Its Been Three Years
The Kilo has been an idea in my head since April of 2017. I was working for a startup in Texas while living in Arkansas, which meant a 7+ hour drive (one way) at least twice per month. Those drives, living out of a hotel room, eating take out, limited gym options, and very little free time meant nutrition became more important than ever – especially getting in all my protein. Like anyone else who works out regularly I had taken protein shakes for years at home – often using the same shaker bottles you are likely familiar with. There was just one problem. Even the smaller shaker bottles really don’t travel that well. They don’t fit nicely in a backpack. And they make So. Much. Noise. This pain-point is what I set out to solve – something to mix my protein shakes that was easy to store, traveled well, and didn’t make as much as noise when using it.
It wasn’t until a year later that Kyle (my co-founder and best friend since college) and I finally got started, and it was a slow start. But as is so often the case in life, starting is so much more important than the speed at which you are traveling. Action produces more action. We spent the first 6 months finding partners to work with and sketching out ideas in our living rooms. Once we had the design and knew what features were important, we started the prototyping phase. We initially expected this to take 2-3 prototypes to get everything right. We could not have been more wrong. We wanted to get the Kilo to market quickly – but we knew this product would represent who we are and what we stand for. It represents us. It’s a funny thing when you put something out there into the world – you realize a lot about who you are and what you stand for. This journey has proved that more than anything else.
We were presented with some options that would have brought the Kilo to the marketplace way quicker. The only problem was every one of these “solutions” would have meant compromising something that was vital to the product we envisioned. The best example of this is our patented (collapsing) round design. Almost every other collapsible silicone product you will find on the market today – whether it’s a coffee cup, or a lunch box – has an accordion style fold that allows it to collapse. These folds are thin and inhibit stability, both when holding the cup and setting it down. We wanted something better. I lost track of the number of iterations we went through – with our engineer, with prototypes, with different durometers (thickness/stiffness of material). This process went on for close to a year before we were finally satisfied with the pre-production specs. The manufacturing set up took almost as long with even more iterations. Every time, we refused to settle for “good enough” and made tiny tweaks and changes to make sure it was exactly right.
Sometimes we slowed ourselves down because we insisted on getting things exactly right. Sometimes, factors outside our control slowed us down – moving, new jobs, COVID, etc. We started to look at everything – big and little – as the mountains we had to summit. As challenges to face and overcome. Sometimes it was rough. But even on our worst days, it always felt good to stop and look at what we were doing and reflect on how far we’d come. That would give us strength to keep moving forward.
The point of all this is to say that starting a business is hard. Being healthy is hard. Life is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably has never truly challenged themselves. The idea behind SummitShaker is simple. We build products to help you on your journey to health and fitness. Nothing we sell you will remove the need for discipline, grit, or hard work to reach your summit, whatever that may be. Our products are made to help you stay on the path, and hopefully make you appreciate the journey along the way.
Starting SummitShaker and bringing the Kilo to market has been our “summit” that we have been climbing for over three years, one day at a time. We are already looking ahead to what’s next, and we can’t wait to continue the journey. We hope you will join us.