It Started With a $50 Mistake

Winter 2023 in Nebraska. Two broke college buddies, bored, restless, playing too much Rocket League.

I ordered one of those viral indoor chipping games off TikTok. Fifty bucks for velcro balls and cardboard turf. It was loud, flimsy, and felt nothing like a real wedge and a real ball.

The $50 "viral" chipping mat. Fun for a minute, not golf.

So We Grabbed Some Flower Pots

As soon as the ground thawed, I flipped a blue flower pot upside down in the backyard and started chipping at it.

Eamon grabbed another pot. Ten minutes later we were talking trash, chasing misses, and realizing this felt a lot closer to real golf than anything we had tried.

Backyard reps with flipped flower pots and real wedges.

Friday night we dragged it to the front yard and made a simple scoring system: one point for hitting the pot, three for hitting the drink, five if you knock it off.

The whole block wanted in. Someone finally said the name out loud: Chip Beer.

One of the original Chip Beer sketches, long before triangles and magnets.

We Played It Everywhere

For the next two years it was our default move. Friends' farms, tailgates, beach trips, lake weekends. If there was open space, we were chipping at something.

At that point it was just our thing. Then July 2025 made it feel bigger than that.

The Moment We Knew

Lake McConaughy. The first time it felt like more than a backyard hack.

When the non-golfers are still playing at sunset on a lake day, you are not looking at a gimmick. You are looking at a game people actually want.

17 Prototypes Later

We are from Nebraska, which means we do not coast. Once we decided to see it through, we went straight into the garage.

We knew one thing: triangles do not lie. There is a reason serious structures lean on that shape.

Early wood cuts in the garage, before we knew exactly what this would become.

Foam board, polyurethane, birch plywood, every hinge in the Menards aisle. If it flexed, broke, or felt wrong, it went back on the saw.

The real leap came when we realized it had to fold flat, disappear in a car trunk, and slide into a closet or golf bag.

The fold-flat geometry that made everything click.

When we tested the first foldable version and heard that clean thunk off the face, Eamon just said, "Oh yeah. That will do."

We looked at each other and nodded. A week later the provisional patent paperwork was in.

Render turned reality. The ChipShotz triangle in its natural habitat.

Why ChipShotz Actually Works

Most golf games are darts with a backswing. You stand in one spot and hit into a net. It is fine, but it does not feel like reading a lie, picking a landing zone, and trusting a wedge.

ChipShotz is built to feel like golf.

It is 3D, dynamic, and portable. You can attack from any angle. If your opponent's ball settles in a divot or behind a leg of a chair, too bad.

Our favorite rule is simple: play it where it lies. Off the slope, out of the mulch, through the rough patch of backyard grass. It brings back the creativity, precision, and recovery that make golf addictive.

And here is the part that surprised us: it actually makes you better. After a week of playing in the yard, our touch around real greens tightened up.

ChipShotz turns real-club, real-ball reps into a game you can play almost anywhere: backyard, park, beach, tailgate, or while waiting on a slow group.

For golfers, it is honest short-game practice. For everyone else, it is controlled chaos with a flagstick.

Who We Are

Andrew and Eamon, trying very hard not to call this a "startup" photo.

We are Andrew Hoover and Eamon Sully from Omaha, Nebraska.

We met playing high school soccer and later roomed together at Creighton. Business school ended, and instead of sliding into separate careers, we decided to build something of our own.

ChipShotz is our first product. Every prototype, photo, and video started in our garages, living rooms, and backyards with friends.

If you back this project, you are backing two first-time founders who are fully in, with skin in the game and sawdust on the floor.

Where We Are Now

The fold system is patent pending. The launch design is locked in, and we are working with Omaha manufacturers to build the first 250 sets.

Small batch is more expensive, but it lets us stay close to the build, check every unit, and avoid rolling the dice on a random factory.

Each ChipShotz set includes:

• Two foldable Chipyramids with an about four second setup
• Official rules and a score card
• A game that works almost anywhere you can safely swing a wedge

Estimated delivery: April to June 2026, with the first wave targeted for April.