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Club Caddie
Golf-course ERP · Detroit, MI · founded 2019 · acquired by Jonas/Constellation 2020
👤 Jason Pearsall (Attorney, golf-course owner, and repeat golf-tech founder — he sold Golfler for $4.2M in 2017, then built Club Caddie.)🌐 siteLinkedIn

A golf-course owner got tired of running his club on a dozen apps that never talked, so he built the one that did.

Will it work? · our read
Insider advantage. The all-in-one pitch is easy to copy; a founder who owns courses and already sold a golf-tech exit is not. And most of the 20x scale came only after Constellation bought in.
01How the money moves
Course signs up: POS, tee sheet, members, F&B in one system
Pays about $15K a year on subscription
600+ courses = about $9M recurring ARR
02The numbers
$9M
ARR (2025)
founder
600+
golf courses
founder
$15K
avg ACV
founder
All figures founder-stated on Nathan Latka's podcast, Dec 2025. podcast episode
$9M ARR (2025, founder-stated on podcast)
03Weight class — CENTStap an axis
ControlEntryNeedTimeScale
Control Mid
Founder is an industry insider who owns courses, but golf-course software is a contested, well-covered market.
04The key move
Sell early, scale inside
At about $450K ARR he sold to Constellation's Jonas Software, stayed on as CEO, and grew it roughly 20x to $9M using the acquirer's balance sheet. Selling small, not holding out, was the bet.
fact
The counter-intuitive move
Selling at $450K meant giving up later upside. But an earnout plus Constellation's reach was safer than scaling a niche golf ERP alone.
our read
05Where the moat is
Copying the software is easy; copying an operator-founder is not:
Founder owns golf coursesSold a golf-tech app before (Golfler)All-in-one ERP replaces a dozen toolsConstellation's balance sheet + earnout
06How it diesmedium confidence
A generic golf ERP with no operator credibility loses to Golf Genius, Lightspeed and incumbent tee-sheet vendors; without an insider founder, no course trusts you to run its entire operation. our read
Show evidence · counter
Evidence: Golf software is crowded: Golf Genius, Lightspeed Golf, ForeUp and GolfNow all court the same courses.
Counter: Pearsall's operator status and prior Golfler exit gave him trust and know-how an outside founder cannot fake.
07Against rivals
Club Caddieabout $15K/yr
Lightspeed Golfcustom
Golf Geniusper-course
ForeUpcustom
Club Caddie is the all-in-one challenger against larger point solutions for tee sheets and POS. our read
08Who uses it
Daily-fee coursesPrivate country clubsSemi-private clubsMunicipal coursesManagement groups
Would it work for you?
Which fragmented, multi-tool industry do you have real operator standing inside?
The moat here was being a real operator, not the code. We don't score you — you answer.
🚀Use it as a launchpada prompt for your own AI
Copy → paste into your AI → then develop it freely in the conversation.
You are a sharp, honest startup strategist. Use the proven case below as a launchpad for MY idea — help me find my own angle, not copy it. <my_profile> Domain I know: [your domain] My unfair advantage (access/audience): [your edge] Interests: [your interests] Resources & goal: [your resources] · [your goal] </my_profile> <case name="Club Caddie" model="saas"> What it does: Club Caddie sells golf courses one cloud ERP that runs POS, tee sheets, memberships, food and beverage, and accounting on a subscription of about $15K a year. Why it won (moat): Founder Jason Pearsall owns golf courses and had already built and sold a golf-tech app, giving him industry trust and distribution a generic vendor cannot buy. Weakest axis (CENTS): Golf-course software is a crowded, mature category, and most of Club Caddie's 20x growth came after Constellation's Jonas Software acquired it. How it could die: A generic all-in-one golf ERP without operator credibility gets outsold by Golf Genius, Lightspeed, and incumbent tee-sheet vendors. </case> <task> Be a skeptical operator, not a cheerleader. No generic startup platitudes. If my angle is weak, say so plainly. First, a reality check: markets like this mostly fail. State the honest base rate (how crowded/hard is this?) and the ONE specific thing that would have to be true for ME to be the exception — grounded in my profile above. Then a compact table: - Fit — does this pattern suit my edge, or fight my gap? - Angle — my sharpest differentiation vs Club Caddie (concrete, not "better UX") - Distribution — exactly where my first 100 users come from (this is the hardest part — be specific, not "content marketing") - Risk — its "how it dies" (above) in MY situation Finish with one line: "The single thing to do next." Use only the facts above; if data is thin, say so — never invent numbers. Then stay with me and go deeper on whatever I ask — tech stack, rough cost & time, the smallest MVP to test, pricing, or timing. </task>
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Sourcesupdated · daily
Revenue is first-party but self-reported: $9M ARR, 600+ courses, about $15K ACV, and the $600K raised were all stated by founder Jason Pearsall on Nathan Latka's podcast (Dec 3, 2025). Latka's own getLatka tracker lists $9M ARR / $11.6M valuation, but other third-party estimators (e.g. Kona Equity) peg revenue nearer $4.1M, so figures are unaudited. The '$450K to $9M in 5 years' arc spans 2020-2025 — i.e. mostly AFTER Jonas Software (a Constellation company) acquired Club Caddie in Feb 2020 — so 'bootstrapped' is only partly true: it raised $600K, then scaled with an acquirer's resources under a long-term earnout. Founding year (about 2019) is approximate; development began around 2017. The Golfler exit ($4.2M to Supreme Golf, 2017) is founder-stated. No drama was invented — the acquisition and earnout are documented. We never score you.