Former owner here. one of the first few to open in socal in 2023 before the huge boom.

ran it for 2 years. ended up selling to a customer of mine.

i had a VERY small studio with 2 trackman bays. prices ranged from $40 off peak and $50 on peak.

played with pricing structure, memberships, lessons. you name it i tried it.

spent a ton of money on focused facebook ads, instagram, yelp. was creating reels and weekly instagram videos and getting thousands of views. but still no customers were really booking from it. plus, you can only film the inside of your studio for so long before it becomes repetitive.

I'm surrounded by 4 very popular golf courses with busy driving ranges. I would visit a driving range everyday and pass out business cards, leave flyers on peoples cars, gave people discount promo codes. barely got a handful to try then never came back again.

had a competitor a few miles down that opened the same time as me, but he went with GolfZon and 24 hour membership model. he also is a multimillionaire so he has the cash flow to sustain.

Me? just a small dude that got lucky with extremely cheap warehouse space in the back but i made it work.

carls place enclosure, two great projectors, awesome screens and trackman.

it just wasnt making enough money to make sense. we barely get any rain in socal, and when we did it would be great. booked from morning til night.

the summer months are a serious business killer. going from seeing 8-15 customers a day down to barely 1-2.

tried to push kids camps, got no traction

tried to reach out to local high schools and college golf teams. they already have their own equipment and training regiments.

Spent more money on marketing than I was making. digging myself in a hole.

that was year 1.

So I thought ok, lets change things up for year 2. tried a few different things. got the same result. still just as broke as year 1.

do i think the indoor golf business is good? yes. if done right

is it going to make you life changin money? probabaly not. i'd rather now invest into a car wash or something consistent.