A Million Dollar Mastermind interview (Episode 257) where host Larry Weidel interviews Tyler “Sully” Sullivan, CEO and co-founder of Bomb Tech Golf. Sullivan recounts his accidental-entrepreneur origin: an obsession with hitting long drives, building and assembling clubs himself, designing a dual-cavity driver with college engineers, and documenting the journey online. He describes early traction (selling initial drivers and $10,000 in early sales), scaling through social channels (2011–12 era), an intense period after being fired and learning his wife was pregnant that pushed him to work long hours, and eventual growth into a multi-million-dollar business (about $15M in sales this year and nearly 600,000 clubs sold). Themes: product-first tinkering, underdog success in a brand-dominated golf industry, customer service, and learning to transition from operator to owner for work–life balance.
Questions this video answers
About $15 million.
Nearly 600,000 clubs.
About $10,000.
Around 2011–2012.
Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.
I'm here talking today to Tyler Sully Sullivan. He is the CEO and co founder of Bomb Tech Golf. And they have sold over 400,000 golf clubs and doing over 4 million in sales a year. And he's really picking up momentum. And we're going to talk about his underdog story of coming up with a product in the highly competitive, competitive world of golf and winning. And so congratulations on your success, Sully. And how did you wind up in that situation? I read your Entrepreneur magazine article and it talked about you're somebody who had 40 different drivers. So you were constantly tinkering with this thing. And unlike me, where I always thought, well, it's my swing that's the problem, you thought, well, it's the driver's the problem. And you were, for some reason, you were really motivated to get that right driver to work with on the course. So how did all that happen?
Yeah. So total accidental entrepreneur. So right now, this year, we'll do about 15 million in sales. I do own another company which is doing seven figures. And it all started really with my curiosity and obsession with golf. And I was a golfer growing up, you know, I was pretty, pretty good, you know, state qualifier and used to shoot in the 70s, and then went to college, played rugby, didn't play golf. And my friend invited me to a world long drive qualifier where you try to hit the golf ball as far and hard as you can, right? And I was like, sure, I'll go. This was like, I was like 26 at the time, 27, maybe a little older. I can't remember the years anymore. Like 12, 13 years ago. And we went and I hit 1, 350 yards and qualified. I was like, okay, that's cool. And I just became obsessed with hitting the golf ball as far as I could. And to the point where I started, I had a local club builder assembling me these really interesting combinations. And during that process, I ended up breaking all of his clubs. He built me not from pure power, but from his inability to assemble a golf club, which is actually quite simple to do. But so I started assembling my own. A friend of mine's like, hey, can you build me a golf here I was like, sure. And he's like, how much? I'm like, I don't even know. Sold him one. And I made the world's worst website and put up these clubs that were, you know, reseller at the time and ended up getting an email. When I was on my boat, it wasn't a yacht on Lake Champlain in Vermont, and it was a sale. And that was my first epiphany where I. It just blew my mind. I made money, and I wasn't working at a job in front of a computer. And I said, okay, let's do more of that. And then really from there, I started to sell a couple here and there with Facebook, and this is 2011 and 12. And I had the crazy idea over some beers with a frat buddy of mine to design my own product. He goes, well, you're not that smart. I go, you're not wrong. So I worked with my college, where it took me five years to graduate University of Vermont to 10 minutes from my house. And I worked with four students for a year, engineering students, and we designed a dual cavity golf driver. And I cashed in my 401k and had it made crazily enough. And luckily, all I did, because I had no expectations, I documented my journey of designing it, got feedback from people, and was able to make a story and just tell, you know, document my journey and build an audience so that when I launched that product, it wasn't much at the time, but it felt like a lot. I sold, I think, $10,000 worth of drivers. And. And really, the second epiphany, not to go too deep, but this is kind of where it all really scaled is I was doing this on the side. I started to get some traction all online, you know, Facebook, Instagram. And then my wife found out she was pregnant, and I got fired from my day job the week before Thanksgiving. Just find out she was pregnant. And that was. That was the go time moment. And that was the hardest year of my life because I worked 20 hours a day, seven days a week to figure this thing out, to literally survive with a newborn on the way. And, you know, I work 20 hours a day, seven days a week for, you know, a couple years, three, four years with a newborn kid just to try to see if I could make it happen. And luckily I was able to scale it up. You know, now we're. I think we've almost sold 600,000 clubs, and really, it's never. Never saw it coming. But if you work hard and have products, you get lucky.
You know, well, what. Just what exactly was the second epiphany you're talking about?
So? Well, the first one was just, okay, I was able to sell stuff online and not work for someone else. And really, the getting fired, I don't know if it would be an epiphany, but was the motivation to say, I got to make this happen and my wife is really supportive. I was like, are you going to make Bomb Tech full time or what? I was like, okay. So I did whatever it took to do that. And I would say the second big epiphany was, okay, I built this thing up, we started scaling up, we started doing millions a year, almost eight figures a year. And then I had a second child and I took six weeks off before having her, and sales went up. And that was my real big epiphany of, okay, now I'm, I'm not that important. And I was able to move to a owner, operator, you know, coordinator role versus a doer. And that allowed me to have a second company now. So that was a, you know, I tell people, you know, your life events will determine your path, you know, in business and life. And for me, it was, it was family and kid related to make me realize, wow, I shouldn't be working 20 hours a day and I should enjoy time. So now my wife kicks me out of the house because I'm home too much. So I've gone the other direction, which is, you know, I'm glad I was able to get out of my own way and get rid of my ego to say, okay, family is the most important thing. And, you know, business is great, but what's the point, you know, hey, listen.
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And so the golf industry, you know, one thing is that, you know, there's new products in every aspect of golf, you know, from everything. And from tees to balls to clubs to shafts, clothing to golf carts, shoes, you know, hats, everything is being reinvented all the time. But it is dominated by the big boys. With the big money. And, you know, the pros are usually got, you know, they're usually carrying that equipment because that's where a lot of their support and funding comes from. And so to start out, I've had a lot of rogue golf clubs over the world, you know, over the years. And there is. There is a curiosity for something new, in spite of what they say, but it's really hard to get a breakthrough.
And.
What are some of the kind of things you heard then and you even hear now that people, you know, when they tell you can't do it, what they're really telling you is they can't do it. They can't imagine how you could do it. And so as a result, you can't do it. But it's on you if you let them convince you and talk you out of what you know is possible. And so talk about some of the kind of things you heard and how you interpreted that in your mind.
Yeah, I mean, I was. I had no expectations. So I think that's the big thing. It's hard to even go back in my brain of what I was thinking when I first started, but I had no expectations of really anything happening or doing millions, you know, a year, sometimes a month. So it's. When you. When you go in that with pure passion, their opinion doesn't matter. I was just doing it because it was. I liked it. And I think that's. That if I were to start something again, it would be the same thing. Like, I'm a huge skier, too. That's another industry you shouldn't get into. But I wouldn't care because I just enjoy it. So for me, that's how I was able to work 20 hours a day, seven days a week. And really, I mean, at 20 hours a day, seven days A week, because it didn't feel like work. So I do remember vaguely Entrepreneur magazine having given this write up on bombtech. And it was like, this is really early in the company's journey. And I was like, holy crap. Entrepreneur magazine's writing up on Bomb Tech. It's amazing. Then I read the article and it was like, awesome product, great story, not gonna make it too competitive. And it is a brand, to your point. The brands are really strong and they've done a great job. But when I came in with no expectations, it didn't matter. And I just kind of went where the opportunities were. And at the end of the day, we make amazing golf clubs and we give a shit about customers. And I don't say we just give a shit. We actually have the best customer service in the world and we make them feel like they are family because they are. And we're a small company. And I think that over time, over eight, nine years, has just given us a ton of momentum. You know, we're. We're doing over seven figures a month right now. I only have two employees, so it's a super lean, highly profitable, scalable business. But if I didn't, if I wasn't so stubborn and didn't care and had no expectations, it would have never become what it is, you know, if I listened to the naysayers and whatever, because, you know, outside of entrepreneurs saying that we weren't going to make it, most of the family and friends were very supportive, but I just had no direction of, like, how big it was going to be or what it was going to be, which is, I think, the beauty in it, you know? Yeah.
And great insight there, and thanks for sharing.
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