Verishot Featured in Crains Cleveland Business
Solon firm aims for an ace with hole-in-one device
By CHUCK SODER, May 12, 2008
Dan Quigg describes VeriShot with three words: Excitement, revenue and promotion. The Solon company, formerly called Charitee Golf, aims to bring those three things to golf courses nationwide in 2009, when it plans to begin a national rollout for its hole-in-one monitoring technology, said Mr. Quigg, VeriShot CEO.
The system, which uses video cameras to monitor hole-in-one attempts and other contests for prizes, helps courses make golf more fun, bring in extra money and promote themselves, Mr. Quigg said.
“We're excitement plus revenue plus promotion,” he said. “The acronym could be ERP.” Though the national rollout won't begin until next year, VeriShot, the name by which Nine Iron Innovations Inc. does business, aims to have its system on 50 courses by the end of 2008. The system is on 13 courses now, including one in Ohio at Little Mountain Country Club in Concord, which is currently being upgraded. The rest are in warmer climates, where golf courses are open for more of the year. The 2008 expansion should allow the company to learn more about its technology and how golf courses use it. “We're not trying to be everywhere at this point,” Mr. Quigg said. At courses that use the newest version of the system, cashiers in the pro shop ask customers if they'd like to pay $5 to take the hole-in-one contest. Those who take it receive a ticket with a code they type into a kiosk near the hole. Cameras then record the golfers' shots. Players who get a hole-in-one receive $10,000 or, at some courses, the option to lease a Hummer or another car for a specified period of time. The courses keep a portion of the $5, and VeriShot pays for the prizes. “It has to be no overhead to the golf course,” said Mr. Quigg, who declined to release revenue figures for the company. The system also can be used to monitor closest-to-the-pin contests and other shootouts. In addition, some courses are printing discount offers on the tickets players receive when they take the challenge, said Steve Hiltebrant, VeriShot's director of
sales and golf aficionado.
“It's so broad, we don't even know the capabilities of our tool yet,” said Mr. Hiltebrant, one of the company's six employees. VeriShot was founded by Mike Burkons, who came up with the idea in 2003 while working as a cashier at the Big Met Golf Course in Fairview Park. Mr. Burkons, then a 27-year-old student at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, noticed that the course only held hole-in-one contests during large outings because someone had to watch them. So, after winning a Council of Smaller Enterprises business plan competition and raising thousands of dollars, he developed a pilot of the system and installed it at Manakiki Golf Course in Willoughby Hills. He later put systems at Briarwood Golf Club in Broadview Heights and Little Mountain. “They believed in the concept, and they gave us a shot,” said Mr. Burkons, who now sits on VeriShot's board. The company has since taken down pilot systems at Manakiki and Briarwood. The company has raised about $1.9 million from Cleveland venture financing organizations such as the North Coast Angel Fund and JumpStart Inc. as well as several individual investors.
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