
It was the fall of 2020 – still in the dark days of the pandemic – when Adeel Yang hauled his new-fangled trailer down to Stanford University to prove he had the makings of a legitimate company.
Born out of his own golf addiction and space constraints in his San Francisco home, Yang figured out how to successfully insert a golf simulator inside a street-legal trailer. At a time when at-home simulators and off-course golf entertainment were starting to reach fever pitch, Yang’s invention created a mobile niche within that non-traditional golf space.
When Yang came to Stanford, he parked his trailer behind a few of the dorms and charged $50 for each session. Even though in-person classes were limited at the time, the remaining students could not use the golf course and were desperate for a small slice of the game.
Yang watched as a long line formed.

“I thought, ‘Wow, there’s actually a business here,’” Yang told GGPBiz. “I realized there was a pretty cool opportunity to take this and actually make a company out of it, because the unit economics are pretty attractive.”
That momentum turned into Dryvebox, a company that has built 10 trailers – they refer to them as “boxes” – spread strategically across a handful of U.S. cities, including San Francisco, San Diego, Charleston, South Carolina, and Phoenix. Their aim is to have 25 boxes by the end of 2023 and then about 50 boxes in 2024, continuing to grow what Yang calls an economy of scale.
On the strength of positive feedback and a quickly growing business, Yang believes Dryvebox has the potential to be a game-changer in a newly discovered space.
“Our goal is to really open up this whole new category of off-course golf experience that we call mobile golf,” Yang said. “I believe we’re the first real business doing this.”
Admittedly, Yang is a total outsider in the golf industry. He attended the University of Arizona for his undergraduate (2008) and his doctor of medicine (2014) degrees, his background being internal medicine. However, Yang has spent most of his career focused on the entrepreneurial side, co-founding an educational software company and another company that offers healthcare organizations an automated patient navigation platform. He sold both, the last one being in 2019.
That same year, Yang picked up golf for the first time because his younger brother started playing. The two became very competitive, and Yang soon had a full-on addiction to the sport.
Typical street-legal trailers are far too narrow and don’t allow enough room for golf, so Yang had to get creative and ended up patenting his solution of a golf trailer that, when parked, uses slide-outs on each side to expand the playing area.
When the pandemic came, he was desperate for golf. California had strict rules, and golf was off the table for quite some time, so Yang wanted to put a simulator in his home.
“My wife said no,” Yang said. “Because I would be essentially sacrificing my future son’s bedroom. Half-jokingly, I was like, ‘Well, what if I could get a trailer and I will be out of the house?’ And my wife said, ‘Yeah, as long as it’s not in the house, I really don’t care what you do.’”
That’s when it all started. As Yang bluntly states, “I was stupid enough to try to buy a trailer and outfit it with golf inside.”
The process came with some large hurdles. A normal golf simulator, equipped with TrackMan, requires a certain amount of room to safely swing a golf club. Typical street-legal trailers are far too narrow and don’t allow enough room for golf, so Yang had to get creative and ended up patenting his solution of a golf trailer that, when parked, uses slide-outs on each side to expand the playing area.
The original prototype was “barely functional,” but players could safely swing inside. Early feedback was encouraging, so Yang was off and running.
A 15-20 handicap at the time, he decided to take a bunch of lessons from pros – with the clandestine motive of hoping to find a co-founder who was also a golf expert. Within about 30 minutes of a lesson with coach and social-media influencer Jake Hutt, Yang cut his session short and abruptly pitched his idea to a bewildered Hutt. He soon would be convinced to come on board.
Yang also brought on Mike Leong and Matt Gipple as co-founders. Leong was a former professional golfer turned software engineer and brought more technical muscle to the team. Gipple, a Stanford law graduate with a history of leading legal teams at high-growth startups, joined to lead operations and strategy.

“He’s been trying to start a company with me for a long time,” Gipple said jokingly of his friendship with Yang. “My whole shtick is, I help companies go from zero to one, one to 100 and then see where they go from there.”
Although skeptical at first, Gipple soon bought into the concept, in part because of the team’s epiphany on box design: the rear deck. The original box was more of a teaching-studio style without a back deck attached. Adding that deck would lend Dryvebox to hosting more events.
“When you create an area in the back for people to hang out in and watch and enjoy the game together, it really changes the experience,” Gipple said.
Dryvebox soon came to have three main offerings. A critical one is the event space. That includes everything from bachelor parties to Dryvebox being set up all week at major events such as concerts, the Genesis Invitational and the Presidents Cup.
When the boxes are not being used for events, they are typically left in retail parking spaces. Anyone who pays a membership can book an appointment and use the simulator, providing a total self-service model of revenue. Many times, there are PGA professionals who book in conjunction with students so they can use the box together.
Consider that the PGA of America is among the investors in the product. It makes sense, given that the mission of Dryvebox is “to cultivate golf everywhere,” making the simulator experience accessible to all.
Pricing is dependent on the city, but Yang said it is roughly $70 per month to have two sessions and $150 per month to have six sessions.
The final offering is a leasing model, where a golf course or other entity could take a long-term lease out on a box to have it on-site.
Because of the low operating costs, the trailers are very profitable. The company has launched new boxes on its own as well as via profit-sharing arrangements with local general managers.
The golf industry has been impressed. Consider that the PGA of America is among the investors in the product. It makes sense, given that the mission of Dryvebox is “to cultivate golf everywhere,” making the simulator experience accessible to all.
“I think the experience is the thing that I am most proud of,” Yang said. “Consistently, people just rave about it and love the experience.”