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From an idea to the putting mat used by over 100 PGA Tour and LPGA professionals. And a lot in between.

That’s what we uncovered with our Worldwide Golf Shops INSIDER PODCAST #335, with the co-founders of Perfect Practice Putting Mat, Ed Mileto and Oren Cantor. They share with us about how the Perfect Putting Mat came to fruition, their journey marketing it, and how it can improve your putting in the comfort of your own home.

Please Enjoy this INSIDER Podcast.

You can find the Perfect Putting Mat HERE

Podcast Transcript:

Welcome to the WorldWide Golf Shops Insider Podcast. Episode 335.  Hello everyone, Tom Brassell here, thanks so much for joining.  335 that sounds like an Interstate highway. Yes, we have a backup on Interstate 335. We’ve been around and you’ve been there with this and we’re just so glad that you joined us either just for today or all the way through this adventure. We’ve been going on here with the Worldwide Golf Shops Insider Podcast. Today our special guests today join us from Boca Raton, Florida. There are the cofounders of Perfect Practice so you could find more about that perfectpractice.golf., not dot com, but dot golf, and you can find their products here at worldwidegolfshops.com. They are the cofounders Mr. Ed Mileto and Mr. Oren candor. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. I understand you’re driving down the highway, down there in the South Florida Oren’s behind the wheel, so we’ll direct it to Ed.  Thanks so much for joining us gentlemen.  Great to have you with us. 

Yeah, no problem.  Thank you for having us.

Before we get started on the product itself, because this is really something that’s off the charts.  Cool, yeah, tell us a little bit about your background how this whole thing got started because it’s really taken off like gangbusters. 

Yeah, so you know we originated in the E Commerce world learning kind of selling products on Amazon a few years back and decided to make a try. But and you know it, all kind of started with or in buying a cutting mat off Amazon and just saying like hey, I know I can make this better, you know. And he had some ideas in his head. He you know was a high school golfer played competitively. And you know, putting was something that he only struggled with an wanted to get better. And there wasn’t really anything out there that filled that void. 

So you know, we started with this low budget Amazon product that you know we started prototyping coming up.  Designs and improvements and sourcing different materials, whether it be for the the base or the the map itself, concepting the kind of training lines that you see now, and you know, putting that all together until we got to a point where we were comfortable putting this product up for sale. And you know something we were excited about. So you know, just like anything that was kind of a passion project started with just, you know, two guys that like golf and you know wanted to see in an industry that they were passionate about and you know found an area that we thought we could do well with and and succeed so. You know, after that it was really. Yeah, we put up a crude Shopify site. I think we’ve you know, built it simple. 

Started reaching out really on Instagram to PGA Tour Pros and influencers.  Just trying to get the product out there in front of as many eyeballs and people as possible.  We were fortunate to get responses from, you know, some prominent PGA Tour pros that gave us their address and I think our first one was Smiley Kaughman, which.  You know he’s had a little bit of a tough go as of late, but you know, at the time he’s, you know, super cool big following on Instagram. He’s had it and gave us some positive feedback and then snowballed from there with with other names.  But yeah,  you know I I have to look at this long list.  PGA Tour pros and influencers who are telling us like hey, this thing is great and I like it so.  Yeah, we were relying on word of mouth and just had the website up and we’re getting orders from people and we were like wow this is great and then.  I think you know, we self taught ourselves and you spoke to Instagram and Google ads.  On a Friday we launched them and just was like, hey, you know I put up the budget super small.  Let’s see how it does and then on Monday it was like wow we sold like 10 units like we might have something here so.  You know, after that it was off to the races and then you know that was 2019. We had a great year. We were happy of his turning into a real business and then 2020 at you mentioned was kind of a springboard for us where the exposure due to the covid lockdowns was crazy. Just being able to have this At home product that so many people had a need for and a desire, it was perfect.  You know, opportunity time at timing there and. 

It it just was was awesome and we were able to, you know, get in the living room so you know 10s of thousands of of people.  And you know it was the golf was having a moment.  We were having a moment we we did some great things with influencers in terms of a tournament. 

And then you know the retailer conversation started to become easier. But yeah, you know, 2020 was a fantastic year for us and you know, I think that was a a big part of our story, but also let Oren jump in here to keep us from like to add a few things as well. 

Yeah, so I think Ed lead in nicely to the Dustin Johnson story, so we are about 2 weeks into full lockdown. Golf course is closed. Everyone sitting at home either looking at the news or Instagram.  Social media trying to distract themselves.  And out of nowhere we get a cold email. 

From a guy named David Winkle who says I represent a few big time golfers. They’re stuck at home just like you and I.  Would you mind sending him out sample so we send a sample to to the big time golfers who represents and the next day we went on Instagram and saw that. 

Paulina had posted an Instagram and Tik T.O.K  of her putting Dustin, putting and  Golf Digest wrote a story the next day, saying, well, Dustin Johnson returned from the hiatus as the best putter on tour.  And from from there I got a call from David and we talked about it.  You know us being a small time brand.  I go.  I don’t think I I have what it takes to to afford Dustin Johnson and he goes. Dustin loves this product. He believes in it. Let’s get creative. David and I got creative. Set up a photo video shoot.  Then during quarantine I had to get special approval from my Golf Club just to get access for Dustin to take the photo video shoot.  We did that. 

Those are the photos you see on the box and the videos we’ve done in our ad pretty much since April and it just basically exploded from there.  Ed can kind of talk into the growth we saw, but I, I thought giving context to the Dustin story.

We get real appreciation and from there we’ve developed the friendship Dustin and I because it’s become a partnership and with with our growth he’s he’s been a part of that growth. 

So he’s excited about what we do and what we’re doing and looking forward to to where we go from here.  Well, what a great story. You know what you’re saying? Like Ed was saying, you’ve got some of the best players in the world that are reaching out to you saying, hey, ’cause they’re all. They’re all looking for an edge and they’re all looking to get better. And and then they’re they want something that they’re not really being paid a whole lot of money to endorse.

That’s incredible. That really is, you know, like you said, putting mats come and go. I remember the first one I had back in the 1980s was.  I had to nail it down to some plywood to make it smooth and all this thing is off the charts good. Tell us a little bit.  What goes into it? 

Because you got only the alignment system you got the different links and all that share.  So what makes this thing so special?  And why these guys are flocking to it? 

Yeah, I mean like you know, touching upon what you said. Obviously we have got some jobs and then we have over 100 other PGA LPGA Tour pros at this point that use it and love it.  Uh, yeah, but simply kind of been using this now is just it works.  That’s why they like it. 

People want the advantage, the edge.  It’s very approachable.  People allow, you know, they can just step up to it and start hitting plugs on a database.  You know, we’ve got the train.  It kind of teaches the straight back straight through stroke.  We’ve got that you know that material that I spoke about, which is a very unique material.  That resourced an worked hard to to get our hands on.  That really best simulates greenspeed its roll super true.  That’s something for pros talk about, but it’s very fast.  It’s, you know, an 11 to a 14 on the stimp.  Which you know, 14 is Sunday at Augusta.  For those people don’t know what it’s stimp is, but so you know depending on what it’s on, it’s it’s really fast.  You know if you have it on concrete underneath their hardwood floor, it’s gonna be close to 14 which no other putting that really had done up until that point so.  You know you combine the quality of it.  Also, it there’s some it’s visually appealing.  It’s kind of furniture esque with the the wood base.  The color combination just looks really good in an office.  In are in a home is something that you can leave out and the life or girlfriend or significant out there isn’t going to be upset about.  Kinda looks like it belongs. 

You know it’s just a collection of all these things that we put together. The fact that it actually makes you better involved, you know, we have so many testimonials. Five, you know. Over 1005 star reviews and people talking about how much they like it. They’ve won their club championship. They lowering their handicap. We have the tour pros.  So you know it, it works for the the best golfer in the world and it works.  For maybe, you know.  The weekend guy that barely plays and then you know it’s just something fun to do, even if you’re not serious about golf.  So it’s just.  There’s so many factors that go into it, but you know, we really are fortunate to have had the success we had, and we’re really thankful for all our supporters.  And you know, we’re excited about what we’re doing next and in continuing to innovate.  And you know, we want to continue to come out with great products and and be a premium brand in the gold space for a long time. 

And as you mentioned, it can fit anywhere.  You have different sizes of the product.  Talk a little bit about that. 

Yeah, so we started with our standard Edition, which is what most people have seen at this point.  And then from there we did some product extensions just.  You know, for based on feedback, we started at the PGA show.  It’s funny.  I think we had a we just made this extra long map you or kind of just put it together and it was like this might look cool in the booth and everybody was coming up to us saying how can I buy it and we didn’t even have a price.  Kinda like looked at at out of the side of my eye and like $200. He’s like, yeah, that works like so, that’s all that you know that was the proof of concept on the XL and we didn’t understand that people had so much space for 15 1/2 foot mat but they do and they love it. It’s an added challenge and added.  Added difficulty and.  A cool item and then from there we thought you know we got a lot of people with small spaces, but people in New York City or any apartment with small square footage.  The compact one is just great for that purpose.  It’s a little bit shorter at 8 feet and It also has one hole, so it’s it’s smaller diameter.  Our smaller one is really easy to travel if you can fold it up and put it in your carry on and just get on a flight which we’ve seen a lot of people do with it. 

Vince Lombardi, I believe is the one that coined the phrase it he practiced didn’t make perfect. 

Perfect practice, makes perfect, and I don’t think that Coach Lombardi was a golfer, but he probably would have practiced himself into being a great one.  What a great name for the company with a great item.  As we mentioned, tour pros are looking for an edge. 

If you go to the practice screen before after around, there’s probably not many of them that don’t have the mirrored alignment system that they throw in their bag and put down on the green.  And here’s something that they take to the house and that you can take the house just like that or player.  Hey, how about some final words Ed and Oren, this has been a lot of fun with you guys, but just some final words for our listeners. 

Yeah, you know it.  Just as I was saying before, we’re just really grateful for the support we’ve seen and the success we’ve had.  You know, it’s been really exciting.  We’ve been able to improve 10s, if not hundreds of thousands of golfers game, which is incredible when you think about it and you know, special moments like.  But you know Christmas morning we get videos of people sending them, putting up, putting that underneath the Christmas tree like this was the item that everybody wanted.  It’s a crazy feeling.  It’s really made us.  But still, that’s great. 

And like I said, we want to continue to innovate were in discussions always coming out with new products and we’re gonna be releasing some things we’re really excited about.  We’ve already done some of that, so you know, I want everyone to just didn’t know where appreciative and and, you know, stay tuned for what’s coming next. ’cause I think we’re gonna really.  Continue to do some.  Great things in the in golf. 

Yes, and thanks so much for the time.  Hopefully we can do it down the road or and keep it between the lines.  So you got an alignment system on the road down here in South Florida, Oren.  Keep it between the lines and hopefully we can catch up down the road again sometime. 

Thanks a lot, appreciate it. 

Thanks guys. 

Two really great things there.  One obviously a great product, great practice system.  And something that everybody can use and the other is just what a great story. What a great success story of how the whole thing has taken off. Perfect practice the putting mat. There’s three sizes, the short 8 foot compact size, the regular at 9 1/2 foot size and 15 1/2 foot size. You can find them all at worldwidegolfshops.com  This is one of those things you hear about that they just can’t really make him fast enough. Get to worldwidegolfshops.com and get one ordered for your home or your office. Well special thanks again to Ed and Oren for joining us, and to you our listeners, and we’ll do it again next time when we have another episode of the Worldwide Golf Shops Insider podcast here Worldwidegolfshops.com. So long everyone.