Longtime friends Jared Doerfler and Tyler Johnson launched golf startups in Iowa
Jared Doerfler began bootstrapping a boutique putter company in his home state of Iowa with the same underdog mentality that helped him walk on to his college golf team.
“Business is a lot like golf,” Jared said. “It’s 95% mental, so you have to have self-belief and discipline. The first year, it was just basically me every single day for 12 hours a day, most Saturdays, most Sundays, trying to teach myself everything.”
Jared’s quest to launch Hanna Golf began in Mason City. He was working as a VP of Sales & Manufacturing at Metalcraft, which makes asset-tracking tags for a wide variety of industries, when he began publishing Perfect Putt, a weekly newsletter breaking down the business and money in golf.
He had recently graduated from the University of Iowa Tippe College of Business M.B.A. program and started putting what he learned into practice. Building an online audience propelled Jared, a self-proclaimed “habitual tinkerer,” towards launching products—a line of CNC-milled putters.
“Precision milled parts produce, generally, a higher quality product,” Jared said.
With the right equipment, he was able to tweak his putter designs quickly, eventually manufacturing and assembling product “drops” that sell out in minutes. Since spring of 2024, Hanna Golf has delivered putters to golfers in 47 states and eight countries. Jared also placed third in the 20th Annual John Pappajohn Iowa Entrepreneurial Venture Competition, winning $15,000 to grow his business.
Golf buddies turned startup ‘sounding boards’
Watching Jared’s pivot to entrepreneurship inspired Tyler Johnson to explore a startup idea of his own. The longtime friends have charted parallel professional courses since their days as UNI golf teammates, working together in Kansas City after graduation, then at Metalcraft.
“Jared has a visionary, long-term business mindset,” Tyler said.
As Tyler’s family started to grow, he noticed a gap in the market for high-quality youth golf bags. In January of 2025, he went full-time with Charlie Golf Co., which specializes in sets for kids aged 2-8. Tyler said, as he was launching his company, Jared gave him a tip.
“Always having an authentic story to tell proved to be important for our business,” Tyler said. “People can relate.”
Pinned posts on the company’s Instagram account @charliegolf_co provide a behind-the-scenes look at founder life and build buzz for new releases. Tyler’s story also caught the attention of traditional media outlets like Forbes and The Athletic, which published pieces about Charlie Golf Co.’s rise from Tyler’s garage to the greens of courses like Augusta National.
“We’ve always had great reviews, but we’re always thinking of anything that we can do better, what that next set looks like, or how we evolve as the kids grow,” Tyler said.
Fortunately, his home state is a great place to get kids interested in the game. Iowa has more nine-hole golf courses than any other U.S. state.
Iowa’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystems
Now, Jared and Tyler are building their businesses in neighboring warehouses in Cedar Falls, just a 15-minute drive from Pheasant Ridge Golf Course, where they played during college.
Tyler moved first, to be closer to family support. Soon after, Jared’s wife received a job offer in nearby Waterloo. Relocating the Hanna Golf headquarters to Iowa’s Cedar Valley made sense to Jared. The region is rich in entrepreneurial resources, and he was eager to reconnect with his college network.
“I got my undergrad at UNI, and a lot of my very close friends are here, and happen to be entrepreneurs,” he said.
“We had that built-in community of people rooting for us.”
Back in Mason City, Metalcraft CEO Kyle Bermel remains one of Jared and Tyler’s biggest fans. Before they became colleagues at the employee-owned manufacturer, all three were on the UNI golf team together. Kyle and Tyler go even further back. The two competed on rival basketball teams in high school.
“I remember him being scrappy as could be,” Kyle said. “He wanted to get after it, he wanted to compete, and he wanted to win. At Metalcraft, you wear a lot of hats, you learn a lot of different things and can control your own destiny. I think that allowed Tyler and Jared to flourish as entrepreneurs. We have nothing but respect for what they’re doing and really enjoy watching them grow.”
