May 7, 2024

7:45 - woke up

8:00 - first email

9:00 - surf

12:00 - call with Bill Walker from IAGA

1:00 - Campbell check in

2:00 - call with Christian Lingamen from SCGA Junior Foundation

Two calls in one day framed around what MNML GOLF can do for juniors.

When I was thinking of starting MNML GOLF, I had this nagging gut feeling that the world didn’t need more stuff. I’m a big fan of Patagonia and the way they do business. Like MNML, they were born out of the desire to make better products with higher utility and lifespans. 

So on that front I felt pretty good. One of our key mottos at MNML is “if we can’t do it better, we won’t do it.”. But at the same time, we just have so much junk in the world. 

So pretty early on I decided the best way to combat the issue was to find a way to re-use customer’s old golf bags and give back to the growing junior golf community. 

I spoke with a bunch of organizations and ultimately ended up partnering with the Southern California Golf Association Junior Foundation (SCGA Junior).

The Trade-it-Forward (TIF) program was born. 

When we started it worked like this:

1. Buy a new Trade-it-Forward MNML GOLF bag
2. Get $50 off
3. Use the shipping label we provide to return your old bag to us
4. We work with SCGA Junior to get the bags to their headquarters
5. They give out the bags to underserved juniors in SoCal

To date our customers have helped donate over 1,100 golf bags :)

We had a ton of customers choosing the TIF at checkout and at first it seemed like a super win/win. But we ran into a major issue. The $50 incentive. There were two major problems with it. 

1. Customers would choose the TIF version to get the incentive and then send us an absolute piece of garbage golf bag. We would spend an average or $30 in shipping to have the bag delivered to us for us to then throw it away. 
2. We were losing over $20 on every TIF order.

So not only were we shipping a bunch of trash across the country, we were losing money doing it. 

Fast forward to 2024. We now offer a smaller incentive at checkout (free bluetooth speaker) to help incentivize the decision. We also state very clearly that the trade-in bag needs to be something we are proud to deliver to a junior. 

We still get a few crumby bags here and there but most of the bags are actually awesome bags for a junior to get. 

We continue to broaden our reach with the TIF program and the goal is to one day have an even number of bags sold with a trade as without. 

If you are in the market for a new bag, or just really want to see what we a MNML Bag is all about, you can support a junior and get a freshie here 🙂

5:00 - 18Birdies call

6:00 - last email check

7:00 - dinner

8:00 - surf film 

9:00 - bed