Why stop selling golf bags to the general public when you can use an online platform to sell them shares in a hip, growing golf bag company?
“Instead of VCs, I liked the idea of letting everyone invest,” CEO Ronan Galvin said in an interview. “Our company started with community so why not let the community participate? It’s the early days for the crowdfunding equity model, but this is what worked for us.”
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The company kicked off the campaign in early June by offering shares to friends, family and customers, which netted roughly $800K or almost two-thirds of the target raise. On Monday at noon, Sunday Golf will initiate a public stock offering through crowdfunding site Wefunder.com as it looks to raise $1.2 million at a $15 million valuation. The buying window for the general public will close on Aug. 15 or until Sunday Golf hits its number.
Galvin, a bag designer, and his partners, Casey Mathews, an accountant, and Galen Brunelle, an operations specialist, launched the company in August of 2020 after finding a need for it among friends and acquaintances at a nine-hole executive course, The Loma Club, near their homes in San Diego. “The longest hole is 140 yards, so most people only carried a handful of clubs, but they had full carry bags, which were cumbersome,” Galvin said.
The solution came in the form of the Loma, a smaller, lighter bag that carries a maximum of six clubs. “I made a prototype and the first time I took it to the course, other groups of golfers kept coming over to ask about it,” said Galvin. “That’s when I thought we might have something.”
An initial launch planned for January 2020 got pushed back because of COVID, and while the partners worried whether their shipment would survive the supply chain chaos unleashed by the pandemic, the delay served them well. “It gave us time to build some buzz,” Galvin said. “Everyone and their mother started playing golf, and the momentum has held up because the pandemic lasted long enough for people to build a golf habit.”
Sunday’s bags are unique and its brand “speaks to the more casual golfer,” which is why Galvin believes it took off. In 2021 gross revenue hit $2.9 million and grew to $5 million in 2022. The company introduced three new models and the revenue projection for ’23 jumped to $7 million, a number Sunday roughly doubled to come up with its valuation.
“This whole thing has been bootstrapped from the start, but a small business is hard,” Galvin said. “You sell the first container at a profit but then you have spent that to buy two containers, the profit from two to buy three. Our wallets are tapped out, but we feel the business is in a good place and there’s growth available if we have the capital.”
The new money will go towards purchase orders, building out the sales team—Sunday bags are already in PGA Tour Superstore, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy and more than 600 on-course shops—and marketing.
The raise is part of the marketing plan since the unique structure itself will attract attention and a wide range of owners will help spread the word. “The guy who puts in $100K and the guy who puts in 100 bucks will both be out there telling people about the company they own a piece of,” Galvin said.
The Wefunder platform allows share transfers, so it would be possible for investors to get out whenever they want, a temptation if the initial offering sells out quickly. But Sunday, which will introduce a few new golf products—cooler bags, hats, tees, etc.—has bigger dreams.
“If you ask me as a thought experiment how Sunday Golf gets to $100 million, it would have to be about more than bags,” Galvin said. “But I do see an opportunity in the market for a new age Wilson, a general sporting goods company that focuses on the casual competitor.”
That, though, isn’t the goal. “As far as an exit, we’ve got a clean product road map for the next four or five years that, conservatively, gets us to $30 million,” he said. “And if we do that, those questions will sort themselves out.”
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