From The Hockey Rink to The First Tee - Greg Collins, Founder & CEO of GRIT Inc.

What happens when a lifelong hockey player with a degree in industrial design walks into a pizza parlor? You get one of the most innovative golf bags to ever sit on a power cart. In this episode, host Colin Weston sits down with Greg Collins, founder of GRIT Inc., whose entrepreneurial journey took him from designing running shoes at Cooper Canada to creating the revolutionary GRIT 2.0 Tower golf bag. Greg shares how a chance meeting at a Bolton Ontario pizza joint led to a 15-year hockey bag empire, how COVID-19 forced a pivot into golf, and why he believes the best designs come from looking outside your industry. If you’re tired of your clubs twisting sideways on the cart by hole #2, this conversation is for you! Key takeaways in this episode with Greg that you will discover: Form flows from the power cart, not tradition Most golf bags are round because "that's how it's always been." Greg flipped the script by analyzing the rectangular box of a power cart, creating a square bag that doesn't rotate. Key takeaway: Sometimes the best innovation is simply solving the obvious problem everyone else ignores. Watering down your design is the enemy of innovation Greg spent 20 years as a freelance designer watching his concepts get diluted by sales teams. Starting GRIT allowed him to be "design-driven" rather than "sales-driven." Key takeaway: If you want to truly change a category, you need control over the creative process—even if it means manufacturing it yourself. Look sideways, not just forward The secret to the GRIT Tower bag isn't found in another golf catalog; it's found in hockey bags, military backpacks, camping gear, and automotive paint jobs (racing stripes!). Key takeaway: True differentiation happens when you steal (respectfully) from industries completely unrelated to your own. Three Quotable Moments from Greg: On the power of capital to fuel a startup: "What it did was it gave me capital to dream. If you give an entrepreneur working capital and support, it's amazing what he can do." The advantage of being a golf industry outsider: "Golf bags all look very similar. You look at them go, 'Oh my God, they're all the same.' We had an advantage over every other golf company because our hands weren't tied. We could be creative. We had nothing to lose." On trusting your own taste as a compass: "I think that if I like it and if it turns me on, other people are going to want to buy it. They're going to recognize the same feelings that I have. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I'm just really excited about golf. The golf world is a new canvas for us and we want to really rock the golf course." and one from Colin's Architecture school professor regarding innovation and design inspiration... "The good ones borrow, but the great ones steal." 📖 Episode Chapters 00:00 – Welcome intro / Colin and Greg's Serendipitous Meeting at the PGA Show 02:00 – Growing up in Toronto: street hockey, transistor radios, and Greg's artist parents 04:30 – OCAD, Industrial Design and the First GRIT hockey Bag design 07:20 – Why Greg left freelancing to start GRIT Inc. 09:45 – The Inflection Point: a pizza parlour in Bolton and inventor Aldo Buccione 13:20 – The Hockey Bag that put bread on the table (and funded the golf dream) 15:00 – COVID Pivot: how a young designer led GRIT into golf 18:00 – The 1.0 Disaster: a lost buyer, two full unsold containers and sucking it up 20:40 – Designing the GRIT 2.0: Square Bags, Racing Stripes, and Automotive Influence 23:10 – EXCLUSIVE TEASE: The upcoming GRIT Carry Bag (The "3.0"?) 28:00 – Materials, magnets, and a future ModGolf collaboration? 31:55 – Where to buy: Gritinc.net and global expansion 🔗 Resources and Links: Greg's bio page >> https://modgolf.fireside.fm/guests/greg-collins GRIT Instagram: @gritinc LinkedIn: Greg Collins The ModGolf YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@modgolfpodcast The GRIT website: www.gritinc.net Watch the Demo: Check out our video demo with Greg