The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship produces Bootstrapped, a podcast featuring founders, investors and serial entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Elana Fine, Managing Director of the Dingman Center, and Joe Bailey, Associate Research Professor at the Smith School. Each episode brings a different startup story to life with special guests offering advice and lessons learned on topics that range from fundraising and marketing to team formation and customer acquisition.
On this episode of Bootstrapped, we talk football with Grip Boost founders Matt Furstenburg and Chanda Arya. As a former NFL player, Matt was familiar with the shortcomings of football gloves. He teamed up with University of Maryland chemical engineers from the Complex Fluids and Nanomaterials Lab to invent, develop and commercialize a gel for restoring grip back to football gloves. After receiving half a million dollars in seed funding through organizations such as TEDCO and VOLT, the founders iterated for almost 2 years. With NFL's enormous budget, they appeared the segment to target. Instead, Furstenburg focused on the less famous segment of sports teams—high school athletics, which makes up 95% of the market. Five years later, Grip Boost is sold in 70 stores across the US, selling apparel for football, baseball and golf.
Matt Furstenburg is a former NFL football player. He played Tight End at the University of Maryland (2008-2012) and as a professional with the Baltimore Ravens (2013). Chanda Arya is a chemical engineer with expertise in biopolymer gels and surface functionalization chemistry. He received both his undergraduate and graduate chemical engineering degrees from the University of Maryland. Furstenburg and Arya, along with Kevin Diehn (M.S. 2014 University of Maryland) and Harry Geller (Dingman Entrepreneur in Residence) came together to become the founders of Grip Boost.
To listen to this episode and gain further insights into the startup world, subscribe to Dingman Bootstrapped on iTunes or download the episodes on the Dingman Center website.
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About the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business
The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and flex MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, business master’s, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.