Transcription

@0:02 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr.

Gabriel Flores. Today, I'm here with Jason Delsadado from here in beautiful Portland, Oregon, Clinch Golf. Jason, how are we doing?

@0:23 - jasondelsoldato

Doing well.

@0:24 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

are you doing, Gabriel? I'm excited about this one because folks, we're talking about one of my favorite sports that I love to yell at, more than anything golf.

@0:34 - jasondelsoldato

before we get into all things golf, Jason, go ahead and introduce yourself. Who is Jason Delsole? Jason Delsadado is a lover of all things product.

I've been living in Portland for about 15, 16 years, worked for Nike for a while. And then when COVID hit left and met my partner, Matt, and we started

it clinched golf based on basically taking the things that I had done at Nike for so many years, which is trying to solve the problems of an athlete or a consumer and taking that through the lens of golf gloves.

@1:16 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love it. Now, folks, got to apologize real quick. Jason Del Saldado, I forgot. I just I just did the Del so because we're talking about Del Solur earlier.

@1:23 - jasondelsoldato

We're talking about the Nike's and all sorts of fun stuff. So I apologize for that.

@1:26 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

No worries. I'm really excited. So tell me, you know, first let's let's let's kind of let's talk about clinched golf and then we'll take a step back and we'll kind of talk about how we got here.

@1:36 - jasondelsoldato

Sure. Sure. Yeah, clinched golf. We've been around two years. We are an alternative to leather golf gloves. So we're basically there's we we were founded upon the belief that we could make a glove out of a better material than leather.

There are there are things if you are obviously sounds like you are an avid golfer and I have been as well as my partner has been for

for many, many years. And there weren't really a lot of innovations on golf gloves, though, whether there have been other equipment in golf.

Balls have been innovated on bags, shoes, or where people were in sneakers and Jordans, and everything's been innovated on, the clothing clubs, of course.

But really, the leather that gloves are made of basically came from foot joy back in the day, as the interior of the shoes, and they go, the interior leather, the white leather that was inside the golf shoes, they said, well, why don't we try to make this?

That's where the golf glove came from was that material. And that's what it is still to this day. So yes, there are other brands out there making alternative golf gloves.

And we just felt like we could do it in a little bit more meaningful way by innovating or calling minivations, little things on the golf glove.

that had not been done before. So when it comes to durability, we added a TPU screen print on the inside of the glove to not only hold the glove to your palm, but also reinforce that area in case there, that was an issue, a problem of the glove.

We made it out of a synthetic suede material. We call it crushed grew fabric, and that works better, kind of like a rain glove when it gets a little bit of moisture on it.

So obviously living where we live in the Pacific Northwest, there's always possibility of moisture in your game. But what we've found is that a lot of people across the country, specifically in the States where it's hotter, are having a lot of success with our gloves because of the heat, the humidity, sweat and the sweat.

So, you know, then as we work through our glove, there's four-way stretch for better fit. The back of the hand is a more porous material.

when you swing through with that lead hand, air goes in to the glove to help cool it off. The average golfer, average golfer now, takes their glove off at least 18 times around, because most people take their glove on and off before they putt.

A lot of the, as you go up in skill level, a lot of people take their gloves off after every shot.

I don't tend to do that. But we felt like you're making it easier to take on and off. Number one, leather gloves when they get hot and sticky, they stick to your hands.

So you're pulling on the tips of the fingers, leather material when it stretches does not rebound. So you'll notice after a round or two after you pull those, the fingers tips, you're having to do this a lot to try to get it back on your, on your hand.

Don't even get me started on how it looks when you take it out of your bag after it's been sitting there for about two weeks after that round.

@4:53 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

It's all crumpled up.

@4:54 - jasondelsoldato

And like a piece of beef jerky, we like to say. it does. bounds back to its original shape and will come out of your bag looking exactly like this for as many rounds as you possibly need.

So that's one of the things, you know, so we tried to build as much into a golf glove knowing that this was going to be a niche product.

lot of people are very, very loyal. I want to say when it comes to golf equipment, when you find something that you like, golfers tend to stick with that because that's your touch point to the glove.

@5:33 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

That's, you know, the glove.

@5:35 - jasondelsoldato

So we wanted to build all these things in and really bring something new to the marketplace. We've been around for about two years.

We've seen steady growth. It's just me and my partner and I, we run a very, very tight where a lot of hat situation when it comes to a startup.

we've seen some traction. goal was to start DTC. You know, com build out from Portland, so we've been in multiple locations in the Portland area in physical retail.

Some places like Wildwood Golf Course gave us a shot from day one, and we're always refilling there. You know, Ryan, who helps run that out there, he really does a good job of working with local golf companies to give them a shot, and it's just been, it's been very successful out there, and then we're going to look to build out as we start to get bigger down the road and try to get some more greengrass accounts across the country.

@6:38 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

But right now, I think the direct-to-consumer model is working very well for us, and we're looking forward to continuing to grow.

Yeah, you know, I got to tell you, everything Jason just mentioned is the exact thing that happens. You, you, those leather gloves.

I was wondering, now, like, it's kind of now that you started to talk about it, like, oh no, no crap, it makes sense, like, every time I

I take out the gloves, I'm sweating all the time. So I pick it up and it's so hard to take off because that's all moisture and leather and wetness.

Don't really match very well. And then as you mentioned, you know, you don't go golf for a couple of weeks and you come back and that thing is, it's beef jerky, it is all crunched up and it's hard and you're trying to put your fingers back into it and never fun.

And I'm one of those people, in fact, just recently, I'm reading the book Fix It Yourself, the golf book.

one of the things that, because I'm constantly ripping the inside of my glove. And I'm realizing, because I'm holding that dang thing we're a little too hard, you know?

And so, like learning all these little things. one of things you mentioned was the innovation piece. You know, it really is, I haven't, you fact, folks, you go check out the shades of E.com, formerly interviewed Mr.

Forcy from Painter Golf, they're carrying some innovation. But again, I've never heard anything about the gloves. Now, let's take a step back.

know, why gloves? Where did you start to see the problem that, you know, like, this needs a solution.

@7:59 - jasondelsoldato

Yeah, so. So my partner reached out to me through a friend and knew that I had been in product creation from my entire career and that was with multiple companies.

I worked right out of college at Abercrombie & Fitch, got my other guys standing outside the shirt.

@8:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I wish, no.

@8:20 - jasondelsoldato

I went right into what they called their merchant program right out of college. I'd worked in store for a little while and that was basically my masters in product creation.

You work correctly with factories, designers, and really get to learn how to bring a product from inception, design all the way through to to marketplace, and then understanding how the market, you know, works, you know, working on sell-through, all everything from A to Z when it comes to product creation.

I then took that to Burton Snowboards where I was there for eight to ten years and then Nike for 13.

So had a very long, you know, history and resume of working for some really great companies. out of creation.

So I met Matt, my partner, and we, he said, Hey, I have this issue. I have this problem. I think I know how I want to solve it.

Can you help me? know, let's do you, is this something you feel like you'd be interested in working on?

And I was like, Hey, listen, let's try it. Why not? You know, I think I have some, I have some good connections within the industry.

I want it came to our source base, where we currently make the gloves. They also make gloves for some larger companies as well.

Not only in golf, but also receiving and batting. And that's where we really try to take inspiration from other sports, other gloves, other types of equipment, because the glove is a piece of equipment.

not an accessory. So we were like, okay, how can we maybe look to innovate a little bit on, on the golf club?

He then mentioned he had, obviously had, you know, issues with the ripping in that palm, you know, so and he had some ideas about

how he wanted to fix that. So we started talking to some designers, talking to some those source bases. They are based in China, unfortunately.

There's not a lot of stateside manufacturing capabilities for this kind of product. If there ever is, we'll definitely be looking to do that.

But we went where the experts were, and that was in some of these factories that are making some of these gloves for some of the big boys in the Gulf marketplace.

We told them our idea. We said, hey, this is what we want to do. We started really generating some samples, testing.

I think we did about 50 people, friends and family, other people within the Portland area. Tried the gloves for several weeks.

We had a whole survey monkey thing. People were giving us feedback. This is what I like. what I don't like.

And we really just, that's how it started. It was with a problem. was like, hey, I'm ripping the glove here.

What do we feel like we can do about that? Also, we deal with moisture in our game. And again, I know I mentioned Pacific Northwest.

That's where we live. There's a lot of moisture, whether it be, even if it's not raining, you're waking up in the morning and it's due if you're playing in morning round.

But we also talked about sweat. We also talked about things like just grabbing a beverage from your cart or condensation or anything.

There's always moisture in the game. And we wanted to make sure that we were combating that in a way that made sense.

So things like that, that was where we started with. What was the problem that Matt was experiencing? How could we solve that through product innovation?

And that was something I, again, had always done throughout my career, but specifically in those 13 years that I was at Nike where that's what you're taught every single day, working with the athlete, finding out what's not working for them, solving that problem through product.

And that's the way we approached this glove. And that's basically how the you know, the tactile club came to be and that, you know, that was the first thing.

So again, I think I'd mentioned, you know, we reinforced that area with this screen print. It's a sticky rubber, you know, screen print that allows it to stick to your palm stability in that area that's touching the club and then also durability.

So it allows that to reinforce that area. When I mentioned we took other pieces from other um, uh, sports, I always had an issue with one of the one of the other major companies where I sometimes would grab the underside when I wasn't looking under the underside of the yeah, I know exactly what we're about because they had overlaid perfectly and you would grab it and it was the underside and more or a few times I ripped a brand new or, you know, semi brand new 20, 25 dollar and I was like, uh, so we actually added a rubber uh, yeah, tab, you know, because it was, but it was like a very simple thing.

looked at every single company in the golfing club world and no one had done that and it was very, very little cost in order to do that, but it gave something, if you're not looking down, it gave something to grab instead of possibly the possibility of ripping the underside.

So things like that, things like cooling it down again, trying to with that with that porous material in the back.

And again, one of the major things was that we're now in a modern game. Everyone is on their phones during their rounds.

Are there watches or GPS things? our material works with all screens because it's synthetic material and it works directly with your screen.

So whether it's not, you have to either take it off or use your other hand, and that might be something that people aren't used to doing.

So really, the innovation factor was some of the biggest drivers as we were getting into the product. But that was really the inception was, hey, we have a problem.

@13:51 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Like, how do we solve that? And that's what we jumped in at that point. The true story of entrepreneurship, right?

There's a problem we're going to All the folks that are listening to audio only this this is this episode is actually available on YouTube So check out the shades of e.com subscribe to the newsletter walls have a blog post about Jason's information Have a photo of the of the glove now Jason.

What do you what do you things you're talking about is product development? And all i'm hearing when it comes to product development is stage gate Right i keep on thinking stage gate stage gate Can you talk to us about kind of take us through the process of creating a product for for individuals that are maybe unaware of The process that goes to it take us from the Inception of the idea to the actual final creation and what all the steps that are in between that people may not know about because there's a lot There are a lot.

@14:41 - jasondelsoldato

I think if you if you've heard anything about Nike if you've heard any about any other like bigger companies the The product creation and brain and the marketing process from inception to delivery can sometimes be for some of these larger companies anywhere between This is for an established company anywhere between 20 to 22 24 months

From the day that it hits marketplace from the time that it actually got line planned which basically means you're gonna put something on a list You're gonna sign a price point to it.

You're gonna assign colorways to it and you're basically gonna say hey I'm gonna brief brief this product in it could be whatever a hat A glove anything and then now we're gonna start the process of trying to bring that to life now with somebody as small as us A lot of those steps do get taken out of the equation because you're not dealing with a sales force you're not dealing with Selling it into retailers.

You're not you're not you're basically so we cut a lot of that out But in the beginning part of it We had our idea We started working with the factory.

We then Worked with the initial one did one initial design Actually, we have multiple designs But we ended up going with one at the start of launch because we wanted to make sure we stood for something for a little while And then we'll bring out other options if people felt like they wanted some newness

And then really then start to play with this, move this here, change this material. This feels a little bit heavy.

know, how about we thin this out a little bit. could reinforce this area little bit. you know, and then working with the designers and the development team at the factory to work through also costing, we knew that we wanted to bring this product in at a, not a premium price point, not a cheap price point.

We're not the three for 20 that you can get at Costco. And we're not the 30 to $40 to $50 leather, cabretta gloves that you can sometimes purchase now.

We wanted to be in that really sweet spot. We also wanted to make something that was going to last.

We get emails every day of people who are like, I'm still on my first glove that I bought a year ago and I've got two more that I purchased.

you know, some might say, that's not a really great business plan to make something that lasts very long. we wanted to stand by our product from day one.

We wanted to make something that people were going to come back to if they wanted. We knew. that if people like the product, they'll come back, they'll tell their friends about it, and we felt like the marketplace was large enough that we could find a little sliver in this part of the industry that would allow us to make something that could last for a little while.

So from inception, that first meeting with Matt to really going through that, you know, then we started getting samples, we would try them on, we would take them out of the course, we would give them the friends and family, what do you think?

We would do a lot of that feedback process, we would do a lot of that product testing. Then we started to work on colorways, and that's one of the biggest questions we get is why don't you make a stark white a stark white glove?

So I guess if you want to talk to your listeners, you know, if they're not, we make a glove based out of a lighter gray material.

And the reason being is that the white felt. or something along those lines, times just even looking at it wrong can get very dirty.

So I think that was, and we also said, hey, how do we want to stand out in the marketplace?

If you go to a golf, and you're part of a force owner, if you go play in a tournament or whatever, 99% of the gloves, especially if it's during the summer, are white, because leather is white, and that's what they're going to be putting out.

We wanted to stand out a little bit, and we also wanted to make a product that was going to look quality, and we got some initial samples in a white, and it was not us.

We wanted to be different, we want people to golf different, and we wanted to give them something like that, if you're standing on the T box with some people, they might be going, hey, what is that?

What is that glove? And ask questions about it. So that's why we based our initial launch of the gloves in a light gray.

did a total gray, which is what you have. here, then we did a bunch of different versions, black, black four-way stretch here, blue, green, and then that material, which is 100% polyester, can be sublimated.

So that's where we can bring in a lot of newness when it comes to prints and things like that.

And I don't know you've seen this one, but we just recently launched with a collaboration glove with Sheamus Golf, which is also a Portland-based to use one of their heritage gloves, sorry, Heritage Prince, which is their houndstooth, and we sublimated that onto the four-way stretch that allows us to bring newness.

@19:40 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

We also did an antique white, so this is an off-white, non-astaric white, and we might start to look a little bit further into these kinds of things as we move forward.

@19:49 - jasondelsoldato

So we went through that whole process, we brought in new colors, and that's why we went away from that white, you know, was another social media, why aren't you doing white, and I have a camera.

And yeah, I out because I'm tired of typing the same thing over and over again, but it's, um, you know, I get the question, but we want to be different in the marketplace.

We want people to look as being a different glove. And that allows us to actually separate us from that.

@20:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Um, and then again, I know I've gotten little bit off topic when you've asked for, you know, to go through the whole process.

@20:20 - jasondelsoldato

No, no, no. But, um, you go through all of these thoughts, you know, and I think it took us two years from the first day that we met for a coffee to, um, in 20 in 20 to when we launched in 22 to really like get something that we felt like was, was, was ready for the marketplace.

Um, you then have to work with your factory because we're, we're nothing, you know, we're like less than nothing when it comes to, um, to a large company or a large factory that's making stuff for big brands like, um, you know, Nike's and the other, and some other golf companies that are out there, um, to let have them.

we had to convince them that we were not going to be a flash in the pan this wasn't going to be a one-order thing that we wanted to be around for a while and what they work with us you know at a good price on some of these smaller smaller units so you're working through some of that and then we had a really great response in year one you know I think we were self-funded we didn't take any um investments um at all I think um and we do all of the we do all of the the hats we were fill out of the garage here at my house all the stock is here um I'm the one you talk to if you email um I'm the one that uh that does all the social media I you know um product development product design all of the stuff the the other things like hats and things and towels that we have and and Matt does a lot of the other things when it comes to to finance and to website and to a lot of those kinds of things working with our we're now doing a lot of work with influencers we're doing some

some really great work there, some people who are doing some great stuff on YouTube, mentioned YouTube earlier, there's somebody who, and they have a code and they push the gloves, they believe in the gloves, and then, you know, we can get the word out a little further.

So we're, we're from day one to, you know, to when we launched two years ago, where, you know, it's, it's been, it's been a journey, but it's been fun really just trying to kind of bring this thing to life.

@22:29 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, that's, and again, I love this story because I think folks, it's a very important understand this. This was two years in the making, know entrepreneurship again, I'm running the podcast, I'm editing, I'm doing all the marketing the SEO, like Jason, even though if you email info at the shades of you, you're talking to me.

So it's, it's, I'm a world that's, and you know, I really love that the heritage design too, and one of the things I was thinking that just popped in my head like when I saw that PDX carpet, like I'm like, geez, we had to get a carpet design on that bad boy, that'd be pretty cool.

of things you mentioned to actually first and foremost, I want to give a quick shout out because you mentioned Wildwood being one of the first people that kind of came to your, you know, business and say we'll help you guys out.

So folks out in Scaphoos, Oregon, check out Wildwood, really cool 18-hole golf course. The first hole is absolutely remarkable.

I mean, you can just, you can crush that drive as hard as you possibly can. You're probably, you may not lose it unless you really strike it to the right, but I mean, it's really cool.

One of their holes, it's like, it's like a 100-yard par three, but it's 100 freaking yards in the air, so you can't have the sky right.

It's a really fun course. So please, if you're out in the Scaphoos, Oregon area, please stop by, give them, go check out around the golf.

Now, I really would love to talk about, because one of things you mentioned, you have your experience at Nike and larger, know, and all these other organizations, and then you're starting your own small business.

Tell me about some of the things when you're creating a product, and you're working with your, you're working with your developer team and designer team.

@23:59 - jasondelsoldato

Talk about some of the easy, I think it is versus some of the harder things it is on both industries.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot on both sides. think one of the easier things was that is the layers of red tape and the layers of meetings and decks that you do not have to do.

I think my last role before I left Nike was very meeting heavy, very deck heavy. And you're just basically taking information from one to the other to the other to the other and it's a long game of telephone.

And it was one of those things where, you know, love Nike was there for a very long time and loved that.

But I loved being closer to the product process. And as you kind of get up in your roles at Nike, you get a little further away from that.

And that was one of things that just wasn't my forte. So I think one of the things that, know, working with Matt, hey, do you want to do this?

Yeah. That's cool. That's all. Then we basically do it and we bring it and we bring it to market.

think that's one of the biggest things that was a lot easier. It was like, hey, like, you have an idea and you can just action on it immediately.

You can make the calls, the emails out, to people, network, get on LinkedIn or whatever might be, reach out, hey, whatever, whatever.

It was very quick in a way of bringing an idea to life. I think one of the harder parts is when you email somebody, when you've got nikey.com at the end of your email address, lot of people get back to you super quick.

When you have Gmail, when you have Gmail or you don't know the person you're reaching out or you're a new brain, clenchgolf.com, people aren't eager to take your call or to take your email.

So that was one of the harder things in the beginning. We were having a hard time. was a lot of pounding the pavement.

It was a lot of reaching out, a lot of blind calls. Hey, like, and again, we're not even in a lot of the places here in Portland because

know, a lot of the bigger brands offer a lot more than we can when it comes to discounts for, you know, accounts, greengrass and physical retail.

also are only two people, so it's really hard to say, hey, know, I can get out to every one of your locations, you know, we can't really pay a wrap yet.

So it's like you're trying to say, hey, like, you know, week, Aaron, one of the the manager of Wildwood out there at, um, out there was like, Hey, we're a little low, you know, we've got a couple of big scrambles coming up, you know, so I defined the time in the day to jump in the car to drive the 45 minutes, you know, 35 minutes out there with 30 minutes back, you know, so it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a real commitment to try to do that.

So there are some things that are super hard, you know, again, trying to find you're doing everything yourself. How, you know, what's the new idea I'm going to put on social media, you know, this week, um, how am I going to talk about the product in a new way?

How am I going to, you know, do that in a cool? way. But you don't have a lot of layers to go through.

you can just make some decisions pretty quickly. So I think on the two sides of the coin, those are the two, I think the two biggest things that I've noticed, you know, when you're doing something like this yourself, you know, there's there's no there's no training wheels either.

You have to fail. One of the things I talk about all the time is you have to fail fast and just and move on.

I think that's one of the one of the things and one of my favorite mentors that I ever had in Nike was a woman named Carmen Maine.

She was amazing. She always talked about finding out really quickly what the rules are so that you can learn how to bend and break them as quickly as possible.

I think when we first got into this, it was like everyone thought that there was like these, you know, oh, you have to do things this way.

have to do things that way. we just approached it from a playing of like, okay, we're not a big company.

We're going to try to do whatever we ever try to make a great product. And we're going to try to do things differently.

How can we circumnavigate like these things? How can we do this differently? Um, and not really follow the rules, you know, of like having a rep force and taking, you know, investments and doing this and doing that.

We really wanted to prove concept. A lot of people asked like, well, aren't you doing, why aren't you taking investors?

aren't you talking to, um, you know, to people in the golf world or, you know, shopping this idea with a big company and we're like, well, we know, that's not really what we want to do.

We want to build this, improve the concept, you know, and I have a lot of, you know, ex coworkers and, and, and, uh, colleagues, um, started and are working at, um, you know, Oregon sports angels and things like that, where they're working, you know, companies based in this area in the sports world and, and, and invest in them.

And I'm, you know, and I'm one of my mentors also hired me at Nike's all over theirs and high up and, and I was like, listen, like we

You know, we want to make sure we have something first, you know, we didn't know at the time, you know, coming out, you know, we had some really great support from friends and family throughout the industry and to get off the ground and it was great, you know, people buying the product and stuff.

And, but when you started to see those same names come back for. Or purchase to when you start to see I see multiple because I feel the orders, see multiple, I click on a person's name and it's their 10th order or their 11th order, you know, the last two years, you know that you're now, you know, you're one of their trusted brands.

I think when you start to see that, that's when we go, okay, hey, like, you know, we've got something here we can stand behind, we can talk about it, we can bring newness, you know, with the famous collaboration, obviously a very, very trusted name in the golf world for 12 13 years already making some really great stuff and having their products in some of the best golf courses in the world, not just North America but in the world.

And, and them trusting us as well. to bring a product that they felt was quality enough and was going to stand up to, you know, what their name stands for.

Our name was right next to it. So, um, that's, you know, that's how the, you know, glove ended up, you know, clench, ex-shameless, bring this to the market.

So, we're feeling really good about that. And, um, but yeah, I think we just were, we're super excited with where we're at.

But again, it's just every day, you're looking at things through a different lens, new problems to solve. You know, we're also talking about how much you spend on social media, how much do you do this, and how much do you do that, and um, what kind of PR should you be doing as we enter into the holiday season.

And again, there's all, and you learn that stuff as you go along, you know, you, you get different aims, you reach out to certain people, and you try to do the best thing with the information you have in front of you.

@30:47 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So yeah, yeah, folks, I really hope you're really taking notes of this conversation. Jason just basically laid out like four years of education for you guys.

Let me try to break this down. a little bit for some foremost. I really love the marketing piece. know, you say you have like people coming back and we're going to come back to that marketing funnel function a little bit because we'll talk about that loyalty piece.

But one of the things you mentioned was really important was reaching out and actually building relationships with the developers, with your contractors, the folks that are actually being fulfilling the items, right?

think not enough entrepreneurs when they start building, they don't actually reach out to the actual wholesalers and say, hey, this is my idea.

This is what I want to do because what actually happens is they want you to scale as well, right?

They're willing to help you scale. And so what you started to do is you try to find your minimal viable product, right?

Let's talk about how the importance of building those relationships were to find your minimal viable product. And then once you found that, how do you begin to find the product market fit?

Because that was the next thing you're kind of getting into. So first, let's talk about your MVP.

@31:56 - jasondelsoldato

How did you kind of get to that? And then how did you roll it out to become your product?

Yeah, I think our mission was to create a just a better product when it came to, I think we started with durability and innovation.

think those are the first thing. was like, hey, like, we've noticed that this doesn't, you know, last long. And if you're going to go through two or three rounds, and then you have to buy another glove, we think our glove will last two times as long at least.

We're saving every time you purchase a glove from us. You're saving, we would just say $20 because you're basically every two leather gloves, you'd be buying one of our gloves.

We wanted to come out with that. our mission was, hey, we're going to try to innovate on something it hasn't been innovated on.

Our vision was that people were going to have this glove for a long time, and they're going to be able to stay to say, like, I love this glove.

Yeah. was very interesting. lot of this stuff we didn't know in the beginning. We just knew we had, I think we had a great product.

And I think as we started to talk through the six major details within the Glove as we were building our website, we started to say like, wow, there's not a lot of companies offering all of these in one package.

You get the feel, the feel from a Cabretta leather go up fine. But the second after you take it out of the packaging, you put it on your hand for the first time, that's it.

never going to feel like that again. You can then go to the other side of the spectrum with other companies that make product that looks very, very, very and like made with faux leather, which is even less if it gets wet, it's even worse.

And I'm not going to but they were just they were on the other side. end of the spectrum and probably have a really great following when it comes to what they're when they're good on with their price points were higher.

We started to go like futuristic works with works with if it gets wet is light enough to give you feel works with screens.

We started to go wow like we have a lot of things built into one product. How are we going to start to tell people about you know as you know on on social media and everything these days the the attention span is you know is is is much lower if you don't catch someone in the first two seconds of like flipping through or scrolling through your video you're not going to get them and I've learned myself I have I have a very hard time being on camera I never mentioned that before we jumped onto or in the war in this world a guy named Jordan Rogers who's kind of ex Nike guys well living in

Texas working with a lot of this material online and on social media, and I was talking to him, talking to a couple of other people, it was just like, you've got to just try it, you've got to do it.

And that's when I started jumping on, I started jumping onto the camera and talking about what makes our gloves different.

And then one of the agencies that we're currently using to help us out with our ads and our creative and stuff like that, you know, is taking some of those initial videos that were just going to be me talking about, and I came up with what was called FAQ Fridays.

was just, I started to kind of pull up a lot of the questions that I was getting. White gloves, I can't hear gloves be washed, know, you know, what's this rubber thing on the inside?

started taking all these questions and going, wow, think there's something here where we can, I can start to tell people exactly what they're seeing instead of having the hoping that they

I see a little six box on our website, which is one scroll down and then actually taking the time to read it.

No one's going to be doing that. So how can I take those things, bring them to more of the forefront, try to get people's attention.

And I think it's been okay. now using it as an ad that same video. I get a lot of comments and trolls every day.

You know about your grip is wrong.

@36:27 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

That's why it's ripping there and this and that and it's always got you guys.

@36:29 - jasondelsoldato

You got a role with it and you got to kind of go with it and you guys say, hey, I'm educating people on our product.

That's the goal of this. And I think we had to look at things from a different perspective as we got into talking about the product.

So when you get to bring it back, when it was MVP, was like, hey, we have a goal of what we want to accomplish with the product.

And this was what we think we want to do for the future. And then like the positioning was, hey, it's going to be about details.

It's going to be about benefits, it's going to be about the product. It's not going to be, you know, it's going to be about those things not like, are we cool?

Are we coming out with a new creative launch around a parallel every season? That's not going to be what you're going to get with Clinch.

We'll eventually hopefully do some of that down the road if we ever get to a place where we've grown to a bigger place and we know, you know, that's, that's my sweet spot.

@37:22 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

That's my bread and butter.

@37:23 - jasondelsoldato

I can do those kinds of things. But it was more along the lines of like, we're going to give people a great product.

We're going to stand by that product. We're going to be really great and meaningful with our customer service. going to, and if we, and when I say stand by our product, it's like we have a really, really great return and exchange policy.

We try to say, hey, if you had an issue with your glove, we'll replace it. We'll get it back out to you, you know, tomorrow, or even today.

Sometimes if you catch me before the USPS guy gets here to the house. And I think it's one of those things where we just want to be very transparent.

We want to bring people great product and we want to stand by their product as long as we can.

I think as we start to get out to more people through emails, through social media, through word of mouth, I think, you know, once we can start to grow, we get requests almost every day for, hey, we'd love to have you in our shop in XYZ City.

Because I tried your glove, I believe in your glove, I talked to our manager at my local shop and I want, we want to get in, it's like, we would love to do that.

We just can't currently do that when it comes to these people in order to really, really do that in the best way.

That's why, hey, we're going to start Center in Portland and we're going to radiate out from there and we're going to see, you know, if we can do that in the best possible way.

But I think, you know, when you're getting back to your original question, it's like, you know, that was the MVP was, hey, we want to be, we want to make a great product.

That's the center. And then we're really going to stand by that product through all the other layers of the things that people are looking for to us for.

@38:55 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And you know what I like about this is, is organically, you're also creating your brand, right? Now, people are, you're.

created an trusted brand that has high quality, great customer service, right? That people can continue to come back and then it's you, as you, you know, you essentially now have this value proposition, right?

So you're starting to build it up and, uh, it got, I got to tell you folks, I have a lot of trolls as well.

In fact, the content on this episode is so good. I had one individual on YouTube say yikes. And I've been using that.

I actually comment back and I was like, people are saying the content is so good. It will have you stay yikes.

I'd like to mess with the trolls just as much. Now, one of the things you also talk about is like marketing, right?

Building out the brand. Uh, now, and you also talk about influencers. In fact, folks, go check out the shades of E.com, call in line for us, a former guest on the show.

I would love to see Clint on there sometime. Um, does a lot of stuff. So if you ever check him out, he's really, really fun to watch.

Uh, but talk about your guys is kind of marketing structure strategy. Talk about your sales funnel and how you kind of get people aware of your product and then how do you become a loyal consumer.

@39:55 - jasondelsoldato

Colin, um, was an influence on me, honestly, uh, along with another guy who goes by golf projects on Instagram as well as I mentioned Jordan earlier.

@40:07 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And Jordan and Colin were actually in that 7-11 photo shoot. They were two.

@40:12 - jasondelsoldato

They had pulled in along with this other guy. And I actually reached out to him. He lives super close to me as well.

reached out to him and we were just chit-chatting back and forth.

@40:27 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And I loved his whole thing around transparency of if you want to make something and his whole like here's the here's the factory and all that.

But really that guy gives guys you got to check out Colin. you want like products or factories from across he's a guy to follow.

@40:43 - jasondelsoldato

So I so I reached out I like hey man like how do you like you know how you know and I watched his transformation from when he first started to where he currently is now and how comfortable he is and you know how do you edit your videos and what are you doing this and I reached out and again like that's where generally speaking it's hard to do that I think.

I think, you know, in the world and you're going to have to have a little bit of humbleness, a little bit of humility to reach out and say, I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to this.

You know, I'm very personable when you get in person. very, you know, I think, you know, that comes across through, you know, in this.

can do everything when it comes to product creation, can do all of that, really love the fashion industry, love the golf industry, love all these things.

But I was having a hard time taking that, bringing that to the screen for the company, know, very overnight, it wasn't just this really pretty picture of guys on the golf course or product shot that was on our website.

It was now it was me standing there talking about the product and being the face of it, the way that some of these other guys were.

it was very, very daunting. have to say, you know, I can't even tell you the amount of times it took me to do

to one of these videos and I started to, you know, and then you start to think about like, Oh, you know, I messed up like a second 30 and I had to go back because it was a 40 second video and I had to stop and I was like, and I can't even tell you how many times I like got so frustrated and I was like, man, I can't get through a 30 or 45 second video talking about this product that I know very well that I, you know, we brought to life and it was crazy.

So then I learned about other, you know, there's other ways to do that through, through editing apps like CapCut and things like that where I said, okay, like I started to then get a little more savvy on, okay, this is how I can piece together a lot of different things.

They don't even have to be filmed at the exact same day or same time or any of those kinds of things.

And I got some of those ideas from Colin as watching him as he transformed and as he was able to edit him and that was the thing.

So we started to reach out and you have to kind of be home when you have to reach out and go, Hey, I don't know how to do this.

What are your thoughts on this? You know, him being in the golf area, him being in the golf In the informational kind of influencer world, I'm like, hey, going to reach out, I'll say what's up, I'll see if he had any interest in any dialogue and he did and definitely took some of the things he said to heart and brought this to life.

So I think when you talk about the funnel, I think we're looking in a ton of different ways. think we do a lot of social media marketing, emails with people like Clavio, we're working with that platform right now.

And I think what we're doing is that's where we're starting to put the money, the Google, the SEO, the whole, and that's not really, again, the back end of that stuff, lean a lot on my partner for stuff.

He deals directly with some of those things. I think as we have our conversations, it's really trying to get more content out there, whether that be through static, whether that be through video, whether that be through, if you look at some of the stuff we did around the, the shameless.

launch with that glove. That was just me and are another one of our really great partners that we work with Harbor, Harbor Golf and Harbor PDX, which they do a lot of video and editing, shooting and stuff here in Portland.

And we've worked with them since day one, like we had with Wildwood. met him through a friend of a friend.

was one of the guys who tried out the glove in the beginning, loved it, and said, hey, we'd love to be a part of this.

And so we use them for all our shooting and anything that's like a little needs to be a little bit more professionally done.

Otherwise, I'm doing it. I've purchased little stand, the neck mount to do fun things. So I'm trying again, that's where I think we've talked to a lot of companies right now where they're like, hey, content is king.

The more you have, you're going to have to open your aperture a little bit further when it comes to your spend.

I think we focus differently when it goes south when it comes to the target.

@45:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

getting because everyone's out there daily as opposed to us who now for a little while.

@45:04 - jasondelsoldato

mean, unfortunately here it's not going to be as frequent when it comes to getting out there with the weather.

So I think that's what we're really trying to do. I think we know we're trying to get better when it comes to our consistency on emails.

Those are yesterday we have one go out and I hit my partner and I like, hey man, I didn't know that we have one going out.

And yesterday was a 400% increase over the last three days. And I was like, wait, was like, did something happen?

our YouTube guy put out a new video? Like, it's very weird. And right now we're in a, you know, again, some realities of small business where we're almost completely sold out of large, period.

The only large we have currently on our website is the Seamus glove, the collaboration, because we had a really great August, we had a really great September.

And even into October and we're waiting for like We didn't think we would be in this position, but we're waiting for this another big shipment we have coming in like a week.

And, you know, I was like, we don't even have any larges.

@46:08 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Why are we, why is there so much business yesterday? And I was like, and he's like, oh, we had an email go out, and we're now gonna start to do that, you know, twice a week as opposed to like maybe once every month or once every quarter or before we were gonna do something big.

@46:22 - jasondelsoldato

And I think that's gonna be one of the things that's gonna unlock stuff for us, is making sure that we, again, take the time, create some content.

And right now it's, you know, I equate it to we're farmers selling enough crops to buy more seed. I say that to everybody.

Like we're not eating anything yet.

@46:42 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

We're not making like, you know, we're still a startup.

@46:45 - jasondelsoldato

This isn't gonna be our main gig. This is both of our side gigs, not, you know, I think. And, but we really believe in it.

We feel like in the next couple of years if we can start to get more in, we'll be able to put more out and then really start to gain.

more followers and more engaged, what was I going to say, consumers of the, you know, of the glove. Then we can start making different gloves.

We can start making more prints. We can, you because I would love to do, you know, I'd love to port to connect with the guys over Portland Gear.

@47:17 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Maybe we did something with them here in Portland.

@47:20 - jasondelsoldato

Again, we really want, there's a lot. I mean, I, I said this the other day to something I can remember who it was, but I, there's so many amazing golf brands just here in, in Portland area.

And I was like, I don't know if you know, there's a every month, every couple of weeks during, every month during the summer, they have the Portland Flea.

I don't know who people are who put that on, but I would love to do one of those for golf brands just to have a one weekend before like the season starts in April to have everybody come out to like a little, I don't know, little area.

And you've got really, really amazing companies here and influencers like we talked about, Colin and a couple other people who have started as some amazing golf brands.

and her getting their products out there really well just in this little Portland area. So I think that's why we were really excited to work with Sheamus.

were, know, I've met some people, you know, companies like Jones recently and have played some really great rounds of golf and people just really trying to get out there, try to do as much as you possibly can to get the name out there, show people your product.

If they're not personally using it, at least they know that other people are, as you start to get that funnel out.

I know that that little, all those answers I gave you were more anecdotal, not like data related, because again, a lot of that stuff Matt does deal with my partner on that side when it comes to like the analytics and the metrics.

But I know that once we, we're going to have to start to spend more, talk to a lot of different agencies in order to really bring in more.

And I think when we start to get to that point, I think we're going to try to do that a little bit more come next year before the season starts.

We're going to try to get our inventory up to a really good place, maybe even uncomfortable. And then we're really going to try to make a go of it next year to see what kind of penetration we can get in the marketplace.

@49:09 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Well, I would say you're building it very accurately, right? Because you kind of want to be the zone of genius before you start to scale, because once you scale the operational cost is skyrock as you know.

And you know, going through that process, one of the things you mentioned, you know, fell quickly. I always tell people I agree, right?

And one thing I mentioned is, you know, I've never fell the day of my life. I either learn or I succeed, right?

Because essentially every time you fail at something, the reason we say fail quickly is because you're going to learn a lot.

If you go check out some of my previous, go to the shades of dot com, check out some of the previous episodes.

They're not very good folks. They're the ones that I'm doing now are so much better. You know, it's slowly because again, repetition, getting out there, getting experience, as you mentioned, right?

You're probably starting to feel that as well. Coming on the, you know, podcast or interview, starting about a little bit easier.

And then utilizing the content that you created on different, you know, different verticals. Like you mentioned, creating a real from a podcast episode, like we'll create for this one, go for some of the shades to be on on Instagram and all the social sites, you'll see the rules pop up, right?

Subscribe to the newsletter like that's the beginning of my sales funnel. So the awareness piece is the social media, right?

That's the top of my sales funnel. Hey, want people to be aware of social media, all these other stuff.

And then it's the once people subscribe to the newsletter. Okay, now that the evaluation stage, now my goal from there is so okay, now I want to get them down to a purchase.

Hey, speaking of which folks go to the shades of e.com slash shop, you can find sweaters and swag to support the show.

Then once you purchase an item, or even even further, let's say you put an item inside of your of your shopping cart, but you didn't purchase it.

Well, what I will do on my back and hey, I noticed you left in your shopping car automated here's a 10% off, you know, good.

And you start to build out that that at that relationship. And then once you, know, once you, Jason mentioned, once you kind of have somebody that's purchased 10 items, like, Hey, I know if you purchase lot of wood, I would love for you to write a testimonial on our website, or can you share it on social media?

give you another percentage off, right? Because that's when they turn from a purchaser to a loyal consumer.

@51:20 - jasondelsoldato

That's free to an advocate, they turn into an advocate for your brand.

@51:24 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Exactly. And then it's marketing to their, their, their network, right?

@51:31 - jasondelsoldato

They're people that they know, you know, they're the one saying, Hey, I'm telling my friends about you because I, you know, and like, you know, it's great.

You're, you're basically now a sales rep for me.

@51:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And it's proof of service or a proof of concept, right? Proof of concept right there. Hey, this is, this is a glove I'm not telling you, this consumer is telling you and they're saying how much you love it.

And it's, I really like that concept. And then also breaking down the market segmentation to understand like, okay, who's my vendor versus who's my business, the business client?

you mentioned, like the, the, the Wildwoods of the world. versus the individual ones. Because each, again, those communications on each of those market segments is going to be different, right?

Hey, I'm going to, I want to sell you a thousand items over here, the business to business, or I want to sell you this new product over here, the individual business, the BTC, or hey, I actually have a new huge shipment coming in and new to design.

They're still working with your vendors that way. Now, Jason, one thing I would highly recommend I'll send you this over to you later this afternoon, collab.

I'm not it's going to I'm not sure. I'm not sure. sure. I'm sure. sure. sure. sure. sure. sure. I'm sure.

I'm sure. sure. sure . . to be a part of it, shout out to Rick for letting me apart in Alex over and still head.

But that's a really good opportunity for you to also meet with a bunch of local small businesses here in the Portland area.

But more importantly, one of the things they talk about is like cost of a customer acquisition. What what deals are we doing on Black Friday?

What are the best deals? they have a they have a they have a slack that so it's like very network community.

@53:24 - jasondelsoldato

I'll connect you with them.

@53:26 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

They're really good. fact, I think John Loomis is the CFO former former guests on the show as well. He's also part of the the angel sports investors as well.

@53:36 - jasondelsoldato

So it's very small, small run. I love it. We actually met with the guys at baseballism before we started because our freight forwarder that we were working with suggested that we reach out to them.

And I got we got one of the best pieces of advice from the beginning from one of those guys as well.

And then he had know the again, all the people you're talking about, I've I've crossed paths with at some point, whether it be through my world at Nike or when we first started.

the conversations about this. I love that it's a very small world. love that people are so accommodating when you reach out to them and they want to help.

We're not competing with each other. is a we'd love to see everyone succeed kind of vibe.

@54:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So that's awesome. That is one thing you folks that may not be familiar with the Pacific Northwest in the small business world.

The amount of support you receive in this community is astronomical. I run in the small nonprofit Latino founders. We raised over $500,000 just last week.

We did a pitch competition pitch Latino here in Portland. We sold out OMSY 308 tickets and we gave about $30,000 in grant funding.

So we're helping this scale. Our goal is to help scale 100 Latino businesses here in the Pacific Northwest with $1 million reoccurring revenue in five years.

We're doing this through pitch competition. got accelerated programs and they're going to accelerate a program. The education is the one piece, but the word of the rubber hits the road is the mentor.

right, identifying someone within that vertical that can really support this entrepreneur and scale in their business. Like you mentioned, reaching out to call and reaching out to the baseball team to reaching out to all these different thought leaders within this area is so important because they're willing to share their knowledge.

And then at the same time, they're also willing to kind of help you avoid the landmines of entrepreneurship, which there's a lot, there's a lot.

Jason, you've been doing this. You're scaling your business. You've been in the corporate world down the small business world.

What advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur?

@55:39 - jasondelsoldato

I think I've dropped a couple of nuggets that I would say. would say just not to be afraid. I think just try.

I think that's the thing is like you're going like we talked about, you're going to suck in the beginning.

You're going to fail. There's going to be some times where you're questioning what you're doing, I think. But I think one of the things that we talked

talked about earlier, MVP, thinking about some of that upfront work, looking at the market you want to get into, doing your research, trying to find out where you'll be different.

You don't just want to be another carbon copy of somebody who's already doing something. Try to find that niche, however small, and be passionate about it, and really, really, really, like you talked about, take advice, reach out.

Don't be afraid to, like I said, appear if you don't know something, and then just be a sponge. I can't believe I just said that, because I was one of the, I was one of the, used to call on maximums at Nike, was one of the ones, honestly, just absorb as much information as you possibly can, reach out, it, you may never, may not use it, but really, really listen, and again, not be afraid to just try things and fail, and try again.

There's a ton of things that we've tried, and whether it be marketing, or whether it be something. social media, whether it be emails, whatever we did, didn't work.

And now we've now you start to try to find the ones that do and then you do more of those, find your, find your comfortable zone.

I think, you know, you're going to find everything is going to be hard. But like I said, with like finding the ones that like, okay, now, hey, I know now that me sitting in front of the camera talking about the glove gets a lot of engagement.

It may not be comfortable for me, but that's really what's going to help us in our brand and getting the message across.

let's do more of that test, test, repeat, test, repeat, and then find the place that's really going to go.

think, but again, like just not, just, just try to like, yeah, I mean, again, there's, I could keep going and going and going, but I think the one thing is tough, but it's really just you got to push through those uncomfortable, those uncomfortable moments and, and really just keep trying.

I think it's one of those things where it's, it's just sometimes it's, you never know what the next. today is going to possibly bring that breakthrough.

Yeah. So if you can as long as possible, keep pushing and keep trying to find your lane. I think that's what I would just continue to tell anybody.

@58:11 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Love it. know, folks, those one hit wonders that you hear, they've probably been put in a work for five years before you heard that one hit song.

So, you know, again, they can tell you make it. I always encourage they can tell you make it. don't, know, wing it.

But I mean, like Jason said, go out and network and learn from other people. If there are thought leaders within the industry, there are conferences, there are workshops, there are trade shows that you can attend and you can learn about this industry, whatever industry you want.

There are all these professions. can go out and learn it. You can, you can follow an influencer on social media, like myself on the Shades of E.com, right?

You can follow us and learn all sorts of information. But again, go out there, figure out who the thought leaders are, ask questions.

There are no dumb questions. Nobody started at the finish line, right? And also the innovation that will be sparked through these questions, you might also find new.

No, I find a business partner that's interested in your thought and like, you know, I think you're onto something.

Here's a few tweaks. Let's, you know, keep the scale. So Jason, I really appreciate this conversation. This is a phenomenal conversation.

I really excited to continue to see you guys.

@59:13 - jasondelsoldato

I'm going go buy some gloves. Once you get those largest in, I'll make sure I get one for sure.

Now, before we go, one of the things you talked about was networking. How can people connect with you? How can they find Clench Golf?

are you at in the social world? Yeah, clenchgolf.com. That's our website. then Clench Golf on Instagram. I think also we're on, we're on TikTok.

know. I know.

@59:32 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

of cringe little bit.

@59:33 - jasondelsoldato

But we basically take a lot of our videos and we put it over there as well. So we've got a good little following over there on TikTok as well.

Facebook, Instagram, those are the real places. you want to, if you live in the Portland area and you want to see the gloves in person, again, I mentioned Wildwood.

We're also at Envision's Golf, which is a sim.

@59:53 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

In Tualatin.

@59:54 - jasondelsoldato

Ex-Golf locations. Tualatin Country Club, couple other country clothes come next spring. So and then honestly reach out like on the website, the support clench.clenchgolf.com will get you me and I will I will email you back.

Sometimes we let people try the gloves out, meet up with them for coffee or whatever might be. Again, really we're a small operation and we'll try to take care of you for sure.

@1:00:22 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I love it. In fact, I just recently released a sweater on my on the shades of E dot com slash shop.

Again, I love plugging that dang website is small business big dreams because I think that's exactly what our entrepreneurship is, right?

We're a small business with big dreams. And again, folks, you can check out like like Jason mentioned, Wildwood, I would also highly recommend checking out around a golf to all 10 rec center that they also have the virtual golf.

was actually out there a couple of weeks ago with my wife and kid, the two kids and playing some virtual golf.

Shockingly enough, I'm just as bad as virtual as him in real life. But you know what it's all about having a good time.

Jason, thank you again so much for being on the show.

@1:00:59 - jasondelsoldato

I really appreciate it again. I mentioned I will certainly purchase one of those once those large come in. I'm also going to send you some information about the collabs.

@1:01:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So we'll we'll get some information over for you folks that are interested. Please follow us on the social sites at the shades of e were on Instagram Facebook.

@1:01:12 - jasondelsoldato

We're also on TikTok, although their algorithm doesn't love me as much because I don't think I dance enough on my videos.

@1:01:18 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

But you can also check us out on LinkedIn, or you can subscribe to our newsletter by visiting theshadesofe.com