We were lucky to catch up with Daniel Bucci recently and have shared our conversation below.
Daniel, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
In 2016, Shawn Flaherty – one of my co-founders in Splash City Golf – worked at a non-profit on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor called Living Classrooms. As a fundraiser, Shawn organized an event where participants hit wooden spheres with a golf club at a row boat anchored in the harbor. I (Daniel Bucci) had a meeting with Shawn a few days later on an unrelated topic, and we began talking about his fundraiser event. At the time I was a strategy consultant and had a client in the live events industry. I had the idea that we could turn this concept into a for-profit business, and Shawn and I partnered up on the concept.
Later in the year we sold our first pop-up waterfront driving range concept to The Agora Companies for their company holiday party at Barcocina. We put together a floating golf target using inner tubes and Christmas lights and procured a bunch of biodegradable golf balls. At the event, we saw women in cocktail dresses and stilettos holding a martini in one hand and a golf club in the other. We saw the pure joy on people’s faces as they tried to hit the target anchored in the water. At that moment I knew we had a winning concept.
After several years of producing waterfront driving ranges for corporate events, weddings, and festivals, we started facing a new issue. The biodegradable golf balls we were using weren’t good enough. Participants kept complaining about how they felt and flew. We also started hearing from other biodegradable golf ball customers that they were unhappy with existing options on the market. Our third Co-Founder, Jamie Hodges, started researching how to create a brand new biodegradable golf ball. After several years of research and execution, we are about to launch the ZERO™ Ball, a better performing biodegradable golf ball that is Manufactured in the USA and backed by clear eco-certifications. We will use these balls at our events and sell them to waterfront home owners, resorts, cruise ships, and yachts, among other customer types.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I (Daniel Bucci) am the CEO and Co-Founder of Splash City Golf. My background is in strategy management consulting, advising startups and private equity portfolio companies. Our CTO and Co-Founder is Jamison (Jamie) Hodges. Jamie is a successful entrepreneur and inventor with a background in Mechanical Engineering. Shawn Flaherty is our third Co-Founder and specializes in Business Development. He has held Business Development roles for several innovative companies in the technology world.
Splash City Golf is a leader in the nascent, but growing, water golf industry. Historically we have been a company that produces pop-up, waterfront driving range events for corporate events, weddings, and festivals throughout the East Coast. These events feature biodegradable golf balls and floating golf targets. We produce these events at private waterfront resorts and event venues, as well as public waterfront parks We have produced over 350 waterfront driving range events in our company’s history. Put simply, our activity creates a pure joy that is hard to replicate. You are on the water, in a beautiful location, with a drink in your hand and live music in the background, hitting eco-friendly golf balls. Nothing beats it.
This Spring we are very excited to launch our own line of biodegradable golf balls, called The ZERO™ Ball. The ZERO™ Ball is better performing than existing options on the market, is backed by clear eco-certifications from leading 3rd party testing laboratories, and is Manufactured in the USA – something we are very proud of.
We are also the exclusive dealer of GolfShotBot™ Floating Golf Targets in the USA. GolfShotBot™ targets are best in class. They are mobile and highly technological. Each GolfShotBot™ has a trolling motor, GPS, and lithium-ion battery. They are extremely seaworthy, which allows us to create driving ranges in rough waters – including in the Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River, and Atlantic Ocean. They are controlled by an accompanying mobile app, and use GPS spot lock technology to fight the current and stay in place without the need for a physical anchor.
Customers for our events business are corporate events, wedding couples, and festival operators. Customers for our ZERO™ Biodegradable Golf Balls and GolfShotBot™ Floating Golf Targets include waterfront homeowners and waterfront resort/restaurant owners. We are proud to have some of the best waterfront venues on the East Coast as partners and customers, including Chesapeake Bay Beach Club in Stevensville, MD.
We want potential clients/followers/fans to associate our brand with waterfront paradise. Our slogan is Tee Off In Paradise™, and that’s because we want our products and services to transport people to a tropical waterfront where there are no worries. We are positioning our products and services similar to how people associate Corona Beer with beaches. This branding is evident on our website, the box of our ZERO™ balls, and at our events.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
We knew right away that in order for our events to be successful, we needed to have floating golf targets. Creating a target that was mobile yet resilient was very difficult. In the early days, we constructed a wooden target that sat on a bed of inner tubes and was connected via zip ties. The target was terrible – it was heavy, took forever to set up and clean up, and gave our team a bunch of splinters.
We eventually came across another startup that was creating what ultimately became the GolfShotBot™. We were one of their first use cases for their underlying technology, and we experienced all the bugs that came with that. Often we would lose control of the target, and it would float away during an event. As an example, we were doing at event in Harbor Point, Baltimore, and the target began floating across the harbor all the way to the Domino Sugar Building. There are other examples where we had to hop on water taxis to grab the target. Each time the target malfunctioned, it was demoralizing and embarrassing for our team.
Over time we kept working with our target partners to create a reliable floating golf target. Our confidence in the GolfShotBot™ is why we still use them at our events and are now the exclusive dealer of this technology in the USA.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
We realized early on that we needed to partner with waterfront event venues to grow our event business. Over time we’ve formed partnerships with over 30+ waterfront venues on the East Coast. These venues promote our service to their corporate and social event clients. These referrals have been our best source of business over the years.
Another benefit of these partnerships is that it builds our credibility with waterfront resorts throughout the years. Our business model is shifting to where we want to give the ability to these venues to create their own waterfront driving range activations without our team being there. This gives greater control to the venues and makes it more affordable for customers. We sell ZERO™ Biodegradable Golf Balls and GolfShotBot™ Floating Golf Targets to the venues, and we use our experience running events to educate them on the business model and what types of other equipment to purchase. Our existing partnerships with waterfront venues helps us build new relationships with other venues.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.splashcitygolf.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/splashcitygolf
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/splash-city-golf/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@splashcitygolf
Image Credits
All Images Owned By Splash City Golf LLC