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- Saturday Reads, Listens and Watches...Investing and Golf Edition and How To Get The Most Out of Trends With No Friends Growing Content
Saturday Reads, Listens and Watches...Investing and Golf Edition and How To Get The Most Out of Trends With No Friends Growing Content
Howard Lindzon
August 04, 2024
I am bringing back Stocktoberfest. Come to Coronado, San Diego October 20-22
An intimate event for executives, influencers, and the most active investors in financial markets. Secure your tickets here.
Happy Sunday.
Before I get started here is a fresh 50 percent off list of cycling goods at DSTNC.com.
OK…here we go…
I added a new fireside chat for stocktoberfest.stocktwits.com…
Reed Dickens the founder of LA Golf will join for a fireside chat on ‘pushing the game forward’. Hopefully he can convince Bryson DeChambeau his partner to join and give us a confidential first look at the driver he has designed and built
Reed and Bryson are a an incredible combination working together at the right time to change not just the products, but the media and expansion of the game. Seeing Bryson on his fantastic YouTube show struck me on how damn important it was for golfers to break ranks with the PGA and push the game:
Fast forward to summer 2023…The golf world had been turned upside down by over a dozen major champions departing the PGA tour for a competing tour offering loads of cash and freedom to own their media rights. DeChambeau was one of the first to go, eager to grow the game globally and win the freedom to build his own social media channels with autonomy. At a castle in London, DeChambeau approached LA GOLF founder Reed Dickens, and cut right to the chase: “Do you want to make a driver?” Dickens immediately replied, “Of course I do.” DeChambeau continued, “Because I have figured something out, and I KNOW I’m right.” Dickens added, “Well if we’re going to do this, we’re not talking to anyone about it until we file the patent.” The two partners shook hands, and thus began the top-secret journey to make the most innovative driver in decades.
The cold reality is that the big brands spend over $1 billion a year collectively to convince you that they’re innovating when they’re merely tweaking the products from the year before. If you want evidence that there hasn’t been any real innovation in a long time, look no further than the fact that NONE of the major golf equipment manufacturers make shafts for their club heads.
Dickens points out, “that would be like the major sports car companies not making engines. If you bought a Ferrari that sounded weird, and you returned it to the dealership to be told it had a Honda Civic engine, and you would have to pay another $400,000 for the engine, you would sue them. But Taylor Made and Callaway will sell you a $600 driver with a cheap stock shaft with no technology that puts the burden on you to spend another $500 to optimize your distance. Scotty Cameron will sell you a $2,500 Circle T putter with a flimsy steel shaft designed before the internet, leaving your putter head unstable.”
I am an investor in LA Golf along with a bunch of my friends after my son got me hooked on the products and we met Reed. I am not yet fitted for the shafts (my son Max is and swears by them), but I was fitted for their Malibu putter and I love it.
If you have not watched Bryson’s channel or Garnt Horvat’s channel you are missing out on the future of golf/sports media. It is definitely helping me see the future.
Although I have this renewed interest in the game of golf (I don’t love playing as much as investing and watching my son Max and his best pals live the game and golf life), I am 60 and have to form fit what I love about the game into my aging body. Obviously, that is what made Grass Clippings and now The Grass League so exciting for Social Leverage.
As it relates to the investing and wealth management world (an area that Social Leverage continues to focus), I believe golf/cycling and the investing industry have a strong correlation/connection.
With YouTube golf, improved equipment, fitness and new form factors to the game, any wealth manager would be remiss in not having great golfers on their team. I think the same goes for cycling.
Golf/cycling/investing and the markets are peanut butter and jelly as it relates to trust and quality time spent together.
Please hit me up if you are working at the intersection of golf products media and e-commerce.
Onward…
My pal Tadas still has the best daily linkfest for all things investing/markets. I check it daly and always find one or two reads/listens.
On our new Trends With Friends site we now aggregate my favorite long form investment thinkers/writers (the list is growing weekly) so you can go to one place to get them all. We have designed it so that you can easily follow your favorite indivisual writers directly from their newsletters as well.
Here is today’s weekly compilation of the best of Trends With Friends. If you sign up you can receive it for free weekly in your inbox. Riley puts this together and he writes the daily ‘Trends With No Friends’ also free.
Here is Charlie’s week in charts which is always excellent.
I liked this Josh Brown post - Fame vs. Influence.
One more read on the markets I check each Dunday - Lumida Ledger and this week Ram dives into is this a ‘Recession or a Correction’.
For one last listen…for the people that ‘vape’ and chew’ and the parents that hate it…the booming market for Zyn and tobacco products and the dark/crneepy ways these products are approved, launched and their companies structured…make sure you listen.
Have a great Sunday.
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