# From Toilet Seats to Tee Times: How Evan Teshima Built and Sold a Golf Tech Empire

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/silicon-slopes-leaders-interviewing-leaders-6472484/from-toilet-seats-to-tee-times-how-evan-teshima-built-and-sold-a-golf-tech-empire
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/silicon-slopes-leaders-interviewing-leaders-6472484/from-toilet-seats-to-tee-times-how-evan-teshima-built-and-sold-a-golf-tech-empire.md
Podcast: [Silicon Slopes | Leaders Interviewing Leaders](https://stenobird.com/podcast/silicon-slopes-leaders-interviewing-leaders-6472484)
Published: 2026-05-07T13:00:02+00:00
Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/from-toilet-seats-to-tee-times-how-evan-teshima-built-and-sold-a-golf-tech-empire--71302564
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Duration seconds: 1880

## Resource

What does it take to bootstrap a SaaS company from a broke college student's dorm-room idea to a successful acquisition with barely $50K in real outside capital? In this special Silicon Slopes Podcast, guest host Adam Stoker, President and CEO of Brand Revolt, sits down with Evan Teshima, investor and Co-Founder of foreUP golf software, to find out. Evan co-founded foreUP as a BYU senior after a pivotal entrepreneurship class taught by John Richards sparked a realization: golf courses were running their entire operations on archaic, CD-based software that belonged in a museum. So he and his co-founders built a cloud-based point-of-sale system from scratch and spent the next decade turning it into the industry's go-to platform, powering over 2,300 courses across the country before being acquired by Clubessential Holdings. But the path there was anything but linear. In this candid conversation, Evan walks through seven major pivots, a near-death convertible note crisis, years of rock-bottom salaries, and the legendary chess match against investor John Richards that nearly made or broke the company. He also shares the counterintuitive philosophy that kept foreUP alive in those early years: stop chasing elephants and go for the rabbits. In this episode, you'll hear: Why Evan's first business idea involved a self-opening toilet seat and what came next How losing multiple business plan competitions actually pointed him toward his real opportunity The moment he realized golf courses were the customer, not golfers Why "our customers are our investors" became the founding mantra of foreUP The chess match with John Richards that decided $400K in equity How staying small, scrappy, and focused on the lower-end of the market built the foundation for a massive exit What Evan has lea…

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