far more welcoming leave. You you you  walk away satisfied. You don't feel like, oh, I paid this and I didn't get like the value out  of the experience or the day. And um that has been kind of a huge differentiator for us and super  successful from like customer satisfaction. Hey, if you're liking this video so far, do me a favor  and just hit subscribe and give me some feedback in the comments on what I could do better or what  you're liking about this video so far.

09:18 Tell me about like the vibe that you're going for here.  like beyond beyond. The two things that we've talked about is like typically driving ranges, old  school driving ranges, very stale experience. Uh music kind of frowned upon in golf. I think golf  historically, yeah, it's super stuffy. You got to wear the right clothes. You got to act the  right way.

09:38 You got to do the right things. We don't think that's necessarily the case. And we  think it's a little bit unwelcoming. And so, um, dress however you want. You know, if you are here  to have a couple beverages with your friends, we welcome that. If you're here after you just picked  up your kids from school and they have to do homework on the picnic table or you hit a bucket  of balls, we also welcome that and facilitate that.

09:59 And so I think the the through line is  how do we be so welcoming in an industry that is traditionally very unwelcoming. That was a huge  push for us. Um how we bring that to life? Light music. Um you don't think that really matters,  but it kind of does. We don't have on right now, but you'll see at night is we added this like  these string lights.

10:14 Like these are, you know, the same things you'd see on Amazon around porches.  Lighting also sets a mood and expectation, right? It it it sets this standard of if this were just  like office lighting, um, doctor office lighting, super bright. It would have a different feel  of the experience than this like mood lighting. It's a little bit more rustic and encourages this  like I feel like I'm on someone's back.

10:35 They feel more relaxed, too. If it's bright lights, they're  kind of on edge and like everyone's looking at me. Everyone's watching me. Totally. It's a huge part  of it. So, a couple other things that we did like, hey, it gets hot. We got to add fans. We also have  heaters for when it's a little bit cooler. We've talked extensively too about patio areas, like,  hey, sometimes you're bringing a family member who doesn't love playing golf, can they still  have space to relax?

10:59 U if it's super busy and we're on a wait, do we have space for people to  still enjoy their time? So, putting greens and and other amenities. I think the the way that we  thought about design was really again back to this like how to be as welcoming as possible to as many  people and regardless of what you're doing at the facility can you still have a so you said that you  license this technology from uh Topgolf.

11:17 They they license it to you. They do. So they their product  is called Top Tracer Range. Their initiative and actually kind of part of the founding story was  their goal was to go to mom and pop driving ranges and sell this into them. M the issue with that  is a lot of the owner operators are in their 70s. Yeah. They're not going to change. Oh, I'm  going to pay $200,000 to put in 50 of these just so that people can see their their balls on a  screen.

11:44 Like, no, I'm good. This is making money. This works. That future thing that you're talking  about, that's not work going to work for me. So, that was their original that was Top Golf's  thesis. And then they soon learned that doesn't work. They soon they soon learned it's very  difficult to make that sale. It was right. It was very difficult. So the ones who actually made were  first movers on this put this into their range they saw increase in traffic.

12:06 They saw increase in  demand. That return totally paid off and that that was part of the insight for us which was hey this  works. A lot of driving range owners are not going to go do this themselves. We should maybe jump  that middleman, go out and buy these ranges and do that ourselves. Yeah. So it's 200,000 upfront  or it used to be. What is like the monthly fee per bay?

12:25 Yeah. So um what they there's an upfront  cost to do the buildout. So, if you notice, pretty big electronic unit here. So, you got to  run wiring and then you got you run wiring to like a data center, if you will, kind of in the middle  of the range. That build out is all included in your licensing phase. So, you commit to I'm doing  a certain amount of bays.

12:41 They've got a licensing rate per bay. They don't know exactly what it is  off hand, but it's it's a significant investment and they're coming in doing the infrastructure  and then you're on a multi-year lease that you're paying month end mark. Okay. And then they they've  got some additional things. So they have um it's a brilliant SAS model. I mean they they have the  ability to upsell you to different products.

12:59 So they have a top tracer coach product which is if  you're a golf instructor, you can save all of your students information. You can upload drills for  them. So if you were my golf coach, I could come to the range. I could hit my balls. I could see,  hey, Chris left me a note to say you need based on your swing data, you should work on this. So when  I'm at the range, I'm getting feedback and able to work on my game.

13:22 So that's a game improvement  thing that's kind of worked into here. They've done a really good job of it. I mean, I'm sure the  future of that is just like more data. They've got a mobile app, so as a customer, you can track all  of your data. Again, like normal driving range does not have that. You go, you hit balls, but  no idea how far it went. There's there's a real technological gap.

13:38 It's like that is a very old  way of doing things. As a modern golfer, this is a fantastic boat. So, of all the opportunities out  there, why did you choose this? How did you get started in this? The founding team, frankly, all  the leadership team, big golfers, understood kind of the golf market really well, understood the  golf consumer really well, had an understanding of this this rise in Top Golf, this increase in  demand in the game.

13:57 The major insight was there's a missing gap, which is more and more people are  playing the game than ever. They're not graduating from entertainment golf to green grass. And so,  that was really the opportunity set. That middle ground between entertainment golf and real golf  should be the driving range. It's not currently because driving ranges are just dated.

14:18 So it's a  it's an old dated industry. And so that was really the opportunity. It was could we build the driving  range that we want? Went out and proved that with our first location in Connecticut. We said not  only do people want this, the way that we added service and experience on top of this to just be  a little bit more friendly that every other golf experience, that is the real differentiator.

14:37 That's what keeps people coming back. That's what makes like a a third place between home and  work. Like we've always thought kind of similar to a gym. Like gyms are very routine based. If you're  a member of a gym, you carve out time in your week to do that. Driving ranges have the opportunity  to do that if they're done right. Yeah. I think the maybe the analogy is like you're not going to  go to like this really old crusty gym.

14:55 If a new gym around the corner opens up, you're going  to be more excited to go to that. Um I'm not calling these old driving rings old and crusty,  but but they are. I'll call that. Okay. Um and so I think frankly the bar was low. come in with with  a little bit more of a modern product. And what we found is like people work this into their routine.

15:17 Yeah. Um it's an amazing, you know, I would say another another kind of insight generally  is that golfers, our customers specifically, like it's not a casual sport. I would argue  something like darts for example, like darts, I'm a very I love playing darts. It's a very like  casual thing. Golf is kind of more of an identity for me. It's like my favorite thing to do.

15:36 Mhm. And so what you there's this like level of obsession around the sport much like pickle ball.  I'd argue like once people start playing pickle ball, it does become part of their identity. They  want to get better. They want to play more. And so from a business model perspective, it's like cool  you're getting these like really loyal customers that aren't oneanddone churn customers.

15:54 Like  these people are going to be around for years on these to come. So I think that gave us a lot  of confidence and like hey this is a really good customer to go after who just wants a little  bit of a better experience. Yeah. So, how many members do you have across your four locations?  Yes. So, we've got 8,000 across four locations, mostly monthlies, annual members as well who want  to commit to the full year upfront.

16:12 We've got some tiered offerings for them. It's, you know, they're  committing to us, we commit to them as well. Is the hope for kind of like your memberships to  cover your overhead and then for the, you know, people buying buckets of balls to kind of be most  of your profit. Kind of like Costco, right? Costco doesn't really make money on the stuff they sell.

16:31 They really make their profit on the membership. Exactly. Yeah. I I think we actually stumbled  into membership. So that wasn't the original intent. What we found was hey actually we  had customers that were coming so frequently they were asking for some sort of membership and  loyalty commitment. So we stumbled into that. Your Costco analogy like something that I think about  a lot is I love loss leaders, right?

16:49 Like I love I love Costco chicken. I love Costco $150 hot dogs.  So we thought about hey with membership what are lost looters that we could provide like food and  bev soda very easy like high value thing similar the Costco hot dog golf instruction something  that's really high price traditionally is that an opportunity for us to be a lawsuit there provide  this get more people in the door and get them more excited about playing golf as you get better  you're going to be more excited about playing golf yeah so is that

17:19 something you do that you you  encourage instructors to come in here introduce more people to golf you're not really worried  about making money on the instructors but They're bringing in more new customers, more new golfers.  They're not only bringing in more new customers, they're like the best glue and salesperson you  could ever have, right? Like I I would argue the golf transformation of getting better and learning  that from someone, you build this relationship that that's like not someone we should.

17:41 It's a  really integral part of our business. It is the face of our business, right? Yeah. The instructor.  It's a huge It's super important because this is like the the most hightouch customer relationship  is this instructor. Yeah. Interesting. So, you have instructors on the payroll here? We do.  They're encouraging people to come here to take their lessons and they're salesmen and they're  encouraging them to to mention Ranch Pass and and get them onto membership.

18:07 Um they're encouraging  them to come to events. They're they're kind of like really the spokesperson behind look like  we have a front desk staff which is fantastic. You can only build so much rapport with someone at  the front desk. It's amazing. the the instruction thing is something I'm super passionate about  because for me personally like me getting better throughout golf.

18:24 Another thing I get a lesson from  you this person is now like your sherpa in golf and so right now we we have their their upsell if  you will is membership but honestly like if you were my instructor and you told me to buy this  glove or this club or that's a really powerful relationship. So, I think like LTB in the future,  it's like how do you incentivize instructors to really feel like they're a part of the business  and share an upside of growth cuz they they're the major cog here.

18:50 Like they they hold that  relationship and it's super important. You know, most of my content is about starting a business,  but a lot of people would prefer to buy one. Like in the case of these driving ranges, if  you're ever interested in buying a business, check out tkowners.com. It's my private community.  Mostly people are in there starting businesses, but also there's a segment of people interested  in buying businesses or growing their current businesses.

19:13 So check out tkowners.com. Speaking  of LTV, what is the lifetime value of an average customer here? Yeah. So varies per site, I would  say north of a couple hundred. Our LTV to CAC is about 10, right? Okay. So So for every $1 you  spend to acquire a customer, you're getting about $10 back in that first year or take. Yeah. And  you know, these are a couple of our sites are only a couple years in.

19:35 We've seen that retention  be really strong. So, year one CAC is fantastic. The the real play for us though is like 5 year  CAC, 10 year CA and you don't know yet, but it's looking good. It's looking really positive. And  and that's part of the service experience. Keep them coming back, keep them super happy, overd  deliver with loss leaders. Like that's really the genius of Costco.

19:52 It's like my Costco bill  is a couple thousand a year. My wife loves that place. We're not going anywhere. That is the true  value is like the staying power. It's not just acquiring a cheap customer and they have out the  door which I'd argue is like back to the flaw but entertain the golf funnel. It's like do a great  job of getting people in struggle to keep people around.

20:10 Yeah. Is digital marketing/paid ads/social  media a big part of your customer acquisition strategy? Huge part. Yeah. You know I think the I  come from like 15 years of running paid ads. I was uh I was running Facebook ads in 2011. What else?  Like bright rail ads. Search huge opportunity for us. golf lessons near me. Huge search term that  driving high intent, highly qualified leads in the business.

20:32 Another thing that we think  about a lot is like the website. You know, you can drive all the traffic you want to your  website. If it's not converting well, your your spend is super inefficient. So, is your offer  really strong? One of the offers that we run at all of our locations is a free first bucket. So,  welcoming handshake, come try the place completely free.

20:48 Stay as long as you want. If you don't  love it, like that's on us under deliver. So, I think ads is a huge part of what we do. Offers  is also a really big part of what we do. And then we rely on you falling in love with the venue to  get you to come back. Yeah. All right. So, talk to me about the logic behind the putting green. So,  putting greens really expensive to build, really expensive to maintain.

21:06 We got to water this thing,  cut this thing, and make no money on this. On paper, this is a very bad business decision. What  we found though is like this is a immeasurable benefit as an amenity. People who have driving  ranges, people who live closer to another driving range that doesn't have a putting green, they will  drive past that 40 minutes to come here cuz we have this.

21:25 Yeah. So, this is a this is your$150  hot dog. This is my $150 hot dog loss leader. That is like a glue to attract real golfers. If  you're a serious golfer, which is our ICP, this is exactly the person we want to attract. This is  really beneficial. So, the more serious a golfer, the higher the lifetime value, 100%. And and if  I can get someone to come to the range, even if we're not generating any revenue on them, we have  a ton of customers who come uh to Bill and Clyde, two older gentlemen come every single

21:52 morning.  They grab a coffee, they read the paper and like um people watch for I they're people watching.  Yeah, for sure. They come and they'll pop for two hours and they'll leave. They transacted.  They bought a $150 coffee. They were here for 2 hours. This is like their home. They're members at  clubs. They're miles 10 miles down the street, but they come here every single day.

22:13 So that's I think  part of the value of investing in your facility. I I would argue like any other business owner, you  really have to ask yourself like what else does my customer want that I could be offering that's  a reason for them to drive a business. Just ask them, right? What else do you want? So literally  survey them. What's missing here? Exactly.

22:26 Yeah. People don't talk to their customers enough. I'm  going to put that on my tombstone. Like talk to your customers. Don't just assume what they  want, like, or need. Also, email every single one of your customers and ask for a survey. Like  some will, some won't. Uh your best customers, call them. Like build a relationship with them.  you get them on the phone, ask them what what else could we do better.

22:47 Yeah, those best customers  are going to give you the best insight. And a call is actually a way more welcoming way to cool,  I got a call from this business owner, like this is amazing versus a standard survey. But I think  people give up really quickly. They're like, we surveyed our customers. Yeah. 10% of people  answered, so we're never going to do this again.

23:03 It's like no. Yeah. Well, it's like Facebook ads.  It's like, yeah, I tried that. It didn't work. It's like, let me dig into that. $100 budget like  with terrible creative like buy my thing. You told no story here, right? What did this place look  like when you bought it? How different was it? Okay, so we would be looking at just pure grass.  The light poles were here and this was all grass.

23:21 Golf course was kind of overrun. Like I think the  the grassy high areas were much tighter. There wasn't a lot of space. This building was here,  but um a little bit worn and run down, so fresh coat of paint. So yeah, patio install, sidewalk  install, uh shipping containers, which we found like this sets also another like casual vibe. It's  not full building buildout, but it's like a unique thing for us.

23:41 Yeah. That feels a little Well, it  doesn't look trashy. Like, it looks nice. Like, you know, it's a shipping container, but it just  fits. It just fits and and yeah, it's like fresh coat of paint on it. Um, it looks just as nice  as a standard building. So, it it was just all grass. I mean, pretty simple business model. I  think another thing we always talk about is like the driving range business.

23:59 It's simple. Simple  doesn't necessarily mean easy. Like, there's a lot of things that you need to do, right? And so,  don't conflate like, "Oh, that's simple. I could just buy this and do exactly what the previous  owner did." I I would argue like your audience and and a lot of the business that you run like  the m the digital marketing side is such a huge leverage point, man.

24:18 Like I've talked to business  uh driving range owners all day, they haven't changed their website since 1992. It's it has  their address and a phone number in size 40 fonts, not optimized for mobile. There's really simple  things that if you're a younger entrepreneur creating a new website, running digital marketing,  like that is kind of the lifeblood to bring in new business that most old businesses are not doing.

24:36 Yeah. Why is the grass dead out there? Is there a story behind that? Yeah, it's it's really hard  to grow grass um in this heat and condition. So, we seated it the to run irrigation lines all the  way out through the whole outfield exorbitant expense. It's a million dollars. So, what we  said is we said, "Okay, what's actually most important?" What's most important is the first  like 30 yards.

24:57 It's like what you can see right in front of you. And beyond that, like sure,  is it ideal? Like, no, I'd love to have lush grass everywhere. Does it change the customer  perception? No. Yeah. They're not walking on it. It's different from a golf course, right? Exactly.  If this if this putting green now, if this putting green were like patchy, very different.

25:14 Then it's  like not even worth having this if you're not doing that right. I think you got like a certain  amount of chips as an entrepreneur to figure out, okay, like where do I invest and where do I  pull back? And so we made a decision like no, first 30 yards matters. After that, like doesn't  really matter. At night, you can't even see it. Yeah.

25:32 So, what's something that you got wrong  about this business? Any regrets or big mistakes? It's a really great question. I think a mistake was assuming that who our  customer was at the beginning to start the business. The mistake was or maybe the naive  interpretation was if it's a driving range then only golfers would like this. So our addressable  market is just golfers.

25:55 And I think what we found was through upgrades in the venue site layout we  were able to attract like a way larger market. We were able to attract family members, people who  never tried golf before. We had this hypothesis, but like day one the focus was like, okay, we got  to do everything for the golfers and everything else for non- golfers was secondary.

26:15 And I think  over time through more venues, we realized like, no, the the market's actually way bigger for  this. The venue should be set up to welcome those people and accommodate this. Yeah. What percent of  capacity are you at at this driving range today? Here, I would say I would say 85%. Um, but I  think two things in seasonal markets when it gets colder, like golf is a seasonal business.

26:38 So, we do see seasonal changes throughout the year. And I think for us, the way that we thought  about capacity is like, hey, we're actually open in the morning. We can serve a certain type of  customer who wants a certain type of thing in the morning and then at night that customer might  completely change and want something a little bit different.

26:55 For us, expanding capacity is not  not just like hours of operation during the day. It's also like how many days is it raining or you  would never normally play golf that can you set up a infrastructure that allows you to generate  revenue on those guys. So yeah trying to expand in capacity as much as possible but we're at a really  good spot I think from like a digital marketing perspective.

27:14 We're thinking about it as like we  don't need a faucet of leads for this location. We need to stay top of mind uh to to drive repeat  visits and honestly just like give value through ads and content to our current customers. Yeah. So  capacity here feels great. capacity at a brand new location looks very different. The location we're  opening up in Grand Prairie, that was an abandoned driving range.

27:33 Like the Google reviews from the  last three years, which we went through this morning, was people raving about how much they  hated the place. Like, hey, someone let this go. I paid and the ball machine didn't work. Opening  up that market is going to be a very different challenge because it's not buying an existing and  operating driving range. Kind of starting not just from scratch, but like from minus one or two.

27:50 So,  that we've got to fill the boat quickly there. I think the the drive is get people to site with  free bucket, blow them away with experience, um, and then drive as many memberships and continue to  give them value as possible. So, when it comes to buying a new location, what do you look for in  the area? I think we look for golf demand. Um, frankly, like the the dream for us expansionwise  is to find driving ranges that people love already.

28:15 They just need a little bit of TLC.  Like right now, just buying a raw piece of land, throwing this up, and hoping it works just doesn't  make sense for us as a business right now. So we're we're really trying to go after, hey, what  are really good driving ranges across the country that might need a little bit of a facelift. I  think that's kind of the thing that we focus on from target perspective.

28:32 We're also looking at  the area. Hey, how many public golf courses are in the area? Are people playing and practicing  there? Do they have practice facilities or are they just courses? And actually, there's a need  for a driving range in this market. And I think lastly, we're we're constantly looking at like  demographics as well, but you need a lot of the right people.

28:49 Mhm. I think for for our business,  what we found is like families is fantastic. Like we are looking for moms and dads who like to play  golf, who want to introduce their kids to the game. That's been a real sweet spot for us where I  think maybe other golf facilities would say, "No, we only need like the the wealthiest people in the  most exclusive neighborhoods and that's like where we're going to put up land."

29:07 It our model has  opened up just a way larger customer base. Think about that different. What are your growth plans  or ambitions? We would love on our big board. We would love 100,000 members and 50 sites, one in  every single state across the US. Okay. Super ambitious goal. I think we can get there and and  we're trying to grow as quickly as possible.

29:23 I think the thoughts for us though are growing the  right way. Like I think a lot of businesses like this see success, maybe take in ton of capital  and get over their skis on opening up venues that aren't performing the same way. I think about  it similarly with like franchising. It's like, all right, if you franchise, cool, you could grow  really quickly, but like, are there going to be the same standards and soul into what you're  doing?

29:44 And so, we've taken an approach like, no, the soul is really important cuz that's  the community and the membership base. And so, growing as quickly as we can in the right way is  super important. Yeah. What are your big costs in running the business? Labor, note payments,  land, taxes, land is an exorbitant cost. Uh, infrastructure buildout's pretty big, obviously.

30:05 Um, staff is really big. water bills enormous. Like we're in the grass business, so growing this  grass in Texas is hard. And so make sure you've got the right source. Are you getting water from  the city? Are you getting it from a well? We've got a property that has a creek that we're able  to pull from that the city allows. So that there I think about it kind of like the the Sims game  where it's like you got to you got to build your own um your own city or your own empire.

30:28 Things I  never thought about, but like if we have to redo a parking lot spot, that's expensive. You know,  that there's real cost. So ongoing cost to the business. water was very shocking to me and labor  is pretty consistent. I think areas that maybe we invest that a lot of other driving engines  don't, which is refreshing balls. You know, the balls here at Richardson, we're going to do  120,000 brand new balls every single year.

30:46 And so, what do they cost? You got to get the volume  discounts, man. Th those help. 50 cents to 70 cents a ball. I think, you know, there's balls on  the higher end of price that are more performance balls that you're supposed to play with on the  course. And so I would argue those are really highend but maybe are not as durable. And so for  our business like we've got to find this sweet spot bal durable nice but super perform.

31:10 We want  the best performance but like we also want this ball to not get hit three times and then have  to be thrown away. So for a driving range the type of golf you're looking for is a little bit  different than an individual golfer going in and buying one. So you have like a Roomba that picks  these things up at night, huh? We have we have the Roomba.

31:27 It's amazing. Um so two things on that.  Our picker which picks about 10 times a day. I mean he's running all day in the picker. We've got  crews picking in the morning, picking at night. An issue with that is if it rains, sometimes we can't  pick balls. So, we've got to have enough inventory of balls like a backlog backlog in storage to  be able to generate revenue the next day if for whatever reason we can't pick the outfield or the  picker breaks.

31:47 I mean, those golf carts break all the time. Got to fix them. We do have the Roomba,  which is amazing. It's like an automatic picker that you set a map area. You say, "Hey, go pick  up these balls." They pick them up. They drop them off into a dispenser that automatically cleans  them. Um, and so those are great. We've also talked about, this is a spin-off of a idea that  we saw from you, which is the coffee shop with uh the sand pit and then kids playing remote  control cars to pick up and move sand.

32:09 We thought, hey, what if we had remote control cars that kids  could go pick up their own balls and then they hit balls for free. So, uh that is a pet project of  mine to try to bring that to life cuz I would just love that. I think that would be kids would love  I would love that. It would be a really memorable thing. I'm more likely to pay you to come here  and do that than actually hit Balt.

32:26 All right. So, the second busiest driving range in the country.  Over 10 million balls will be hit here this year. This is your This is your golf ranch, right?  This is Thanks for coming. It's a beautiful. Absolutely. Where uh where should people find  you? Driving range guys on Instagram, on Tik Tok, and on YouTube. Okay. What about your website  for this business?

32:44 Golf Ranch.com. That's a great domain. Just acquired domain. Just launched  a new website a couple months ago. Yeah. Check us out. golf ranch.com. All right. 50 driving  ranges around the country. That's the goal. One in every state. State. Well, thank you. Thanks,  Grace. Yeah, really appreciate you guys coming.