In September of 2023, Danny and Steven Sanicki played a round of minigolf. The Sanickis are twins, are both competitive golfers, and were budding content creators at the time, so of course they filmed the whole round. Danny edited the footage on his phone, recorded a quick commentary track, slapped a scoreboard over top of the video, and posted the tournament as a six-part series on his TikTok channel. Neither brother really expected anything to happen.

The videos went viral. And since then, the Sanicki twins have been posting tournaments every day, bringing new friends into the fold, and building out a Putt-Putt empire all around the web. They built a complex system of tournaments and points, started awarding money to winners, and began planning for how to make things even bigger.

On this episode of The Vergecast, the first in a two-part series we’re calling How to Make It in the Future, we chart the rise of Twin Tour Golf (as they’d prefer to be known) and talk with Danny and Steven about their experience as creators. We talk about the process of deciding to go all in on minigolf, the way they’ve tried to expand their offering without compromising what people like about it, how they split up workflow, how they monetize on various channels, and much more. The Sanickis’ story is a classic creator journey, and they’ve hit so many of the milestones and forks in the road that come for everyone who wants to make it on the internet.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started: