Business Problem Solvers with Eric Alspaugh, Episode 07
In this episode of Business Problem Solvers, Eric Alspaugh speaks with Benjamin Carotta, the owner of the Islands Golf Center in Anaheim, California. Ben shares his journey of revitalizing a once-neglected golf center into a bustling community hub. Under his stewardship, the Islands Golf Center has transformed into a fully operational golf facility offering a range of services, from casual play to comprehensive golf shop services, all while navigating the complexities of managing a business on leased public land.
Tune in to the episode to hear about:
- Revitalizing a declining golf facility: Learn about the extensive improvements and operational overhauls Ben implemented to transform the Islands Golf Center.
- Navigating legal and regulatory challenges: Discover the unique challenges of operating a business on land shared with government entities and the strategic decisions involved in securing long-term success.
- Community engagement and impact: Explore how the Islands Golf Center serves as a community hub, offering accessible recreational activities and hosting events that cater to a diverse clientele.
- Entrepreneurial insights: Gain valuable advice from Ben’s entrepreneurial journey, including the importance of skepticism and practical assessment when launching new ventures.
- Future aspirations and sustainability strategies: Understand the operational strategies and community-focused initiatives that ensure the sustainability and growth of the Islands Golf Center in a competitive market.
Learn more about Benjamin Carotta:
Connect with Ben on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-a-carotta-57941529
Follow The Islands Golf Center on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theislandsgolfcenter
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About Business Problem Solvers:
Welcome to Business Problem Solvers Podcast, where legal insight meets entrepreneurial innovation. Are you a startup founder navigating the complex legal landscape of entrepreneurship? Are you seeking practical advice, actionable strategies, and expert guidance to propel your business forward? Look no further. In each episode of Business Problem Solvers, seasoned attorney Eric Alspaugh takes a deep dive into the intersection of law and business, bringing you insightful interviews with a diverse range of industry experts, thought leaders, and successful entrepreneurs.
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Read the entire transcript of this episode:
Introduction to Business Problem Solvers Podcast
Voice-Over: Welcome to Business Problem Solvers Podcast, where legal insight meets entrepreneurial innovation. Are you a startup founder navigating the complex legal landscape of entrepreneurship? Are you seeking practical advice, actionable strategies, and expert guidance to propel your business forward? Look no further.
Eric Alspaugh is a seasoned attorney. Based in the vibrant startup hub of California, and he’s thrilled to be your host on this exciting journey. In this podcast, we’ll dive deep into the intersection of law and business, bringing you insightful interviews with a diverse range of industry experts, thought leaders, and successful entrepreneurs.
From intellectual property and contract law to corporate governance and regulatory compliance, we’ll cover the essential legal topics that every startup needs to know. Our guests will share their [00:01:00] wisdom, experience, and practical tips to help you navigate legal challenges, seize opportunities, and build a thriving business.
In today’s dynamic marketplace. So whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, a budding startup founder, or simply curious about the intersection of law and business, join Eric on business problem solvers podcast, as we explore the legal insights and entrepreneurial inspiration that will fuel your journey to success.
Interview with Ben Carotta: The Islands Golf Center
Eric Alspaugh: Hey Ben, and welcome to the business problem solvers podcast. It’s an honor to have you on our seventh show. And I want to introduce you to our audience. This is Ben Carotta, the owner of the Islands Golf Center in Anaheim, California, and I’ve had the honor of, uh, working with Ben for over 10 years, being a colleague of his and the pleasure of visiting the golf center, uh, several times.
And [00:02:00] just had a blast there. And I’m looking forward to hearing about what you’ve been up to, Ben, and hopefully you can, uh, share some stories with our listeners, uh, about, um, some of the anecdotal lessons that you might’ve learned in this process. So, uh, welcome to the show.
Ben Carotta: Thanks, Eric. Hello, everyone.
Thank you for having me. Um, where would you like this to start, Eric?
Eric Alspaugh: I want to get an update on the Islands Golf Center. I know that we started working on it, uh, about five years ago. Can you tell me a little bit about the startup and the condition of it and then bring us up to speed on what you’re doing or what the status is currently?
Absolutely.
Ben Carotta: Sure. So, uh, the islands has been there for probably 30 years. Um, and I’m going to say the last 20 of [00:03:00] it was a slow decline down. Right. And then I started going there about eight years ago, nine years ago, uh, volunteering for the kids program that was started there and, uh, it just super rundown, um, no manager on site.
Like the. The stories of the old range are pretty incredible. Um, maybe we’ll get to that later, but, um, I got my hands on it probably five years ago and I knew it was beat up, but, um, like the light, the layers of repair and just like structural damage to the entire property, we, I didn’t really know that until you start getting into it.
Let me interrupt
Eric Alspaugh: you and please describe for everybody who hasn’t been to the Islands Golf Center. Just give a description of the [00:04:00] physical layout of the place and how big it is.
Ben Carotta: Sure. So, we have 92 hitting stalls, which like, is Massive, uh, I think Topgolf now has three stories and a little over a hundred, right?
A triple decker. Um, ours is just one level, like this massive bowl, uh, with 92 hitting areas, uh, about a thousand feet long. And then it’s a giant water basin in front of that. So the, the basin itself is like, I want to say 15, somewhere between 13 and 15 acres. And it’s about 40 to 80 feet deep, depending on where you are.
And then that water level goes up and down, uh, seasonally. So right now it’s, it’s pretty full and then they’ll start dropping the water on us, um, for the next six months, probably, which causes all kinds of, uh, challenges in and of itself. [00:05:00] Uh, but the idea of basically, and then on the lake, we have, I think, 13 or 14 different floating targets.
Voice-Over: Okay for
Ben Carotta: people to hit golf balls at right and then we retrieve our golf balls Um, they float most people think that they sink most golf balls do ours are a little different So they float to the top And then we have these custom built boats, uh with cages on them, uh for driver safety Uh to and then nets on the front that basically drive around skim the balls off the surface Okay Yeah, so Lift that and then we’re open like 15 hours a day Seven days a week.
So, uh, yeah, it gets, it’s pretty busy. I, I, I truly believe it’s probably one of the busiest driving ranges in the world. Like I really do think that. Yeah.
Eric Alspaugh: Nice. And it’s, it’s close here in orange County and I’ve had the pleasure of visiting several times. And I enjoy driving a bucket of balls. It [00:06:00] is a unique experience from my perspective.
And, and, and.
Challenges and Improvements at the Golf Center
Eric Alspaugh: You’ve done a lot of improvements and you have to deal with a lot of regulatory issues. Do you want to describe some of the regulatory issues that are unique to your property?
Ben Carotta: Yeah, so, um, the basin is, the majority of it is the Orange County Water District, and then the important part of it, which is about 70 of our hitting stalls, is actually owned by Caltrans.
And then, so basically, we’ve had to kind of jockey with both of those government departments. To just be there to begin with, um, and then anytime we want to do any improvement projects, it’s got to go off of one or the other or both. Um, and then in [00:07:00] addition to that, we don’t have any real long term security there.
So, um, you know. It’s hard to do big permanent improvements that would be like a long term benefit when we don’t know if we’re going to be there for more than three to four years. Um, yeah, and then any also any other like permanent installations or major changes to the property that we want to make would have to go.
Uh, multiple government change, which we have and do do, but we’re, we’re a little more selective about that. So a lot of improvements that we’ve challenged to do have been like temporary to where if at any point we have to take it down, we can, you know, as opposed to building new structures on the property, you know, Stuff like that.
Eric Alspaugh: That’s a difficult position to be in [00:08:00] having to renew your lease and not have options or guarantees and trying to commit large capital outlays for improvements. Now that said you have. You have taken over, uh, and it’s been in operations for approximately 30 years, but you did have some vision and you did commit capital time resources and you’re really your life for years.
And you, you have made huge improvements and I like not just the fact that the mats and everything are cleaned up, that the parking lot is cleaned up and easy to use, but you have a fantastic kitchen and kitchen staff from my experience. So can you talk to us about that a little bit?
Ben Carotta: Yeah. So, um, We started, it took us almost two years to build the kitchen, which, um, part of that is basically because [00:09:00] the buildings that are there are like, uh, above ground trailers that are built with like residential code.
Right. Um, and then trying to convert that structure to a commercial kitchen code, um, was foolish to be honest with you. Uh, but we didn’t figure that out until. Like six to nine months in, when we started having the inspectors come by and they’re like, oh, uh, no, you, you actually have to do all of this and you have to like, redo your bathrooms, get them up to handicap code and re slope your parking lot to get that up to handicap code.
And I mean, that’s just. Right. So the, that project was painful, uh, and it took a really long time, but I will say that, um, it, it, it, it has been a worthwhile project. Um, the food [00:10:00] has taken from being a. fun driving range to more of a, uh, complete entertainment or recreation venue. You know, um, it’s, it, it’s a better place to go have a date if you can eat and hit balls.
Uh, it’s a better place to bring your family. Um, you know, you can kind of cross check two boxes with at once. You can hit some balls, have fun, relax. You’re outside by the water, and then, uh, while you’re there, you can grab some needs so that you don’t have to, like, worry about that after you’re Before, you know, so we’ve seen, um, since we opened the food, it was very slow to start.
Um, but the food is good and we, we put a ton of effort into that food. Um, and it’s affordable, you know, that, that’s probably the thing is it’s, it’s, it’s relatively inexpensive. But since we got that going, that [00:11:00] we’ve noticed that the foot traffic at the facility as, as. continue to grow. Um, yeah, so I think the food itself has not, is not a profitable venture.
Um, but it does sell more buckets of golf balls, which, which we have good margin on. Um, and I think it just keeps people coming back more often or more frequently.
Eric Alspaugh: Awesome. How, uh, how extensive are your facilities for the golf shop itself in terms of, I know that you provide services of, uh, fixing golf clubs, handles, providing some services and some products.
Are you full service golf shop or what can people expect to find?
Ben Carotta: Yeah, uh, I’m, I’m actually pretty proud of the golf shop. That’s, that’s kind of my, of all the areas, like that’s the one that I have the most passion in. Cause I, before I owned the range, I [00:12:00] suddenly, I was a sub lessee there and had the like saddest, tiniest little golf shop in there.
It was completely empty basically. Um, so we’ve now built that out to where I feel like it’s a very good, proper, um, golf shop that is used club heavy and it’s affordable, right? Which I, I played golf for 25 years and never bought a new club. You know, most golfers can’t afford new equipment. So I’m, I’m proud that we have a fully stocked shop with hundreds and hundreds of like good quality used equipment.
That’s like 75 percent cheaper than a new club, you know, and we do still carry brand new equipment. Uh, we carry branding bags. And so it’s a nice mixture of like, um, good, new, clean, uh, colorful, soft goods, right. With like a lot [00:13:00] of. Like good used equipment, you know, if it was all just use stuff it would start kind of looking like kind of garage saley So it’s nice that we we do have accounts with all the major vendors and bringing in a lot of the new soft goods And we do have all the latest and greatest clubs as well Um, it’s just not a real focus for us Um, the one, the only thing we really don’t do is we don’t do a ton of custom fitting, um, in the sense of where you, you get dialed in on like a launch monitor and you have somebody measuring data.
And the reason that is, is because our golf balls are the floating kind, if you recall. So when we put those on those fancy, 1, 000 launch monitors. It gives like really weird data. Um, yes. And it’s something I’ve tried with multiple different launch monitors. And it’s just like, we, [00:14:00] we’re not going to focus on this area for these reasons.
And when somebody’s trying to make a, if you’re going to get custom fit for clubs, like you want to spend three to 5, 000 bucks, right. And I want to be able to give you, like, data that I can depend on, not, like, weird floating golf ball data. And be like, you can give me the money. Like, that’s
Eric Alspaugh: You’re not the problem solver for everyone.
Ben Carotta: Not now. Now people can go get fit somewhere else. And then they bring us the specs and then we’ll order it for them that we do quite a bit But okay, that’s like the one thing we don’t do at the shop a ton of um, But we do a lot of repairs and like retrofitting So if you bring me your set of clubs and that you just bought off like offer up or something and you’re like Do these fit me?
I can then tweak them and either make them longer or shorter or [00:15:00] bend them a little bit so that they better fit you Okay, like customer fitting. Yeah put new grips on it. Uh, put new shafts in um, so we do all that stuff
Eric Alspaugh: Okay, so that did to me as a not a very good golfer that sounds Very close to full service, uh in a lot of respects.
So that’s good All right To know and understand it does, uh, touch on the market and the types of clients that you cater to being in Anaheim, you, you have a wide range of, uh, clients, I imagine. Can you describe some of those clients and maybe some of some interesting aspects of your clientele, if any.
Ben Carotta: Are you with the facility in general or within the golf shop?
Eric Alspaugh: Well, um. I really didn’t know to [00:16:00] distinguish between them. So tell me about the clientele. And I was imagining more of probably the folks that come in to whack a bucket of balls. Do they do it? I’ve been in with buddies and had had lunch there. I imagine there’s are there birthday parties or people aren’t having a wedding events or maybe they are.
What kind of events and clients are you seeing?
Ben Carotta: Yeah. So our customer base, this is another thing I’m super proud of, to be honest. Um, like there is no rhyme or reason to the people that come to the range, like. Awesome. Yeah. We get people that bring their two year olds out and their, their toddlers that are trying to hit a ball all the way up to like 85.
We got 90 year old guys coming out there just to get loose for the day in the morning. And everyone in [00:17:00] between from all walks of life and like income brackets that, like I said, there is no rhyme or reason to it.
Voice-Over: Okay,
Ben Carotta: and I think that’s awesome because it’s like we, everyone there puts an incredible amount of work into like, not only taking that place from repair to where it’s at now, but just the day to day maintenance of it, you know, so to be able to see all different kinds of people that feel very comfortable coming by, it’s not too expensive for anybody.
Like, if you got three friends, you guys can piece together 13 bucks. And come hang out for an hour and hit balls and have fun and like there’s literally nowhere else That you can do that aside from like you go sit at the park or something like that would be it other than that I don’t know what to tell you where four people can go hang out for an hour and spend 15 bucks, you know?
So, um, [00:18:00] being that that’s the case, we, we attract all kinds of people, um, to include people that are plenty well off, you know, and have plenty of money to spend, but they, they choose to come hit balls. Yeah, because it’s, it’s different, you know, and it’s a, it’s a relaxing place. Uh, we’re always have music playing.
We always have nice furniture to sit on. We’ve added a bunch of shade. You’re sitting by a lake. Like, I don’t know, anybody doesn’t enjoy being by water, you know? So I was going to mention that I,
Eric Alspaugh: I really enjoyed sitting, sitting there, having lunch, uh, with good furniture and yeah, the shade, I mean, it is really nice to just go and hang out for a little bit.
So.
Ben Carotta: It, it did not used to be like that. You know, it used to be there was some diehard customers that, that were still around, even though the place was in shambles. Um, and that was kind of it, you know, and [00:19:00] it was just, it was such an eyesore that like. You wouldn’t take a, you wouldn’t make that a date night.
Eric Alspaugh: Okay.
Ben Carotta: No, I personally wouldn’t. It just, it, you can, I suppose, but it wasn’t like that. You know, it wasn’t, there were obviously people that were still going there. Um, but it just, yeah, it wasn’t nearly as, as welcoming to everybody as, as I think that it is now, you know?
Eric Alspaugh: Sure. Do you do any, uh, Bachelor parties.
I’m trying to think of birthday parties. Do people reserve have the ability to reserve 10 lanes or do anything like that?
Ben Carotta: Yeah, so we, we eventually started doing that a little bit, um, just almost as an effort to control it because we didn’t what it used to just be first come first serve, right? And then we start having [00:20:00] parties of like 15, 20 people just showing up.
On like friday night and we’re like that’s we we don’t have parking for you. We don’t have any open spots You know, uh, so an effort to like organize it a little bit And also that’s just that’s not a good customer experience For all for those 15 or 20 people that have decided to like to take time out of their friday night and come here and then it’s a it’s a bust because There’s nowhere to hit right and that’s We don’t want those negative customer experience.
So now it’s like, okay, it’s first come, first serve. If you have a party of 10 or more, you have the option to make a reservation. Uh, and we only do one reservation per day, just in an effort to like, not overload ourselves or overload the facility. Yeah. So, um, and then at the same time, if that prevents us from [00:21:00] having multiple going at the same time.
So like if we already have one book for the day and then we have another one that calls, um, we’ll tell them, no, we already have a book that day. And they’re like, well, can we just come anyways? Um, I technically you can. Uh, however, I cannot guarantee that you guys are going to have parking, um, or that there’s going to be any spots available for you guys to hit.
Um, but sure, if you want to invite 20 of your friends to come down here, you know, that’s on you, you know, set the expectation because we don’t, we don’t want the place bursting at the seams that there’s no, nobody wins on that, you know, um, so setting some structure with events is not only allowed us to like, Make sure we have good positive experiences for those parties, but also like push away like some of the overflow, you [00:22:00] know, because we only have so many, we only have so many places to hit.
So, sure. And we are, we have limited supply of. Of our facility, you know, man can get like higher than we can that we can handle which is a good
Eric Alspaugh: That’s good to know. So listeners
Ben Carotta: We’re yet to have an island’s wedding That would be fantastic
Eric Alspaugh: that would really Change the photo gallery, I suppose. I don’t know if you have one.
So maybe I don’t
Ben Carotta: know.
Eric Alspaugh: Well, it was fun talking to you about the unique layout of the facilities.
Staffing and Community Involvement
Eric Alspaugh: How does that affect your ability to staff different types of roles? How do you hire, [00:23:00] maintain, train, and keep morale up and can continuously improve the environment? Because I know personally from coming in to the parking lot, it is Impeccable.
It’s perfectly clean. There’s nothing out of order. How are you able to do that kind of Staffing and do you use any special systems or software? Turning it over to you.
Ben Carotta: Sure. Um, Honestly, like I think that first of all, we’ve been very lucky with staff for the last four years in the sense that like We’ve been able to retain good people right now not everyone hired in how Yeah, that’s the big question.
Eric Alspaugh: Okay. Yeah.
Ben Carotta: Okay. So that’s a good question. How are we retaining our good people? [00:24:00] I feel like we pay them pretty well We’ve set up good benefits for them And most of our staff are like graduated high school. They’re either in college or they’ve chosen not to go to college, but they’re like 19 to 25 is as is the majority of my staff.
Um, so we pay them really well. We’re giving them benefits, meaning we pay for their health insurance. We pay for their dental, we pay for their vision. Um, we set up 401k plans for them that we contribute to. Um, and more importantly, like we treat them with respect, like there’s very rarely do I have to put on my like boss hat and like get on anyone to be honest with you, like that hardly ever happens.
And I’m, I’m personally very uncomfortable in that [00:25:00] situation. I’m much more comfortable in a. Like, like in a friendly type way, meaning like we’re all friends here and we’re all in this together and hey, can you guys help me with this? You know what I mean? As opposed to, go do your job, this and that, barking orders.
I don’t think people respond well to that. Um, that’s never really been the environment that we’ve had. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think we just treat people with respect. We pay them more than, you know, similar positions would. Uh, we have nice perks. You get, you know, you walk in, you want a Gatorade? Grab it. You want chips?
Grab it. Um, you get a free meal every day. That’s pretty cool. Um, stuff like that, dude. It’s you know, um, And I understand that a lot of companies like don’t May not have the luxury of [00:26:00] providing health care or complimentary snacks and energy drinks to their staff members. And, you know, I get that, but, um, we’re fortunate enough to where we were able to treat our staff like that, you know, um, that’s not to say that every single person that we’ve hired has been.
I
Eric Alspaugh: do want to talk about legal pitfalls and things that have, that you can give my listeners some, some lessons, either hard fought, legal related, whether employee employment based or other situations that have you had to, um, Yeah, and it’s going to dovetail with a couple of things I want to bring up because I’ve worked with you in the nonprofits and you, uh, donating time to the community with previously the back nine [00:27:00] foundation.
And I want to hear more about your current nonprofit support that you do with, uh, underserved children and groups at the islands. Um, so I’m kind of pivoting right now. You take good care of your employees, share with us, a lot of my listeners, I hope, are entrepreneurs and starting a business. So I want to get some lessons learned from you who has been through the process.
Ben Carotta: Sure. Um, lessons learned from you. Regarding staff or from on the legal aspect,
Eric Alspaugh: both, you know, and if is there overlap and should they bring in lawyers earlier or later? Have you had to, would use lawyers? I would,
Voice-Over: um,
Ben Carotta: you certainly have been extremely helpful. Um, [00:28:00] as a resource at the very least so that I can like. Have a number to call to bounce something off of, or, you know, at, at the very least, um, as far as getting started, I mean, we couldn’t have acquired the range without the help of, of legal representations, which you did.
I couldn’t have started my nonprofit. Without your guidance, um, you know, now maybe some people do have that depth of knowledge and can just streamline it themselves, but for me, like. A lot easier sometimes to ask somebody that actually knows what they’re doing instead of me trying to figure out what I’m doing, you know, um, now with respect to like staff, it’s not something in California, [00:29:00] it’s, it’s not something that you, you want to be like messing around with is with respect to, um, hiring, firing, lead people going on leave.
Um, you know, uh, California is very. Employee and worker friendly, which I take no issue with. I, uh, I am much more of a historical laborer like throughout my life than I am a business like owner or a manager. So like, I take no issue with that, but yeah, I think that if you, if you’re just getting started with like interviewing and hiring people, like.
Familiarize yourself with the do’s and the don’ts. Um, I w you know, I would definitely put yourself through some like. Sexual harassment training videos. [00:30:00] Um, just so that you can like see another perspective of like, Oh, okay. Like, here’s our, the do’s and the don’ts of the current landscape. Like don’t ever do this.
Don’t ever do that just to get you thinking that way. Right.
Eric Alspaugh: Do you have any, uh, resources off the top of your head or referrals? Because I don’t, I don’t really do employment litigation types of issues. Uh, is there a resource that you, uh, use regularly or can refer to people who. Might be interested in using that, that type of consulting.
Ben Carotta: Part of training resources. Is that what you’re talking about? Yeah.
Eric Alspaugh: Yeah. Do you have any off the top of your head?
Ben Carotta: Yeah. Whatever payroll company you set yourself up with, let’s just say paychecks. Um, they’re going to have an HR package for you. That is. Going to give you access to a lot of that stuff.
Eric Alspaugh: Okay.[00:31:00]
Ben Carotta: Termination training, like your payroll company is going to have a human resources arm to it that then will contain a massive library of documents. Uh, training videos, stuff like that, that, uh, you will not only have access to, but then you can also like, uh, put your staff through, right. To make sure that everyone’s on the same page of what’s expected of them.
You know, fantastic. Yeah.
Eric Alspaugh: So you’ve done, uh, well, we met working and developing a nonprofit many, many years ago, and I really enjoyed that experience. And that’s where you were able to help people through the use of, of golf by providing free golf services at various golf driving ranges, and even [00:32:00] even golf courses.
And so I know that you’ve had a long tradition of serving your community. Can you tell me about what volunteer organization you’re working with currently, what they do, and if people want to participate or support that?
Ben Carotta: Sure. Um, so I think the, the first T of Orange County is probably like where I’m focusing a little bit more of my time, which is, so that’s a non profit.
Uh, that focuses on youth development, uh, through golf. So they help incorporate, uh, different life skills and character skills, uh, while teaching golf to kids for basically free. I mean, if, if basically anybody that wants to get their kid into it, if you need financial assistance, they’ll give it to you and I appreciate the scholarship you upon request.
And if, if [00:33:00] you’re going to pay for it. It’s like 10 bucks a class, maybe 15, something like that, which, um, is like, that’s super cheap. I mean, it’s cheaper than babysitting. Um, so that’s a, that’s a group that I’ve been involved with for a long time. That’s how I got my started islands actually. I started as a volunteer over there, and then I got a job with them there.
Uh, they ended up leaving the islands. Um, and then I ended up coming back on my own and started my own kids program. Uh, and then that was right before I took over the entire facility. Once I did that, then I brought the first team back to the islands. That’s actually where they started the Orange County chapter.
So it’s pretty cool to bring them back. Even that, that was probably three years ago. So they still have classes with us probably three, four days a week. Um, I helped with some of their fundraising [00:34:00] activities.
Volunteering and Community Involvement
Ben Carotta: Um, I contribute some of my time and efforts to like, Uh, finding their program in different ways, uh, yeah, uh, awesome.
Yeah, they’re pretty rad. Um, trying to think anything else.
Eric Alspaugh: Is there a, do you want to give a plug for them on how people can find them? I don’t know how you, how you spell or do they have a website or give a plug for them?
Ben Carotta: Yeah, it’s the first like spelled out f i r s t T as in T E, uh, of Orange County. So that’s the local chapter here, but they are a national organization.
Uh, they always need volunteers. It’s super fun that like all of their classes are very game based. So it’s all like. different activities or team games and competitions, you know, who can get it in the hoop when chipping or putting and stuff like that. Uh, they always need [00:35:00] volunteers at the very least. So if you’re bored and you want to do something fun with your time and, uh, make some little kids have a good time, then that’s a good option.
And I wish, like, once this is done, Eric, and I’m, like, not working so hard, I’m going back to volunteering to teach kids how to golf, for sure. Very cool. Yeah.
Eric Alspaugh: Uh,
Ben Carotta: I, I really
Eric Alspaugh: like.
Ben Carotta: Got it right now.
Eric Alspaugh: I. I get a lot more back when I’m serving and given back to the community. I always feel like, uh, it’s so rewarding and, um, I really commend you.
And I’ve known you as a volunteer and a service, uh, provider for these kids at no cost for years. I mean, that’s how we met. So I appreciate you. And I hope that people listening to this get to know the islands golf center and understand that. You have a commitment to service, and if they are able to support your, uh, [00:36:00] facility and venue, that they will be supporting a real community supported group, and you’re giving back.
So, that’s my plug for you. I really appreciate all you’ve done for the community. Um, because the islands is in such a unique, uh, location, a unique venue.
Navigating Business Challenges During COVID-19
Eric Alspaugh: What kind of things do you see about the, we went through COVID and because of that, you saw some really unique challenges because people couldn’t, couldn’t get together, but you guys were outside.
Can you tell us how? That impacted your business and maybe where your business is at is now. And how, because of that, would you change anything going into the future?
Ben Carotta: Yeah. Um, so we actually took the place over, I think five weeks before COVID [00:37:00] and we took it over with nothing. Then I, I mean, I maybe have like 50, 000 bucks.
Which was a loan right upon day one and then five weeks later were closed for this thing called like Coronavirus that nobody knows anything about all I know is I just took this place over I have like this much money that isn’t even mine and now my business looks right
Right. It was, but it ended up being a blessing. So we retained our staff, which was probably foolish. Nobody knew how long this was going to last, right? Yeah, for sure. But anyway, I didn’t want to fire these people because that would make me like a butthead, right? So we’re going to keep them and I’m sure it’ll be fine.
So [00:38:00] now you also have to keep in mind, this place was a wreck, like a total wreck. So we were closed. We’re like, great. Now we can like get to work. And I have four or five people here to help me. So we got as much stuff as we could done during that COVID lockdown. It’s also an incredible place to be like isolated, right?
Cause we had our own 20 acre property and plenty of work to do. Everybody else was like, hold up in their apartment, like dying to go outside and do something. And we were like, we were just loving life. Um, sadly, like, you know, thousands of plants with a shovel. You know, doing grunt work, but like when we were able to reopen and golf was one of the first places that were able to reopen, we had made a significant dent in the ugliness of the property so that once people I was like, [00:39:00] Oh, this place is not bad, you know, like, it’s actually pretty decent.
Had we not been given that like closed down window to get so much stuff done It would have taken us probably six months to a year So we had a good product for them once we were able to reopen and then we just got exposed to so many different people that were not golfers. They just, there was literally nothing else to do.
You know, I’m pretty open about that.
Operational Overhauls and Innovations
Ben Carotta: Um, but for the next, for the next probably three years, We did not stop making, like fixing the place, making it better. And a lot of the stuff that we did was not customer facing. It was like operational structural stuff that, um, had to happen in order for us to build a kitchen [00:40:00] or open a golf shop.
It’s like, we need to get the driving range. To where it can handle this level of traffic because no Like that place was not built to have this much traffic meaning like what? Yeah, can I you want me to keep going on that?
Eric Alspaugh: I I do but in particular Were there any? software systems. How did you, how did you really handle the scaling?
You’re talking about the number of people and I know 90, I think I’ve been there with 80 hats and you’re up at 92 mats, uh, logistically with the parking lot, food service, golf shop and ball dispensers and collecting balls off of a lake. What kind of systems, systems? Did you have, was there legacy software?
Do you use software? How, how did you handle that? [00:41:00]
Ben Carotta: Well, when I say like operational stuff, I’m talking about the golf balls, right? So, okay, like they’re all going into this lake and they’re all going into all these bushes everywhere and the lake is not like a man made lake. It’s actually an old gravel pit.
So, there’s like chunks of freeway And rebar and small caves. It’s, it’s basically a golf ball eating monster. It’s a 15 acre. Like you could not think of a worse place to put a driving range from like an operational standpoint. Right. It’s beautiful. It’s a bunch of rubble. And then the water level goes up and down.
So like. When we got to it, the thing was, it was all false, right? So we ended up having to like, I think we spent, Oh, it was close to a quarter million dollars project [00:42:00] that we had. We installed 50, 000 square feet. 50, 000 square feet of heavy duty plastic netting underwater with scuba divers. And it took us over a month.
So that Wow, I didn’t
Eric Alspaugh: know about this.
Ben Carotta: Yeah, so that, it was an incredibly gnarly project, dude. Like, because we were doing it. They were diving. We were like laboring all of this material around. And like hoisting up 50 foot netting panels. Yeah. Yeah. and drawn it out underwater. It was, it was really something, but wow.
But we basically blanketed half of the basin underwater so that those golf balls couldn’t float into all those nooks and crannies so that we could actually like retain the balls to [00:43:00] basically so that we could keep up with the traffic that was coming at us. Back in the day there was like nobody going there.
So like it just wasn’t that big of a deal once people start coming out Then it’s like we’re we can’t retrieve these balls out of the rocks fast enough. You know what I mean? so okay, we had to fix that part of it and get the Golf ball situation under control which included like building additional boats Making sure we had enough motors to swap in and out because the motors are always crapping out on us Uh, wow And get that get that chaos under control so that we can talk about opening a kitchen right because if Driving range itself is a mess.
Like we can’t have a kitchen and you definitely can’t have, you know, so yeah, it [00:44:00] was quite a, it’s been quite a process. So where we’re at kind of now is like, um, we had a big push over winter. There was a good list of customer facing improvements. That we made, we added more shade, we added more parking. Uh, we put like a safety divider between every single stall.
Uh, we put all new mats out. Um, we built an entire thousand feet of fence, uh, as like a safety barrier between the hitter and the lake itself. Um, we rebuilt targets. Like we had a huge push this winter while it was slow to like get all of this done. And then now I don’t want to. I don’t want to change anything.
I’m like, we, yeah, I’m going to take it.
Eric Alspaugh: Awesome. I didn’t know [00:45:00] about, I mean, I knew a little bit about the logistics of turning over the balls, capturing, cleaning, getting them back on land, into the machines to get dispensed and then starting to cycle over again. But I had no idea of the infrastructure due to the, the, the shape of the lake and what’s under there.
Ben Carotta: It’s, it’s, it’s still a mess, like, I was literally crawling around in the bushes covered in ants this morning. I’m not, like, exaggerating.
Voice-Over: And
Ben Carotta: I’ll be back in there tomorrow. Because it’s just, like, once they start dropping that water level, golf balls get stranded, and it’s just part of it, you know? And if we don’t, I don’t have the option not to pick them up, like, You know, a lot of times it’s like I can’t have staff do because it doesn’t really check like the safety box for me, you
Eric Alspaugh: know, time out.
You can’t say that. [00:46:00]
Ben Carotta: No, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t ask other staff members to do it. I do it myself because Some of it I, I, I don’t feel it’s safe enough for a staff member to do, so I’ll just do it myself. Wow. Is that still time out?
Eric Alspaugh: I don’t know. Talk to your insurance broker. Something on the inside of me is screaming no, but I don’t really know.
My
Ben Carotta: legal advisor, so.
Eric Alspaugh: You’re, you’re responsible for yourself and I, I don’t know who you, who you’re going to be able to sue except for yourself since you’re the boss. Mostly. Probably.
Voice-Over: Okay.
Eric Alspaugh: Okay. Um, so where, so that’s fantastic. I mean, you’ve done nothing but work for years and taken advantage of slow times to invest in the infrastructure and operations we, and I know now that you’ve really just [00:47:00] You’ve got the place hitting on all cylinders.
Do you use software? How do you maintain scheduling and things like that? Do you, did you have to invest in software or any other type of?
Ben Carotta: Yeah. Um, well, we, we have a few different softwares that we run primarily for point of sale. Okay. Like QuickBooks, obviously on the backend, um, paychecks runs, we ended up signing up with paychecks PEO, which is like their group purchasing arm.
So paychecks handles. Payroll, HR, uh, all of our health benefits, 401k, workers comp. So like a lot of big chunk of that back end stuff all goes under them, which I’m sorry, [00:48:00] I’m not recommending them to anyone. I’m just answering your question. I am not advocating for them. I, you know, they’re of my least favorite vendors, but they, that is where most of our stuff goes through, uh, where it’s.
We have three different points of sales. The, uh, our golf balls run through one software. So like the ball machines themselves, you can just go tap to pay much like a vending machine, uh, which is pretty cool. Uh, the kitchen has its own software. Uh, they run Clover, which has been honestly like Clover’s been very solid over there.
Um, and then the golf runs. Four up, uh, which does not only the golf shop retail aspect, but then also like the driving range, uh, golf ball sales and four up is not bad. Uh, that’s pretty much it for our software. As far as [00:49:00] like, uh, scheduling, I still make a paper schedule. Um, probably not the most efficient, but like, I, I don’t, I like physically writing, so, I don’t know.
Eric Alspaugh: Okay. That’s amazing. Just the, I, I don’t know, most people don’t have three entirely separate run kind of businesses in one location. So those, that poses unique challenges.
Ben Carotta: It does. And, and unfortunately they’re all tied together. You know what I mean? Like, um, if somebody calls out of the kitchen, then I need to take somebody out of the golf shop and put them in there, which then stresses out that department and the kitchen department.
Uh, you know, if something goes wrong on the dock, then I need to pull somebody out of the golf shop and send them to the boat to deal with balls. It’s just, it’s all, yeah, it’s [00:50:00] all unfortunately connected, man. And honestly, if I don’t have enough golf balls floating around, then I need to, that’s going to mess up everyone’s day because then I need to pull people from the golf shop and send them down to the boat to work.
Basically we need to be working double time because half of my golf balls are stuck on the, on the side of the lake, on the ground. Right.
Voice-Over: Wow.
Ben Carotta: Uh, meanwhile, customers like. They don’t care. They’re coming for us by the thousands regardless, you know, so it’s
Wow, it’s just kind of work, but It’s good problems to have
Voice-Over: you know
Ben Carotta: But staff can take a beating over there. That’s for sure.
Eric Alspaugh: Yeah, okay, so um Kind words for the staff you take care of them Financially you try to take care of them emotionally You You [00:51:00] try to feed them.
Ben Carotta: I mean, it’s being that it’s, and that’s part of the reason we wanted to make it so like staff friendly over there is because we learned very quickly, like immediately that this is a very labor intensive property, and if we. And it’s also, it takes a while to train people, you know what I mean? Especially you’re getting them to do something that no one does anywhere else.
It’s not like you have prior experience retrieving golf balls with a boat. That’s not a job, right? I have turnover here. Like if we get good people, we need to lock them in, especially cause the plan was, okay, we have this one business, but we also want to grow it. We want to have three businesses here.
That was always the plan. And I can’t do that if I’m constantly having turnover and stuff like that, you [00:52:00] know, um, so big, very, very important for staff, um, We’ve got up to almost 30, 30 staff members now, which is pretty cool. Yeah. And I’ve been, my, my personal workload has gotten a lot better. Uh, definitely spend a little more time at the house, the family, even find a vacation while, so yeah, I can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel these days.
Eric Alspaugh: That’s great. That is so fantastic. Uh, I’m. Thank you for the update. I’m so proud of what you’ve accomplished and what you’re continuing to do and giving back.
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Eric Alspaugh: Do you have any, uh, words of encouragement for people who might be thinking about, uh, getting a side hustle or becoming an entrepreneur? Do you have any advice?
Ben Carotta: Um, that’s a, that’s a pretty [00:53:00] loaded question. Like that is such a massive question that could go in like. Every direction possible. Um, I go from being like optimistic on small businesses to being like super pessimistic, you know, depending on what the business is, like, um, There’s a lot, like, you want me to be optimistic or pessimistic, Eric?
Which, which one are we rooting for? If you, if you had, Oh, right. You need to be a skeptic. Okay, so like, I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was a child. Very, very young. I’ve had some successes and I’ve had some failures, for sure. Um, but like, now, When I start looking, cause I, I, I still an entrepreneur and I still want to get involved in new things or different things.
Right. [00:54:00] But when I look at them now, like I don’t have the same like green, uh, perspective of like, Oh, I can, this is a fantastic idea. Look at all the money I can make. I look at it more like from a practical standpoint, how much work is it going to be? Do I have the time and energy to give that? Is that work like what are the downsides of that?
What are the risks associated with it? Will it be a worthwhile adventure? You know, um, so I look at it from a much more skeptical standpoint,
which I, that would be, I would encourage that for it for people because it’s so easy for us to get caught up in the upside, right? Especially if it’s like our idea that we’re [00:55:00] passionate about. I’ve made that mistake several times with and I couldn’t see the the counter argument, you know to my my theories um,
Voice-Over: okay,
Ben Carotta: but at the same time like while I am pessimistic about a lot of small businesses And just basically based on like how difficult it is um example like if you Or open up a small restaurant in a random strip mall like That’s going to be a grind because labor’s through the roof.
Food costs is through the roof. Your rent’s going to be through the roof. Like you’re going to have to end up working your tail off to maybe survive. Like that’s it’s, it’s difficult conditions. With that being said, I look at all my staff members that are getting paid Let’s say 22 24 bucks an hour right with benefits.
[00:56:00] That’s pretty good However, I don’t know how you pay your own rent on that like I’m looking at the cost of living these days and I’m wanting to like Shake my staff members and be like you guys need to start a business. I don’t know what but like, you know, they’re the I don’t know any other way to do it right now.
It’s so expensive to live Wages are never going to get high enough to do that Like you guys at some point are gonna have to take some risk and like get going out there and honestly, so one of my You Bosses told me the same thing as well. So Benny, you need to be more entrepreneurial. And this was back when I was washing golf carts at a country club, like eight years ago.
Eric Alspaugh: Okay. So that’s our, uh, advice, which is, Hey, everybody, the, the world right now is a [00:57:00] challenge working for somebody is a grind. Starting a new project is going to be difficult. There’s likelihoods of success and failure. You don’t know because you’re going to be possibly blinded by your own biases. Uh, but I, what I’m hearing from you is you’re not going to survive if you don’t take a risk these days, you’re going to have to,
Ben Carotta: you can, you can survive.
You know, but like, I don’t know, man, the economy is very difficult right now. And I’m not the only person saying that, like, there’s a whole generation of people right now that have forgotten about buy a home or have children. Like, let’s just be honest with that. They just can’t, they can’t see that for themselves.
You know what I mean? And that’s just the facts. So the only way out of that is, is you, [00:58:00] you, you have to take some risk and figure something else out. Um, yeah, that’s the only way I can see it. Now, my, my advice is when doing that, don’t get blinded in the, the, Oh, look what, look at how great of an idea this is.
I’m going to make so much money. You need to look at it from like a very practical standpoint of like, uh, what are the downsides? And if somebody tries to like tell you the counter argument to your theory, listen to them. They’re not being a dick. They’re not being mean. They’re trying to like, you know, give you the, the, the alternative perspective and then that’s the, that’s the important one,
Eric Alspaugh: you
Ben Carotta: know?
Eric Alspaugh: Oh man, we should have led with that. Um, no, this is fantastic. This is the advice that people, uh, that are entrepreneurs need to hear. And I’m so glad we had the opportunity to really hear it from you who went through that with, uh, ideas [00:59:00] of grandeur. Uh, opened the business, which you knew was not going to be easy, but then to land five weeks into a new business with, uh, pandemic shutting everything down and then knowing it was going to be a fixer upper.
And just going through all of those struggles and now I, uh, objectively as a financial success and running a community facility that’s giving back is just a testament to hard work and dedication. So I want, uh, can you give people a way to reach out to you or the islands and how they can get in touch?
Sure. Give a plug for your center.
Ben Carotta: Sure. Uh, my email if anybody wants to reach out Uh has been at the islands golf center. com
Eric Alspaugh: Great. You’re so welcome. And you guys, the website guys, um, [01:00:00] and you guys are open, you, uh, seven days a week,
Ben Carotta: correct? Yep. Yep. And
Eric Alspaugh: what are the hours that you’re open?
Ben Carotta: Sure. Um, Mondays like our maintenance day, so that’s when we get to kind of get caught up and do repairs so that Mondays, we don’t open till 3:00 PM every other day.
Okay. We open at 7:00 AM and then we sell buckets until nine 30 at night. Wow.
Eric Alspaugh: All right.
Ben Carotta: Yeah.
Eric Alspaugh: Well,
Ben Carotta: We have long days, sir.
Eric Alspaugh: Great. Well, thank you for sharing your wisdom and your business experience. And I hope that our listeners will get something out of this.
Ben Carotta: Thanks Eric.
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