10 Lessons from Golf For Your Startup

Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with golf. About as much as I am obsessed with startups.? Actually, probably more.?

Part of my obsession comes from being a competitive athlete and reluctantly giving up numerous other sports as I got older when injuries took their toll. But a greater part was from spending years helping my son Jordan Bessalel, CFA pursue his dream of playing college golf.?

After 13 years driving Jordan to lessons, traveling to tournaments, practicing with him and caddying for him, I became totally hooked. Once he finished his college career and the last company I worked with was sold, I started spending more time on my own game and focused my mentorship efforts volunteering for The First Tee, which espouses 9 core values to young golfers.

These lessons certainly apply to life in general. But spending more time on the links recently has me reflecting on other lessons startups can learn from golf.

1: Golf is Not a Game of Perfect

That’s the title of one of the best books on the mental game of golf by Dr. Bob Rotella and @Cullen. A “perfect” score is considered to be 18-under par– a birdie on every hole.? The lowest score ever recorded on the PGA Tour was a 12-under par 58–it has only been done once (by Jim Furyk). Although Furyk came close, even that round wasn’t perfect.?

Like a round of golf, every new venture is full of possibilities and excitement at the outset. But you will make mistakes, sometimes many. How a venture turns out will depend on the balance between the good and bad decisions, the well-executed shots and those that go astray, and many circumstances beyond your control.? Whatever the result, it is important to recognize going in and accept over time that it won’t turn out exactly as you had planned. And it definitely won’t be perfect.

2: Focus on the Process and the Results Will Follow - Setting goals in golf is important, but achieving them boils down to execution. You can’t stand on the first tee and will yourself to shoot even par.? You practice and prepare and then play 18 holes shot by shot, decision by decision. The final score emerges from the totality of those individual moments. Figuring out a repeatable, successful process and then diligently following it provides the best chance of success. Changing your approach when things aren’t working is not an admission of failure, but part of the path to better outcomes.

Process management in a startup is critical.? You can’t will a company to have $1 million or $10 million in ARR overnight.? How quickly or effectively you reach your goals is a function of how well you design your management processes and how disciplined you are in following them day in and day out. And when you are not achieving the results you desire, it is time to re-examine your processes and improve them.

3: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You - Before every tournament, Jordan and I would go online and map out the course he was playing hole by hole, making notations in a small notebook he carried while playing. He used that advance research to identify which club to hit when, scope out potential hazards to avoid, and decide when to be aggressive. Most golfers just show up and play, finding out the hard way that they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Surveying the landscape is essential to a startup’s success. Understand who else is out there addressing the problem you are going after.? Sometimes your main competition is your target customer themselves building in-house solutions. Sometimes it is other startups or more established companies with similar solutions. Many startups spend very little time looking outward. Investing time and effort in market and competitive analysis is central to product development, market positioning, and sales while also making you more credible in making your case to prospective investors. When the stakes are so high, don't show up unprepared and uninformed.

4: Adapt to Changing Conditions - Golf is not played in a vacuum. Weather conditions change. Every course is different. Bad bounces happen. Even playing the same course day after day, the ball almost never ends up in the same spot twice. Success on the golf course relies on your ability to apply your skills and experience and adapt to prevailing conditions and deal with bad luck. You need to constantly assess the situation and react, sometimes being aggressive, sometimes being conservative to avoid disastrous results.?

Startups face varying conditions as well. New competitors enter the market. The funding climate shifts dramatically. Key employees come and go. A large customer may defect or you may sign a huge contract that sucks up all of your company’s resources. The only thing you can predict is that the path your startup takes will be unpredictable. Stay flexible. Adjust your thinking. Phillip Merrick , the founder of WebMethods and former CEO of my last company Fugue frequently reminded our management team that “the plan is the plan until it’s not the plan”.? Stick with your plan diligently…until it makes sense not to.

5: You Need the Right Resources at the Right Time - You can theoretically play golf with any set of clubs and balls. But optimizing performance requires the right set of tools. For Jordan, getting properly fitted for clubs every couple of years was critical to playing at a high level. The clubs he used at age 14 were no longer suitable at age 16 or when he joined his college team. Most golfers buy clubs off the shelf, but investing in the right tools that suit your game leads to better and more consistent results.

As I discussed in “The Proof Continuum: 7 Steps to Startup Success”, the resources a startup requires vary over time depend on its stage of development. You need to periodically reassess if your team is still right. This is true throughout the organization, but maybe most true of your senior management. One of the hardest things a startup can do is recognize that leadership, including the Founder, may no longer be suited to take the company to the next level. Assessing who and what you need (or may no longer need) as you move along the Proof Continuum is of paramount importance.

6: A Good Caddie is Golden, But You’re the Player - When I caddied for Jordan early on, I was highly opinionated about what he should do on the course. As some have said about me, “I’m seldom wrong, but never in doubt”. When it didn’t work out so well, he rightly blamed me. Eventually, we agreed that as the caddie, my advice was just that–advice. He learned to take more responsibility for his game and make better decisions for himself.

Startups are surrounded by lots of people with strong opinions–angel investors, board members, customers, and even friends and family.? Experienced advisors are valuable assets, but don’t allow them to whipsaw you around. I have seen companies derailed by overbearing board members who show up once a quarter, throw around strong opinions and then head back to their mountain retreats or beach houses, only to watch the company head down the blind alleys they suggested.? Sure, take in their advice. But in the end, remember that you and your team are the players, and they are only the caddies.?The decision as to what shot to hit is yours.

7: One Great Shot Doesn’t Make a Great Round - In a tournament at my club a few years back, I holed out from 135 yards for an eagle (two-under par) on the first hole. I had catapulted ahead of the field into an early lead. The problem was, I had 17 more holes to play.?I was so excited by that shot and the prospect of shooting a great score that I lost focus and played terribly for the rest of the round.

Your startup will have plenty of highs.? Maybe it’s closing a funding round from a top-shelf VC.? Maybe it’s landing your first marquee customer. You get caught up in the moment and believe you’re on your way to greatness.? Too many startups become distracted by the hype from short-term wins. They forget that there are many more shots to play before the day is done.? Celebrate each short-term win and then use it as foundation to do even better going forward.

8: One Bad Shot Shouldn’t Ruin a Round - Every golfer will have a bad shot that has the potential to kill their score. Not the shot itself, but the way they react to it. I once heard top golf instructor Michael Breed tell a room of junior golfers about the “club in the bag” rule he recommended. It’s natural to be upset by a bad shot or bad break. But once the club goes back in the bag after that shot, there’s no point in dwelling on the past. Continuing to be angry only causes continued bad play. Focus on the next shot and make the best of the round going forward.?

Your startup will have setbacks. It’s inevitable. The question is how will that failure affect the company going forward. Does your company have a culture of resilience? Or will temporary failure be a destructive and demotivating influence that drags the organization down further? It is easy to fixate on the failures and let uncertainty creep in. But the past is a sunk cost and you need to let it go if you're going to be at your best for the challenges ahead.

9: Where You Play Matters - When considering colleges, Jordan’s goal was not just to be recruited to any team. He wanted to consistently make the playing squad and contribute to his team’s success. After many conversations with coaches, he chose a Division III program with strong academics and athletics, an excellent coach and a home course that suited his game. The decision to play at a school with a strong campus culture and on a team where he could be successful led to a great college experience both on and off the course.

Startups have to choose what markets to go after with what offerings. Unless you have unlimited resources, don’t aspire to be all things to all customers. Understanding your company's strengths and limitations helps to determine where you can and should focus and compete. Even if your product is technically superior, going after a market with entrenched, well-funded competitors often leads to disappointment.? Similarly, spreading your resources too thin by trying to cover too many market niches with too many product variations will result in substandard offerings that fail to achieve traction.? Pick your battles and make sure you position yourself to win.??

10: Slow Play Will Cost You - Our friend Lauren Cupp, the golf coach at Hamilton College, recently set the women’s world record in speed golf, shooting one under par in just over 50 minutes. Playing fast is obviously critical in speed golf. But one of Coach Cupp's lessons for regular golfers is that taking too long over the ball can make you play worse. You overthink your shot. You get tight. You worry about the bad things that could happen.

Similar to speed golf, your startup needs to operate with a sense of urgency. Waiting until your offering is perfect leaves the door open for others to eat your lunch. Focus on reaching your next milestone as quickly as possible so you can secure your next funding round and not run out of money. Even if your startup is well-funded, don’t take your foot off the gas. It is common that the first company that gets acquired in a given space commands the highest exit price. Don’t delay. Don’t overanalyze it. Step up and take your shot.

The Bottom Line

In an article in Inc. Magazine, Chris Heivly makes the case why golf is not that useful if you are a startup executive. There may be some truth to his observations. But even during some of the most intense times in my startup career, I always found spending a few hours walking on beautiful green fairways and focusing on that little white ball cleared my mind to take on the battles ahead. Whether you play or not, heeding the lessons the game has to offer will certainly help your startup achieve better results.

Gus Bessalel is the author of the upcoming book, The Startup Lottery: Your Guide to Navigating Risk and Reward. The book is an essential guide for anyone considering a career in startups. To be notified of the book’s release in fall 2023, please visit:

A former Inc. 500 CEO, serial entrepreneur and 30-year veteran of startup life, Gus has a BA and MBA from Harvard University and started his career in management consulting at Bain & Co. He was also the Co-Founder of Compass Pro Bono, a volunteer consulting organization that advises nonprofits. He mentors young companies and entrepreneurs and writes about startups and business, among other eclectic topics.

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