If you drive south of Brevard County for a couple of hours, you’ll arrive in Palm Beach County. The area is famous not only for its beaches, but also its art museums, nature preserves, zoo, fishing and water parks. And of course, one of the biggest draws to the county is its many fine golf courses.
A startup there hopes to combine in new ways two things that have been combined for as long as anyone can remember: golf and business. The startup is an entrepreneur’s dream brought to life.
As noted, golf and business have long been together. The PGA says that of the businesspeople that play the sport, 60 percent have closed a deal on a golf course.
The Back-9 Boardroom was launched about a year ago. Its mission “is to help business professionals grow their businesses by building relationships on and off the golf course,” the company says on its website.
Though the firm’s founder is originally from California, he thinks he has found the perfect warm-weather spot to launch his new enterprise. “Palm Beach County not only has a lot of golf courses, it has a lot of great golf courses,” says entrepreneur Steve Lyga. “The kind of courses successful businessmen like to play.”
Lyga’s business associates include former PGA employees, golf writer Elisa Gaudet, former PGA caddy Miguel Rivera and others with backgrounds in the sport and in the business world.
Lyga’s goal, he said, is to expand across Florida and then into warm-weather states across the nation. “The idea is this is a year-round operation, so it won’t work in places where you can’t play golf year-round,” he said.
So no Back-9 Boardroom in Minnesota, apparently.
Like most new business ventures, the success of this one will depend in part on the strength of the work done before the first swing was taken from the first tee: the negotiating and drafting of partnership and shareholder agreements, and the negotiating and drafting of commercial leases and employee contracts.
An important part of launching a startup is a discussion of these business formation matters with an experienced Brevard County business law attorney.