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LBX Collective
The Reveal #7 - SmashSwing: Revolutionizing Golf Entertainment
Sponsored by Intercard!
Golf entertainment is getting a major upgrade with Smash Swing's revolutionary approach to competitive, social play. Forget everything you know about traditional golf simulators where players take turns hitting – Smash Swing has created a multiplayer, multi-ball tracking system that lets everyone play simultaneously on massive immersive screens up to 60 feet wide.
Join Brandon Willey as he interviews TJ Schier, creator of Smash Swing and former COO of Big Shots Golf. TJ designed this technology after witnessing how entertainment concepts typically see a 30-50% drop in sales from year one to year two as guests grow bored with the same experiences. Smash Swing addresses this by offering continually refreshed gameplay through seasonal themes and licensed IP partnerships, giving venues compelling reasons to bring customers back throughout the year.
Ready to revolutionize your venue with an attraction that evolves beyond the one-and-done experience? Learn how Smash Swing can drive both new and repeat business through continually refreshed, accessible competitive socializing.
Got your popcorn ready, Because it's time for the Reveal, where we pull back the curtain and spotlight the products for our industry Brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community, to connect, engage and inspire. Come on down everyone. Your front row seats are waiting.
Speaker 2:All right, well, welcome everybody to another reveal from the LBX Collective. We haven't done a reveal in quite some time, so I'm excited to get in and dig into actually one of the newest products that's hit the market. I'm really excited about it. I've actually covered them a handful of times on our LBX show, and so now I'm excited to showcase Smash Swing Immersive Golf, and, for those of you who aren't familiar, smash Swing offers a groundbreaking, patent-pending concept of basically the world of golf simulators.
Speaker 2:It combines multiplayer, multi-ball tracking, gamified golf with immersive technology on big, giant, massive screens, and players can enjoy a bunch of different games while hitting real golf balls. And it's really meant for venues of all sizes. They have all different shapes and sizes which we'll get into, and they provide a really unique experience. For this is what I like about it. It's both for serious golfers, but then also just those who are looking for social, competitive fun. I believe firmly in the accessibility of competitive, socializing attractions and I think Smash Swing does a really good job blending those two things together. And so, yeah, with you know, basically Smash Swing is redefining what I would consider the future of golf entertainment, and I can talk a lot more about the concept, but I'd rather that TJ Shear explain it in person at their prototyping and test facility. So after the tour I'll bring TJ on and we'll dig further into the concept and ask a bunch of questions. But you know what? Let's just give it a watch further into the concept and ask a bunch of questions.
Speaker 3:But you know what? Let's just give it a watch. Hey everybody, tj Shear here. I spent 20 years nearly at Chuck E Cheese Pizza a long time ago. I spent two decades consulting and speaking primarily in the hospitality and family entertainment space, and then a couple of years growing a golf entertainment facility from one venue to seven in under two years, and a lot of what I've learned in the Family Entertainment Center has come to life with this new technology called Smash Swing, a new attraction, and I wrote a lot about this in an article about why the largest golf entertainment company is struggling and what they can learn from a mouse, and I hope you can read that article. But we created Smash Swing primarily to fix the challenge that many of you face and that is you build a facility, maybe it's built around one thing to stay focused and the guests get tired of it after they've been there for a while and your frequency drops off and, as I've seen year over year, sales from year one to year two many of these brands drop 30% to 50% and that's not sustainable With.
Speaker 3:What we're doing here at Smash Swing is bringing a venue attraction to family entertainment centers, to movie theaters, to competitive socializing venues and, yes, we are going to build our own golf playground types of things as well, so that guests can enjoy a box that can be continually reprogrammed. Smash Wing is rooted in golf and I'll walk you through that in just a second, but the intent is for us to continue to bring games out to your facilities and be a marketing partner with you to promote the seasonal game that we have. We're working on some really cool, exciting licensed IP games that showcase famous, legendary video games, famous movies that have these fanatical bases that want to experience those brands. So as we build this facility, as we build these attractions that are available to the Family Entertainment Center world, the theater world, and we promote these using our licensed IP partners, they'll attract a fan base to come into you. Imagine having a box like this that during the fall you can have a Halloween game, come in, a Christmas or a holiday game, come in and then the hot new movie drops and we've got a game for you that they can only play in a smash swing attraction. That's what it is at 10,000 feet. Let's dive into a little bit more of the details as you look at some of the components of what smash swing is.
Speaker 3:This thing's quite large and you know what this one is, but it is a flexible footprint golf entertainment attraction that you can put in your venue. Now this one is 20 feet high, it's 30 feet wide and you've got three player stations. As you can see, here we can scale this down to a little bit under 400 square feet. It can be as narrow as 18 feet. With two players I can run this in a 10 or 12 foot ceiling height ideally, but the bigger the better. We can actually go 10 players wide, two decks high and create an unbelievable immersive golf theater that can have 20 players playing on a 60-foot 100-wide screen.
Speaker 3:Now, this is built on existing golf technology, as you can see in front of me here. We've got these launch monitors up top here that sees the player hitting the ball and sends it into the game, so it knows where the ball is going to hit on the screen. Sends it into the game, so it knows where the ball is going to hit on the screen. We've made this by design because I am an operator by trade to be an unattended attraction. Yes, you see the three player hitting stations here, but as the player hits the ball, the ball returns back because the floor is sloped and you see that there's an auto tee feature. The cool thing is these tee heights are adjustable as well, so as the people are playing the game, the balls return. Underneath the player. They pop up the next one. Now, obviously, the game controls when the balls turned off and on, but the players can hit the balls into the screen in quick fashion and have a really quick, fun game.
Speaker 3:Each attraction will have a kiosk similar to this laptop that we have here. The guests will come in and pick their game and we'll have a variety to choose from. This part is customizable, whether you want to put the name in or not. It'll work with many of the current popular card systems in here, but the guests will put in their names if we want them to, or swipe the cards and let them know how many players they can play per game, and then they are ready to go and the game will start. Let's watch what happens Now.
Speaker 3:The game is set up, in this case for three players. I'm obviously here by myself, but I'm going to do the demo, you'll see. Here we have a list of video games. I'm just demoing one of these called Castle Crush, and the intent of this game is to hit golf balls and try and knock down all the different buildings and find the king that's been kidnapped. And imagine having three players here. There's a lot of fast-paced activity but, as you can see, once you clear certain parts of the buildings, that front row will clear up and it knocks the things down. We got the scores going up on there.
Speaker 3:The cool thing is, if you're not a good golfer and you hit it kind of low and slow, it still gets seen. I'm still getting things knocked down and knocking down points. Or if you're a little bit more of a serious golfer, you hit stuff that flies way in the back and all kinds of crazy stuff happens. And so the intent of this game is to give you, the operator, the ability to customize this. If you can imagine charging, you know, $3 to $5, maybe a little bit more on peak times to play a 5-, 6-, 7-minute game, or even shorter if you want. You know, in this case we have it set up.
Speaker 3:There's two 2-minute levels in this game, so, as the players are going, I'm already winded and tired. I've probably only hit about 10 balls and the game's only been a little bit over a minute long, but this is a fun way to get people engaged in the game, get you to be able to monetize the space. Again, this can be somewhere between two players and 20 players, depending on the square footage. The guests can play a number of games that we have available for you, and I'm out of breath. This is active play. You know, the key to being successful, especially in a family entertainment center, is to get a six-year-old and a seven-year-old playing against mom and dad and everybody has a chance to win. If I got far enough into this game, you can see that the levels are handicapped. So if one player station is doing extremely well, their buildings will get harder to knock down. Or you can see the arrows kind of being flung at a station in the background. There we can customize the game so that it's harder for, say, an adult that's playing, that's playing a younger child and the younger child's not doing well. But you can tell here, even on this game, when I hit a low soft ground ball, the ball sees it, it rolls onto there and it hits something. So it's great for kids, it's great for adults and we'll have a large number of games that you can play with Because we're having multiple people play, that uneasiness of everybody staring at one person bowling or hitting golf balls, where people get a little, you know, uneasy and worried.
Speaker 3:Everybody's staring at them. This is a better player experience with the tea dispenser, the auto tea system, the adjustable tea. But it also creates a better spectator experience because you have multiple people playing at a time. Everybody's kind of focused as far as what's going on on the screen, not really one person. It also brings more people into play. When you go bowling or golf entertainment it's one hits, everyone else sits. This is three players up here, in this case playing a couple minutes. They can switch out. So you can do some killer private events here because you get a good group of 25 in here. Everybody gets a lot of play. If I played this four-minute game, I'd probably hit 30 to 40 balls in four minutes. I wouldn't hit 10 balls in a group of six at an hour at a golf entertainment facility.
Speaker 3:The other attractive piece here for you all is thinking about monetizing this. It's having those private events delivering on that F&B experience, driving those sales. But also imagine having an event in this space where this, instead of being a gamified golf entertainment attraction can be a meeting room with one of the largest screens that you have. So you have chairs or tables. Out here on the floor I'm the presenter. I have PowerPoint slides of epic proportions behind me. You've got some of the best meeting space out there Meeting's over Game on. You can also use this space for movie watch parties, game watch parties, because I guarantee in many markets people aren't going to have screens as big as this.
Speaker 3:So again, smash swing is about bringing you a flexible footprint. How big of a space do you have? How high are your ceilings? How many players do you want? How long do you want the game to be? You want to pay by the game? You want to let them rent it by the hour or the 15 minute intervals? We can do all those things and work with the leading RFID card or wristband manufacturers so that it fits into your system. But the intent is we're driving frequency. We're bringing people back into your venues with our seasonal games, our licensed IP properties that tap into those fan bases to bring you more reasons to have the guests come back again and again. That's really what Smashwing is all about. Well, thanks again for spending a little time, learning a little bit more about Smashwing.
Speaker 3:I hope you read that article I wrote because it'll really explain a whole bunch of things about how you can be more successful as an operator, but really kind of the roots of why this was created the way it was.
Speaker 3:It's to drive frequency, it's to drive people back in. This is really a turnkey solution. We've got the hardware, the installation, we've got, you know, licensing fees and we've got custom golf clubs and balls. All those things are included. So it's a pretty slick way to bring an attraction into your facility. And the cool thing is, once you buy a piece of hardware, we can continue to reprogram this. So you know when you think about certain things that might get old or stale once somebody have done them, like an axe throwing or something like that. This is kind of taking that space and making it a little more monetized for you, not only just as the attraction itself, but because of the marketing appeal that we have behind it and bringing the licensed ip in the new games, we can continue to drive business into your facilities. Now I look forward to telling you more down the road when we get to bring our smashed wing golf venues to life down the road, but that's for another day. Thanks for the time and good luck.
Speaker 2:All right, well, that was awesome. So thank you, tj, for walking us through that. And you know, speaking of TJ, I'll just give a quick little background on him before we bring him up. Prior to launching Smash Swing, he was the chief operating officer of Big Shots Golf and, for those of you who are not familiar, big Shots Golf was the second largest player in the golf entertainment venue space and it grew super quickly, opened six locations in under 20 months under his watch, before being sold to the largest competitor in the space I'm sure you can guess.
Speaker 2:And so he spent over the last two decades as a leading speaker and a consultant in guest service, employee development and in franchise spaces. He's delivered hundreds of keynotes and workshops to operators, franchise owners, gms and other industry associations, and he's also built dozens of guest service and employee manager training programs for brands like Dave Buster's, urban Air Jersey Mike's, fogo de Chow, the Palm Buffalo Wild Wings and a lot more. And prior to starting his speaking consulting business, he actually spent 18 years at Chuck E Cheese and ultimately left as their VP of field support after opening 75 locations and providing recruiting, training, call center and point of sale support for over 300 restaurants. So he's written a number of books and they're used by thousands of business leaders and over a hundred articles on guest service and motivating today's generation. So this guy is definitely knowledgeable across multiple areas of our industry and also the restaurant and F&B industries, and so I'm excited to have him here and we'll bring him on after a quick word from our sponsor, intercard.
Speaker 2:Intercard is the only cashless system designed, developed and manufactured all under one roof. They introduced cashless technology to the amusement industry and have been leading the way for over 30 years. Cashless systems from Intercard increase customer spending, guest satisfaction and boost revenues by up to 30%. Intercard is so proud to be serving the amusement industry, and if you aren't already part of their global family of customers, they hope you will become one soon. All right, well, welcome TJ.
Speaker 3:And thanks for that long intro so I could have time to change wardrobe change there from the video. That was great. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, absolutely All right. Well, we'll dig in here, but first of all I'll just mention one thing I just love how fast I was like watching as you were hitting those balls, balls in the video how fast the ball tees up uh, you know, much faster than, obviously, top golf. It like kicks out, you have to pick it up, decide to put on a tee or not, or whatever it just it like pops up and it's there and it just. You could really have some fast gameplay. So I'm just curious, like what? What ended up giving you some of the?
Speaker 3:you know the idea for that you know that idea when I was at Big Shots we were essentially a knockoff of the leading competitor out there and we were trying to figure out how can we be better? Because, again, if you're not the first in the segment, you got to be better. And so we had tested some of these auto tee features and it really resonated with the customers because they didn't like to bend over. The tee was adjustable, so it made for a better player experience. So you know, as we moved this indoors it was taking some of those things that we had seen elsewhere in past lives.
Speaker 3:I went around and studied a lot of driving ranges and indoor golf facilities and you know I learned the slope floor from seeing some indoor facilities in Asia. And the auto tee, you know we brought from us. But it was a requirement because with multiple players which is really our point of difference that we're trying to do here you can't walk out and go pick the ball up, so we had to have that auto tee feature in there. But that has been the one thing that people are just like oh my gosh, why doesn't every simulator or golf entertainment place do this, cause it's so much better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's so much better and, again, that the speed in which it comes up, uh, as well, like, and I think in an attraction like yours where there's actual, you know, visual gameplay, competitive gameplay with multiple people, you really do want that fast movement happening. But, um, maybe we can just get into some some background on, like, okay, movement happening, but maybe we can just get into some some background on, like, okay, you, you come from I wouldn't say the golf simulator space, but but the, the golf, the golf bay space, any of it, we'll talk about it. You know, competitive golf area, what. What led you to to this, this model, and how did you end up coming up with this versus just another? You know another golf simulator. That that you know that. That you know. We know there's a number of competitors out there that do golf simulators. What led you down this path?
Speaker 3:The original story for this brand was when we were at Big Shots Golf. We had a strategy when I got there to avoid Topgolf. It was to go build in smaller markets, because Topgolf's really focused on the major markets. They've had their bumps in the road but, face it, they've paved the runway. They've brought millions and millions of people to the game and they paved the runway for golf entertainment. So hats off to them.
Speaker 3:When we looked at staying away from them and going into smaller markets, it's just not feasible. The money to build these facilities is too much. You need a big land purchase and the nets and the poles are millions of dollars. And so we had looked at what could we do at Big Shots Golf to bring this into the major markets and build a better mousetrap. And I say that kind of pun intended because my old boss at Chuck E Cheese, the president and the CEO, was like look, you have to build something better than your competitor and put them out of business and not avoid them. And so we had started to go down this path.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, the timing of the acquisition prevented that from happening, but we had at least a glimmer in our eye of how could we do indoor differently, because when you go to some of these outdoor facilities in certain parts of the country it's always too hot here, it's too cold there, you know it's faces the wrong direction right into the sun in the morning or the afternoon.
Speaker 3:And so we thought what can we do to build it, bring it indoors? And so our thesis was what I mentioned in the video briefly of kind of a playground, of golf opportunities we're going to bring when we bring Smash Wing to life as a venue indoor immersive golf theaters, putting and a short 50-yard netted range where the wall, kind of the back wall, is activated and instead of hitting into this massive 200-yard range that nobody can hit and watching it on TV. We wanted to really kind of bring the best of all the different putting concepts you see, the turf ones, the putting, the tech driven ones, the outdoor component, because, face it, you know it's 75 degrees outside in Dallas. I want to be outdoors, I don't want to be indoors. So we're trying to put all of that under one umbrella. That takes a little time, it takes a lot of money. We realized when we built this that people want this. We could make this an attraction instead of just building our own facilities, we could make this attraction that we can bring to others in the marketplace.
Speaker 2:Just a quick moment because I just one of the things that I've been tracking for a little while I mean really only for a little while, because I've only been around for a few months is TGL and so that the Tech Golf League. And so curious, if, as you're thinking about building your facilities, you mentioned, you know, an arena, are you planning to, you know, so people could practice Basically, you could have potentially amateurs or pros who are in the TGL come and be able to use your facility for smaller regional events. Is that one of the side ideas there?
Speaker 3:You know, if you're not familiar with the TGL, it's on ESPN. It's kind of Rory and Tiger started this thing. They're heading into a 50-foot high, 60-foot wide screen and then turning around as they get closer to the green and chipping and putting on this really cool, high-tech, movable putting green. That really is kind of off the charts. We had started down this path probably about the same time that they had started down their path. Our approach, though, is solely around golf entertainment, and this is really intended to play a cool video game on the wall with many people all at one time. The beauty for us is, with TGL, getting all the promotion and being on TV on ESPN that they have been.
Speaker 3:People are calling us and asking the same question that you just did Is this what you're doing? Well, we are to a degree in that we're going large format, big scale cinematic screens, and, again, as I mentioned in the video, I can go small or I can go large. Might they use our facilities for their stuff. I don't know, I'm not building this crazy green behind them, but the beauty of our system is it can be a multiplayer golf simulator, which nobody in the golf simulator business can do, or it can be a social entertainment gamified system. I never intended to go chase the golf business. The golf business is chasing us though now, because they're like, oh my gosh, this can be a typical simulator, plus, you can do all this where I can do events and I can have the social entertainment aspect. So, uh, you know, at the end of the day, we're putting a product together that's going to bring more people into the game of golf down that path, or it's a crazy fun attraction that nobody else has in the family entertainment space.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and that's what I love about this product is it's not your standard typical golf simulator product. And I preach over and over the importance of accessibility in competitive socializing venues and in entertainment. And I think you know you kind of think of like the bumper the first one that really did that was the bumper in bowling, right, so the bumper pops. Well, first it was originally like inflatables that ran down the bumper, but then eventually bars came up and it was more automated and that increased the level of accessibility so that you could have a three-year-old roll a ball down a little dino ramp down the lane and still knock down some pins and still feel like they're a part of the overall family celebration.
Speaker 2:And so I love that. What you've done here is, even if the ball gets hit and it's, you know, duffed and it's just bouncing along and it just hits the very bottom of the screen, it just kind of rolls and hits the bottom of the screen there's still an impact that it has on the screen. So, like anybody, even if you're not good or you're a kid or you just you don't have a good swing, you can still engage in it. And so I'm curious what other considerations you have either already added to make it more accessible for all ages and skill levels, or what you're thinking down the line some improvements or changes that you'll make, maybe with even other games that you might have coming up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to kind of tilt my screen over here, but if you look kind of over here against the wall there's a short white golf bag and a tall black golf bag right there.
Speaker 3:We, by design, have worked with some members of the adaptive golf markets, because there are club manufacturers like Ping in this case is one of the leading club manufacturers.
Speaker 3:They make an adaptive kit, and so for people that may only be able to use one arm, or they can't walk or they don't have full use of mobility, they have developed a kit with all of these adaptive golf clubs.
Speaker 3:So they, as an example, they have ones with large grips, with Velcro, and you put Velcro gloves on for somebody that can't really grip a golf club. Or if somebody only has use of one arm, they have a paddle that is attached to a golf club that can strap onto an arm so I can swing a golf club with just one hand. And so we are going to provide those kits to the people that put Smashwing in, because then our intent is it allows you to go out into your local community, go to the rehab hospitals, go to groups around you that have special needs or need accommodations, and bring them into your facility to let them have fun and enjoy this game just like everybody else can, and so this was really done purposefully and by design early on. Yeah, wow, that's awesome, I love that. And so this was really done purposely and by design early on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Wow, that's awesome. I love that, and I actually didn't even know that they had adapted. I mean, it makes sense that they would, but that they had adaptive clubs and the amount of research and technology that they would have had to put into that developing those clubs it's great. It's awesome that you're providing those to venues and so obviously you see this as an attraction that somebody would add to a venue. You're planning to build some of your standalone locations as well. We talked about, but what do you envision as the licensed product that somebody will be able to implement and what is the method in which you plan to sell this? Is it an attraction that I'm buying and it's kind of a complete set? Am I licensing it? Is it a franchise installation? How does how do you envision, like, if I'm putting this in my own venue? Basically, how am I doing that? How am I working with you to put that in?
Speaker 3:Yeah, essentially it's. You're buying a game, just like you would buy it, or an attraction. So, whether it's mini golf or ax throwing or darts or laser tag, you're buying Smash Swing from us and there is a licensing component to it, because we're going to be continually bringing out new games and licensed IP. But the intent is pay for the hardware and the installation up front. There's a kind of a three-year licensing fee. We can do that over the three years or all up front, depending on how you want to do that, and that would be the only thing that you would need to renew in the future.
Speaker 3:It is because we're going to continue to bring new games out and really, like I mentioned in the video, we're trying to be a marketing partner for the people that have this in, and so right now we're getting ready to put this in a couple of movie theaters because they're trying to figure out, you know, what can we do different than bowling in an arcade? And hey, man, I love those high screens. You know 30, 35 feet high screens. We can do some really cool stuff in there. Uh, we have a couple of family entertainment centers that have signed up to put this in and and as I mentioned earlier, I never went to chase the golf business. The golf business chased us, but we have three golf courses that have already signed on. So these installations will be happening in the next couple months, as and we're building the game library out right now so that we can bring everything to market here and and get people out there and enjoy this and have fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love it If you can time the development of certain games with. You know, you know a certain movie with certain IP is coming out and you can develop that stuff down the line. But there it's also just seasonality, right. So there's different holidays that happen throughout the year in the U? S, but then also there's other countries as this expands that have different holidays, and so how do you envision uh, you know, rolling out seasonal games? You know, is there going to, are we going to be able to knock down, knock elves over in Santa's workshop, or something coming down the line? I don't know what you've got coming around seasonality-wise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in my dream world there might be a very famous elf Christmas movie.
Speaker 3:That would be great to kind of be our themed holiday game. We're not there yet, but I think that's where our heads are. I think in general we're going to build kind of the wireframe, these templates for games that make them easy to skin so you could do an Easter game during that part of the year, you can do a Halloween game or a Thanksgiving game or any of the other international holidays where we don't have to recreate the whole game, but that we can put them out there for a four to six week cycle and then promote those so that any venue that has smash swing in them, they're directed to go into there in a real limited time thing. So we're going to drive business and frequency in there. I think we're going to get this to the point I laugh, if we had been about a year ahead of schedule that we could have done like the political election where you have the two presidential candidates and you know it's like we could predict the election based on which which presidential candidate got hit more or less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you would have been like a prediction market for for golf. Yeah, Right.
Speaker 3:So I think you know those kind of things where we can come out with something that is socially relevant or viral, if you will. Per se, it's very easy for us to build these games. Frequently Now larger corporate events I can imagine that somebody wants to put the CEO's face on the screen, kind of like the old dunk tank, but make it a virtual dunk tank. I would imagine that we will evolve to those things very quickly in the near future as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, especially if you can build certain games that are templatized enough where you can just swap out images and a lot of it can be done with AI as well as really helping to accelerate that type of work. So, yeah, that's interesting. As you were developing this, what were some of the challenges that you were really trying to figure out? You know, I think of like maybe multiplayer, multi-ball type tracking. You know, some of that stuff's never been done, so maybe you can walk through some of the challenges that you you ran into building this thing out and then, and then you know, like, what did you do to get through and push through?
Speaker 3:You know, I think the biggest challenge we had was the preconceived notion of what a golf simulator is.
Speaker 3:And again, when you create something that's never been done before and golf simulators have been done before but not three people or 20 people hitting at a screen at the same time, it's getting people over the fact that, well, I don't understand this. Why would anybody do this? I'm a 59-year-old white guy and all I think about is golf simulators. And why would somebody want to play on that? Well, you know what? The whole world's not 59 year old white guys. There are people that want to have immersive, fun, competitive experiences, and so I think a lot of the challenge was getting people to understand this is not a golf simulator by design, it's an entertainment piece. Now, that said, we realized when the golf community came to us hey, this can be a golf simulator. But that created a problem for us once we had solved the multiplayer tech was how do you take a traditional golf simulator where everybody's basically doing indoor golf practice? How can you make that multiplayer? And so we've had to solve that problem, which we have. And again, that's opening up a whole new market for us, because if I'm in a golf, indoor golf place or a golf course. With this, three of us could walk out there and I could start right now, you could start 10 minutes later and somebody else could start. Basically it's an indoor driving range and we're going to see everything on the screen, but I'm going to get all my shot data. You could be playing longest drive, somebody you could be playing longest drive, somebody else could be playing closest to the pin. So we're all doing the traditional golf practice type of stuff, but then the owner operator can kind of flip the switch and it's a golf entertainment facility when they want it to be. So I think those were some of the biggest problems.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest learning for me was when I designed this game and worked with our team that was doing that. I was thinking that the automatic ball dispenser was going to be like an upgrade or an enhancement, and when everybody that we've probably had 250 people demo this to a person, everybody that walks in there goes oh my gosh, that auto tee thing is the greatest thing in the world. And so here's something that is going to be kind of one of our points of difference that I thought, ah, that's just going to be kind of one of our points of difference that I thought that's just going to be an add-on for people that want to pay. So it was great to do a lot of this beta testing, to get a lot of feedback from players and customers and people that don't look like me that have these preconceived notions, because it really helped us determine, man, what resonates with the customer, what are people really willing to. You know, when you walk out of there.
Speaker 3:I've had guys walk out of here and say why doesn't every golf simulator place do this auto T? And I wish I could pat that. It's literally just readily available for anybody that wants to do it today. It's wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But it makes a great player experience.
Speaker 2:Oh, it makes a fantastic player experience. And yeah, so, like again, the automation in which you've developed this to just like, you just all have to do is hit and hit and hit and keep throwing balls at that screen or hitting balls at the screen. Yeah, so, you know, in developing this, there's mistakes that you're going to make along the way, and so I'm just kind of curious. We like to talk about both the successes and also the failures of things that come along, because that's how we learn from each other's problems and mess ups. And so what do you consider to be, you know, maybe one of the biggest things? That that, like you know, either you know misconceptions or problems that you ran into along the way in developing this, uh, that that you, you know, like, oh shit, like that was a, that was a mistake.
Speaker 3:Um, we haven't had too many of those big ones. I mean, we haven't stepped in any real big piles, which has been good, I think, going. For me, the biggest problem was I wanted to go a lot faster and get this out. That said, the best thing we've done is go a little bit slower, because it's allowed us to get that feedback. Um, you know, I think for us, what I learned is this space that we're in, that screen's 20 feet high. I wanted to be hitting from 30 feet away.
Speaker 3:However, where we're based, the city made us put a restroom in, so it took away my ability to hit from 30 feet, so I had to push the T-line forward. The screen's really too high. It's too hard to hit the top of the screen. So we've had to kind of think about okay, how far are you going to hit? How high is the screen? Well then, when you think about designing video games, as an example and I can't say who games like that, because the bulk of our players are not golfers and they're hitting the bottom of the screen. So we've got to design everything and modify the games so that they're easy to win or easy to play for everybody. And if it's always trying to hit the top of the screen. I can't do that. I can't build a 20-foot screen where you're only hitting from 20 feet. So we've learned a few things along the way, and thankfully this was the only one that's in existence right now, so it's easy to fix some of those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Well, so then let's swing to the other side and say you know so far, obviously you're just getting started, so you know I can ask customer success stories and some of those things. But what's been the most satisfying moment in building this business so far, up to this stage?
Speaker 3:I tell you that's a great question. I haven't really thought about it this way, but we have had a very famous golf course announce that they're going to build a smash wing in their facility. I think just the instant credibility that we're getting in the golf community and again, I never even wanted to go after the golf community, that wasn't my intent Um, and I think you know just everybody coming in here has has said to I think the thing they've I've heard the most is wow, this looks way more polished than I thought it would. And I can go back to.
Speaker 3:I used to be a sandwich franchisee for Witch Witch and I remember going into the first Witch Witch location and the cups were branded, the walls were logoed. It did not look like a mom and pop. And I said to the guy how many of these are there? How have I never heard of this concept? The guy said there's one. And I learned even though there's just one, the brand is everywhere. We have custom clubs, logoed balls. I've got the brand everywhere. So when people walk in here they go holy bleep. One because the screen is so large, but two, I think they thought this was just going to look pretty duct tape and speaker wire done and we did this right for the first one, and I think that's very critical when you're trying to get funding and you're trying to raise money or you're trying to get people to realize, hey, I want to buy this thing. You've got it 95% of the way done and it looks great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So what do you see, as We've talked a little bit about the fact that you're going to be building some venues, but what do you see? As you know, we've talked a little bit about the fact that you're going to be building some venues, but what do you see as a future vision for your company, the Smash Swing product? Where do you see it going in the next? You know we'd have to go 10 years out, right?
Speaker 2:But like in the next year to two years. You know, somebody is thinking about adding a Smash Swing into their venue.
Speaker 3:I think it's twofold. One is we have what I'd call the licensing company, which is we're selling this attraction to others. That whole path is about creating games that are going to drive revenue for our customers. The operating company will be set up separately because, again, that's more golf focused and it's very capital intensive and essentially the operating company is going to be a big customer of the licensing company. So there will be two different entities, I think, for us.
Speaker 3:I've had a lot of people come in here because there are multi-sport simulators out there where you could throw a football or a lacrosse ball or hit a hockey puck or whatever. A lot of people have said can this do soccer? Can this do everything else I'm going to be very interested in. Do we take the licensing company, the attraction, and build this multi-sport? The way our technology works, the balls have to start from a fixed point. So could I do this in soccer tomorrow? Yes, could I do this hockey? Yes. Baseball tennis something that's coming at me or coming out of the ground I can't do that. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3:I think the interesting thing for me is as a brand, do we want to go do this? Do you put a smash swing golf in there. Do you put a smash swing soccer next to that so that it's two different attractions? Because, face it, golf's not for everybody. Golf's a difficult sport. Taking a soccer ball is a little bit easier to hit stuff on a wall than hitting golf balls. So you know, I think it's what does the customer and the market tell us? They want smash swing to become as an attraction? I think we've got a clear roadmap with the licensed IP and generating more games. But then it's like, does that evolve away from just being golf specific, uh, into other sports?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um. So I want to, uh, ask a couple of quick questions here. So, first of all, um tip or piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, either those who are going to build I mean, you've, you've, you've had a breadth of experience in both developing and growing and building venues, as well as, then, obviously, developing and growing products, so there's entrepreneurism in general across this industry. What would be a piece of advice that you'd give to an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to either create a product for this industry or build out a venue or a brand?
Speaker 3:Oh man, that's a really good question, you know, I I think for me it's it's answering the problem of what, or the question of what problem are you solving? And I think for you know, for us we're we're solving what we believe is a problem of driving frequency into family entertainment centers and competitive socializing venues. So we're positioning this as a solve to a big problem. The amazing thing to me is, as I've talked to a lot of people in this space and I'll keep their names out of this video, but I wrote that article about the struggles of the golf entertainment company and I've had people call me and go, yeah, that's not the case in our company. And I said, well, funny, I can see all the liquor sales in Texas. It's a subscription service and, by the way, I can see your location in Houston that opened, or Dallas or whatever. It's down 50% in a year or two.
Speaker 3:So I think you do have that problem and so for us, the advice I would give is what problem are you solving? And then have the data so that it's not just your opinion. And I think you know, in our case, we're not the first golf simulator, we're not the first golf entertainment facility and we have to be better. We have to have that point of difference and, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, we have to have that moat around our business. The technology, our technology, is multiplayer. We've got the patent file months and months ago and hopefully we'll get that pretty soon, because when we're building something, we need to protect it. And I think those are the couple tidbits of advice.
Speaker 2:I'd give. How do our viewers reach you Website, email et cetera? We've got a couple here, so maybe this is the best way, but maybe you can just say the best way for them to get in touch with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I'm very active on LinkedIn. I created a whole leadership series called Leadership Lessons from the Driving Range I'll be at. Most of them are virtual driving ranges these days, but I love to share nuggets that I've learned on LinkedIn, so I'm happy to connect with everybody. You know smashwingimmersivecom is our website for the for the game, and then my email is just TJ at smashwinggolf, so feel free to give me a buzz or drop me a line and we'll get in touch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, all right. So last question here and you know this is a, this is just one off the cuff what is your favorite attraction in the location-based entertainment and just the attraction industry in general?
Speaker 3:Holy cow, there's, man, there's. That's a tough one, I swear. Every time I go somewhere it seems like there's something new. You know I had was fortunate with big shots to go over to the UK a lot and there's just so many different things over there to see. I mean, there is just London is just ripe with all this new cool stuff. And every time I think you know you see the tech driven putting and now all of a sudden I see projection mapping, putting and it's like it just continues to evolve. So it's kind of like I have a favorite for like a month or so and then something else replaces it.
Speaker 3:And it's been cool being on this journey, because you know to go out and do a lot of this research and check some of these other places out. Um, I I would tell you my advice to people and this does not answer your question, but I am I'm a disciple of the savannah bananas and I think when you build a facility, there's the player experience, which we talked a lot about today, but then there's the spectator experience and that's what the savannah bananas baseball team has really done is they've created this amazing spectator experience and there's two customers in your facilities every day. There's the people that ride the rides and play the games. Those are the players. And then there's the spectators that may not play those games and they're there watching or they're there bringing the people in. But what is their experience like? And so I think a lot of it is.
Speaker 3:I love riding roller coasters, but I can't do that for whatever reason anymore, but it's cool to watch and it's cool to be involved in those things as a spectator. So how can you bring the spectator experience in if you're not already doing that today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, excellent, excellent advice. Well awesome. Tj, thank you so much for coming on to LBX Collective's reveal, so it was so great to have you on and learn more about Smash Swing. And again, if viewers who are watching this want to get in touch with TJ, you can visit smasheswingimmersivecom or email TJ at tj at smasheswinggolf. Again, thank you, tj, it's been great to have you on board and everybody else dot com or email TJ at TJ at smash swing dot golf. Again, thank you, tj, it's been great to have you on board and everybody else. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.
Speaker 3:Appreciate it.
