Charles Hoffman: Co-founder at Golf Roots

^{Joe Fox (00:01.273)}
Hey everyone, Joe Fox here. I'm the President at Growave and today we're tuning into another episode of Retain Grow Thrive. Super excited today. Today we have a really, really cool customer of ours who's on the podcast and they're actually based in Texas as well and they've done some incredible things. And I'm not going to steal any of their thunder. want them to kind of jump in and explain their story, but

Without further ado, want to welcome Charles Hoffman, the founder of Golf Roots here in Texas. How you doing?

_{Charles Hoffman (00:32.93)}
Doing great, thanks for having me, Joe. Excited to be here.

^{Joe Fox (00:36.291)}
Yeah, absolutely. Me too. I must confess I haven't played as much golf since I moved to the US. I've been lucky enough to play a couple of games with some of the Klaviyo team at Torrey Pines in San Diego. But I haven't been in a bit. I got a lot of golfers in my family and a lot of golfing friends. So today's going to be a really cool episode. you know, I just wanted to say like, Charles, you guys have had so much.

_{Charles Hoffman (00:48.622)}
Wow.

_{Charles Hoffman (00:56.952)}
Go.

^{Joe Fox (01:01.676)}
success in everything that you're doing. And I think today will be a really good masterclass for the audience on how to really build a loyal following. I think some of the content that you guys are doing is just absolutely spot on. I really like to see it when founders are creating great content and you guys certainly are. yeah, let's let's kind of dive into it. Tell me a little bit about how you got started, how long you've been in business and what you do for the audience.

_{Charles Hoffman (01:28.022)}
Absolutely. So our mission here at Golf Roots is to make the game more affordable, to make it accessible. You know, I think when people think of golf and what it looks like, what it stands for, a lot of times it's the very kind of stuffy 85 year old, old money. And the truth is if you didn't grow up on a country club or on a golf course, it can be hard to get into the game, especially without spending thousands of dollars. So that was really the thesis of how we started.

we've been in business just about five years now going into year six. And we began because my co-founder and our CEO, Ben asked me if I wanted a set of his grandfather's old clubs because I was going into consulting and the business world. and I said no, actually, because I was a soccer player, a runner, a baseball player. thought golf was just for old people. had that same preconceived notion. but I also thought that.

Even if I wanted to, there was no real way to get into the game without spending $2,000. And as a college student who is on a budget, and even just as a young professional, that's not really the type of money that you just have on hand or that you necessarily want to invest into right off the bat. So that was kind of the thesis. I said, Hey, let me help build a website and turn this into a real idea.

And we kind of grew very organically from there. At first it was a way to make some extra cash. And over time, you know, our mission grew, our community grew, and we felt like we could really make a huge difference for people looking to get into that game or people who just might want to try it out.

^{Joe Fox (03:14.645)}
Yeah, I love that Charles, I think businesses that are born out of solving problems are always the best ones. And that's a very, very clear use case. And coming from someone, you know, who's who's a expat who's relocated, you know, I ended up selling a pair of clubs back home that I probably use six or seven times that were worth a fortune. And it pains me to still think about but at the same time.

the logistics of taking those overseas and all of those sort of things. It's kind of not worth it. But I love the fact that you're making this so accessible. And, you know, it sounds like to me that that's something I would very much utilize because, you know, I kind of understand the game of golf. I, you know, I can play. I'm not amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, I have other priorities in life at the moment where I might not necessarily want to go and buy a brand new set.

of clubs and everything like that. And also too, think, you know, the technology in golf changes so much, so regularly. So, you know, what I would be used to from four years ago, it's probably very much changed now. So yeah, I really love the premise of the business and, you know, super cool story about the origin story with your co-founder. I want to kind of touch on, you know, obviously, you know, congratulations to

on the six years that's that's super cool. It's very impressive, especially, you know, in Ecom, we see a lot of businesses that kind of hit that two, three year mark, they kind of stagnate on growth. And I know you guys are very much having the opposite of that you've got this constant growth trajectory as your community kind of grows. So can you tell me a little bit, I want to dive in here a little bit around how you built that community?

how you've continued to build that word of mouth. I know from a grow wave perspective, we play a small part of that on the loyalty front, but I'd love to kind of hear from you and I'm sure the audience would love to know how you've built that, you know, kind of loyal following.

_{Charles Hoffman (05:20.428)}
Yeah, no, that's a great question. And, we even talked about it very briefly pre-show, but we're in a business where we mostly sell pre-owned clubs and they're from other brands, right? So our tailor-made driver is not going to be any different from one of our competitors. And so we knew very early on that if we can't differentiate ourselves in any way, we're not going to be able to be profitable. We won't be able to scale and take on any of our competitors. And so.

We really thought about two things. One is the customer experience. Obviously we wanted to deliver that, you know, 11 out of 10 experience, read a lot of books about, you know, Airbnb, about Zappos, about all these amazing companies who really went kind of a step ahead. And the loyalty program fits really nicely into that because it's a way for us to differentiate and say, Hey, you know, you could maybe save

two or three bucks on a club from our competitor. But if we're giving effectively 5 % cash back, giving people the opportunity to earn points through following us and engaging with us, that's a huge differentiator. So that was one big piece. And then the other one that you mentioned is kind of on social media and through some of those channels. I think we recognize very early on that

It was going to be huge for us. And that was kind of a make or break deal for us because we're bootstrapped, we're self-funded. So, you know, we didn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on marketing, on Google ads, on Facebook ads. And we also dove really into the kind of Gary V space where, just produce content, document the journey. And I studied computer science and economics. My business partner was a

history and Spanish major. So we were not marketing people, not comfortable in front of the camera or anything like that. But I think we really believed in its ability to take us to that next level. And so I'd attribute a ton of that growth to just consistency posting two or three times a day, every day for years. And of course the algorithms change, the platforms change, but I think that

^{Joe Fox (07:18.64)}
well.

_{Charles Hoffman (07:44.332)}
we really built our expertise through that volume. And it's been a huge, huge key to our growth and to be able to grow profitably and kind of sustainably, right? Without just feeding money into the machine.

^{Joe Fox (07:59.214)}
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it really does show. And I think the level of authenticity in that content really, really shows and obviously clearly resonates with your audience. So, you know, once again, congratulations on that because I, I, you know, I flipped through your shorts and everything on YouTube and just seeing the sheer amount of views, the sheer amount of engagement. It's, it's super impressive. And one other other area we didn't touch on too much.

that with the grow website of things, obviously there's loyalty, but one area where you guys truly excel as well as reviews, like collecting reviews and consistently doing that. think that's an area where unfortunately a lot of businesses, think still struggle is, you know, they have every intention of collecting reviews and they set it up and you know, lot of businesses I find either fall into two buckets. They're either really, really good and consistent.

at getting reviews or they've tried reviews and it hasn't worked for them immediately. So they kind of just sideline it and they don't realize how important it is for everything. So can you give me a few little kind of pointers that you and your business partner implemented on a review side of things that have really kind of driven that growth on the review side?

_{Charles Hoffman (09:17.088)}
Absolutely. think we, it's funny you talked about, know, if you don't see that immediate return, a lot of people are turned off by that. And I think it's such an interesting message just for running a business as a whole, but it really does strike so well with the reviews. I think that we knew at the time when we started, we were 21 or 22.

Nobody knew who we were. We were selling clubs in Facebook groups on eBay. And we said, Hey, why would somebody trust us? Right? How do you build up that trust? And so reviews are a huge part of that, you know, especially when you're a newcomer and you're unknown. think that it was very obvious to us very early on that it would be very important to establish credibility in a space that we were very new in. And so I think that was a part of it.

And I think that any time we had a positive interaction with the customer, we really pushed for reviews, you know, whether that was, hey, I love the club I got or whether that's, hey, my driver shaft broke and then we helped them resolve it. think we always were very mindful of what it could do for us. And even though in the beginning, to your point, it required a lot of patience. We always believed that its impact would

would be there and that it was worth pursuing. And fortunately it's played out that way. I never really had too many doubts about it, but of course it is very satisfying to see that kind of come to fruition.

^{Joe Fox (10:54.974)}
Yeah, absolutely. Charles, there's, there's a common theme here occurring, which is your consistency and dedication to make things work, which, which I love to see in young entrepreneurs. the other thing I think, you know, that was very fortuitous about you guys continuing to focus on that is, how well that works with, you know, LLM search engine optimizer or LLM optimization and everything like that. think.

People, know, reviews have always had this underlying power to help with decision making from a social proof perspective, you know, displaying them as close as possible to the checkout and to the PDP has, you know, immense benefit psychologically and really helps improve conversion. But from a discoverability and top of the funnel perspective, reviews are really, really important. And more so than ever now that

You know, they've always been important in terms of Google search, but now things are moving over, you know, and a lot of people aren't using Google search, they're more inclined to use a chat GBT or a Claude, etc. reviews really, really like drive that authenticity, authenticity and drive those results and help brains really stand out. So I think that's really, really good the way that you've approached that.

_{Charles Hoffman (12:16.652)}
Yeah. And I think it's interesting too, right? You probably couldn't have predicted exactly what that might look like even five years ago, but it's always very clear. think that real reviews from real customers are important, right? And so whether that was in search a few years ago, whether that's in LLMs now, who knows what's going to happen in five years from today with how things are advancing, but it's very clear to me at least that

^{Joe Fox (12:24.232)}
Nothing.

_{Charles Hoffman (12:45.806)}
the algorithms and companies and people will care about what real people have to say. And so whether or not we can tell exactly what that'll look like, it seems very obvious to me that reviews will continue to be an important piece of whatever's coming down the pipe.

^{Joe Fox (13:03.995)}
Absolutely. and I guess just on that note, I've done what as I said, you know, before the call, I don't to dive into this just being like a testimonial for Grow Wave, but out of curiosity, and it's always good for me to kind of understand, did you find that implementing and collecting of reviews relatively easy using Grow Wave? Or did you find there was like a few tweaks and a bit of a learning curve? Or how did you go about getting that recipe correct from a technology side of things?

_{Charles Hoffman (13:32.012)}
I think, you we're, big on testing and learning. like to call it and, you know, moving quickly. So I think that it was pretty intuitive for me. Fortunately, I'd like to think my computer science background gives me a little bit of a technical advantage, but I also, I just felt comfortable with it. Honestly. I, like you said, I don't want to do only praise and everything, but, I really felt like it was very easy, very intuitive.

^{Joe Fox (13:48.686)}
And, yep.

_{Charles Hoffman (13:59.762)}
And it made it so that we had no excuse not to, you know, and I think that is really important, especially for people who are new in the space or who aren't used to creating or developing those systems. I think it was really helpful to have some of those guidelines and structures in place.

^{Joe Fox (14:04.049)}
Mmm.

^{Joe Fox (14:19.8)}
Awesome. I love to hear that. And definitely, definitely good news for me to pass onto the team. So thank you for that, Charles. And, you know, I think this is kind of a good segue into, know, we've covered a lot of what has worked to build the loyal following to really, you know, focus on helping loyalty with conversion and reviews and content and all of those sorts of things. But, you know, we're kind of dabbling in it now talking about what the future of things is going to look like.

^{Joe Fox (14:48.589)}
and the changes that are happening with all of the technologies and things available. Where, what are your thoughts on like, so if I was to say, you know, what's golf routes focusing on now that you may not necessarily have been focusing on six months ago and, and what foundations are you laying for the future now?

_{Charles Hoffman (15:07.756)}
Yeah, I think that...

You know, so much of it is continuing to build brand. so that's not necessarily different, but I think the way that we show up in that world continues to develop and improve. you know, we're really trying to focus on, you know, doing more in-person activations, for example, which is not online, right? So it's almost counterintuitive, but I think bringing that community into the real world so that we can actually deliver experiences.

that resonate with people is something that's going to be a big part of, you know, the next six months or year and beyond. You know, we talked a little bit about LLMs and, you know, the implementation of AI and what that looks like. I think that we're still trying to figure that out candidly, right? We didn't, I was always very nervous to invest in SEO because I knew what was coming down the pipe. And I think we're at a point where we're still trying to figure out.

the best way to allocate our time and resources to make sure we're showing up in those right places. But I think that is going to be massive for us and frankly for any other company kind of trying to reach consumers in the future. You we want the how do I get into golf on chat, GPT to then say, you know, golf roots is a great example of this or they have a really cheap starter set that you can try out.

You know, so I think that continuing to build brands is, just such a differentiator. And I feel like a broken record, frankly. but it's something that I have no doubts about. And that's the one thing that I feel certain on, you know, moving into this kind of new wave of AI and Claude and chat GPT and, whatever other tools out there that people are spending kind of an exponentially higher amount of time on.

_{Charles Hoffman (17:07.21)}
So I'd say really developing the brand for in-person events, expanding to different platforms and different ways of reaching people. And then also making sure we show up in those new tools that people spend an extraordinary amount of time in.

^{Joe Fox (17:24.342)}
Yeah, absolutely. You know, to summarize, think it's like, how do you you know what, I guess there isn't a correct definitive answer at the moment, because we're kind of all in this experimentation phase with this. But it's like, how do you digitize or AI friendly, you know, your communities and your reputation and your brand and all of those sorts of things. And I think the fact that you're really actively doing that and thinking of that is critical, but

to our points earlier, some of those, you know, really foundational key things like reviews, like building a community is so important because they will just continue to serve through this. And, you know, we spoke about it earlier, but I am grateful that technology platforms continue to value reviews, whether it be, you know, from Google search or into the LLM space, because

There is nothing more frustrating as we all know than, you know, being shown and promoted a product that deep down is either propped up by fake reviews or is nowhere near, you know, it's misleading or it doesn't have a good reputation. So I'm glad that that's something that the technology is still continuing to prioritize.

I want to dig a little bit more into these in-person events because that is a very common reoccurring theme. know, we all think and I think, you know, COVID was quite a while ago now, but I think that really reignited a drive for people to connect more and more. think being having that, you know, maybe not necessarily as much in Texas, but certainly in certain parts of the world, you know, Australia, especially.

where there was that really high level of restriction of interaction between people and, you know, community and people were driven online more. And don't get me wrong, things I don't think will ever go back to pre-COVID, but there is obviously this hunger amongst communities and groups to be connecting in real life and to be connecting face to face. And it's also an incredible way to build authenticity with a community.

^{Joe Fox (19:41.372)}
What's your approach to these events and how are you then translating it back to customers online and into those online communities?

_{Charles Hoffman (19:50.348)}
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm glad you took it there too. I know this is, you know, through Grow Wave, but it's a really important area for us. You know, I think that one, the way we really started to feel strongly about it is, you know, I'm based out of Dallas. I'm a runner. So you see all these run clubs popping up and there's 10 for every day of the week here. So, you know, it's, really interesting to see that phenomenon. And it goes back to what you were talking about, how people

have that desire for connection. you know, golf, one of the pieces that makes it a little hard to get into at times is not just the financial barrier, but also the knowledge and the intimidation of it. And so we said, how can we combine this run club idea where people are coming together to do an activity they enjoy while also making the game feel more approachable and like there's less pressure.

Right. It's hard to go to a driving range if you've never played before. And maybe you don't even know how to set up to the ball, right? Maybe you're worried that if you whiff the people next to you are going to laugh or make fun or whatever that is. And so we really wanted to find a way to make it less intimidating. And we've been really lucky to partner with some great places here. One's called golf ranch. It's almost like a hybrid of a true driving range and top golf where they still have food.

and drinks, but it's really a good practice facility. So we've started hosting these free events there. I think we've done, I want to say three of them so far where we give free range balls, free food, free soda. And it's really just a great way for, you know, 50 or 60 people to meet other golfers in the community in a really low stakes, low pressure way. And so at those events, we will

_{Charles Hoffman (21:45.858)}
film content, we'll ask questions, but the biggest purpose of it is really just to leave these people feeling like they had a great experience that they want to tell their friends about, right? And that when it is their time to get a new driver or get a new putter, they look to us first. You know, I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a piece of it, but it really feels like such an important method to connecting with people. The online community is amazing. It's great.

We have so many followers and people that reach out and share kind words with us, but it's so different to be able to connect to them and to talk to them in person, both from a feedback and frankly, to feel like we're actually making a difference. You know, it's really, excuse me, it's really fun to see that, know, and selfishly, I love being at these events and seeing our team engage with people who are brand new to the game and who just got dragged out by a friend.

But these events are so important to lower that barrier and really just to take that community from online to in person in that fun, approachable way.

^{Joe Fox (22:58.009)}
Yeah, I love that Charles. And I think that's such a cool initiative and such a cool concept. And I love that that's happening. And I'll definitely be, you know, next time in Dallas, hopefully we time it that there's an event because I'd love to get along to one of those. Yeah. But I just think that's really cool. think, you know, the, and to your point, it's like golf is a physical sport.

_{Charles Hoffman (23:13.986)}
Yeah, we'll schedule it around you.

^{Joe Fox (23:26.978)}
You know what mean? It may not be the highest impact physical sport compared to some of the sports you mentioned earlier that you've done, but you do actually have to get outside and offline to enjoy it. Right. And so I think being able to bridge that online to offline and back again is really cool. And, know, to your point, yes, the overarching, you know, one of the overarching goals is to get people to think of you when they are purchasing.

However, that's I feel it's just an organic byproduct of the good you're doing in that community. So I really like that. That's very cool. And, you know, out of out of curiosity, would you ever see, you know, that you would broaden that to like different cities? Is that kind of like part of your future plans? I'd love to spend the last few minutes while we wrap up talking about

You know, what are your future plans with Golf Roots? Do you plan on, you know, building out these communities in every major city or, you know, are you going to focus on Texas first or what are your thoughts there?

_{Charles Hoffman (24:33.666)}
I think a little bit of both of those things you just said, I think we really want to keep nailing it down and making sure, making sure we get it right here before we take it to other places. But I think absolutely. Yeah. We'd love to expand that one phrase that, you know, Ben, my co-founder says a lot is we don't just want to be golf club peddlers, right? Golf is, it's not about the clubs. You need clubs to play. Don't get me wrong, but it's about spending time with your friends outside.

connecting to other people or even your dad or your grandfather. And I think that just being able to share that experience is what's ultimately going to drive us to improve our brand, to improve our community. And so all those business objectives will follow if we can do those things really well. And so I think that I don't want to say we're going to be in 50 states by the end of 2026.

But expanding is absolutely something that we want to do because we know that there's this desire across the country, frankly, across the world now to kind of get more into the game. was spurred by COVID. You know, I'm glad you kind of mentioned that time period out. think it left people wanting to connect in some of those different ways. And, and it also provided an opportunity for people to learn.

^{Joe Fox (25:42.007)}
Yeah.

_{Charles Hoffman (25:59.936)}
a sport like golf. So it really is this culmination of great timing, you know, community and a really fun activity that I think we want to share with as many people as we can. We don't just want to used clubs. I know that's what we do on paper. That's how we pay our employees and you know, whatever, but we really want to build that community and kind of stand for that larger mission of making the game more accessible. So

I think that these in-person events are gonna be a really big part of that, even though they're harder to scale than a Facebook reel or a YouTube video, but it really leaves people feeling a different type of way about us than just engaging online exclusively.

^{Joe Fox (26:47.04)}
Absolutely, very, very well said and a very good ethos and mission to carry into the future. that's fantastic. Speaking of making the game more accessible for everyone, I know that we sort of spoke about it earlier, Charles, and you mentioned that you wanted to be able to offer the audience something to be able to, you know, kind of jump in and check you guys out. Did you want to talk a little bit about that quickly?

_{Charles Hoffman (27:15.182)}
Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to do a 10 % off code, excuse me, on our site, golfroots.com. It'll just be under code GROW. We'll keep it really simple. So I think that will be a great way to do it and just get people into the game. You know, we really try to make the game more affordable, more accessible. So we really only do like two sales a year for Black Friday and the Masters. We're recording this right after the Masters, so we have a little while to the next, but...

^{Joe Fox (27:25.299)}
Yeah.

_{Charles Hoffman (27:44.236)}
you know, would love to give the audience a way to at least try the game out. And I would say too, if you're somebody that's on the fence or you're intimidated, this should be a signal to go for it. You know, whether it's from us or whether it's not from us, go out to the range with your friends, try it out, see what it's like. And it could be a really fun lifelong sport and way to connect with, you know, some, some really special people.

^{Joe Fox (28:10.398)}
Absolutely. And I'll certainly second that. It's some of the best times and conversations I've had have definitely been on the green. So and connections with family members and all sorts of things that something that certainly transcends the sport. It's a really cool level of connection and

Yeah. And I'd say that for anything, actually, I think it's probably a point. If there's anything that, you know, that you do want to get out there and try, you should definitely go for it. COVID was a very great example of that to the point we're talking about earlier, Charles, where I think a lot of people sat around and realized there was a lot of things that they hadn't done with their lives and things they wanted to be doing. So, yeah, that's awesome.

_{Charles Hoffman (28:46.486)}
now.

think it put things in perspective in a really important way, frankly, first. And I love your messaging. Just kind of go out and go out and do it, whether it's golf or for me, it's like running in triathlons. Like, you know, I think that there's so many different avenues to do that. And it's really important to just try it.

^{Joe Fox (28:55.438)}
Absolutely.

^{Joe Fox (29:10.109)}
Absolutely, absolutely. Cool. Well, look, we could chat forever, Charles. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. I love everything, you know, you and Ben are doing with Golf Roots. I love the community you're building, the content you're creating. You know, I think it's just a really, really great use case of, you know, how to really, you know, build a community both online and as we've discussed offline. And I absolutely love that.

and I'm all about it. thank you very much again for coming on board. Thank you for the kind offer for the audience. I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes as well as your socials and all of your channels and the website so that everyone can get connected. But thank you for coming on board and hopefully we get to catch up in real life at some point too.

_{Charles Hoffman (29:56.214)}
Absolutely. That's right. Yeah. So thank you for having me really enjoyed the conversation and you know, I think we talked about so much, but ultimately it's just customer experience. Right. And I think that that's really what I'll take away from this is, is just how important that is, whether it's building that brand online or making them incredible offers through tools like grow wave where you can really, you know, deliver extra value.

kind of on top of what you're already doing. So yeah.

^{Joe Fox (30:28.065)}
Awesome. Thank you so much, Charles. Really appreciate it. yeah, look forward to chatting again shortly and keep doing the great work that you're doing at Golf Routes. I'll chat to you soon.

_{Charles Hoffman (30:38.03)}
Thank you, sounds great.

^{Joe Fox (30:39.78)}
Yes. Audience, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Retain Grow Thrive. Obviously that was a really, really cool chat with Charles, one of the co-founders over at Golf Roots. I really enjoyed it. Please take him up on that kind of offer, the discount code and the website link below. And at a very, very, very minimum, go check out the content they're creating because it's spot on. And I think it's something that I know a lot of the audience can learn from. So

Thank you for tuning into this episode. I'm your host and I'll see you again soon.