Founded in 2013 to help the private club industry adopt to the mobile phone era, George Stavros' Pacesetter has experienced a decade of growth, including emerging from the pandemic as a business success story. Recently the company has begun taking their expertise in the hospitality industry and member management space to other areas, like the boardroom and the office space.
The Business Journal recently sat down with Stavros to talk about about the surge in golfing and club membership since the pandemic, the company's new venture into the corporate world and what the company is working on for 2024. Here is a lightly edited transcript:
Tell me a little bit about your new business division and why you thought it would be natural fit for Pacesetter?
We've begun taking what we've excelled in in the private club space and are beginning to bring this type of app-service to companies with 100+ employees. That large environment still functions like a club. A lot of internal communication and scheduling has to happen. And there's so much that we can do by creating a digital mobile employee experience, just the way we've created a digital mobile member experience. So things like you know, using your phone to unlock the front door.
Scheduling desks and conference rooms instantly comes to mind.
Exactly right... hot desking, booking in the conference room for two o'clock. We also have the ability for employees to tell the company things like paper towels were low or there was no coffee in the break room. It would be convenient to have all of these different way to interact with their staff in a hyper-focused way.
How many of these business apps have you built for clients?
We've built about 15 apps in the non-hospitality space. And we're learning every day about things that we can do that drive engagement. One of our companies is a big construction company in New Jersey. And they have a mentoring program where a young employee has a senior executive and through the app, they report that 'I had my meeting with James and this is what we discussed' and that goes straight to this to the HR team. Another function we built out for another company allowed employees to recognize each other as a superstar through peer-to-peer recognition. So those are some of the unique features we've been building into each app.
How long have you been working in the business app space now?
It's something we've been thinking about for a while but it's really taken off this year with the launch of Pacesetter Business.
Talking about your core business: during Covid, golfing saw a exponential rise in popularity, primarily because it was an outdoor sport that you could do in small groups. Golf and the club scene is still doing well comparatively. The knock on effects have to be good for your business, correct?
Almost every private club in this area has a big waiting list, so there is pent up demand. It was originally triggered by Covid — golf was the fun safe activity that you could actually do safely — but even before Covid, private club membership was on the rise nationally.
Are there any new technological functions that you're working on internally?
Constantly. Obviously AI is the million-dollar term right now. We're working on leveraging AI to do some cool things that could help improve the member experience but also create efficiencies on behalf of the club, such as access control to be able to allow members to use their phone to open doors.
Plus, you can use things like geofencing and NFC (near field communication) to make it even more secure.
And we do a ton of that. We leverage location services for both communication but you know, really to drive a better member experience. For instance, we want the club to know when each guest is nearing the entry point or arriving. The information provided will help customize the guest experience... especially with personalized greetings.
Where do you think you're going to focus your attention and energy in 2024?
We're going to continue to work on and expand our new business and corporate offerings. But club growth continues to increase worldwide and we're in a lot of countries already. So we're poised to keep growing and scaling to meet demand,
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