The Topgolf Founders Fought Through Countless Rejections -- and Built America's Favorite New Game After being shunned by investors and struggling to find their audience, a big-thinking partner helped guide these founders to viral success.

Richard Grogan made a career of spotting bad ideas. He didn't suffer them lightly -- at Bain & Company, the strategic management firm where he was a senior partner, the many companies' boards he sits on, or while director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. So in 2003, when he was on a ski vacation with his family, he wasn't especially impressed when two bankers representing a pair of British twin entrepreneurs approached him with a new opportunity. The conversation was brief.

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"What industry is it?" he asked.