A 2016 article in Forbes entitled “The State of the Golf Industry in 2016” notes that golf is gaining popularity among the younger generation, with 6.3 million millennials playing golf annually.
Matt Stang noticed that these young golfers are not interested in buying expensive golf apparel that is often intended for an older market. He created Swannies to capture this younger market, selling affordable golf apparel that appeals to a younger market.
ENTREPRENEUR PROFILE
Name: Matt Stang
Age: 25
City you live in: Minneapolis
City of birth: White Bear Lake
High school attended: White Bear Lake High School
College attended: University of Minnesota
COMPANY PROFILE
Name of company: Swannies
Website: www.swannies.co
Business Start Date: June 2015
Number of Employees: 8
Number of Customers: 500
Q&A
Q. What led to this point?
A. After attending the University of Minnesota, I spent two years in management consulting in Boston. I felt a strong desire to do something I felt more passionately about. After brainstorming the idea for Swannies on the side and garnering initial traction, I launched the company in 2015 with two college friends.
Q. What is your business?
A. Swannies is a lifestyle apparel brand for young and casual golfers. We’re creating modern golf essentials to replace the stuffy, elitist perceptions of the game’s past. Our goal is to change the image of golf by building not just an apparel company but a lifestyle brand.
Our products appeal to young and casual golfers. The Swannies brand and team — being young, casual golfers ourselves — appeals to this group from three key angles:
Price: our products are on average 40% cheaper than most of our major competitors’.
Style and Selection: modern lifestyle designs and clothing to be worn both on and off the course.
Branding: targeting younger golfers whom we believe are currently being unrepresented.
Q. Where do you go for help when you need it?
A. I surround myself with people that are smarter than me and have different skill sets. That way assumptions are being challenged and new ideas constantly arise.
Specifically our CMO, Adam Iversen. Adam has experience in launching a brand. He keeps me in check when I focus too much on sales and not enough on growing our brand.
In addition, Swannies is lucky to have an advisory board that helps us navigate situations where we have little experience. To name a few, Rick Nordvold was the former CFO at Golf Galaxy and Tom Johnson was previously a national account manager at Callaway.
Q. What is the origin of the business?
A. Swannies began — as all good things do — on a frigid spring round in northern Minnesota. I was wearing my usual everyday clothing, and my friend Sam Swanson noticed. Sam commented on my outfit and wondered why I never wore traditional golf gear, and I responded that none of the traditional attire fit my style, and that it was too expensive anyway. So, Sam replied, “let’s just create it then.”
The idea for the Swannies brand was born. Sam and I quickly added a third team member, Adam, to help create our first product. Lifestyle golf apparel came soon after, and in the following months the team grew to six members.
Q. What problems does your business solve?
A. We solve the problem we faced as consumers: We were…