Rob Alvarez
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Driving Ranges Are Replacing Bowling Alleys (Here’s Why) | Episode 454

  Listen on SpotifyListen on Apple PodcastsAvailable on YouTube Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Frédéric Guitton, who leads sales and marketing at iTargetGolf after a career across banking, startups, financial services, and investment firms, explains how driving ranges are turning dead space into an interactive, gamified experience. He walks through the company’s product line, including the iTarget Night Saber target that connects to Toptracer, Inrange, and Trackman through an API, the in-bay lights that fire when a player hits their target, and the new Cash Cup Golf hole-in-one contest played with RFID balls. Guitton lays out the three levers a driving range has for revenue, why post-COVID golf growth came from entertainment rather than traditional rounds, and how instant feedback keeps a player buying one more bucket. Listeners come away with a working model of physical gamification and a reminder that designing around real human behavior beats asking people to behave better.

About the Host

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Key Takeaways

  • A driving range has only three levers for revenue, according to Frédéric Guitton: sell more balls, sell more food and beverage, or sell the balls for more money. Every engagement decision at iTargetGolf traces back to one of those three.
  • iTargetGolf’s first targets were powder-coated metal and looked great, but ball picker staff bumped them and metal does not give, so it bent or broke permanently. The replacement is cut from utility sewer pipe and survives 400 to 500 pounds driving over it.
  • Post-COVID golf growth came from entertainment, not from more rounds on traditional courses. Guitton describes the driving range starting to replace the bowling alley as the family night out, which brings in an audience that never came to practice.
  • The iTarget Night Saber target connects through an API to Toptracer, Inrange, and Trackman ball tracking, so a landed ball triggers an animation within seconds. That instant feedback is Core Drive 2 (Development and Accomplishment) delivered in the physical world.
  • Choosing low voltage over high voltage took permitting out of the install path. A California range that signed in mid-June started its install roughly four weeks later, which turned an infrastructure decision into a sales advantage.
  • Guitton frames the B2B2C tension plainly: the range’s success drives iTargetGolf’s success, so the company treats itself as a consequence of its customers’ results rather than a driver of them.

Topics Covered

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

About Frédéric Guitton

Frédéric Guitton leads the sales and marketing strategy at iTargetGolf, where he is helping redefine the driving range experience through interactive down-range technology. He relocated from France to Central Florida in 1996 and built a career in banking before expanding into startups, financial services, and investment firms, developing experience across business strategy, operations, sales, marketing, and executive leadership. At iTargetGolf he works on a product line that combines interactive illuminated targets, skill-based cash prize games, and integrated ball-tracking technology to increase player engagement and open new revenue for golf facilities. His current focus is building scalable systems, strengthening customer relationships, expanding strategic partnerships, and positioning the company in the evolution of golf entertainment technology.

Find the Guest Online

Mentioned in This Episode

Some links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Recommended book: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Proposed guest: Scott Armstrong, involved with TGL, the indoor golf competition on ESPN
  • Ball tracking platforms iTargetGolf integrates with: Toptracer, Inrange, Trackman
  • Topgolf, referenced as the far end of the golf entertainment spectrum
  • iTargetGolf products discussed: iTarget Night Saber, iTarget Strike Point, in-bay lights, and Cash Cup Golf
  • Favorite game to watch: volleyball. Favorite sport to play: cycling.

Free Resources and Get in Touch

Looking forward to reading or hearing from you, Rob   Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Opening and introduction

Rob Alvarez (00:07): So, engagers, welcome back to another episode of the Professor Game Podcast, which is the number one gamification podcast. And we explore how games, gamification, and game thinking help us boost engagement, multiply retention, and build stronger products. And I’m Rob, I’m the founder. I’m also a coach here at Professor Game. I’m the Head of Engagement Strategy at The Octalysis Group, a leading gamification consultancy, and I’m a professor of gamification and game-based solutions at global institutions like IE Business School, EFMD, EBS University, and many others around the world. And before we dive into today’s conversation, if you’re struggling in any way with retention, churn, or engagement for your product, service, or business, and you want to turn that around, we have got you covered, as I would say. You can find very easily by clicking on the link below our Core Drives in the Wild guide. All you need to do is click there, put your email, and you’ll get it right to you. And let’s get started with today’s interview because we have Frédéric with us today. I made that sound very American, but it’s more like Frédéric or something like that, I’m guessing. So we have Frédéric with us today. Guit, Guitton, Guitton, I’m not there, there I’m completely lost. I’m attempting my French pronunciation because he was relocated from France to Central Florida back in 1996 and began a successful career in banking before expanding his expertise into startups, financial services, and investment firms. And throughout his career, he has developed extensive experience in business strategy, operations, sales, marketing, and executive leadership, helping organizations build sustainable growth, execute innovative business initiatives, and working alongside entrepreneurs. His passion lies in developing strategic growth initiatives, scalable systems, fostering meaningful partnerships and turning opportunities into measurable results. And talking about measurable results, you probably see some of the stuff if you’re seeing the video that he has behind him, which is probably gonna be part of our maximum focus today with iTarget. But Frédéric, is there anything that we’re missing from that intro? Frédéric Guitton (02:08): No man, you make me sound good. And now I’ve gotta live up to that expectation. So great to be here, great to connect with you.

Inside a week at iTargetGolf

Rob Alvarez (02:17): Amazing. So if we were to follow you around nowadays, and just sort of shadow you and see what you’re up to, what would we see? How would we feel? What would a day or a week, whatever you want to go for, look like? Frédéric Guitton (02:29): You would probably say, well, it’s not that exciting. It’s getting in, just a quick catch up with John who’s the founder of the company, usually five, ten minutes, say what’s going on today. I’ll go into reviewing quick pipeline, what do we have? You know, how many projects we have to follow up with today, installations, things like that. We have a team that just flew out to California last night to do an installation. I’m flying out on Thursday to Illinois to visit a customer. So it’s like programming the week kind of stuff on Mondays, quick pipeline review. There’s always some technical things we talk about, you know, progress on different projects we have. But then it’s execution, frankly. It’s just get to work and actually place the calls, do the follow-ups, and take the time to think through what has to be done, prioritize carefully. So, you know, pretty boring.

Favorite fail: metal targets that bend

Rob Alvarez (03:25): So if your weeks are boring, right, as you were describing, I’m guessing that maybe we will find some stuff as well in your stories. Because as you know, we like to start with our what we call our favorite fail or first attempt in learning, especially if it relates to things like what you’re doing at iTarget Golf. So is there anything that you can tell us about? Of course, I know you worked with many companies, entrepreneurs, NDAs, and all that, but is there anything that you can tell us either openly because there’s no NDA, or you can sanitize anything that cannot be said live on air. Frédéric Guitton (03:57): Yeah, no, of course. I mean, first of all, I think failing is healthy. Like if you don’t have any scars, I think it means you haven’t been playing the game real hard. So you’re supposed to have some failures as part of the game. With iTarget Golf, in terms of failure, I look at them as lessons, right? We first designed targets in a certain way, like with using metal, for example, and they looked really cool with powder coating and everything. But then over time we figured out that the ball picker kids on the driving range would bump into them, sometimes not so gently. And while metal has a lot of advantages, the problem is that it doesn’t give. So it either breaks or it bends. And whatever damage is done is permanent. So it’s not elastic. So that was kind of a fail of, yeah, it looks really cool, but in real-life application, we really had to pivot pretty quick to design a new type of target that could absorb, you know, not great human behavior. You could start with the owner and go, well, just tell your staff to be more careful. And that would sound like being a car manufacturer saying, we don’t need to make the car safer, they just need to drive better. That would not land. And so that was kind of a fail in a way, but also I think it forced us to really think through, okay, what else could happen in human behavior that we haven’t figured out. So those are like simple kind of little fails like that that you live in like real life experience, which is why you have to go to market, you have to put the product out and you have to be ready to pivot when the time comes. Rob Alvarez (05:37): Absolutely. And one of the things that interested me most when you were saying that is that you have to account for what people actually do. So behaviors, because as far as I know from your solution, you’re doing two things there, right? Like one of them is helping people play the game and play more and so on. So you’re targeting the behavior there. But then you’re also at the same time, as you were describing, you’re accounting for the existing behavior. When I say that, the thing is when you want to change behaviors, in your case, you’re also using physical infrastructure, so you have to account for what’s already there. Because you could have just be more careful with the stuff. Yes, of course. But you can go into a change management kind of, you know, how do we do this different and change your whole organization, or say, look, this is what there is. Can we work around it and make this still work? And it sounds like you actually did. What did that solution look like? How did you think about it perhaps differently after that?

Sewer pipes and the strike point redesign

Frédéric Guitton (06:34): So we figured out what is the most resistant to difficult environments and ultimately we came up with using a product that is used actually in the utility industry. The large plastic tubes that you see for like the sewer systems and things like that. And actually we cut them. And so now you have, I could run a truck over them and those things won’t break. It’s like, you know, because they’re buried underground when there are tons of debris. So then, using almost like a roofing type structure, so then it can absorb shocks and deal with the elements. Because that’s another factor for us when we think about physical, when we install our targets, right? And just for context for people, we have a target that’s called a strike point, where the ball hits the target and there’s a reaction from the target. And there is a product that’s called Night Saber, which reacts to the software side of things. And so on the strike point, there’s a very large surface, and so what happens is the ball picker could end up driving over it. So we have to have something that could handle four or five hundred pounds of weight and not break. But it has to still be metal on the top to feel the impact of the ball so our sensors can sense it. So you had to play with that. So it’s always been interesting to learn, okay, what’s going to work, the behavior of the player, what they want as far as feedback. But again, to your point, the behavior of the business, how do they take care of their stuff? Rob Alvarez (08:13): Yeah, it makes it also more costly and all the things that are involved. Interesting. Frédéric Guitton (08:19): Yeah, I mean it’s actually funny. The most costly thing is a bad customer experience. And I think this is where you don’t wanna be penny wise, dollar foolish. I think that, you know, I see a lot of people trying to value engineer everything and that’s not necessarily a good solution because at some point you will pay if you don’t build it according to what the needs really are. You’re gonna pay for it either in poor experience for the customer, a lot of warranty work, customer service, you know, so I think you have to be really strategic about that.

The four products iTargetGolf builds

Rob Alvarez (09:01): So you start introducing what iTarget Golf actually is about, but of course if somebody who has never heard of it or done anything around it is probably gonna have no idea what we’re talking about. So could you give us the gist of what you guys actually do? Frédéric Guitton (09:14): Yeah. So what we do is that we are helping golf ranges transform the experience for the players into an interactive gamified experience. And we do that by delivering four different kinds of products. We have a Night Saber target, it’s called, which actually is built and through an API is connected to ball tracking systems like Toptracer, like Inrange or Trackman. Those are the three biggest in the world. We’re the only ones fully integrated with all three of them. Rob Alvarez (09:44): So you literally put something inside the ball of golf? Frédéric Guitton (09:47): No, those systems send us through software the information. Most of the stats of software they’ll use like radar technology, video technology to do the ball tracking. They don’t use RFID type trackers. So it’s just visual. So they send us information and they say, hey, a ball landed five meters from this target. And so based on that, we create an animation for that target, right? So there’s an instant gratification for the golfer. The strike point is based on the ball impact. So it hits the target, which is a large surface, you know, it’s about four meters across, or we have a larger one that’s almost five and a half meters across. We have an in-bay target, in-bay light. So now it’s like if you’re in bay number four and you hit the blue target, that’s driven by the software as well. The light in the ceiling of your bay turns blue and animates, so you get to go, I did that, which is a big thing in golf, right? It’s like personal gratification and successful outcomes. And then we have a product called Cash Cup Golf, which is brand new to market. Actually, we’ve just bring the first one live right now, which is a hole in one contest. For that we do use RFID balls, a separate ball that people buy, premium ball, to win cash prizes if they make a hole in one on a target that we set on the golf range. So just to really gamify the experience of the players of the driving range. Rob Alvarez (11:14): So you’re discussing a few of the products you have, the latest one as well. Is there one of them where the story of it coming into fruition is something you would say, well, we’re really proud of this thing and how it’s developed, and what are some of the key things that went well in that sense of how you gamified that experience?

How a general contractor started the company

Frédéric Guitton (11:31): Yeah, so what we’re really proud of, I’d say first and foremost, is how we got to even exist as a business. It’s not like someone just said, we should do this. John is a general contractor and he was actually building a lot of the concrete work and so forth for driving ranges to build cover bays. And owners and players came to him and said, man, you know, all the in-bay space is really cool, like the screens and the experience, the ball dispenser. But down the range, it’s still a field. And we put some lights and everything, but it’s still a dead space, right? And you’re like, all right. And so they’re like, it’d be cool if we could have something more interactive. And so that’s how the company came to be. And I’m proud about the fact that John didn’t just go, yeah, that would be cool. He actually did something about it. And he really invested and leaned into this to figure out how can we make that work? And what I’m proud of of what happened is that we focused primarily on making it as easy as possible for the range to put that solution in place. Like bad ideas would have been we’re gonna put high voltage systems in the range. So now you’re dealing with permitting, a lot of constraints. So we built a low voltage system. So we really thought about user experience, and that’s been very successful because now driving ranges call and go, you know, how long will it take to go live? And we just did a deal in California. I talked to the guy, I think it was like middle of June, and we’re starting the install today. Like in four weeks, he’s going live. And he’s like, how is that possible? I was like, we built it because it’s just low voltage, so it’s actually easy to do, and it’s not a big constraint for your range to deal with permitting and all that kind of things. And it’s also pretty affordable. So I was really proud of how we tackled it with a consumer-centric approach. Rob Alvarez (13:24): And you saw that there was this need for people wanted to be more engaged and there seemed to be what we call in the Octalysis framework, we talk about the business metrics. This I gather from the pre-conversation we had before, where you were talking about how once you do this, and again, I don’t know if you designed for it or it’s a consequence of the design, like how it happened, but it seems like you were targeting getting people to be longer in the range, which, you know, have the business metrics and oftentimes you get somebody who’s like, yeah, the business, business, business. But then if the user is not getting better or getting something, quote unquote, out of it, then those can fail a bit or not be as positive as they could be. But here it’s like being more in the range or being more in the golf field is something that golfers actually like. So it’s a nice place where the sort of ethical bribe that you’re bringing in is working, amongst other things probably because they do want to be more in the range, they just needed that extra bit that you’re providing. So when you are thinking about creating the system and all of the feedback loops that you create in there, I think you seem to be quite focused on Core Drive 2 (Development and Accomplishment), right? Because they’re getting this feeling of I’m getting better and getting better and getting better. Look how I progress, right? And this is my progress, Core Drive 4 (Ownership and Possession). How did you think about this? Like how did it come through? Was it just like, let’s just see how we can make it flashy, or was there something more? Like what was your thought process when you guys were creating this?

Golf as entertainment after COVID

Frédéric Guitton (14:58): Yeah, so there was a couple of things. One, you know, talking with driving ranges, asking them, and also frankly, looking at the industry, the golf industry as a whole, right? If you look at the golf industry as a whole, golf has actually grown substantially the past, especially post-COVID. There was like a big rise in golf activity. But it was not just in selling more rounds of golf on a traditional golf course. It was people playing golf as entertainment. Kind of a driving range starting to replace the bowling alley in a way, right? So now that audience is different, right? It’s not like the golfer that wants the silence and that more like, let’s say, noble kind of golf experience that we’re accustomed to thinking about. This is more an entertainment venue. And so we had to really think about what about that audience?

Three ways a driving range makes money

Frédéric Guitton (15:57): And so now we start thinking about how does a driving range drive more revenue? And really there is only three ways. You sell more balls, you sell more food and beverage, or you sell the balls for more money. That’s basically it. Selling more balls is more people playing, people playing longer, or longer hours of operation. Those are your three levers you have in there. And so we’re like, how do we help that? And so making it more entertaining for the players, also creating that instant reward. But now all of a sudden we start talking about what about that family of two parents, one or two kids, three kids, and they go, what do we want to do tonight? Now it’s like we’ll go to the driving range. It’ll be fun. We’ll have targets to hit at for the kids. It’s fun. And then we’ll get some food. And now all of a sudden that movie night or going to dinner at a restaurant is changing to, hey, the driving range is actually a viable alternative option for us to do something at. So now you’re creating a new audience. So you’re creating more players, right? So more balls, right? By staying longer and making an entertainment experience. But like, I’m not just going there to hit a bucket of balls. I’m gonna hang out here. So I’m gonna buy more food and beverage, because that audience is not here to necessarily just practice golf. I’m here to entertain myself. So different mindset. And then the Cash Cup is where the premium balls come into play in terms of creating a ball that you can sell for a little bit more money, but now there is also a benefit from it, if you accomplish the skill, then you can win cash prizes. So we really thought about it in terms of more hours, broader audience, higher value, but supported by a higher experience. Like all three have to connect. Rob Alvarez (17:38): And talking about that experience, what were the levers that you were trying to pull? If again, whatever your thoughts were there.

Making it fun and creating new golfers

Frédéric Guitton (17:46): Yeah, it was really just make it fun. Honestly, it was just that simple. It’s not like we didn’t go into rocket science conversation. Like people were like, yeah, you know, there was one guy that talked to the owner, he’s like, yeah, I’d love to come here with my grandkids, but it’s kind of stuffy and I like something more fun for them because after thirty minutes they kind of get bored. But now there’s TVs, there’s everything. So it’s like they’re just enjoying quality time. It becomes a social event. And I think that we also play a role in getting more people introduced to golf, right? And I believe that’s part of what we’re supposed to do as golf industry professionals. It’s not just come here to consume food and beverage and hit some balls. It’s also maybe find like a real attraction to the game. You know, you hit a couple of flush balls, that feeling is like, wow, this is cool. I love how that feels. I wonder if I could do this on an actual course. And so now you become a consumer of goods, you maybe buy your own clubs, you buy golf equipment, clothing, shoes, you buy golf lessons, you buy rounds of golf. So the idea also I think in the driving range is to also find new audiences to come and be golf customers. I think that there’s a bigger picture. Even though we don’t benefit from it directly, I do believe that’s part of what we’re supposed to do as a business. Rob Alvarez (19:13): Sounds fantastic. And in this whole journey that you guys have been doing of creating this entertainment, because you know, golf is supposed to be also, it’s a game, it’s a sport. Are there any best practices that you’ve found? Something that you would say, well, maybe I can even use this somewhere else beyond golf and iTarget Golf. Any best practice?

Best practices: listen and stay locked in

Frédéric Guitton (19:35): The best practice is number one, listen. And number two, stay locked in. Don’t go chase every shiny object out there as a business. So yeah, in theory, sure, we could think about it, but there is so much to do in what you know to do. Like I’m a big fan. There’s a guy I did some work with him a long time ago and he was like, you know, people say work on your weaknesses. And he’s like, you don’t become more successful by working on what you’re not good at. You become more successful by working on what you’re good at. And I really believe that. And I think here, yes, could we find other types of applications potentially? Sure. Like could we think about putting hole in one contest in like amusement park type place and that kind of stuff and partner? Yeah. But there is plenty of the right customers, the right partners for us to work with in the space we’re in. And that, you know, for now we’re just staying pretty locked in and really focusing on getting feedback. How do we make it better for you? How do we make you look better? How do we make you more competitive? How do we help you stand out? We’re asking questions about their business because their success drives our success. We’re more a consequence than we are a driver as well. Rob Alvarez (20:49): Yeah, because you have two sort of levels here. I’ve worked in that kind of business as well before, where you have a final consumer who is the one who’s actually using the product and you have somebody you’re selling it to. It’s two completely separate people with very different interests. But both interests are, I don’t know if equally important, but they’re both very important in different ways. So you definitely have to listen to the business side in that sense. Frédéric Guitton (21:13): Yeah. Don’t drink your own Kool-Aid. You know, that’s why, it’s just like just be disciplined about that. Rob Alvarez (21:21): Absolutely. And you know, after hearing these questions and what when we started connecting, I know you heard perhaps a bit of the podcast also. Is there somebody you would like to hear answering these questions? Somebody that maybe has inspired you, or I don’t know. What would that be? Who would that person be? Frédéric Guitton (21:38): You know, I have a buddy of mine, his name is Scott Armstrong, and I love what he does. He’s involved in TGL, which is the indoor golf competition that you see on ESPN. And he’s part of, you know, the people who have really moved golf forward in terms of the visual experience on TV in particular, like the ball tracers and those things, like he was part of all that advancement. And he and I talk somewhat regularly about this and I just love how he thinks about that gamification of golf. But connecting the dots. So like still protecting the game the way it’s meant to be played, right? And so that’s the part I find super interesting, is that yeah, we talk about the entertainment, the fun part of it, but there’s the hyper competitive side of golf, like this mental game, this discipline game and so forth. And so I think those, connecting those dots is super interesting. And he’s a guy who has great insights about that.

Football intelligence and instant feedback

Rob Alvarez (22:45): Absolutely. And you were saying that, and something I’ve been seeing more and more, and even more nowadays with the World Cup, is this sense of they call it something like football intelligence or something like that. Whereas especially for midfielders, that they have to be scanning the field constantly. And I’ve been sort of introduced to this. Like I kind of knew about this already, but it’s been sort of nailing, I think it was my Instagram a lot. So like in the discovery page, I got a lot of these. And it’s essentially VR solutions where you get kids and even young players to start adapting and making sure and they’re being scored on scanning the field and acting upon that. So it’s definitely a gamified application in a way because I’m sure they’re also using that side of the rewards and all that. But it’s interesting how it’s building on that mentality so that it becomes a better reflex to players because you see top players doing that all the time. Frédéric Guitton (23:43): I think it’s funny you mentioned that because I think that there is a part of gamifying slash digitizing, documenting, organizing, right, all of that information. I mean it was years ago, but the point you just made about soccer and football, right? Rob Alvarez (24:02): Yeah, we’re Europeans, I mean I’m in Europe, you’re European as well. So you know, no matter what Americans say, they’re the only ones who call it soccer, right? Frédéric Guitton (24:09): So right, it’s still football. And so I love there was a stat about the best players in the world, how often do they look up at the field versus looking at the ball? And the statistics were incredible. And you ended up with like the top players in the world almost never look at the ball. They’re always playing in context, but they’re never playing in reaction, right? And so you go, he made this pass blind and he didn’t. He just already knew because he had been observing how people moved around, what was going on. He already knew the person was gonna be at that spot and that’s how the pass is. And I love that. And I think in golf, like with the tracking technologies in particular, like the Toptracers, the Trackmans of the world, the Inranges of the world. Like it’s phenomenal. Like you hit a ball and it tells you this is your apex, this is your club speed, this is the direction. Then you can do like groupings to figure out are you consistent or not? And so you can get instant feedback and there’s no BS. Like it is what it is. The data tells you, are you consistent or you’re not consistent? And I love that. Like I think it’s fantastic to see how that digitization of information produced in the game, like it’s used in basketball. It’s used in like volleyball, my son plays volleyball and it’s incredible. Rob Alvarez (25:32): Yeah, and it’s the gathering of the data that has been here since, you know, these kinds of examples came from big data and all this. But then it’s what do you do with that? Because just drowning a player in that information and making them watch the video over and over again might work a bit, but there’s so much more potential in giving instant feedback and actually getting the behavior to change, not just nailing a concept, because you don’t need somebody to memorize in their head what has to be done, their body needs to react as well. So there’s so much to that topic for sure. Frédéric Guitton (26:04): I mean, if we’re gonna nerd out for one quick second about football, one stat I wanna find out and I wanna learn what happened is the change that’s so dramatic this year in terms of the PK scoring percentage versus historical data, because it’s way lower than historically. It’s like sixty percent PK completion compared to seventy five to eighty-five percent. Is it because the keepers have been able to receive aggregate data to understand players’ behavior and they’re better able to predict what they’re going to do? Like I’m just really intrigued by that. And you know, I just think that that stuff is fun. And it ties back to what we’re doing, right? Like you think about golf and people go to a driving range, they play, they see their shots, they see their statistics, and all of a sudden they get hooked. And then they go, you know what, like I hit this last ten shots pretty good. I’m gonna buy another bucket because I wanna do it like twenty more times or whatever. So you get like that drive to keep perfecting what you’re doing. I hit at this target. I lit up the blue target and it’s like 175 yards. I wonder if I can light up the orange target that has 200 yards. And so I’m gonna hit until I hit that target, right? And so like, I mean we’re all somewhat competitive by nature. I think we tend to all be. And so connecting those dots in terms of the gamification of golf where you’re asking earlier, I think is also a part of it. I mean that instant reward of performance. Rob Alvarez (27:40): Makes sense. Would you say there’s a book that you recommend the audience, and of course give us a why?

Outliers, favorite games, and goodbyes

Frédéric Guitton (27:47): It’s gonna be like off the cuff, not off the cuff, but one of my favorite books is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. And the reason why I like this book is that it keeps us humble. Like somehow we think we’ve accomplished things. In reality, more often than not, we’ve just been lucky to be at the right spot at the right time. And so I think staying humble and not, you know, life’s gonna come at you and it’s what you make of it. A lot of people create things, but also a lot of us just happen to be born at the right place at the right time, with the right family, the right friends, the right school, whatever, right? So I think that book is a great book to remind us to be a little bit humble. Rob Alvarez (28:36): Makes sense. And in this whole world where there’s so many entertainment alternatives, what would you say is your favorite game? Frédéric Guitton (28:44): As far as playing or as far as watching? Rob Alvarez (28:47): It’s up to you. And you can betray golf in this one if you want. No one’s gonna know. Frédéric Guitton (28:52): No no no, I’m totally biased and I’ll say like the game I’ve come to really love watching is volleyball, because of my son playing, frankly. So I’ve learned the game and I’ve become a huge fan of the game and even the softwares I track and the statistical and all that kind of stuff. So I think it’s super interesting. So I’ve become a big fan. I can’t play it at all, but I love watching it. As far as playing, I’m a cyclist. So sports wise, I’m a cyclist guy. I’m not big on video stuff. I like to be active, so that’s what my world is right now. Tour de France is going on. So I’ve got the World Cup, Tour de France, it’s awesome. Formula One. Big Formula One fan. Rob Alvarez (29:38): Good days, good days, absolutely. Okay, cool. Like cars. Absolutely. So Frédéric, I don’t want to let you go before I give you a minute or two to just complete anything that you left unsaid or complete any ideas that you felt were kind of on the way. Let us know of course where we can find out more about you, about iTarget Golf. The floor is yours for a few minutes. Frédéric Guitton (30:05): Yeah, so I mean finding iTarget Golf, it’s easy. itargetgolf.com. Come to the website, you know, if you have questions about what we do, you can email us directly, [email protected]. That’s the best way to get in touch with us. I think that again, like this company, we’re a small business in a big industry, but that’s actually small in terms of there’s not that many people in it. If you think about a few thousand courses, you know, maybe ten, fifteen thousand in the US, it’s not that big of an industry. But I think that golf as a game is a fantastic game that relates to life and to business. And so I love being part of a company where we can introduce more people to the game. And help small businesses, because a lot of driving ranges are small businesses, helping them be successful. That’s been frankly a big passion, as you said earlier of mine, is to help business thrive. And I think we do that. We help businesses compete at a higher level and it’s a win win win. I think we do well, they do well, and the people are having fun and they’re having new kind of entertainment available at their fingertips. That could turn into a passion and something that they really take on. So like I see no downside to what I’m doing, which is that’s the cool part of it. Rob Alvarez (31:27): Absolutely. And where can, is there any other place? Like I know you sent us like TikTok, Instagram. We can find you guys everywhere on socials as well, right? Frédéric Guitton (31:35): Yeah, you can find us on Instagram pretty easily, iTarget Golf. And then we have installations, you know, we’ve got systems installed in Hawaii, in the Netherlands, in France. We’ve got some we’re talking to in the UK, not Spain yet, but I’m sure that’s gonna come. We’ve talked to a couple of people in Spain and across the US, Florida, all the way to Illinois, California. So it’s getting a lot of momentum. I think there’s a big gap between a practice range, the historical practice range next to the golf course, and Topgolf, which is like the ultimate entertainment facility. There’s a world in between there. And I think for driving ranges it makes sense today to start, find the spot that works for them. But there is a big entertainment sector of an audience and customers that you should go after is what I would tell a driving range today. Rob Alvarez (32:25): Makes sense. Fantastic. Thanks again, Frédéric, for being here with us. Remember, engagers and everybody out there listening, that if you need any help with engagement, motivation, activation with your products, because you want people to have fun, to really understand what their behavior has to be, where their motivations lie, and you want them to start to take action, you can definitely benefit from our free guide, Core Drives in the Wild. All you have to do is click on the link below. And again, Frédéric, thank you very much for being here. Thanks for all your insights, for everything that you gave to the engagers today. I’m sure we haven’t had a lot of physical gamification lately. So I’m sure all these insights will land in the right place. However, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Frédéric Guitton (33:20): Thank you. End of transcription

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