Whirly Board is a Great Fitness Gift for All Ages

Hey, I'd like to welcome you to another episode of mission matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you'd like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters. com and click on, be our guest to apply. All right. So today's guests are Eric and Joanna Olson, and they're the co founders of Whirlyboard. Let me tell you, if you haven't heard of Whirlyboard yet, you are in for a treat. I happen to have one. Let's see if I can get this in the screen over here right now with you. Me and we're going to get into this and what this board looks like. But just to get us kicked off, I want to say, Eric, Joanna, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. All right. So we got, we got a lot to cover today. I want to get into, you know, how you came up with the board, the concept. I saw some pictures I want to get into, of course, where you're at with the company now, your vision going forward. But before we get into all that, we'll start this episode, the way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So Eric, Joanna and mission matters. Our aim and goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That's what we do. Eric and Joanna, what missions matter to you? Well, our mission started as a way to make cool products. We started with the Whirly Board, and we intend to continue making more cool products. And Joanna has a greater mission of trying to save the world by using recycled products, promoting an active lifestyle, and just getting people to Appreciate this awesome planet and save it. It's awesome. Love bringing mission based individuals on here to share why they do what they do, how they're doing and what we all can learn from that. So we grow together. So I saw some pictures of the original version of Whirlyboard and like, first off, how did this all come about? Like where, where'd you get this idea, Eric? So I'm a board sports enthusiast. I grew up loving snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, all of those. And that was kind of my favorite thing to do. So incidentally, I was into balance boards, but the only balance boards that were out there were like the roller style. So you have our cylinder. And you roll back and forth on the cylinder, but I personally never really felt like it helped much with actual board sports or anything really, it was kind of a fun activity, but I didn't think it did much, so I had the idea, I used to do a 180 on the roller, and I would, you know, stand one way, spin, and land the other way, and I thought, geez, what if I, what if there's a balance board where I could keep spinning? That would be kind of fun. Cause there's really no end to how far you can spin and spinning is something I struggled with as a board sports person. I'd get a little awkward on my three sixties and five forties. So I wanted to be able to practice that. So I caught a bowling ball in half, put it on a skateboard deck and cut, cut a pool ball in half and put one on the nose and tail. Turned out I really had a lot of fun with it in my basement. And I was like, geez, this thing is really cool. I think this could be something. And I had always wanted to, when I asked myself, what do I want to be? When I grow up at the time, I was an insurance salesman. That was definitely not it. And I would always say, I want to invent something and make it and sell it. And that was, that was what I wanted to do. And so I was like, this is it. I'm going to do it. I can make, I can start making these in my garage. Yeah, and the dust, lots and lots of dust. Yeah, Joanna, hold on. So you got a pool ball cut in half, you got a couple pool balls, a bowling ball. Let me grab it. What, what are you telling Eric at this time? Like, what's going on? So Eric and I actually got together shortly after he made his first prototypes with the bowling ball. Most of that came with the territory. You knew you were in for like the Yeah, I knew what was gonna happen. I knew what I was getting myself into. At that time I was done cutting bowling balls, but I was still cutting pool balls, so there was still lots of dust. Yeah, the pool balls were a great idea though, because all the pool balls that were made were like sequential. So everybody who got the first original worldly boards were like the original ones. Yeah. The first 159 boards, 'cause pool balls go up to 15 and nine. So 159 was as high as I could go. So those are all Oh, so you had, so the original boards that were sold actually had the pool balls on them? Yep. Yeah. And that was, yeah, just like this on the grommet with those. No, once we were on the grommet, we were switching from pool balls and the material we were using Did not turn out. And I found out last minute that it like left marks on the floor. So it was a mad scramble to find a new material and then try to make all the balls in time as the orders were coming in. And wow. Yeah. At any given time. So a lot of entrepreneurs that watch this show and and I'm

Mission Matters Business Podcast with Adam Torres