Building a Golf Brand for Everyday Players

0:00There's not a lot of brands building for the everyday golfer, but there's this massive growth and vibrancy happening in everyday golf and everyday golf life and all these amateur leagues. So we said, why don't we partner up with these places and build for them and show up with all this value for them? Events, balls, gear, stuff that is much more economical for them and actually a brand that gives a shit about them and cares about them. Welcome to the DTC Insider Podcast. where online business owners come to find actionable tips and tactics to grow their businesses. Now, here's your host, Brian Roizenthal.

0:46Hey, welcome to another episode of the DDC Insider Podcast. I'm Brian Roizenthal, your host, and today I'm joined by Jordan Linetta, the founder of Odin Golf. Hey, Jordan, thanks for being on the show. Hey, Brian, great to see you. I know we were just talking earlier about your trip to Berlin, which was pretty epic. Yeah. And just to give the audience context on that, you live there. I live in Berlin. I grew up in Northern California near San Francisco where I'm actually dialing. And now we were in town for a big golf event that we do yearly. But we run the business from Berlin. And as we were joking, Berlin is like one big Depeche Mode album.

1:22Very grungy, but sexy. A lot of interesting parts of the city, east-west vestiges of the past, and just an incredibly eclectic place to live in and just amazing spots. I'm really glad you got to go visit, and I'm sure we could jam for hours on the city. Yeah, I'm really glad you got to go. Yeah, I had a great time with my wife back then. And before talking about your background, why don't you start by telling the audience more about Odin Golf? What does the company do? Odin Golf is, we believe, the de facto golf brand for the everyday golfer. So we have an incredibly vibrant community called the Odin Social Club where we do events and we collaborate with a lot of other leagues and brands and creators.

2:07And then we have our centerpiece products, which are golf balls and apparel. And we, the four of us who started Odin, have software backgrounds. We built and scaled software companies. So we almost view it as a platform for the everyday golfer where they can have a table spread of value that they get, whether it's the community events or the products, collaborating with other people and meeting new people in the community. So that's how we view Odin and how we really were intentional about building it from the beginning. Okay. And you said that you have a background, you know, building tech companies, right?

2:42And scaling tech companies. So could you please talk about that a little bit? What kind of companies did you found and did you start and scale? Yes. So the four of us worked in Berlin and other parts in Europe in the consumer tech scene. So Berlin for many years, and I think it's changing a lot now, but it was viewed as the quintessential consumer tech hub of Europe. So what happened was you had a lot of repurposed e-commerce models from the U.S. and other places like Airbnb for Europe or Food Delivery for Europe, which is a company that some of us worked in. So that was quite interesting. And that was through the Uber area growth at all costs, which was really fascinating.

3:24So the few of us, we helped build up Delivery Hero, which is still around. It's still one of the largest food delivery companies in the world. and it was basically building for Europe, Asia, Latin America. We had a company actually, Padido Xia, and Latin America, you may be familiar with it. So we were everywhere basically except the US. And this was, it was a fascinating time. And this was basically like the era of raise as much money as possible and just basically take the war chest and go around and acquire and build the business. It's since changed, as you know, much differently now in today's day and age.

4:01So we built that up. Myself, I started a developer tools SaaS company in Berlin and built that up for a couple of years. And then the four of us have been golf nuts since growing up. And that was the impetus for starting Odin for taking what we've learned in the software world and then bringing it to what we would view it as a hardware good, you know, golf balls and apparel, which was a much different building than a software company. You know, being from the U.S. and moving to Berlin when you were, what, 20 years old or so? Yes. What are the main discrepancies, the main differences, good or bad, doesn't matter, but the main things that you find different between the two cultures?

4:42I was really specific and intentional about wanting to live and work in Europe. And during my bachelor's, I had done a semester abroad in Rome and I was playing water polo with the team in Rome and also studying there. And I was eating cacio e pepe all day, carbonara, drinking Negronis. And I was like, OK, Europe, this is incredible. What a lifestyle. I want to do whatever it takes to get back here as soon as I finish school. And I, being from the Bay Area, tech was in the DNA just growing up around the farm of tech here. And I didn't want to work in London. I looked at some other tech hubs, but Berlin was very akin to what I had in San Francisco.

5:23very eclectic very international very open and i just saw that hey i wanted to work in and i'm italian by background so food is a centerpiece of the family maybe used as a political weapon in some regards and i wanted to work in food tech and really the only couple food tech companies were being built in berlin and delivery hero was one of those companies and i basically talked my way into a job there 12 years ago, moved over there. And I, like I said, I was already familiar with how Europe was, but Berlin was a notch up in a lot of ways because Rome is, there are some international components to it, but it's quintessential Italy.

6:03It's a very chaotic Roman, very specific and nuanced Italian city. Berlin, you hear Portuguese, you hear Spanish, you hear Greek, you hear English, you have Aussies, you have Brits, you have an amalgamation of all these different cultures. And what's really cool about Berlin is everyone starts on the same foot when they move to the city because it's so international. You're looking to meet new people, you're looking to explore, have more adventures. So I always found that it was much easier to meet people in Berlin because everyone's on an even playing field. And as we were discussing earlier, the other amazing part of the city is you have art, you have music, you have the tech scene, you have blue collar workers, you have bankers.

6:45Everyone comes together in harmony in an incredible way without judgment. You don't have this discrepancy of wealth or income or housing or that sort of thing. It all comes together in an incredible way. And that's part of what I like about Europe. And as we were talking about earlier, the work style is much different than the U.S. Europeans have a much better balance. They work incredibly hard, but there's a balance of like, hey, we're going to work hard, but we're also going to live with zest. And it's not to say that doesn't happen in the U.S., but the culture is much different. And the other thing, too, which is incredible is you're a couple hours away of this high concentration of all these different cultures, which is fascinating, especially when you're building a business over here, localizing a company or a brand in specific countries, whereas the U.S.

7:35is, you may have local state differences, but it's one big massive ocean you're building for. Yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong, but many Americans don't ever leave the U.S. other than Mexico, let's say, right? Yes. I have friends that still live here. They don't even have a passport. And I'm always trying to wrangle people together. Hey, you got to come visit. It's only 10 and a half hours over the pond, get out and explore. And that was also part of why I wanted to move out to Europe and Berlin was California and the Bay Area. If I ever wanted to come back, it's always going to be there. It's always going to be a tech hub.

8:11It's always going to be a lot of vibrancy, an incredible place to live. But I felt like, you know, early 20s, no family, no kids, no mortgage. I have the flexibility to do that. If you're not going to do it, you need to go explore. And I think also like what you had done doing those Europe trips and traveling and being international with your brand and your company, you have a much different lens on life. And just you're very intentional about working with different cultures, different people. I think it's also a strong, you have stronger business acumen because you're keeping more things in mind.

8:43And you're much crisper on more things than having maybe a tunnel view of how things are looking on life. And I think just life in general, Just get out and explore. You're going to be way more well-rounded and you're going to have a much more fruitful experience as a whole. Yeah, I totally agree. I was in fact going to say something similar. You know, I did. I made my first trip to Europe when I was 18 years old and it opened my mind. Like it was I can't even describe that with words. It was like as a kid, you know, worship your parents. You think they are this or I think I did, you know, the smartest people there are.

9:21and I love them and they are smart, but it's like you don't know better. That's why you know. If all you taste or you try is a coffee shop around the corner, you're going to think they have the best coffee in the world because you haven't tried any other. If you live within your own same reality, you know, forever, you won't know better. You won't get new ideas, fresh perspectives. And yeah, going to Europe or any other place opens your mind like wide open. I have met my main clients in the agency in the U.S. I travel there, but not many clients travel down here. And one did, not because of me.

9:59It was a coincidence. Two, actually. But one, it was funny because they came down here for a holiday, and then the pandemic hit, and they were trapped here. But they liked it. So they started living here. To this day, they live here. No kidding. pandemic and they we we discuss and we have fun about all the crazy stuff that happened here that we as locals don't realize because it's always the outsider that tells you how you are different even if it's better or worse but he was like the cable guy you know that he came to connect the cable to install it and he invited me to a soccer match with his friends it was like what you were the cable guy like and he was like he's like you're super open you're like that and yeah we are having some some fun around that but yeah it opens your it definitely opens your mind and if you see a couple football games or two out of it that's incredible and that may happen in the states but i think people are more afraid of opening up because they're thinking you know we're i'm one thing i get all the time speaking of you know that mentality of like hey being open there's a couple of examples.

11:12So hitchhiking is a big no-no in the U.S. for many reasons. Hitchhiking in Europe, I don't know how it is in Argentina, but hitchhiking in Europe is very common for people to get around. And when I talk to friends or people in the U.S. that ask about it, they're dumbfounded. They can't fathom hitchhiking, which I understand because they view of the U.S. viewpoint of hitchhiking. It's incredibly dangerous. That's a no-fly zone. That's another example. And the other thing too is the safety element, which I know is different for every city, but for Berlin, for example, it's for the most part safe.

11:45Yeah, there's areas maybe you don't want to go. But when I first moved there, I was younger, I was clubbing out to the city never sleeps. There's always stuff happening. And I would tell people, yeah, I feel comfortable walking down the street. It's much different than if you're going to walk at 3 a.m. in San Francisco, or I don't know how it is in Buenos Aires or New York is very specific. So I think just, yeah, that mentality of like, hey, there's another way to live and there's another mentality and viewpoint on life. And your clients and friends who moved down there, they said, oh, actually, shit, this is incredible.

12:20There's another way to live here. And I'm sure that drove a lot of their decision making. Yeah, one of the things that stays up late. The other day I was celebrating the anniversary with my wife. we went to the and then we went to have some dinner and he saw some table you know you know available inside and it was cold it's winter it's the opposite here right so currently it's in autumn you know slash winter and then i wanted the table inside and they said no these are booked for the shift of the 10 30 p.m so yeah i'm trying to say that we we have dinner late now i have little ones of almost six-year-old twins so i are probably 8 p.m but otherwise in argentina we have dinner at 9 10 i don't know if 11 but if you go out saturday night friday night whatever probably 10 p.m is common and probably i had a super hard time finding a restaurant open at 10 p.m in europe right yeah totally germans especially they eat 6 37 i know spaniards italians you know the mediterranean cultures they eat later akin to what you guys have um you know 9 9 30 and um it's fascinating man and so when you guys and you start work later right like 10 30 11 in some cases yeah so talking about olding golf because i have a lot of fun talking about other things but people listening to this is like okay when are you guys going to talk shop and top business.

13:51So I have something interesting for all of you watching and listening and no pressure, Jordan, of course, but there's something special about this episode, something special about your company that due to this whole cost context and ecosystem that these days happen in the US, many people are looking to, many brands are looking to, you know, starting a business or starting operations in Europe. And that's where you operate, right? So what can you tell, you know, being an American but operating and living in Europe, what are the things that are probably

14:27that, you know, American brands should know about Europe and don't, let's say, underestimate when looking to opening operations there? So we live and work in Berlin, but we build specifically for the U.S. market. And we come back all the time for our golf events, you know, seeing our customers and our community in person. And we're hanging out in these digital watering holes. And part of why we built the community was, hey, golf is done in person. We've got to get together live. And that's something that we do a couple of times a year. But we just build in living in Berlin, which is fascinating because when we're building for Pacific Standard Time, which is nine hours behind, we're in our skivvies at night, building the business at our homes, which is fun.

15:08So golf specifically is completely different in the US than it is in Europe. And even within Europe, it's much different in Spain and Portugal and Germany and Italy, and then obviously across the pond in the UK and Ireland. So it's much different than if you're going to be building a direct-to-consumer deodorant company or cereal company or apparel company. I would say the biggest thing to keep in mind, first off, is all the nuances and the localization that you have to do in Europe with all the different European countries. So you need to think about the go-to-market. So for example, if you're an apparel company, is brand positioning, is this marketing, is this a go-to market that we're doing in the US, but is this going to work in Spain?

15:53Is this going to work in Belgium? Is this going to work in Netherlands? So the first thing you should look at, like, for example, with us, golf is massive in Spain and Portugal and the UK. It's really not a big market in the Netherlands or in Belgium. There's people golfing or in Greece or Italy. So that's the first thing you look at is like, hey, what's our go to market here? Where are our entry points? And who are our personas? Like, are these people that are going to vibe with our positioning? Do we need to adjust our positioning? Do we need to look at how we do marketing differently that has all sorts of implications with the digital marketing?

16:27Is there offline that you do? So I think that's the biggest thing is like, who are we building for? What's this market like? And what are our entry points? So for example, if Belgium's big for your product, maybe you have people in Belgium already buying your product or they wanna buy your product, it's in the US. Well, maybe that's something you should start to squeeze on and noodle on. Hey, maybe this is our first entry point so that we can learn. But if you wanna go to Poland, well, that's a completely different persona, different language, different currency. there's so many local nuances that you have to keep in mind.

16:58And then you have to also figure out the operations, the shipping, the fulfillment, the logistics. The good news is it's really gotten much better and it's up par with the US on that front. So, and I think the good news is, and that's part of what you guys do with your company is if you want to test stuff out in different markets, maybe you want to do Portugal, maybe you want to do UK, you can very guerrilla style test stuff very easily now. And I think that's really great. That's something that we've learned, too. You know, we've always been champagne tastes on a beer budget. We didn't raise funding.

17:31We've always been bootstrapped. So we've always found scrappy ways to test markets, locales, regions. And I know the U.S. is much different. It's a one big ocean. There are state differences and region differences, especially with golf. But those are the things I think once you crack that, the other stuff can be figured out for sure. No languages. You mentioned languages because, of course, there are many countries, many languages. Do you think that many of them or many of the biggest, let's say, the biggest players or the biggest countries in Europe, do they speak English or do they accept English from a brand that is trying to enter in the market or do they need to come with a local player or with a local lingo, let's say?

18:14I would say, yes, they are hungry for really cool, innovative products because they're discovering this again on the digital watering holes, TikTok, Snap, Instagram, YouTube. So they're on a similar playing field that someone in the States would be of like, this is really cool. I would wear that. Or I see stuff in movies or TV shows or I see stuff online. I want to vibe with this. like these are my people, this is my brand. And as you know, it's not about just the product, but the brand. And am I going to vibe well with this brand? Do I associate with their positioning, their mission, what they stand for?

18:51That goes a long way, especially with the younger generation. So the language, I think, and this is something that we looked at very specifically. So our positioning is on the bolder side. It's a little bit edgier, especially for golf. So our positioning and our edginess would not work in a lot of places in Europe because it wouldn't translate directly. And there's so our tagline is go balls out always, which in the US is basically like a go bigger, go home type mentality. In the US, there's a lot of those kind of sayings. They also exist in Europe, but it's a lot of those puns or sayings in everyday life.

19:29So go balls out always if we translated that in in germany or in dutch it wouldn't hit well like it would in the u.s because when people in the u.s first heard that they're like oh that's that's cool you're selling balls and the go bigger go home edginess and if you look at our box here it's bold it's paint splatter it's edgy that's not something that would work in the in the culture in a lot of ways in europe so if but if you're a more neutral let's that's an example a deodorant company adidasy deodorant company that's more neutral. Maybe you talk about the product and the sustainability of it and the utility around that.

20:06Maybe the positioning is more neutral and not as edgy. Something like that, I think, could be localized very well. So you have to find a balance. And also, too, I think we could probably, if we really did the homework and really were wanting to build for Europe now, we could localize it and maybe something Germans have a saying that is golf related, but it could also work in the subculture or slang that also, but you have to really dig in and really focus on this is a market we're looking at. Yeah. And of course, what I'm going to ask you, of course, will depend on each vertical, but what would you say are the biggest, which ones are the biggest markets in Europe typically, you know?

20:49Typically. So you're, I mean, it's much different now, but the UK, for example, because English and it's more can do North America. So that's kind of a first entry point. We saw that too, like in the software world, a lot of software companies will go to Ireland or they'll go to the UK first, and then they'll spread out to Germany, for example, then they'll go over to, for example, the Netherlands. So I would say, you know, look at like the subculture and again, look at your positioning and who you're really targeting. If you're going for a younger demographic, you can start with some big cities.

21:21For example, Berlin is great. That's a ground zero for new stuff that happens in other places in the U.S. that there's a lot of things popping up. I always felt like Berlin was like five to 10 years later than a lot of stuff in the U.S., but it's getting much faster now because we have this global village. They're looking at YouTube and TikTok and all these places, so it's much faster of a turnaround time. So I would say the initial starting point is big cities. That's probably not a bad bet to look at. But yeah, again, if there's a certain slant of your product that, for example, Spaniards would really like, maybe you're building a DTC olive oil company.

22:02Well, Mediterranean's love olive oil. That's the centerpiece of their cooking. Maybe you start there. Germans love olive oil and they use it, but they're not going to rock their socks off as much as Mediterranean culture. So those are the types of things you really have to look at. Yeah, you've got to do your research, of course. Do the research. and it doesn't again cost a lot now you could be sitting in idaho and test this out online you know different channels and i know you guys do an incredible job with that and have clients that that do do that and um so i think testing it is very easily and the tools are so good now and the other thing too and this is what we did was um partners local partners and that was the biggest unlock that we had in our businesses, these traditional golf brands, they're building for the pros.

22:49They're not building for the everyday golfer. The everyday golfer is just a cog in the marketing engine of all these companies. But we said 99 % of the market is everyday golfers like us, the everyday people. There's not a lot of brands building for the everyday golfer, but there's this massive growth and vibrancy happening in everyday golf and everyday golf life and all these amateur leagues so we said why don't we partner up with these places and build for them and show up with all this value for them events balls gear stuff that is much more economical for them and actually a brand that gives a shit about them and cares about them and that's part of our tagline you're you're big on in-person events right yes we do we're big on in-person events and that was what we started with at the beginning of the company and the inception to say we have these products that we want to build, but we were very intentional about, hey, we want to build this community of not only it's an entry point for the products, but it's a way for us to embed ourselves and position ourselves as a brand because golf is an incredibly social proof game.

23:55When you show up to a course, you're asking people, hey, what is that you're wearing? What are you playing? They see stuff online. They're looking for new things. And it's everyone's looking for an edge in golf because golf people are very finicky and religious about the routine what they wear how they swing all the mechanics so they're looking for new cool stuff to get that edge and we felt like we because we're building for the everyday golfer the different personas of everyday golfers we have to meet where he or she's at at the everyday golfer watering hole which is in this case muni courses and where do they play and hang out so that that was something we were very intentional about.

24:33Now, I will say, because we've never had a marketing budget, how we built that was very brick by brick, low budget, guerrilla style. And that was something that really was, I would say, funky for us at the start, because when you build software companies, when you release something, you get that instant scale, or you get a semblance of nice scale when you release software. But when you deal with a physical product, and you deal with real life events and going into the community, embedding in the community. That's a very brick by brick grassroots thing. And yes, there's a marketing budget component, but it's very, very specific.

25:10And it was something that we had to change coming from a software world where you raise some dough, you have some scale, you go out and acquire people quickly. And there isn't a component of that, as you know, with D2D companies, but that was something that has worked out incredibly well several years later. Yeah, I think especially more if you're bootstrapped, you always got to build brick by brick. I think it's easy. I don't know any other way, right? But there are two options there that I know of or I can think of right now. And you chose the right one for sure based on what I think, right?

25:42The first one is to build, create a product, create a storefront, let's say the website, whatever, and wait for sales or do ads only or whatever, right? The second one is going beyond the storefront. And it's what we've been preaching for years on this pod, on the newsletter, Evergrown Social. And that's, I have interviewed many, many cool brands, many big brands. And they say the same thing. They have all the same elements in common. And one of the key elements is they go beyond the storefront. They get involved with their community because they care. They are truly be in a living for them and they are creating an experience right i just before recording this episode i interviewed black rifle coffee it's a publicly traded company 400 million in annual revenue they said the biggest lever is community they are founded by veterans and they support veterans and they are all about that the american spirit and it's the key element and they say We are an entertainment company that sells coffee.

26:47We think ourselves in that. And they have over 1.9 million followers on Instagram, over 1.4 subscribers on YouTube. So they are a content company. And the same pattern repeats across Born Primitive. Same thing, Veterans, a pattern of company. Same thing, Battlebox. Battlebox is a survivor gear. They have over a million subscribers on YouTube, millions of followers. So they have a TV show on Netflix content, but most of it community, community first. They do even a reality show. So that's why I say that different scale, you're track brick by brick, but you're acting in real life with your community and building a community, which is what you are doing, goes a long way.

27:28Yes, totally. And I think that's an incredible case and incredible company that what this could look like, what a North Star could look like if you start being very intentional about building a community and moving beyond just the product. And that was the big unlock that we had building consumer tech companies. It was candidly a bloodbath, especially in food delivery, where consumers are incredibly fickle. They have everything at beck and call on their device, laundry, food delivery, music. There's no shortage of choice of things to buy and associate with. So moving beyond the product and again, coming with a table spread of this is a brand that basically speaks to you as an everyday golfer.