By Jonathan Howcroft
It’s Not About The Golf
Golf. Overweight, middle-aged men in magic-eye fabrics hunched over their wood. Sounds appealing doesn’t it? For so long a bastion of class, colour and gender, golf has served to pep-up colonial hangovers throughout the world. But all that is beginning to change. In what is acknowledged as ‘The Tiger Effect’ golf is becoming cool. More young people are entering the sport and increasingly they are not white or male. Major-tournament winners of 2009 include a South Korean and an Argentinean, whilst in recent years a Kiwi of Maori heritage and a Fijian of Indian ancestry have both triumphed. This is alongside the game being dominated by sport’s most bankable commodity, African-American Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods.
Brad Lindenberg is 25. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Lind Golf. He is not a golf fanatic – he is an entrepreneur. A very good one. And like all good entrepreneurs he identified a gap in the market; that market just happened to be golf. At 25 Brad founded Lind Golf, a Sydney-based online manufacturer and retailer of golf equipment. While this might not sound revolutionary, what sets Lind apart from its competitors is that almost every item manufactured and sold by the company is customisable. The standard look of a golf club, black grip, steel shaft and steel head can now be replaced by coloured grips, coloured shafts and coloured club-heads – even ones including the Australian flag. What’s more, because of Lind Golf’s low overheads, these options (many as standard) cost the consumer less than the equivalent branded competitor models, often by 60 or 70 per cent.
Excited to find out more about the concept I asked Brad a few questions about his business, and his experience as a young entrepreneur.
What is Lind Golf?
Lind Golf enables golfers to be fitted for a custom set of clubs whist benefiting from the pricing associated with a direct business model. Our club heads, shafts and grips are made by the same foundries which manufacture for the world’s leading brands and for this reason we guarantee the performance of our clubs with a 14 day money back offer. We are also the first company in the world that enables customers to build their own golf club, customise and personalise it. Our platform allows for over 50 million club variations.
How does the customisation work? Is it not just a gimmick?
Every customer is custom fitted online and all of our clubs are built to custom shaft length, flex and grip thickness. This concept was around before Lind Golf but we pioneered the idea of online custom fitting in Australia and then developed the ability to personalise golf clubs via the web.
At first we thought coloured clubs were a gimmick ourselves, however 80 per cent of clubs are now being sold with a coloured component on them, be it shafts, grip, ferrule, iron head cavity or driver head colour. This is going to be big!
The boldest combination we’ve assembled so far includes flame grips, pink shafts, and red ferrules while a guy got “My other cart is a Ferrari” embroidered on his golf bag.
How does a golf club retailer operate online?
We offer a money back guarantee, demo days and have hundreds of real world testimonials on our site from happy customers. This helps to create trust in our product and brand.
We could not offer the variety of customisation and personalisation options if our business was not online. The cost benefits with being online also help us keep prices competitive.
How important is Australia to Lind Golf?
We regard Lind Golf as an Australian company with Australian roots but with the potential to be a leading global online golf brand.
I don’t know of any golf brands who manufacture in Australia, in fact most brands import their equipment pre-assembled. Lind Golf is unique in the way that we use Australian labour to custom build each and every club we ship out.
Does the success of a company such as Lind Golf reflect a change in golf and golfers?
I definitely think the Tiger effect has impacted the participation of golf however I don’t believe it has yet had an impact on the equipment business. Tiger is charismatic, modern, young and stylish although the equipment industry still seems to remain traditional. I think Lind Golf offers a fresh and fun appeal which big brands have yet to catch onto.
What made you start your own business?
Being an entrepreneur at heart I wanted to run a company rather than go straight into a job. I did 12 months of corporate work experience as part of my University degree and hated every second of it. I felt limited and stifled. My only option was to build something which could justify the hard work I’d have to put in while allowing me to have fun along the way. My interest lay in the power of the web, the idea of a direct business delivering great value to customers as well as the potential growth of e-commerce.
Looking back I think I was naive and full of energy and thought I could take on anything and I have definitely attended a few lessons at the school of hard knocks. I’ve made many mistakes and learnt many things along the way (probably because I was/am young) however I love what I do and it’s that passion that keeps me going.
Do you have any advice for budding entrepreneurs?
My advice is as follows:
Focus – Do one simple thing very well
Vision – Have a plan and know where you’re going
Patience – Rome wasn’t built in a day
Passion – Love what you do
Service – Wow your customers
Persistence – Enjoy the ups and ride out downs but don’t give up
What is the one thing you would like to communicate to non-golfers reading this?
We are living in the most amazing, opportunistic times life has ever seen. This business was built using mostly free tools which today are available to anyone. Tools like Skype, Google, and eBay. As Lance Armstrong says, “It’s not about the bike”, well then, “It’s not about the golf”. If you’re not a golfer, Lind Golf is a case study of what is easily achievable by a small team who know how to harness the benefits of globalisation, low cost manufacturing and the web in today’s flat world.
For more information on Lind Golf visit their website.
