Maybe your child will be the next Tiger Woods, who can say their game started with a pair of shark-pattern golf gloves. Or, maybe not. But whatever the outcome of their golf career, they will probably never forget the gloves that sparked fond memories of greens, birdies, and the game of golf.
“We have a saying on our website: ‘Will our product make your child any better at golf? Absolutely not, but they may make the game more fun, and that’s what we’re all about.”
Our small business of the week, RJ Stevens, was born out of a passion for golf that started at a very young age. Owner and founder Ryan Lemenager’s departure from the world of finance, to seeking out manufacturers, learning how to build a website, to selling MORE product than what was in stock, was all part of his journey over the last 9 months to get RJ Stevens off the ground.
Dive into the Q&A below to see how this local entrepreneur brought his business to life.
How did RJ Stevens get its start? What is your background?
My dad has always been a big golfer and got my brother and I into the game from a young age. I knew when I had my son that I wanted to do the same for him. I started researching youth golf gloves, and the smallest one I could find was for about a 6-year-old, and I knew I wanted to introduce the game before that.
Coincidentally, around the same time, I saw a video from Padraig Harrington about getting your kids into the game that really resonated with me. The major sentiment was especially when they’re young, you can’t expect them to want to go and hit hundreds of golf balls at the range, so the first time you go, let them run around, play in the bunkers, look in the water, etc., and if they hit balls great, but that’s not the goal. Then, before they get too tired, take them inside and spend 15 minutes eating ice cream with them. They are going to remember those 15 minutes at the golf course more than anything else you can teach them, and that is how they will fall in love with the game.
I loved the idea that you can’t force someone to love the game; they have to fall in love with it, and that is why I decided to make designs that kids already love (trucks, tractors, unicorns, etc) in the hope that they can be a small part of what becomes a lifelong love of the game.
My background is in finance, so I’ve had a very steep learning curve on the marketing and ecommerce side of things. I started my career in private wealth management at Morgan Stanley before getting my MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
From there, I was an investment banker at Baird, and most recently jumped back over to the private wealth management side of the business at Baird. While this isn’t the traditional path to a youth golf accessories company, I took a ton of lessons from my banking background that I applied to RJ Stevens, especially as I was getting started.
The biggest one was how much you could actually get done in a week when you set your mind to it. I was communicating with manufacturers at all hours of the day (the little sleep from banking was a great training ground for that!), building a website from scratch, creating facebook ads, creating designs in adobe illustrator, all things that I had never done before but just kept going day after day and before looking back and finally see how far the brand had come.
How long have you been in business? Have you faced any major challenges with growing your business or any triumph stories?
We officially launched the website in January of this year, so it has been open for about 9 months. I think we face challenges every day, but that is to be expected. When we were starting out, I thought we would launch the website by October, but manufacturer delays, tariffs, and my poor web design skills all delayed us much longer than anticipated.
On the triumph stories side, there are two that really come to mind. First, we did the Milwaukee Golf Show in March of this year, so just a few months after we launched. I still had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but knew it would be a great place to get feedback from real customers who could see the product. Our booth had one of the longest lines of anyone there, and we sold more than we ever had, still our biggest weekend since being open.
At the end of the show, one of the retail shop owners came over and said they’d like to stock our product in 8 of their stores and made our first and largest wholesale purchase. At one point during the event, Gary D’Amato from Wisconsin Golf interviewed me and ended up featuring us as one of his 3 favorites that caught his eye.
The other story that I love to tell is that one of the first people who bought our gloves back in January texted me the day after and said that she told her son to go put on his winter gloves, and he came back with just his RJ Stevens golf glove on and refused to take it off. She said he had a complete meltdown and they were late to school because he loved the glove so much. I told her how sorry I was that it happened, but that it really means a lot that he loves the glove so much!
What is RJ Stevens, and why did you feel it would be a good fit in Milwaukee? Or, why did you feel Milwaukee was a good place to start your business?
Milwaukee is such a great city for golf. Wisconsin in general, is amazing, but just the golf around Milwaukee is top tier. There are so many families that get out and play, and we knew that being around that atmosphere would only help us thrive as we continue to grow.
What’s the mission behind RJ Stevens?
Our mission is simple: To spark a lifelong passion in sports for the next generation of young athletes.
What is it like being a small business in MKE? If you’re a woman, minority, or LGBTQ+ owned business, please feel free to touch on your experiences as an entrepreneur in that space as well.
The community of small business owners in MKE is amazing. Within a few weeks of launching, a small business owner whom my wife knows was telling her husband about us and immediately made a purchase. That same person connected me with someone who was organizing a golf event for the MACC fund, and given our commitment to giving back to the community, we couldn’t think of a better event to sponsor. All in all, I think it has been shown from day one that this community is willing to help in whatever way possible, and I could not be more grateful for that!
What’s your favorite part about what you’re doing?
For me, the greatest part of working on RJ Stevens is knowing that we are a small part of helping kids fall in love with the game of golf. I write a little thank you note for each order that comes in, and I always end each one with that saying, “I hope we can be a small part of what becomes a lifelong love of the game”. It’s truly what this is all about. I really hope that someday there is a kid who can remember that little glove or headcover they got when they 3 years old that started them down the path of this amazing game.
Anything else we should know about your business or anything you’d like to mention? Any favorite stories or unique facts?
We fulfill every order out of our basement, and I put in a personal thank-you card before sending out the order. There is no feeling like seeing that notification pop up with an order and knowing that I get to head downstairs and put it together. My wife is truly a trooper for allowing me to take over a spare bedroom with inventory!