Jon Armstrong by no means meant to create the booming live-commerce platform Stacked Golf. All he wished was to affix the native golf membership, however his spouse, Ashley, gave him an ultimatum: Sure, he might be a part of, however provided that he might discover a solution to pay for it himself.
His resolution? Begin a YouTube channel reviewing golf balls. The issue was that he didn’t even have the cash to purchase balls to evaluation, so he scoured the woods at his Daytona Seashore golf membership for misplaced balls and began making movies evaluating the Titleist Professional V1 balls he performs to no matter he discovered within the tough.
Zero price range. Zero marketing strategy. Only a man with a cellphone and a hunch that folks would possibly seek for golf ball evaluations.
That was in 2019. Inside two months, his channel garnered sufficient site visitors to monetize. Inside six months, it turned the Armstrong’s full-time earnings.
Right this moment, the Stacked Golf YouTube channel has 325,000 subscribers, and earlier this yr, the Armstrongs launched a multi-seller marketplace by the identical identify, which generates $150,000 in weekly gross sales and is approaching $3 million in whole gross sales after simply six months. With a neighborhood of 26,000 members and greater than 1,000 lively sellers, the Armstrongs have by chance constructed a case examine for the booming dwell purchasing economic system—a market projected to blow up from $128 billion in 2024 to $2.5 trillion by 2033.
“We received tremendous fortunate,” Armstrong says. “With every little thing we have been doing—filming the golf ball evaluations and thrifting golf golf equipment—we have been mainly filming ourselves getting cash.”
American Pickers, however for golf
The channel’s actual trajectory shift got here when Armstrong’s spouse, Ashley, added her ardour and experience in thrifting to the equation. What emerged, by their very own description, was “American Pickers, however for golf golf equipment,” which entails them driving for hours via Central Florida hoping to discover a $400 putter sitting in a Goodwill for $3.
The polished movies cover an unglamorous actuality.
“For each one thrift retailer we present you in a video, we’ve in all probability been to love 15,” Armstrong admits. “There have been a whole lot of days the place we wore the identical garments again to again to attempt to determine how one can fill out one 10-minute video.”
They often bought gadgets on eBay and different platforms, however drained shortly of the tedious product-by-product promoting course of and charges that ate into income. Largely, they hoarded stock, ready for a greater resolution. In the meantime, over the following three years, their neighborhood grew organically.
“We actually wished to create a platform the place we make shopping for golf golf equipment on-line as thrilling as it’s in our movies,” Armstrong explains. “It’s sort of a soulless transaction while you’re shopping for from eBay. The fun of the hunt didn’t actually exist.”
One million-dollar tech shortcut
The technical breakthrough got here via—of all issues—a golf sport. Armstrong performed a spherical with Commonwealth Picker, one other YouTuber who had constructed a market on District, a platform that gives the infrastructure for customized purchasing platforms with livestreaming and multi-seller marketplaces.
Armstrong, who beforehand ran an app growth firm, acknowledged the worth of District instantly.
“The expertise stack that they offer you is thousands and thousands of {dollars},” he says. “So it was sort of a no brainer. They deal with help, they deal with the entire tech facet, and all we’ve to do is concentrate on rising the person base and promoting as a lot as doable.”
Based in 2022 by three former Snapchat product builders (and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Kindred Ventures, and Greylock Companions), the Los Angeles–primarily based firm has 12 workers, a lean operation in comparison with competitor and live-shopping big Whatnot.
The Armstrongs’ timing couldn’t have been higher. Whereas Whatnot has reached an $11.5 billion valuation, proving large investor urge for food for the class, District is democratizing entry. The place Whatnot constructed a centralized market, District allows creators to construct their very own branded ecosystems.
By utilizing District, Stacked Golf isn’t promoting on another person’s platform, similar to eBay or Craigslist: It’s extra like they’re constructing their very own golf-focused, mini-eBay proper on District. They management their very own market, set their very own guidelines, and earn fee charges from their 1,000-plus sellers.
Stacked Golf’s Timed auctions
Right here’s the way it works: Sellers schedule livestreams that usually final anyplace from 45 minutes to 4 hours, or longer. They maintain up a product—say, a Nike Technique Core putter—give a short pitch, and begin the countdown timer, which is often 10 seconds.
Final individual to bid wins.
It’s easy, fast-paced, and wildly efficient. Stacked Golf additionally options customary market and buy-it-now listings, in addition to seven-day auctions, however 98% of gross sales come from livestreams, with golf equipment promoting from $5 to a number of hundred {dollars}. One vendor lately hosted a marathon nine-and-a-half-hour livestream, which generated practically $20,000 in gross sales, in accordance with Armstrong. A few of the largest sellers on Stacked Golf are golf shops, like Play It Once more Sports activities which lately made $17,000 in two hours, greater than that vendor usually does in every week of non-livestream promoting.
The format faucets into why dwell commerce conversion charges run up to 10 times higher than standard e-commerce: urgency, leisure, and real-time interplay that conventional on-line purchasing lacks.
However Armstrong’s secret weapon isn’t the format. It’s curation.
Group over commerce
Stacked Golf preapproves each vendor, verifies product legitimacy, and rejects playing gimmicks and NSFW content material that plague some live-selling opponents.
“We actually wished to create an environment the place individuals need to purchase and promote on our platform simply because it’s the most effective place to do it,” Armstrong says.
The philosophy extends to vendor choice. Armstrong prefers passionate collectors over spreadsheet arbitrageurs.
“Those which have the most individuals of their chats are those that know what they’re promoting as a result of they prefer it,” he says, citing sellers who concentrate on Nike golf golf equipment—discontinued since 2016 however beloved by collectors.
The technique is working. Since launching earlier this yr, {the marketplace} grew from zero to fifteen,000 members in simply three months and has since reached 26,000 after six months. A number of particular person sellers have generated greater than $150,000 in private gross sales on the platform.
The enterprise itself now employs three full-time workers and operates from a 2,500-square-foot Ocala, Florida, warehouse, which it has already outgrown. It has additionally attracted model partnerships with golf attire firm Pins & Aces and hosts sellers who’ve relationships with Adidas North America, Titleist, and Mizuno, amongst others.
However Armstrong is cautious about diluting the neighborhood with company sellers.
“We wished to create a market that we might each need to purchase and promote on and never really feel ashamed of marketing it,” he says. “As quickly as you begin getting too company by way of the sellers on there, you sort of kill the vibe.”
Proper thought, proper time
Within the U.S., the dwell commerce market accounts for approximately 5% of e-commerce gross sales—far lower than China’s 60%—suggesting an unlimited runway for corporations like Stacked Golf as American customers embrace the format.
The U.S. market is predicted to develop at 37.2% annually via 2033, fueled by platforms like TikTok Store and stand-alone marketplaces like Whatnot. TikTok Store—which blends livestream purchasing with conventional product listings—hosted over eight million hours of dwell classes within the U.S. in 2024. Whatnot, centered on collectibles and resale, lately surpassed $2 billion in annual livestream gross sales, whereas Amazon Stay and eBay Stay are increasing their dwell commerce choices. The pattern is pushed by the urgency and leisure that Armstrong has constructed into Stacked Golf’s mannequin.
District’s infrastructure democratizes this chance. The place constructing dwell commerce tech would possibly require thousands and thousands in funding, creators can now launch refined marketplaces in a single day and concentrate on what, in accordance with Armstrong, issues most: constructing genuine communities.
“It’s nonetheless sort of surreal,” he says. “Simply interested by how we began with discovering golf balls within the woods, and now we’re right here.”
The enterprise he constructed together with his spouse—”the CEO of every little thing,” as he calls her—demonstrates one thing basic about trendy commerce: Genuine community-building trumps conventional enterprise planning. They didn’t begin with a pitch deck. They began with a guess, a cellphone, and a real love for the hunt. And that authenticity could be the corporate’s most beneficial asset.
“It simply grew naturally, which I believe individuals appreciated,” Armstrong says. “Even to at the present time, it’s sort of clear that it ain’t all concerning the cash.”
