Steve and Dave Jolliffee realized that driving ranges lacked feedback. Golfers need feedback to improve, so they created a way to get feedback.

Dave Young:

Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, but well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those.

[Seaside Plumbing Ad]

Dave Young:

Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young. I’m sitting here with Stephen Semple. Well, actually, I’m not sitting here with him. I see him. He’s on the screen.

Stephen Semple:

We’re virtually together. Virtually.

Dave Young:

This is an international podcast.

Stephen Semple:

It is, actually. It is actually very good.

Dave Young:

By the way, I know I think the He-Man episode has dropped.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Young:

The artwork that Matt Burns or whoever did it for that one.

Stephen Semple:

Yes. Matthew did it.

Dave Young:

Yeah, that was great. He sent me that.

Stephen Semple:

Actually, the one that I really like was the one that he did for PT Barnum. I thought that that was fun, where you’re the guy hocking the tickets.

Dave Young:

I haven’t seen that either. He sent them all to me. For some reason, he sent that one to me. I should probably subscribe to this podcast and listen to it. Anywho, Steve. So, Stephen whispered in my ear the topic that we’re going to cover today, and it’s actually one that I sent him.

Stephen Semple:

You actually whispered in my ear.

Dave Young:

Yeah, I did. I kind of did. I was surprised that you were ready to do it. And it’s the story of Rose Blumpkin and Nebraska Furniture Mart. She’s one of my local heroes back in my home state in Nebraska.

Stephen Semple:

Sorry, that’s not the one we’re going to be talking about.

Dave Young:

Oh, sure.

Stephen Semple:

You sent me another idea. That one, I’m going to do, but I don’t have all the research on it.

Dave Young:

Okay. So we have to start all over.

Stephen Semple:

No, or we could just keep going with this, Topgolf.

Dave Young:

Oh, right. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

You also sent me… You want to just keep going with this?

Dave Young:

So now people know that we’re going to talk about Rose Blumkin at some point.

Stephen Semple:

Yes. Yeah, sure.

Dave Young:

That’s a cool story. You just want to make me look as scatterbrained as I really am. So, Topgolf.

Stephen Semple:

Authenticity. We’re just going for authenticity here.

Dave Young:

Yeah. So, Topgolf. I just thought we were talking about this other thing that I sent you. So yeah, I’d love to talk about Topgolf. So both of these businesses, since we’re not talking about Rose Blumpkins, I’ve been to each of them one time.

Stephen Semple:

Okay.

Dave Young:

My experience level is X equals one. Sample equals one size.

Stephen Semple:

Okay.

Dave Young:

But I saw the story about Topgolf or it was a video, wasn’t it?

Stephen Semple:

It was a video that you sent me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was super interesting and so much so that I ended up, as soon as it was done that night I had some time. I did a bunch of research, wrote it up and said, “We’re going to cover it,” because it’s a very interesting story.

Dave Young:

To me, if you want the TLDR version of it, the guys that started Topgolf thought they were in the golf business.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Dave Young:

No, they weren’t.

Stephen Semple:

No, they weren’t.

Dave Young:

They had no idea what business they were in.

Stephen Semple:

And this is the reason why I wanted to talk about this. So this is an idea, Dave, that you suggested to me. And when I looked into the history, there’s a couple of twists in this that I thought were super interesting that every business could learn from. And yeah, the story of this is that they didn’t really understand what business they were in.

And when they found out what business they were in, they became super successful. And then the company that bought them lost sight of what business they were in and failed. It’s this crazy thing. So before we get into that, I want to hear about your experience at Topgolf because you went there and you’re not a golfer.

Dave Young:

No, I’m trying to think of who we went… It was a work thing I think.

Stephen Semple:

Perfect.

Dave Young:

And that’s typical, right? It was a bunch of us from work. It was actually a super hot day here in Austin, but they have giant fans blowing on you.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

Dave Young:

They’re the kind of business where, I don’t know. There’s lots going on and they’re pulling money out of your pocket all different directions. Right?

Stephen Semple:

At their heart, they’re a driving range. And it was started. The first Topgolf was built in Watford, England in 2000 by two brothers, Steve and Dave Jolffi. And these guys were golfers, tinkers, problem ...