The DiscTreever- Adam Reesman Q and A
Losing a disc is one of the worst feelings. Whether it is in a tree, river, lake, etc. it is the worst. So, to combat that, Adam Reesman invented a tool called The Disctreever. It is a disc retriever tool and has been sweeping all over social media, most recently with Paul and Hannah McBeth. Adam let me talk to him and pick his brain about his start and this amazing tool! Give it a read through and enjoy!
1) How did you get your start into Disc Golf?
My first round was back in 97 or 98, there was a park by my friends house and we used to go up there to play around and kill time, not really taking it serious. I didn’t start taking Disc Golf seriously until I had reconstructive surgery in 2004 on my shoulder and my physical therapist recommended I play twice a week to improve my range of motion and get my strength back.
2) Who or what inspires you to continue to play?
I love it all from watching the flight path to the sound of the chains to just being outside and getting some quality time with the wife or friends. But overall I would say the people and the culture are what keep me playing. Disc golf is what I use to forget all the life drama and just focus on the moment and the throw I need to make.
3) What is DiscTreever all about?
The DiscTreever is about me giving back to the sport that I love. I started telling my friends that I wanted to make a retriever back in 03 or 04. Through the years of talking about the idea it evolved into needing a broom for slipping and bag attachments. In 2012 my father in law and I went out to his garage and we took an extendable paddle and just screwed some metal hooks onto the end and the first DiscTreever was born. Since that moment I have been carrying a retriever of some kind; experimenting with different poles, hooks and bag attachments.
4) Why Disc Golf? What made you get into the sport from a business aspect?
Well in my 9 to 5 I work for an automobile design company and 2 years ago my boss Sean said “we should make it and I want to help you do this”. So my knowledge of how parts get made helped me develop this product.
5) Favorite Disc?
Discraft Buzz or Pulse
6) Favorite Course?
Flip City in Shelby Michigan or Ghost Town Disc Golf in Central City Colorado
7) What can we expect from you in 2018?
To see me out on the course with a DiscTreever on the back of my bag, my dream has not changed. I want to give Disc Golfers a quality product; I know I would be carrying a DiscTreever with me whether people were buying them or not.
8) What made you think of a Disc Retrieval tool?
My home course, Addison Oaks has a lot of water holes. I just lost too many discs or came out with too many leaches from going in after them. I also realized that the sport was growing like crazy and that if I was going to do anything I needed to do it now.
9) What advice would you give to someone who wants to start their own business?
Be flexible when you need to be but do not compromise your original vision. The DiscTreever development was a group collaboration with me being the only one really knowing the sport; when dealing with manufacturers and engineers there were a lot of times where someone would say “well we could just do this” and it may have been easier or more cost effective, but knowing how rough I was going to be with it I would not budge. But on things that didn’t matter as much I would compromise to keep the development moving.
10) Are there plans for multiple styles of DiscTreevers in the works?
The only thing we are really certain about is the fact that only the first 900 will have gold poles. I really wanted to do a “first run type of thing”. So once the gold poles are gone they will never be coming back. I think in the future we may start offering different colors or attachments but I want anything you buy in the future to attach to the original unit.
11) What makes you different than other Disc Golf tools?
Our broom, we are the only retriever broom combination on the market. I also saw a lot of retrieval tools on the market that seemed over complicated and I wanted to keep it as basic as possible with having my primary focus on durability.
12) Is there anything else you would like people to know about you or DiscTreever that they may not?
We want this to be a for Disc Golfers by Disc Golfers kinda market. What I mean by that is we are more interested in getting people to rep the products and sell them for us (and share profits with them) vs a big chain ordering a bunch then selling to the public and getting those profits. I am not saying we won't be selling them is stores, but I would prefer to “share the wealth”.
I would like to thank Adam for taking the time out of his day for me to interview him and for answering my questions in general. If you would like to know more about the Disctreever, you can find them at https://disctreever.com/ as well as on Instagram at @disctreever. Look out for more coming soon!
picture credit goes to Adam Reesman