Springfree Trampoline: Keith Alexander & Steve Holmes

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2019

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the late 1980s, a New Zealand engineer named Keith Alexander wanted to buy a trampoline for his kids. After his wife said trampolines were too dangerous, Keith set out to design his own — a safer trampoline, without metal springs. He tinkered with and perfected the design over the course of a decade. But he was daunted by the challenge of bringing his invention to market — and he almost gave up. At that point Steve Holmes, a Canadian businessman, bought the patent to Keith's trampoline, and took a big risk to commercialize it. Today, Springfree Trampoline generates over $50 million in annual sales and has sold over 400,000 trampolines. PLUS in our postscript, "How You Built That," how Cyndi and Chris Hileman created a candle in a planter pot that can later be used to grow wildflowers. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:30.0	I decided to invest in some fundamental research, and I wanted to ask myself one question.
0:35.0	Did any retailer in America believe that trampolines were dangerous?
0:40.0	So dangerous that they wouldn't sell them.
0:43.0	The answer was yes, and that was Costco.
0:45.0	The CEO of Costco was a manager at Jim Senegal, and Jim said,
0:49.0	I will not sell trampolines.
0:52.0	Wow.
0:53.0	And so I made it my mission to try and sell Costco trampoline.
1:01.0	From NPR, it's how I built this.
1:03.0	A show of innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:10.0	I'm Guy Ross, and on today's show, I was shine New Zealand professor with a crazy invention,
1:20.0	and a Canadian businessman who believed in its potential, teamed up to create spring-free.
1:25.0	They call the world's safest backyard trampoline.
1:30.0	So you might remember a while back, we didn't interview with James Dyson,
1:38.0	and Dyson of course is the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner.
1:43.0	And he described how he came up with his vacuum.
	...

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