Golfing is a sport I have always enjoyed, despite the fact that I’m not very good. You get to be outside, competing against yourself. I have a set of clubs and even own a collared shirt! But I’ve never been able to play by the rules when it comes to golf shoes. Nope, I refuse. Then I found out that my neighbors John Krosky and Ty Stuart invented an alternative for people like me, so I had to learn more.
Tyler and John, before we dive right into your new startup, can you tell us a bit about yourselves? Are you both originally from Colorado? When did you know you wanted to make Wash Park your home?
Tyler – I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa and came out to Boulder for college and loved it. Then had stints in Squaw Valley as a snowboard bum, San Francisco as a tech sales newbie, and NYC as an entrepreneur. I came back to Colorado in 2004 and landed in a Wash Park basement where my siblings were living with some friends. Bought a place on Clarkson in 2010 and love hitting the park for fishing, walking, tennis, and people watching. Our office is close by in Battery on 6th and Kalamath.
John – I’m one of the few – born and raised in Eaton, Colorado, about 60 miles north of Denver in the country. I moved to Denver after college with my first job at the Rocky Mountain News. Once you’ve been to Wash Park it’s impossible to think of living anywhere else, with it’s unique homes, mature trees and a beautiful park full of people and activities. It is family-friendly with a great Elementary school close by (Steele) and I don’t feel land-locked with the light rail, and easy access to the interstate, whether going downtown to the mountains or north to Wyoming. Our other partner, Matt Mockus conveniently lives just North on 5th and Penn.
Denver has been named one of the top cities to build a startup. But none have captured our attention quite like yours. Can you tell us about Golfkicks and how this collaboration began?
We agree on the Denver thing, for its perfect mix of innovative, hard-working people and for the fun lifestyle. John and I worked together years ago at our first Denver startup and have been friends ever since. We’ve had good runs in the Media world and decided to take a crack at this golf product that had been in the back of our minds. We launched a Kickstarter campaign for Golfkicks to see if people liked the idea and it has been a wild ride so far. The basic idea is that golf shoes are unattractive and pretty boring. Most people just wear sneakers on the course. So we decided to give you the opportunity to transform any shoe with traction by simply installing cleats to any shoe you want. We’re also making cleats for gardening and lawn work called Yardkicks.
What did you do before Golfkicks. Do you have a background in product design?
We’ve done several tech and media related startups and Tyler has a side-hustle invention called the Sushi Roll that is made by Fishpond, a fantastic local company with global reach in the fly-fishing industry. We like to get help from pros as these products take some true industrial design and engineering chops.
When you’re not living the life of entrepreneurs, how do you spend your free time?
Ty likes to fly fish everywhere from Smith Lake in Wash Park to rivers around the world. I enjoy spending time with the family. Whether in Denver, the mountains or getting back to Eaton to ride dirt bikes now and again. We also created the Denver G League where a dozen of us play 9 holes Wednesday mornings at Denver City courses.
Clearly, the entrepreneurial blood runs deep in your veins. What can we expect from you both in the future?
We’ll see how folks like Golfkicks and Yardkicks and we have another media company up our sleeves coming soon, so stay tuned.
Until that’s revealed, we will keep cheer-leading for Golfkicks. Check it out for yourself by visiting www.golfkicks.co and never fall victim to U.G.S. (Ugly Golf Shoes) again.