From an Idea for Greater Connection Through Golf to a Real, Scalable Product

[0:00] My name is Dustin Ward. I am excited and delighted to have started Tee Time last year as of September into October of 2024.

[0:08] Tee Time was birthed out of a primary business that I have called It Is Time. And I’ve wanted to use the game of golf to bring equity and inclusion to folks.

[0:16] And my idea was how do we build an app that allows people to make that connection. When you come into app development, that is an area that I am not familiar with.

[0:25] I’m not a coder. I haven’t built any before, and even in my limited knowledge of technology, I tried to sort of dabble with building my own.

[0:32] And within the first week, I realized that this was way out of my comfort zone.

[0:40] So I began to sort of explore where could I find somebody to help me build this with the concept, the ideas that I had, and make it fully functional, be able to get it to market.

[0:48] So, as I was trying to do it on my own, what I learned was it is a time-consuming process.

[0:56] If I’m going to build a business, run it, do the marketing, do all of that as a startup, I would be wasting a lot of time trying to build an app without having any knowledge of how to do it.

[1:12] Not only that, there’s a depth of that app that needs to be understood, which includes security, the data that you have to hold.

[1:19] And as I got to even just building the framework of it, I’m taking hours upon hours to try to do that. In a previous life, prior to me even building this business, I actually have a background in ministry.

[1:28] And so I went to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary looking to be a pastor and have a master of divinity.

[1:36] At that school, I met an individual named Moki who was a great friend of mine and also was getting his masters as well.

[1:44] And he’s from Virginia, and we stayed in touch after I graduated in 2019.

[1:51] And lo and behold, after connecting with him and letting him know, “Hey, I’m building this business,” he offered and said, “Hey, there’s this group out in Virginia, Technology Rivers,” that he had worked with. “You should connect with them. I think they’d be great.”

[2:00] In that initial conversation, I recognized, one, they had the background and expertise. Two, they had done this before.

[2:08] And as we talked about other companies and other businesses and other apps they had built, one of the things that they told me was that this seems very similar to things that we have done.

[2:16] And I thought that was a huge affirmation that, okay, we’ve got somebody who’s done this before, done a lot of different projects, so would know the ins and outs of that, and also just comfortability in just the conversation I had.

[2:32] It felt like that Technology Rivers understood what I was looking for and wasn’t trying to have me create what they wanted, but was willing to just provide and create what I was looking to have.

[2:46] In terms of communication availability, I’ve been blown away by how quick to respond and how direct, and on top of communication, the group has been, whether it’s email. We used Slack as another communication tool, and we continued to stay in touch via Zoom on a consistent meeting schedule.

[3:09] When we started sort of seeing the full layout, and they provided me sort of not just a sketch but the full layout and the flow of the functionality of the app, that meeting really sort of set it in stone that this was going to become a reality.

[3:25] The team was great at handling unexpected changes at the timeline. Many instances they either met or exceeded the deadlines we had.

[3:35] And again, those were mostly deadlines set by themselves, wanting to be upfront about, “Here’s where we’ll be with 80% done, 50% done.”

[3:43] When we initially had a conversation, I think I provided them my vision and my hope to have this launch by March of this year.

[3:55] And in fact, they had met all the deadlines leading up to that. And so that’s been a huge, just weight off my shoulders to know that we could take an idea from start to finish in less than a year.

[4:03] Initially, when you start off with these businesses, right, you have the brand, you have the idea, but you don’t have any product. You have nothing to share or show.

[4:11] And what they’ve allowed me to do is have something physical and tangible. Even though it’s a technological concept, it’s something that I can offer, and now it can become a really scalable business.