How I Built This with Guy Raz - Zumba: Beto Perez & Alberto Perlman

Episode Date: January 2, 2017

Zumba began as a mistake: aerobics teacher Beto Perez brought the wrong music to class, then improvised a dance routine to go with it. For his students, it was more fun than work — and it eventually grew into one of the biggest fitness brands in the world. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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We press send and we're praying, please, please. And suddenly, 450 instructors joined. And so that's when we said, this is going to be our life. And let's make it work. Brahmin PR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show,

how three immigrants from Columbia turned a scrappy aerobics class into one of the biggest fitness brands in the world. Okay, so it's the new year. And, you know, we're all thinking about getting back. to the gym, even if it's just for like a week or two. But during those glorious two weeks, you might stumble into a class in which everyone just seems to be really, really happy. And there is a good chance that the class they're taking is Zumba. Yes, this is Zumba. It is a kind of mashup of aerobics and Latin dance and hip-hop. And it actually all began with a guy named

Alberto Perez. He goes by the name Beto. And Beto is a dancer by training. And back in the 90s, he was living in Kali, Colombia, which is where he's from. He taught aerobics during the day to make extra money, and at night he would dance in a company. Anyway, one day he was heading to his aerobics class when he realized that he left his regular music at home. And the only music that I had with me in this moment, it was a cassette with Latin music, more cumbia, merengue, salsa,

different kind of music. But I started the class, I didn't say to my students I make a mistake. I tell them, listen, the class today, I want to do something different. They say, okay, only follow me. And I start my class, and everybody loves it. And this moment I discover it and I say to myself, I need to do this for my life.

I love it. It's so cool. So Beto basically started to teach this new kind of fusion aerobics class in Kali for a long time, and it became really, really popular. So he decided to try his luck in America and he sold all of his stuff. He bought a ticket to Miami and he started to knock on doors.

I went to the gyms and finally nobody paid attention to me. I didn't speak English. I can explain what I do and I come back to Bogota, save money and I come back again to Miami, went to the different gyms, four times.

And finally, in the third time, one American woman in the north of Miami, Williams Island. And they tell me, okay, I want to do the audition with you. And I said, perfect. I went with my friend. She translated everything. She said, Beto, okay, they do the audition.

And I tell them, where is the people? No, she won only you and her. Oh, my God. Like a party time, only with one person is like a strain. But okay, I went to the gym. It was Friday, like a 3.30 in the afternoon. This time, all the gyms in the planet is empty. And I, okay, let me see what son I want to play.

And I play, Oje Como va, the Tito Pente. You know? Yeah, yeah. Oye, come over. She, wow, it's mine. And I start to teach my first steps, my first steps. And in this moment, a lot of people come to the gym to go to the training, maybe lift wakes or something.

And they come in. And the Arabis room because they think it's a class. They don't know it's an audition. You mean the people who were just like at the gym working out saw you auditioning for the manager and they started to like come in and check it out? Exactly. And they coming in, three people, four, five, six.

In one moment I had like 25 people and people clap every song. And the auditioning was for 15 minutes. And I danced for one hour. Wow. And this moment the woman told me, okay, you know, I want to do a chance for you. Come here in one month and teach a master class.

Only for demo. In this moment, my friend translated all this new. I say, wow, perfect. This is the only thing that I need. And I come back to my city, to Bogota, and I sold my cars. You know, I sold everything. I pay my bills. And I come back.

And I, the first thing. I buy as a Pontiac 85, no air condition, a car for $400. And I rent a little apartment with $400 too in the little Havana. My first bed, it was aerobics math with two blankets. And I teach my first class. And I came late because I lost in this moment. I doesn't see the GPS. And I came late 15 minutes late.

can believe it. But anyway, I come to the room, the office room, people who was quiet. I didn't say sorry, excuse me, because I didn't speak English. And I played the music and I say, please God, help me. And I start the party and people smile, have a good time. And the rest is story. Okay, Beto, I'm going to pause the story for a sec, because I want to bring in another guy who comes into the picture at this point. Hello. Hello. Who helps Zumba become Zumba. Tell me what you have for breakfast. Two arepas with avocado. And for everybody listening, it's going to get a little confusing for a sec

because this is also Alberto. No, called me, Alberto, call him Beto. So Alberto is Alberto Perlman and Beto is Beto Perez. Okay, so Beto is the guy who invents Zumba in Colombia, brings it to Miami. Alberto is the guy who was going to help him make it into this huge thing. But before that happened, Alberto Perlman was living in Miami. 23, this is around 1999.

And all the guys my age were starting internet companies, and I said, why not? So he launches an incubator to help Latin American startups. And it seemed to be going fine for a short period of time until the dot-com bubble burst. And Alberto's company collapses. Yeah, so I personally was out of a job, and I had no money in the bank. And I didn't know what I was going to do. And I was having dinner at my parents' house. and my mom kept talking about Beto's class.

And at that point, Beto here in Miami, he called this class Rumba size. Because Rumba in Spanish means to party. And then she turned to me and said, why don't you meet with Beto? Maybe since you're looking for something right now, maybe you and him can start a gym together or something. And I said, I don't know if I'm going to start a gym, but I'll meet with him. Yeah, because, I mean, your background was in technology and in like direct market sales, right?

I mean, are you thinking to yourself, hmm, this seems a little weird. Like, that's not really my thing. Well, the thing that popped into my brain at that time was, could this be an infomercial? Hmm. Could this be something that we could basically sell some videotapes of this, of this class and do something with it?

But I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure. So the next day I was meeting with Beto at a Starbucks. This is in like, what, 2000, 2001? 2001. Okay. And he told me his life story, which is unbelievable. I grew up in Colombia also, so I knew what was happening in the country.

But he was in Cali, and Cali was the epicenter of violence. And here's this 15-year-old kid dancing on the streets and dancing in clubs and dancing in gyms. And so it was like juxtaposition, right, with all the violence happening. And then there's this kid making every... happy in his town, right? And so he told me his life story, and I said, I got to go see this class. Because a Zumba class, the interesting thing about a Zumba class is that the instructor is always telling a story, the music selection, how they teach the class. So I went to see the class, and the one thing that I noticed was that every single person in the class was smiling.

and I had been a gym member before and I knew that normally a smile is not the typical face people are doing when they're exercising really heavily in the gym right it's people are suffering they're forcing themselves it's it's kind of like the drill sergeant mentality but then there was this class which was like an oasis inside the gym where every single person was smiling but they were drenched in sweat at the same time and I'm really Like, this guy doesn't know it, but he has discovered, like, the magic pill. He has discovered the exercise that people want to do instead of the exercise that people have to do. So you said to him, what did you say to him?

Do you say, hey, let's start a business? Yeah. He told me, hey, Beto, what do you want to do? And I said, I know, man, let's do and conquer the world. But, you know, in the funny way, you know. And did you take him seriously? And he said, no, he said, okay, let's do it. You want to be my business partners?

Yes. Okay, give me your hand. Perfect. That was it. Yeah. And so then we said, okay, let's, we need to create some videos of your class and basically create a collection, a DVD set. It was VHS at the time, actually, a VHS set and sell it on TV.

So we can explain where it comes from and why and what the results are. And so that was the original idea. So the idea was to like, it was just a workout video like jazzercise, that you were just going to sell in an infomercial, and that was hopefully going to be your business. Yeah, like our, what was fresh in our memories at that time was Taibo. Remember Taibo? Yeah, the martial arts workout thing.

Yeah. So we was like, that was the theory because Beto told me, when people come to my class, they don't leave. And it's because the class is fun. We say fun equals lasting behavioral change. I get that, but I'm trying to figure what was the thing that made Rumba size different from other fitness classes, more fun? I think we do the same thing that Jane Fonda do in the beginning. Everything, it's easy.

Second, the music, no Latin music only. I do with different kind of music around the world. Hip-hop, Indian, Vanguard, Panther, everybody can do it. I always think that my mind. can do my class. And one of the things that Beto did that was very smart in the beginning is he said, I don't want a microphone. Because if I have a microphone, I will interrupt the music.

And people need to be able to hear the music. And so he doesn't scream at people in the class or there's no talking. It's only visual queuing. So with hand signals, we tell people what to do. And the magic is letting the music leave. the choreography, lead the class, and there's a moment in the class that we call FEDGE, FEEJ, freeing, electrifying joy. We said that moment is 20 minutes into the class, and the person suddenly feels completely liberated. They're having fun. They're not thinking about what they need to cook that night, or their job, or their kids, or everything that is in their life.

They completely disappears, and it's just them and the music. So did you have to go out and raise money to start this? So it was July of 2001, and we went to some of our investors that had invested in Spider Labs, which was the incubator. And we told them about this, and they said, we love it, we're in. We had raised about half a million dollars, but we haven't gotten the wired transfers yet. And then September 11 happened, and everybody backed out and said, Everyone pulled out. Yeah.

We don't know what we're going to do. And we didn't know. I mean, for the next two months, we're all confused, what's going to happen with the world. I mean, you remember that time. It was very tough. And then around November of that year, Beto told me my boss at Crunch once introduced you to the CEO of Crunch at that time. And Crunch is a gym chain. I don't know if you've heard of it.

Yeah. And so I met with her. Her name is Donna Cyrus. and Donna told me, go meet with Doug Levine, the original founder of Crunch. So I flew to New York, met with Doug, and he told me, listen, I've seen Beto Teach, and I love what you guys are doing, and I said, would you like to invest? And he said, I can't invest because right now I'm selling my company, but I can introduce you to some interesting guys in Ohio who do infomercials for a living, and they might be able

to not only invest, but also help you. So the next day I'm on a plane to Ohio To meet with a company called Fitness Quest And I'm in a room full of total gyms You remember the total gym? Chuck Norris machine Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I'm in a warehouse for the total gyms And this lady is looking at

Out of tape that we created of his class We just filmed this class with a handy cam And showed it to her And she said, this is hot I'm going to call my boss And finally the CEO comes down and says, this is fun. I like it.

But does Beto speak English? And because they needed to film an infomercial with him talking, right? Yeah. And I'm like, well, you know what? I've never spoken to him in English. Let me call him. So I call him up. And I'm like, Beto, they're asking if you speak English.

And he said, tell them yes. Tell him in Spanish. Digal like yes. So they loved it. And they said, okay, we'll tell him. Test is infomercial, license the brand, what's this class called. And we had just that last week discussed changing the name. What was wrong with Rumba size?

The word Rumba in Spanish means to party. But it also means a type of dance. There's a ballroom dance called Rumba. So it was a very difficult word to trademark. So we sat in a restaurant and we basically went through the alphabet. Anything that rhymed with Rumba. So Bumba, Kumba, Wumba sounded like pregnancy. he worked out.

Tinga, Congo, bunga, tumba, bongo, manga, zumba. Hey, Zumba, yeah, with Z. And Beto's like, I love the letter C. And we said, yeah, let's call it Zumba. And that was it. When we come back in just a moment, how Beto and Alberto hustled their way to a contract and eventually set their sights on something much, much bigger.

I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. It's how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s, Alberto and Beto have a business model for Zumba, which is basically to make these dance videos for people to play at home. But first, they need an infomercial. And before they can make that, they have to make sure that Beto, who is the dance teacher, can speak English, which he can't. Oh, and also at this point, a new business partner enters the picture whose name, and I'm not making this up, is also Alberto. Alberto Aguillon.

And in case you lost count, Zumba is now being run by three Alberto's. And so I fly back to Miami and Alberto Agion and I are teaching Beto English for the next two months. Because the people who are going to make the infomercial, they won't make it unless Beto speaks English? Yeah, exactly. And to speak to these guys. These guys were coming down to Miami to meet him in two months. When they come into Miami before I say to Albert, Alberto, don't worry because of Albert. Alberto was worried because he said, yeah, he's speaking English with a little, you know, little Latin accent.

And I said to Alberti, you know, tell me how you say, much gusto, pardon, me take. You say, nice to meet you, sorry, I need to go. But that was on day like 50, because we were 50 days trying. And it's like, this is not going to work, man. No, the plan is this. When these people are coming in the end of the class, I want to introduce you. And I say that, hi, how are you? nice to me, you sorry, I need to go.

Nice to me, you're sorry to go, and escape. And I escape. And Alberto said, sorry, he need to go because he's so busy, so famous. You know, we need to put a little show. And I went to my car, waiting in the parking garage in my Pontiac 85 in our condition. And the conversation continued. Alberto coming again, hey, where are you? I'm here in the parking lot.

What happened? Yes, they do it. They want to do it. They wanted to do it. So Alberto Aguon and I had to write the whole inform. script in Spanish phonetics. Hello, Beto. And we launched that, and we thought, well, this is it.

It's like having a party where you're working out. Release Zumba. Now we're going to get a royalty. And maybe we should find some other products to sell via television. We don't know. We didn't know what we were going to do. And so the deal was that you would get a royalty, but they owned the rights to it? We licensed.

We licensed it to that. Because we didn't have money to do it ourselves, right? And we didn't know how to do it, frankly. And they knew how to do it. Yeah. When you guys launched the infomercial, were you making money? A little bit. It was good.

It was good. I mean, they sold, I don't remember what the number was, but it was enough to keep the lights on and keep going. But it wasn't. Was it enough to, like, you know, fund your life and, like, pay your rent and everything? Or did you have to do another job? Not really. Not really. Beto still taught his classes.

And did you have other jobs? I had a morning job. What was it? I was selling food to Latin America. I was helping American brands sell foods to Latin supermarkets. Wow. So you guys were all basically, this is really what you wanted to do, but this is kind of like your side project

because you really had other real jobs to pay the bills. Yeah. Yeah, it was tough. It was tough times. I mean, it was very long hours. I mean, I worked in the mornings and then, and the afternoon I went over to Alberto Gion's house and stayed there until midnight

and packing DVDs or whatever we were doing. like we're doing every single thing. We were doing all the jobs, which is great because when you do every single job, then as a company grows, you know what to hire for. Was the business healthy? I mean, were you guys, did it seem like you were going to thrive? Or did you ever get to a point where you were almost collapsed? I remember Alberto Guillaume walking over to me saying, listen, this is not going to work. You know, it's great.

We're all working hard, but we can't sustain it. We can't pay the bills. We have one employee, and we're all doing everything else, and it's hard. It was just hard to keep the lights on. How much money did you have in the bank? We had about 15,000, maybe. That was it. That was it.

Yes, we were close to broke, and we have the conversation with, okay, guys, I think this is it. and one day Kellogg's call us. The cereal company or the food company? Yeah, the serial company. They want to send something, a DVD inside the cereal box of Zumba for the Latin market, no? And we say, okay, good, do it. And when we went to the set to film the video, they have one, Tony a Tiger. Remember Tony a Tiger?

Oh, yeah, of course. They pay for one guy, put the custom and, you know, move a little movements, like, yeah, nothing special. I say, Alberto, Alberto, you know what? Let me want to put the custom of Tony a Tiger. Because Tony a Tiger is like a superhero, dynamic. It's no stupid. You know, Tony do step by step side to side, no? Wait, wait, hold on.

They hired somebody else to play Tony the Tiger, but you were not happy with how he was dancing, so you put on a costume and did it instead? Yes, yes. And I put the Tonya Tiger, and I think we were so lucky because in this moment, the CEO of Kellos come to the set. We didn't know. And I was inside the custom dancing like crazy, sweating inside. It's like, you know. He said, who is this Tony the Tiger?

Oh my God. We had to give him oxygen in between songs. It was crazy. It was crazy. And this moment, they... That kept us going for like a couple of years. Yeah, good contract, like a $50,000 for the contract. That helped, but it was not enough.

Still not enough. So what did you guys do then? So then people started calling their call center. You're talking about Kellogg's. Yeah. Saying we want to take Zumba classes in our area. Or some people started calling saying we want to become Zumba instructors. How can we become Zumba instructors?

And they were like, well, we'll give you the question. corporate number. The corporate number was a Metro PCS cell phone next to Alberto Gion's bed. And at 2 a.m. it would ring when the infomercials were airing. And people would say, I want to become an instructor. The first, like, three times he hung up. But like the fourth time, he's like, there's something happening here. And he called me and Beto and told us, you know, we've been getting all these calls from instructors that they want music. They want. choreography, they want newsletters, they want

a community, that they want events, that they want all these things. Maybe we can put it all together and create something, a service for them to give them everything that they need. Like a subscription service? Yes. And so we

called the Beto and we started brainstorming and we said well what do we need to do? We said the first thing is we have to make sure that we deliver 10 times more value than what it costs. So we said, what do they need? Well, they need choreography.

They need music. They need students. How do we get them students? How do we get them more participants in their class? So marketing support. Let's create their career in a box, basically. And so we came up with a name. We called the Zuma Instructor Network.

And we launched it in 2006, in January of 2006. So we spent the whole $14,000. We had zero in the bank. We created this beautiful email. It went out. And Alberto Dion told me, okay, if 200 of them join, we will continue with this business. We press send and we're praying, please, please. And suddenly, instead of getting email responses, we got phone calls.

And the instructors were saying, we're loving that you launched this. And we know you guys are trying to make this work. Can we pay the year in advance? and everybody says how much. And we said, well, it's $35 a month. At that point, it was $30. And they said, that's it. That's it for my entire career.

That's all I have to pay. And we said, yeah, that's all you have to pay. And they said, we love it. And 450 instructors joined. And so that's when we said, this is going to be our life. And let's make it work. And at this point, you guys are still entirely self-funded? Yeah.

It was just from the, the royalties we got and then the Kellogg's and then the fees from the trainings and it was all like inch by inch, very slow growth. And thank God we were always able to meet payroll of our two employees. Sometimes we would do things to like pay the bill. So I would say Beto, why don't we do a special masterclass because we were running a thousand dollars short? And so we would email everybody we knew and say a special master class. So we would all chip in and all help each other and find ways to do it. So you guys are training all these instructors to teach to teach Zumba, but presumably they need a place to teach the classes. So were the gyms interested in this?

No, they would laugh at us. So I remember that 24-hour fitness had a class called salsa moves at that time. And LA Fitness had a class called Latin Impact. And they would tell us, Like, why we have our own brand? Why do we need your brand? But then when you went to one of those classes, they had five people, four people, three people. Those classes were empty. And we said, no, we have a formula. We have a formula that works.

Our class attracts people, and people love it. It's different. And they wouldn't understand at the beginning. And finally, the first really big chain to bring it in was 24-hour fitness in 2007. And it exploded. and they had to hire multiple instructors per location. Then all the big gym chains followed, Equinox and Crunch. And Crunch always had it because of our initial relationship with them.

So they were really the first one. So as you guys were doing all this, how are you getting the word out about Zumba? I mean, was it just word of mouth or were you advertising? So one of the things we were able to do in 2007, 2008, we had bought the rights back to the infomercial from FitnessQuest in 2014. 2004, 2005, because they had stopped airing. And so we did our own infomercial. And we started airing that. And that was helping get the word out. And there was word of mouth. And there were more people coming to class. And when something's good, people find it. And so other people

were saying, well, this instructor must be doing pretty well. Maybe I should become an instructor too. So what was like the tipping point? Like when did this, this model really start to take off? So in 2008, the network was growing, but we started seeing what was happening in the economy, and we got very nervous. And I remember that we sat in our conference room and we said, this is going to be a very tough year. I mean, look at everybody's losing their jobs. People cannot pay their mortgage. But over the next few months, we started seeing that our instructor trainings were getting packed. and that there were more and more people

who wanted to become instructors. And we also saw that the instructors were reporting to us that their classes were packed calling us, telling us, we don't know what's happening, but we've doubled from 25 people now that I have 50 people in my class,

what's happening? And so we started asking people, and there were two things that were driving it. One was some people were out of a job, people were sad, they turned to Zumba, and they said, for one hour,

I'm going to forget everything that is happening. and I'm just going to be happy. And people who needed extra income said, well, now I'm going to get paid to work out. And so I'm going to become an instructor and I'm going to make this part of my income. Wow. So the financial crisis actually helped your business. Yeah. We were a solution that people turned to during those hard times.

I want to ask you about something that happened around this time, which I was reading that around this time, you guys were actually approached by Pitbull, like by the artist Pitbull, who was like, new, found it about Zoombo and was like, hey, can we work together? What's the story there? So you know what happened? In 2009 and 2010,

and Beto kept telling me, one day, trust me, the artist will come to us because it was a tough thing to be able to license the music, and it was always hard. And he said, trust me, one day they're going to come to us. And in 2010, Pitbull came to us and said, what are you guys doing? And we're like, what do you mean? And he said, this song, Calle Ocho, you don't remember that song, I know you want me. He said, people are stopping me in

airports, wearing shirts that say Zumba, saying that it's their favorite song. What are you guys doing? And we're like, well, instructors are just playing it in their class. And he said, well, you guys are like a radio station. You guys have all these DJs. playing in gyms around the world, and you guys, I think you guys can break records. And we said, you're serious? And he said, yeah. And I'm going to give you my songs as soon as they launch,

put him in the Zumba classes, and you guys start breaking records. So Pitbull was the first guy to discover that Zumba was a way of promoting music. And then we worked with Wyclef. We worked with Daddy Yankee. We also worked with Shaggy. Most recently, we've been working with Timbalet,

So both the hottest Latin artists and some of the top U.S. artists have all been noticing that Zumba is a great way to reach 15 million people. We reach 15 million people taking Zumba classes every single week. And I think the allureate artists, allureate music companies know the Zumba is a perfect way to promote your own music. because when we send every month the music, we select 13 songs. We send every month to the instructors. That's mean these 13 songs going to a rendezvous. A round the war in one month.

We have people dancing to Daddy Yankees' music in China. We have people dancing pit bulls music in Japan. We launched a choreography for Shakira. and Carlos Bives, they have a new song called La Bicleta, and in aggregate, their choreographies was shared 50 million times on Facebook. Do you guys know how many instructors you have now? We don't disclose that,

but we basically focus more on the number of people that are taking classes. So we have 15 million people taking classes, and we're in 200,000 gyms. We have more locations teaching Zumba than there are McDonald's in the world. So what do you think explains that? Music and dance are a universal language. We have classes in luxury neighborhoods. We have classes in the inner cities where the class is free.

And we have classes in schools. We have classes in churches. We have classes in basements. We have classes on rooftops. Karate Studios and dance studios. Yeah. We have classes in Russia with Ukrainians and Russians that, I mean, the governments are fighting each other and they're together. We have classes in Israel with Arabs and Jews taking classes together. Dance brings people together. Beto, do you, like when you think about how you were teaching this class, this class called Rumba size in Kali, Colombia, like 25 years ago, that, you know, 25 years later, we would be talking about something that has really become one of the biggest fitness stories in the last decade.

I mean, could you have imagined that? Yeah, it's somebody tell me one day, you know, in the United States, it's hard to make money, but it's super hard to be somebody. If you are somebody in this country, you did it. and I understand in this time. Now I understand because Zumba and me and my business partner, we are somebody. Because a lot of people have money. You know, it's one more of the millionaires here. But when people recognize you for your labor, for your work,

and when they open the heart for something you do, it's amazing. It's amazing. That's Beto Perez, co-founder with Alberto Proman of Zerlman, And by the way, Zumba hasn't just been lucrative for the company. Lots of Zumba instructors teach full-time. In fact, there's an instructor in Santa Barbara who pulls in six figures just teaching Zumba classes. And her monthly subscription fee to Zumba? Just $35.

Hey, thanks for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more or listen to previous episodes, you can go to how I've built this.npr.org. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes, and please do us a favor and write a review. Let us know what you think. You can also write to us at H-I-B-T-NPR.org. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at How I Built This. Our show is produced this week by Rund Abd al-Fata with music composed by Rumpteen Arableu. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkampur, and Jeff Rogers. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Thanks for sticking around. We're now at the end of the show, and it's time to hear how you built that.

My name is Nicholas Gilson, and I am one of the original founders of Gilson snowboards. Nick and his business partner sort of fell into the snowboard business. They were middle school teachers in Nashville and did a science project where they challenged their students to build a better snowboard. I brought in the original prototype for an idea I had when I was my student's age when I was in middle school. And that idea was basically to design a board, which instead of being flat at the bottom, was curved. And Nick hoped that it would make for a faster ride. And even though their first design totally failed, they eventually came up with one they loved.

With this board, you can actually ride close to flat and engage these really surfy, drifty maneuvers that allow you to get through the trees way easier with way more surfy motion. And so with barely any money, Nick and his partner quit their teaching jobs and set up a snowboard shop inside a stable in Pennsylvania. It was an active stable. It was an active stable. donkeys and horses next to our machines.

And in that stable, Nick says, they were able to make their boards even better. And we then started to travel the country, starting a company much the way our grandparents would have. We need to tangibly and physically share something with people. And so we went out and immersed ourselves in the community, traveled 17,000 miles from coast to coast, and started getting these people on the boards. Nick says since they started the company three years ago, it's been growing pretty fast. They've sold thousands of boards. They now have 16 employees, and they have a small factory in Pennsylvania, just down the road from the donkey stable.

There was a week-long period in November where we got in more orders than we did in our first several years combined, and we were looking at each other like, all right, I guess we'll take a nap next week. You know, this is just nuts. That's Nick Gilsen of Gelson's snowboards. If you want to tell us about the company or idea your building, go to build.n.npr.org. that's build with ad.npr.org. And thanks. And just one last thing.

1A is NPR's new daily show inspired by the First Amendment. 1A is the news show with those who make the news. Great guests and topical debates all framed in ways to make you think and engage. Each day 1A will champion

your right to speak freely. Check out 1A with Joshua Johnson from WAMU and NPR. You can find it on the NPR One app or visit npr.org slash podcast.